Home One Month!!!

It's hard to believe, but yes, we came home with Simon one month ago today - not sure where the month went! Simon seems to be adjusting really well - his schedule/routine is pretty much set and he has been sleeping through the night pretty consistently for about 2 weeks now. He does not like it when his routine is tampered with too much and he sometimes gets overwhelmed in new or busy situations. He is definitely recognizing us as mom and dad and usually prefers to be held by mom when he is tired, grouchy or overwhelmed. He LOVES his bottle and flails his arms and squeals when he sees it coming or knows that we are making it - then he gets cranky really quickly if we are not fast enough in getting it in his mouth. Overall, he is a very happy baby with an adorable smile and contagious belly laugh.

Anna seems to be adjusting well, for the most part. The "take him back to South Korea" meltdowns have become much fewer. She even declared one day that it is "great being a big sister because you get lots of cool big sister presents - Simon only gets clothes" :-) She has been busy with "How to be a Pirate" day camp and swim classes and is quick to tell anyone who will listen that these things are "only for big girls, not for babies!" Mostly she gives him lots of hugs and kisses and directs mom and dad as to what SHE thinks Simon needs or wants.

Here are some photos:

Playing in the grass


Cute Boy


Jen and the kids


Ready for bed


Fourth of July








Water Baby


All Smiles


The Kiddos



We are thinking that this will be the last post on this blog. After all, it is titled "Simon is Coming Home" and, well, he is very much home. I am considering doing a family blog, just to post some photos of the kiddos every now and then, but setting it up is on the lower end of my ever-growing to-do list. When I get around to it, I will post the link here and will let as many of you know as I can.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing the photos of our trip to South Korea and our first weeks home. It was fun to be able to share it all with so many people at one time and it was great to read all of the comments.

Oh, for a good night's sleep.......

We are slowly adjusting to life as four. Simon is such happy and sweet baby - he is such joy. Unfortunately he likes to be happy and sweet from about 2-4:30am :-) His days and nights are still flipped around and he thinks it is play time in the middle of the night. He goes to bed around 8:30 or 9:00 pm - actually we struggle to keep him up this long. He sleeps well in his crib unitl anywhere between 11pm and 1am when he wakes up generally confused and a bit disoriented. At this point I usually just keep him on the mattress on his bedroom floor with me. He wants to eat around 2am and then, like I said, wants to play. He goes back to sleep around 4:30 or 5 and sleeps until anywhere between 7 and 9am. As you can see, we are still trying to get on some sort of schedule. He naps great during the day - I actually have to wake him up from his naps or he might sleep the day away. His eating has been pretty inconsistent - sometimes he is starving, sometimes he wants nothing to do with his bottle.

He had his first doctor appt yesterday. He weighed in at 16lbs, 13oz and measured 28 inches long - this puts him in the 45th percentile for weight and the 95th for height. Our doctor said that he looks perfect, but we knew that already :-) We do have to take him for some routine bloodwork and update his immunizations in the next couple of weeks.

Anna....well, she can't decide how she feels about Simon being in our house. Sometimes she absolutely adores him and smothers him with love and kisses. Other times she insists through tears that we take him back to South Korea and that it is no fun having a little brother in the house. Sharing our attention has been difficult for her, but she is slowly adjusting.

Joel finally got a good night's sleep last night, so was up with the kids this morning while I got an extra few hours of sleep.

Here are some photos:

The three of us on the airplane


All four of us at the airport


Smothering Simon with love


Smiley boy


He LOVES the exersaucer

Home Sweet Home

It is Saturday Night and we made it home safe and sound several hours ago. Our house seems to have exploded with laundry and miscellaneous piles of stuff that need to be sorted and put away, but that will have to wait until tomorrow, as will more of an update. We are EXHAUSTED, but are doing great otherwise. Both kids are asleep in their beds upstairs and we are soon to follow. I will try to post some new photos and give more of an update in the next few days.

Final Post from South Korea

We finished up some shopping this morning, had a really good lunch and picked up Simon at 3:00 pm (2am EST). He did not cry at all when we picked him up from his foster mother, although she was very emotional. He chatted and giggled on our walk back to the guest house then happily played with us for about half an hour. He seemed to be getting pretty sleepy, so I put him to sleep how his foster mother suggested. He slept for about 45 minutes, then woke up and realized where he was (or wasn't) and has not been very happy since. He cried pretty hard for about an hour. Since then, it's been off and on. Sometimes he is very upset and every now and then we get a little smile. We are hoping to get a little sleep tonight before our long flight tomorrow - hoping.......

Here are some more photos:

Joel on the subway



Jen at our new favorite restaurant - this is the 3rd time we've eaten here. They grill the meat right in front of you on the table, then you wrap the meat, the really yummy peanut sauce and any of the assorted veggies in a leaf of lettuce - lettuce wraps - YUMMY!



Shopping at one of the markets



Getting Simon at the agency



One last photo with the foster mom



Walking back to the guest house



Happy for a minute



Sleeping boy



Well, that's it for now. We will try to update again after we get home.

Another day = more photos :-)

We got to see Simon again yesterday (It's Friday am here). He had his pre-flight physical and was said to be in perfect health. He still was not so fond of us. We got to play with him and hold him a bit. He cried for a while I held him, then he eventually wore himself out and fell asleep. Both the foster mom and foster dad were at the visit yesterday. They clearly love him very much. They also brought us several gifts. They gave us Hanbok's (traditional Korean costumes) for Simon and for Anna (she will be in her glory all dressed up), a pendant for Simon, a ton of photos of him, and a few other little things. We pick him up for good today at 3:00 - I think it will be a long night. Here are some photos from our day.

Simon sleeping on me



Us with Simon's foster parents



The National Museum - absolutely amazing museum!



An ancient pagoda inside the museum



A Korean ambulance - yes, I take photos of EVERYTHING



Night photo



Street vendor at night



Joel loves grocery shopping here too! :-)



I don't know if we will be able to update again from here. We are running out this morning to do a bit more shopping and things will probably be a bit nutty tonight trying to pack and take care of Simon. We leave for the airport tomorrow morning at 8:00am and take off about noon. We have had a great time, but are both feeling ready to come home.

What we've been up to.....

Okay, trying this again - Hopefully the photo thing works better this time.

We thought we'd try to post a few photos to show you some of the things we've been doing.

This is the view on the way down from Seoul Tower. It is one of the world's tallest free-standing towers and has amazing views of Seoul.




This is of a building of a palace we visited and the changing of the guard ceremony.






This is of an artist making Simon's name scroll, a traditional piece of Korean artwork




Shopping at a market




The neighborhood we are staying in




We went to the Korean War Memorial and Museum. It is a really nice museum and was absolutely over-run with school children on class trips. They were so cute and so interested in us. Many tried to practice their English on us. Some just looked at us like we were aliens :-)






We went to the Seoul Museum of Art, hoping to see some Korean art. Well, there was a Monet exhibit there which took up almost all of the gallery space. There was only one gallery that had Koren art displayed. Oh well, we tried.




Hopefully these show up at a better size. We are off to another museum today and more shopping. We see Simon at 3:00 today for this pre-flight physical then we pick him up for good tomorrow.

Photos of Simon

Hi all! This is Jen's sister, Auntie Karen, adding photos for them. Jen are Joel are having technical difficulties getting the blog to work in Korea. I may be a bit biased but I am pretty sure Simon is the cutest little boy ever!

Photos of Simon

I finally figured out the photo thing - not sure why it needs to be done so differently from here, but anyway here they are.....


Happy boy with foster mom


What he really thought of us :-)


The 3 of us

First Meeting with Simon

We met our Simon today. We think he is absolutely adorable; he doesn't think so much of us. His foster mom said that he is very easygoing and a happy baby. She said that he does not have any stranger anxiety, but we must be stranger than most, because he didn't put up with us holdng him for very long. We did get some cute photos, but they won't upload right now. We will try again tomorrow.

We made it!!!!

While most of you were sleeping soundly in your beds we were........well......not sleeping :-) We landed safely in Seoul around 3:30 pm local time, which was about 2:30 am EST. The trip actually went better than expected - the flight was pretty smooth and we loved the airline we flew. Neither of us got much sleep but we did get to catch up on all the movies we've been missing. We both watched 4 to be exact.

It is about 6:30 pm local time here rght now. We can hear the babies crying in baby center on the floor below us at the guest house and think we might need to go visit them. First, we are off to find something to eat - Joel is hungry :-) We will be heading to bed early tonight as we have been up for over 24 hours and didn't get much sleep the night before.

Tomorrow we meet Simon. We will try to post photos and update again tomorrow!

Good night from Seoul, South Korea!

Updated Information On Our Trip

We will be meeting Simon for the first time on Monday, June 11 at 2:00pm - that will be 1:00 am on Monday for those of you on EST. So, while most of you are fast asleep, we will be holding our sweet boy for the first time :-) We will see him again on Thursday for his pre-flight physical with the doctor at the agency and will get custody of him on Friday afternoon. We don't fly out until Saturday at noon, so we are excited to have him for a bit before boarding the plane (if we were leaving during the work week, we would likely not have gotten custody of him until we were leaving for the airport).

Today we are busy finishing up packing, cleaning the house, running last minute errands and doing fun stuff with Anna. We took her to Build-a-Bear today for the first time, so she could have a new special "friend" while we are away. She LOVED the whole experience. Her bear, named Bearsy, seems to be her new best friend, for now. She knows that we will be carrying Simon in one of our baby carriers quite a bit when we get home and she zoned in right away on a Bearsy sized carrier in the store. Yes, we bought it for her and it is so cute seeing her trotting around with Bearsy securely fastened to her back.

Well, assuming that we can figure out how to get on to the blog and upload photos, our next post will be from South Korea! :-)

Simon's Room

Here are the photos of Simon's room, as promised. We are pretty happy with how it turned out.

Anna LOVED "helping"

The crib with the way cool sailboat quilt from Grandma and Grandpa

"The Wave Wall" - Joel painted the waves and Jen painted the boats and fish

Map of the World on the closet door

Yup, still need to add photos

Close-up of a boat and some fish

Now all it needs it the baby :-)