Hanbok Mini Photo Session

Seollal is the Korean New Year and was celebrated on February 10 this year.  We had a short mini-photo session with Boo in his hanbok, which is the traditional Korean dress and is now worn mainly as formalwear during traditional festivals and celebrations.  His hanbok is the one that his foster parents bought for him for his first birthday celebration while he was still in Korea.

And look...it finally fits!!!

And a movie...just because.

How Time Flies!

Wow, I can't believe it's really been over two months since I've last posted on here!  I've been meaning to, but it's one of those things where it's gets harder and harder to sit down and do it the longer it's been.  We've had a lot happen in these past two months and I keep thinking that the longer it takes me to get back into blogging, the more stuff is going to pile up to put on here.  So I'll just start:

Chris and I took a trip to the British Virgin Islands with some friends in January and Grandma came to stay with Boo while we were gone.  We had a great time in a warm climate with sun, sand, friends, and just a tiny bit of booze.  Very relaxing, for the most part...although next time I've been promised that there will be a bigger boat involved!  (I still have to sort through pictures, so that will probably be a future post.  If you have my email and want to see the ones I have on Shutterfly, shoot me an email and I'll send you the link.)

At the same time, Chris' grandpa's health starting going downhill and, added to that, he got the flu.  :(  But since then, he's bounced back (as well as a 91-year-old can, anyway!), although they've since had to move him to a nursing home because he needs more help than can be provided at home these days.  We're thankful that he's now eating again and putting on some weight!  We got a chance to visit him when we got back from our BVI trip, which was still early in the whole process.

Oh, yeah, on that trip we brought home a stuffed giraffe, which I kind of talked Chris into taking!  Giraffes have a special meaning for me in connection with Boo, so how could we say no to Grandma??  It now stands watch over Boo in his room when he's sleeping.

How could he say no when looking at that face anyway?!

{How did you talk me into this??}

Love you, Honey!!!

After this trip, Chris' dad was also in the hospital for about a week after falling, breaking some ribs, and puncturing a lung.  He's also doing well now and we actually got to see both Chris' parents this past weekend when they came to visit with an early Easter basket for Boo.

Everyone else, listen up...ya'll stay healthy now, ya hear??

We celebrated Daddy's birthday in February by baking and decorating a cake for him.  Boo picked out the cake and icing: chocolate with red (cherry) icing.  It was very yummy!!  And of course, he helped Daddy blow out the candles.

I signed Boo up for a martial arts/tae kwan do introductory session and he seemed to take to it pretty well, although we were in a small office-sized space with the door closed and he was the only one there.  I'm not really sure how well he would do paying attention and following directions if he was in a class setting with all the distractions that brings with it.  After the session, the instructor told me that Boo is a kinesthetic learner first, then visual, and finally auditory.  Soooo, guess who's going to be in the front row of class???  My boy!  She was very impressed by how well he picked it up and said he is very flexible (which we already knew since he can still fold himself in half like when he was younger and can do a pretty decent split without even trying hard!).  Here he is doing a kick:

...and breaking a board:

We went to a model train show in a small town north of us and Boo absolutely loved it.  He was walking around on his tip-toes at times in order to see all the train cars on the tables that were for sale.  There were a couple of elaborate model trains set up and he was enthralled with watching them go around and around the tracks.  There was even a larger Thomas the Train model with Percy, Thomas, and James chugging along at different times.  I think I remember having to bribe him to get him out of there for lunch!

Future engineer?

Saying hi to Percy.

We also have blinds at our kitchen window now...yeah!!  And the backsplash tile finally came in and I picked it up this week.  Now to find time to get it up and then the kitchen will be complete.
Thank. God.
It will be nice to have that huge project done!

We've done a few other things recently, but the pictures are still on the camera, so I'll post about them later.  I promise it won't be another two months before I get back here, okay??

Baking with Mommy

Boo helped me make a dessert for a recent dinner with some friends.  We both had a great time making this and it was a pretty kid-friendly recipe: smashing graham crackers,

pouring it into melted butter,

then stirring it all together.

He didn't do this part, but it is such a cute picture!

Cutting up the bananas with a butter knife.  He kept saying how he's "a big boy now" since he got to use the knife on his own!

Putting the sliced bananas on top,

then some Cool Whip and sliced cherries and voila!

Very yummy finished product!

 And in a completely different vein of picture:

Our girls, hoping for a handout.

Christmas

The weekend before Christmas was spent at my parent's with both my sister and their families.  There was no snow (until after we left, thankfully, which made the driving easier!) and it was actually warm enough to go play at a local state park one afternoon, which the kids loved!  (Warning: This post is picture heavy, but don't miss the big news about our boy at the bottom if you don't want to look at all the cute pictures in between.)

Boo is looking so much older!

my little sister, her husband, and their youngest, W, who was born in November

Becky and her oldest, C

Grandpa and Becky's middle boy, E

my older sister and her oldest, J

Grandma and my one-and-only!

Grandma, J, and W

Daddy was going to take Boo to the state park on Saturday afternoon when everyone else had fallen asleep because we couldn't get him to fall asleep...I guess all that was needed was about 30 seconds in the car (no lie, it was that quick!), some sunglasses and the stocking cap pulled low.  He was out for an hour and a half after that!!

I absolutely love this picture of me and my sister's oldest boys.  I am so happy that Boo has such wonderful cousins on both sides of the family!!

me and my godson snuggling

holding Daddy down on the floor and then pretending to go to sleep.  I don't think anyone's buying it, bud.

the kid's table...looks like fun!

Playing at the state park, throwing walnuts into the lake.  Who needs presents?!?!  These boys could have spent the whole day doing this alone.

Grandpa and W

boys being boys!

Z learning some yoga poses

What would getting together with my family be without Chris getting down on the floor to play with the boys??  I love my hubby and the joy he finds letting the kids climb all over him!!

Grandpa and Z

Brenda and her youngest, Z

Kissing cousins...so sweet!

The best shot I got of the six boys.

We all left on Christmas Eve so that we could be at our respective homes for Christmas morning.

Awesome reaction to his new bike!

Had to take it out for a spin in the afternoon.  He's doing really well pedaling already!!

Oh, another H.U.G.E  piece of news is that it looks like the potty training idea is finally clicking in Boo's head!!  Yippee!!!!!!  We started him in pull-ups again before traveling to my parents and he had no melt-downs there when we told him it was time to go potty.  I think part of this is because of his cousins, two of whom are potty-training now as well.  He got training underwear in his stocking from Grandma and Grandpa and has been wearing those here at home the past couple of days.  And guess what, people??  He's been dry during the day for almost two weeks and telling us when he needs to go!  AND he told his teachers at school that he needed to go potty, which is a first!  They are so excited for him and his accomplishment; I love how much those women care about him and will be a little sad when he has to switch classrooms next year.  (Guess I should get used to that, though, huh?)  It looks like the potty training is really happening this time, and we couldn't be prouder and more excited of our little big boy.

What a way to ring in the new year!  Celebrate!!

Movie Monday - Holiday Program Preview

Boo's daycare is having a holiday program in a couple of weeks where the kids will sing a couple of songs.  They sent the words home so that the parents can work on them with our kids.  Here is Boo practicing one of his favorites:

I'm a little snowman, short and fat.
Here is my broom and here is my hat.
When it's cold and icy, I will stay,
But when it gets hot, I will melt away.

Holiday Happenings

The weekend before Thanksgiving is the first hunting weekend for Chris.  He usually drives south on Thursday evening so he can go out and hunt on Friday morning.  In the meantime, Boo and I have started what I hope will be our own tradition on hunting weekend: we cover that 3-hour trip south on Friday morning…on a train!!!!  This was our second year in a row to do this and, oh, what a difference a year makes!  Last year, Boo didn’t know really what was going to happen, but he DID keep reminding me all week long about not forgetting the tickets.  I also remember the pure joy, excitement, and astonishment on his face when he first caught sight of the train pulling into the station last year.  I absolutely wish I had thought to get a video, or at least a picture, of that one moment in time, but alas, hindsight’s 20/20.  And he rode almost the whole way down there with his nose/face smooshed up to the window, informing me of what was out there: another set of tracks, two sets of tracks, oh, and what’s that??  Yep, another set of tracks.  It. Was. Awesome.

This year, we crossed off the days on the calendar until we got to the day with the train Mommy had drawn (at least, my replica of a train).  Then we knew it was time to go.  When we got to the train station, Boo waited near the windows to see our train pull in and we were one of the first ones to get on.  He could not wait to give our tickets to the conductor, but was slightly disappointed when the guy only scanned the barcode on the ticket instead of hole punching it!  (Thumbs down to technology advancement in this instance.)  As we rode south, he was a bit less enamored of the train ride than he was last year.  But it might have had a little lot to do with the fact he was watching a movie on the Kindle Fire this year!  Anyways, we had a good trip down and Daddy and Grandpa picked us up at the train station on time.

We spent that weekend at Chris' aunt and uncle's house.  Boo did some yoga with great-aunt Amy:

"downward dog"

"triangle"

Amy showed him these poses once, for fun, and he copied her really well!

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday driving around to visit the rest of Chris' family.  We had some fun with Grandma and Grandpa and some extended family.

breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa

He got to open up some Christmas presents while there and had some fun with the box it came in.

Aunt Lisa

We then got to spend some time with Boo's cousins.

Boo and I had some fun making and decorating our own Christmas trees that following week.  He really enjoyed decorating the trees with stickers and using the glue stick to put "ornaments" on it.

I used a hole punch with different color construction paper to make the ornaments for the tree and then we pulled some cotton balls apart to glue "snow" on our trees.

Boo's final creation.  Pretty cool, I think!

We also took some time to practice letters and look at that E!!!!

That is the first time I've seen him trace a letter that actually turns out legible.  I love watching him learn and master new things.

We visited Santa yesterday and Boo did really well.  This was the first time we've seen Santa because we just never got around to it last year and the first year home, we didn't think he was ready for something like that.  What I thought was really neat about it was that Santa's "elf" asked if Boo had an Elf on the Shelf at home and what his name was.  We have one, so we gave his name and when it was our turn, Santa got a "call" from Son (our elf) who told him how good Boo was being this year.  He sat on Santa's lap and told him what he wanted for Christmas and then gave a huge grin to daddy, who had taken some video and got a great picture of the two of them.

Today, we got our Christmas tree and decorated it.  As Boo said, "It's bee-you-tee-ful!"  No pictures, just gotta take our word for it.  The lights are up outside already; last weekend's mid-50 degree weather made that a no-brainer to get done!  So we are ready for the rest of the holidays, my favorite time of the year!!