A week in review...

I went from the family room to the kitchen to put a cup into the dishwasher. When I returned, my children were sitting on the sofa, holding hands and reading books. It brings tears of joy to my eyes to see these easy, spontaneous displays of affection.



David and I had a fun outing to a forest preserve. We threw A LOT of sticks into the river. A LOT.


There was a hot air balloon that flew over our neighborhood. Both David and Anna LOVED the balloon.



Anna and I got to play at the playground. Even though she managed to go face first down one of the slides, I foresee many playground adventures in her summer.


The best Mother's Day gift of all...

Whose Ark Is It?

My dear son has a beautiful, Christian heart. When he was about 18 months old, he rode through the grocery store telling everyone we passed that they should, "Smile! God loves you."

At two and a half, he shared a message at Easter in a similar way. That time he told everyone at the grocery store, "Jesus died on the cross for all sinners."

(In the interest of honest disclosure, at 3, he told everyone at the grocery store, "Daddy got his teeth cleaned at the dentist's office.")

At almost four, he wandered through a department store singing "Onward Christian Soldiers."

From time to time, his complete faith shines in unexpected moments.

The other day, David and I went to our local Christian bookstore. While we were walking around, I saw a toy Noah's ark. Thinking that I was a clever mom, I thought I would use this as an opportunity to work on possessive pronouns.

I pointed to Noah and asked David who he was. He replied, "Noah." The toy's Noah looked a lot like Noah from our ark toy set at home so I was not surprised by the recognition.

I then pointed to the boat, "Whose boat is it?"

David looked at me and said, "God's."

I was working on pronouns. I thought David would say "his." So, I tried again. "David," I asked, "Whose boat is it?"

"It's God's," David replied more emphatically.

Silly Mom that I am, I tried one more time. Pointing to Noah, "Who is this?" David replied, "Noah." "So whose boat is it?" I asked. "It's God's boat," David said. And that was when it hit me. I was the one missing the point. He wasn't failing to use possessive pronouns. He was telling me that Noah followed God's plan when he built the ark.

You're right kiddo. It is God's boat. And, it's also God's amazing plan for a wonderful, smart little boy.

A visit with family

We are so blessed with our children's grandparents. Seriously. I know parental love is no suprise but our parents are truly amazing grandparents. Both sets have given us years of support and joy in the roles as grandparents. Sadly, we are a little too far away from either set of grandparents to get to see them very often. The grandparents on my side are several states (and about 18 hours in a car) away. When we see Grandma and Grandpa, it's typically for a week or so visit. We can't wait for the next time!!

My husband's parents live about two hours away. We try to get up for quick day trips to see Nana and Nampa. On our last day trip, we got to play, play, play!


Anna got to "play" the piano...


and she got to play with talking Thomas...


and she got to play on the giant ball.

David got to play too!


He read books and played in the yard.

We also took David and Anna to see David's favorite model railroad. It's a fantastic set up at a greenhouse near my in law's. The nursery has devoted an entire building to the trains.










Although she remained in the baby carrier because of the height of the display, Anna loved the trains too!




After the train, we went back to Nana and Nampa's for a little while. Nana took this shot of our family of four. I love it!


There were a lot of hugs to be had.


We love our children's grandparents. We wish we could see them more often!

Wordless Wednesday: Puppy Love

Taking time to enjoy spring

David is an outdoor kid. Anna is showing great joy at being outside too. When the weather got beautiful last week, we took advantage of the time to walk in two parks. Both are prairie ecosystems with ponds and streams.

The first was a family of four adventure. We walked around a park that has an old farm house and a lake with a path around it. Anna was in a baby carrier for most of the walk, but she also got to walk and play at some of the spots where we stopped for a while.










The second was a Mom-David adventure. Although I cherish these times, they are not as frequent as I would like. David is in school all day and he enjoys a lot of things that are Dad-David adventures (like swimming in the pool at our YMCA).




On this walk, David was throwing rocks and sticks into a little stream. The prairie at this park had an intentional burn last fall. The prairie grasses need fire to keep their ecosystems healthy. What I didn't realize was that David was getting some charcoal on his hands from the sticks.

Check out these two photos. Hilarious!




The park has great paths and trails. It also has some lovely playground equipment. David likes to stop and play before heading home.




Can you tell how much we've been enjoying the weather? Well, it is spring. This morning, it snowed.

Playground adventures

We have recently had an outbreak. This is the right kind of outbreak: Spring weather! When the opportunity presents itself, we go out and play. I love the look of joy and pleasure that both kids get when they play at the playground. We call this playground "The Castle" because of the neat spires in the structure.

The black rubbery mat is a "shaky bridge" that wiggles when you walk on it. That has been a giant hit for David this spring.

I love the look on David's face in the photo that has Anna walking toward David and Dave. It just captures it all!

Hooray, Spring!

A LONG update...

It's been too long since I had the chance to sit down and write anything substantive here. I want to. Really. I just get sidetracked with little things like laundry, cooking and sleeping. I know many of you have been there too. We are nicely into a new routine as a family of four. We just have little things that come between me and my keyboard.

Since it's been too long, I wanted to post a longer update about Anna. Here's a little more information about her likes and dislikes. Before I jump in, I have one caveat. It took me five minutes to come up with 10 likes. It took me DAYS to generate dislikes. She's just that happy. :)

Top 10 Likes
1. Dogs- Anna is dog crazy. She loves them in any form- live, stuffed animal, photos, books. You name it, Anna loves dog. We don't currently have a dog. We are thinking about adding a furry addition to the family this summer in part because of how much joy they bring her. (She's great about being in her carseat. She loves taking adventures and the carseat gets her there...)


2. Playing outside- Anna loves being outside and particularly enjoys playgrounds. She is a sliding board master with no fear at all.


3. Singing and dancing- With Anna, every day is a dance party. I'm trying to get her little dance move on video. I'm still working on it...

4. Books- Anna is a complete bookworm. She loves to read. Her favorite books have songs or dogs in them.


5. Balloons and bubbles- Anna LOVES balloons. She also loves bubbles. Bubbles is one of her clearest words in English.

6. Church- Anna is great in church. She is very quiet when we stand for prayer. She loves the hymns and "sings" along with music.

7. Being told she's pretty- Anna loves to have new people tell her how pretty she is. When she is out and about, she stays close to us when she is meeting strangers. Still, as long as she is with us, she likes it when they tell her she's pretty. She often responds to that type of affection by blowing a kiss.

8. Stuffed animals- Anna came home from Korea with two stuffed animals. She LOVES stuffed animals. They are multiplying in our house. She particularly likes dogs, bears, and rabbits.

9. Containers- Anna has great fun putting objects into a container and then taking them out, then putting them in, then taking them out, etc. She is extremely pleased to get a plastic container when it's ready to be recycled. She steals them right from the dishwasher.


10. Photos of her foster family- We have been so blessed that we have photographs from Anna's foster family. We took a couple in Seoul. They emailed us several about a month ago. The family gave us an album from Anna's early days. She squeals with joy and kisses the photos. It's beautiful.

11. Ok, so I know I said top 10... She's a great eater. She likes to be served traditional Korean dishes that we make for her. She also likes anything at all that we are eating.



Top 10 Dislikes
1. Socks- Socks stay on her feet for seconds. If we think she has to have on socks, we put shoes on top of them. I don't know why Annas and socks are enemies. Hopefully, it's a toddler phase.

2. Bibs- I think bibs must be a little different in Korea. Anna is not fond of wearing a US style bib. I will say, however, that we are determined because she likes to try to feed herself. See how we kept this bib on?


3. Hair bows- This one baffles me. Every photo that we got of Anna before she came home had a bow in her hair. I loved it. I bought hair clips- lots of hair clips. She absolutely will not leave them in her hair. I've tried headbands, bows, clips... She's fascinated by them but will not wear them. If there's a trick to getting them to stay in her hair, I'd love to know it.


4. Diaper changes- Typically, Anna's great about baths and diaper changes. She just doesn't like them if she's tired. She also likes to have raspberries blown on her tummy. If you don't, she can be a little frustrated with you.

5. Pororo opening credits- Anna LOVES Pororo songs. Loopy is her absolute favorite character. Anna will watch Pororo songs on you tube for as long as we let her. It's only the opening song that makes her sad. I'm not sure why the opening song makes her sad.

6. Stacks of blocks- Ok, this is probably just a kid thing... Anna thinks stacks of blocks MUST be knocked down.

7. Coffee grinder- I think this is a sound issue but it may be the smell of the coffee. Anna has to be held to grind coffee.

8. Telephone calls- Anna loves to pretend to make calls. The sound of the phone ringing is not her favorite experience. I think it surprises her. My husband thinks that it's because she wants to be talking on the phone. Either way, it makes her cry if we let the phone ring (which we only do during things like baths or diaper changes).

9. No- We don't use "no" unless Anna will get hurt or is destroying something. That means that we say it a lot. ;) Just kidding! Anna is a climber. We have a hard time keeping her off of the top of furniture.


10. Falling- When Anna falls, she gives a little smack to whatever made her fall. I think she hates to fall down because it gets in the way of what she was trying to do.

We've been so blessed that the transition has gone well so far. We certainly are still a work in progress. Progress is beautiful!