One year ago....

At about this time of the morning, one year ago, we got our referral call. It would take us 24 hours to see the paperwork and Anna's beautiful photos. It would take us five days to be able to call her ours. It would take ten months to meet her in person.

A year later, we look back at that life changing phone call with awe and joy. It was the call that brought our happy, curious, silly, serious, beautiful daughter into our lives.

Celebration

Sunday evening, Anna and I went to a Lunar New Year celebration. It was a delightful chance to meet new friends, eat yummy food and share in some of Anna's traditions for Lunar New Year. She was a little young to participate in the bow ceremony. She did wear her hanbok. Our foster family gave us her first birthday hanbok. We've saved that for her memory box and we hope to keep it in perfect condition. This hanbok was one that Grandma and I picked out while we were in Seoul.


She also stayed in one place long enough to get into the "group" photo. The photo contains the children of the families who attended the event. We were also able to celebrate with some college students who are here from Korea to study in the US. All in all, it was lovely! My little social butterfly will clearly attend more of these events in the future.

Oh, Snow!

A few weeks ago, we got snow. A lot of snow. Just after the snow, we got seriously cold weather.Although David braved some of the worst of the weather, I'm just neurotic enough that Anna had not gotten to play much in the snow. Mixed into my overly cautious feelings about weather, David then Anna got a cold. Anna also got three teeth (with the 4th on the way).

This weekend, the snow started to melt, the kids were well, and we all went to play in the snow. The result was a six foot tall snowman in the backyard! My husband calls him "Piney."

A Valentine from Anna

Blow a kiss...


A card...


Happy Valentine's Day!

Togetherness

Our region had a huge blizzard this week. It was pretty serious weather. There was one happy side effect for our family. We got to spend two days off of school in the middle of the week. I'll leave outdoor photos for another day. For now, here's a little glimpse at the togetherness that we got to share.

David was reading a book. Anna climbed into the chair behind him and was pulling him in for a big hug.



Happy New Year! Today marks the start of the "Year of the Rabbit" in Korea.



Have you noticed that these photos seem to be in David-Anna pairs? We seem to be getting a lot of behavior modeling from both of our kids right now. Both David and Anna seem to want to play together by doing what the other child is doing. Sometimes that feels a bit like "Anything you can do, I can do better" but sometimes it just feels like affection.




Anna loves to be up on Dave's shoulders. It makes her so happy!


All three of us are smiling here. It's a miracle!

My happy kids

My goal was to post a longer update. Sadly, nap times require better time management than I had today. I hope it's ok to just post some photos of my kids and run...



PS- David is clapping and singing in this photo