Greg & Renee are now ENGAGED!

Congrats to Matt's brother Officer Greg & Renee!!! What a great night; they came into the Palm for their engagement dinner and we all sang, "Going to the Chapel" to them as a suprise; it was so great to see them so happy. Zara thought they were very funny too; she came to the Palm and was smiling all night long! She was definitely pleased to hear the good news!

Here she is in the Christmas outfit that Chrissy sent us. Zara said she'd wear it only if she could accessorize the look with her purse given to us by Susan (next door!)

Christmas Visitors are here! Yippeee!!!

Amanda was in town for less than 24 hours and stayed the night with us! The Munch was in rare form!
Today, Saturday, Anthony and Becs arrived from London and baby Zara donned her Christmas outfit... she such a show off!!! LOL
And the Rock brothers down from Hagerstown had private time with her & she loved their attention. Tommy read her favorite book and Jimmy was the photographer extraordinaire!

December 2nd, another big NEWS DAY!

Just recieved in today's mail our katie Zara's Birth Certificate from Kansas. It is surreal seeing our names on it with hers. Now we are racing off to the passport office to get her all hooked up! She seemed indifferent when i told her she'd be getting her passport very soon- as you can see here... super stretchy yawn.

Zara's big news. Happy 4th month bday!

Here is the little munch Zara in her fancy chair that Evey sent her and wearing the handmade beautifully knitted hat from the Ogrens!
She is all kitted out with her fancy new things! We are so lucky; she is doing so well.
Yesterday was her 4th month bday; to celebrate we went to the Doc. poor thing.
She weighs 11 lbs 3 ounces; that is barely over 7 lbs growth since birth! She is 24 inches, so she grew 4.5 inches since her birth. The Doctor gave her more shots and said she is doing perfectly well even though she is in the bottom 6th %tile for weight.

On another note; Chrissie, her birth mom called us and said she is going to be deployed to Cuba for 18 months in Mar 07. Other than that; she sounded pretty upbeat and very positive about her re-enlistment. So this gives us great peace to hear her sounding so good.

Best wishes to all!

Matt and I say thank you Rocks for hosting all of us for Thanksgiving and ...

we hope Aisha and Kiara ahave a smooth flight home and fun St Nicholas Party!

Thanksgiving Week!

Aisha & Kiara are gone and Thanksgiving is over ;-(

Aisha & Kiara caught their flight back to Holland tonight at 6pm; while I was at work. It seemed like it all went so fast. Aisha was amazing and really got around more that i expected and i'm pretty sure more than SHE expected! We even hit the shopping mall; which had provided for free a motorised scooter for her to truck all over the place. It was great loading her up with all the purchases! I may have to try and get one for me the next time i go...really pile on the bundles.... We almost bought Zara the horse! hahaha
I have no idea how Aisha did it all and kept up with the frantic pace of FUN after fun culminating at Thanksgiving Day at the Rocks!!!! Megan was a wonderful host to Kiara and Kiara warmed up quickly with a few verses of her PING and PONG song! Megan and Kiara were wrestling and showing off their own brand of Judo/Tae Kwon do to each other; we laughed so hard. I think Tommy, Matt's 16 year old brother, was the first in line cheering them on! He evidently was HIGHLY amused!
Then we all-- Renee included-whether she wanted to or not!- sang (in English) "Singing in the Rain" with Kiara & her zippy Dutch accent!
We had our first ever deep fried turkey; nice one Matt! The house survived the traditional deep fry Turkey fire; so that was a positive! The food was all superb; butternut squash and homemade apple pies!
Dinner was spectacular and sitting at the table hours later, even after dinner and dessert was served, was the most fun. Baby Zara, Tommy jr and Jack had all since fallen asleep and it was such a nice and relaxed scene!
Here is a smattering of shots from the past 9 days!
and now on to Christmas- as made apparent by FM 97.1 which is a radio station that starts to play ONLY holiday music all the way til the 25th! Gotta love that kind of shameless marketing!

AISHA AND KIARA all the way from Holland!

Zara is 3 and a half months old and she still has wonderful visitors coming to meet her. She is feels so fortunate that Aisha and Kiara made such a great tripThey landed almost 20 minutes early and when Zara and I picked them up from Dulles they had lots of energy! How impressive after such a looong translatlantic flight. Kiara sat next to the car seat and held Zara's hand the whole way home. Kiara is the sweetest Honorary sister!!!

Aisha's blog is http://birdsperch.blogspot.com/ and you can read about their trip!~ Aisha is a cancer survivor and is recovering from a back surgery too, so it was amazing that she made the flight with luggage too!!! I met Aisha in 5th grade in Tunisia 1978! I would say she is probably one of my oldest friends that i'm still get to have in my life!

They brought Zara the cutest Panther outfit...although people keep thinking she's a leopard; either way.. she's very "Versace" in it!

The TISKA'S COME TO TOWN!

Jen Tiska (my college roomie) and her amazing family made the huge trek to DC http://tiskatimes.blogspot.com Jen and her husband Rich are great at bringing their 3 kiddies down to DC often .. they always go to see all the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo! Richard loves the museum where the animals have no skin.. all the fossilized skeletons!

Here we are at the Zoo; even though Zara had no clue where she was; she loved smiling at Sammy, Richard and Rowan!

happy halloween!

nice bat wings!

It's Halloween 2007 and Zara is a BAT!

Go BAT GIRL GO!!!! Jill gave us this fantastically scarrry costume for halloween. Max, her son, will be wearing the same one! We hope to get matching pictures! All the neighbor's kids are out en force! KiKi across the street is a Shrimp Tempura Roll; really cool homemade idea! Here's a couple of snapshots...

Here's "The Munch" at her first hockey game!

With Grandpa Rock!

for some reason this happens be grandpa's and Zara's first photo op!! hard to believe since its CERTAINLY NOT their first meeting by any means!

Oct 20, still nice and warm!

Zara is really responding with smiles and makes quiet sounds with her tiny voice. She is a very good little baby and since she so rarely cries i had to photograph her!

With Galina and Victoria October VISITORS!

Oct 10th; almost 90 degrees; Zara on the water!

Can you see Zara kicking the blanket off her legs while we were waiting on the pier? It was a gorgeous day, it was so nice to have the Worralls on tour with us!

Trishie, Johnny and Vix arrives from England to see ZARA

The Crew from the UK arrives! all sorts of fun and games and touring and shopping and ice cream eating...

Galina arrives from Chicago!

Auntie GAL!!! We had a wonderful time with Katie and Galina! Stella and Brian and everyone over for din din! The next day we went to Alexandria for an Art Festival and Zara slept for 5hours straight!

The FINAL Finalisation DAY! OCTOBER 9th!

Joe Vader and Paula In Kansas called us today (10am Oct 10th) to say that yesterday the Judge in Leavenworth finalized the adoption! Joe and Paula had to work very hard to make it happen because we did not have the orginal document from the birth father; only a faxed notorised copy. Either way, we thanked them so much and are so excited to share our news!

We have had so much fun. Today Zara went to the Palm corporate office and Bruce jr feed her a whole bottle. She felt really loved by everyone ; it was so nice. I went out to lunch with my friend Beth and then decided to go for it and walk all the way home. Took almost 2 hours and the weather was boiling almost 86 degrees; but we both LOVED it! great hike up Conn. Ave!

She had her shots at her two month visit and did very well; although now has the sniffles.

she gained weight and is almost 9lbs!!! ( well 8 1/2- close enough for us)

Laney came to visit and her mom plays with me on my soccer team. I think Zara is definitely going to get a red card for that move!

And there's Kiki (our sweet little neighbor) is in the red tank top holding her "little sister."

Here is my MOM giving one of her walking tours to a group of 25 DC tourists! You can see her showing off her album where she keeps portraits of the famous people she is talking about so that they put a face with the name!