Overheard

The following is from a fellow AP (adoptive parent) from her FB (facebook) page today.  I left the names off just in case their "neighbors that they didn't friend" happen to read my blog- lol.

Status: "xxxx thinks it is funny how I used to find folks from the Holt BB [bulletin board- where all the mammas get together online to ask questions, get advice, vent frustration, share excitement over a piece of paper coming in the mail, etc] on Facebook and be tempted to request their friendship, but was afraid they'd think I was a crazy stalker. Now, over half of my friends list has at least one little Asian cutie in the profile picture. :) I love my AP friends!"

Comment #4: " I won't accept someone who lives down the street that I don't know really well, but if they are an AP mom I'll accept them every time. :)"

Comment #5: "Well our fellow AP have been checked by the FBI, BCI, had a child abuse clearance and check by the Dept of Homeland security! Plus they have cute kids. LOL! The neighbors have not been checked by all of those people and they can't have kids as cute as ours!! LOL!!!!!"

Hmmm- so that's why I've never felt awkward "talking" to all these strangers about my children. 

Adoption CheckList

Thought I'd share this checklist I just found on a fellow Korea Adoption Family's blog.  In case you're considering adoption- this is pretty much the process for all countries, agencies, and programs.  LOL!
Happy Monday!!

Hello from Eliza Grace

I was 14 months old on the 10th. I'm 32 inches and 22 pounds! It looks like I like cookies and I'm really excited about these bows that Mamma, Daddy, Wilson, and Miller sent me. Thank you to the O'Maras for bringing goodies to me, Umma, and Appa. I can't wait to get to play with Evelyn!! My next check up will be in May- talk to you then!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day- 2011

I have a book to recommend- Celebrating the Christian Year by Martha Zimmerman.  My blog friend Kelly (and fellow Korean adoptive Mamma) over at The Minus One Project has blogged many times about it and I had to check it out.  Mom gave it to me for Christmas and I couldn't put it down.  Martha (we're on a first name basis) reveals so much that I never knew about the many Christian celebrations that we still observe (or that are at least mentioned in our churches today).  She also has so many great suggestions for celebrating the holidays without loosing site of their true meanings or origins all while keeping the focus on Christ and what learn about him through observing special days related to his life or the lives of Christians who have walked before us and left big footprints for us to fill.  (The book is currently out of print- so you'll have to find a used one!)

I have to admit, I never knew much about Saint Patrick or why we even had a day on our calendar marked in his honor.  What a blessing and what fun to learn about him and great lesson of forgiveness and spreading the gospel at all costs his life exemplifies.

The kids started the day by watching Secret of the Kells while mom woke up.  Really fun movie set in Ireland.  We then started the fun...

We had green oatmeal while I summarized the story of Patrick and why his life is worth celebrating.  He lived in what is now Britian during the Roman Empire.  He and his family were Christian.  Irish pirates came down regularly and raided the unstable/under protected area.  Patrick was kidnapped and taken to Ireland as a slave/prisoner.  Many years later he was able to escape and get back to his family.  He soon realized he had been among unbelievers in Ireland and had pity upon them.  He went back the land of his captors and began to spread the gospel and plant churches.  It is believed that he used the shamrocks growing wildly in the area to illustrate the Trinity (three complete parts making one hole).  Wilson interjected here that you could also use poison ivy for the illustration.  Yes this holiday would look completely different if its origins were in the Southern United States!!

We spent the rest of the day focusing on clover and the great reminder it is for us of the loving triune God we serve. 

We painted empty paper towel and toilet paper tubes green, cut them into strips, and then made clover to hang on our banister garland.

We picked clover from our backyard to put in the center of our table for dinner- beef stew and a very green pistachio cake, yum.

Of course, the kids were much more interested in this guy that hitched a ride in on the dirt clods in the clover bucket.

Biology lesson of the day- if you live in a clover patch, and you eat a clover patch, you have very St. Patrick's Day themed poo.  Wilson learned this the hard way- but was rolling on the floor laughing when he saw that his souvenir from Patrick the Grub was EXACTLY the same color as the clover they'd been stuffing in the vase!

The kids took an afternoon break and decided to watch Pirates of the Caribbean.  Well, there were pirates in the story of Patrick.  Right.  Right!? 

Then we had a yummy snack.  Clover pretzels.  We dipped mini twists into some green colored white chocolate and put them together in threes. 

Happy Saint Patty's, Y'all!

The Tooth Pulling Machine

That was the title of this picture when Phil texted it to me one night last week. Wilson lost two teeth in two days- and pulled them both himself. The second was actually a successful execution of the old tying a string to a door knob and attaching the other end to the tooth trick. Neither Phil nor I had ever seen that really work- but it did!!

As my mom says- he now looks like a real six year old!!

I have to add that the tooth fairy is really starting to show her age. She made it to his room for the first tooth, but was apparently just too tired to make it back the next night. Seriously!? What does it take to get good service these days!

our adventure

Click here to view this photo book larger

Preview Party at the Science Museum

A few weeks ago our family went to the preview party for the new temporary butterfly exhibit at our Natural Science Museum.  It is a really great exhibit with lots of interactive displays.

My very hungry caterpillars in their cocoons.

Wilson with one of the butterflies that landed on him!

One of the many gators

Funny story from the trip.  The portion of the exhibit with live butterflies is in the indoor swamp area of the museum.  For those of you not familiar with the museum, this is a glassed in room with with a huge aquarium that is about 5 ft. tall and full of alligators, turtles, and fish.  The room is connected to the rest of the museum, but separated by doors that stay closed I'm sure for climate control purposes.  So for now, there are also butterflies flitting through this room with stands of orange halves for them to munch on.  There were guides at the door telling us to watch where we step because the butterflies were also all over the ground (which is made out of decking material making it hard to see dark butterflies).  No strollers were allowed and we were all tip toeing around with the occasional "WATCH OUT! YOU'RE ABOUT TO STEP ON ONE!" being yelled throughout the building.  (Maybe they should have thought twice about having the general public mingling with their precious endangered bugs...)  So anyway, Phil is carefully watching the alligators in the tank and notices that a butterfly has landed on one of the logs floating in the swamp.  He then sees a pair of gator eyes floating towards the log.  Then the eyes rise up out of the water and are trained on the butterfly.  And SNAP the butterfly is GONE!  Who knew- next to human feet, an alligator is a butterfly's most dangerous predator!!  

I'm thinking that there wasn't a lot of consideration for the circle of life in designing this portion of the exhibit.   

Happy Valentines Day!

Garland on our stairs made from pine cones, leaves, white paint, glitter, valentines left over from what the kids took to school, and some heart Christmas ornaments.

You STILL Don't know when she'll be home?

Nope.  Our best guess is still late May early June.  But it could be March or September. 

What is taking so long?  We'll the short answer is it's in God's time- He's big, we're peons and this is really just a blink of an eye in the scheme of eternity.  The official answer is we've completed everything on the US side and now it's in Korea's hands.  "Overseas process includes Holt [Korea] staff presenting your home study and acceptance papers to the Ministry of Health and Welfare to obtain an Emigration Permit (EP) for the child.  Once EP is issued, you will be notified.  Also needed, but Holt Eugene is not always notified when completed: blood testing, Visa Physical, Travel certificate (passport), and Holt Korea sets up a Visa interview (our local USCIS office send the I600 approval to Seoul)".  We are currently in the first half of that quote- waiting for her to be submitted for her EP.   If you click the Adoption Timeline tab at the top of the blog and scroll to the bottom of that page you'll see a copy of the "task list" we were given by Holt.  The above was taken from that list.  It's also encouraging to look at this list and see how far we've come in such a short time!  We've only been at this for a little over 6 months which is really a good time frame if you roam around and look at other adoption blogs. 

I haven't seen anything new about your adoption on the blog?  Well, there's just not a lot new going on and there won't be for a while, probably.  The next thing you'll see me shouting from the blog rooftop is that we've been notified that Eliza Grace has been submitted for her emigration permit.  That will narrow down our travel time to sometime within six weeks from that date.  However, we will not know our exact travel date until we get THE TRAVEL CALL (it's in all caps because it is THE EVENT we've been WAITING FOR the whole TIME!)  When we receive THE TRAVEL CALL we will hear she is READY and we can go pick her up as soon as possible.  I will drop everything call all of you to see when you can take which child, pack suitcases for me and and all three children(Phil will do his own packing, maybe ;P), call the travel agent to get tickets and hotel accommodations set up, and then deposit previously mentioned children and head to to the airport.  All of that will happen within a few days of getting THE TRAVEL CALL and will probably be pretty fast.

Until then, there's just not a lot to be said about the adoption.  We should get an update on her in March and every other month after that until we get her.  Hopefully pictures will accompany each of those updates.  And I'll definitely share them here!

There are however a few things that I've been able to do:

Put together another care package.  Our good friends the O'mara's are waiting for THE TRAVEL CALL for their little girl any day now.  They graciously offered us a precious corner of their suitcase to send a few more things to Eliza Grace.  They'll deliver them to Holt Korea while they are there (and no (because I know you're asking!) they will not get to meet Eliza Grace :( they will drop our care package off at Holt and Holt will contact our foster family to let them know it's there.)  In this package we sent a felt barn with a stuffed cow and pig, a teething toy, baby soap, a new photo album with pictures from her birthday party, a few hair bows, and a little toy phone that plays a recording of us saying our names and that we love her.  This time I also stuck a couple of happies in for the foster parents.  They are from Smart Mom.  We gave mom a copper Teething Bling necklace (that I had a hard time parting with) and dad a Babe Magnet tie.  The necklace is a rubberish disk that looks like stone.  They are so unbelievably gorgeous but completely made for your baby to grab and gnaw away on.  The tie has a squeaker and rattle hidden inside.  As I told the dad in the enclosed letter, I don't know how comfortable it would be to have a baby jerking on your tie- but maybe it will bring a laugh!  He is very attached to Eliza Grace and takes her walking every afternoon when he gets home from work I wanted him to have something for the two of them to play with.

The next thing I've done is fix a little nursery nook for baby girl.  She'll be sharing a room with her big sister.  As I've gotten the layout of their room all fixed there just wasn't a good spot to put the rocker.  I also wanted to have somewhere to go away from everything to rock in the middle of the night, or the middle of the day, or whenever she'll let me rock her.  So, I deconstructed the crib skirt and bumpers we used with Wilson and Miller and made over the dormer at the top of the stairs that is between the girls's room and Wilson's room.  It's so cute and cozy (I've just got to get the artwork hung!).  I hung their mobile from the ceiling and added Phil's baby quilt on the chair.  Miller is loving it and can regularly be found in the chair with a pile of books.  She also asked to be rocked for the first time in a long time the other night.  She fell right to sleep- it was awesome!! 

So what's going on Eliza Grace's bed?  Well every summer our church has a fantastic toy exchange.  So this summer I bought two sets of bedding (one to match Wilson's room and one to match Miller's room) for a grand total of $20!!  Now that we know which one we'll be using, I'll resell the boy set this summer.  I just couldn't part with what the first two used yet, though, so I had some fun with the seam ripper and the singer.

Well now you're all caught up on your burning questions!  Happy Snow Day!!

Budding Artist

As most of you know I like to do a little painting.  Art and crafting has been an outlet as long as I can remember.  It's so fun to watch my kiddos enjoy the same.  Wilson in particular is really enjoying drawing lately (something his mamma definitely does NOT enjoy and has never had the patience to work at).  But it suites him to a tee.  Below are a few of my favorites from the past few months.

One of his first family portraits.  It was before we knew Eliza Grace, so he'll have to do another soon. Phil is still dealing with the fact that he is portrayed as a brunette.  He still identifies himself as a blond.  I won't push it- my driver's license still says I weigh 100 pounds :) 

This one is from sometime during Christmas break- I think my favorite part is the sleigh.

This was such a surprise- he came up with all by himself.  Miller was sick and he wanted to cheer her up.  He asked for a piece of card stock and the bucket of craft stuff- Voila- Rudolf!

A Dragon

Under the sea- LOVE this one.  He got a drawing book from the library and sat down and did the WHOLE thing one afternoon.  I was completely amazed when he appeared with this whole little sea colony.  I was also amazed at how well each little critter turned out.  He refuses to draw with a pencil- only a pen or crayon.  What a guy!

Update on our Baby Girl

We were headed out the door for dinner when this:

came in my email inbox!  I've been waiting for this picture since we mailed her her birthday happies.

The first part of the email was the results from her 1 year MRI.  We knew that she had it last Friday and that they'd have the results Wednesday.  I was really hoping we'd get the good news before the weekend.  And we did.  Everything was completely normal- no need for further monitoring.  Most of you know Eliza Grace is considered "special needs".  She was born about 5 few weeks premature.  Amazingly, she only spent 5 days in the hospital after she was born and has been with her foster family ever since.  As part of the screening for orphans she was given a neurosonogram.  This is a very common practice in Korea- Korean adoptive parents insist that this test be run.  Most brains, however, are not completely developed at the time that this test is run.  EG's had something that didn't look "perfect" so they did an MRI at 6mos which also didn't look perfect.  So they scheduled a follow up MRI for 1 year.  Because all of these tests have been a matter of formality (as opposed to being in response to any abnormal symptoms) we weren't really all that concerned about this test, but it's always good to know that everything is looking good. 

The added bonus is that we got another picture of our girl.  This time with her care package that we sent for her birthday!  I'm so glad to know that she got it.  I doubt it made it there by her exact first birthday and the babies stop going to the doctor once a month after their first birthday.  I was concerned she might not get back to Holt until her next well baby check in March.  I can not believe how big she looks!!Miller was really impressed too- "look how big she gotten!" She then pats her on the head through the computer screen and tells her we're coming to get her.  And I love her little hair sticking up out of her bow.  So ready to meet her.

We love you Eliza Grace!!

The Girls' Birthday Parties

Before the month gets completely away from me- I need to post about our girls' birthday parties.  I think this is actually the third post covering Miller's birthday.  From taking a cookie cake to school, celebrating the actual day and then having a party with her friends, the celebrating has definitely gotten spread out! 
We'll start with Eliza Grace's party because it was first.  Her first birthday was on the 10th.  She had phone calls from a couple of her great grandparents (I was completely impressed that they remembered her special day- so sweet) to start the day off and then as a family we went out to eat and opened her birthday presents.

We went to one of our favorite Asian places- sadly there's not a purely Korean place around, but this is pretty close.  Our server was so confused when he was taking our drink orders.  He was trying to concentrate on us, but his eye kept wandering to the picture of Eliza Grace with a 1st birthday hat strapped to it!  I explained that we were celebrating our daughter's birthday but that she wasn't home yet.  I think he got it, but then all the staff thought she was Chinese- and were completely confused when I said she was from Seoul!  She'll be here for her next birthday- we'll let her do all the talking!

In Korea the first birthday party is called the Dol and it is a BIG deal.  Here's a fun website to browse- check out the check list for your dol.  Let's just say, we missed a few things!  One fun part of the Dol is the doljabi.  This is a game where the baby is place in front of a group of toy objects that represent things in her future.  The party guests watch as the baby crawls to and grabs something of interest.  The first things the baby grabs are supposedly the most significant- or will be their career.

We did a version of this.  Obviously Eliza Grace wasn't here to choose so I printed a few cards with some icons on them folded them up, put them in a bag, and Wilson and Miller got to choose- blindly.  Miller chose an abacus and Wilson chose a crown.  So we'll have a royal accountant! (the other options were a computer, drafting table, microphone, black board, and paint- mostly things from our family members' occupations)

Her birthday presents- before and after.  The books and bunny were from us.  I bought the Little Miss Spider book last spring.  The Lord had just begun to work in our hearts about this adoption journey when I pulled this off the shelf at a local store.  In it Little Miss Spider gets separated from her mom after her egg hatches.  An older bug helps her as she searches and keeps her safe from danger.  In the end she decides that a mother is not someone that looks just like you, but the one that loves you best.  I bought the book right then and there- just in case these whispers in my heart ever came to be.  Her brother drew her the picture and Granna got her the baby doll.  Her Aunt Ashley got her the car- it was a set of two.  We sent one in her care package and kept one to have when we get her.


At the end of the week it was FINALLY time for Miller to celebrate with her friends.  This was quite the wait for a three year old.  She new she was having a party at the church with the jumpy and her friends and asked everyday between her real birthday and the party day if TODAY was the day for the jumpy (eight days-  in case you were wondering!)  She had a great party.  All she really requested were cupcakes- so the church and jumpy were just icing on the, well, cupcakes!  The highlight was that the tube from the jumpy to the blower kept coming detached.  Most kids were traumatized, but Miller who knows no fear thinks it's hilarious and is still talking about "da jumpy fell down!" with a huge smile on her face!

 Pirate cupcakes for the boys

 Princess cupcakes for the girls

 The initial spontaneous jumpy deflation 

Unca John getting schooled in the finer points of princess beauty products