Settling in at Home

Hi everyone. I know it's been awhile, but it's hard to believe that we've already been home for 1 week. And what a week it's been! Filled with firsts for Logan and lots of memories. I'll try to summarize it for you:

You may be wondering how the 10 hour flight went. Well, for the most part it was fine. Logan was great for the majority of the flight, but didn't sleep much (a total of 2 hours). Everyone around us fell in love with him and during our walks around the plane he made sure to stop and smile at each person. It was a good thing that he charmed everyone in the beginning because he basically cried for the last 2 hours of the flight. We later found out when we went to the pediatrician, that he still has an ear infection (which the doctor in Russia told us was gone) and that probably attributed to the pain he was feeling. We finally landed, made it through customs, gathered our luggage and went to our last stop when we were told that they didn't process our paperwork at the first customs, so we had to go to a separate line and wait for our name to be called. Finally about 2 hours after we landed we walked through the doors to the smiling faces and cheers from many of our family and friends - the signs and balloons were so neat to see. It was great to finally be back home and with the people we have loved and missed so much. After many hugs, tears and oohing and ahhing over Logan, we made it back to Nicole's Mom's for a small birthday party for Logan. We really appreciate everyone who came and made our homecoming so special - The King's, Merz's, Colon's, Burton's, Burke's, Gaskill's and especially Aunt Mary who came all the way from Texas - we love you all!

We then spent the rest of the weekend with our family and let me tell you how neat it is to see our parents as GRANDPARENTS - the love you see in their eyes is something everyone needs to experience. It was a quick visit before we were ready to head home - just the 3 of us and start our life together. So, we headed to Hampton on Sunday for Logan's first night at home. We took him from room to room in the house and walked outside so he could see the house. The feeling that overcame us to finally have him home is indescribable.

Our first week together was pretty good. Monday we met with the International Adoption Pediatrician. She gave us some tips, watched him play and said he was on track developmentally. Logan then had to get some blood work done, so we had to hold him down as they took about 8 vials of blood - that was SO hard to do as he is looking up at your SCREAMING!!!! But, we all made it through!

Dennis went back to work on Tuesday, so it was just Mommy and Logan. Trying to get him back on schedule with the time change and just overall life change was kind of difficult at the beginning of the week - ok, Nicole has had a couple of meltdowns, but is much better now! For the most part, Logan will sleep through the night, getting up a couple of times, but will go right back to sleep. He was first waking up around 6 or 6:30, but is now sleeping mostly through the night and waking up around 7 or 7:30. We have discovered that Logan LOVES Baby Einstein, taking walks outside to visit the ducks, bath time & lotion rubdowns afterwards, jumping in his monkey bouncer, being barefoot, food and many other things. We have also discovered that Logan does not like grass on his feet, wearing socks, the car seat (but we have made MUCH improvement), pears and afternoon naps. Logan has also been lucky to have visits from both of his grandmothers who just couldn't stay away - we loved having them down here and can't wait for many more visits.

I guess we've gone on enough about our first week. I will post pictures later, as it is not working right now. Some people have asked if I am going to keep up with the blog and the answer is YES - we will keep people updated on how Logan is doing and all of the fun things he is learning along the way. The updates may not be as frequent as they used to be, but we will definitely update :) We hope you are all doing well and again thank you for your continued prayers and support. Our prayers are a little different these days - we pray in thanksgiving for this angel God has given us, for safe travels on our journey to pick him up and for our health and life. We pray every night to be better parents each day and to be the parents that Logan needs us to be (not necessarily who we think we need to be). And lastly, we thank God for all of you!! We can't wait for you each to meet Logan - we know you will fall in love just like we have :)