Names!!

Oh my goodness, we have busy.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving visiting my brother near Chicago.  The highlights for the kids were the double decker train ride into the city and going to the top of the Sears tower.   My brother took us around to some great restaurants to experience some authentic Chicago cuisine.  Their hotdogs are awesome!  Thanksgiving day was spent having a traditional turkey feast, watching football and Christmas movies.  One of my favorite movies is Home Alone which was filmed in the Chicago area.  We took a day to drive up to see the house that was used in the movie.  Pretty neat.  Our daughter Kacey and I had our picture taken in front.....typical tourists ; )  All four kids were great as we traveled two days to get there and two days back.  We had some snow falling the morning we left Akron, Ohio.

Even during our trip, the adoption process continued on.  We had our new CSP forms to include both kids notorized and even had them apostilled while we were in downtown Chicago.  We got the forms approved and fed-exed them to Ukraine the morning we left Ohio.  We really don't want to waste any time!

The only other new information we have to share at this time is what we have finally decided to name these two precious children.   First, Julia is going to stay Julia.  We found out this was not her real name, but have decided to make this her first name since so many people have been and continue to follow her journey.  She is known to the world as Julia and it's such a pretty name for her.  And we have chosen Adeye as her middle name.  Most of you know that we found Julia through Adeye and the heartfelt plea she made for her on her blog.  She has seen and played with her while she was in Ukraine adopting her Hailee and Harper.  Her love for her brought her to us and we are so thankful for her heart.  Without her we may never have found Julia.  We will always remember Adeye as the one God used to bring Julia to us.  So it seems so perfect that we make Adeye part of her name.   Julia Adeye Schwenzer.

Sergey is a great name.  We have struggled with whether to keep this his name or change it.  He is almost 6 years old and we're sure he identifies with it.  But we want him also to have an identity with our family and the country he will come to know and live in.  So we came up with the name Aaron.  It means "mountain of strength."  When we look at the pictures and videos of him, we can see the potential this happy, laughing little boy has.  One physical therapist that visited the orphanage even said he has a good chance of learning to walk with assistance.  We trust that God will give him that mountain of strength!  But we also wanted to keep Sergey in his name.  So naturally we thought it would be a good idea to make Sergey his middle name.......except.......Aaron Sergey Schwenzer has a less than desirable set of initials : /  But we really didn't want to abandon the name Aaron.  Finally, we have decided to name him Sergey Aaron Schwenzer and call him by his middle name, Aaron.

Kacey, Ethan, Aaron, Julia, Regan, and Evan.    Love it.

I guess when we get a chance we should update the header, but I'm not sure how to do it yet.....stay tuned : )
Please keep praying that the adoptions in EE continue, especially for all the special needs children.  We are hoping and praying for our dossier to be complete and sent out before Christmas.