brothers

What a good looking triplet of boys!

Rather Dashing

Well as you can see, Big Boy is not only good lookin' he has some romance in him as well! We sure are proud of our 13 year old son...

Sling babies

Here is a dear friend of mine M B and her cute baby Lucy. Lucy was born on Christmas and E on New Year's Eve. She let me use her sling once (a Maya wrap). And now we both sport one at church qutie often. They are useful here in Korea. H P has a green one now too! They are all the rage, you trend setter M B! I should also point out one important thing here. Our friend K T suggested them to us in the first place. Her baby is due in July. Too bad we won't be here when she wears her Maya wrap to church for a triple photo.. Thanks K T!

Hanging in there

I love that Baby Girl can now reach for, grab, and bring things to her mouth. It keeps her happy a lot of the time. I find that she often falls asleep holding on to something as well. I am especially proud of her for developing this skill since baby Lucy in our branch is a week older and hasn't yet mastered this. Lucy has been rolling over for a while though. We won't focus on that.

Baby Girl has managed to roll this last few days and it's funny because she can't get back the other way and gets upset at having rolled her face into a toy or something. We constantly rescue her and she goes back the instant we step away. Very frustrating yet entertaining as well~

How many times to I have to tell you?!

So we see A here with her newly purchased toy. We got this electronic dog in Tokyo for her. It's leash has two controls on it. One for barking and one for walking. She was playing with it in the airport terminal in Japan while we were waiting for the flight home to Seoul when suddenly there seemed to be a crowd gathering and laughing at her. Not too unusual really in Korea. (the laughing part maybe). She was apparently putting on quite a show. She would push the button making her puppy walk then pick it up and proceed to spank it repeatedly saying harshly "how many times do I have to tell you NOT to WALK!" Then she'd go ahead and make it walk again, setting the poor dog up for failure again with repeated spankings. I must say I had some inner guilt at the situation since she did get spanked (a rarity in our home), during our vacation a couple of times. She just refused to stay on her couch and go to sleep. I also recalled the words I used at the time. Something along the lines of "how many times do I have to tell you...." So we see the power of our words and deeds on children. It all gets taken out on the dogs. I recall thinking to myself several times on this vacation that; vacation time with family is often an exercise in forgiveness. I sure had to forgive E one day when he was in a bad mood at Disney, and pretty much making us all miserable. We decided it was time to head back and I was disappointed, but when I looked at my cold, wet, (it was raining and he refused to wear his raincoat- hence the grouchy situation), unhappy son- I suddenly had a change of heart towards him. I decided to forgive him of his stubbornness and I gave him an underneath dry jacket I had on to warm him up. It was amazing the change in his (and my) countenance. We had a nice ride back to the hotel. So sometimes I fall short, but sometimes I am a good parent. It just depends...

Crowns

So, Baby Girl has two crowns. As seen in this picture just after her birth, you get a good picture of the double crown she has going on. Due to these crowns she has a pretty good mohawk on most days. Not only will she possibly have hairdo issues, according to Korean folklore she may also have two marriages someday. The number of crowns will equal the number of marriages in one's life. The word for crown in Korean is the same as the word for a special chair that the bride and groom are carried around in on thier wedding day. The word is pronounced like the English word 'comma.'

The remedy for this I am told is to borrow a pair of underwear and slip it under the infant's mattress. Sounds silly but it couldn't hurt I guess...

Princess and the marble

Something kinda funny happened today. I changed and fed the baby and seemed to have taken care of all of her needs but she was still fussy. I almost gave her some Tylenol because she was so bad. She has had a cold and seems to be congested still, so I figured she maybe wasn't feeling too hot. Something told me to hold off though. Sadly it was one of those times when I just had to let her cry for a bit while I got my hair dry in time to leave for Gymnastics class. A had been around her on and off. So she screamed in the car on the way until she passed out asleep. Some 2 hours later after running errands we were at the playground and I decided to nurse her. I picked her up and found a marble under her chin, lost in the folds of fat! I felt awful. That little stinker A must have been the culprit. At least she didn't stick it in her mouth! She still will not admit to the act, but really who else could it be? I can only imagine what she must have been going through with that uncomfortable marble stuck in her neck folds. Glad I found it and solved the problem!

A day out

Proof that T and I do get out... Although this was a half day adventure trying to get Baby girl's visa stamp so that we can take her out of the country with us. We are going to take a vacation to Japan this month. Now that's getting out!

Thomas Jefferson Getting Down!

Recently our 3rd son D chose Thomas Jefferson to portray in a 'famous Americans' oral report. He was required to dress up as his character, and this is what we came up with. He had been captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween and that costume came in handy. Here we see D dancing in his TJ costume the day before the presentation. I thought his was one of the best ones in his class and I was tickled when the moment came where the kid who chose Benjamin Franklin claimed to have written the Declaration of Independence just after Drew had gone and claimed that he wrote it. They sat down next to each other and had words on the subject. "You may have helped, but I wrote most of it!" said D to this impostor. The kid who was Benjamin Franklin got to hold up a 100 dollar bill. D could have held up the nickel, but it wouldn't have been as impressive I guess. Anyways, in our home we think TJ rocks!

First Blood

Well, it's official, I have maimed the infant. I have done it to all of her siblings before her and it was bound to be her turn soon. I was overly confident in my abilities as a nail trimmer. I zipped past all the fingers and got to her thumb and really snipped off a big chunk of skin there! When you consider how small the digits on newborns are and imagine if someone took a proportanate sized piece off your thumb it's enough to make you queezy. So surprized she was that I had injured her this way! But not half as surprized as I was when I witnessed how quickly she overcame it and was smiling up at me in forgiveness. There she was with blood running down her thumb, and happily smiling through it all. This is one good natured kid! I felt so bad that I waited a full hour and a half before attempting to trim the other hand. And wouldn't 'cha know it, I got cocky again on the last trim of her other thumb and now she had two matching bloody thumbs. There must be an award for the worst parent out there with butchering nail clippers. For a couple days after she was wincing when her thumbs got bumped and I could feel the waves of guilt over my crime. It gave me much pause to think about the harshness we encounter in life and how this would be the first of many pains in her life. Even now I continue to experience the pains it took for me to bring EBT to this earth. Will the tailbone ever get better I ask myself daily. Was it worth it? YES!!! Pain is part of life and we grow from it. It sure stings though. And just to re-confirm that my unstained perfectly pure infant that has a world of hurt ahead of her is well on her way, she came down with her first cold the following week. Life is bitter sweet, she may as well learn that now...