HOME SWEET HOME!

Hi, Everyone! We made it home safe and sound on Christmas Eve at 11:45pm. It was a very long day of travel, 24 hours in total, and Luke was a very tired little boy. The Moscow to New York flight was horrendous to be completely honest. Luke was so overstimulated and he just couldn't settled down or sleep. He cried a lot (well, let's be honest again, he screamed at the top of his lungs while crying). Finally, after 9 hours on the flight a Russian man behind us offered to talk to him and Luke's native language was the thing that calmed him enough to go to sleep. We had to wake him up when the plane landed, one should never wake a sleeping baby, right? We cleared customs in a breeze and when we thanked the customs agent he said 'hey this is America, this is the way we do things!' We agree, this is truly the greatest country on earth.
We had a 3 1/2 hour lay over and we did a lot of praying, and asked our friends and family to pray, that Luke would get some much needed rest on the flight to St Louis and God delivered. Luke slept the whole flight and only cried when Papa changed his pull-up and his clothes before we landed.
We came off the plane to a huge group of famiy and friends with American flags, balloons and gifts--it was amazing! Luke did great, visiting with his cousins and friends while we grabbed everyone for hugs through tears. He slept the whole drive to our house and when we got to our home the driveway was lined with luminaries and there was a Christmas tree in the window! We walked in to a winter wonderland--presents under the tree, the table was set, food in the fridge and pantry, stockings on the fireplace stuffed with goodies and the fireplace loaded up and ready to go! The Page Turners, my bookclub did the decorating and presents, thanks girls! Our families had bags of food and drinks here at the house, and some presents for Luke under the tree, too, and our friends at the airport had our car packed with cookies, drinks and a big fruit basket! Our dear friend Jennifer cooridnated all the comings and goings at home and Billy and Jessica put a new deep freezer in the garage complete with meals for the coming weeks--thank you dear friends!
We cannot even describe how wonderful it felt to come home to all the comforts our friends and families had provided! We walked through our house with tears of joy. We told Luke in Russian, you are home, baby and he kept saying doma, home! He walked in his bedroom and exclaimed oooooo! He is a very, very happy little boy and we couldn't be any happier than as his parents. Thank you God.