Today's the day

I cannot believe we will meet our baby in a few hours! His plane just made it from S Korea and landed at the San Francisco International Airport where he and his escort are likely going through customs at this very moment. Then they will fly to Denver and finally be on their way here! It still seems very surreal to me. James and I have spent the last few days relaxing, shopping for last minute things we need, and imagining what it will be like! Ironically, this morning we discovered that we had an email from Holt, and it was his June "well-baby" report. It's so funny to receive one now because during our 4 month wait, those reports were our lifeline to him, and now we are finally going to meet him!

Here are some updates from the report:
He weighs 23.1 lbs (75th percentile!)
He is 29.5 in tall (25th percentile, so he's on the short, chubby side!)
He has 6 teeth (3 on top and 3 on the bottom)
He pulls to standing position, stands alone, and walks holding on to furniture.
He has good fine motor skills.
He waves bye-bye and plays peek-a-boo.
He prefers his foster mother.
He babbles.
He was assessed to be right on target at an 11 month developmental age.

We cannot wait to meet him and discover everything about him. More to come later!

Tuesday, June 30, is a VERY special day!!

I doubt there's anyone left in America who hasn't heard our news, but I am so very, very happy to announce that Henry Eun-wu Jesse will come home to his family next Tuesday, June 30. The plane will land at DFW airport at 10:05 pm. I was so struck with happiness when I got the call this morning that I began sobbing and jumping around excitedly immediately upon hanging up. I think I terrified our dogs, but I just couldn't help it. James and I celebrated tonight by going to our favorite Korean restaurant. Bulgogi never tasted so good.

Nursery 2.0

James and I had a busy week last week and an even busier weekend. Our niece Jenny, who will be a senior in high school in the fall, was visiting and helped us out a lot with preparing our house to be put on the market. We scrubbed all of the little nooks and crannies and have packed and stored about half of our belongings. It feels good to finally see the "For Sale" sign in the front yard, even though I'm still sad about leaving.

After we tirelessly worked on the house, we decided to finish up the little details of Henry's nursery that we were too busy and tired to previously complete. Jenny sanded down the dresser in Henry's room all by herself so that we could repaint it with brown and green stripes. The finish on it previously was a dingy, nasty shellacked sort of paint job that we've hated ever since we bought the dresser 5 years ago at the antique store. Here's what it looks like now...

We also added this big comfy chair from Ikea so that we could sit and cuddle him as we read to him at night. I love that it was very affordable and has a machine washable slipcover that can be replaced for less than $30!

Here is a close up of the crib skirt and fitted sheet that my sweet mother-in-law made for Henry's crib. She's still working on the bumper pad and quilt that will tie it all together. We love it and think that she did a great job!

James was carefully hanging Henry's name letters on the wall on Father's Day. It's cute how much he wants him to come home too---just as much as I do!!

And here's our beautiful neice Jenny who helped us so much all week and went to dozens of baby stores with only a little complaining :) ....
So...now everything is 100% ready for our little guy--our house we've been working on fixing up for months is finally on the market, he has a cozy little nursery (that can also easily be set up in our next house), he has a full wardrobe of clothes for the next year of his life, he has all of the important baby accessories, he has his travel visa, and most importantly, he has LOTS of people who love him already and can't wait to meet him!

A little bit of impatience

Henry's visa was issued yesterday and I am really, really hoping to get that travel call very soon! It is SO hard to be patient. I want to hold him so badly, and I know that I will soon, but it's the uncertainty that is nearly killing me. Everytime the phone rings, I run for it! I know that our good news is right around the corner, but I'm ready RIGHT NOW!!!

Lots of good news!!

We just got another new picture of Henry on Wednesday. We have definitely been blessed to receive so many! Even though I was excited to get this new picture ( he just so cute!!!), I was bummed that we got that instead of news about him coming home. This has been such a long, hard week. It was the last week of school for me, which is always crazy. Have any non-teachers ever stopped and thought about what 22 9 year olds are like on the last day of school? ;) Besides all of that, my mom was in the hospital all week. I won't go into all of the specifics, but she has many health issues that she has to face everyday, so prayers for her would be appreciated. She was very down about having to stay in the hospital, undergoing many procedures and still having the doctors not know what's causing some of her health problems. But when we brought in this new photo of Henry, she brightened up right away and was showing him off to all of the hospital staff who walked in the door. I know that is further proof of God's work in this adoption. Here is the picture of my 10 month old son:



Then on Friday, it was a teacher workday so that we could pack away all of our classroom materials for summer. At my district, this means packing everything up and storing it. Basically it's like packing and moving your house! Elementary teachers have lots of "things." In the midst of all of this hard work, I received a call that I have been WAITING for!! Nope, not his travel call, but it was from our agency telling us that Henry had his visa physical exam. The doctor noted that he has a "right ear deformity" on his paperwork, which means we have to sign a Class B Waiver. All that means is that we are officially aware that he has a problem with his ear. Our agency emailed us the waiver to sign. We had to get 4 copies of it notarized and then overnight FedEx it back to them Friday. Possibly on Mon or Tues the agency will send the waiver to Korea. Once there it takes "about 5 business days" for them to submit for his travel visa. Add to that the time needed for them to find an escort to bring him here, book the flight, etc....so we are likely looking at him coming home mid-to-late June. That is longer that I had been hoping for, but right now I'm feeling extremely happy to know that he's almost here. I'm looking at these next couple of weeks without him as a chance to enjoy my last moments of freedom before mommyhood! Summer is here and I can spend these upcoming days doing whatever I please. I plan to enjoy them!
Last but not least, we had a huge yard sale at my school yesterday as a fundraiser towards our adoption. Lots of staff members pitched in to help by donating items for the sale, and several people came to help set up and clean up (thank you SO much Eva, Susan, Wezie, Rachel, Yodit, Jeannie, and Dennis C.). A select few stayed ALL day with us in the HOT sun. (I love you and thanks again to Jennifer, Sherri, Kathy, and Michelle!!!!) We worked hard, got sunburned and sweaty, but it was so worth it! The yard sale brought us very close to $900! Add that to the jewelry fundraiser that we just had and we are over $1,000 raised this week! Amazing....

Almost done with the nursery!

I love his crib! I can't wait to see the gorgeous baby bedding that his Granny has been working hard to make for him (see earlier post for crib fabric picture). The sign above the crib says, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed."

We are going to repaint that dresser with a few brown and green stripes going down the front of it. The low console with green and white plastic bins is from Ikea. I love how it provides storage for his toys that he can easily get into and that the top is a perfect surface for play. I think we are going to either paint it or stain it darker. Oh, and yes, I realize that his little wooden Noah's Ark play set is a choking hazard. I will put it away before he arrives. James and I were just playing with it. ;)

I brought in this brown velvet chair from our dining room. It's pretty small and uncomfortable to sit in, but it does look really cute in the room! I really want a cushy armchair in here so that I can snuggle and read books with him, but this will work for now. Also, notice the green circle rugs. We have 5 of them scattered around the room instead of one large rug. I like them, but I'm not sure that we'll keep them...still deciding.

A close up of one of his monkeys and a soft "lovie."

My sister-in-law Debi had this plate painted for Henry. It matches his room really well!

We spent this weekend working hard to prepare Henry's nursery for him. A lot of work was involved in this project! We are just about to put our house on the market so we decided to just paint the walls a neutral color. Also, the nursery has 7 (!!!!!) windows and all of them had glued-on masking tape from when our house was rehabbed before we moved in. Long ago we tried to scrape that tape off but eventually just gave up and put up window coverings. We worked on scraping those windows today for about 2 hours. We still aren't done yet...we have some "conflicting" wood-tones in the several furniture pieces and the floor that we plan on correcting. Also, his crib bedding is pretty offbeat and I think it will add a lot of funkiness to the room when my mother-in-law is done with it. I'm so happy that we finally have a space for him! It definitely makes everything seem more real. I hope that we get our good news soon!

Baby Shower

This week my amazing 3rd grade teammates threw me a baby shower. They did a beautiful job!! It was so much fun to open all of our presents!

James and I ordered special fortune cookies that had custom fortunes inside about our adoption.

Yes, I made James go to the shower!

The very next day James' office surprised him with a big basket full of really cute baby stuff. I love all of the monkeys!

Last night James and I went to Babies R Us armed with the gift cards we received and bought a lot of the essentials we were missing (such as bottles and a crib mattress ) and a few fun things (bath toys and wall art). Somehow we were in that store for 3 hours and didn't realize it!

Today Henry's crib will be delivered also. We finally are beginning to create a nursery for him. Since we know we will be moving we aren't going to be able to do as much creative stuff yet as I'd like, but what have done so far has been a big improvement! Before, we just had a guest room with his stuff just piled all over the place, but now we have moved some furniture in from other rooms in the house that will work well in there, and we have been organizing his things. One thing that bugs me, though is that the room is painted blue (from when it was a "beachy" guest room), but all of his stuff is green and brown. It stinks to have to repaint it when we're likely going to be moving soon, but I think it must be done! James disagrees. He thinks that would be a big waste of time. We'll see....

Photos coming soon!