Nov. 19th- it was official!

November 19th, 2009 was our official court hearing. Russian officials decided that we could officially adopt the boys! From this date, we had a 10 day waiting period until December 2nd. This gave anyone that disapproved of the adoption to step forward and contest it. We were pretty positive that it was final, but we still held our breath until those 10 days were up!

These pictures are from outside the court house in Vladimir (about 3 hours east of Moscow) AFTER our court hearing. All smiles ta this point! We remember going into the building with some unsettled nerves. What questions would they ask, were we prepared to answer everything, and did they have all of the documentation needed to make the decision? Thankfully, we had a very good translator and it went very well!

It was a cold, wet day. Imagine that, in Russia. ;-)

Right after the court hearing, we drove to the orphanage in Murom (about 2 hours away) to see the boys again! Woo hoo!!! We hadn't seen them since the middle of October!

October 19th.... a very special day

We've been meaning to blog for a few weeks, so we have missed the exact date of October 19th. It's a very special day for us. October 19, 2009... that was the first day we met Maks and Fin! We left the states for Russia on Saturday, October 17th, arriving in Moscow on Sunday, the 18th. This was our first of 4 trips to see the boys before bringing them home. From Moscow, we travelled several hours to the town of Murom, where their orphanage was located. On Monday, October 19th, 2009- we met for the very first time- Maksim John and Griffin Mikhail Kilchenstein! I can still remember anxiously waiting in that room... the door opened and 2 women came in with the boys, dropped them off and ran out. It was so surreal... both Maks and Fin were crying and afraid to look at us! We sat on the floor, at their level, trying to make them smile. With the help of bubbles, they were laughing in no time. From then on during each of our visits, they always had a smile when they saw us. Here is our first family picture, taken in that very room of the orphanage, where we met them!

We have had a lot of fun fall activities!

 

 Enjoying the FRUA (Families of Russian and Ukranian Adoption) Fall Roast Out

Playing soccer. Well on the swings after soccer. ;-) ha!

 We are leaving in 2 weeks to drive back to Baltimore. Although the road trip will be long (24 hours of drive time, not including any potty breaks and such), it will be somewhat of an adventure. Our plan is to take 3 1/2 days to make the trip- all of us, Buster included. On our way, we'll stop in Durham, North Carolina to visit the Keeneys! The boys will meet their new baby cousin Olivia for the first time. Arriving in Baltimore on November 27th and staying until mid-January. We're looking forward to spending the holidays with friends back East and our families, catch a few home Ravens games, ski in Snowshoe, WV, take advantage of some free babysitting from the grandparents (oops, did I just say that?) and have a little R and R with our parents and siblings! We'll also be celebrating our 1 year anniversary of being together! The 5 of us can't wait! Mark, Colleen, Maks, Fin and Buster

Baby cousin- Olivia

I was able to make a trip to Durham, NC to meet baby Olivia. Mom and Kristin drove down to spend the weekend together- girls weekend plus one (poor Michael). She's adorable! Check out the pictures!

The boys are playing soccer...it's hysterical. They both are super blond from the summer months!

All dressed up and no place to go, except picture day at school. Ha!

Our 4 year anniversary- wow, how things have changed

Mark and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary yesterday. September 3rd. It's crazy to think how different things are for us now, compared to our 3 year anniversary. We didn't even know about the boys, this time last year. We received the call from the referral department of our adoption agency on September 9th- telling us about 2 boys, brothers, that were available and being referred to us. Mark and I chuckle too- we would have been 5 months pregnant with Maks at our wedding. Hysterical- we just love thinking about that. In fact, even funnier- is that my Dad pointed that out to us in an email wishing us a Happy Anniversary... ha! Happy Anniversary it is.. we have enjoyed all 4 years together.  The 3 of us quickly became the 5 of us... Mark, Colleen, Maks, Fin and Buster. Even Buster is loving every minute of it! To celebrate our anniversary, we enjoyed a quiet dinner together, without any interuptions. HA!  Many thanks to the Dietz girls for watching the boys.

We sure are going to miss this place!
Although we don't have a set date for moving back east, we have decided to spend Thanksgiving through early January back in Baltimore. It will be great to be back and spending the holidays without the pressure of travel and time together with family and friends. In the upcoming months, we've decided to do quite a few "Austin" things to enjoy it while we are here. We really do pinch ourselves with the joys of how life is just perfect here, aside from the lack of immeidate family close by. We just love our neighborhood, our house, our friends, the weather, lots of fun family things to do and the close proximity to the pool (that's the boys' favorite thing about being here!). We can't get over how great it all is- we take the wagon every where we go.. to friends houses, to the pool, to t-ball games, etc. It doesn't get any more American than that!!! Today we enjoyed some time on Brushy Creek, kayaking with the boys. That's about 10 minutes from us. Just too good to be true. And we 've enjoyed a lot of evenings just hanging in the backyard... with the baby pool, slide, sand box, wagon, bikes, Buster, the grill, and lots of drinks flowing for Mom and Pop (the boys still call Mark, Pop. It's a European thing but pretty cute to let go of. ha!)

Some funny stories:
Maks and Fin have gotten quite good at dropping their drawers and tinkling in the grass in the back yard. Maks decided it was time to try the back porch and tinkle right on the screened porch. I wasn't happy about it, but it was pretty funny watching him drop his pants and just go for it on his own.

"Pop has a big diddy (in a deep voice). Maks has a little diddy (in a high pitch voice)." Enough said.

Baby cousin Olivia joined us this past week. Congrats to Michael and Laura. The boys had a hard time getting her full name. It became "Ooooooooo-livia" after the many tries... we just let that be. Baby cousin Ooooooo-livia- we can't wait to meet you.

enjoying some kayaking

Heading to the pool

Who's faster- Maks and Pop or Fin and Mom?

8 months home together and counting

Enjoying ourselves at a local vineyard.
Does it get any better than this- a winery that allows kids?

August 25th marked our 8 month anniversary. Whew- the time does fly. Our 1 year anniversary will be here before you know it, so we'll be celebrating especially hard on Christmas day. We are looking forward to the upcoming holidays and spending them with family and friends back east.

We've been enjoying the summer, despite the heat in Austin. Maks is doing really well with his sentence structure and thought process. It's amazing how he's putting so many concepts together. He also has a pretty funny accent. He'll fit right in with those Baltimore hons. eerrrplane (airplane), peerr (pear), deeerty (dirty), (deerr) there... it cracks us up. He's a little mama's boy, smiley as can be, but he can flip quite quickly and cry.

Fin has been talking like crazy. I think it helps having a big brother to chat to all day. He's come a long way in 8 months, considering he was only making sounds for a few things not too long ago. No more speech therapy help. A frequent question we get from friends is how their English is coming along. We really don't need to use any Russian anymore. In fact, we stopped most of the Russian to focus on English by month 3. Truly amazing! We do like a few Russian words... my favorite happens to be "pash lee," meaning let's go. We learned that from our travel guide through Russia, so it holds a special place in our hearts. It also happens to be the story of our lives... let's go!!!!! They never stop going! We'd like to get them into some Russian classes when the time works out. Thankfully, they have enough to learn right now, but soon enough. And chatter box, chatter box- both of them! Sometimes I'm asking them to just sing along to the music in the car, so I can hear myself think. They both love to sing and dance and they have quite a few songs memorized. Our favorite happens to be a Michael Jackson hit, Beat It.  They love to play with their Thomas the train set, Elmo, Little Einsteins, Buzz and Woody from Toy Story.

Fin (2 1/2 years old) has grown about 4 inches and gained 2 pounds. As you can see, he loves to eat!!! Maks (3 1/2 years old), on the other hand, hasn't budged. We can't get him to gain any weight, but he has grown 2 inches since we've had them in the states.

Fin

Maks

Some exciting news - moving back East!

We've been working on getting things together so we can make the move back East. It's official now.. our house is on the market and we plan to move back to the Baltimore area when our house here sells. Mark will continue working for Dell, just remotely from Maryland. The boys are excited about it, but they probably don't truly understand it. We are all anxious to be closer to family, but we will miss our lifestyles and friends here in Austin! We are hoping the move will take place sometime this fall, but it really is unknown at this point.

July 4th- we had fun with neighbors and the Dietz cousins. We had our own fireworks show and sparklers. It was great- playing in the street and hanging out on lawn chairs with a few drinks in hand.



 

Trip home and 6 months home!!!!

First week of June: We headed back to Baltimore for 9 days to visit with family and friends. It was a great trip and we covered a lot of ground. ;-). Below are some of the pictures from the trip.

June 25th- Maks and Fin hit their 6 month anniversary for being home! Holy cow, does the time fly. We are all doing really well and enjoying our time together. We've been busy this summer...t-ball for Maks, swim lessons, playing outside and spending time at the pool every day.

Fin and PopPop

Some pictures from our trip to the beach.
The 3 boys hanging out while Mom takes a million pictures.
Dinner out with Mimi, Papa Keens and Aunt Kiss.

All the Kilchenstein cousins playing at Uncle John and Aunt Steph's! Lots of good times in the years ahead, that's for sure!

The Kilchenstein Memorial Golf Tournament- family pictures!

 

Boobies and boo boos for Fin

Fin had quite a busy day on Thursday. He was at school at day, enjoying himself. When I went to pick him up, the teacher told me that he was kissing Brook all day... a cute little blond with pig tails in his class. Apparently, Brook was pulling her shirt down, showing off and saying "boobies."  Hysterical. Brook's Mom came to get her before we got Fin, so the teachers told her the story too... a little boy was kissing her daughter all day. She had asked which one was the boy was, and replied with "he's cute." Way to go Fin... approval. You're in. Brook's Mom said she's not allowed to wear that shirt to school anymore and show off her boobies.

We came home to the weekly neighborhood gathering at the playground and pool. Within 10 minutes, Fin fell off the playscape and busted his chin open, Our first "emergency" situation, which we ended up at Urgent Care to get it glued back together... he did such a great job and didn't cry at all while they worked on him. Maybe he was thinking about what a great day he had at school?

A fun day, filled with Boobies and boo boos!!!

Some videos...

We are testing this out for the first time... uploading video onto the blog.

Here is one of Fin, Christiane and Jim's birthday celebration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF4iB0xeuLM

Then a special good night from Fin... lots of kisses!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOI3MybJVG8

Funny moments

We had a few funny moments this week with these guys.
- Fin and Maks were in the playroom sharing a bean bag... Fin leaned over to Maks and kissed him on the cheek. He said "I luv bue." It was priceless.
- After leaving swim lessons the other day, we were still in the car and heading out for some errands. Maks had to tinkle really bad and was holding himself. I told him to hold tight while I find a potty where we could stop. Maks' answer was" look- grass- over there." It made me chuckle, but sure enough, I pulled over and let him tinkle.

They are really starting to speak a lot. In fact, that's the most common question we get from everyone... "how is their English coming along?" It's great... we don't use any Russian in the house anymore, and not because we don't want to. We just don't need to. Occassionally they'll say one or two words- kravat (bed), ni (no/ not), and of course kaka (poop)- if you can call that Russian.

Mark's birthday was this week, so the boys and I went out during the day to grab a few presents and an ice cream cake. We enjoyed ourselves. That morning, we were talking about plans for the day and getting a present for Papa. Maks responded with "2 presents"... just to be sure he had one too. We laughed and he said "presents are fun!"

Some recent visitors... Mimi came for a long weekend. We had a great visit, although Maks was recovering from being really sick. Aunt Char, or as the boys call her, Char Char, came the following weekend. I included some pictures for you. We went to the zoo, as you can see in the pictures. That big rooster snuck up on Fin- it was hysterical! 

Maks has started soccer and the boys have been in swim lessons for a few weeks. They absolutely love all of their activities. In the morning on some days, they'll continue to ask to get into the car, so they know they are on their way to their fun for the day. Maks will start t-ball soon too- that's going to be great!

4 months home

April 25th marked the 4 month mark. That's right...Christmas day was 4 months ago. We've only been together for 4 months. It just seems so much longer than that and the boys have been adjusting so well! I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I were in Russia for 4 months... would I have as many words and understanding as these little guys do here? Probably not.. I just think their minds pick things up quicker than what adults would in these circumstances. We'll talk about something or learn about something once and they will bring it back up the next day.... it's amazing what they retain. We've been working on sentences with Maks now- "Can I have juice please" instead of just "juice please." Fin is working on 2-3 word statements and trying to get his "f's" down. That's a hard one and it just so happens that his name begins with "f"... it sounds like he calls himself "sin." Pretty cute though. The boys have officially become Team In Training fans and it didn't take very long, of course. We helped the cycling team with the support and gear a few weekends ago. Mark and the team were riding along on their bikes, enjoying the support of "Go Team" from the car. Now the boys say "Go Team" anytime we see someone on their bike.. including the Austin bums. Hysterical! Maks and Fin are also well aware of "hook 'em" when someones holds up their longhorn fingers... only UT Longhorn fans can appreciate this. It's great!!! Are we brainwashing these kids? ;-)

Mark and I got a chuckle out of this the other night... they absolutely love taking baths. In fact, we probably give thme more baths than necessary (imagine that for little boys), but it is something they truly enjoy. We were in their room getting ready and taking off clothes. They seem to get stuck on getting their pants off and generally ask for help at that point... instead of asking for help from us, Maks just jumped in and helped pull Fin's pants off. When they were done, Fin turned around and helped Maks take his off. Mark and I just stood back and smiled. It was great.

Some things that we hope they never take for granted... They are biological brothers. Everything they have experienced together in their early years is what they alone can really understand. We strongly believe that they have adjusted so well to their change because of each other. They have the other one look over to and know that it's going to be alright. We love to hear them chat back and forth with each. Sometimes we can't understand very much of their exchange, yet they answer each other just fine. These little guys have a bond for life that hopefully they will truly appreciate and cherish for life!

We are in disbelief with the latest happenings in news for Russian adoptions. Our adoption is still very fresh for us and this is happening so close to our homecoming with the boys. What if we were going through the process at this time, what if we had made 2 trips to Russia and still had 2 left to finalize everything, etc. Gosh- a lot of "what ifs." We are blessed and praying a lot. This crazy woman can not ruin it for so many good families and waiting children. It's just not right. Everyone is anxious for government officials to meet from both countries to make a decision. I don't think that Russian adoptions to the US will be stopped completely, but that's just my opinion. We are praying for all of the families, the children waiting in orphanages, and the government officials that are working on this VERY important decision. Our hearts and thoughts are with all of them!

Innocent?

They sure come off as innocent! 3 boys are always trouble, but they make us laugh.

Sandbox arrives and we enjoy Easter!

The sandbox arrives and Maks and Fin supervise the installation!



We had a great time at the neighborhood Easter egg hunt. The boys caught on quick... the more eggs you pick up, the more candy you get to eat!

Dinner at Caroline and Michael's place was a great way to celebrate Easter with the Dietz crew.