Being Silly With Dad Before School

First Day of School!

Uncle John

This is the first time Katie has seen her Uncle John who lives in the beautiful State of North Carolina. His buddy Jake was kind enough to take the picture of all of us. She didn't want to have too much to do with him until he had to leave and then she wanted him to hold her. I think she was fascinated by his mustache and beard :) Next time he needs to bring Erin with him!

The first day of school is tomorrow for us. Cody heads off to highschool where he will be at the bottom of the food chain as a freshman. Taylor is off to 2nd grade where I am sure she will rule the roost as she did last year. We will post pics of the first day of school fashions tomorrow.

Family Pics

Bathing Beauty

These pics were taken right before we went to the pool today. She looked too funny with her floppy hat on chasing the dog with a paper towel roll. Ahh, the little pleasures of life...

I threw in some pics of my new hobby of making beaded jewelry. Right now I'm making lanyards for teachers and nurses etc. They have been a hit so far!

The Mackey Grandchildren

Aren't they cute??? Jake, Katie, Cody, Taylor and Lauren.

Good Times!

100 Good Wishes Quilt

Taylor got "the look" when she tried to touch Katie's new quilt. She is VERY protective of it!

I made this for Katie from fabric squares that I exchanged with other adoptive families while waiting for our referral. I have a big one that is still unfinished but I did a smaller one so it would be ready for her when she came home. I wanted it to be bright and colorful and this one is! I decided to pull it out and show it to her yesterday. She went nuts when she saw it - I was so surprised! She sat on it for 20 minutes pointing at all of the the squares and checking out what was in them. You can see in the picture at the top that she does not want ANYBODY touching her blankie. You get the evil eye if you dare put your finger on it. I guess I have to get busy on the big one and get it finished since she likes it so much!

Latest Beach Trip

Stars and Stripes

Walking Tall

Quest For the Card...

***Update*** Her card came today! Is that a record for the fastest service by the US Government?


I mustered up my courage and took all of Katie's documents to the local Social Security Office today to get a SSN for her. What an extravaganza. I had a 30 minute search for parking only to find out that everything is metered and I had no coins on me. I then had to find a store to break a 20 to be told they could only give me $2 in quarters - that was the limit per change request - Grrrrrr. Hoping that would be enough time I sped back to the Federal Building, another 10 minute search for parking and plopped in my quarters for a whopping 2 hours and 40 minutes of metered time.

It's 10 am and my quest started at 9. One hour of wasted time so far... I finally make it into the Federal Building and wait in line for security to search everyone. Finally! 20 minutes of waiting in line and I put my purse thru and alarms start buzzing. "Ma'am, Do you have a cell phone in your purse?" "Yes Sir, I do." " You are forbidden to have cell phones in a Federal Building and you will need to step out of line and take it back to your car immediately."

WHHHHHAAAAATTTTTTT!!!!! Crikey! As Steve Irwin would say. I ran back to my car, which I'm in no shape to be doing and rush back to stand in line again. There goes 40 minutes of my allotted 2 hours and 40 minutes. When I actually got into the SSA office, there were hundreds of people there. I thought there was NO way I was going to be called anytime soon but I took a number and sat down. 1 hour and 15 minutes later my number was called to go stand in another line.

A young Chinese couple were behind me and saw my documents in Chinese and the woman asked me why I had them. I told her we adopted a baby from China. She smiled and thanked me over and over again for doing that. She asked many questions about the process and how we decided China was where we wanted to adopt from and in the end asked me what I knew about Katie's birth parents. I told her we knew nothing and that she was found abandoned at an orphanage gate. She began to cry and apologized to me. She said that she had been born in a very poor rural area in Southern China. She was the youngest of 4 children and that her parents could not afford to take care of her so they gave her to another Chinese family. She said she thinks the families must have been connected in some way but her adoptive parents will not tell her anything about it. We continued to talk and found out that we both had lived in the same small town in Tennessee at one point. That was just amazing to me. What are the chances of us meeting in the Social Security office with two life experience connections? It really is a small world!

Ok... back to the wait. At 12:05 I was called to the window and luckily got the manager of the whole office as my attendant. She took the Certificate of Citizenship, foreign birth certificate, immunization record and adoption decree and my ID, 3 minutes of typing her card was requested! Whoooohoooo! I made it back to my car with 13 minutes to spare. One challenge down, now on to the re-adoption and passport lines!

My Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades!

Clean Drinking Water - China

A few months ago we found out about a program called A Childs Right who goes to impoverished countries and installs water purification systems in schools, orphanages and anywhere else children are that need clean drinking water. In May, this group went to Chongqing, China and installed water systems in several of the orphanages. This is the municipality where Katie was born. Katie's orphanage wasn't one of the ones getting a water system though and I'm not sure her orphanage has as great a need as some of the others in the area.

If you want to see a glimpse of the area where Katie was born and what some of the orphanages are like in addition to pictures of the countryside, just click on the link below then on China 2007. You may have to click on China 2007 twice to bring up the other pictures and scroll through them. There are 184 pictures in all and they show the children, Ayis (nannies) and the teams installing the systems in each of the orphanages. The children are just beautiful! This organization is doing wonderful work and you can find out all about them using the link.
Kim

www.a-childs-right.org/projects.html

Jet Trail After Launch

I guess I've turned into a cloud watcher! A while after the shuttle launched the jet trail it left formed into these cool knots and floated over our house. Pretty neat!

Space Shuttle Launch From Our House

New PJs from Granny!!!

Thanks for the PJ's Granny! We love em!

Lumpy Curtains...

Melbourne Beach for the Holiday

Ready For The Beach!

Ignore the laundry basket on the couch. That's what I should have been doing instead of taking pictures...We are going to the beach for the holiday and I sae this suit for Katie. It's almost too small in the front and a little too big in the back but oh well! It will work for the time being! Enjoy the holiday everyone!