Another amazing adoptive family...

You can check out http://www.blessingsfromethiopia.blogspot.com/ or you can go to http://www.fourthwatch.net/ and watch a 3 minute trailer for a documentary about their amazing adoption journey. I am inspired by all these incredible families....

If you want to know...

what our trip to Ethiopia might be like...click on Forever Young in my blog list. They are currently in Ethiopia picking up their daughter. Leah gives a great description of everything they are doing as well as the wide ranging emotions we'll probably experience. Gets me even more excited!!!

Memorial Day

This weekend we celebrate Memorial Day. For many of you, it means a 3 day weekend, time at the beach or mountains, a picnic, the beginning of summer. I looked up the origins and thought I would share some of the info I found...

Memorial days did not start in Petersburg, Virginia; Waterloo, New York; or any other city in the United States. Memorial days upon which the graves of the communities' heroes were decorated with flowers and garlands are ancient customs originating in Greece 2,500 years ago. Memorial days were set aside during the American Civil War in both the United States and the Confederate States of America. memorialdayorigin.info

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873.

Since the late 50's on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye's Heights (the Luminaria Program). And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years. To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to "Taps." www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html

If you haven't read A Story for Jake on the left column, take a moment this weekend and read it. Jake's dad was a high school classmate of ours, a great man.

Whatever you are doing this weekend, take a moment and remember those who have made a great sacrifice for our country.

Order your adoption tshirt!!!!

Adoption t shirts are here!

Here is the unveiling of our tshirt design... A big thank you to my friend Dani for designing it!

The tshirt is going to be city green (kind of a khaki green) with a natural color for the print (sort of what the design looks like above).

We are planning on putting in an order at the end of June so we are giving you the opportunity to "pre order your t shirt in your size. Email me or leave a comment to let me know that you would like one. Make sure you tell us what size (S-2XL) you would like and your address! Email me at heidelberglion87atyahoodotcom.

Thanks for being a part of this incredible journey!!!

Africa tshirts coming soon

We are working on a tshirt to raise awareness about international adoption...you'll be able to get an Africa/adoption/Ethiopia tshirts designed by my friend Dani. Keep checking for more info. You'll be able to "pre order" your size! (Those are not children we are adopting in the picture...just some beautiful Ethiopian children.)

Lots of spring time fun!

Easter morning hunting for eggs. Pretty uneventful except for the talking egg. If you didn't get one this year, definitely need to get one for next year. You hide the egg, push a button, and it talks for 30 minutes. Saying things like..."I'm over here, I'm hiding, etc." Declan was a little spooked at first but we have had lots of fun with it since then!

Karen and Declan on their way to church (Rich was working).


Declan and I went to Atlanta over my spring break to see my friend Dani and her family. We spent one day at the Atlanta zoo. Here is Dani with a parakeet on her seed stick and Declan as close as we could get him. We were in a large "cage" with hundreds of parakeets flying all over...and we managed to not get pooped on!


The baby panda...so cute!

Declan's new bed

We got Declan a new bed this week, the one above, from IKEA. After the fun filled hours of putting it together that only IKEA can give you, Declan managed to get a good night's sleep. We of course had to get the tent, it kind of makes the bed.

He was a little nervous at first. The fact of being up and in a big bed were a little overwhelming. But he now loves sleeping in his bed, playing in his room both in his bed and below it. Since his room is small, it has definitely given us more room to put stuff and a fun fort to play in!
Those of you that know Rich know that many safety rules have been instituted in order for their to be no injuries involving the bed. Here, Declan is demonstrating proper form for entering the bed!

Easter egg hunt

Our first hunt of the season was in our development. I like the fact that it is small, you can stay with your child, and well, they have yummy food! Declan was one of the few non screamers when it came to the Easter Bunny.

Declan going in the big bouncy house is huge progress. He has always been terrified of them. This time, he jumped in and played. Once the onslaught of big kids came, he was out but we were proud of him being a little more daring.

Adoption update

Just thought I would give you a little update on the adoption. I am trying not to dwell on the waiting thing so that is why you don't hear much from me about it. It is so far away, it is hard to imagine. We did find out awhile ago that our wait time has increased. When we started in December it was 12 months. Now it is more like 14, 16, or 18 months on average, you can pick whatever number you like. Realize it can be less (highly unlikely) or it could be more. You just never know. I like to think that the reason the wait time is going up is that our agency is so wonderful that more and more people keep flocking to them so there are just more people waiting. We feel so secure in choosing our agency that the wait time increasing is okay with us.

If you happen to see articles about Ethiopia in your local paper, in a magazine, online, etc., feel free to send them on to us. We have a file we are keeping of such things to have for our child. They will know what was going on in Ethiopia when their life was just beginning.

Spring in NC

Spring is sort of here in NC. We have had some beautiful days but mostly squeezed between endless days of rain. Here is the rainbow we caught for a few minutes behind our house. Declan and I "ooohed" and "aaahed."

Our flowers are starting to bloom. This is one of our lone daffodils. They were starting to come up when we got our last snow so we ended up with about 3 blooms and 30 plants.