Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Merry Christmas!


This was an incredible Christmas for our family. We were so excited about our first Christmas as parents and Kiir was excited to see what he would find under the tree. He wanted to shake the boxes and guess. I told him we didn't play a guessing game because if he guessed right it wouldn't be a surprise. That didn't stop him from still shaking them and asking questions. :)

On Christmas morning, he got to partake in a tradition Kelly and I started a few years ago of only giving each other 3 gifts to symbolize the 3 gifts the wise men brought Jesus. At first he thought this was a little unfair...only 3 presents?! However, after we explained that they would always be good gifts and that his grandparents did not abide by this rule, all was okay. From us, he got his senior ring, a Bible with his new name engraved on it, and wait for it....a nerf gun. He and Kelly were very excited about the last one and decided to make it a tradition to always get a new nerf gun each Christmas. His senior ring was a nice way to be able to show him how proud we are of his hard work in school to be able to graduate this year.

For Christmas Eve, we went over to Nana & Papa's house. Kiir got to play video games with his uncle Shane and go do some last minute shopping with him too! That afternoon, we got to watch Miracle on 34th Street and introduce that tradition to Kiir. Then we ate and opened presents. It was a nice and relaxing time with all of them. Kiir's favorite part was that he got a new pair of soccer cleats from Nana & Papa!On Christmas day, we got to wake up, look in stockings and eat breakfast pizza casserole. Then we opened presents. It was a cherished first Christmas together for all of us! After we got ready, we went over to grandma & grandpa's house. We opened presents with them and Kiir screamed like a little kid when he opened an Xbox game because that meant that he got an Xbox. We had a fun time hanging out with Kelly's immediate and extended family: eating, playing basketball, and ending with the traditional game of spoons. It was a wonderful Christmas. The best part was as we drove out of the driveway on our way home Kiir said "I feel like a millionaire." "Why," I asked. "Because I got everything for Christmas off of my list! That's never happened before!"

The three of us are looking forward to many more Christmas' to come!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Making it Official

"Children are a heritage from the LORD,
offspring a reward from Him."
Psalm 127:3

December 21 was an amazing day for not just us, but our families too. In all domestic adoption cases, you have to go before a judge before you can have all of the legal rights as a parent. Most of the time, the child has to be in your home for 6 months or more before you can do this. However, most people that know us know that we don't ever do anything the way your supposed to do it! See, Kiir turns 18 on January 1st and we had to consummate the adoption before his 18th birthday. So after only a little over 2 months, we were standing before the judge. It was so wonderful to have so many family members with us: Kelly's parents & sister, my parents & grandparents; along with our case manager and CPS workers that have been with us along this journey. The judge was so great. He even let us take pictures with him! Here are a few more:


And of course, we had to take some goofy ones too!

It was a fun and happy day...especially after the court hearing. We got to goof off in the lobby (as you can see), sign the official decree stating that we are now Kiir's legal parents, and then go out to eat at Esperanza's for breakfast! YUM! After that, we spent the day celebrating the Carson family way: we went to the theater to watch a 3D movie. :) After that, we went to half price to look around and then came back home again and hung out. It was such a wonderful day that Kiir decided to start calling it "Happy Kiir Day"! Happy Kiir Day is now going to be an annual event and is already on the calendar for December 21, 2011. Here is a last picture (and our favorite) to commemorate the day:


Monday, December 20, 2010

Anticipation

For most "soon to be" parents, I would assume they anticipate the day that they would get their first sonogram, followed by the day that the labor pains begin and they are rushing off to the hospital to deliver their first born child. For us, this anticipation took a different form. We anticipated our adoption agency picking out a child for us, followed by getting to read a short paragraph about him. Then we would get to meet him, shake his hand, hug him. Next he would get to decide if he wanted us as parents and then move in. After a few months of getting to know each other and bond, we would get to go before a judge and become his parents. That day is tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will get to show Kiir how much we love him, care about him and want to be there for him for the rest of his life. Today he and I got to spend a lot of time just hanging out together. I asked him what he was looking forward to most and he said "getting to go out to eat afterward." I then asked what he was not looking forward to and he said "having to see a judge and wearing a tie and suit." It must be such an odd thing getting new parents at the age of 17. I can't imagine all of the things he might be thinking. However, I do know that he is happy about tomorrow and that makes me smile. At 8:30am, we will get to tell a judge that we want to be Kiir's parents and after about 15 minutes, it will be official. That must be the shortest labor pains in history! Hahaha

I am so excited, I honestly do not know how well I will sleep tonight! As I type I'm drinking a cup of mint tea to help me relax, but I don't think it's working. However, it's getting late and I better head that way. So, good night, sweet dreams and I'll post about tomorrow and for the first time, get to upload pictures so stay tuned!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Thanksgiving and more...

I know, Thanksgiving has come and gone a long time ago. However, we have been so busy that I have not had free time to sit down and blog about it! So here it goes:

We took our first road trip as a family to the great town of Brownwood, Texas! Yes, I know that Kiir's friends were so envious of this trip and so he told everyone he met where we were going...lol. Just kidding. He did think it was cool that we were going "to the country" as Kelly put it, but when we got there he wanted to know where all of the cows and horses and chickens were. Kelly had to explain that while this was considered "the country" to him, it's really a big "small town."

That weekend, Kiir got to spend time with family and meet some he had never met before. We celebrated Meme's 75th Birthday and ate Thanksgiving food. Kiir thought the best part was eating all of the food, along with playing domino's with his Uncle Shane & cousins Ryan & Laurie.

The most special part of the weekend was that Kiir called me mom for the first time...well kind of! When they were playing dominoes, Kiir caught them cheating and he told them he was going to make them stop by telling his mama and then proceeded to scream "MAMA" across the house! I will say it wasn't what I had expected to be called, but my heart warmed ever so hearing those words be called to me!!! Since then he has called me mom several times and yes, my heart melts each and every time. :)

For Thanksgiving this year, we were able to host it and have family over to our house. Since we had the traditional Thanksgiving meal just a few days prior, we decided we would cook a brisket w/fixings that day instead. Come 11am when Kiir was looking around the kitchen, he wanted to know where all of the food was. When I explained what we were eating he got really sad and disappointed at the fact that we weren't having the same food he got to eat earlier that week. I felt so bad and promised him that we would eat that for Christmas! He insisted that was not early enough for him. However, after eating the BBQ, he decided that he LOVED potato salad...so much so that the next day when we ate leftovers, he called his Papa to figure out why he took Kiir's favorite part of the meal home with him instead of leaving it! LOL It was a nice time of making memories with family.

The next day (or really at 10pm that night), we got to introduce Kiir to another tradition: Black Friday Shopping. He had heard of this "crazy thing", but never taken part. Kelly's mom has been doing this for over 10 years and we have tried to use this day to shop for every family member in one shot through this organized chaos. Kiir decided this was going to be worth at least seeing one time. So we geared up and left our house around 9ish to head over to Arlington. When we got to Kelly's parents house, we got a game plan of what stores we would go to and what gifts we were getting. Kiir had fun just looking at the ads and picking out things he wanted! At 2am, we made our way back to the house with some coffee & hot chocolate and Kiir fell asleep. We decided to give him a break when we went back out 2 hours later, but then woke him up for some other shopping early that morning. When we got home in time to eat an early lunch, he decided that he had changed his mind about this midnight shopping! People were crazy and it was cold! He decided that he would rather be at home in bed next year...but then added that if he got to shop for himself it might be more fun! Hehehe

All in all, it was a wonderful week of hanging out with family and making memories. More to come soon!