Merry Christmas!!!

The new train configuration!

Fixing things with his new tool!

Coming down the stairs to see what Santa brought!

Yea-Santa brought Declan the electric pencil sharpener he wanted...a bunch of pencils, too!

Even dogs get presents!

And now we wait....excitedly

Just wanted to let you know that we have submitted our dossier and it has been accepted! We are officially on the waiting list for a baby! What a wonderful Christmas gift!

Christmas at the Library

For those of you that don't know, Charlotte is the home of Billy Graham, his family, Operation Christmas Child (where you fill a shoebox at Christmas time), and all the Graham family business. Recently, the Billy Graham Library was opened here. This past week we traveled to the library to enjoy their Christmas celebration. There was a live nativity (including one very sleepy camel), carriage rides, and a huge gingerbread house that was a replica of the home Billy Graham grew up in. The grounds were beautifully decorated as well. Here are some of our better pictures. As you can tell by the last picture it was drippy and very foggy!

Declan and Rich in front of the "silo."

The barn houses a book and gift shop, yummy snack bar, incredible pictures of the early years of the Billy Graham Crusade (my favorite was one of a billboard outside the Charlotte Convention Center that said Billy Graham Crusade 5th -9th, Elvis Presley 10th, Wrestling 11th, Ice Hockey 12th), and educational presentations.

Yes, it really was super foggy!

Christmas fun

Here we are making our yearly gingerbread house!

We added a couple of penguins to our yearly display!
Cousins trying to get their picture taken!

Pictures with Santa

Declan and I hit the tree lighting in Harrisburg, NC on a freezing cold December night. Yes, all you northerners, it really was cold, in the 30s. Declan was a trooper. He waited in line to see Santa and to take a carriage ride. We were frozen but in the Christmas spirit.

Here is Declan the next day with Santa at our development Christmas party. It is one of my favorite activities of the season. We don't have to wait in line to see Santa, you can talk to him all you want and they always have fun activities for the kids. Declan was a little confused as to why he had to tell Santa what he wanted again. I just explained that he needed to remind him what he told him last night. Santa's busy, he might have forgotten.

Declan enjoying the Christmas cupcake he decorated and devoured all by himself.

Always a good question...

Tonight it was...How does the moon get electricity to light up? That one, of course, was topped when, after singing Away in a Manger at bed time, I was asked how you get to heaven. I gave what I thought might suffice..."you need to be a good person." After many follow up questions which were obviously answered incorrectly, Declan told me we could ask someone at church tomorrow, they would probably know the answer. So, if it comes up tomorrow, I will be marching straight to the minister!

I will have some Santa Pictures up soon!

Merry Christmas!

If you are looking for a Christmas gift....

You will notice on the right that I have added some links and a blog to my list. All three are related. As you will read on Prince Liam the Brave, Liam has neuroblastoma. A friend of mine, Renee, happens to be friends with Prince Liam's family. His story is inspirational and heartbreaking, a true testament to the human spirit. Liam's parents have been integral in the forming of Band of Parents and from that Cookies for Kids' Cancer. Please check out all their sites and if you feel inspired, send some cookies to someone for the holidays while helping fund research for this horrible disease!

Adoption News!

Well, our home study has finally been approved. And so what does that mean? We get to do more paperwork! Actually it is wonderful news. We just have a few more pieces of paper to get notarized at various levels and then hopefully we go on to the waiting list. My goal had been to have it all done by the end of the year and I think if we move it, we will have it done. So, keep your fingers crossed that all of the "i"s will get dotted correctly for us!

Update on adoption

Just thought this was perfect for us.

We are waiting on our home study to be approved by our agency. We have already encountered the dreaded "issues" that cause delays in paperwork so we are a couple of weeks behind where we wanted to be.

A few details for you to know...we are asking for a child from 0-12 months at the time of referral. We are not requesting a boy or girl, either is great with us. We decided since we didn't have control with Declan, we wouldn't have control with this one either. Rich and his sister, Kerri, think it will be a girl. I think another boy. Only time will tell.

Fall fun

Yep, that is our ghost. He may look like he is not wearing a ghost costume but that is what it is. He is with his pirate friend, Mary.

Our pumpkins, Declan drew the face on the big one. We were pretty impressed.

Our development has a fall festival which ended up being the day after Halloween so just more sugar to keep the rush going. Sno Cones were the hit of the day as the temperatures were in the 70s.

Pumpkin Patch Trip

Our annual trip to the pumpkin patch with my parents. We love to go to a local dairy farm, Hodges Dairy Farm and pick pumpkins and see all the animals.
This year they had a corn maize. I am always amazed at what Declan is not afraid of. He charge right in and was the leader several times. He thought it was so fun to figure out how to get out.

One of the best parts of the trip is picking a pumpkin and pulling the red wagon. Declan decided he was strong enough to pull it this year even uphill.

Declan's Birthday Party

Declan's theme was football. He has become a die hard Panthers fan, not sure why since neither of us is. He will watch the games, play football, and knows the names of several players. So here is his football themed cake!

One of the many things I love about Declan is how thrilled he is to get any gift. When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday he said, "Whatever anyone gets me will be fine." He oohs and aahs over any present, even clothes. We are starting to collect African stories such as this one.

Yes, there was a Brett Favre fan in our midst.

Three cousins enjoying the bouncy house, I guess that is what you call all being smashed on top of each other!

Declan's 1st and 2nd birthday!

Yes, he turned four, but he got to celebrate repetitively! So here is the first and second celebration.

Papa (Rich's dad) was not going to be in town for Declan's birthday so the grandparents gave him his gift early, a playmobil remote control train! For those of you who have been to our house (it is small), it takes up most of our living room! He loves it-it has been moved to his room.

Wearing the train engineer gear Uncle E sent!

Sporting his new Panthers hat he got on his actual birthday! Thanks Grandma!


Playing with the train, a new car added on that he got for his birthday.

We are playmobil addicts, here is the ambulance motorcycle. He doesn't like to go near the ambulance but he loves all things that represent his daddy!

Washington, D.C. and beyond

This past weekend we traveled to Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, not Ohio...We visited the B & O Railroad Museum in Baltimore. We had a blast crawling on trains, watching model trains, seeing steam engines in action, and playing around with our friend Dave. And yes, we know we only spelled Ohi.

Speaking of trains, the Henns have a cool train set up. Engineer Dave and Engineer Declan drive the trains!
The reason for our trip to D.C. was for us to attend a celebration of our friend, Major David Taylor's life. David was killed in Iraq in 2006. He loved to run the Army 10 miler so his family has had a celebration of his life the last 2 years based around this event. Saturday night we attended a "pasta party" and visited with the Taylor family and friends. Above are Jake, David's son, and Declan having their own Army 10 miler! If you want to read more about David, click the link to the right "A Story for Jake."
Declan so wanted to see Daddy start the race but security is tight and there are close to 20,000 runners so this was about all we could see! Rich ran with another high school classmate, Mark, and had a great time!
Our trip home was a little eventful. Our car decided to break down about an hour and a half into the trip. Declan was excited to have his first ever tow truck ride! We ended up spending the night in Fredericksburg, VA. Not what we were expecting to do but we had a nice day in a wonderful town. After making a contribution to our lagging economy, we were thrilled to get home!

Our newest adventure...

I guess this is our official announcement to those of you who don't already know...we are adopting from Ethiopia. We are waiting for our home study to be approved and then will move on with the rest of our paperwork. Once that is completed, it is about a 12 month wait for a referral so we have a long way to go. We are very excited! We will fill you in with all the details as we go along.

Why are we adopting? Several reasons...and these are in no specific order. I have rheumatoid arthritis and although you can still have children with RA, you can't be on the drugs. We were told this when I was first diagnosed and decided quality of life for me and for Rich and Declan was most important. So, I started taking the drugs and am doing wonderfully. I have always wanted to adopt and have talked with Rich about this long before we had Declan. It was something we had planned on always doing, it just became something we are doing now. We also want to help. There are so many children in this world without parents, we feel we have a loving home to offer. I can't fail to mention that I had a student who was adopted. Their family showed me that adoption could be an amazing experience.

Why Ethiopia? Again, several reasons. Rich has a degree in International Affairs and concentrated in African studies. He has vast knowledge of Africa and an even bigger interest in the continent. He was drawn there immediately. We also were drawn to the immense numbers of orphans in Ethiopia, approximately 4 million due to disease, war, and famine. We felt it was where we were meant to go. And so we will....

This is truly an adventure for us and we are looking forward to all the ups and downs of this journey.

photo from www.flickr.com

Our blog....

I have been blogging with the rest of the family on www.kingfolk.blogspot.com. I am going to start working on my own blog...it will keep you informed of all the happenings of our King family.