This and That and Lots of Pictures

Disclaimer: this post is long, rambling, and disconnected.  But it's also full of cuteness.

Cory's language skills are just multiplying by the day!  He's easily putting three to four words together into sentences and has something to say about everything. Whoever said that boys don't talk as much as girls has never met mine.  They talk all day long.  And sometimes at night, too.  But that's another story.

Some of the sentences (or phrases) Cory's recently said:

Read book to me.

New, new library book.

Leaves are falling down.

Dat too spicy for me.

Step back, Mama! (when I leaned in to blow on his food.  Apparently I was crossing his boundaries!)

I love dogs. (yeah, right)

I love leaves.

I love Daddy!

Pray for baby sister. (This one gets me every time he says it, which is several times a day.)

Dee Gee-us, please help baby sister, Gee-us name, AMEN!

Someone gave us a classic red tricycle and the boys adore it.  Iain loves riding his bike, too, so it works out well.  Here's the all-American boy in overalls on a trike.  The overalls were mine when I was his age, and Iain wore them, too.  Super cute!  I love boys in overalls.

Of course, Cory would just as soon dig in the tomato-plant dirt as ride a bike any day.

The boys and I, plus Jenna (my sister) and Isaiah (her baby boy), spent a week in Florida early this month.  What was going to be just a fun trip turned into a work trip, as I had to get our old house ready for new tenants, and it was in a... um... rather untidy state.  Jenna, Shannon, and multiple cousins, as well as my mom and Nan and our wonderful used-to-be-neighbor Robert helped and the house is now clean (THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR BRAVING THE DISASTER!) and standing empty, waiting for new tenants to hopefully love it more than the last ones did.  And to hopefully come and find it soon.

Anyway, the trip wasn't all about work.  The boys and I made it to Yaya's for a visit (she's Jeremy's grandmother), which was really good.  Cory ate a banana right from the tree.  And refused to be in a picture.  Iain was a better sport, though:

Grammy and Papa (Jeremy's parents) made it up for a visit, too, and Kelsey and Haylee (my other sisters) came down.  It was so good to see everyone!  I even made it out for late-night coffee and lots of talking with my good friend Lauren (okay, I didn't have coffee.  But the hot chocolate was great - and the conversation better.  I miss you, Lauren!).  And of course, spending time with my mom, Nan, and all the family down there was so nice.  

The weather in Florida was hot, except for one lovely day - the day of the fall festival at a local church!  The boys and I went with Grammy and Papa, and met up with Jenna and Curtis (who flew down on Saturday) and Isaiah, and Haylee, and Lauren, Noah and Jude.  What fun!  The boys each got to pick out a pumpkin (or strange squash, as Iain decided to choose), and played games, did a hay ride, and pet animals.  

Cory's shining moment came after we had already left the petting zoo.  He told me, "Me pet black bonny.  Me hold him."  So back we went to the petting zoo, and he did indeed hold and pet the black bunny.  This is significant because Cory has a fear of anything that moves and has fur.

When we got done with everything at the house, we went down for one last walk-through.  I took a picture of Iain under our tree.  My mom gave us this tree as a first anniversary present.  Here it is Christmas of '04, all decked out in Christmas bows.  Can you even see it?

And here it is now.  

Heading back to Georgia...

It is absolutely beautiful here.  The leaves are changing colors and falling and the air is chilly and damp.  It's rainy.  When the sun shines, it actually feels good, instead of like it's baking you alive.  Can you tell I'm loving my first Georgia fall?  The boys are, too (all three of them!).  I made the mistake of letting the boys gather leaves to bring down for Nona (my mom) and Nan (my grandmother) and now every time we go outside, they want to gather leaves.

They give them to me constantly, with the sweetness of boys bringing flowers to their mama.  But if I casually drop them, hoping no little eyes see, they fuss at me to go get my leaf an put it in the car or the house or wherever we're going.  Otherwise the wind might blow it away!  (Hello kids, there are three thousand leaves all over our yard!  We can get another one!)  So we have leaves.  In the car.  In the kitchen.  In the bedrooms.  They are completely enthralled and fascinated by the leaves.

Iain: Here Mama, here's a leaf for you!

Me: That leaf is from a tree called a Tulip Poplar.

Iain: (thoughtfully) Tulip Poplar.

(A few minutes later, Iain brings me another leaf, this one torn in half)

Iain: Look Mama, is this one called a one-lip poplar?

And a few times, it's even been cold enough for footies!

On a recent walk at the lake nearby: (It's so hard getting a good shot of these jokers!)

Jumping boys:

Look at that Iain jump!

I love Canada geese!  And so do my boys.

Tell me it's not gorgeous here?

My fellas:

Cory's answer to almost any question: foh-ev-erh. (forever)

Me: Cory, why did you throw your cup?

Cory: Forever.

Jeremy: Cory, do you want some grapes?

Cory: No, forever.

And on it goes.

The boys loved getting dressed up for our church's Pumpkin Party.  Cory was a cowboy, and Iain was a "Super Policeman" (he has a cape on).  Jeremy and I were "Tired Garage Sale Putters-On."  

That's right, we had our second (much less successful) adoption benefit garage sale at our house last Friday and Saturday.  We made $216 for both days.  And we got fingerprinted on Friday, too!  And after we closed down on Saturday, we raced to the pumpkin party, which boasted bounce houses, games, hot dogs, tons of candy, and little pumpkins to decorate.  The boys' favorite thing was the little putt-putt game.  They didn't even want to go get candy!  As we were getting into the car to haul our tired selves back home, Iain said, "This was the best day ever!"

And there you have it.  I had many more funny stories to share, but they've all disappeared from my mind.  I'm sure the boys will give me more tomorrow!

Rwanda Bracelets

These are the doors to the "HH" Orphanage in Kigali, Rwanda. (I'm calling it HH so as not to post its real name, out of sensitivity to the people who live and work there.)

This is the orphanage from which we will adopt our baby girl.

She may already be behind those doors.

***

Introducing the Rwanda:Hope bracelets!  Colored blue, like the distinctive doors, these bracelets can remind you to pray: for our little girl, for the others behind those doors, for Rwanda's orphans, for Africa's orphans, for the world's orphans.  

If you'd like to buy a Rwanda:Hope bracelet, please say so in a comment, or email me at HopeNotes.kab (at) gmail (dot) com.  Obviously, you'll have to replace the (at) with @ and the (dot) with .

Suggested donation for the bracelets is $3 each and all proceeds go to our adoption.  We ordered them and we'll be mailing them out, so you can get them directly from us.

I think Iain's telling you to buy five!  (Really, he did this when I said to model the bracelets.  I guess that's what models do.)

Adoption Update!

Yesterday was a big day.  We finally got our finalized home study in the mail! 

Here's a quick summary of what is going on: We had to do the home study and be approved, and then we have to send the completed home study, an application, and a fee to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services).  They send us an appointment for fingerprinting, and then we wait 2-12 weeks for the approval.  (Some people get theirs in two weeks; the website says 90 days.  It seems that the average is 5 weeks.)  During this time, we'll be working on the rest of the dossier (which we've been doing all along).

When we get that approval, called the I-171H, hopefully everything else in the dossier will be done, and we'll send the whole thing in to our agency for approval.  They send it to the embassy, and then it goes on to Rwanda!

When it gets to Rwanda, we have our longest wait: 3-6 months is the estimate at this point.  Then we receive from Rwanda an approval that we can adopt.  Two months after that comes the Big Day: the referral!  That's when we find out who our precious girl is and get to put a face to the love we already have for her.  Then (I think) about 1-2 months after that, we get to go pick her up.  That's the real Big Day.  So we're looking at May-October of next year before we get to bring our baby home.  We're hoping for May. :)

So here's where we are:

We sent in the I-600A application on September 21, with the fee, but without the home study.  We thought the home study would be right behind it, but due to several delays that tried my patience and tested my Christian virtue it was late.  Yesterday it arrived!  Jeremy and I immediately checked it out for any errors.  The ones we found were mostly grammatical (yes, we're snobs), but there was one that gave us pause.  

Although we're requesting a little girl age 0-12 months, we worded the home study to read 0-2 years (we'll still get a younger child; this is just to avoid legal issues).  But the last paragraph of the home study said in one sentence 0-18 months, and in the one following it 0-2 years.  After a call to our social worker and then one to our wonderful family coordinator from AWAA (our agency), and then two more calls to our social worker, we got it taken care of.  The problem: it was 5:20pm.  Other adopting parents will feel our pain here: how could we lose another day?  I had to get it mailed today!  So Jeremy graciously fed the boys dinner while I rushed to the only post office near us that is open until 6:00.  Whew!  I made it with minutes to spare and our home study should have arrived today or will arrive at USCIS tomorrow!  Blessed day!

Are you still reading?  Then you are committed!

Our fingerprint appointment is for Friday, which is wonderful.  Then everything will be at USCIS and we'll be waiting for them to process our documents while we finish up the dossier.  Hurray!

Tomorrow, check back for our adoption fund-raisers update.

Apple Picking Day

What a wonderful way to welcome my very favorite season!  We ushered in fall by driving up to Sky Top Apple Orchard to meet up with the cousins for autumnal fun.  We picked apples, played in the bamboo forest, enjoyed the sunshine and the sweet, juicy apples: the best I've ever had.  How simply delightful to pick an apple right from the branch and eat it as you walk along the rows of trees, with the smell of warm grass and the dappled sunshine enhancing every bite.

Look at these apple-loving boys!  Iain's got one in each hand. 

Rome apples - so tasty!

Jenna and Isaiah drove up with us, which was very nice as the drive took an hour and a half longer than we had anticipated.  Iain and Cory especially enjoyed being with the cousins, whom they love dearly.  Iain ate three apples during the day, and when I didn't see him chomping down, all I saw of him was his back as he ran off with one cousin or another to play.

Iain and Sam:

What a handsome fella!

Did he stop running all day?  I don't think so.

Sweet Cory ate his one apple and loved it.  He kept slipping on all the apples on the ground and winding up smelling a bit fermented from the apple mush.  He especially liked plopping the apples into the bushel.  He also loved jumping on sticks.  He skipped his nap and did wonderfully, although he was a little more snuggly than usual.  (We have in the past few weeks gotten to the point where he only has his pacifier for naptime and nighttime.  But the poor little guy was so sleepy, I let him use it during this time too.)

Yummy!

Cory and Mama being a flower:

Cassie, Cory, and Sam in the playhouse:

Cassie and Cory in the bamboo:

What a beautiful place!
Iain, Jenna, Aunt Steph and Isaiah:

The gang's all here!

Iain-isms To Brighten Your Day

A song by Iain:

Geez-oh-lee goes to the farm
She sees a puppet that she wanted
It was a bunny in a pen
She didn't know what to do!

Iain: (playing with chalk) I want more chalk!
Me: You have enough chalk, and if you say it like that again, you're done.
Iain: Are you sure that's how the story goes?

Iain: I call heads gibbies.  Whenever I see a head, I say, "It's a gibby!"

Iain, hopping around with a slinky: I am jumping up mountains and breaking rocks with my telescope hammer! (How's that for creative?)

Names

Iain and his creative "bee-nocu-lers"

Iain's choices for names for his new little sister: Cat Girl, Bear Girl, and my favorite, Moon Chip Brannon

Name of our book giveaway winner: Shannon!  (Thanks for sharing your great story!  But it was a random drawing, not based on the merit of the story, like I promised.)  Thanks everyone who entered, and especially those who shared a story!

Congratulations, Shannon!  I'll be getting that book to you soon!

Any other baby name ideas?  We can't really name her Moon Chip, right?

The Garage Sale of the Century!

Yesterday was The Big Day - our huge, church-wide yard sale benefitting our adoption.  We had been collecting donations from people at church and friends of friends for a few weeks and storing it in our garage and basement (which were both packed!).  I did three runs with our minivan (sans seats) to the house of the boss of a woman from church, and packed the van full two of the three times.  People dropped stuff by our house, and brought it to church.  Jeremy did some furniture runs with our van a few times, and with a borrowed truck and trailer. 

On Thursday and Friday, all day long both days, we sorted and priced stuff in our driveway.  Some people from church (thankfully) showed up to help - there was SO MUCH STUFF.  I have no idea how it even fit in our garage/basement.  It was incredible.  This isn't even half of it:

The boys had fun both days playing with all the donated toys!

And some of their own:

Then at six in the morning on Saturday, a few dedicated souls braved the chilly, damp weather and helped us load it all up in a truck, a big trailer, and two SUVs.  Even with all that room, it took about four trips to get it all to the site of the sale.  We had the use of a big parking lot on the corner of two pretty big roads - a prime location, and we were so thankful for it!  Setting up was so chaotic: trying to sort and move things and set it all up and price the last few things... all the while people were shopping early.  One lady arrived before it was light and stayed for hours, until the last load was brought over from a storage unit.  She just piled up her purchases next to my van until she was done!

We grilled hot dogs and sold lemonade and cookies/brownies, too.  We had people there constantly, almost always at least five to ten people, sometimes many more, at one time.  People from church helped with manning the sale, too, which was so wonderful.  

We had our share of strange or rude people, but so many more that were excited about what we were doing.  Lots of people told us to keep the change, and a few people gave donations over the cost of their purchases.  Two families didn't buy a thing, but gave us money anyway!

When we finally decided to shut down the sale (despite a few people still shopping), it was four pm.  By the time we had gotten everything packed up and back to our house, it was after five.  After a long, exhausting, but fun day, we totaled up the money.  Thanks to the generosity and help of friends, and most of all the blessings of the Lord, we made $2000!  Every penny of it will go toward bringing our little girl home.  Thanks everyone for helping, for giving your stuff and your time, and for praying!  We're one step closer today!