Thankfulness...

Yes, the Holidays are going to be much different for us this year.  Hardly a day goes by where I don't get a little teary eyed just hearing the sound of Graham's little laugh or seeing his little eyes light up when he sees something he has never seen before.  There is no way to even begin to describe the amount of gratitude in our hearts but here are just a few things that come to mind:

1. The weekend dance! (it was a huge thing to start school for a little fella that has been through so many changes in just a few months - so we made up this little dance that we do on Fridays to signify that it is the weekend and there is no school tomorrow) "Yeah the weekend dance"!!

2.  The blessing - "God our Father, 
                            God our Father,  
                            We thank you, 
                            We thank you! 
                            For our many blessings,
                            For our many blessings,
                            Amen, Amen"

3. Bedtime conversations:  Laying down at night and almost drifting off to sleep he leans over in my face to whisper
"Mom... Mom,  Wha doing?"  And trying not to crack up laughing - I say: "Shhhh! I'm going to sleep, close your eyes!"  but  "Mom...  Mom! I love you!"    Dad... Dad! Wha doing?  

4.  Knuckle punches and high fives!

5.  Superman, Spider-man,  Iron-man, Captain America, Buzz Light-year, and Woody or basically any super-hero that saves us from any bad guy or evil doer!

6. The Negotiator - it doesn't matter what we are doing, whether it is time to take a bath, or put up the ipad, picking out clothes, we are negotiating.  "1 minute; no! 2 minutes or 10 minutes"!  or in 10 minutes we are going to take a "2 minute bath"!  Good times!!

7. Silly songs - Of course you have the standards "the ABC song" and or "Twinkle twinkle little star" but my favorites are the random made up ones.  So you never know when a song might break out and it could be about anything? It may be about a "frisbee" and the only lyric is the word "frisbee"!  

Kevin and I have always loved family. We absolutely love spending time with our families and treasure every moment.  I think now we pause and soak a little more in every sweet new memory. God is so incredibly good and always on time.


Happy Thanksgiving!!

Dedication Day...

You know with all the musical talent out there in the contemporary christian and secular world, there is not hardly a song that hasn't touched someone in a certain way.  I am so glad God gave us music, it inspires and moves us, it brings people together.  Our youth pastor wrote this song last year during a time where we as a church were really seeking God, wanting and waiting to hear His voice.  We all have times in our lives when the waiting can over take us and it seems unbearable but some how there is the grace that can come pouring in and somehow makes okay for a little while.

I'm waiting on you

to cut through the dark

I'm waiting on you to speak to my heart

All this waiting is hard for my soul

I'm waiting on you

To open my eyes

To see things the way that you see this life

It seems you're saying this is good for my soul

I'm waiting on you
to make sense of these

misplaced pieces and long-stalled dreams

All this waiting is hard for my soul

I'm waiting on you

to take this from me

I thought you said that I'd find the strength

but you must be saying this is good for my soul

So I trust in the promise that steadies my hope

that you never forsake or leave me alone

I trust in the promise for those in the fight

joy comes after the darkest of nights

but mostly I trust cause I've been here before

and you broke through the silence and shouted your love

when I've waited

o

So it definitely has been a long awaited day that we get to stand before God, our family, friends and church family to dedicate our son.  What a huge thing for us, we have waited so long for a child and now as an expression of trust and faith we basically are giving him to God, trusting that He will guide our steps and that He has an amazing plan for this little life.

We can't even believe that Graham has already been with us for 4 months, he fits in with us so well that it actually feels like he has been with us since birth.

Soooooo been worth the waiting....

First Day of School - Already !!!

How the time at home has flown by and Graham has learned so much in this short time.  He is adjusting so well, better than we could have ever dreamed. God is so incredibly good!!

 Graham and I had a little extra "mommy/son" time waiting on health insurance and pediatricians to fall into place.  Knowing that I was going back to work soon we started bringing up "SCHOOL" in our conversations.  

Thankfully he has cousins that go to "SCHOOL" and he wants to be like them!!   

We started him out visiting school a couple of days to see what it was like before the BIG day!

He is dressed and ready for "SCHOOL" and ironically he has his Star Wars T-shirt on that says

 "May the Force be with you" on it.  

I thought I was ready for this day, I didn't think it would be as hard on me as it was on him.

All I can see are these big crocodile tears looking up at me and his little boy voice saying

 "Please sit by me Mommy, Please sit by me!"

It was all I could do to get out of there without crying.  

But as you can see he had a great day with green play-do all up in those shoes!!

Of course he has a great time at school, he gets to go outside and drive cars and play on jungle gyms a couple of times a day!!  

And sometimes after school we get to go to the gym to watch Kira play volleyball!!!   

(or hang on the gym doors??)

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, 

according to His power that is at work within us, 

 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations

Ephesians 3:20

Words we never thought we would hear in China

One of the coolest things (besides going to China to get our son) has got to be standing in to lobby of a hotel in another country on the other side of the world and hearing the words shout out "War Eagle!"

Wow! Never thought we would those words over here?

We met a super nice couple adopting a beautiful little girl.  They have a farm in North Carolina, they weren't necessarily Auburn fans but they do root for all the agriculture schools.  They are really excited that the Carolina Panthers have Cam Newton as their quarterback now.

So we really can't wait to take him to his first Auburn game where he can experience one of the coolest things in all of college football.  Eagles are beautiful and amazing creatures anyway so when Auburn's war eagle flies above the stands; it just does something to ya!

   Another fun thing is rolling Toomer's Corner!!!

Way back in the day before a lot of people owned televisions and radios, they would throw telegraph paper in the trees as a sign of victory on Auburn's away games.   Later on in the 70's  it became the tradition to roll the trees at Toomer's corner with toilet paper. It is a fun tradition I might add!!  Where else can you go with hundreds of people, young and old alike and just let go and get crazy with some TP.

We are also Tennessee fans and luckily Auburn and Tennessee don't play each other very often.  We can't wait to introduce him to the "Good Ole' Rocky Top" 

Knoxville and  the Gatlinburg area is where Kevin grew up and it is such a beautiful part of the country, so we can't wait show him around.

Labor Day weekend...

Midge and Kevin  - 1970

Labor Day weekend is always a nice 3 day break to go on last minute vacations or just to rest and watch a little football.  For us though it has always been a little bittersweet.  Kevin's mom Midge went home to be with Jesus on a Labor Day weekend 15 years ago, I type this out in almost disbelief that it has really been 15 years.  Part of me says that time has flown by and yet some of it stood still.

I remember when I first met Midge, she had lost her own mother within 3 or 4 years prior.  She always told me that she wished I could have met her mom and that we would have loved each other.  If Midge was anything like her mom then I know we would have loved each other!  She was truly one of my most favorite people in the world.  She always treated me as if I were her own daughter, I miss her so much. She told me then that she would grieve for her mom and it would come and go in waves. That is a perfect description of it, Kevin and I would be fine then all of a sudden we would get hit by a wave, sometimes even at the same time.

Midge and Kevin - 1995

We both have been thinking about her a lot over the last couple of months, especially now that we have Graham.   I know that she would have been an amazing "Grandma" or "Nonni" or whatever name he wants to call her. Who knows if she really gets to look down from heaven, sometimes I like to think so.   I know one thing, she would be so proud of her son and she would be over the moon ecstatic about Graham. We can't wait to tell him all kinds of stories about Midge and Don too for that matter.

The Eagle has landed...

Whew! After waiting a couple of hours for Delta to find us a fresh pilot we finally made is to the HAM!!  I would have kissed the ground but I was so exhausted I don't think I would have been able to get back up!

G-Man sporting his made in China T-shirt

We have officially been up for more than 24 hours straight and I'm not even going to lie, we are feeling pretty yucky at this point. 



  After being in an over-crowded Chicago airport and almost loosing our luggage with all of our paper work in it, it was kind of nice landing in a pretty much empty Birmingham Airport.




Just seeing these beautiful faces made us feel so much better!

Even though we are so tired and have the grunge look going for us,  it all just seemed to fade away seeing everyone! 

It was neat to see Graham react to his cousins, up until now he had only met them and talked to them through Facetime and Skype.  He was a little shy at first but by the time we got the car loaded they all were laughing and having a good time.  Karson and Kira had already taught him to "high 5" and a few English words by the time we got home.

Home what a wonderful word!! What a reception too!

Big City Studio kids made us a big welcome home sign, great friends stocked our frig.

We even have some new family pictures all framed up sitting on the counter.

Kevin and I are so blessed!

This is your captain speaking...

Beijing China

There is nothing like waking up on a long flight and looking up on the televison screen and seeing that we are hovering over our intended destination, and thinking yeah the longest part of our trip is over!! We made it out alive with a 3 year old!! Woo Hoo!!!  It was a good feeling.

Then just when the reality sinks in that we are about to be on American soil, the dreaded words sound out from the intercom; "This is your captain speaking and due to a thunderstorm in Chicago we are being diverted to the  Rockford airport".  Boo - these are not the words we want to hear, our hearts just sank we were in the last few minutes of our 15 hour flight! How can this be?

So how do you explain to a little fella that we can't get off the plane.  We are so close yet so far away. Yep Good times!!

Beijing China

After re-fueling and sitting on the runway for about 3 hours we were finally awaiting to be cleared for take-off.  This big Boeing 747 is getting smaller by the minute and at this point I am just trying to find my happy place.  We are only about 60 miles from Chicago O'Hare which should only take about 15 minutes to get there by air. 



Chicago IL and Lake Michigan

The next big hurdle is getting through the long lines at customs and then on to immigration but because of the storm hundreds of flights were affected.  There's people everywhere, lining the walls sitting in the floor waiting to find out what happened to their flights.  I think they changed our flight to a different gate about 7 times before we finally made it back to the original gate that we were supposed to fly out of.  We were suppose to leave at 8pm central time but of course that was delayed for a couple of hours.  Even as exhausted as we were we got to hang out with some nice people in our wait.