Hot Shot coming your way

Creed is loving this season of soccer. It is amazing to see the changes in him from 2 and 1/2 years ago until now. He's a pretty good player. Agile, little, speedy, tricky. Kinda like him in real life, I guess. He's playing with the Hot Shots and he loves all his little teammates. It's super cute. 

(I am not going to mention their record... remember: it's not about how many wins they have :)...let's just say it is a "defeated" season.)

Pure Delight....

I don't want to ever miss a moment of their lives. I love them so much. 

Outside fun the other day. Finally got our tractor up and running. Fun times. More later...just wanted to share. 

Keep praying for our "legals" to come soon. This is the first step we have to cross before Judey-Poot comes home. 

ANNOUNCING!!

What a fun time telling our friends and family about little Jude. Here's the rundown of the announcement.

1. Meeting grammy and grandaddy (Micah's parents) at Starbucks. When they drove up, the kids were waving and had their t-shirts 

on with Jude's pic. I totally STOLE that idea from Kathryn, who will (hopefully soon) be using that idea!!!

This is Rinn's attitude about the whole thing around naptime. We are in for a treat :)

Family pic at Starbuck's.

We all went over to Aunt Bekah's apartment....she totally freaked. 

She called Nick at work and told him she was running by there because she had bought him a shirt that she wanted to show him (apparently she does this frequently, so it didn't seem out of the ordinary for her.) I don't think he was too disappointed when he found out it was a nephew and not a shirt.

O boy, this one may have been the hardest. My sis, Sky was at Bunco. No one knew exactly where the ladies house was that they were playing Bunco. So, my mom tried to call her and appear to just be curious as to where the lady lived (Sky totally didn't pick up on it, but also only gave general directions). So, my mom drove around several different neighborhoods and finally spotted Sky's van. Then, she called us and told us where to come. Sky's reaction was HILARIOUS. Creed and Rinn walked in first (wearing their shirts) and Sky looked straight at their shirts and said "What are you guys doing here?" Hehehe. classic reaction from my sis, I love her so much.

Family picture at Sky's friend at Bunco. Needless to say, we interrupted their concentration at Bunco. My mom already knew about Jude but she and popsicle neither one had seen his pic. They were with us at the Bunco announcement. 

Off to tell MyMy and Daga. Creed announced it to them. It was great because our friend Grider and his new wife, Lynley were there too. When they asked Creed what his new brothers name was, not missing a beat, he said "his new name is Grider." He was still "on" even late at night!!

Drove all the way to another town really late at night and saw Paul, Ang, KK, and Will. We had to call them ahead of time and I told Ang that I needed to talk to her about something. You could tell she thought I meant I would call her once the kids were in bed. I said "No, I'm coming to your town and wanted you to stay awake." She said "You mean you are all 4 coming here?" At this point, she starts to catch on. "Okay, " she says laughing. When we got there, they had their video camera out and we had ours out. Funny. Of course, the top two criers were Sky and Ang. 

Telling our friends in small group was so fun. Celebrating was awesome. They have been praying for a very long time. They have been very, very involved in helping "baby K" come home. Love ya' girls!
More church friends. Gotta love my friend, Kristi, and her kiddos. She was so pumped when I told her about Jude. Awesome. This doing life together is so much fun. 

Creed, Rinn, and Clara. Clara's mommy, daddy, and brother know ALOT about what we are going through. They have been so sweet to walk with us through the process. Clara is three and was adopted from China. What a sugar!

Aunt Kels!!! Love Aunt Kels. She's been following the blog and sending me the most encouraging texts. I love her and can't wait to show her Jude in real life. 
Our sweet, sweet neighbors. Creed has quite an affinity for older people. He is actually begging me right now to go over to their house and talk. He is hilarious. 

Can you say "settle down" on the shopping?!?!?

Ziploc full of surprises for Jude.

The things in the ziploc.....amazing that it all fit. 

Other gifts (saving for when he gets home)....
Creed wanted for Jude to have something that matches something that he has...so, they will be twinkies with these little track pants.
From a quick "target run".....I was just running in real quick to get a few groceries (wink)

Good grief, Jude, has no idea what he is getting into. Boys are hard not to buy for. Especially since it has been 6 years since I have had a little guy to buy for. I did save most of Creed's stuff but haven't looked through it yet and am unsure on the seasons, sizes, cuteness factor, etc. 

So, this is what I have so far (see pics). We've been saving every single last penny lately and so, yep....I want a little crazy. Back to the penny pinching TODAY!!!

In addition, some great news is our friend and case worker, Jan (from our agency) is in Korea right now. Guess what she did for us?!?! She is taking a care package to our little guy. She also promised if she, by chance, got to see him that she would smother him head to toe with kisses. Yummy. So, we were able to pack a gallon size ziploc baggie full of stuff for Jude and his foster family. That's hard to do. Don't tell Jan (hehehe) but I did stretch the bag just slightly before putting my items in! Here's what we sent.....

1. Little "fish" outfit

2. A onesie with our picture as a family of 5 (Jude's pic is on the computer screen)

3. a square plush toy picture frame with pictures of each of us

4. A photo album with all our family so he can be at least familiar (aunts/uncles/grandmas, etc.)

5. Some hand cream for his foster mother

6. Some chocolate for his foster father and siblings (older)

7. A monkey "lovey" blanket that we have had for a long time. We've been sleeping with it so he will be familiar with our scent. We had it embroidered "baby K" before we knew it was our little Jude.(BTW: Creed and Rinn still really like the name "baby K" so they have STILL been referring to him in that way!)

It was amazing what I could fit in that bag. 

Have I mentioned that I love this kid?!??!?!?!?!?

Details...Details....Details

HIP HIP HOORAY.....JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH KIMBERLY, OUR SOCIAL WORKER!!! MICAH IS ON HIS WAY HOME TO CHECK OUT THE EMAIL WITH ALL THE DETAILS.YEP, I DID TAKE A PICTURE OF THE COMPUTER SCREED. HEY, THIS IS IMPORTANT STUFF, YOU KNOW. I REFRAINED FROM OPENING IT UNTIL MICAH RUSHED HOME FROM WORK (THAT'S WHAT YOU CALL SELF DISCIPLINE!

This picture was shortly after we looked at Jude's information for the first time. Can you tell we are a bit happy?

AS WE WERE ALL LOOKING AT JUDE'S PICTURE FOR THE FIRST TIME.
OUR FIRST FAMILY PHOTO (THANK YOU TO OUR PHOTOGRAPHER, SELF TIMER)
WE HAD AN ALL OUT PARTY.....SILLY STRING, POPPERS, CAKE, AND ALL!
OUR THREE CHILDREN. (AHHH...THAT SOUNDS CRAZY!)
MICAH AND I AND OUR NEW SON. 

This post is detailed for two reasons: 1. I want to remember EVERY SINGLE detail and 2. I know that some "waiting families" watch our blog (shout out-hoorah!) and whenever those before me on "the list" got their referrals I wanted to know every detail about what they did, how they were feeling, etc. so....here ya' go......

WHAT HAPPENED THE DAY THE "CALL" CAME:

That morning, we had gone pumpkin shopping and found pumpkins that represented our family. Two big ones for mommy and daddy and three little ones for Creed, Rinn, and baby "k" (we still didn't know it was Jude....or that he was a boy, or that our lives were about to be changed forever). After pumpkin shopping we went on a few errands and then had lunch with our friend, Lindsay Laird at Jersey Mike's. 

Came home, put the kids down for a nap. Both of them went to sleep (miracle for Creed). It was quiet in the house when the phone rang at 3:04. I jumped up and had a feeling this was urgent. Sure enough, it showed our social workers caller ID. YIKES!!!! At this point my heart rate was aprox. 300 beats per minute. I answered and didn't even give her a chance to say a thing, I don't think. I just said (everything 3 times, by the way) "What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Then, not giving her a chance to speak I said "I knew you were calling today. I knew you were calling today. I knew you were calling today." Again, no chance to speak  I said "Let me conference call Micah."

Micah gets on the phone, Kimberly gives us a brief description of our new child. Yikes. Wowzers. I didn't expect my reaction to be so clear. I didn't think we would know "right away". I thought we would have to really think on and pray about it before we got excited. Nope. Excitement....elation RIGHT AWAY for us. Micah rushed home and we pulled up the email together. Slammed. Several, I mean SEVERAL things I had prayed specifically for were mentioned in his referral. Some funny things include that he "moves from one side of the bed to the next" when he sleeps with his foster mom. Ummm....this is sounding strangely familiar (Creed!). They also mentioned that he was social (yep, he'll fit in) and that he sleeps best when it is quiet (uh oh...that rarely happens in our house). 

We were so pumped. Micah called a doctor friend in our small group to see if he could review his file (thanks a ton, Mike!) and we also sent his info and pictures to an International Adoption Physician to have it reviewed just so we can be fully aware of everything. 

I didn't sleep AT ALL!!!!! that night. Had to get out of bed at 4:30 (no, I wasn't alseep but was laying in bed) to get on a plane for NYC. Once at the airport and settled I told my mom. Micah and I agreed there would be NO WAY I could keep it from her, especially since I was going to buy out the stores buying items for Jude :).  She was pumped. However, she kept pressuring me to just sneak a peak at his picture. Nope, I actually did it as planned and waited until we heard from the IAP and until we were all together as a family to look at him for the first time. 

I arrived home (with a few gifts for Jude and Creed and Rinn) on Monday night. Micah was on his way home from another city picking up the kids from his brother's house. We've driven back and forth from Paul and Ang's probably 50 times and could generally do it with our eyes closed. Well, Micah accidentally went the wrong way on the highway and didn't notice until he was about 30 miles out of the way (can you tell we were just a little nervous and excited!). It was getting late when he got home (thanks to the daddy brain he was experiencing at the moment). When the kids walked in I was hiding and jumped out with silly string. Fun times. Then, Creed tricked me with some silly string on his own. I told them I had a few gifts for them from NYC. I gave them their gifts and then we said "but, we have a really big gift, now...one of the best gifts we could ever think of." Creed said (immediately) "WE GOT OUR REFERRAL!!!!!???" Rinn and Creed then began jumping up and down on the couch and acting insane. They couldn't hear a word that we were trying to tell them. Finally, Micah said "did you hear that, Creed, you have a BROTHER!" Creed said "I knew it, I knew it was a boy." (side note: he told us about 6 months ago that God told him it was a boy.....yep, I guess we should probably trust when God speaks to a child". Rinn's immediate response was "so, when do we get our dog from?" Background: We had told them that if we got a boy then we would get a girl dog (to even things up a bit) and if we got a girl baby then we would get a boy dog. So, Rinn's immediate thoughts went to the dog, of course (totally a three year old response, I thought). 

We all sat down in front of the computer (video rolling and self timer on the camera ready) and we opened his picture and saw his face for the first time. I really, really thought I would be an emotional basket case but instead we all just laughed the happiest laughter ever. He was just so cute, and the HAIR....we were smitten from the first glance. 

I know our friends and family have tons of questions because they love our little guy so much. Some of those details we want to tell you every little thing (like everything that was said about his personality, how we are feeling, etc.) and some of those things (like his family and social history) we are choosing to allow Jude to share that information, if he wants to, when he gets old enough to share. We can tell you that Jude appears to be very healthy, is developing and rolling over, smiling, babbling, etc. and is a genius (well, that's my official opinion!). Some things about his birth family (why they chose adoption,etc.) we will keep private. We do know that he was loved long before he was born and created by God. We also feel strongly that his birth family loved him dearly and made an incredibly sacrificial choice to give him life and to allow him to be a part of our family. We will forever and ever be grateful and bonded to them and to his country of Korea. 

Love, love, love out to Jude today. 

We love you, little Jude Han. 

You're the one that I want..

Go Grease Lightning, Go Grease Lightning. 

I thought the billboard was cute.....

Here's the real thing. Sweet. I got my picture with DANNY! He may look familiar, he was the runner up in the series "You're the one that I want." This kid was a cutie (not near as cute as Micah John, though...for sure!)

Jill's new best "boy" friend. Yep, you might recognize him as Ace from American Idol. Man, this place is fun. 

Sunny and Sonny. He was our favorite character other than Danny, of course.Stardust diner. Awesome. Some of the most fun I have had in ages. All the wait staff are young people who have come to NYC to "live the dream" and be on Broadway. They sing Broadway tunes while they deliver your food, take orders, etc. They are absolutely INCREDIBLE singers. Our waitress was just as good as any of those on stage at Greese.

Jill choreographed some fancy moves for this pic. She has actually choreographed for productions of Grease before (little piece of trivia there for you!)

Real pic of me and Jill Ann in the apartment.
Went to a church today that JD and Jill have been visiting. Small world, but we met up with Tik and Ryne who we know from our town. How crazy is that? I love Tik and Ryne and wish we could've hung out more. Maybe someday.
J.D. and Jill's subway stop