Christmas

Caleb was doing a "tough guy" pose to go with his black eye
Julia enjoyed her first Christmas
Julia got a tea party set, but Isaac thinks it is his toy :)
Isaac got the motorized Thomas train- a great gift!

Julia's Christmas Eve dress, isn't she adorable?
Our best Christmas present this year
Our first family picture with Julia


Merry Christmas! We had a really nice holiday. Nate went back to work on Christmas Eve. My brother, Tim, came down and took the kids to the Christmas Eve service with me. Even with his help it was not a pleasant experience. There was no nursery and my kids do not do well with evening services that last 1 1/2 hours. Oh well.

My parents and sister came down Christmas Day. We opened gifts in the afternoon after Nate woke up. I was thankful my family came to us this year so that Nate could participate as well. And, I don't want to travel too much with Julia yet. It's always fun to see the kids so excited. Even Julia was having a good time. My parents then took Isaac back to their house for the weekend. I miss having him around, but it does make life a little easier since Nate is gone all weekend. I thought I had more to share, but my brain isn't functioning well at the moment. :) We are so thankful for our children and families and pray that you had a wonderful Christmas too celebrating Jesus' birth!

Ouch

Caleb's sledding injury
Julia in her favorite spot, my lap!
She sucks her thumb when she's tired or stressed


Nate took the boys sledding today and Caleb left with a nice souvenir. They had a great time until Caleb collided with another boy and Caleb's face got the worst of it. We're telling him that his injury looks tough. :) We planned on taking a picture of the kids this week for our Christmas cards, that's not happening. We will be sending out New Year's cards instead!

Nate returns to work tomorrow, so sad. I am thankful he had these past few weeks off though!

The first week

Julia's foster brother played the piano, she seems to enjoy it when Nate plays
Isaac did ask me to put Julia in the basket with him, even though his expression doesn't show it!
She has this stunned expression in most of our pictures so far
Here's the happy girl!

Julia has been home for over a week now! The first week went WAY better than we expected. She is a great eater and hasn't refused anything yet. She is also consistently sleeping thru the night. She is slowly warming up to Nate. She will go to him without screaming, but if I'm in the room she makes it clear she wants me. I'm not sure how this second week will turn out. This past weekend we went to Chicago to celebrate my Grandma's 80th birthday. Julia came down with a fever during the weekend and did not feel good. It didn't help that she was also surrounded by tons of new people and slept in a different bed. It was a stressful weekend for her. I'm glad we were able to celebrate with my Grandma, but I was also glad to get back home. :) Her fever seems to have gone down today, but she has been very clingy with me again. The book I've been reading about parenting internationally adopted kids talk about how attachment goes in waves, so I won't be surprised if she needs more attention again. The book is very informative about what adopted kids need from parents, etc. and I'm learning alot. I am very thankful Nate is off still. He goes back to work on Christmas Eve. It's a little disappointing he has to work thru the holidays, but I am so grateful he was off during Julia's first weeks home!

We've been blessed with friends making meals for us and coming to visit and meet Julia. My parents and siblings will come to our house for Christmas Day, which will be fun. We're excited to celebrate Julia's first Christmas! I pray you all have a wonderful Christmas celebrating our Savior's birth!

Korea

This felt like a familiar scene! Happy to be home with my kiddos!

Our first night together with Julia.

This is Julia's foster mom. She provided a great home for Julia and we
are very thankful for her and her family.

The Korean National Folk Museum. We learned much about Korea's history here.

Part of a dance/percussion group we saw. The show highlighted traditional
Korean dance, percussion, and instruments. It was much better than we
originally expected and very entertaining.

This little cafe had the best hot chocolate I've had in a long time!
A statue in the Folk Museum Village. We just thought it looked a little funny.
Visiting Julia during her pre-flight physical at Holt.

One of the highlights of our trip was our visit to the DMZ. That is a North Korean building in the background. It was hard to envision living under the constant threat of war.

The American soldier upfront was giving the tour. You can see the Korean soldiers in the background facing N. Korea. In between the blue buildings you can see a cement line- don't cross that line! Unfortunately we couldn't go in the blue buildings. Supposedly inside the building there is a line marking the separation between the two countries. They use the buildings for negotiations.

We had a wonderful trip to South Korea! We experienced some jet lag for a couple nights where we woke up around 1-3 am and couldn't fall back asleep. South Korea is 14 hours ahead of eastern time. On Monday we walked around a local shopping district and ate lunch at a local restaurant. We then met Julia in the afternoon! She was with her foster Mom, who is a wonderful lady. Julia was her 10th foster child and also her last. The family is moving out of Seoul now that their sons are all grown. Julia let me hold her for a minute, then started crying. The foster Mom held her for the rest of the visit, but Julia would interact with us. It was so amazing to finally meet Julia. Later that night we went to the Seoul Tower, which has an impressive view of the city. We ate a burger there for supper, but it didn't taste quite right. :)

On Tuesday we had our DMZ tour which I talked about in a previous post.

On Wednesday we went back to Holt for Julia's pre-flight physical. She fussed a little when she saw us walk in. The Dr. gave her a clean bill of health and said in English, "She is a cute, fine baby." We agree! That afternoon we took a Seoul City Bus Tour and got off at a different areas of Seoul. We ate at a "traditional Korean" restaurant for lunch. We ended up with a potato pancake and soup with fat noodles in it. The food was ok. They really like "kimchi" in Korea which is fermented cabbage that is spicy and served cold. Personally, we are not fans. :) Also, if you order "cider" in Korea, it's Sprite. Something must have gotten lost in translation along the way. :) That night we went to a traditional Korean folk musical. It was really excellent. The percussion group was entertaining and the costumes were beautiful.

On Thursday we toured a local palace, not far from our hotel. (By the way, our hotel was fabulous. We really appreciated that they served American style breakfast!) The palace grounds are huge and the buildings are beautiful. They still have a bit of renovating to do on them though. The Koreans have not had an easy history, between Japan ruling them for a long time, WW II and the Korean War- all took their toll on the historical landmarks. We also walked thru the National Folk Museum. We learned alot about Korean history and how they lived over the centuries. We also learned that Korean farmers used to use wooden shoes during rainy periods. A little Dutch-Korean connection there! ;)

That afternoon we went to pick up Julia, we were each very nervous. The transition itself went so smoothly- thank you for all of your prayers! It was a very hard separation for the foster Mom. The foster Mom had pictures of us and she had taught Julia how to say "Mom." So when Julia was riding back to the hotel with us she kept looking at me and saying, "Mom, mom, mom." She then fell asleep against my chest. Such a sweet, wonderful moment. We ate supper with Julia in our hotel room and she was happy eating some of our food and looking around. Putting her to bed was rough. In Korea, babies sleep with the family on a mattress on the floor. Eventually I put her in our bed and she collapsed from exhaustion. Then our alarm clock went off for some reason at 9:30 pm and she woke up screaming. Ouch. It took awhile to get her asleep again. I did not sleep well that night with her in bed with me. I was so worried that she would roll off the bed or something.

On Friday we then went to the airport to make our trip home. It was a long, stressful day. Julia did ok considering the circumstances. She didn't sleep alot on the plane and she cried often. The flight attendants walked her a couple times and some older Korean women near us tried to console her as well. At first I felt like a bad Mom giving her to other people. But, eventually I realized this was going to be a LONG day and I should just accept the help. We arrived in Chicago on Friday morning, yep, we saw the Friday sunrise twice. :) It was so good to see our boys again and they were excited to meet Julia!

Since arriving home we have been adjusting. I think Julia's internal clock is still operating on Korean time, so it will take a little while to adjust her sleep schedule. She latched on to me right away and screamed whenever Nate or someone else tried to hold her. She is getting better with Nate, but still prefers me if I'm in the same room. We are starting to see more of her happy, playful side. It reminds me that even though things are rough right now, eventually she will be fully adjusted and happy here. Thank you to all of you for your support and prayers on this journey. God is so good and we are so blessed to have Julia! We appreciate your continued prayers too!

Julia

Playing with Daddy's watch

My baby girl!

DMZ

Today we went to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). It's basically the line separating N. Korea and S. Korea. It's been 50 years since the line was established. I didn't realize that the two countries have been exisiting under a cease fire since then, not a true peace agreement. It's sad to hear about the living conditions in N. Korea. And it's a little creepy walking up to a building near the line and seeing a N. Korean soldier watching you through binoculars. We weren't allowed to point or make rude gestures toward the N. Korean side or take pictures in certain areas. The S. Koreans are very careful to not have any incidents, b/c even little incidents can escalate quickly. S. Koreans still talk about when unification happens, like it's a sure event. And, I think they are right. I think eventually all cruel govts who suppress freedom of religion and people's rights eventually come to an end. I just pray that end comes about without violence. We also walked thru one of the tunnels that the N. Koreans dug under the DMZ in hopes of making a surprise attack. (The S. Koreans discovered the tunnels before they were used.) Nate and I had to duck quite a bit in the tunnel, and it was a long way down. I kept thinking my Dad would get a kick out of all this history. :) Anyway, it was a good Korean history day. Seoul is such a modern, wealthy city that you wouldn't even know about the subtle tension that is always present unless you went to the DMZ or the Korean War Museum (which we won't have time to see.)