New Blog Address & Update on travel/home

Hi Everyone!

Quickly, new blog address for a new family of 4... I hope everyone found it okay! With this address we shouldn't have to change it again if we happen to add more to our family in the future! LOL!

On to an update, which is what I know you're all looking for! Let me start back in Korea on Thursday April 29...

We were up pretty early the day that we flew back home because Little Miss KatieJoy was up at 4:45 am grieving :( It woke Calen up so we decided to just let the kids be up together and then we would try to get them a nap before we had to check out at 1 pm. It actually worked, thank goodness! While they napped for an hour or so we got all the last minute things packed up so that we could just play around together for the last few hours. KatieJoy did really well that day. She let me feed her and she played around a lot with Calen. By the way, I have to mention here- Calen is the BEST big brother ever!!! And you'll see why throughout this post. Here's one way... once we had gotten KatieJoy dressed she was playing around with her hairbow and Calen was sitting next to her. He looked up at her smiled at her and then looked at us and said "KatieJoy!- she's so cutie!" LOL- he seriously loves her to death- except when she's in his toys! We checked out of our room around 12:40 and then had to wait for our shuttle to pick us up to head to the airport at 2 pm. We played around outside in the courtyard and then in the lobby and as much as I had dreaded that wait it actually went fairly well. Our van got us and we left for the airport at 2- it was about a 45 minute drive to the Incheon airport from our hotel and little miss slept most of the way on Allen. Calen was talking non stop and I think our poor van driver was very happy to get us out of his van! :)

The last pictures we took while in Korea:

Once we got to the airport we had to wait in a HUGE line to check in to our flight. I was a little bummed the line was so long because I didn't think there was any way we'd be able to get bulkhead seats since there were other families in front of us. However, after about a 45 minute wait to check in, God again proved his goodness to us and we got bulkhead seats!!! By the time we got through security, through Emmigration for KatieJoy, took our train to our terminal, and got something small to eat we only had 10 minutes left before we had to board our plane! At this point, KatieJoy knew something was up and only wanted Allen to carry her. We got on our flight and both kids were out right before takeoff. Calen slept for like 4 hours which was wonderful! And KatieJoy was up on and off the entire flight. She wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with me on the flight home and would cry when Allen had to pass her off to me to eat. Finally at the end of the flight she wouldn't calm down for me and she held her arms out to a flight attendant to hold her- I just let her go and tried to hold back the tears. Calen however FREAKED out! He screamed at teh flight attendant to "Give her back to MOMMY! THAT'S MY baby sister!" and then he proceeded to cry until she was given back to Allen. Such a protective big brother already! It was very hard for me to take and I was an emotional mess by the time we landed in San Francisco. Both kids had fallen asleep again before we landed and we just let them sleep while almost everyone got off the plane before us. Once we got off the plane we had to head through Immigration/Customs for KatieJoy and it was a BREEZE- seriously, it didn't take us any longer than 10 minutes to get through the line! The immigration officer was super nice and just talked to us about how often he see's Sister Ellen come through to help Escorts with babies from Holt. He went through our DO NOT OPEN packet- which by the way I saw was basically our Packet 3 for any of you adoptive parents wondering what's in that magical envelope (marriage certificates, birth certificates, acceptance paperwork to Holt) and then we got to go on through to get our luggage. Again super easy! I had hyped myself up thinking we'd be waiting in that immigration line forever so it was so nice to have things go so smoothly!

We met my parents, sister and Denny about 10 minutes later and Calen RAN to my mom so quickly that it made me tear up! He was so happy to be home and see familar faces. We got everything into the car quickly and loaded all of us up into our van- it was a tight fit but it worked out nicely to only have one car for all of us. I was worried about KatieJoy and her car seat but I think she was so tired that once I gave her a bottle she was out like a light. However, after we stopped to eat lunch we were not so lucky. She screamed for about 40 minutes straight in the car seat from Gilroy to Santa Nella. Nothing would console her. In Santa Nella, Allen and I switched seats so KatieJoy could see him and that helped a bit because she was able to fall asleep again. Once home, KatieJoy again wanted NOTHING to do with me. She actually went to my sister really easily and would lay her head on my sister's shoulder and just glare at me. I was toast at that point. I couldn't handle it and just started bawling. Mind you, by this point in time, we had all been up a LOT of hours- but I had been up for 32 hours straight and my emotions were just done. I kept thinking- How in the world am I going to take care of her and Calen on Friday when Allen's back at work? She's going to scream at me the whole time...

Well, we turned a bit of a corner that first night home. When KatieJoy got up at midnight so did I. I didn't know if she'd let me care for her, but I had to at least try. Amazingly, she took an entire bottle from me and then played for about a half hour with me. I was pretty tired again (as we'd only had 3 hours of sleep at that point) so I brought out the camping mat and layed her blanket that her omma gave us on it. I layed her down, handed her the bottle and just stroked her hair. When I'd stop stroking her hair she would touch my hand back to her head and I assumed this meant she wanted me to continue playing with her hair. About a 1/2 hour later she was asleep again and she let me sleep with her the whole night! I felt pretty darn successful after the terrible USA Thursday we'd had together. She got up pretty happy and then I gave her a bath when Allen left so that she didn't see him walk out the door. God is so good... that actually WORKED! And we had a great day together with Calen on friday April 30th! I got laughs, smiles and eye contact for most of the day.

First full day home pictures:

Notice that her shirt says "HOME" in this picture! I got this cute shirt in Korea and couldn't resist putting her in it the first day!


And I know you already saw this picture, but it's worthy of posting again because you didn't hear that Calen asked to take this picture with his new sister! He is SUCH a GOOD big brother! :) :) :)


Once allen was home that evening though, I've been chopped liver ever since. She will let me play with her, feed and hold her occassionally with Allen home. However, I don't get a lot of eye contact from her and that's something that I know we really need to work on. She did seek me out for comfort last night instead of Allen, but that was pretty short lived. I'm praying lots right now to remember that her discomfort and dislike of me is not about me, but about her and how her little life has changed so very much. I think of how far Calen has come and how he loves us so much now but really didn't like us at the beginning. I know this phase won't last forever and that I just have to have patience in knowing that Christ is helping to heal our little girls hurting heart. I'm trying to do as much as I can for KatieJoy right now. I've been up with her every night since we've been home... the past 2 nights I have clearly heard her crying for her Omma- it's so sad. She just keeps repeating- UMMMMAAAA, UMMMAAAA???... I know that she loved her Omma and Appa so much- so I'm just praying to God to help her know that this is where she belongs and that we love her so very much and will not leave her...

So, now I have you all up to date with one of my super long posts! Sorry about all that, but I have good reason for the long posts... someday, I will be putting this blog into book format for my kids to go back and read. So the long posts make since to me for memories sake! When you think of us, please be praying for our patience and for our sweet girl to be healing...

We love you and are SO glad to be home!
~Mandy~

PS- I forgot to add... despite the challenges of just being home we are so HAPPY to have KatieJoy home with us finally! We are over the moon for this beautiful girl... especially her daddy who is head over heals in love with her already! :-)