The Story Continues

"Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart."    Psalms 34:7

We are thanking and praising the Lord for giving to us the desires of our heart. We are honored and humbled God would allow us to the privilege of bring another precious child into our family. It is with with full hearts and great joy that we introduce the newest member of our family, Katie Kay Dennis. 

Katherine and began praying for her before we left China in the summer of 2010. The summer the Lord blessed us with Kirby. We wanted to wait until we received our official Referral Acceptance (RA) from The Peoples Republic of China before we shared publicly the answer to our prayers. The call came this past Monday,  April 30th from our agency, AWAA. It is only the latest unexpected twist in a story that only God could and continues to write. 

Please join us as I plan on retracing the steps that got us to this point through a series of blog post as we wait and prepare to return to China later this summer to united with Katie Kay and welcome her into our forever family. 

We covet your prayers during these days, especially for the Lord to protect, comfort and provide for Katie Kay's every need as He equips us with everything we will need to raise her into the Godly women we all desire her to be.

In HIS strong love,

David

"With my mouth I will give thanks abundantly to the LORD; And in the midst of many I will praise Him." Psalms 109:30

Isn't she beautiful !                                               

Katie Kay Dennis
Photo taken on 4/27/2012

 Katie Kay Dennis
Photo taken of 4/27/2012

 

Celebrating our 1st Gotcha Day !

It's hard to believe it was one year ago today that God poured out His grace and blessing upon us; allow us to become Kirby's parents and forever family.

Kirby loves her bothers and does not hesitate grabbing their hands and pulling them to exactly where she wants them and directing them into what ever activity she wants them to participate in. Even though she can distinguish between her identical twin brothers, James & Nathan, she prefers to just call them "guys". David is actually a jungle gym disguised as a big brother who loves to get in the floor and let Kirby climb and play.

Im not sure who actually loves having a sister more, Laura Sims or Kirby. Kirby actually just calls her Sims and that suits her big sister just fine. One of Kirby's favorite things to do is go into Sims' room and look at all of her "wow" clothes.

As for Katherine and I, every day we are humbled, challenged, amazed, thankful, tired, but more than anything, we are reminded how truly blessed we are to be given the joy of raising Kirby. She has captured our hearts in ways which could only be describe as supernatural and we thank God every day for how He has transformed all of our lives through precious little Kirby.

Washington DC on the 4th

Gotha Day - July 26

Kirby fits right in with America's 1st Family

Visiting the Capitol

Kirby and "Pandalow"

Getting "sugar" from Grandma Ann

Gotha Day dinner at New China

Gotcha Day hug from Mommy

Visiting Andria in DC

playing with Granddad Jimmy

July 26 will have additional significance for our family in the years to come. Today is when we signed our I-800A USCIS petition form requesting the US to grant us permission to adopt another little girl from China. We hope to travel in the next 8-16 months to bring home our daughter and would be so thankful for your prayers as we follow God's call and will be required to make some very crucial decisions in the coming weeks and months.

Blessings -

Enjoying her pool

AWAA Adoption Seminar - What a blessing !!!

Pictures Speak Louder Than Words

I hope the following photos will accurately capture better than my words, the joy and blessing the Lord has graced us with by allowing Kirby to be a part of our forever family.

Kirby's First Birthday

Dedicated to the Lord

Oct 24th the sermon was "Spiritual Adoption"

Kirby, Katherine and "Mr. Beason" on
the Samford campus

Born to carry a pocketbook 

It's my Birthday !

Larry our Veggie Tale Christmas Tree ?

A Christmas portrait - 5yrs in the waiting

A Christmas angel

Kirby talks to Ho-Ho

Happy Girl :)

Spiritual Adoption

Kirby was dedicated to the Lord on Sunday Oct. 24, 2010 during the worship services at 1st Baptist Spartanburg. Dr Wilton preached a powerful sermon from God's word using Kirby's adoption as an analogy of how God does the same for all who accept His son Jesus as their Lord and Savior. He also explains how everyone can experience their own "gotcha day" into God's family.

Our prayer is for everyone who watches the video below, they will clearly see God desires to adopt all of us into His family. The phone numbers you see on the video are open 24/7 and I encourage you to call if you have any questions about your relationship with the Lord or if you have any prayer request.

I invite you to share this site with anyone you believe would be blessed by what you have seen here.

God Bless You

Finding our New Norm

We have now been home for 5 and half weeks. The memories of our journey are still so fresh it seems hard to believe its been that long; on the other hand, we have been wide open from Sunday morning August 8th when family and friends started coming by to meet our new princess.

Katherine and I have been overwhelmed by the out pouring of love and acts of kindness since our return. Perhaps this is why it seems we have been home longer than we actually have. Kirby has been truly amazing in her adjusting to all of the changes in her short little life. Simple things like new smells, language, air conditioning, a mom and dad, 2 Jack Russell's, car seat, hardwood floors, big people, a large extended family and more love than any one little girl may have ever received.

Check out our slide show - click on the link in the left margin "Kirby's Story".

Here are some photos from the last several weeks since we've been home:

Eating eggs and peas -
Yumm

Ashly and Kirby in a squealing contest.
 Kirby won

 

Everybody likes sleeping
on Mom !

Kirby with her "boyz"

Granddaddy Jimmy and
Grandma Kay

A small sacrifice to pay -
BIG brothers sitting in
the third seat...

Kirby's favorite PJs - washed
 daily

Playing in the grass

Playing with Grandma Ann's
necklace

Re-Entry and Introductions

Cousin Kathy welcoming us
 home
at Charlotte Airport

We made it home ! What a trip - I think Katherine probably said it best when she compared the journey home to birthing a child; 'its no fun while you are doing it but the end result quickly makes the memory of the pain fade quickly'. We arrived into the Charlotte airport right at 11pm Saturday night and were pleasantly surprised to see cousin Kathy waiting to welcome us and to meet Kirby. She probably didn't realize what a big help she was as we gathered all of our luggage and waited with Kat and Kirby as I went into the night to try a remember where I left our car. Not too much longer, we were under way on our last leg of our trip home. We knew placing Kirby into a car seat for the first time for our 1 1/2 hour drive would not be a good thing especially after being confined for most of the last 30 hours. We nailed this one - about the time we hit Blacksburg, she was done with the car seat and at that time it was much safer for her to ride the rest of the way home on Mom's lap than risk Baba having a wreck.

Kirby meets her brothers and sister
for the very first time.

As we rounded the corner home about 1am, I began to cry as the totality of what God placed in our hearts years earlier was now coming to a point of our forever family meeting for the first time. It is difficult to describe the pure joy and thankfulness I was experiencing but to say the least, it is a time in my life I will never forget - God writes the best stories. As we rolled into the drive way, the first thing we say was a big pink bow on our mailbox and another one on the front door along with a poster made by our children welcoming all of us home. It wasn't until the next day we fully realized many friends had decorated the house and prepared meals for us to last the week - we thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!! We enjoyed about 2 hours together as a complete family before we all fell into our beds and enjoyed a nice comfortable bed and some overdue sleep.

By the time the three travelers woke up, the older children had gotten up and gone to Sunday school and Church. The rest of the day was a very sweet time of family and friends stopping by to meet "the princess" and the answer to their prayers.

We are all close to having our "clocks" reset to EST and Kirby is sleeping almost through the night with the exception of about 30mins to an hour when she needs to get in the in our bed to settle back down before returning to her bed a couple of feet away. This week was a sweet time of getting Laura Sims ready for college and planning our trip this Saturday. We are excited because she is ready for this next step in her journey but obviously will greatly miss my "first princess" sweet daily presence in our home. We love you Laura Sims :) !!!!


Here a a few of our favorite pictures from the week:

Grandma Ann playing "paddy-cake"

Grandma Kay loving on
 her new Grand baby 

Kirby checking out
 Granddaddy's  glasses.

My Queen and two Princesses -
I truly a blessed man !

Kirby's first morning at home -
I think she likes it !

Our first family photo