Happy Lunar New Year!

I took these pictures on the 23rd, but am just getting around to posting them. Anyway, we would like to wish everyone a belated Happy Lunar New Year (Seollal), especially Joshua's 엄마 and 아빠.

새해 복 많이 받으세요

The hanbok is from Joshua's 1st birthday, his foster mother gave it to us when we traveled to Korea. So handsome!!!

Joshua Has Something to Tell Ya'll

Back in December at our 3 month post-placement visit for Joshua, we had casually mentioned to our social worker that we were hoping to start the adoption process again next year. On December 28th, exactly one month ago tomorrow, we received the most unexpected phone call from our adoption agency. "This is one of those strange sorta phone calls," she says. Were we serious about wanting to start the process again, she wanted to know. Yes! Well, I have a little boy here and no family that is paperwork ready except you guys. You may remember that we had to do our home study all over again when we moved to AZ. Well as it turned out, this was a HUGE blessing. The only reason we got this phone call was because we had a current approved home study (the initial home study in AZ is good for 18 months). We weren't sure if we would be able to come up with all the finances so quickly, so we asked her for a few days to pray about it and see how God was leading us. God gave us a very clear answer as to how we were to proceed and how He would provide. With God's miraculous provision, we called our social worker on January 1st (she gave us her home number) to tell her we wanted to move forward. She sent over the referral  paperwork that same day. So we started 2012 by seeing the face of our next son for the first time.

We still had some paperwork to do to update our home study plus all the referral acceptance paperwork and we also had to wait for all the funds to become available, but we got everything mailed off on the 14th (they didn't get it till the 17th due to the MLK holiday). Everything got sent to Korea last week, so we should be ATK (acceptance to Korea) very soon if we are not already.

John and I are overjoyed to introduce you to Joshua's little brother:

Jonah RiYoon

Born July 8, 2011

Jonah - Means "Dove" and has the spiritual connotation "Declarer of Joy and Salvation"

RiYoon - A name given to him by his birthmother, made up of a combination of Korean characters

As it turns out Jonah was born at the exact time we were doing the paperwork for our home study in AZ. Our adoption agency is estimating that we will wait approximately 18 months before we are able to travel to Korea to bring him home. Please keep us and Jonah in your prayers as we wait.

Never in my life have I felt the favor of God as I do here. After the phone call, I kept thinking about the verse in the Bible where it talks about God as El Roi, the "God who sees me" (story of Hagar). I know of others who have received these types of phone calls and have secretly always wished to be on the receiving end of one of them. And I know the Lord knows that. Other people dream about miraculous pregnancies, I dream about social workers calling my house - ha! God is good!

"The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy" Psalm 126:3. 

Note: Our new agency discourages publicly sharing photos because of how it may be viewed by Korea. I shared my blog address with Joshua's foster family and I don't know whether or not she shared it with Joshua's social worker in Korea. Jonah has the same social worker in Korea, so I don't want to put pictures of RiYoon here (other than the tiny peek above). However, I have a plan that may allow a large number of my "secret" followers to see a picture, so be on the look out. I will also post a photo on Facebook (I am getting all kinds of weird hits on my blog from sources I don't recognize so I took out my name). I will email those of you whose email addresses I have.

1st Trip to the Zoo

We went to the zoo the day after New Years since John had some time off. Joshua loved it. I could tell he recognized many of the animals from his books and Baby Einstein DVD. It was actually hard to get good pics because he was moving around so much due to his excitement.

 

This was the first of many trips I am sure!

Last of the December Photos

Apparently, woobies are required for opening Christmas presents (Christmas PJs from Grandma)

I love the look on his face in this pic!

Dancing!

1st Haircut

Joshua got his first haircut the week after Christmas. He did amazing! I was shocked at how well he did, no tears, no fits, nothing at all. He was such a trooper, though as you will see in these pictures he was clearly not happy.

 Not even candy is making it better :-(

 Attempting to get the "after" photo

Much better!

Saguaro East and Bear Canyon

The day after Christmas we took a much needed hike in Saguaro National Park. This was our first visit to the park, but it certainly won't be our last - so much beauty!

On New Year's Eve, we took a hike along the Bear Canyon Trail.

 My boys! Love this picture!

Outings like this are almost enough to make me like Tucson. ;-)

Christmas Morning

I was not a very good Christmas morning picture taker, mostly because I just wanted to be in the moment rather than worrying about taking pictures. But I did manage to get a few.

 He had this bow on his bottom for most of the morning.

 

 My best "present" :-)