11 Months Old...

Happy 11 months, our lovely Emerson!

You are always in our hearts and thoughts, but this past month I especially felt like you were almost physically right there alongside with me.

You were there with me during the late nights I stayed up making your special first birthday card or writing a heartfelt letter to foster mom. I would often look up and see your cute little face right in front of me.

You were there with me as I went out shopping for clothes to send to you as you outgrow your baby clothes.

You were there with me as I picked out your first walking shoes. I saw you so clearly taking those cute baby waddle steps.

You were there with me as I wandered through the toy store aisles for hours imagining what toys you would love playing with.

You were there with me as I shopped for books that I hope you'll enjoy looking through as you sit on foster mom's lap. I flashed forward to a year from now and saw what kind of books you and I would enjoy together.

Now that both the care and birthday packages have been wrapped and shipped off to you, I hope and pray that as you receive and play with what we sent, that we become more alive and real to you. That you feel our love radiating from the care packages. That somehow you can feel that you are being missed so much halfway around the world. That, my dearest Emerson, is our wish for you on your 11 month birthday.

We love you.

It's the little things...

...that can make your day.

Here's my little thing:

To anyone else, it's just a ziploc bag, so what, right? Well, for us it feels like we hit the jackpot because these are the EXPANDABLE BOTTOM ziploc bags... meaning we can send even that much more in our care packages to Emerson! WOOT WOOT!!

These were quite hard to find, by the way. I searched high and low for months at every local Target, grocery store, CVS, etc.. I finally found them online at Costco. Of course, now I have about a hundred of them, but it's all good. I'm just so happy to have found them! :)

Korean Hanbok

"Hanbok" refers to a traditional Korean dress. I've been doing quite a bit of online research on hanboks for a card I'm making to send to baby Emerson. This is what a traditional hanbok looks like:



Pretty, right?

Here's a picture of a child's hanbok:



Can we say CUTE?!

But then I came across a website called Wedding Inspirasi that had pictures of modern hanboks that simply took my breath away.

I love the look and feel of these photos as much as the updated hanboks. I kept going back to the site to look at the pictures over and over again. I was thinking of getting Emerson a hanbok soon after she comes home. And now that I've seen these pictures, I'm thinking mommy might have to get one as well! :)