on our way...

as the kids and i embark on our tour de south east, otherwise known as the lampoon vacation of 2010, we are also actively opening new doors as we close old one's. our home in charlotte has sold, and we are preparing to break ground on the house in pennsylvania. as two children and their boundless energy just about wear me out daily, i am happily reminded that there will soon be a third. we are officially contracted with our adoption agency and preparing our dossier documents for translation for haiti! yay!!!

what else could possibly be on our plates at the moment, of course, yes - that's right - we're spending the summer traveling. we spent a week in pennsylvania with dad, and have just finished up the dc leg of our trip. thank you moira, kris, kate, maria, charlie, liam, becca, fin, ellen, ella, anne, doug, kimrey, and kiran for a wonderful couple of days with friends! we really appreciate your hospitality and warm hugs! now that we are going to be closer, we are really looking forward to seeing you all more often!

we're in raleigh for a few days to visit more friends and then on to orlando and sarasota. then a brief stop through st. augustine and charlotte before we land in pittsburgh to finish the summer off and prepare for school.

in the mean time, more dolls are in the works! i'll post photos soon! big hugs to all keeping up with us this summer!

we BUSTED A MOVE!

just prior to our trek north we had a rad little part-ay! check it!

carolina blue sky, welcome your newest little friends...

we're emptying the home we've spent the last 4.5 years building. we're taking a great leap ourselves, just as we see our newest little baby birds start anew themselves. for the last few weeks we've been preparing, as have they. i will miss their craning little necks and yellow beaks opening for feeding while i watered the plants. but momma has fed them well, just as our house has fed us, but we are all now ready to call somewhere else our home. i find it amazing and awesome that we have been able to experience their little eggs hatch and the babies grow. it is better even now that we are listening to the echo of music from my computer bounce off the barren walls of our home, and i see that a heavy rain has washed away the empty cavern that protected their growth and i know that they have left and moved on. no, i certainly don't expect the house to disappear and be reabsorbed into the earth upon our exodus, however it is a beautiful thing to know that our time has ended and we too are stepping out into the world again to find our way.

a few years back we wrote to our loved one's in a statement printed for our wedding. we wrote about our hopes for change and what it would bring - a new home, a new job, and a baby. well, this time we're writing to say that we've hurdled all we've hoped here and a bit more. as we move on to the next round: here's to a good long successful stretch in pittsburgh for us and a lovely blue sky for those little birds we have loved over the last few weeks. i hope the new owners see our note and put a plant in their favorite corner of the deck.

big hugs to all here in north carolina. after living here four times now, perhaps it's best to say see you soon!

Dolly Drive

I am participating in an extremely rewarding project - A Dolly Drive. This wonderful project is the idea of a beautiful soul named Sarah Hanson. The goal of the project is to make and give a doll to each child in orphanages around the world. My personal goal is to take 500 to an orphanage in Haiti. I will be donating a gaggle of dolls to the current Haiti orphanage project for the Dolly Drive as well. I am committed to making 25 dolls a week, and so far am on target.

If you like to sew and would like to participate, please let me know! If you don't have time, or don't sew, there are still many ways to help or participate. I am using scraps to sew and stuff these little gems, and every little bit helps! These dolls are not for sale. If you would like me to make one on your behalf, I am happy to gift it to a child for you. Please write a personal message that can be tied to the doll's arm, and please specify the kind of doll you would like to sponsor (boy or girl).

Please click on the Dolly Link posted here on my blog for more information on Sarah's Dolly Drive. I will post photos and video when I return from Haiti after delivering the bundle to the kids!

on our way...

two more days until our biometrics scanning appointment (the fancy term for fingerprinting) with the fbi. we're at this point, already/finally, which ever way we feel at any given moment; and we're almost through our third major hurdle for the adoption.

with the many years of waiting behind us, it is almost as if we've just found out we're pregnant again. the hopeful moments of testing, and the result will arrive in a positive when we receive a photo and description of our little boy. then will be the day that we visit and sooner will come the day when we have to leave him behind. like the day you see your child's heartbeat for the first time on a monitor, and you anticipate every appointment you will have to view the little face and limbs through a sonogram in the future. we will leave and achingly anticipate visiting again soon. but he will have to stay. he will have to be there, with what he knows, but alone in the world too. and i know i will ache internally. my heart will moan because he is not under it, but he is in it. i can not hold him. i can not nurse his wounded knees when he falls. i can not wipe away his tears.

inside of two years, and hopefully inside of one, we should be able to bring our little boy home.

for now we do the work, we do the planning, we learn his native tongue, and we learn about him - we teach him about us, and we wait. we wait. we wait some more. we watch every storm that will brew in the waters near the island of hispaniola and we hope that he continues to live safely, detached physically, but emotionally completely in tact in our hearts - until the day we can bring him home.

oh can i have the patience? i might explode.

came across this today - and love it!

Love Is Love No Matter Who You Find It In.
♂ + ♂ = ♥
♀ + ♀ = ♥
♀ + ♂ = ♥

new stuff...

warhol anyone?