It's been a while and people are worried...

Sorry it's been so long.  The last week has been pretty mundane.  Wake up, visit kids, come home, make dinner, read, listen to music, watch TV, and sleep.  Rinse and repeat the next day.  The kids are doing great.  The boys are now more affectionate with us which makes Heather and I very happy parents.  M is doing great also. 

We've had a few interesting moments with the boys this last week.  We are really having issues when it is time for them to go back to the groupa.  The boys seem to sense when it is our time to leave and they start acting out.  Both A and C had to go back to the groupa with tears streaming down their faces for different reasons this week.  A likes to have things done his way so when Papa made him put his coat after A had taken it off there was 15 minutes of fake crying and sobbing.  C likes to evade Mama and Papa when it's time to go. Papa caught up with C and walked him back to the groupa during which the waterworks (and the noseworks also) got a work out.  We're not sure exactly what is going on but we hope that it means that it is difficult for the boys to leave Mama and Papa at the end of the day.  We hope. 

M's visits typically include many of her friends.  Her favorites are Lena, Nastia and Bogdona.  We play "Go Fish" and "Memory" with the Carebear cards Heather picked up at Ollie's before we left.  The kids really like playing those games.  M and Papa bonded over sunflower seeds the other day.  She loves them and Papa loves the seeds from home much better than those available in Ukraine.  Wait until you taste the yummy goodness of roasted and salted sunflower seeds little girl.  M was amazed with Papa's ability to stick a handful of bland seeds in his mouth and crack the shells to extract the seed and split the shells like a ball player.  Everyone here cracks seeds one at a time which takes foooooooooooreeeevvvvvvvvvvveeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr!

Each of the kids now know their American names.  "Kak vas zavut?" (what is your name?) is answered with their first and last American names and they also know each other's American names.  For a while C thought that his American name was Andrew Hirschmann.  It was cute while it lasted.  M seems very excited to be reunited with her brothers in America.  We show the picture of our house and point to the bedroom windows of the house and show each kid which room will be their's.  Auntie Kristen and Uncle Jason have ensured that the kids will be returning to wonderfully decorated rooms.

Luda is back from Kiev and has our tasks for the week setup.  Tomorrow we are traveling to the kids' birth town on the western shore of Crimea to have the kid's names changed.  We are leaving at 6:30 am which is the earliest we've had to get up since we've been here.  For some of you night owls, we'll be getting up before you go to bed back home!  It's roughly two hours to the birth town and we should leave later that day with new birth certificates in hand.  We plan on taking many pictures and some video of the birth town so we can share them with the kids in the future.  Wednesday we'll be applying for passports and then waiting for them to be completed.

We will pick up the kids from the orphanages when we get the completed passports and are ready to leave for Kyiv because we don't have enough room in our apartment for everyone.  There is one very important fact that I haven't mentioned yet and that is "WE'RE OFFICIAL."  Luda picked up our court decree this evening from the courthouse.  Heather and I have been flying high ever since the court date so getting the final decree is more symbolic than anything to us.  So officially as of November 9, 2009 at 5:00 pm Andrew, Heather, M, A and C have fulfilled our blog's namesake... Hirschmann Family.