Merry Christmas!

Such a busy weekend! We had a wonderful Christmas weekend with our family of 4!  We celebrated with ourselves on Christmas Eve, went to Grandma and Grandpa Grunklee's on Christmas Day and celebrated with Brandon's mom's side of the family yesterday.  Whew!

This morning we had our one-month post-placement visit with our social worker.  We cleaned the house and hid the Christmas mess for two hours!  Our visit lasted a bit over 30 minutes.  Oh well! It is nice to have a clean house on a Monday morning!  I have some paperwork to finish up and get back to her this week.  But, we are done with social workers coming to our house!  In two months we have a visit at the agency and then our 5 month report is one that I write and then we can finalize Chloe's adoption in court!  Hooray!

Here are some pictures from Christmas!  Hope you and your families had a wonderful weekend celebrating Jesus' birth!

Until next time,
Stacy

Sunday school program...Noah's first time!  We were glad he went up alone!!

New sheets and comforter!

Christmas jammies!

Meeting great-grandma Grunklee

Taking Great-Grandma's chair for a drive!

Thank you Uncle Corey, Aunt Stephanie and Abel!

 

Thank you Uncle Corey, Aunt Stephanie and Abel!

Snow, Snow and MORE Snow

Since I last wrote, we have had two major snow events.  This last weekend, we had over 20 inches...AT ONE TIME!  Schools were still closed today, the Metrodome collapsed, and Brett Favre's starting streak is over.  Come on spring!  :)

Today Chloe had her 15 month appointment and she had to have 5 shots.  Poor baby.  Once they were done, she was fine and she went on to have a nice evening.  I had a Christmas party with my special ed teachers and the kids had time with Brandon.  They had a great evening!

We finally ordered our Christmas cards last weekend and I wrote a short letter today.  Hopefully they will go out before Valentine's day!

After our first snow storm, it was warmer and we took the kids outside.  Here are some photos from our "Day at the Park: Minnesota Winter Style."  Enjoy!

Noah was a snow plow.  :)

Chloe wasn't as enthusiastic about the snow as her brother!

Here are a couple of miscellaneous pictures from the last week.

Daddy and Noah tried to watch "The Polar Express" in 3-D.  Did I mention that this is Noah's new favorite movie and we must have already watched is 6 gazillion times????

Eating spaghetti

Yum!  Yum!

Sibling hugs gone bad.  Chloe was trying to tell Noah, "All done!!"  

We hope you are all doing well!  Things here are going well and we are excited for Christmas to come!  We are also excited because our good friends, Ang and Heath, FINALLY received the referral of their son from Columbia!!!  They will be traveling to meet Cruz in about 6 weeks and to bring him home!  We are so excited for them to be moving forward in their adoption journey and we can't wait to meet Cruz!!

Until next time,
Stacy

Home Two Weeks

We have been home two weeks, as of yesterday.  It seems like a short time and forever all at once.  We continue to get better at being a family of four everyday.  Days are usually pretty good and nights are getting there!

Noah has been home with us this week as his daycare has been closed due to some serious family illness.  We have watched some Christmas movies, done some crafts, played trains and had some fun.  It is snowing right now and we are supposed to get 4-8 inches...maybe we can get some outside-time tomorrow!

Chloe is continuing to do well.  She is sleeping through the night, almost!  She wakes once or twice to make sure one of us is still around.  It gets easier to put her back to sleep, though, so that is some progress! Days are good, too.  She likes to explore, but she is happiest when she is being held in our arms or in the Ergo.  It has been challenging sometimes to have her play on the floor with us when she really wants to be held.  She has tried to climb our stairs, with one of us right behind her.  She does well!  Not sure about the coming down part yet!  She tries to get up on our couch but needs a push from big brother to get all the way up!  Soon!

Here are some more pictures from the last couple of weeks!  Drive safe in this snow!  Thankful that I don't have to make my way home from work tonight!  It is pretty, as long as I don't have to go anywhere!  (Which is still a miracle in itself for us...it's exhausting!)  :)

Until next time,
Stacy

She was a blur on Thanksgiving!  Trying to walk everywhere!

Hangin' with daddy

Playin' trains

Chilling with Uncle Shawn

Noah reading a book with Great Grandma

Noah got a Christmas tree for his room!  So excited!

This is my favorite picture of my two sweeties!

Coming Out of the Fog

Well, it has been almost a week since we have been home from Korea and I have yet to update this blog.  The jet lag and general "fogginess" that we have been feeling is beginning to fade and I hope to post more often.  Please keep coming back to check!  Right now both kiddos are napping and I am not!  That is a first so I am taking advantage of it by filling you in on what is going on with us!

Chloe is doing fine!  Our days together are going quite well now that we are starting to get to know one another and we are all beginning to get some sleep.  She is smiley and appears to trust us and like us more each day.  She is especially fond of Noah.  She smiles big when he comes home from daycare!  She is starting to nap easier during the day and doesn't seem to fight sleep quite so much.  At night, she had her best night last night.  She still woke up about 4 times but it was much easier to soothe her and put her back to sleep.  She continues to need a bottle at night but the amount is decreasing as she gets used to eating more table food.  Her foster family will be excited to hear that she is really catching on to feeding herself!  This was not a favorite activity in Korea and she preferred to be fed.  She watches her big brother eat and wants to be just like him!  She is pulling herself up on furniture and starting to be more comfortable trying to walk.  She has taken a couple of steps independently, but then falls down and goes back to crawling.  Soon!

Noah is adjusting well to his new role as a big brother.  He has good days and not quite as good days, depending on how much sleep has had.  As Chloe is learning to sleep more, he is, too!  He loves to give her hugs and kisses and often gives her one of his toys to play with.  He talked to Grandpa Grunklee on the phone today and I over heard him say that Chloe is always trying to step on his trains.  Truthfully, she is just trying to stand up and would step on anything that is in her way!  :)

Noah went back to daycare on Monday and Tuesday this week.  He was so missed by all of his friends!  Some of them were literally dancing with joy when we walked in on Monday!  He brought some 100Won coins for all of his friends and some pictures from our trip.  He was most excited by a picture of a street sweeper that Brandon and I took when we were walking to Seoul Tower...it was the first picture he showed to anyone who would look!  Oh, yeah, and then here is one of my sister, too.  :)

Our children (that still sounds strange!) are such a blessing to us and it is sometimes hard to believe that, after all of the months of waiting, Chloe is here.  We continue to think about her foster family and we hope that they are doing well.  We are forever grateful to the care they gave to Chloe while she was with them.  She loves them dearly.  With all of the news about Korea going on the last couple of days, we hope that they are all well and safe.  We consider them a part of our family and wish them safety and happiness.

Here are some photos of our first few days home.  I don't have all of the pictures uploaded on this computer, so I'll post more soon.  If I don't get back here before tomorrow, we hope that you all have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Until next time,
Stacy

Playing with her foster mother in the playroom

Going down the slide!

Talking to Noah the night before we came home

Mommy and her babies - 11-18-2010

First breakfast together - Cheerios and bananas

Making eyes at Daddy

Working on a sippy cup...not quite ready yet!

We met our daughter!

It has been a little while since I blogged...the week has been busy!  I'll have to go back and tell about our first few days later on...today was THE day we have been waiting for for a long, long time.  We got to meet our beautiful daughter and her foster mother!  She is a darling little girl.  She is not yet walking but I don't think it will take her too long.  She loves her foster mother very much and their relationship was so nice to see.  Chloe's foster mother is a very kind woman who has been fostering for 10 years.  She was wonderful with Chloe and it was just so nice to see their loving relationship.  I think that this transition is going to be a difficult one for everyone but that is the way it should be.  She has attached to her foster family and in the end, that will make it easier to attach to us.  The foster mother said that Chloe and Brandon have the same forehead!  :)  Noah's foster mother had said that Brandon and Noah had the same cheeks.  :)  Funny how he looks like both of our children!

We do not have another meeting with Chloe, but we do get her forever on Wednesday at 3pm.  It will be a very emotional time for all of us, so please say a prayer or two.  It will be nice to have the time to get to know each other a little bit before heading out on our long journey home.  We are excited to have her and to head home for her to meet Noah.  We showed her his picture today and she tried to eat it.  I think that's a good sign.  :)

Here is our family picture from today.  Enjoy!

Until next time,
Stacy

48 hours and counting!

Well, it's Monday morning!  Noah is at daycare and Brandon and I are packing things up!  While I would love to have Noah home with us, we have too much fun playing and we don't get anything done.  :)

We learned this morning that we will get to stay at the guesthouse at the adoption agency in Seoul (this is where we stayed when we went to get Noah and we hoped to stay there again).  Chloe's social worker has a training on Friday and is unavailable, so we will meet Chloe on Monday morning at 10:00 am, Seoul-time.  That is about 8:00 pm Sunday night for those of you living around here!  It will be hard to go all weekend without seeing her, but it might be nice to not have the "tease" of seeing her on Friday and then going all weekend without seeing her again.  Oh well...it is what it is.  We are going to Korea in two days to get our daughter and that is all that matters!

Until next time,
Stacy

Going Live!

Tonight's the night that I am going to add our blog to my Facebook account.  Hope some people choose to follow along and hopefully it will motivate me to write more often!  I am really hoping that Noah and Chloe's foster families will be able to someday access this and take a peek.  How fun to share photos with them about how the children they have loved are growing and being loved by us!

Until next time,
Stacy

Travel Call!!!!!

We're going to Korea!!  Jill called today about 8:00.  I had just dropped Noah off at daycare and was in the car, on my way home.  Wednesday was my last day of work...playing the odds that our call would come yet this week!  Chloe is ready!!  "Go get your girl!"  Yahoo!!  We are trying to make flight arrangements and work out Noah's care with the grandparents.  Once that is done we can focus on packing and cleaning!  Hopefully I'll have a lot of the cleaning done today.  I think that Brandon is done with work today so we can have Monday and Tuesday to get ready and spend the weekend with Noah as a family of 3.  Right now, we are hoping to stay at the guesthouse in Korea and for that to be arranged, we really need to try leave Wednesday at the earliest.  We'll see what we can arrange!  So excited!!  My little girl is coming home!!

Stacy

More Recent Photos

Since I haven't posted for awhile, I thought I would just post some more recent photos that are on the computer that I am working at....enjoy!

Noah in front of the Fall Flood of 2010

Noah and Daddy watching the trains 

Riding on the truck at the apple orchard

Look at those dance moves!

Time to get motivated

Well, I see that I haven't blogged since the first day of school.  Eek!  The time has come to get motivated if I want to make this blog worth reading!  Life has been moving very fast for the Urbans these last few months.  School and daycare are back as part of the routine, for now, and we seem to be doing well.  Noah has one week of swimming lessons left.  He is doing well!  Brandon goes with him in the water for this class but after this session he will be in the water alone.  That will be a big change for him but I think that he will enjoy that.

Two weeks ago (almost) Brandon's brother, Shawn, got married to Bethany Schmidt.  All three of us were in the wedding.  I don't have a picture of the three of us yet, just a couple of us separately.  Here we are in our finest... :)

Noah and Daddy

Noah and Mommy

Noah and Uncle Shawn

This weekend, my brother, Corey, Stephanie and Abel are coming to visit.  We are excited to see them.  Following a week in Minnesota, they will head back to Michigan to pack up their home to move to Texas.  Corey accepted a call to church in Lubbock (have to look up the spelling of that one!).  We are excited for them and look forward to having a new place to visit!

Chloe continues to make her way to us.  Right now, we are waiting for her to make her appearance at the Embassy in Korea so that she can receive her Visa.  We should be expecting a call to come and get her at any time!  So much to do to get ready for her!  I don't think that I will ever feel ready, but we'll be fine when the time comes!  In the meantime, I continue getting things ready at work for my leave, getting lists started, creating a manual for Noah so that grandparents are not totally at a loss with him for a week and starting to pack.  What a ride!

Thanks for reading...I'll try to figure out some photos and post those soon...and I promise to be better about updating this blog!  We are going to try to send the information to Noah and Chloe's foster families so that they might be able to follow along on our adventures!  Wouldn't that be neat??

Until next time,


Stacy