Brothers

Here's a sneak peek of William & Sasha. 

Be sure to read the post below & participate in the blog roll!

One week... Little Brother... and a look at Mother's Day

Well, I wasn't able to blog yesterday because I didn't have my laptop with me, so I missed out on saying "One Week!".  But we are now LESS THAN ONE WEEK away from submission. Yep, just 6 days until one of our facilitators will go and submit our dossier to the SDA!!!!

In the meantime, we're enjoying a visit from Cheryl and Sasha. Sasha is William's biological brother. Cheryl adopted him 2 years before we adopted William. They are about 19 months apart, Sasha is 6 years old. You can read older posts about Sasha HERE, HERE, and HERE.

I haven't uploaded any pictures from the camera yet, but I will soon. Sasha spent the night with us last night while Cheryl had an event to attend in Atlanta. We had lots of fun playing outside, going out for mexican food, and going to the park. 

Today, William will "skip school" so he can spend the day with Cheryl & Sasha - swimming at their hotel's pool, and going to the Georgia Aquarium.

Once their visit is over, I'll blog more about it and share some pictures of our 2 beautiful boys. It's so special to watch them together!

While you wait on that, I thought I'd share one of my articles. This one is about Mother's Day, and about my dream of being a mom.  Hope you'll take the time to read it. I pray it opens your eyes to the struggles some women deal with, particularly at this time of year, as well as how God made my dream come true.  You can click HERE to read the article.

Spring Break in Pictures

Maybe I'll be better about blogging once I'm finished with school - I'm in my last class, and only 2 weeks left. So hopefully I'll be writing more about what's going on with the Dove's then.

In the meantime, here are some long overdue pictures from the Spring Break trip...

On our way to Chicago, we made a stop in Normal, IL to visit our best friends from college. Judy almost made me cry when she mentioned us sitting in our dorm rooms years ago, talking about how someday our kids would play together. It finally happened! Thanks to Mike, Judy, Emma, Michael and Hannah for your hospitality and friendship. Can’t wait to see you guys again soon!!

Don’t you just love this smile?? Hannah is such a cutie!

Lunch at Ed Debevic’s, our first stop in Chicago after picking up Sasha from school

Dinner at Lou Malnatti’s (as you’ve probably already discovered, food is a common theme on Dove trips)

William and me in downtown Chicago

William & Zack showing off the pie at Giordano’s

I think Giordano’s stuffed pizza was our favorite of the week

William posing in Chi-town

Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage…

This was one of Zack’s “must see” places

Yummy lunch at The Wiener’s Circle

William checking himself out in Cloud Gate (or, the Bean)

Cloud Gate, Millennium Park

Zack & William at Millennium Park

Driving around on our last night in Chicago

We drove back through Indy, mainly so Zack could see the stadium and buy souvenirs

Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Colts and of course, Peyton Manning!

A stop off at The Opryland Hotel for some photos

An awesome store in Opry Mills Mall (we stopped there for a couple of hours due to bad storms)

Brotherly Love

We’ve received lots of questions about William’s brother over the past few days, so I’ll try to answer them here.

When/how did you find out about Sasha?

The orphanage director told us that William had a younger brother that had been adopted by a lady in Chicago. The lady had wanted to adopt William, too, but at the time his he was not available for adoption. We asked and were given a name and a partial phone number.
Once home, Tonya (our U.S. facilitator) and I did some digging & found Cheryl, Sasha’s mom. I asked Tonya to call her first, worried she might be upset that we'd adopted him. Tonya called Cheryl on Dec 31, 2007, then called me back to say that Cheryl was thrilled. Cheryl called me on Jan 1, 2008 and we had fun sharing our stories. Since then, we've talked on the phone, exchanged emails, sent each other pictures, etc.

How old is Sasha?

Sasha turned 5 in December - he's 19 months younger than William.

Do they remember each other?

We don't think so. Sasha was almost 2 when he was adopted, and William was only 3 1/2 at that time. I think they remember the idea of a brother but that's it. Thankfully we have pictures of them together at the orphanage when they were little.

Was this their first meeting?

No. In April of 2008, Cheryl and Sasha came to Atlanta for a visit. You can read about that visit HERE. We've been talking about going to Chicago to see them ever since then, but finally got around to it last week.

We are so thankful for this special connection, and look forward to the boys continuing their relationship as they grow up!

We're home

The trip was awesome and there's so much to tell. But for now, I'll share this adorable picture with you.

(photo courtesy Mitchell Canoff Photography)

This was taken Wednesday morning at an impromptu photo session. In case you didn't know, the main reason we chose to visit Chicago was to see William's younger brother, Sasha (he was adopted 2 years before we brought William home). This was our second meeting with Sasha & his mom Cheryl.

Thank to Sasha and Cheryl for their hospitality! And thanks to Cheryl's friend Mitch for the photo shoot.

More on the Brothers

Since posting the pics of William and Sasha, I’ve gotten a few questions...

While in Ukraine, we found out that William had a brother who was adopted December 2005 (William wasn’t available for adoption then). It took some digging to find her, but once we did we began calling and emailing on a regular basis. In fact, you may recall THIS POST where we had received pictures of William at 3 ½ year old – Sasha’s mom took those pictures when she was adopting Sasha!

Sasha is 4 years old – they're 19 months apart. They have the same nose and mouth, and the same eye color. There are other similarities, but Sasha is definitely the outgoing and uninhibited one, while William remains our laid-back, giggly little home-body!

We're happy that we were able to find Sasha & his mom. We look forward to giving the boys more opportunities to build a relationship as they grow up.

Another picture of William from Dec 05:

Reunited

After more than 2 years apart, two brothers were reunited on Friday morning!

William & Sasha had not seen each other since our boy was 3 1/2 and Sasha was only 2, so it is highly unlikely that they remember each other.

But it sure was great to reintroduce them!









We spent most of Friday at Zoo Atlanta...


















And then Sasha, his mom, and his aunt spent Saturday afternoon at our house.


















The boys had a great time (as did we) and I imagine we'll be making a trip to Chicago later in the summer, to visit Sasha on his turf!