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.