Home for a month!

Wow can a month go by quickly!!! Lily is doing awesome!! We are so glad that she is finally here!! Her first month home has been very busy! She has jumped right into our crazy busy life and has handled it like a champ! In the last month we have gone camping, to Nicks baseball tournament, to the county fair, and to Lincoln to visit more family!!! The boys adore her and will do about anything for her!! The sibling rivalry has started!!!! The younger boys like to pick her up like a doll and make her scream. I had no idea what my little girls voice could produce such a loud scream! WOW! This week we are heading on our family vacation! We are going to Omaha to FunPlex and then off to KC for Worlds of Fun! If the county fair is any indication Lily will love all the rides!!!! We will stay with some good friends in KC for the weekend and then back home! The boys start back to school on the 19th. It will be good to get back into a schedual!!!

I hope to get some more free time so that I can update my blog more often!!! Here are a few pictures of the last month! Enjoy!

Camping
Fun in the sand!

My 3 youngest

Lily loves the water!

Nick gets his 1st place medal

Nick

Playing

My beauty!!

Getting pretty at the cousins house!

My fab 5

Wordless Wednesday!!!

The restaurant district
At the Palace

Outside the US embassy

At our hotel

silk worms....yum?

Mall in Insadong

Beautiful lanterns at the Buddhist Temple

Buddhist Temple

They say a picture tells a thousand words!

Just a quick note to tell you that things are going really good!!!! The flight home was long but Lily did great! When we arrived at the Omaha airport we had the most amazing welcoming! My whole family was there are the boys had on shirts with Lily's picture and they said Proud Brother #1, #2, #3, and #4. There was pink balloon's everywhere and the boys had flowers to give me! Lilies of course! The emotions of finally being home after 30 hours of travels got the best of me. I was so happy to see my family of 7 together finally!

We haven't had any problem with sleeping or jet lag so that has been great! The boys adore Lily and she is fitting in just fine and holding her own! She still grieves for her foster mom but still has fun and shows her personality a lot! She joined the boys running through the sprinklers Sun. night and had a blast! We are so in love and enjoy seeing her become more comfortable in our family every day! I will leave you will lots of pictures!!!

Our last day in Korea!

Our last day in Korea was wonderful!!! Lily is quite the sleeper! We had to wake her up for breakfast. She woke up with no tears! Just kinda a blank look in her eyes. She quickly started to warm up and let us snuggle her. We headed down for some breakfast and she ate mostly rice and watermelon! She loves watermelon. Good thing daddy grows that in the garden. She likes to see our reactions to things. She was eating and started pushing her rice off her plate. We would say no and she would smile and laugh! She has a spunky side! Her foster mom said she is very sweet and also very stubborn. Yep, she is a Janssen!

After breakfast we headed to a market to pick up a blanket and pillow that she is used to sleeping on the floor with. We will have to see how the sleeping arrangement will work at home! In the cab ride you could see that she was doing alot of thinking. She would go in and out sometimes with lots of smiles and then be very serious. No tears though. When we got back to the hotel we had some lunch and then laid Lily down for a nap. She doesn't like to go to sleep unless she is literally right on top of me like I'm carrying her but only laying down. After she falls asleep I roll her over on the bed.

After she was asleep I headed to Insadong to finish up some shopping. I still needed her name scroll in Korean and a beautiful Korean jewelry box. When I came back she was still sleeping. I did some packing up of all the gifts that we have bought. Dave decided to head over to the buddhist museum. When he came back I asked him if it was interesting and he said it was all in Korean.

Lily was still sleeping so we woke her up so that we could head over to the Seoul Tower. We took a tram to the top and wow what a view! Seoul is huge!!!! Seoul Tower is the highest point in Seoul. It is also famous for the fact that it is where the most engagements take place. Tradition says that you take a lock and attach it to the cable and throw the key over the mountain to symbolize your ever lasting love. Did I bring a lock ..... of course! Our lock symbolizes our love of family and that Lily will always be part of her forever family! We also went to the Teddy Bear museum where they talked about the History of Korea told by the bears. Lily loved it and got so excited when the bears would move.

We came home after that ate a little supper and got Lily ready for bed. She really doesn't like bed time. She stalls just like the boys. Having to go potty again (yep she is fully potty trained:)) ect. Dave went in a turned the TV off and she did not like that she started crying and yelling something at Dave. She came running to me and we laid down on the bed. Again she was on top of me. I'm not sure if the tears were that she didn't want to sleep or because she was grieving. But I would say that Dave and I agree things are going better than we expected. She is the sweetest little girl and we are so excited to bring her home to meet the boys and the rest of the family!

Today we leave for the airport at 8 am. We will fly to Chicago leaving at 11:40 Korea time Fri. and arrive in Chicago 10:00 am Friday. We gain the day coming back! Dave and I have really enjoyed our time her in Korea but both agree we are ready to come home and see our boys and become a family of 7!

Please pray for a safe trip and for Lily that she will like the plane and have lots of fun today with all the new toys and art things that she hasn't seen yet that we brought for the plane ride!

Thank you guys so much for following our journey and I will continue to post about life back home!! Your prayers and support have meant the world to us!

Lily's Gotcha day continued!

On the cab ride home Lily fell asleep and if I would have known what would happen when I tried to lay her down I would have paid the cab driver to keep driving for a few hours! When I tried to lay her down she woke up the grieving started. She called out to her grandma (what she called her foster mom) and searched the room for her. It was heartbreaking for us. This continued for about 30 minutes. Very loud and almost screaming. The only time she calmed down was when we skyped the boys. She liked seeing the boys on the computer screen and waving to them. When we were done making our calls she let me rock her while she cried and then fell asleep on the bed. I tried to lay down but couldn't sleep because I wondered what she would do when she woke up.

When she woke up she cried a little more but started to play with her doll and some of her toys on the floor. She didn't show very much emotion and not any smiles. We decided to take a little walk outside. We walked around for about a hour and decided to head back to the hotel for some food and water. Dave was holding her and was tickling her and we got a few smiles. Her foster mom said she love fruit and veggies and seaweed and grilled white fish. She sent along a container of sticky rice and broccoli and she loved both. After she ate we started to see some personality come through. Dave went to grab a sandwich for himself and she was very observant when he left. I reassured her he would come back. When she heard the door I said see its Appa. She went running to Dave with arms held high yelling Appa Appa right into Dave's arms. The sight was truly priceless. It was right then and there she wrapped her daddy around her finger. They played on the floor, hide and seek and she ran all over the room. I took some video of that moment she came out of her shell. She comes to me for comfort and daddy to play. She will fit in perfect...just like the boys!

Her foster mom said she loved her bath so we gave her a bath. She was still all smiles but reserved again as if she was thinking this isn't like home. When it was time for bed she wanted nothing to do with that. Every time I would sit her on the bed she would climb right over me and stand on the floor. She looked up at me with her big brown eyes and her lip started to quiver. I held her tight and rocked her as she cried very quietly and fell asleep. She is still sleeping and Dave and I are awake for the day. I pray that she will have some fun moments here on our last day in Seoul. I'm sure that the grieving will return and that will be a good thing! She needs to grieve her loss so that she can bond with us.

Thank you so much for all the prayers! It helps knowing that this too will pass!!!! Enjoy the pictures!