The First Visit with OUR BOYS!! July 31st

On Saturday, July 31st we got to meet our boys for the first time. We were invited by their foster parents to come meet them at their home, instead of the original plan of meeting them at a visitation center. This way the boys would be more at ease and comfortable since they were on their own turf. We felt this was a blessing for the foster family to open their home to us, because we want this process to be as smooth as we can make it for the boys. When we arrived we were greeted by the foster dad and Jeremy (The foster mom was out of town on business). We then went into the living room where we met Jason, he was sitting down watching the end of "The Mask". As soon as I said hi to him and told him my name, he asked me if I would come over and sit by him to watch the rest of the movie. Then next thing I know Jeremy hopped on the couch right next to me too and then Raf sat down on the other side of him. This felt so surreal because it almost felt like we were already a family just watching a movie together. (Nicolli was sleeping) about 20 mins after we got there Nicolli woke up from his nap at which time he was pretty clingy to the foster dad. But once he really woke up, he was off and running all over. He was being a typical 1 1/2 year old starting to get in to everything, but we had fun trying to distract him. Once the movie was over we all went outside to have lunch, where the foster dad had barbecued us all lunch. While we were eating I could not help but smile at Nicolli as I watched him chow down on a whole lot of food. I was so busy laughing at him that I almost forgot to finish eating my own food. After we finished eating the boys went in to wash up, this gave us some time to ask the foster dad a lot of the questions we had. He was so helpful and willing to answer all our questions that it truly showed how much they care about these boys. While we were talking Jason came out and asked me if I wanted to go watch him ride his new bike. Of course I said YES! So I left Raf and the foster dad to continue to talk while i went outside to watch the two older boys ride their bikes. As we were walking out the door to go play Nicolli came up to me and put his hands up for me to pick him up. It was so precious. Nico let me hold him the entire time we were outside watching the boys ride. Then when they wanted to take a break Raf and I gave them each a new toy that they could keep. So after the boys opened their gifts, Raf and I found ourselves down on the ground playing Spiderman and Transformers. We were loving every minute of it too. After we played that for awhile, Jason wanted to go back out and ride his bike some more, so Jason, Nicolli and I went outside. We then went for a walk / ride around the block and even though it was hot and Nico weighs quite a bit, nothing seemed to bother me, because I was too full of happiness and joy. It was getting late and we had already been there two hours past the original time the SW told us we would get to spend with the boys and we didn't want to overstay our welcome. At that time we let the boys know we were going to have to go and both the older boys asked us if we were going to come back and visit them. We told them that we will be coming to visit them often. When we left we had some mixed emotions, we were so excited to have met them and got to spend that much time hanging out with them, but we were also sad because we had to leave them. I think it is going to get harder and harder for us to have to leave them as the visits go on, because all we want is to bring them home. But that is not what is best for our boys yet.

Since it took me so long to write this, we have already been able to schedule our next visit and it will be on Sunday. This time we get to go pick the boys up and take them for the day all by ourselves without the foster parents or a SW. We are planning to take them to a children's museum and then to Johns incredible pizza for dinner. It is going to be a blast. Now we just need Sunday to hurry up and get here, please!

We hope that everyone will continue to pray for us and our new blessings. We ask that you please pray that God will help give our boys the courage and the strength to understand this new path they are going to be taking and that they know it is a path full of lots of love and a forever family. Please also pray that this transition goes smoothly so that we can bring our babies home soon.