Video of our Journey to Bring Yana Home!

I wanted to share this video with you to help give you a little look into our journey to bring Yana home! Thank you so much for your prayers throughout this entire journey! Please keep Yana and our family in your prayers! My prayer is that Yana love us as much as we love her! God is so good! Here is the link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk6g3k56t0Q

O.K just a few more! Couldn't leave these out!

Sweet Sisters!

Sam all the way home from the airport kept telling Yana "I'm so happy you are home with us!"

Yana meets baby Brynnley!

God has blessed Sydney with an amazing heart!

America here she comes!

Love!

Beginning of Something Beautiful!

Our day started at 2:00a.m. when our attorney's husband picked us up to take us to the Kiev airport. It was cold as usual and we were all up and ready to start our journey home! I took this cute picture of Bryan and Yana at the airport before we got on our plane.

Yana was barely awake!

Not sure I should share this but we laughed and laughed about this right before we got on our plane. We were sitting in those chairs and a little girl walked right passed us and threw up all over the floor. We then went to stand in line to get on the airplane but stood and watched about 5 people walking fast to get on the plane each one not looking down. We saw men slipping and falling on their backs with vomit all on their back side! Then when that man would get up and keep walking another man with a shopping bag walked by and fell right in the middle of it! It was disgusting but hilarious at the same time! We laughed and laughed about it! Too bad we didn't record it because we could win some serious money!

Yana did really well on the airplane ride back home. That little girl was so tired and slept most of the way home. She and I sat next to one another on the airplane ride to San Antonio. When the captain said we were close to landing in San Antonio I asked Yana if she was ready to be in Texas and she was all smiles! Bryan and I talked about just feeling overwhelmed when we landed at the airport. The fact that we couldn't believe that we had finally been able to bring Yana home. This has been such an amazing and challenging four weeks and it will take some time to fully wrap our minds around all the things we have seen and experienced. We did know for sure that we had witnessed first hand the power of the Holy Spirit present and very real with us!

We were so blessed by the welcome Yana received at the airport! When we came down the escalator at the airport the first people we saw was a group of girls from Yana's orphanage that had been adopted by several families in our surrounding areas. They were screaming her name! They were holding signs and flowers to give to her! All I can say is praise God! What an amazing and Mighty God He is to not only place these girls in families but also all of the families live within an hour of one another! I also have to share some history about these girls. Many of these girls were in the same class in the orphanage together. When these girls began being adopted they prayed for their friends back in the orphanage that they also be adopted. God listens and answers prayers and these group of girls are a testimony to that!

We were also welcomed by amazing family and friends that have been with us and who have supported us in every way of our adoption of Yana! We are truly blessed by the best Nana and Papa, JoJo and Great Papa, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends! Thank you so much for all of your support because I know without a doubt that God orchestrated every detail and every person in this journey. Thank you God for providing me with a family and answering my prayers as a little girl when I truly missed having my family around me! God has listened and answered my prayers with now a husband that loves me and supports me even when I show him a picture of a 14 year old little girl and ask him, "What do you think?" Of course this is also right in the middle of waiting to adopt a son. His first statement was, "This is instead of our son right?" My response to him was, "I don't think so!" I have known Bryan since junior high school and he has been with me through so much in my life. What a blessing that God allowed me to meet him so early in life. I am also blessed with four amazing girls and a new family that has truly taken me in as one of their own which I am truly grateful. God is so good! God has shown me clearly that He has the power to transform and restore life to a broken world and restore hope and a future even after tremendous loss. I am truly blessed! Thank you for praying for our family. Thank you for praying for Yana! I know our journey as a family is just beginning. I don't expect our lives to be easy or be without struggle but I do know that I am not in this alone. Love you all! Please enjoy our pictures!

This one may be my favorite! God is good!

God listens and answers our prayers!

Welcome home Yana! We love you!

Goodbye Ukraine!

Well we spent our last day in Ukraine just spending time together! We walked around and ate and shopped for presents for the girls back home. All the Ukrainian women wear gorgeous boots around here so when we thought of things to buy for our girls we of course thought we had to buy them some boots! Our attorney and her husband took us around to many places trying to find gifts for our family at home and we all had such a good time! Yana is so cute she just loves my 3 year old daughter Samantha. Bryan and I bought my other daughters presents and hadn't bought Sam anything yet. Yana kept asking, "What about Samantha?" Yana is such a sweet and giving little girl. We are so blessed to have her as our daughter! We kept asking her ,"Do you want some boots from Ukraine?" and she quickly replied "America!" Today we saw a little shift with Yana from sad goodbyes to anticipation and excitement to leave for America tomorrow. Thank you God for giving her a peace that can only be from You. Thank you God for giving her a heart to be able to look  forward when she could so easily still be looking back! Thank you God and we give You all of the Glory! Here a few pictures of our last days in Kiev with Yana!

So much traffic!

American Restaurant!

Yana loved typing in the code to get in to our apartment!

Yana and our attorney Natalia! I highly recommend her! She got the job done!

Isn't she pretty!

Loving playing games!

O.k. she fits perfectly in our family! Giving Dad a taste of his own medicine!

What a dad!!!

I love that man! He is an amazing husband and father! Thank you God!

More Goodbyes

Today we went to the U.S. Embassy and picked up Yana's visa! We are finished with all of the paperwork and ready to come home on Saturday! One of the men we spoke with today at the embassy lived in San Angelo, Texas for 6 months. Is that a small world or what?! He was so nice and expressed to us that he hasn't seen an adoption that only took 4 weeks! He asked, "How did that happen?" and then I responded, "God"! God receives all of the glory for this adoption. There are so many people to thank that God has used in mighty ways to help us make Yana a part of our family! Tonight we got to eat dinner with Alla who is a very special person in Yana's life and has become very special to both Bryan and me. I know God has used Alla to be a life line to so many of the children in the orphanage and she has been so important to Yana. We love you Alla! I think Yana seems to understand more that she will be leaving Ukraine and coming  to America soon. Please keep her in your prayers that she has peace about coming home with us and even an excitement to be in our family. We were able to Skype with the girls and we all miss them so much. Yana has talked so much about them today! She is ready to see them and I know they are ready to have her home! Here is a picture of Yana and Alla from tonight!

Fun in Kiev!

Today started with getting up at 5:00 in the morning and driving to Kiev for our visa appointment at the U.S. Embassy. Yes I survived my last road trip with Vitally! I tell you he really knows how to drive in Kiev and he can squeeze his car in the most tight situations and even argue with a woman when she was trying to get him to move his car. Even though I don't know the language there are some words that are universal if you know what I mean! The appointment went well and even pretty quickly. We get to pick up her visa tomorrow at 2:00! Then we went on to the medical clinic to have her examination and blood work done. This was more time consuming and so busy. We have the best facilitator, Oksana, in the world because she took a very chaotic situation and got it done with a smile! She knows what to do and how to get it done quickly and thank goodness for that because I'm not sure we could have sat in that medical clinic much longer. They were all laughing at me because I fell asleep right in the middle of all these people sitting straight up! I really do have an amazing talent for sleeping in any place and position! Yana passed everything and didn't even shed a tear when she had to have blood taken to complete her physical. So to sum it up we got Yana's birth certificate and passport yesterday and today we completed her medical exam and finished all of the paperwork for her visa! Yes this was done in two days! God is so good and continues to bless us and show us clearly that He is in total control.  We are staying in a nice apartment close to all of the fun in Kiev. Tonight we all went out walking on the main street and ate a good dinner and drank some more delicious Ukrainian beer! Bryan especially liked this place and informed us we will be going back there tomorrow too! We met a nice man sitting next to us from America and we visited with him over dinner. I love America and I love Americans! Then we looked around the mall and ate more chocolate! Yana loves chocolate and can eat it all day! Little does she know so does her momma! Yana kept complaining of being cold and Bryan and I loved saying to her that Ukraine is not so cold! She kind of thinks we are crazy. I can tell you that Bryan is starting to form a strong bond with Yana because he and Yana spent the better half of dinner poking fun at momma! She is going to fit right in with Sydney because she and daddy like to make a game out of it! These girls and their daddy are pretty sweet! Today was a fun day and God is really teaching me to enjoy and make the most out of the little things like washing my hands in the bathroom with Yana and her reaching over and hugging me and telling me "Thank you so much momma" and "I love you very much!" God is good and continues to equipt all of us as we go even though sometimes we don't have a clue how to act He makes it all o.k. Here a few pictures from today!

Fun in Kiev!

Daddy's favorite restaurant can you guess why?

More pictures of Kiev

Yana sliding down the stairs!

Yana Sims pretty sweet!

Leaving Zhytomyr!

I got up this morning so excited that we were going to pick Yana up from the orphanage and leave that place forever! I really didn't think much about how difficult it would be for Yana. Bryan and I simply didn't know what to do when Yana was saying goodbye to her friends and to Nadiya ( the woman who loved and took extra care of her at the orphanage). All I could think of to say is "I'm so sorry" and she kept saying "It's o.k.". She continues to show more and more emotion which I think is very healthy it just breaks our hearts to see her having to leave loved ones behind. As we pulled out of the orphanage today her friend waved goodbye and both she and Yana were upset to have to leave one another. I can't even imagine what her friend was thinking as we left today. Was she thinking what about me? Is there a family for me? Even though today was hard I never want to forget the lives we got to experience at the orphanage. These are such precious kids that make the best out of such heartbreaking situations. In a perfect world we wouldn't leave any of them behind and again life shows me it just isn't fair sometimes. I also wanted to share (if anyone even reads this blog) about the unique opportunity of being able to host these children in your home. We were able to host Yana for five weeks this summer and it was a blessing to get to know her and for her to get to know us. We got to see how she interacts with our children (now her sisters) and began to show her unconditional love. There is an opportunity to host children from this orphanage over the Christmas Holidays. There is a ministry that puts these trips together and they need to have at least 5 children hosted for the trip to make. If it hasn't changed since the last time I talked to them they were needing families to host a sibling group of two children ( a boy and a girl) and another little girl Yana's age. If you have ever thought of hosting or adopting please let me know and I can forward you to the two women in charge of putting the trip together. They can send you information on all of the children. This is especially important this trip because the orphanage is set to close in May and these children need families before they are split up. If you are not called to host or adopt please pray for these children left behind that they are protected and feel God's supernatural peace and love upon them. Please pray that they find a family and the support they need to be able to live a happy and safe life.

Saying goodbye to a good friend

Saying goodbye but not for long! She is in the process of being adopted and she will be in the same city with Yana!

Nadiya and Alla two of Yana's most favorite people!

    

Back in Ukraine!

I got up early this morning with excitement that today is the day we go get Yana. I have been trying to write a journal to Yana during all of this time so she can have a glimpse into how much we love her and wanted her from the very beginning. I also want Yana to see how God has listened and answered all of our prayers. Here is my letter to her today:

          Today we are back in Ukraine to finish your adoption. Today we get to take you with us forever! I'm sure today will be mixed with happiness and sadness for you. You will never be an orphan again! Today you are our daughter and you will always belong in our family. I want you to know that today we will love and support you as our daughter for the rest of our lives. I do know that today you will be leaving the friends you have known for most of your life. I'm truly sorry for you having to leave your friends and home country. I am so sorry  that you are having to leave your sister most of all. We will do our very best to keep you in contact with your sister. She is very special to you and therefore very special to us. God has truly listened and answered our prayers for one another. He loves us so much to bring us together. I love you very much Yana! Thank you God for allowing us to have Yana as our daughter!

Happy Halloweeen!

I wanted to post some sweet pictures of my little girls. We had a great time trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and have eaten way too much candy (Sam that means you)! We have been so blessed that we were able to spend Halloween with our girls. Now our entire family is rested and ready to go get Yana! We are ready to have our daughter home with us! Thank you Jesus!

Happy Halloween from Queen Amadala!

Happy Halloween from Wonder Girl!

Happy Halloween from Groovy Girl!

The Sims Girls!

Last picture of only 3 Sims Girls!  Now lets go get Yana!

Adoption Race!

Today was the Chosen Marathon for Adoption Race in New Braunfels and it was so fun! I got to cheer on some of my amazing friends today! I wanted to tell all of them thank you so much for training and sacrificing your time to run in this race and be on our team to help raise funds to bring Yana home with us forever. I can't tell you how much it means to me for all of your prayers, words of encouragement, training and amazing generosity! God is really teaching me through all of you about extravegent giving! We are so blessed to have you in our lives! God is good all the time He is good! Here are a few pictures of the race today. I missed getting some of my team's pictures but I want to tell you all thank you from the bottom of my heart! Love all of you! I also wanted to tell everyone that this race is truly amazing! Everyone that organized this event did an amazing job and all of the families involved in this race have been blessed by all of their hard work! Next year please consider participating in this race because unlike many races the money goes directly to helping the families bring home their children. Not just a percentage or small portion but the funds go the families. That is truly amazing! Thank you!

The girls making a Team Sims sign!

Go Team Sims!

Pretty Cute!

These girls rocked this race!!

Thank you!

Awesome Job!

O.K. just had to add this cute one!