We've moved!

To our new site. :)

http://www.kimbapumma.blogspot.com

Come check us out!

{cricket chirp}

Been a little quiet, huh?!?!

Well, I'm working on a new blog.

Stay tuned. ;)

3rd Time's a Charm?

Well, Emersyn will be our third child, second girl, and hopefully we have this baby gear down pat! Right?!?!

I've now started with an infant, a 9 month old and will be starting with a toddler, so hopefully we finally get baby gear we will use and love!!

And since most of these items are in their sad big 'ole boxes waiting in the garage, I thought I'd give them a little shout out!

Zoey, even at 3, is a stroller gal. For sure. Girlfriend loves her some stroller time! So I knew I would need a double stroller. I weighed the pros and cons of a side by side and front to back and checked out all the ratings. Basically, what I found, is that it's all about preference of the user!! LOL! I like the ease of steering, so I knew I wanted 'jogging' type wheels and I knew who rode in the front and back would be a battle every time!! Plus, this is a stroller that was in stock at b*abiesrus and we could try out! I'm a visual gal so that helped me too! Plus, I had a 25% off coupon which made for a pretty sweet deal if you ask me! Can't wait to try it out with my two girls in tow! (Click on the names of the products to see the details!)

B*aby Trend Navigator Double Stroller
I knew I didn't want another full size high chair, which I had with both Braedan and Zoey. Something compact, easy to store and clean, but kept my toddler where she should be while eating! (I'm not convinced Zoey shouldn't be still sitting in one!) Love this print, love this price and love the site it came from! We sold our dining room table since it only sat four and have yet to find another that we like, so for now, Emersyn is the only one who has a place to sit and eat her dinner. :)

F*isher Price Space Saver High Chair
We own a B*ritax Marathon for Zoey, but found a super great deal and cute print on a Roundabout for Emersyn. Again, love the site it came from and got free shipping and delivered to my doorstep. That's my kind of service. Can't wait till Miss Em can sit next to her siblings in the back of our car! Let's hope she likes car seats better than Zoey did!

Br*itax Roundabout
And last but not least, this is definitely not a 'must have' item, however, it sure does make me happy. :)

We took the plunge and found a great deal on a S*urburban. So great, that all we're doing is switching out cars. Same payment, different car. That was a deal we couldn't pass up! And there is so much room in this baby! I love it!! I now think I will never drive anything else but a S*uburban!! Kids love it, we love it, there's room for everyone, including all those car seats and the double stroller I was tellin' ya about! (and no, this is not a pic of our actual car as I'm too lazy to go out and take a pic! That, and it should be pretty clear that I do not have some huge light stage to park a giant S*urburban in to take this pic!)


So, there you go. We're ready for ya Em! I must admit I have not bought any clothes for her or re-done Zoey's room to include her yet as we still have no idea when she'll be here and no idea how she'll be used to sleeping! At this point, I would venture to guess she'll be wearing the same size as Zoey, which would be awesome! And I plan to do some serious shopping while we're Korea. ;)

Keeping our heads up, staying positive and ready to get this baby girl home!

5, 15 and 18 months.

Today marks months since our referral, Emersyn will turn 15 months on the 15th, and in this new updated picture, she is wearing the 18 month clothing we sent her in the last care package! (I'm thinking if all goes as planned, I'll be buying the same size clothing for both girls!)


Whew! 5 months down and at least 4 more to go...but who really knows?!?!

It seems our agency will be submitting the last of the families who will get EP very soon, and it is highly unlikely it will include us.

But we are staying positive, looking ahead and getting excited to meet our girl!

By this time during Zoey's process, she had been home nearly a month already! It's crazy to think back on that time not knowing that two years later, we would be here again, hoping and praying for yet another beautiful little girl to join our family!

We miss her, we love her, and while it seems like a never ending journey, we are hanging in there as best we can!

4 new words and hoping for some news.

Our four new Korean words today are thank you, eat, no and yes! All good words to know, and thankfully ones I knew, but am teaching to my kids. :)


thank you is pronounced 'Gam Sa Ham Ni Da'
food is 'mam ma'
no is 'ah-nee-oh'
and yes is 'nay'

(again, native speakers, help a girl out!)

My kids did really well, especially Braedan, with the first two words!

I really think it would be quite cute to see my three kiddos communicating in Korean. ;)

So, we'll be working on these 4 new words this week!

Getting a bit restless these last few weeks with no news from our agency...hoping for at least a WBC {well baby checkup} this month for Em and maybe a few pics with her care package we sent with the J Family!

Trying our hardest to stay positive and focus on the end result as a family of five. But boy, adoption is not for the weak! At this point in Zoey's process, we were getting ready to travel!

But we know it's all in God's timing and we are hanging in there for now!

Hopefully, this picture of Em is her writing a little email to the Korean government to 'please get me home'!!!!

Adoption Rocks!

Got up, got dressed and headed to the airport Saturday morning!

Passed the time waiting with a new friend, Zachary, also adopted from Korea!

Welcome home J Family!!

Henry and Zoey started right back where they left off...getting a head start on their future courtship! :0)

And the star of show...BEAUTIFUL Miss Anna has arrived!!! Just spending an hour with this adorable girl and her forever family proved she is right where she is meant to be!! Full of life, personality and definitely an active toddler!!

Thank you J Family for letting us be part of your special day!!

ADOPTION ROCKS!

Lion King 3D and a dark hotel room.

I am sitting in a dark hotel room as I post this waiting for my kiddos to fall asleep! My least favorite part about all staying in a hotel room together! Danny pulled the short straw and is cuddled up next to Zoey and I clearly got the 'easy' sleeper, Braedan, next to me! Zoey likes to thrash and toss and turn and wake up in the middle of the night to yell at you for 'squishing' her! I got to sleep with her last time we were out of town, so...

Well, we decided to see Lion King in 3D at a local mall and it.was.awesome!

First, let me say that the ticks were not cheap. As in mama had to make a few extra sales not cheap! But totally worth it. We sat in super big and cushy chairs with a table attached for you to eat your dinner! You simply pushed a button and a waitor would appear and bring you anything from their scrumptious menu! I had fish and chips while I watched the movie! How awesome is that?!?!? The kids enjoyed their pizza and Danny had a brisket quesadilla...not your typical movie food and you didn't have to stand in line to get it either! *excuse the flash cell phone pics!*




I had not seen Lion King in forever and I forgot just how much I LOVE that movie!! We own everything but that movie for some reason, but it's definitely on our Christmas list now!

So where are we?!?!?

Well, we are in Dallas! Tomorrow morning we are heading to the airport to greet the Jesse family and their new baby girl!! You might remember the Jesse's as we have met them on several occasions and their Henry, who is also adopted from Korea, is just three days younger than his future wife, Zoey. :) And boy are we thrilled they'll be bringing home their new daughter, Anna, aka Braedan's wife. :0) Yes, we believe in arranged marriages!

No, all kidding aside, I must admit I am quite excited. This is actually the first airport homecoming I've been to that didn't involve my family and how could seeing a family brought together thru adoption possibly be boring?!?!? We are so thrilled for their now family of four and of course, we hope that our family is inviting them to our airport homecoming soon!

And did I mention how many times we were able to use the word bihaeng-gi today?!?! (which, thanks to all my bloggy friends, we're making sure to pronounce as 'bee-heng-gee'!!)

So off to bed rest up for the early morning greeting...

Hakuna matata!

14 months old!

Can you believe this sleeping beauty turns 14 months old today?!?!?

These are more pictures we received last month from what we believe was her first foster home for 8 months...



Is it possible for her to be any cuter?!?!

And yes, we're still waiting.

And no, we have no idea when we'll be traveling.

And yes, this about sums up the way I feel about the EP situation and our current wait....

We are ready to get this baby home!

감사합니다

A big THANK YOU to Mrs. Lee for sending Seon-Mi these adorable clothes all the way from Korea! (And thanks MaryAnn for dropping them off at our house!)

When I went to pick up Zoey, I had the pleasure to travel at the same time as a family that I met through our agency. Their son had an absolutely lovely and very kind foster mother, who I believe had fostered several children thru Holt, I want to say Rai was her 17th? (click on Rai's name to see him opening the box!) It was an amazing number, she was is an amazing woman, and she was so hospitable and invited me to tag along on several outings with MaryAnn, Aaron and Rai. I know that she checks my blog from time to time, so I hope this all translates for her! We love the clothes, Zoey is doing well, and we appreciate you thinking of us!

And Happy Chuseok 추석 to all! (Yet another excuse to eat yummy Korean food!

50 words and toddlers.

So, when we set out to adopt again, we didn't realize we would be adopting a toddler. I will be the first to tell you that it took some time for me to get used to. But after much thought and prayer, I will say that I am now very, very excited about it! She's walking, talking and eating table food! We often joke how fun it would be if she came home potty trained. :0) Ha! A girl can dream, right!

But she's speaking....Korean. And we do not. I remember Zoey at nine months old, looking at my lips when I spoke at our first meeting, unsure of why I looked like everyone else in Korea, but the words coming out of my mouth were very different! I even remember a caucasion friend of mine who speaks fluent Korean getting a similar look when she would speak to Zoey in Korean! It was very clear she knew there was a language difference.

When I met with her foster mother, I was prepared with all kinds of questions. Amongst them, what Zoey liked to be called and how to comfort her. Her Korean name is Seon-Mi, which is now her middle name, and it's pronounced 'sun-me'. In Korea, they will often times add an 'ah' sound at the end when addressing children. I heard her foster mother call her 'Seon-Mi-a' as she pat her on the back as she cried and called her '예쁘다', pronounced 'ee-poo-ta', which mean pretty. She said she would comfort her by holding her close with her head on her shoulder and whisper 'ee-poo-ta Seon-mi-a' in her ear. The social worker at Holt wrote it down on my list of notes.

I remember one of her first night's home, as she grieved the loss of everything familiar to her, I whispered this same phrase into her ear and she looked up at my face and stopped crying for a second...long enough to realize I was not her foster mother, but clear that she recognized that phrase. We used this phrase, amongst other Korean words here and there for many months after Zoey was home. Over time, she learned to be comforted by that phrase when we said it to her. While some of the Korean words we used have since faded, I am happy to say that Zoey, two and half years after homecoming, still responds to her Korean name without hesitation, especially when she's in trouble. :0) At nine months old, she was not very verbal and while I giggled when people would ask how she well she was picking up the language when she was that age, I realize that with an older child, just how important language is.

Our family has set a goal to learn 50 useful words before Emersyn comes home! My brother is traveling with me and his goal is to become fluent. :0) So far, he knows the word for 'rainbow' really well, so looks like we'll be all set when we travel to Korea!

But just in case we need to understand and say more than the word rainbow to Em, every week or so, our family is going to learn a new word, write it on a card, post it on the fridge, and start replacing the English word with the Korean one in our every day language. This way, when Emersyn gets home, we will be more equipped to understand what she's saying and help her to understand us.

So, if you'd like to learn along with us, I'll be posting the new word of the day as we learn them here!

We're going to start with 비행기 - bihaeng-gi, pronounced 'pee-hang-ee', which strangely enough is a word I already know. :) We have these Korean Children's Song DVDs that we listen to in the car pretty often and they use this word in one of the songs...and it happened to be the first word I learned when using Rosetta Stone, so there you go.

Obviously, I hope this word helps us to explain to Emersyn what's going to happen as we travel home. I'm sure this will be her first time on an airplane and it will be a very looooooooooong first ride on one! Don't use the word airplane very often in your every day discussions?!?!? Well, now you will!!

And we're also going to learn 'I'm hungry' - 배고파, pronounced 'pay-goo-pa'. Good phrase to know for a toddler who will be hungry for something other than formula in a bottle, which is pretty much all Zoey would 'eat' when she came home.

So there go. We will point to the sky and say pee-hang-gee and just before dinner you'll hear us saying 'pay-goo-pa'! (I believe the word 'hungry' is a different word, but equally important, so we'll make sure to learn that too!)

Native Korean speakers, please feel free to correct me. :0) My agency;s online forum provides a list of these phrases I'm using and google translate can only be so accurate!

Here they are, on our fridge and ready to be used. :)

July Birthdays!

Before Zoey, there weren't any July birthdays in our immediate family to celebrate and now we have two!

Emersyn's first birthday was July 15 and what a weird day was that for me emotionally. I've never 'missed' one of my kids birthdays before and and though I knew from referral that we would, the day was still very bittersweet. I am thrilled beyond belief that she got to celebrate her Tol in Korea and hope there are lots of pics to document it! But of course, we would much rather of been with her on her big, special day. We are thankful to be her family though and know we will have many more birthdays with her to celebrate! Since Zoey's birthday is just two weeks later, she was convinced Emersyn's party was hers! Not sure what she thought about having a pic of Emersyn's face on her cake, but she went with it!

Here's a recap of the day! My brother, sister-in-law and their three kiddos joined us for the celebration and turned out to be a fun little party. :) (click on the image to view it larger!)

Upper left hand pic: That was my super lame, yet 'worked in my head' idea! We are in a huge drought down here in Texas and I had bought flying paper lanterns (yes, like the ones in the moview Tangled!) to float into the sky in honor of my girl's bdays, but got shot down as they would start a forest fire with how dry the ground is! So, I thought floating a single candle in our pool would represent her first year nicely, and the wind was so strong, we couldn't get it to light! So I literally snapped that pic in the half second it stayed lit. :) But thanks to my brother for trying to help me pull it off!! Next year, next year...

Then, on July 31, Zoey turned THREE!! I can hardly believe it!

Zoey is VERY into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and loves anything that has to do with it! So of course, it was all about him at her party! She had a blast, loved her party, loved her presents and loved that she is now able to tell people she is three!

Here's a couple pics from her big day! (click on the image to view it larger!)

I am now a proud, proud mama of a six year old, three year old and one year old!

Now if we could just all be living under one roof.....:0)

What's up with the kiddos?!?!

Yah, remember when I said I was going to start keeping up with this blog?!?!? Hmmm...not quite sure what happened!! I think I'm at that point where I have so much to catch up on, I just don't post anything at all. :) Good logic, huh?

Well, this is my attempt to start 'catching up'!

Today was a good day in our house! Zoey started preschool! And for any of you who know her in person, you will know what a huge step this is for her! Huge! This was the first time we have ever really 'pushed' her to do something waaaaay outside her comfort zone. She won't even stay in the nursery at church by herself, and she knows all those people! But I am so happy to report that after about 15 minutes of tears (and some screaming) her teacher was able to calm her down while Danny and I stood out in the hall listening. It was hard to not run in there and hold her, I won't lie, but I knew she was in good hands and I knew she would have fun. Her teacher said she remained a little reserved and quiet the rest of the day, but did great! And we are looking forward to her growing from this experience! SO proud of her!!

And did I mention that she is now fully potty trained? Girlfriend made potty training an absolute breeze! Woke up last Tuesday and told her no more diapers and poof! Here we are a week later and she's even waking up dry from naps. I am one happy mama and glad to be done with diapers...till Emersyn gets home that is!!

Here she is this morning on our way to preschool! (excuse the lame cell phone pics!)


And of course, Braedan started first grade on August 22! He is doing so well (as expected!) and even has a few kids in his class from last year, which makes everything easier. His reading is amazing and he loves school, and his teacher.

Here he is on his first day of first grade!


And our third little munchkin was busy this month too! I was so surprised to receive over 20 photos of Emersyn! We think they are from her first foster family, who took care of her from 2 weeks old till early April, when she was transferred to a foster home in Seoul. Here's a few snapshots of this oh so adorable girly!

Look at that smile!


Love this candid shot of her smiling behind that bottle!

So what's the latest on our adoption process? Well, we are completely paper ready on the US side. And we are currently waiting on what could be some very good news for our family...last week it was announced that the Korean Ministry will now provide priority Emigration Permits to Korean-American couples. What does this mean exactly? Well, our US agency has been notified about this new policy, but has yet to receive the actual details. At this point, without this new policy, we would lucky to be traveling early spring of next year. With this new policy, we hope that that time frame will be greatly shortened, but are awaiting official word. As you can imagine, this news is very exciting to us, but also bittersweet as the extended wait times for families right now continues to drag on and families continue to wait to bring their babies home. We are trying to remain as positive as possible and just remember that it's all in God's hands at this point and Emersyn will come home when the time is right. (and yes, we hope it's sooner rather than later!)

Waiting for relief from the wicked hot weather and drought...but in the mean time, staying cool and enjoying every last second in the pool!



Now let's see if I can keep up with this blog from here on out! :)

Wowza!!

What a lame blogger I have been this month!! July was a busy busy month for us and August is half way over!! So I've got some catching up to do!!

Let's start with these updated pics of my precious youngest daughter we received on July 20! I really, really, really wanna squeeze that baby!!!



They also sent a pic of the burn she suffered the previous month and thankfully it's healing, but looks like it may leave a pretty nasty scar. :( But we were pleasantly surprised to get her MRI results a week later on July 27, which were all normal!! And they squeezed in another picture of Em and her foster mother with the care package we sent!

Sadly, we can't show her face per our agencies' policies, but we can thank her for the excellent care she is giving our sweet baby!

We cannot wait to hold this little girl!

We also received our I600 approval in record time. We wished that would have happened with Zoey's adoption!! It was submitted with the I600A on June 23 and we received our approval on July 27. We are now all paper ready on the US side...it's all about when the Korean government will issue our EP to get Miss Em home!! Let's hope it's sooner than later, but it's pretty clear we will not get one this year and just pray that EP's begin shooting out like crazy come the first of the year.

Thanks for your continued love and support!! We can feel it!

Zoey can swim!!!

Check this girl out!!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy 4th of July!

Our day was filled with parades, eating, swimming, movies and more eating! Looking back on last year's 4th of July celebration, it's so fun to see where we are this year!

It was super HOT out at our town's parade...


So we decided to watch the second half from the slightly cooler car!


After a little movie rental, naps and some dinner, we headed out to the pool to cool off!




And finished the night with a little red, white and blue!

No fireworks because of the drought this year, but that's okay, we are too tuckered out anyway!!

So grateful for our wonderful nation, for all those that serve it diligently each day, and hoping that next year we'll have one more person here to celebrate with us!

Happy 4th of July!

One Month Closer!

I'm really not sure how it's July already, but I'll take it!!

That means we're one month closer to getting Emersyn home!

July is a big month for her and she could use a little extra prayer!

She's healing from a burn, she is scheduled for an MRI and in 15 days, she will be a one year old!

We're not sure how bad the burn is...if it hasn't fully healed by next month's WBC, they'll probably snap a pic or two to show us...as a walking 11 month old might do, she decided to play with the hot side of a water dispenser at a restaurant and burnt her forearm. :(

We're not sure when her MRI is scheduled, but she'll need to be under general anesthesia, which is always scary, and we'll be praying extra hard that everything goes smoothly...she is doing just fine, but they want to run this test to rule out any further medical complications.

And in 15 short days, my youngest daughter will be one!!

When we accepted Emersyn's referral, we knew this was a milestone we would miss...I will admit that it's a tougher pill to swallow as we approach her special day, but I know that in my heart, she was meant to spend her first birthday in Korea. She is being well taken care of, she is in the country of her birth and will have a traditional Korean Tol Party, which is a pretty big deal in Korea!

This is the month of both my girl's birthdays, and I am always thinking of this month as particularly hard on their birth mothers. I ask that you pray for them as well...

So when will she be home?

We would like to know the same thing!

There are just so many unknowns at this moment that it's so hard to predict. But with EP numbers running low and many families still waiting with acceptances long before ours, it is likely that we will at least be waiting till after the first of the year, maybe longer, to be submitted for EP. At best, we would travel in February, but honestly, we are just not sure. The Korean Government is making a lot of changes and we cannot predict how that will affect those in process right now.

All we can say is we would appreciate your prayers! For us, and for all the other families waiting to bring their precious babies home! We have been blessed to bring Emersyn into our family, and while the wait is and will get incredibly difficult, we know that the ultimate reward is having her here, no matter how long the wait, and no matter what age she is...

and lots to update on my two older kiddos, coming in a later post!! Yes, they are still alive!!

Introducing...

Emersyn Hui-a!

We are finally allowed to share pictures publicly after overnighting our acceptance paperwork on Wednesday, then overnighting papers I failed to include on Thursday, to make it in the batch that was sent to Korea TODAY!

So here she is!