1st Annual Forever Family Day!

Can you believe it?!  Luci has been home a year!!!  I know I can't!  So today, I am thinking back on the last year and all the amazing changes our family has gone through...

Last year, April 27 was the day we lived twice...literally!  It was April 27th when we woke up in Korea and it was April 27 nearly 42 hours later when we finally laid our heads down in our own bed back home!  Granted we didn't lay our heads down for long because our sweet Luci had her days and nights mixed up and she was ready to play at 2 a.m. as evidenced from the precious picture below.  Note the sheer exhaustion on my face and the absolute delight that we finally gave in on Luci's face!  We will never forget those 2 a.m bonding sessions...actually, they still happen.  It is extremely rare that Luci sleeps all the way through the night.  This little bundle of solid energy just doesn't need much sleep.  Mommy and Daddy do 'cause we are old but Luci doesn't seem to get that yet!  HA!

 As any parent knows, one year can bring so many changes.  We came home crawling, shortly followed by cruising, and immediately followed by walking, running, jumping, skipping, etc...She has always preferred vegetables to any other food and to this day will walk into the kitchen, try to open the refrigerator and say "peas???"  Seriously...what toddler begs for peas before asking for any other food????  I know she's weird but I'll take every morsel of Luci weirdness she can dish out!  She also LOVES to be outside..."ou-siiiiide???" (Notice the Southern drawl I tried to insert...yes my little Korean will have a Southern accent.) This time last year the idea of touching grass brought a series of panicked screams.  Now our bare-footed, nature-lovin', worm-digging girl can't get enough of the great outdoors!  And, of course, we can't either!  (Check out the picture below from a go-to-work-with-daddy day last week...NOT staged!!!)  What an absolutely perfect match for our family!

So, how did we celebrate our 1st annual Forever Family Day?  We started about 2 weeks ago with a photo session commemorating the occasion.  Mindy of MJW Photography took some absolutely beautiful pictures and now we have the impossible task of choosing which ones to order...below are some of my favorites.  I have narrowed my choices down to about 20. I think I need to narrow further.

 On the actual day, we celebrated by going to Build-A-Bear and letting Luci pick an animal.  This girl LOVES her stuffed animals like no kid I have ever seen.  As you can tell from the one of the above pictures, "elephant" goes with her everywhere...even to a photo shoot (yes that is his ear in the big-smile, little-teeth picture)!

After Build-A-Bear, we went to a Korean restaurant for some delicious food..bulgogi for Jason and dolsot bibimbap for me!  Luci had the whole restaurant ohhing and ahhing.  She got quite a few extras that I am sure we didn't get charged for!

We had a lovely day, but then again...we usually do!  I can not imagine life without Luci!  She brings joy to every moment of every day!

Spring Break Week

This post is a little late...meant to get it posted on Monday but I had to play quite a bit of catch up at work.  That's what happens when you totally ignore the outside world for an entire week!  (It was sooooo worth it!)

We started out the week with a massive snow-fall...13 inches of blowing snow to be exact!  Unbelievable and not all that fun.  At least Luci didn't think so.  I took her out to build a snowman because it was a nice, packable-wet snow and she couldn't even walk.  We didn't stay out too long!

Braving the snow-storm to check on the chickens

"Now what do I do?!"

My Spring-Break-Snowman...complete with sun hat and sunglasses

 Then, typical NWA-March-style, the snow was melted the next day and we had beautiful 80 degree weather.  So we decided to enjoy the weather and take Luci on her first trip to the zoo.  She (and we) had an absolute blast!  She isn't scared of anything!  In fact, I think she would have climbed into the fish tank with the giant alligator gar...she was trying to catch it through the glass!

1st carousel ride...on an elephant of course.  (Mommy made me leave my stuffed one in the car.)

In the desert exhibit
 

Luci's favorite animal at the zoo...a road runner.  We have these in our backyard but we went to the zoo to play with them!

Jason and Luci checking out the rhinos.  Did you know they "moo"?

Jason teaching Luci to ROARRRRR like a lion!

 Wednesday we completely left the world behind (cell-phones, internet, and TV) and took advantage of my parents cabin on the edge of the world in Big Flat.  We had a wonderful time enjoying the country-side and each other.  Luci is a true back-roads girl.  She giggled and squealed all over the bumpy dirt roads.  Her favorite part of one of our explorations was when the road and the creek-bed merged and we drove and splashed down stream.  If she hadn't been buckled in, she would have fallen out of her seat laughing!  She really is a joyous girl!

Luci has her own leather recliner at the cabin.  (Yes, she is the only grandchild on my side of the family, in case you were wondering!)  She loved waking up in it each morning while she snuggled one of her elephants.

Picnic lunch
 

Throwing pebbles in the stream with Daddy.

Luci in her first cave.  Even I will go in a cave like this one!

The edge of the world

Eventually we had to rejoin civilization so we headed back to town.  We ended the week with family hair-cut night.  Much overdue for Jason and I; Luci's first!

Prepping for the cut

The only way we could get Luci to sit still long enough for a trim was if she combed elephant's hair while Roxie combed hers!  She ended up with the cutest little bob!

Luci news and a funny!

It has been a while since my last post and Luci is making great strides in her language development.  For those of you who know me, you know that I have been worried about Luci's lack of words!  Every time we go to the doctor for a check-up I am able to answer with a resounding YES on all her developmental milestones.  In fact, Luci has usually been ahead by leaps and bounds on all the checklists.  However,  until her 18 month check-up the developmental checklists have been purely physical and cognitive with very little language involved, other than babbling (which she has always done).  When we went for Luci's 18 month check-up, the doctor asked "Does she have 10-20 words?"  I swallowed and answered "No".  She really wasn't talking using real words yet.  She is a very effective nonverbal communicator and I guess we just never forced the issue.

I am now happy to report that Luci has started speaking in words...usually 2-3 new ones each week!  We had "mama" and "da".  We now have "woof" for dog, "juice", "hot", "ball", "door", "NO" (a favorite), "book" (for book or movie), "moo", "house", "put", "up", "night, night", and a few others that I am drawing a blank on now but have written down on the calendar.  She has even constructed a sentence on a few occasions!  Her first was (appropriately) "No, no daddy!"  She wasn't ready for her bath yet but it was time!

 

 

 
Here is an example of a conversation Luci and I had in the car yesterday on the way home from the grocery store.

Luci:  "house"  as she points to a house we are driving by
Me:  "Yes, that is a house!"
Luci:  "house"  another one
Me:  "Yes!  I wonder who lives in that house?"
Luci:  "Moooooo!"

In fact, she is so obsessed with cows that she will drop everything when she hears one outside...enjoy the following series of pictures!

 

"Wait a minute!  Did I just hear a cow?"

  "I did!  I heard a cow!"

 

"MOOOO!"

The Snowy Day

We had a beautiful snowy day today!  It has been one of many this year.  Usually we get ice, but this year we have been treated to some snow.  We took advantage of the beauty and had a little fun outside!

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

First Hike of the New Year…Lost Valley

Jason and I were both lucky enough to have Monday off in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Since the weather was warm we decided to get outside and take Luci on a hike.  We headed to the Buffalo River and Lost Valley…it's an easy hike with beautiful scenery and it happened to be a place that neither Jason nor I had been in probably 15 years.  The following are some highlights of the outing.        

View through the few leaves left on a tree 

 

Beautiful Eden Falls…we have had lots of moisture in January so it was flowing nicely 

 

 

Luci REALLY wanted to get in the water but it is still January so no luck...explain that to an 18-month old!      

Found a couple of sticks so naturally we MUST play in the dirt!  Who needs toys when you have sticks, rocks, and dirt?! 

 

 

Luci receiving her first Geology lesson from Daddy 

 

 

Luci rode the 1 mile in… 

 

 

…and she HIKED the 1 mile out.  Seriously, she hiked nearly the whole way out! 

 

 

This was how she hiked most of it; hands jammed in her pockets, running full speed ahead (great for balance!!!) 

 

 

The elk at Ponca…this was the 3rd time we saw them and I finally MADE Jason stop the car and take a picture.  At this point in time elk are his least favorite animal.  Yes, he is deep into the dissertation again and not really feeling the love for his research subjects!

One Year Ago Today...

Hard to believe that one year ago today I saw this sweet face for the first time.

It was instant love-at-first-sight.  Actually, it was love at first hearing because I heard all the details about my precious daughter over the phone and through email before I ever saw her face.

I have been reminiscing alot lately and I am remembering the day of the referral.  I had just come out of a difficult meeting at work and ran upstairs to grab my things before running out the door and up to my internship site in Bentonville for some observations.  As I was putting my phone it my purse, it beeped indicating that I had missed a call.  I looked and saw that it was our social worker.  My heart literally skipped a couple of beats, my hands started sweating, and I started shaking.  I didn't even listen to the voice mail that she had left;  I simply called her back to see if it was the call I had been waiting for.  IT WAS!  She had a referral for our sweet Luci.  I tried to remain objective but as soon as she told me that her birthday was July 16 (the same as her daddy), I knew.  This was the sign that God was giving me...this was our baby!  She could have had 3 heads and 5 legs at that point and we still would have known she was the one for us.

Still, we did the "smart" thing and let our pediatrician look over the referral telling ourselves that we were really thinking it over...but we weren't!  We knew!  She was ours!

 

I know I have said this before but I am so happy that God chose me to be this special girl's mommy!  She is such a perfect fit for our family!  Happy Referral Day (even though you didn't know anything about it) to our sweet, energetic, happy, fun, loving Luci!