Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Thank Your for your Prayers and Support...


This has been a very difficult week for my family. When I arrived here in Kansas City and saw my Grandmother, it was clear that we needed to get her to the emergency room. She has reached the place with her illness where she no longer wants to eat and she is very weak. She was in the hospital for 2.5 days receiving iv treatments and was evaluated by the doctors. I slept in the hospital with her one night and my Aunt the next. I am blessed by the night I was able to spend alone with my Grandmother.
Despite all of my Aunt's efforts, we knew that we needed help. We engaged hospice and they delivered a hospital bed and some other items that will be needed to enable my Grandmother to stay in her home yesterday. Today we meet with the hospice nurse. My Grandmother now requires 24 hour a day care. We are trying to keep her comfortable, her cancer has traveled to the bones in her side and she is in a lot of pain.
I am very grateful that I have such a strong and wonderful family. And that includes members who are not related by blood, but are family just the same. I have learned in this life that family isn't defined by genetics and my family includes many who do not share my dna.
A very special thank you to my Aunt Karen who does not read this blog. I wouldn't have made it though this week without you. And to Margaret who does read it, thank you for being there this week and helping us get to where we are today. Because of you, I will be able to return home and know that my Aunt and my Grandmother are in the best situation possible right now.
Thank you to my blog sisters who have showered me with strenght and love through your e-mails and comments. I sit most days in my Aunt's office right next to my Grandmother's room so I can hear if she wakes up. I sit here and read your comments and e-mails to pass the time and give me strength.
Thank you Robin. I love you. You are such a wonderful friend. Thank you for constantly sending me information and keeping in touch all throughout the days.
To my Aunt Pam who does not read this often: I love you and you are doing a great job and you are strong enough to lead our family. I am so sorry that I live so far away and that this is all on your shoulders.
It will be just you and me for a while until our children are fully grown, we'll walk together in this life and my Mother and Grandma will walk together in heaven. But we can make it and they will help us.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Please Keep Us In Your Prayers...My Grandmother is not doing well.

I am sorry I haven't been able to blog very much. I am in Kansas City and my Grandmother is not doing well. Her cancer has spread to her spine and she is in considerable pain. The medication for the pain makes her nautious, so she won't eat. She weighs around 83 pounds right not. Her pain medication makes her loopy, so she requires 24 hour a day care which my two aunt's have been trying to provide. We are now wondering if she needs hospitalization because we are worried about dehydration and malnutrition as she won't eat anything unless you feed it to her and even then it's next to nothing. We have a difficult time ahead of us.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Christmas Eve...Let the Madness Begin!

Well...here we go! This morning I am leaving for my FIL's home to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. On Christmas morning I am driving 2 hours to be back home by noon to celebrate at home with all of our children. I make Christmas dinner and we open presents, then it's off to Tim's Aunt's home to celebrate with our extended family. And then bright and early on the day after Christmas, we are loading up the minivan and heading to Kansas City to visit with my family.

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and thank you for your friendship, support and prayers over this past year. Your cards and photos of your beautiful children are displayed so happily in our home. God Bless You!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

My Daughter is Alive this Christmas...

This is a very hard Christmas for me this year. We are in a place in our journey where I know my daughter is alive and I am pretty certain she is in her orphanage waiting. I cannot tell you how emotional I have been over this. The tears have just overwhelmed me. I pray that God sends angels to comfort her, I pray there is heat in her orphanage, I pray that somehow she knows she is loved. I pray she holds on. I pray that someone who passes by her feels the need to smile at her and hold her. I hope that a mother from somewhere has sent a box or left a donation with warm clothing and blankets so she has something to keep her warm. Everything feels wrong, I have her stocking but cannot hang it. I was too late to order her 3rd 'Waiting for Sophia' ornament, so now I have none. I have several Christmas dresses because I don't know what size she will wear and black patten Mary Janes..I was so certain she would be home this year.
I hope that from across the world, somehow she senses me....like I sometimes sense her.
I love you babygirl, hold on.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Sorry Everyone... No Sat Chat Tomorrow.


Ladies, I am officially on the run from now until Christmas. Tonight we are on our way towards Detroit to stay with some dear friends who are the parents of our Goddaughter Savannah, our sweet Olivia and new baby Isabella. Then we are off to my FIL's on Saturday to help bring some Christmas cheer to his home since my SIL is coming up from Kansas to spend the holidays with him. It's just a whirlwind! Tis the season!
Thank you to everyone who has blessed our home with Christmas cards, they are all hanging in the archway between our kitchen and living room and are wonderful!

Eli and Santa!!

Well let me tell you, this was one very excited little boy last night! We went through Macy's at the mall to get to where Santa was greeting the children. Eli told everyone along the way that he was going to see Santa and he wasn't quiet about it. Here he is when first got to Santa's Meeting Place...look at that smile!


Here he is waiting for the family ahead of us to finish visiting with St. Nick.

He was very comfortable this year climbing onto Santa's lap and telling him what he wants for Christmas.

After seeing Santa, we went back into Macy's to mail our letter to Santa and make sure that it gets to the elves at the North Pole. Eli loved the special mailbox.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The Christmas Spirit Award


THANK YOU SO MUCH TO JUJUBOO FOR THIS WONDERFUL AWARD!

As I'm sure that most of you know, I love Christmas, so this is an award that I'm really excited about. It comes with rules....so they are listed below:


The Rules are simple:
*You must be a true Christmas lover to receive this award.
*The person to whom you give the award must also be in love with Christmas.
*You must link back to the person who gave you the award.
*You must list 5 things that you love about Christmas.
*Pass the award along to as many people as you like. That can be 1 or 45; it's up to you. But, you must pass it on to at least one person in order to keep the Christmas cheer going!
*Let your recipients know that you have tagged them by leaving them a comment on their blog.

5 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT CHRISTMAS

-I love knowing that God loved me enough to send his son to save me.
-I love Christmas decorations, the lights, the village, the bells that play 12 Christmas carols, the tree......
-I love Christmas music, I listen to it all of the time during the holidays. I love the classics and the new!
-I love watching the same Christmas shows on television with my children that I watched when I was little.
-I love always telling my children that I believe in Santa Claus and I always will!

Who should I give this award to.....well, I decided to give it to everyone who decorated their blogs for Christmas and I started going through all of the blogs I follow and writing everyone down, but there are so many of you fabulous Christmas Chicks out there. So...if your blog is all jazzed up for the holidays, this award is for you!!! Please take it and post it on your blogs...or I'll have to spend hours listing everyone :)

Monday, December 15, 2008

Our Christmas Village...

How do you know that someone has a 4 year old? There is a Pirates of the Caribbean action figure on their Christmas Village train.



The Christmas Village is very special at our house. The kids can't wait to open up all of the boxes and put everything together. Our pieces are from all over, I don't keep to one collection, I am more interested in finding unique pieces that will complete our village. This year we had some wonderful additions. The train station above is one of them.


Grandpa gave us some wonderful new pieces.


I really love our new fire station.


Santa's Workshop

Our second church.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Card and Ornament Exchange Lists...


There are 19 ladies signed up for the exchanges, I am working to get the lists to you all today in e-mail. Thank you so much for signing up, I think it's going to be a lot of fun this year.

***IF THERE IS ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE THE HALLMARK 'JOY AROUND THE WORLD' ORNAMENT FOR CHINA THAT DEBUTED LAST YEAR AND SOLD OUT, LET ME KNOW...I HAVE ONE THAT I CAN EXCHANGE.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Sunday..

Good Morning Everyone and Welcome to the Saturday Morning Chat Group!

Good Morning Everyone! Welcome to the Sat Chat. It's going to be a short one today...we are visiting friends whose son Jacob is having a birthday party today. We need to be at their home about an hour away by noon. Eli is so excited! He loves to go to birthday parties.

I think I'm going to put out a last shout for the CARD AND ORNAMENT EXHANGES. If you would like to join in please e-mail me asap, I am going to e-mail all participants on Sunday so that they can get their cards and ornaments out.


Linda at 'Parker's Paradise' has a new Granddaughter who will be home from China soon, please visit her blog and leave your Congratulations. I am so happy for you and your family Linda!

Also, our dear friend Lala and Annslee should be home very soon with little Coby, their blog is 'Ladybugs and Dragonflies'.

I AM CLOSING THE CHATROOM EARLY TODAY. WE ARE ATTENDING A BIRTHDAY PARTY AT 12 NOON TODAY :) HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND EVERYONE!

Friday, December 12, 2008

What does it take to make 3 boys smile?....Christmas Card Bloopers

I kinda liked this one, but Tyler wasn't looking into the camera and Zach looks twisted.

Ok, is it just me...or does Zach actually look pregnant in this one? We laughed and laughed when we saw it.

This one was ok.

Tyler's looking away from the camera, Eli has his cheeser smile and Zach looks expecting again....
Yeah, look at that...Tyler looks good finally, but the other two are a total bust~

All in all we took well over 30 pictures and did get one good shot. You all will be seeing it in your Christmas cards :)

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Have a Great Wednesday Everyone!

This morning is going to be crazy, I have to get Tyler in to the ortho at 8:10am and then get him to school and me to work. Hopefully the rest of the day will be pretty mellow. We should probably take Eli in to see Santa tonight so that I have some photos to send to you all in my Christmas cards!

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Fun With Friends...Eli's Girls


On Sunday we went to the Children's Museum to meet some friends and have some fun. We met Katie and Ella from 'Living My Dream' and Josie from 'The Kenward Blog'. We had a fantastic time and Eli didn't want to go home.


Here is Eli in the triangle mirrors.


Katie is catching Josie at the bottom of the slide. Josie was a little hesitant at first to go down the slide, but Eli and Katie helped her.

The ball pit was a big hit!

Josie going down the slide all by herself. Looks like I got this picture with her eyes almost closed..I'm not a great photographer :)

Katie really having fun!

Ella in the sandbox.


I love this picture because it really shows a man and a woman. Eli's got the steering wheel and Katie's got the money!!!

Monday, December 08, 2008

Sign Up for the Christmas Ornament and Card Exchanges!


Hi there everyone! 16 ladies have signed up to participate in the card and ornament exchanges. Not everyone is participating in both, you can choose to participate in just one of the exchanges if you like.

I will be sending out the addresses on December 16th. For those of you in the card exchange, I will be sending out a list of addresses and you will need to send a card to everyone on the list. For those of you in the ornament exchange, I will send each participant one address and you will be sending your ornament to the person whose address you receive.

It is still not too late to sign up, so if you would like to participate, please send me an e-mail at timnkim@gmail.com with your name and address and which exchange you would like to be a part of or both.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Sunday...

Eli's Birthday Photos

Eli had a lot of fun on his birthday. He opened his presents pretty early in the morning and played with them non-stop until nap time.

Eli received quite a few super hero gifts which he loved, he has really made a change in the toys he enjoys and it is super heroes all the way! He received some Transformers, Superman and Batman toys that he would not put down.

He saw this laser gun at Crackerbarrel when we were there after driving home from Grandpa's house on Thanksgiving and loved it, so we bought and got it out of the store without him seeing it. Man is it loud, but he loves it!

Eli and Zachy.


Eli and Ty Ty.


The Transformer cake!


Taking in a deep breath to blow out the candles!


I told him to make a wish and gave him some examples of what a wish was and he chose to wish that his little sister would come home.