islands of awesomeness.

my parents are super generous and super in love with their only grandchild. so, when they knew they were going to be in orlando for a conference, they flew us down to join them afterwards so choi boy could experience some super awesome theme parks. :)

quite honestly (and to sound like a first world brat), our trip came at a bit of a crazy time. things were totes busy at school and all three of us were battling some nasty winter germs. and our actual trip down to orlando was nutso. we had a layover in miami (which is further south than orlando) that went from 3 hours to 5, totaling our travel time to 10 hours or so. aaaaaand, on top of that, i also lost my camera on our second flight. :( (majorly kicking myself still...we made do with our phone cameras, but man. ugh.)

hilariously enough, this was our welcoming committee once we landed in orlando:

apparently, bruce banner was about to do some serious, kickbutt sweeping.

anyway, needless to say, once we began our first full day and headed off to islands of adventure, we were beyond ready leave all that mess behind us and soak up some fun. and boy did we!

choi boy, who was not entirely sure of what was going on, knew we were in for something exciting and was ready to get the show on the road!


he didn't know why his parents kept grabbing him for crazy photo ops,


but, once he saw this, he was sold!

in fact, just before this snap, he went over and hugged the seuss-y garbage can. ;)

we headed straight to the one fish, two fish ride and cb made the most of waiting in line by using the bars as gymnastic bars:

why stand when you can swing?!

once we got on, he was fascinated by the switches, and i'm pretty sure he thought he was controlling some of the sprays. ;)


and once we got going?

joy.

pure joy!


we took a ride on the carousel,


said a timid hello to some familiar faces,



posed for a killer shot with hahbee,


and then excitedly ran gracefully sauntered over to our next area of the park:


awww, yeah.
this momma's dream come true.

all aboard the hogwart's express!!!

(yep, we all wore stripes. unplanned, natch. again.)

before we left for florida, i was warned not to get my expectations up too high. that hogwart's and hogsmeade might not live up to the hype.

but, oh gosh, it did! it was so awesome. and the details were amazing.



(that ride...was. amazing. AMAZing.)

even the little details at zonko's and dervish and banges were fantastic.




and silhoutted against the cloudy, overcast sky, hogwarts and hogsmeade looked positively magical.





cb began to get a little restless, so we bid adieu to harry potter's magical world and the hogwart's express conductor.

(who told my sister he liked her "hat" ;) )

our next stop was toon town, where cb loved playing on popeye's tugboat and i brought out my inner tiger mom and made him practice his scales.

;)

and we also discovered the most fun 25 cents can buy.

yep, you spray passengers on the log flume ride. ;)

at this point, cb had napped for all of 30 minutes and was getting a little over-stimulated from all the noise and crazyness that comes with a major theme park. and we were beginning to realize what visiting a theme park with a two year-old was really like:

:)

we went back to seuss landing and made the mistake of taking cb on the cat in the hat ride, which FREAKED him out. so we spent them remainder of our time laying low and eating ice cream and funnel cake. holla!

and to end our time at the park on a positive note, cb walked away with a new (familiar favorite) friend.


still, all in all, awesome.

truly.

next up, the happiest place on earth...:)

two years ago.

two years ago today, we got the call that changed our lives and made us parents.

two years ago today, we first saw choi boy's face.


two years ago today, we finally saw the face of the child that our hearts had been longing for and began our journey of waiting for *him* to come home.


and two years later, that face (and its many expressions) makes us smile daily,


and we have the joy of being able to hug and snuggle that boy and cover that face with smooches!


happy referral-iversary, cb! we are SO blessed that you are our son!

happy heart day!

a few weeks ago, we were blessed with a crazy unseasonably warm saturday. we're talking near 70 degrees in january!

so, of course, i did what any momma would do.

i dressed choi boy in some cute duds and took him out for an early valentine's day photo shoot.

duh!

okay, okay, we did spend the morning outside playing and playing in the sunshine. ;)

and post nap, we headed out to enjoy the last of the sunshine so we could share some valentine's love with y'all.











(okay, so there may have been some bribing going on...)

hooray for organic fruit snacks that make me feel slightly less guilty about bribery! slightly.

we (meaning *i*) took our (meaning *my*) two favorite shots and added a border and some text using picnik and picasa in order to gussy them up a bit so we could send them off to our family and have CB give them to his buddies at daycare.




a little scrapbook paper and double-sided tape (i love me some double-sided tape! holla!) later, they were ready to go!


as much as valentine's day is a silly little made up holiday, i can't help but feel totally giddy about sending CB off to "school" with valentines to give to his buddies...it reminds me of my own childhood valentines and all the carefree fun that came with them. and the chocolate. the chocolate that came with them was awe to the some.

except, CB's valentines contain something a little cooler...literally and figuratively -- each of his buddies are getting coupons for a free chick-fil-a ice dream! :)

and for those of you that do not go to daycare with CB -- while i cannot offer you free ice dream, CB *does* have one more charming smile up his sleeve for you.


happy valentine's day!

"he looks just like you!"...

...and other comments of the like are ones we've heard quite a bit lately.

i don't know if it's because choi boy is seriously bringing the cute lately, just like his cute appa (but really, CB is WAY cuter than the hubs was as a kid. for reals. i'm sorry, babe, but it's true. need i pull out the bowl cut picture again?), or because CB is looking more boy than baby and therefore looking less like just another baby, or people are just trying to make conversation, or what, but we've been hearing it a lot.

way back when, before CB was home, i wrote this post wondering about how i would react and respond to such comments. and my very wise friends (sidenote: i accidentally typed WIDE friends. heehee.) shared that there would be a time and a place to share about our family story and there would be many other times when we would just be doing a lot of nodding and saying "thank you" and walking away.

we've been doing a lot of nodding and saying "thank you" and walking away.

because most of the time, when people make that remark, CB is right there with me. and though we talk about CB's adoption story and our family journey a lot, and CB will proudly tell anyone who asks that he came from "kee-yah!" on an "eh-pane!", i don't want him to feel like he has to be defined by the fact that he is adopted.

and i feel like if i were to correct people about this in front of CB all the time, saying something like, "well, actually, he's adopted so he probably looks like his birth family," it would make him (even at 2 years old) feel funny. like his adoption needed to label him and always be declared. you know?

but at the same time, i don't want CB to think we aren't proud of and so, so, SO thankful for his adoption story. so, if it is more than a stranger making such a comment, we do try to share a little bit about our family and our journey.

in short, i still don't know how to answer this. and i think i won't for while. i think and hope that as CB grows up, he'll be able to give us cues on how he wants us to handle this. maybe we'll come up with a secret wink or other signal we can give each other after we nod and say "thank you" in response. or maybe he'll openly share about his adoption story and i'll beam proudly behind him.

or maybe he'll say, "gross! you think i look like my mom?! she's a girl!"

(i repsonded similarly when people told me i looked like my dad when i was little.)

:)

but you know what's really funny? and a little eerie? CB kinda *does* look like our family. it's a little uncanny. he kind of resembles my dad,


but we think he looks most like my cousin, CB's 'lissa eemo, when she was his age. it's a little crazy:

right?!

uncanny.

and, just because....



you're welcome.

niiiice!

choi boy is currently obsessed with the idea and concept of being "nice." it may have a little something to do with his kindergarten teacher momma repeatedly (i.e. ad nauseum) saying, "you have to be nice" and "play nicely" or "are you being nice?"

just a little something. ;)

anyway. cb's always checking in to see if he's being nice or reporting to me that he is, indeed, being nice. it usually has to do with sharing -- something cb is very proud of doing, or when he shows affection, especially to his buddies. he also likes to report when others are being nice, even fictional characters in books or on tv.

so, basically, cb walks around all day saying, "niiice!"

in other words, my two-year old sounds an awful lot like borat.

but a very cute, very sweet, non-creepy, non-skeezy borat. yes, that's a possible combination.

here's a little (albeit slightly forced!) peek:

:)

instafriday.

why, hello, instafriday. it's been a while.

i really should be doing work. or laundry. but, you know how it goes.

my sister keeps pestering me that i need to blog more often. and since i can't think of anything worth its own post (or rather, my brain doesn't want to think of anything), i'm just going to use some instagram pics i haven't shared here. instagram buddies, my apologies. :)

and, onward!


my love for sparkles and sequins this season is a little out of control. i'm trying to limit sequin wear to just once a week. i'm totally serious here.
on the other hand, a sequined skirt is very popular among the kindergarten set. ;)


we watched the packers' loss to the giants in sadness. but ribs made us feel better. my boy can put them down!

but once the ribs were gone, here's what the scene looked like.

sad.


choi boy has been really loving "knuffle bunny" lately. he then found "knuffle bunny too" and his signed copy of "knuffle bunny free" on the highest shelf of his bookcase...i'm really trying to be okay with two year-old hands getting all over this special copy. after all, it's *his* copy, right? right?? (that sounded convincing, no?)

my dad and cb have a very close relationship. they love each other like crazycakes and my dad is just the cutest with cb. the other week, we went for a walk in the snow, and i turned around to find the two of them like this:

yup, the love for his grandson transcends his regard for trespassing laws.

choi boy LOVES stickers.

a lot.

i wore this to work last friday:

i love pajama day! making pancakes with my kinders was the icing on my flannel cake.
flannel cake sounds really gross, but you get it.

i had to seriously talk myself out of buying this at target:

as in, i had to take it out of my cart, place it back on the rack and walk away fast.
isn't it out-of-control adorable?! wouldn't it be so freaking cute on a daughter i might have one day?
yes, i hear the ridiculousness. hence that fact that it is still at target and not in my house. but, you know, if anyone wants to send one to me for a future choi girl...just kidding. kinda.


after being home for 13 months, we were finally able to get cb's SSN...one more step (the COC) and we can check off alllll the paperwork for choi boy's adoption! whohoo! bt-dubs, cb was mostly a rockstar at the social security office. mostly.

and it's a good thing cb now has an SSN, because it seems as though he is set to go to work as a handyman:

as i said on instagram, i really need to get cb a play tool set. and i also need to hide all my bobbypins lest they end up in sockets.


when did they redesign the penny?! i was so confused when i saw this and thought it was a foreign coin. why would they redesign the penny???

cb's favorite show is "curious george". and i think i know why. i think cb sees a lot of himself in george. besides the mischief, they really look alike.
no, seriously:

i mean, right?

my sister and i have a crazy ESP connection. we often find ourselves wearing eerily similar outfits, sometimes with exact same pieces. case in point:

this is us on sunday. we put these on in our separate homes without talking to each other. we were even wearing the color nail polish.
freaky.

and finally. as i sit here on my laptop posting pictures from my phone, i am cracking up about this one:

that would be my mom and dad on their smartphones, texting and chatting with their friends (they discovered this new instant messanger-type thing in korean and are on it all the time, forwarding their friends cute little jokes or pictures, etc. they're like middle schoolers -- it's hilarious!), and cb playing with the cable remote.
what has technology done to us?!

made our lives more awesome, that's what.

:)

happy friday, friends!