pumpkin patch time

This past Saturday K's playgroup met at the pumpkin patch, our favorite local farm Lone Pine. He had a great time, and probably thought he was in pumpkin heaven. It was a gorgeous, crisp fall morning, and sharing the experience with other adoptive families was wonderful! Joe and I have never actually made it out to their patch, since you have to ride a wagon out and the line to pay is always so long, we typically haven't gotten pumpkins there. But now, our lives are different... Let me say, it was well worth the effort! The patch is beautiful, and I loved how there were random corn stalks and sunflowers about. Perfect setting for fall pictures, and in fact, there were some people we saw out there, posing with their children, no doubt taking pictures for their Christmas cards (holey moley, is it that time already??).

I think at first, he didn't even know where to start. Once he got into the patch, he just ran (well, tried, but the vines running along the ground caused a little stumbling) from pumpkin to pumpkin. (Keep in mind, this is only one small section of the patch, this place is huge!)

When we were waiting in line to purchase our pumpkins, we spotted these beauties:

You may or may not know, carmel apples are just about my most favorite thing on earth! They were hand dipping these guys, right there, made to order! These apples were huge! The picture above is a little over half of the carmel apple, the apple next to it, is a pretty large size Fuji apple (had to get the scale somehow). And yes, it was as good as it looks, but I had to eat it in waves since my jaw would get sore from chewing the delectable carmel.

Foto Finish Friday

OK, so this isn't the greatest photo, and I'm sure Joe is gonna kill me when he sees it, but honestly...it's the ONLY picture we took this week! It's been a crazy week, I've had to work more than I want to, and we've been going, going, going. K has started this new thing where he leads us to something he wants to play with with us. He takes our hand and says, "My... My... My...My". Just about the cutest thing ever, but we have no clue what he's trying to say. Anyhow, he had just done that to Joe in this photo, and he wanted J to play in his ball pit with him.

Joe really was very happy to be playing with K in the ball pit. He wasn't, however, happy that I was taking pictures...probably for this very reason...

Foto Finish Friday

So, I've decided not to post the pictures from the party on here, for privacy reasons. I will be emailing a link to the pictures; if I don't get you an email and you'd like to see the pictures, please leave me a comment. My picture this week is one of our favorites from the party...

Oh yeah...and "Happy Birthday to Me"!

This calls for a Celebration!!

Yesterday we were joined by nearly 50 friends and family members in celebrating the finalization of Kai's adoption. We were once again reminded of our amazing support system we had during those long months of waiting, and rejoiced with them that we are finally done! There was a combination of friends and family present, and even our family and some friends from up north made the trip to be with us. It was a really nice time for everyone to be together, complete with "citizenship" type games, a red-white-and-blue cake, and a bounce house for the kids! Kai did great at his first "big" party, and loved the audiences he could draw with his antics. My friend Robyn graciously acted as our photographer, and got great pictures for us which will have to be posted later after they're organized a bit.

Foto Finish Friday (a few hours late...)

Drinking milk from a big-boy cup...

And proof that he actually did...a little milk mustache!

Further proof was the change of clothes that occured after lunch was over! :-)

It's FINAL!!!

Earlier this week, Joe and I went before a judge, with our lawyer and my parents present as witnesses, and were lawfully pronounced as K's legal parents!!! Now, according to state law, we have the same rights "as if he was born to them in lawful wedlock". The whole proceeding took all of about 5 minutes, but it was still amazing to hear the judge's statement, and know that after almost 2 and a half years, our adoption process is finally complete! He's ours forever and always and no one can take him away!! Having our adoption finalized also made K become a US Citizen, and although our adoption paperwork is complete, now begins the paperwork for his citizenship. Next we'll begin our paperwork for his SSN, passport and COC (Certificate of Citizenship). Even though through adoption laws, once he becomes our child he is a citizen, his adoption decree is not sufficient evidence to prove his citizenship, should we need to for say... a Korean military draft. We can start all this fun after we receive his birth certificate in a couple weeks! And, before I leave you to look at photos of our special day, I wanted to say a special thank you to my parents, who have been tremendously supportive of our adoption, and made the 2 hour journey by 9am to be with us on Tuesday! Thank You Mom & Dad! We love you guys!!

Foto Finish Friday

Playing on his "new" slide. Oh yeah, and GO DUCKS!!!

Foto Finish Friday

OK, so I am totally stealing this idea from other blogs I read, but it's fun and forces me to at least post something every week. Every Friday I will post a picture from the week. It might be something exciting that happened or something that reflects the mood of our house for the week, or something I think is just plain cute. I promise, I will try to be a better blogger and post other stuff too, but at least this way you will all see something every week. :-)

For my first Foto Friday:

Kai sharing his raisins. 

Three big things: he loves raisins, he loves to share his food, 

and he loves to eat from the original package...

progress report (aka Mommy brag)

So proud after climbing into the dining room chair all by himself!

I thought it was past due to give everyone an update on how well our little guy is developing and learning new things. He really is (in our opinion) just about the most brilliant child in the world! So, without further ado, here is the scoop:

- He is now saying about 20 words (not all understood by other people other than Joe and I), including some of his recent favorites: choo-choo (as in train, specifically, Thomas the Tank Engine, his new best friend), Willie, poo-poo (thanks to Daddy), and drawing (no joke, last night he and Joe were looking at his coloring book, and he kept saying it, clear as day!). 

-He uses about 6-7 signs regularly and appropriately, including "please", and we're working on "thank you".

- He is feeding himself with finger, fork and/or spoon nearly all the time, except for those rare occasions (yea, right) when he seems to overlook his veggies.

-He loves to throw things in the garbage, and actually seems to know what is garbage and what isn't, we're working on teaching him garbage vs recycling. He also loves to put dirty clothes in the hamper (and again, seems to know when clothes go in the hamper). 

-He has mastered climbing. He learned last week that if he climbs on his toy box, he can reach the light switch in his room.

-He is as silly as ever, and once he sees he has a captive audience...watch out!

-He has 3 molars.

-He is a toddler in every sense of the word.

(He did make it down safely, my camera just ran out of memory)

dreams really do come true

Most of you have probably heard about my good friend Kim. Kim and I met about 3 years ago, when we were both going through infertility. She came to work at my office, and worked there only for a short time, but we became fast friends. She's been such a huge support and inspiration to me over the past 3 years. Kim's dream of motherhood came true in May of 2007 when her twins were born; my dream of motherhood came true a few months later when we learned about our son in Korea.  Although our children were born a half a world away from each other, they were only born about 3 months apart! So, this past weekend, I took Kai to visit Kim and her twins in Salt Lake City! It was so fun to see our babies together at last, and they LOVED each other at first sight! In fact, our first night there, Kai was so sad when he couldn't sleep in the same room as Elle and Diesel (the twins). It made us both wish we lived closer together so they could play together all the time. It was a busy, crazy time with 3 one-year olds, but so, so fun!! (Just wish the twins had felt better... they were sick the whole weekend)

Here are a few pics of all the kiddos together.

Three peas in a pod

Elle on a mission

"The boys" 

On Saturday the twins didn't feel very good, so Kim's parents came and stayed with them while Kim, Kai and I saw some of the sights of SLC. The fountain at the Olympic Plaza was a hit with our little water dog! He had the time of his life running through the water, squealing with delight the whole time! I don't think any explanation is needed for these pictures!

A huge Thank You to Kim (and her family) for once again being a wonderful hostess (and taking the great pictures)!!

Aug. 14, 2007...

...was the day our lives changed forever. It's hard to believe that one year ago today, we learned that we had a son waiting for us in South Korea. The past year has been a huge whirlwind of activity and an emotional roller coaster. But here we are, all adjusting well, and loving every moment with our amazing son. That night we went out to dinner to celebrate, and wondered who this little boy was, what he would be like, and what he looked like. It was the longest night of our lives to wait until the next day to see his sweet face for the very first time:

We still wonder daily how we got so lucky to be blessed with this beautiful, amazing child!

Half Birthday!

So, my parents have a really fun, cool tradition of spending each grandchild's half-birthday with them. They do this each year, for each grandchild (which is now 5). I think it is such a fun idea, and makes a really special day for the child. Well, today was Kai's turn! (Can't believe my baby is 1 1/2 already?) This was (obviously) his first half-birthday celebration, and they all had a great time! They took him for his first trip to McDonalds, and it was also the first time he's gone "out" anywhere without Joe or I. Mom and Dad said he was a "perfect angel", but what else would they say about their grandchild?

Grandpa Dave and Grandma Nancy with the Half-Birthday boy!

And what would a half-birthday celebration be without half-birthday gifts?

They brought him a bubble mower, and he loves it!

So much, in fact, he did not want to come back inside after playing with it!

Vacation Pictures!

Here they are, pictures from our family vacation to the coast. Better late than never, right? To see them, just click below:

Oregon Coast Vacation 2008

Beach Fun!!

We just got back from our first family vacation, 5 days at the Oregon Coast! We all had a wonderful time, and Kai loved playing on the beach and in the ocean. He learned very quickly where the ocean was, and could point it out by our first morning there! We lucked out with beautiful weather about half the time we were there...not bad for Oregon. We mostly hung out around our rental house and played on the beach, with few excursions for sight-seeing such as the Oregon Coast Aquarium and Yaquina Bay Lighthouse. Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Dave joined us for one night, and babysat so Joe and I could have an excursion of our own! And since no vacation is complete without a little drama, I decided to run my foot into a corner molding on the wall last night. (Should have listened to my Mom when she told me not to rough house inside the house!) After seeing all the pretty colors on my foot today, and the amazing feat of having a swollen  pinky toe (I always wondered if you could tell when it swells), the official word is that it could be broken, but no x-rays were done since there's not really any treatment anyway. We had so much fun, tonight we're exhausted and not really looking forward to jumping back into reality tomorrow. I'll share a teaser photo, and I promise I'll share more after we get settled back in.

In my opinion, a classic Oregon Coast shot...

Hair blowing in the wind, beautiful skies, winter coat in July, and a grin from ear to ear!

Apparently, I didn't understand...

Just wanted to communicate a misunderstanding I had. When we arrived at our lawyer's office last week, we were informed that we were not finalizing, but signing the required papers to submit to DHS for finalizing. I guess I didn't completely understand the finalization process, and when our lawyer called to have us come sign, I got so excited, I just assumed it was "it"! So now, we're back to waiting on the state to process our paperwork. After THAT, our lawyer will get a court date, and we'll be able to finalize. We also requested a court hearing (not required in our state), so we'll all go to court to finalize with the judge. Our lawyer said this should happen in a month or so, so stay tuned!

a week to remember

As most people who know, this week every year is a big week for us. July 24th is Joe's birthday, and July 25th is our wedding anniversary. This year we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary! What a momentous occasion. 

As if that wasn't enough, we found out yesterday that tomorrow, July 23rd, we will be signing the papers to finalize Kai's adoption! That means, as of tomorrow morning, we will be finished with our adoption process, and Kai will be 100% legally our son! WOO-HOO!!

We were so thrilled when we found out the papers were ready to sign, and we could add another wonderful event to our exciting week! (And, thought it made a pretty good excuse to have a treat 3 days in a row!)

And don't worry, we are doing something fun to celebrate all the blessings in our lives this week. More about that later...

memories...

Stealing this from Kim's blog, seemed like fun so please join in!!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

our week in pictures

Tons of fun in the froggy pool

"Out", we now hear this almost constantly when we're indoors

Hangin' in the big pool

First Ems game, lovin' the watermelon

Discovered the toy box is full of...you guessed it... TOYS!!

Trying sparkling cider at Cousin Ashley's wedding with Grandpa Tom

More from the 4th

7/4/08:

Our 4th of July started nice and early as I prepared to run my first race in over a year. It's called "Butte to Butte", it's a 10K (6.2 miles), it's as bad as it sounds, and it's a community tradition.  If you're a runner in Eugene, you do it. Last year was so hard for me as I watched from the sidelines due to my injury. This year, I was in the thick of it, and loved every second (even those last few seconds when I really thought I was going to die)! I did better than I would have ever thought given half my training runs were done pushing a jogging stroller, and at the end I was very happy with my finish time! (Sorry, no pictures from that, it wasn't a pretty sight anyway)

After the race, I rushed home where J and K were ready and waiting to drive to Harrisburg for some good old fashioned 4th of July festivities. After a lightning quick shower, we were back in the car and headed to Kai's first parade! As you will see in the pictures, he was not too sure about the whole thing. He didn't crack a smile the whole parade and looked very concerned. He wasn't in distress or upset, he was just very serious and took everything in. Joe ended up taking him away from the parade for a while during the never ending line of fire trucks, all sounding their sirens, of course. After the parade, we checked out the street fair going on and played in the park for a while with some friends. We were on our way home by 2pm, all thoroughly exhausted and pretty much done for the day. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out at home, and Kai went to bed pretty early since he didn't manage to get a nap. We were shocked and amazed that K slept through almost 4 hours of LOUD fireworks in our neighborhood that night. Guess we wore him out enough!

7/5/08:

Grandma Sue and Grandpa Tom came to visit!! And they brought an ultra-fun froggy pool for Kai to play in. He just loves this thing. They agreed to let us keep it until we go to P-town next, since he'll be too big for it next year, they wanted it to get all the use it could. And it has so far. We also ventured to dinner at a restaurant (which we don't do very often anymore), and Kai did so great! We went to Mucho Gusto (thought of you, Kim) and it was yum yummy as always.  

7/6/08:

By the time Sunday rolled around, we were pretty much spent. We tried to lay low, but when you've played all weekend, there must be a time to get some work done. 

Here is one of Joe's famous picture slideshows of our Holiday weekend fun!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Happy Independence Day!!

To all our friends and family, we hope you had a safe and fun 4th of July! We had a very fun day celebrating our first Independence Day together. So much fun, in fact, that it's now 7:30 pm, the baby is in bed, and we are exhausted. I promise I will write more later this weekend (with photos, of course)!

strawberries!!

It seems summer has finally arrived, the strawberries are ready for picking!! Last weekend we ventured out to Lone Pine Farms to partake in their beautiful u-pick strawberry patch. The weather was perfect, at about 72 and sunny... but for some reason, we had nearly the whole patch to ourselves! No joke, there were about 2 other families in the whole place. Crazy! Our little Kai did much better than I could have ever expected! He stayed right by us the whole time (well, minus one episode of running down the row, but he came right back when asked to), and just played in the dirt and sat in the bushes! One neat thing about Lone Pine is they allow kids to eat all they want for free (like you could stop them anyways), so we didn't have to feel guilty about letting Kai nibble on the berries as we picked. Here are a few pics!

Just the way little boys should be...DIRTY!!

My boys 

almost there

Today we had our final post-placement visit with our social worker! It was, as always, a delight to visit with her and have Kai entertain her with his latest antics. Some of you may be surprised to learn that we are still in the adoption process. Korea's guidelines state that the child must be in your home for 6 months before finalizing the adoption. (OK--I know what you're thinking, and yes, it's really been 6 months!!) So today was our final visit, now she will write her final report and submit it to Holt. Holt will then issue a "consent to adopt" (basically saying we're good enough parents for the child they have entrusted to us), which will be sent to our lawyer. He will then draw up the final documents, and we will sign to finalize the adoption. Seems like after over 2 years in process, mountains of paperwork, and endless emotional roller coasters there should be a little more fanfare, but, hey, it is what it is!

Needless to say, we are getting a little anxious now that the end is in sight. We just feel so blessed to have been chosen as parents for our sweet little boy, and we can't wait until he is 100% legally and forever our son!!

Father's Day Fun!!

We had a fun time last weekend to celebrate Father's Day. We were able to spend time with both our families, and Kai got to see both his Grandpa's and his Great Grandpa! On Saturday, we went to a BBQ at Gr.& Gr. C's house, where we celebrated Father's Day and Grandma Anne's 96th birthday!  It was a fun time, and Kai had a blast playing with his cousins. I think he's finally starting to feel at ease with the whole group, and by the end of the evening was letting his goofy side out. It's so fun to watch him with his cousins, when they're (older ones) all being loud and talking, he starts yelling, just to be sure he's not forgotten in the crowd of big kids! On Sunday, we had a nice brunch with Gr.&Gr. M, and Aunt Beth. Then, we hung out at their house for a while (until nap time), and drove home while Kai napped. When we got home, it was early enough (and warm enough) that we could take a dip in the pool! It was a fun, busy weekend.

Here are a few pictures from our time with family.

Bea and Kai...he was a little less than enthused to be "posing" for photos!

Ryan and Kai. I thought this was so cute, just wish Ry had his eyes open.

Playing Whac-a-mole, one of their favorite games at Grandma & Grandpa's!

Bubble fun with Peter

And adorable little Hayleigh (with her adorable crazy hair)!

Who doesn't love a Frosty??

A Good Treat for a Good Cause

This weekend, you can help support Foster Care Adoption just by buying a Frosty! Participating Wendy's will donate 50 cents from every Frosty purchased on June 14 and 15 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Their goal is to raise $1.3 million to support the Foundation and Wendy's Wonderful Kids, which funds full-time adoption recruiters to match parents with waiting children.

Since 2004, Wendy's Wonderful Kids has helped 3,500 children in Foster Care, and more than 500 of those children now have finalized adoptions.

So share a delicious treat with your family, and help children in the U.S. Foster Care system find their own forever families!

Yum, yum!!

Spring photos!

Click here if you want to see the video montage that Joe created of our Spring with our sweet little guy!

molar sighting

After over 3 months of drooling, drippy nose, gnawing, and a sometimes cranky baby...the molars have finally broken through! OK, well, maybe not totally, but there are definitely little patches of white that are coming out. Both of the upper eye teeth are also showing their peaks, so very soon, our little guy will have 4 new teeth! Not to mention the same bottom set of 4 that I know will not be far behind. It's gotta be painful, but he takes it like such a champ, and I know he's going to love having all those new chompers to eat everything!!

busy times

Well, we've been pretty busy again for the past week or so, and it doesn't look like things will quiet down for a while. It is almost summer, you know.

This past weekend, we enjoyed a nice visit from Grandma & Grandpa C. Well, it was nice for us because they watched Kai while Joe and I went out to a party on Saturday night! We had a great time, and they had a great time. On Sunday, we went to our favorite breakfast restaurant then visited Hendricks park to take in the beautiful rhodies in bloom. 

In our few moments of down time, Kai has been perfecting his dance moves. Bound and determined to catch it on video (cause, you know, the dancing only lasts for about 15 seconds at a time), Joe made it his mission to do this. He got some pretty good clips, but this is my favorite! I love the head banging that he's added to his routine (should we be worried?).

initiation into motherhood

I hate vomit. (OK, I realize most people do...) I mean, I really hate it. I think it is totally unnatural for food to exit your body the same way it enters. I pride myself on the fact that I have not done it for years, and even made it through a few rounds of morning sickness without having to... do "it".  I have such a weak gag reflex that even seeing my dog vomit makes me gag. This was, in fact, one of my most dreaded fears about motherhood... how would I handle myself when my child vomits? 

For the record... I think I handled it pretty well. 

And not just that he vomited... he vomited ON me. And not just that he vomited ON me... I caught it, in my bare hands. 

To my surprise, I took it all in stride, and was far more concerned with what was wrong with my baby, than the fact that we were both, ummm... soiled... at the mall.

Oh, in case you're wondering, I think he's on the mend now. He was pretty puny the rest of the day yesterday, and had a few more episodes once we got home... thus turning my 4 day weekend into a 6 day weekend... but so far today, we're vomit free and his appetite and happy demeanor seem to be returning. :-)

Holiday weekend highlights

Well, we pretty much succeeded in our goal of doing nothing this weekend. We've had a pretty busy past couple weeks, so we wanted to take advantage of the long weekend for some much needed R&R. Besides doing some chores around the house, running a few errands, and going to church yesterday, we basically just hung out at home.  

Waking up this morning with all his friends in tow

Going for a walk yesterday

Demonstrating our newest piece of furniture

And now, for the latest video presentation! Yesterday, he got the bright idea to take his magnets off the board and load them all into his Pooh car:

After he had taken every single magnet off his board, he proceeded to load and unload them in and out of the car, and entertained himself for a good 30 minutes! 

a first time for everything

Over the past several days, Kai has experienced a lot of "firsts". Last Friday, he went swimming in our pool for the first time. He was not too sure at first, but eventually starting warming up to it.  A baby's face does not lie:

On Saturday, we took Kai to Lone Pine Farm for the first time. For those of you who don't know, Lone Pine is our favorite local farm and growers of our beloved "bodacious corn". They have wonderful fruits and veggies during the summer, along with various attractions (animals). I think they'll see a lot of us this summer (free entertainment for baby)!

Kai enjoyed his first popsicle! 

(Don't worry, it's one of those 100% fruit juice ones)

It was pretty funny watching Joe "teach" Kai how to lick it!

Last, but certainly not least, today Kai fed himself Mac N Cheese with a fork for the first time! 

He's been doing pretty good getting thick stuff to his mouth on a spoon, so today I just gave him the bowl and fork and off he went!

As you can tell, he was pretty proud of himself!

OK, so he didn't eat the whole bowl with a fork. But he did give a good effort of about 3-4 bites before he resorted to his hands to get it done faster!

Honor Thy Mother

This past weekend we joined in with our fellow Americans to honor our Mothers.  We did this by letting one babysit for us, and letting the other one cook for us. Wow, makes us seem like great children, huh? Well, they both insisted, so we were really just honoring their wishes!

In all reality, we had a very fun weekend spending time with both our families. On Saturday, Kai got to play with Gr. Sue and Gr. Tom while we went out to dinner at The Melting Pot (yumm-o, by the way). Kai did great while we were gone, and even greeted us at their large picture window in the dining room when we came back. He was standing there in the window, waving at us with a huge smile on his face! On Sunday, we pretty much just hung out at Gr. Nancy and Gr. Dave's house. The rest of the "C" family, along with Joe's parents, came over for a nice family dinner.  Kai had lots of fun playing with his cousins, and his grandparents!

On our way to P-town, we met up with my brother to get all the cousins in a photo shoot together. One exhausting hour later...

OK, so I may be a little bit bias, but isn't this about the cutest bunch of kiddos you've ever seen?? 

Korean Children's Day

Today was Korean Children's Day. When our friend from Japan was visiting us recently, she brought some gifts for Kai for "Boy's Day" in Japan, which is also today. We were lucky enough to be able to spend the day as a family, since I just happened to have this Monday off! We had a fun day. Well, it didn't start out too fun...Kai had to go for some shots this morning, but now he is caught up with the US immunization schedule! We went to our favorite Korean restaurant for lunch, then after a nice (long) refreshing nap, Kai spent the rest of the afternoon playing outside. Here are a few pictures from his outside fun. The cute outfit he's wearing we got from Costco yesterday, and the shirt and shorts are UV protected SPF50!! Needless to say, he'll be wearing this little ensemble a lot this summer!

Another stylish outfit fallen victim to the "diaper ruffle"! 

Our little Jedi

True joy is dumping the sand from the sandbox!

Kai's newest favorite backyard discovery...wheels on the wheelbarrows!