Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday: Mommy's Shoes

Yes, he did this all by himself. :)

Apparently I put the wrong date up for Blogger to publish this! Oh, well! :)

Park Playdate

One day this week we met up with our friends B and A at a park halfway between us. B and I found each other's blogs a little over a year ago and discovered that we were using the same agencies to bring our boys home. Then, B was kind enough to invite me to The Great Bloggy Friend Get-Together of 2010, and I give her credit for some of the friendships I've made.

The day we picked was absolutely gorgeous and the park was beautiful as well! Lots of walking paths, pretty flowers, and playgrounds. Anyway, since Joel and A are seven months apart there wasn't a whole lot of playing together going on. Joel was also on the run from one thing to the next, while A happily played in the sand for minutes at a time (which I secretly envied). But, it was still fun to see these two buddies together! First we stopped at the playground.

Then, we hit the splash pad! Both boys had a blast here, for about the first twenty minutes anyway. :)

By now it was lunchtime, so after some driving around we ended up at Wendy's and B and I enjoyed more conversation while the boys played with Joel's train and car. (Joel very reluctantly and unhappily shared them with A--we're working on it!) This is one of the many friendships I've made through this blog, and it still amazes me how blessed I am to have this community of people. Thanks for a fun day, B and A!

Wordless Wednesday: Wheeee....Splash!

Korean Festival

This weekend we headed into Chicago for the Korean Festival. This was our second year attending, and it was fun to reminisce about last year (you can read last year's post here). Joel had just come home, and spent the time in the Beco, content as could be. This year, he was up and running and not sitting still for long! We met a few families there this time, which was great. We even met a new family whose son has the same birthday as Joel! Pretty neat. Kara, the organizer of our meeting, had the great idea to take a picture of the kids first, before they got too cranky and tired. Here was the result:


After the picture taking, we walked for a bit down the street. The festival was just getting started, and there wasn't a whole lot going on at that point. The performances didn't start until two, and we had to leave before that for a birthday party. We decided to have lunch with two other families before we left. We all enjoyed our bulgogi, bibimbap, and jap chae. Yum! I could eat Korean food every day.


Although our time there was short, we enjoyed talking with our friends and experiencing a part of the Korean culture here in Chicago with Joel.

21 Months

Joel is 21 months today, and in just three short months we'll be celebrating his second birthday! It is unbelievable how fast he is growing up. He is doing so many cute, "big boy" things lately that make us smile and laugh. He is also doing many things that exasperate us to no end. I guess that comes with the pre-two territory!

We're really pleased with his speech lately. We just love hearing him talk and repeat words. One new thing he has started saying is unnee. It took us a few days to figure out he is saying honey. He will walk into the living room and call that out, or repeat me when I call Travis that. Some of his other newer words are gockle (pickle), bip (fish), nee (sneeze), pea, each (eat), nao (mail), moom (moon), bome (bone), huma (hummus), ooee (monkey), and watch. He has just started putting two words together, and will say hi Nyna (Nyla) or bye-bye Papa. When he is wondering where daddy is, he says Daddy...are you?

Speaking of Papa, he loves his Nana and Papa. He says their names multiple times a day and gets very excited when he sees them. Every time he pretends to talk on the phone and we ask him who it is, it's always Papa.

He loves to give and get kisses. He gives kisses to us, his stuffed animals, his books, or anything that he hits to say sorry. He also says "Mmmmma!" when he does it. The sweetest is when he takes my hand and kisses it or asks for mah (more) when I give him a kiss.

He can say Joel and his Korean name, Hwan. We say it with an ah at the end, which is frequently done in Korea. We're also teaching him Omma (Mom), Appa (Dad), the numbers 1-5 in Korean, bop (rice), and we're attempting kimchi and annyong.

He still loves his trucks and choo-choos! We recently bought him a take along Thomas track with three Thomas engines. He LOVES it. He will play with it for thirty minutes, which is a long time for an almost two-year-old! 90 percent of the toys he plays with have wheels and can be pushed or moved around the house. He is perfectly happy pulling his wagon around or pushing his vacuum.

Joel loves his new ride that Daddy found at a garage sale yesterday for $5. I'm not exactly sure why Daddy had to bring it in the house, but Joel was sure pleased about it!

There are days when we just can't believe that this beautiful, loving, happy, healthy, joy-bringing boy is ours. We have been blessed beyond measure!

Black and Blue

Poor Joel got his very first black eye last night. He had a little run-in with the coffee table and fell right onto the bottom shelf. I felt so bad for him! He cried for a long time, and it was even bleeding a little. Just enough to freak me out, of course. We tried to put ice on it, but he hated that and kept crying, "No!" We happened to have our family over at the time, and they had lots of advice for the situation. My favorite was what my dad had to say. He told Joel (in a very stern voice) that he shouldn't run in the house anymore. Right, Papa. Like that will happen!

His eye is looking better and better, although still obviously injured. It doesn't seem to bother him, thankfully. We felt so helpless when he got hurt...hopefully he is injury free for awhile!

Something a Little Different

This morning Joel and I enjoyed a quiet morning at home, due to our car being in the repair shop and rainy weather. This was a pretty unusual occurence, since during the summer we've been out and about almost every morning. We were able to eat breakfast without rushing and then Joel helped with some chores. We played for awhile, and then I decided to get out the play*-doh. We've been reluctant to introduce this to Joel since up until very recently he put everything in his mouth. He did very well, though and only tried to eat it once. It was fun to watch him play!

Hmmm...what is this?

What else is inside this can?

Cool shapes, Mama!

I'm still trying to figure this out...

Oooh, this stuff is squishy!

"Twinkle, twinkle" came on and we had to take a break to do the hand motions.

Wow, a circle!

Hey, this stuff is pretty fun to throw on the floor!

And that was the end of our fun with play*-doh.