More Birthday Moments

Well the birthday post was short...it was just a very painful time being without Violet and we all just tried to get through it. But now I would like to write some more. First of all, I was (and have been) thinking of Violet's birth mother. I wondered if she was thinking of her tiny baby she last saw one year ago. I believe she loved her little Bo Ra very much and that making an adoption plan for her must have been very hard and painful. I am so proud that she was able to give my daughter her birth name. I hope some day I can meet her and thank her for the gift she gave and tell her she is forever a part of our family. Violet just has no idea how many people all around the world were thinking of her on her birthday.
We did have our own little celebrations to commemorate Violet's special day. Clay took Aidan and Faith out for dinner. Then the next day I took them to Fun City (Clay was out of town). When he got back we all shared some cake and took some pictures so hopefully one day she will know we were all thinking of her although she was far away.

 

Having pizza at Fun City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also sent off Violet's birthday package. I took this picture, but the "sun" toy did not make it in, and I also added 2 Gymboree outfits and a small blanket that matches. I forgot to take pictures of them before I packed them :(. I sent a Burt's Bees "starter kit" and some baby shampoo and diaper rash cream - and spent hours trying to translate all the items into Korean Hangul and printing them off and taping them on each bottle. They are probably all wrong and make no sense, but hopefully the foster mom can figure out what they are! I also sent the foster mother some Red Door perfume, body butter from Bath & Body Works, a Valentines bag with chocolates, a heart hand towel & V-day card, and about 100 pictures of our family (most terrible quality - boo Snapfish). For the birthday girl we sent a birthday card that sings "Happy Birthday", a book that let Clay and I record ourselves reading, 2 pairs of shoes (size 4 - I have no idea if they will fit!), a cream colored with a black floral print baby Gap dress (size 12 mos), a toy phone, Desitin, baby shampoo, & the outfits & blanket I mentioned (I will post some pics I found online).

Here is what the blanket I sent looks like - I found this pic online

Here is a picture I found online of the shirt & pants I sent

 Good news - we are seeing some movement now with EPs! Some other families have already been submitted and approved and they are waiting on passports and travel clearance! That means we could very well be next! It may not be a Valentine surprise like I had hoped, but very soon!

Faith also had her "show day" at gymnastics last week! She is such a great gymnast ;) Aidan also made ALL A's this semester!!! WOOHOO! I have GREAT kids!!!

SNOW DAY!!

Happy First Birthday sweet Violet!!

Today you are one! I am thinking of you and missing you and wishing I could see your face at your tol! I hope you are having a good time! I know you are getting lots of kisses and hugs and prayers on your birthday! I bet you are having your picture taken wearing a beautiful hanbok! Eating rice cakes and fruit! I wonder what items you picked at your Toljabee! I hope I get pictures soon! We love you so much Violet!

Waiting 7 months and some backtracking

June 14th-January 14th...we have been waiting 7 months today...

Back in December we had the opportunity to send Violet a Christmas package. Here are some pictures of what we sent her.

Lets see - there's a musical toy, soft reindeer socks, cashmere booties, teething tablets, a cloth diaper, "Guess How Much I Love You" in Hangul, and a stuffed black cat for Violet. Some soft scented (peppermint I think) Christmas socks, a violet heart necklace (Bo Ra means violet - I prefer to say violet since purple is a word made up by the Crayola company *wink*), and 2 Ghiradelli chocolate bars for the foster mother; and a necktie for the foster dad. I also got a cute reversible tote bag from the farmer's market to put everything in.

I am currently working on sending Violet her birthday package, and will post pictures soon of all that stuff. I am very late on this, but I am WAITING for Snapfish to send me my pictures I ordered in the mail. They are taking forever. They also took forever to send me my pictures for my Christmas cards, and that paired with the fact that we ALL got the flu over Christmas, I never sent out Christmas cards :(.  Here are the pictures we would have put in our Christmas cards had we done Christmas cards! :)

We also ordered a Boba baby carrier (woke up at 5am to get the Black Friday deal!) and tried it out on Faith when it arrived ;)

 Even though we were all sick and had fevers, we still woke up on Christmas morning to open presents!  We did not, however, get to enjoy our traditional Christmas morning Waffle House breakfast :(

More waiting!!! I AM MAD!!!!

So  - if I have this correct - earlier this month, Emigration Permissions were submitted for April referrals. We got our referral in June. It is supposed to take 4-6 weeks for those families to receive E.P. approval...UGH!!!! And then 2-4 weeks after that for a visa, then 2-4 weeks for travel. I am so ANGRY! I cannot believe this!!! February will mark 8 months of waiting for us. I am going to go INSANE if they only submit E.P.s for MAY referrals next and I have to wait another 2-4 MONTHS!!! This just cannot be happening. I am so mad. 

GIVE ME MY BABY!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: Clay called and talked to our agency to get a a time estimate since I was going nuts and we were told now that it we will most likely get travel call in April. APRIL. GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

Violet is 11 months and New Pictures!

One more month until your 1st birthday!!!

December 8th we got an email from our agency with an update and 4 new pictures Violet! We just think she is so beautiful! I love her little fingers! I can't wait to hold them! Our update tells us she was 16.5 lbs in late November and she has 6 teeth already! She is starting to crawl too! Last week we also received our video! I wish I knew how to upload videos! It is of her and the foster mother opening the gifts we sent. They all laughed at the Spam, lol. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea?


The whole family is currently sick (except me) and it is 2 days til Christmas! I hope they feel better! I was sick with strep throat over Thanksgiving and stayed home. Luckily my family pretty much celebrates Christmas the whole month of December so we have already gone to Little Rock for the family party with my grandma, and the party at Clay's grandparents, and Faith had a church party and Clay & I have been to a church party. Unfortunately, Aidan's church party was a couple days ago and he was too sick to go :(. We are supposed to have Christmas at home and then at my parents on Christmas day. Then the next day we are supposed to go to my granddad's and then Clay's parents. That's a whole lotta Christmas! I hope everyone feels better soon! And I hope I don't catch it!

I sure have enjoyed the Christmas music (thanks to Pandora!), the decorations, the lights (can't wait to be able to go to Silver Dollar City next year thanks to tickets from my in-laws!), and the shopping - but BOY will I be glad when December is over! That means another month closer to getting my baby girl!! This is usually the fastest month of the year but it has really been draaagging on and on! Then I have to make it through January and February...I really hope I don't have to make it through March...but it is possible. I realized that the process starts up again on the Korean New Year, not January 1st so it will be even longer than I thought. Then it is typically a couple weeks to get Visa, then a couple weeks to get EP submission, then a couple more for EP approval, then a COUPLE MORE weeks for travel call...those weeks add up!!

In other news, it is time for me to begin packing up Violet's birthday package! We did send her Christmas package a few weeks ago,  I will post pics later! For now, please enjoy this picture of a cute yellow-haired girl and 2 black cats.

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