Signs of the Times

Grant continues to be the BEST older brother. He absolutely adores Kate and wants to be with her all the time. Today while they were playing, he decided he needed to make a couple of signs for the kitchen. They were "Don't go in the kitchen" and "Go the other way." He got a crayon and paper and I could hear him trying to sound out the words as he wrote. He then found magnets and attached them to the doorway. After that, he rummaged through his shoes and lined them up in the doorway and said, "Look! I made a gate!" As if the signs and the gate weren't enough, he also placed himself as an additional barrier which only ended up earning him kisses from Kate and lots and lots of giggles. It's been a fun morning.

Peek-a-Boo!

Partners in Crime

Grant and Emma got to play for a while yesterday. They played upstairs for a while, then came back down. We noticed that Emma's eye looked a little red around the edges and Grant's lips were strangely pink and glossy. It turns out they were putting on makeup in Auntie Lola's room, and were quite pleased with themselves. Grant told me later that night that he couldn't find any perfume in Auntie Lola's bathroom (thank goodness!), so we had a little talk about boundaries and not going through people's things.

Best Friends?

Kate got to hang out with Bella, her soon to be best friend, yesterday. They spent a while checking each other out. Bella was so sweet and took on the care-taker role, even though she's a little younger than Kate. Even though Bella already walks, she would get down and crawl with Kate and even ended up feeding her chicken nuggets when we weren't looking. They're going to be great friends!

Kate's 1st Visit to Dr. Kim

Kate and I went to meet with Dr. Kim this last week for a quick check-up. He said she's healthy and cute, but we already knew that. :-)

She's clearly more comfortable at the doctor's office than her brother is...or ever was for that matter.

Grant's "Pinano"

Grant thought his crayons in the box looked like a "pinano." It's in need of a little tuning, but he had a great time playing. A couple of "keys" were missing and instead of asking where the red one was, he sang out the note and said it was missing.

My Costco Buddies

Good Pals

Grant is so gentle with Kate and loves to play with her and give her kisses. He keeps saying "I want to play with that girl." We have to constantly remind him that we don't call her "that girl," we call her Kaylan or Kate. I don't want her crawling into the kitchen, so he comes over and lays down as a human barricade to block her...always going above and beyond. :-)

Two Little Blessings

Racing

I'm trying to get more pictures and videos of Grant playing with Kate. Today they were "racing" in the hall. You can see Kate's funny little crawl. She doesn't walk yet. In Korea, they strap the babies to their backs to carry them around most of the day, so she apparently didn't have a lot of practice. She can move pretty quickly with her version of an army crawl...and we discovered she can go in reverse as well. Grant likes to hover over her while she's crawling and pretend she's giving him a ride. She's okay with it for a while, but starts to get a little nervous if he does it for too long.

Saturday

Another fun day with our new little girl! Things we've learned about Kaylan: She doesn't like baths, she will eat anything...and a LOT of it, she loves to be held and snuggled, and she's the most even-tempered and sweet baby ever!

First Day Out

Last night went so smoothly--Kate slept straight through the night and we got some good rest. She has to be the most laid back, cheerful baby ever. I think she'd get along great with her cousin Emma, who also seems to always be cheerful. :-) We went out today for the first time as a family of 4 and had such a fun day. Kate loves Stonefire as much as her brother does and loved watching him play at his gym class. She loves to blow raspberries and thinks it super funny when you blow them. We've having such fun with her already!

Kaylan is Here!

Kate is finally here! After 2 1/2 long weeks of ups and downs, we were sure the Lord had closed the door for us to get this precious girl. I got a call yesterday afternoon that the family had again changed their minds and wanted to give up the baby. They set up a time of 4:00 for the social workers to come and get her. We tried not to get our hopes up, but waited for more information. Even today as I handed the car seat over to Ann, there were serious doubts. But Ann called at 4:30 to say that they had the baby in the back seat and were headed to our house! She and another social worker brought Kaylan to us at around 9:30pm and we couldn't be more excited! Ann has been the most amazing social worker, working tirelessly to get this resolved and sacrificing a lot of her time, energy, and emotions on this particular case. The Lord gave us the perfect person to be our advocate!

Grant LOVES Kate and she responds to him a lot. Ann said that Kate was happy and content the entire trip from San Diego, except when putting her into and out of the car seat. We've enjoyed a wonderful, quiet evening starting to get to know her and snuggling with her. She spent a long time resting on Nate--it seems like they have a quick bond. We got a little smile from her when we played peek-a-boo with her and even a little laugh. I know it will take a while for her to adjust, but so far she's doing amazingly well. She went to bed without a peep and fell asleep pretty quickly. Thank you for all your prayers! We are so thankful for our precious gift!