Meeting Taylor for the first time!!

Hi everyone, our trip to Russia has been a real adventure! Meeting Taylor for the first time was even better than we could have expected. He is quite the little man and very smart too! Within just a short visit he already calls us Mama and Papa. He also has learned several words in English such as "please and thank you". We are amazed at his ability to learn new things and can't wait to come back and get him! Although it is very easy to get excited and start calling him our little boy right away, nothing is completely official until we pass court hopefully in a couple of months, so please pray that we will have a successful court date and that our court date will be very soon!

This is the big sign entering the town he is in, it says "Prokop'yevsk"


He loved all his toys that mommy and daddy brought for him.


Taylor LOVED his fan toy that grammy got for him


He loved his picture book of his new family, he had to make sure it was in a safe place at all times and he would go and check on it every so often.

No April Fools Joke

I know I updated everyone earlier in March that our estimated time for our first trip was going to be more like beginning of May.....well, we just got a call Monday saying that we got an invitation to travel for our first trip, we leave from St. Louis April 9th!!! When our parent coordinator called me on Monday, she wasn't completely sure that it was correct that we were the next family to travel, she was afraid there might have been a mistake, she thought there was another family that was supposed to travel before us. So we weren't totally for sure when we found out Monday, it wasn't until Tuesday that we found out that the coordinator in Russia had told our parent coordinator here in the US wrong when she told her we'd be going probably the end of April-beginning of May, and our dossier,was in fact, there before the other family, so we got really lucky!!! We feel so blessed, God is always looking out for us!! We, unfortunately will not get to bring him home with us this time, so please pray that we will get a court date very soon after this trip, so we can go back the second time and bring him home for good!! It could be anywhere from 1-3 months, but it looks like most families go back in about 3 months from their first trip, so we're praying that we can go back a lot soon than that, more like 1 month! God has answered our prayers so many times throughout this process, so we are not doubting what He can do!