She's married off, finally

:)

So my sister is married.  They day was BEAUTIFUL as was she...and my girls.  I was really nervous about 5 kids making it through such a big, long day.  The girls and I started getting ready at 8:00 am and we got home from the dance at 11:30 pm.  Brian and the boys kind of came and went so Jaemin wouldn't be too overwhelmed.  He did AWESOME!  He even fell asleep in church.  By 10:00 pm, both of our youngest were out and we put them in the portacrib at our table.  Kaelin was really into dancing, so she and I did some dancing when we could.  Miss M had so many snacks at the reception and Chelsi ate so many Skittles that, after we got home, she started throwing up, so we were up until almost 2:00 am with her.  She felt fine the next day.  Poor little girl was just so excited to be in that pretty dress and have her hair done, I think the day was just a lot for her.

After M gets me actual pictures from the photographer I'll post some of the beautiful wedding photos.  All I have are some snapshots I was able to take.  I couldn't really take any since the girls and I were in the wedding, so I snapped some while we were getting our hair done and then again at the dance.

Oh my boy Jaemin

He's truly a blessing.  A few months ago our lives were turned upside down and we were unsure if we were ready to have another baby in the house again.  Now, he's been home almost 3 months.  The first month was terribly hard.  He cried hard at bedtime and scratched and pinched and hit me every single night.  The naps we pretty much let him decide so he wouldn't have to go through that during the day too.  Every night we were up 3-6 times patting his back or giving him a bottle.  We needed to make sure he knew we were there no matter what.  We pulled him closer when he hit and stayed through the crying.  Don't get me wrong, there were moments of hesitation when you think, what did we do.  I know I wondered if we were really up to this more than once.  Now that we're getting into our new routine it feels like a normal life again.  He's really making progress.  Attachment  is a process, so we're not there yet.  I think most adopted babies that are not newborns when adopted are not there by this point either.  They have to learn to trust an adult again.  They've been taken away from the other adults they've grown to trust, 1 or more times.

He doesn't just dive in and give us hugs or kisses to often yet, but I slowly see it coming now.  I can sit on the floor with him and he'll crawl over, now, and lay his head on my leg and pat me. He doesn't gaze at me while I feed him a bottle, which worried me a bit at first, but when I take him to his room and rock him to sleep each night we can just stare at each other.  He smiles behind his paci and sometimes he smiles so big it drops out.  He's so sweet at bedtime.  He's not his usual, 100 mile an hour self then. He's my baby boy that I love more than anything in this world.

Blessings come in so many different packages, situations and experiences.  He is definitely one of my many blessings in life.

Our trip to Korea

Yeah, so it's 3 or 4 years away.  It will take a ton of planning to afford and get 7 people to Korea and meet 3 different foster mothers at 3 different agencies scattered throughout Seoul.

We have the account set up.  We got some money from Dell for a PC we had several years ago that went bad.  Then, today I sent our Discovercard rewards to that account.  We now have a whopping $350 for Korea.  Doesn't sound like much, but hopefully we'll get there.

I'm figuring we'll need around $13,000 for us to go.  I'm estimating; $300 for cabs, subway and incidentals fees, $2100 for hotel ($300/night for two rooms for 7 nights will hopefully squeeze all seven of us in), $8,750 for airfare ($1250 each if we're lucky!), $300 for food (this is one of the cheapest things we did travelling), $500 for shopping (new hanboks and all the other things from Korea we'll want to bring back) and last and very least is about $90 or so for parking while we're gone.  This only comes to $12,000 or a little over, but I'm sure we're not going to get airfare for that price in 3-4 years.

So, let's say we now have our food money!  :)

Just $12,650 to go and we'll get to go to Korea with the kids!   Please pray for the rest to come.

Lisa

Little Man's Outing

It was a nice cool evening, so I took Jaemin out.  The boys and Brian were already out.  The girls were already dressed for bed, so they stayed in.  Poor Kaelin realized we were out for a bit, but I don't think she was too sad.  She was just watching.  We had just finished our movie night, so it wasn't real early anyways.

Jaemin did a lot of crawling through the yard and could get away quickly.  Brian had to interrupt big brothers' baseball game for the baby interference.  He wanted to play too.  :)  Then, he really decided he liked my rock garden and eventually found the fountain.  Quicker than I could grab in he just about took a dip.  But, Brian was right there too.  He got pretty wet.  We told him to find the dog and he knew exactly where Frisky hung out and quickly crawled the sidewalk to him.  But, when he licked him, he wasn't quite as impressed.  :)



















And, I just had to throw this one in.  Cole wanted to rock Jaemin to sleep for his evening nap.  He didn't nap long, but he did go out.

Recycling for Korea *trip*

So, we've decided we really need to go to Korea as a family.  The girls and I think the boys and their dad need to experience what we experienced and profoundly loved in Seoul.  And we'd like the chance to explore Korea more and really would like to take all three kids to their birth cities, Gwangju and Cheju.  This will be fairly expensive since Cheju is an island and will require all day with a one night stay and a plane ride.

I talked to an adult adoptee and she suggested getting the kids involved in saving for the trip, since it's going to be a massive savings to fly 7 people from the midwest to Incheon.  Best case is about $1,000/ticket.  That might be difficult.  Anyways, she suggested having the kids recycle cans.  Since we rarely drink out of cans ourselves, we'd like to collect other people's cans.  So, if you have can, know us, and would like us to come pick them up when you have a bag or a bucket full (smashed or not), we'll take them.  The kids can smash them and then Brian will bring them in and we'll put the money in our Korea account.

The girls are already planning what they want to see and do this time and I'm just as bad as they are.  I pray we can really go.  I fully loved our short visit to Korea, but since we were bringing our son home we were limited to how much we could really do.  We had to stay rested for the long trip home with a new baby.

We hope to go to the Korean Folk Village in Suwon again.  We hope to take day trips to Cheju and Gwangju.  We will definitely set up visits to all 3 foster mothers again and visit the babies homes.  I'd like to visit the maternity homes if we can as well.  That may be something for the girls and I.  We'd like to go to Itaewon and Namdaemun for shopping this time.  I'd like to see some of the other palaces and maybe the Blue House.  If we could afford one of the shows, that would be awesome.  We have a lot of hopes and dreams for this trip and who knows if we'll even be able to save enough to go, but we're trying.  The kids' passports expire in just under 5 years, so we have to be done saving by then.  That will be right before Cole graduates and probably the best time for our last, big, family vacation.  And little man will be at least 4 or 5 by then and able to tolerate the trip.

If you don't know what to get us for Christmas, etc....money for the trip or airline miles would be awesome! ;)

I absolutely cannot wait!

Lisa

Oh my little man

Even when he's grumpy or getting up at night, I love him so much!  I take the once or twice he gets up at night as an extra opportunity to hold him a little more.  And grumpy, sometimes I can hold him too...depends on why.  :)  He's just an awesome blessing.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE This man so much.  He gave me such big hugs this morning and it just melts you into pure liquid.

We went to our annual friends' fish/frog fry last night and he did great.  One of the bigger gatherings he's been to since being home.  We brought our little gate (coral) in case he got tired and we could then keep other kids away from him.  We decided, ahead of time, that only the close friends who have been around him a lot in the past months were allowed to hold him so we'd have an easy reason to keep him pretty off limits.  His world is still very small and needs to be so.  So only one of my friends held him for a bit and he flirts with her anyways, so it was fine.   He was in his little gate thing and I went to go get one of the girls something, not too far off, while Brian was frying.  Someone came close enough to the gate to scare him and he made sure he cried loud enough to get everyone's attention immediately.  As soon as I held him, he was fine though.  He's definitely looking for us.  I think he just couldn't see us when she came near and it scared him.

He's truly doing well and I can't imagine our lives, no matter how chaotic, without him.
Lisa

Pullin' and Teeth

Jaemin has become an expert at pulling up.  So, I guess cruising and, inevitably, walking is next.  We're ready though.

Coming to get paci.



Starting the climb.





Almost got it.





And it's mine!



Wait, I just lost it, oh well, I have fingers!



Wait, I want paci.



Jaemin's first teeth.  Yes he got them at the same time.