The meaning of Jin-Ri

We're going to hang this beautiful poster of Jin-Ri's name written in Korean calligraphy in her room. Jin-Ri means Truth in Korean. Jin is True and Ri is Way or Principle, so the characters translate to True Way or Truth. What a beautiful name!

Some of our latest acquisitions

Nothing too exciting. But now we can start checking things off of our long, long list.

Photo flashback

Here are photos of the first two care packages we sent to Jin-Ri and her foster family. I haven't been able to figure out how to add a caption for each photo...still getting the hang of this. We also included chocolate goodies, a book, and nice letters and postcards for the foster family. It's been so fun seeing Jin-Ri in these clothes and playing with the toys. She really seems to like the red Elmo, the purple elephant and the cloth crinkly teething book.

Jin-Ri being thoroughly entertained by her Appa

Her smile is infectious!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Our third care package

We can't help ourselves. We just sent out a third care package for our little Jin-Ri today. The catalyst for this one came from my noticing that in some of the pictures and videos she was starting to discover her thumb. It may already be too late, but I thought it might be nice to see if she would take to a pacifier, which might help later during her transition to us since we would be able to access the same familiar ones. Well, we got a little carried away at BRU and found a bunch of other stuff. Since we sent so many clothes in the last two packages, we concentrated on developmental toys this time. We did, however, find the most adorable little bathrobe and slippers and rubber duckies, and since we'd seen in the videos that she enjoys her baths, we couldn't resist. We had these little Korean ABC and 123 books already from the last time John was at K-town in LA, so we decided to throw those in and see if the foster family would sit and look through them together with her.

Playing catch-up with pictures

We started receiving e-mails, photos and videos from Jin-Ri's foster family on Jan. 10th. They've been coming at us fast and furious, so here are a few of our favorites so far. We are thrilled that her foster family so deeply loves and cares for her and wants to stay in contact with us as Jin-Ri grows up. What a gift!

Let the babyproofing begin

I've started babyproofing the house little by little. Yesterday, I did the fireplace and some table corners. We think Jin-Ri will be about 9 months old when she comes home, and given that she is already creeping and crawling so well, sitting up by herself, and standing in her crib and with support, we have a feeling she'll start walking early. So we'd better be ready.

Cribbin' in Style

We are starting to gear up for Jin-Ri's arrival. We took the plunge and and went out and bought a crib this evening. Until yesterday, we weren't sure whether Jin-Ri had even seen a crib before. I know that some babies in Korea are not used to being in cribs, let alone sleeping in their own room all by themselves, and being placed in a crib can be very scary for them. Since we now have direct contact with her foster parents, I asked them what her sleeping arrangements are and found out she does sleep in a crib in their room. We even got pictures and videos of her standing and giggling in her crib. She's just too cute. We went out tonight planning to get a white crib, to keep things as familiar as possible for her, but we didn't see one we liked that seemed sturdy enough for our little amazon. So we ended up ordering a modern, dark, espresso colored crib that seemed really solid and strong, and she'll stay in our room in the beginning. Hope she likes it.

Gotta start somewhere

I don't know where to begin, but I've thought for some time now that I should really start documenting the process of adopting our daughter, Jin-Ri, from Korea. Since we live far from both of our families and most of our friends, this will be a good way for us to share how things are going. You can check out our timeline at the bottom. By the time we actually have Jin-Ri in our arms (hopefully in April), it'll have been a very long 2-year wait. So, it might take me a little bit to figure out this world of blogging, but just bear with me.....