11 months old

At 11 months old and finally home, here is how Lily is progressing:

1. She eats like crazy!! She has learned to feed herself with both hands YEA!!!

2. She wants to be held all the time. She will stay in the saucer for a bit, in the ergo for a bit but not for very long.

3. She loves when the boys are around.

4. She is used to the car seat.

5. She is still waking at least once a night. Sometimes twice.

6. She smiles all the time.

Some favorite homecoming pics

Ok, we have a rough estimate of 400 photos from our trip to Korea and Lily's first 2 days home. These are a few. Thanks to Anne Lord for shooting at the airport!!

Accelerated

My father in law once said to me that life is accelerated when children come along and boy was he right. What once were hectic days now involve even more multi tasking. But hey, so what if the house isn't perfect and the laundry isn't all hung up right?
We have been home now with Lily for 10 days and she has done beautifully. She is happy and smiling all the time except for those two days prior to turning the car seat around to face forward. She is responding to her name and loves to hear Rick's voice. She can eat like a teenager, is pulling up on everything and so intrigued by her two brothers. The naps seem to be a bit off though but the last two nights she has slept right through the night so we are not complaining. She is teething so we do have the runny nose going and lots of wet bibs.
My two main concerns: #1. Since she wants to be held all the time, I bought the Ergo carrier, however I almost dropped her while trying to put her on the back!! Definitely need more practice with it. #2. When we left Korea we were told Lily drank a bottle every 4 hours and now we are lucky if she drinks 2 for the entire day??

Home

What a week! Lily's home coming was amazing. After the long but comfortable flight, we were greeted with family and friends, posters made by the kids, balloons and flowers. My family hired a photographer who captured the morning so perfectly. I will post some shots later in the week. Lily has been so cheerful and social during the day taking it all in. She is very active and curious. The first 3 nights we were all over the place with sleep. Still don't know how long it will take to figure out a schedule and now that all the family has all gone home, I am really hit with the reality of having 3 small children! Again, Rick and I are so grateful for all the support from family and friends, all of the emails and Facebook messages and to CHSFS.

After Her Nap

So my little girl woke up a bit out of sorts......as to be expected but I am happy to say it was short lived and she has been a cutie pie. I am sure in the morning it will be the same but I am being optamistic about the flight home. We want to thank all of our friends and family who have shared this experience wtih us and look forward to seeing everyone at the airport ( We arrive home with her on Tues March 10th at 10:50am Dulles Airport Korean Air. Please come and share in the moment if you can!!! We would love to see you. Or stop by the house later if you like) Lance and Luca we miss you so much and can not wait to bring Lily home to TEAM ROSA!!!

We've got her!!

At this moment we have Lily in our hotel room peacefully sleeping on our bed. She fell asleep in the car ride back and will probably keep us up pretty late tonight!

Our day began with shopping followed by more shopping. I did restrain, however, from picking up one of the many designer handbags along the way. We had a wonderful Korean BBQ lunch at Bamboo House including a bit of Korean soju which is kind of like sake. Then it was back to the hotel to get ready to pick up our new addition. Fighting back tears, I had our letter for the foster family translated to Korean. With a nervous stomaches and feeling a bit flushed, we picked up flowers and wine and headed to the agency. We played with Lily and the foster parents and got last minute instructions on her care. As soon as the driver was ready for us, the agency director lead a prayer for our safe trip and a long healthy life. It all happpened very quickly. We collected the baby goods they gave to us and were lead out the back where we said our goodbyes. The foster parents seemed better then I expected. I could barely get the words out as I tryed to thank everyone for what they had done to get this little girl to us. In tears we drove off, with our new bundle of joy. The sun began to set and with a calm baby in my arms and nerves beginning to settle, I was so thankful to the country for allowing us to raise this precious gift.

Back by Popular Demand Lily!

I have some more videos of Lily from the first meeting. We are going to pick her up today @4:30 and its just past 8:00 AM now. We are going to have some breakfast do some shopping and go pick her up! If you are up late ya may get to see some new photos and video.

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Changing of the palace guards.

Kukkiwon

Lance Check this Out!!! Me and mom went to Kukkiwon which is the world headquaters of Tae Kwon Do and when we went inside there where schools from all over getting tested for their black belt and they where awesome!

Lily Claire Bear chows down on a banana

This little Chunka as my sister inlaw would say, ate up this banana ..........she like's to eat that's for sure. Lance hide our secret Chocolates stash for us O.K. We miss you boys and hope your being good. Love you mom and dad

Dina & Lily

Make sure you check out the other video's I posted today as well as the still photo's that Dina had taken at the meeting. (i.e. Scroll down after this post)

Holding Lily

Lily came to me with no problems at all......must be because chicks just dig me.

Lily! High Five!

Our First Meeting!

WOW!......its my baby Girl!

Ok, so most of you that are reading this have a good idea that I have had a very busy couple of months even for me who likes to be busy. In fact, a good friend of ours Louise once told me to schedule a heart attack in over the past few weeks.....good thing for me that my google calender was full. My point is that I have been distracted from what was going to happen today and I placed my personal expectations low, and that it would be akward and I wouldnt feel a huge amount of love instantly for this little girl.............well.....I was plesently surprised. It was so amazing to meet her and her foster family I truly can not explain it. The foster parents ..........I don't think I could have placed her in a more loving family myself you can just see how much they spoiled this little girl. I was so happy to see how involved the dad was playing with her just like I have done with my boys. In addition, finding out all of the wounderful things that Eastern Social Welfare and Home Society does in detail was increadable and inspiring.........my father would have loved it as well as the rest of of my family.

A Beautiful Day!

What an amazing experience! We received the call around 9am to be at the agency at 10:30 to have our first meeting. After a huge buffet breakfast (The Intercontinental Seoul is wonderful by the way) we headed out. We first met with a social worker to sign papers and get Lily's passport. Then we were brought upstairs where both her foster mom and dad were waiting for us at the end of a hallway full of babies. They were so anxious for us to see Hye Won. She is just precious. We then went into a room where we discussed her eating and sleep habits. I was a bit fearful of what her reaction to Rick and I would be but she was very social. They presented us with a huge box of gifts including photo albums, hair clips, the traditional Hanbok for her first birthday, even a gift for when she gets married. They included gifts for Lance and Luca too!! We were told that they showed her pictures of us every day. She is truely loved by this family.

After our meeting, we were invited to have lunch with the agency staff, the president Dr Kim and some other families who are adopting. We got to see the babies that have just been born as well in the nursery. We are getting Lily on Monday evening so we will actually have her the night before we fly home. What a beautiful day!!!!

Pizza in Korea! YUM YUM

So we pushed ourselves last night to go down stairs and get something to eat before bed.......not the best idea because I was in a coma. Anyway we already has some Korean food and had a bit of a carb jones so we had Pizza! The pizza was yummy and we had some more of it when we woke up in the middle of the night.

What Hotel?

After we landed we had to find the shuttle bus to the hotel.....fyi they all look the same and they are not small buses like in the states full size rather nice ones with flat screen TV ( had no clue what was on the TV but still nice.) It was not hard to figure out I must admit and we soon purchased two tickets and took the bus to down town Seoul were most of the hotel's are and there was plenty of help to guided you in the proper direction. One thing I noticed was that our driver had on a nice suit not bad for public transportation.

On Route To Korea!

Sleepless in Korea.......ok so my sleep plan just went out the window and I have been up since 1:30 trying to remember how to down convert the damn HD video recorder before my wife kills me .......don't worry folks I am a Renaissance Man and got it all worked out for your viewing pleasure. Ok first impressions......I have no idea how we got to the hotel but everyone is very nice lots of smiles so far and lots of people speak english so that helps. We have no clue yet what is in store for today but we should be seeing Lily for our first meeting soon. Keep checking back for new updates. Hi Lance and Luca miss you boys

Finally going to Korea!!!!

The call we have been waiting for finally came this morning...Lily is ready to come home!!! We leave tomorrow and should be meeting with her for the first time on Thursday morning. We will post photos as soon as we can. We arrive home with her on Tues March 10th at 10:50am Dulles Airport Korean Air. Please come and share in the moment if you can!!! We would love to see you. We are so thankful for everyones well wishes. AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!