Violet is 10 months old! Happy Thanksgiving!

 You are getting bigger everyday, Violet! I am so anxious to see your picture next month! According to Babycenter.com you are beginning to understand simple words and phrases and you are starting to say some yourself! You may be able to play games and wave bye-bye! You can grab toys and may be able to stand up and cruise the furniture. Your big sister started walking at 9 months, so you could definitely be walking all by yourself. I cannot wait to find out next month!

Happy Thanksgiving! Clay and Aidan are home all week on Thanksgiving break. We are going to visit Clay's grandpa, and then go to his family for a day, and then visit my family on another day, so we don't have much "break"! We hope to get a lot of adoption work done! Passports and online classes, reorganizing to make room for a toddler and all the things that come with them! We shall see how much actually gets done! We are a bit different than the average adoptive family in that this is not our first child. We have all of our bedrooms already filled up with children ;). Many adoptive parents bide their time by decorating and painting a nursery, picking out cribs and rockers and dressers...this is not us. We have a crib, covered in bite marks from a teething Faith, that we don't even plan to put up. We have a little girl room already filled to the brim with toys and a closet packed with size 4 clothes. Violet in fact, does not have one item of clothing or toy yet in this house. Its kinda funny how lackadaisical we have been about preparing with material things. All you need is love? Right? LOL I remember preparing for the birth of Faith. She was my first girl, and everything had to be perfect! We spent hundreds of dollars on a crib, I spent months picking out the right crib bedding. MONTHS! And then the paint color had to match the colors just perfectly, as well as the curtains, etc...then we brought the little darling home. She never... EVER...slept in her beautifully painted room. She also never used the $500 crib - except as a giant teether, and the pack-n-play was used as a giant toy box for all the toys she didn't care to play with.  We co-slept with Faith and loved it and we assume Violet will be happiest co-sleeping as well since that is what she does now with her foster mother. When the time comes if she would prefer a crib, THEN we will set it up. But sticking my baby in a bed with bars alone in a dark room is just not my style. Concerning closet space...we have none. I honestly have NO CLUE where we are going to put her clothes! So hopefully that is something we can figure out this week - or Christmas break?! But I am not too worried about it. Writing this reminded me that I did not have my own closet as a child. I was a "surprise" and my parents turned my mom's tiny sewing room into a nursery for me and I shared part of a closet with my brother (most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from him too!) & I also had a dresser :).  Somewhere in the attic should be a tote with Faith's baby clothes, that will now be Violet's (hopefully they are the right size in the right season! Faith was born in June & Violet in January!).  I do, however, plan to buy her clothes and I cannot wait!! That is the funnest part! Hopefully I will find out her size next month when we get the update on her.

Waiting 5 Months! And one stuffed ziploc bag!

Waiting 5 months!

We have now been waiting 5 months since the referral of miss Kim, Bo Ra. She was only 5 months old then, and she will soon be 10 months. She was only 12 lbs then, and I have no idea how much she weighs now. I am going to guess 19 lbs! We will hopefully get an update next month! Woohoo! I am sooo anxious for it!!

I often can't help but think if the wait time had never changed from 3-4 months to 8-12 months she would be home by now. She would still be small and I wouldn't miss out on so much.

Exciting news! We did get to send Violet a care package this month! Finally! I spent a LONG time trying to decide what to put into the bag. You would not believe how much you can cram into a ziploc bag! But I still overbought :(. But I was so happily surprised with an email from our agency that said we will be able to send a CHRISTMAS package to Violet!! And ALSO we will be able to send a BIRTHDAY package!!! These gifts can be sent directly to Eastern in Korea, and the gifts do not have to be restricted to a ziploc bag!  Her birthday is in January so we can send a gift every month now! Hopefully we will go get her in February, which will involve buying MORE gifts! There is going to be a lot of shopping in my future. Maybe I should put one of those Paypal donation buttons on my blog, lol. We just sent off her ziploc care package yesterday, and after Clay and I had spent so much time packing and repacking trying to get everything to fit (it also took both of us to close it), I realized I forgot to take a picture of all the things we are sending! AHH! So I took a few pictures of the bag at different angles. ;) (Some things I could find the picture online.)

Bib

Teether for bib

Baby Nay outfit

I hope I am remembering everything- for the foster mother (and family) we sent: Avon lipstick (in golden raisin), rice seasoning & tea bags (made locally, we found them at the local craft fair), some Starbucks instant coffee packets, trail mix (the all-American kind with M&Ms, raisins, cashews, sunflower seeds),  goats milk soap (another craft fair find), Strawberry fruit strip (one of mine & Faith's favorite snacks), & a small can of Spam Spread (Korean's love Spam right?). For Violet we packed one Carter's fleece romper (sz 12 months), one Baby Nay outfit (sz 12 months), pair of Ministar soft soled shoes (purple with a butterfly), a jar of California Baby calendula cream,  a bib that holds a toy on a snap (made to hold a binky), and a teething ring toy for the bib, a small board book called "Where's the Kitten" written in Hangul, a mango/pear baby food packet, AND a card with a picture of downtown Eureka Springs that we wrote a long message on telling the foster mom how much we appreciate and love her (& that the shoes were from Violet's grandma and her papa sends a hug and her Aunt Carie sends a kiss! And all her family can't wait to meet her!). Can you believe all that fit into a gallon ziploc bag!? Now its time to start working on the Christmas package!

 

I am sad I will be missing Korea in the fall, I bet it is beautiful! 

But I am sure I will see Korea in the Winter or Springtime! 

 

 

 I would really like to visit Namsan. "At Seoul’s Mt Namsan, thousands of love padlocks can be seen hanging on the fences around the base level of N Seoul Tower. Locks of love is a custom in some cultures where love birds would lock their padlocks at public areas and throw away the key to symbolise that their love will be locked forever."

YeinJee's Asian Blog