October 2, 2007
Sometime around 18 months ago, we paid George (he works for www.Life2orphans.org in Kiev) to find out more about Matthew's birth siblings. Matthew's orphanage file stated that he was the third live birth of five pregnancies for his birth mother. So we knew he had two older siblings, we just didn't know anything else: were they with the mother, in orphanages, with relatives, already adopted???? About a year ago we learned that his mother had passed away (what from we don't know, we aren't even sure if this was the truth: maybe she just wanted to be left alone). We figured that was the end of it, we didn't hear from George again. UNTIL last week, we received an email saying that he found Matthew's two brothers. Actually this is what it said:

Dear Cara and family!
At last we have success!
Yesterday my friends from Odessa called me and gave the information concerning Matthew'sbrothers!!!
Alexander is situated in the Odessa city in a Children's home and Vassiliy is
situated in the Odessa city in a boarding school.

We were shocked, we didn't think we would hear from him again. Wow, two brothers! George is inquiring with the heads of the homes for information. From looking on the internet we know that between 7 and 16 orphans are in a boarding school, from 5-10 they are in children's homes. We aren't making any decisions until we know more, but the least we can do is sponsor them so they have clothes, vitamins, and the essentials. So we wait. Please pray that George has good luck and finds something out quickly.

Two years ago on September 27, we got word that we needed to be in Kiev, Ukraine for our appointment with the National Adoption Center on Oct. 7th. We frantically packed, organized and flew out of South Dakota on Oct 5th and arrived on Oct 6. We didn't have much luck on our first two appointments but we met Matthew somewhere around November 8th. Here's what he looked like then"


and Now:

Matthew loves to help me cook. Here he is making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. He looks at the pictures on the box and says we need eggs, oil, and water.

Here are some more photos of us in the Rocky Mts. We don't look too bad for 4 days without a shower.

Here is Matthew and two of his Colorado cousins in the Rocky Mts. We hiked for a couple hours and Matthew walked the entire way up and down the mt.

Here is a picture of my neices and nephews at my sister's wedding in Las Vegas in August. Matthew and Jeff didn't get to go because we are saving our money for a second adoption. But I went and it was totally relaxing. =)