Memories

 

Motherhood is a choice you make everyday,

to put someone else's happiness and well being ahead of your own,

to teach the hard lessons,

to do the right thing even when you're not sure what the right thing is...

 

and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong.

The beach!

We made it to the beach this weekend!  Hubby had some rewards points saved up so we thought we'd book a stay in a hotel and have ourselves a little babymoon as a family of four.  Saturday after C's soccer game we headed to Galveston and hit the beach.  The boys had so much fun!  I cannot believe how much fun lil' peanut had.  I totally expected him to be scared of the ocean (hello kid who won't ride the carousel).  But, all my plans of chilling in a beach chair while he sat calmly by my side vanished the instant his feet hit the sand.  The child bolted for the water and never looked back.  He LOVED it!  After the beach we swam in the fun pool at our hotel and topped it off with dinner and a movie in the room.  We had big plans for Sunday but somebody's big attitude sadly got those plans cancelled.  It was sad, but an important lesson to learn I think.  But, let's not talk about that.  Let's look at pictures from Saturday because Saturday was awesome!!!

 

*Most of my pictures are of lil' peanut since C was off in deeper waters with Daddy.





We were all bummed we didn't make it back to the beach, so we're hoping to get there one more time before baby brother makes his arrival.  They just had too much fun not to go back again soon!

It's soccer time!

Before we even had a place to live down here I had C signed up for soccer.  I found an organization that looked good, but the price tag was a little hard to swallow.  Probably only because we were coming from paying $20 for him to play on base.  So, in reality, I don't think this club is overpriced...just normally priced.  I'm glad I went with it because it's already been a good experience.  There are individuals from the organization who supervise the practices but each team has its own parent volunteer coaches.  They had practices as a whole age group for about a month before their skills test.  They all did a little dribbling drill and based on their times they were put onto teams.  The idea behind that is to avoid what usually happens (as it did each season he played at Ft. Meade) where you get one or two "star" players on a team and nobody else ever touches the ball.  So, this whole league is split into tiers where the kids are playing on teams with kids near their same skill level and also playing against teams on the same skill level.  C's first game was this Saturday.  I didn't know they did this, but it was awesome...they actually split the two teams in half for the game.  Which meant every kid got a ton of playing time.  A big difference from his last season on base where there were over a dozen kids on the team so he would just sit on the sidelines for half the game.  He has four coaches, but that guy in the white, he is my favorite.  Hubby had already been singing his praises after taking C to practices, saying that he was making the kids do push ups when they didn't listen.  He's British, so of course you've gotta love the accent, he's funny and he's real no-nonsense.  Which is good for C.  I hate to sit by and watch him get away with misbehavior.  Not happening with this guy.  Before the game started he told the parents of the half of the kids he was going to be coaching not to bother moving our chairs to the other field if we weren't going to cheer.  And that if we weren't loud enough we'd be doing push ups after the game.  Then he pointed at me and said "Especially you."

C scored a couple of goals.  This was right after one of them.

So was this.  Hmm...we might need to have a talk or two about the showboating.

Explaining a proper throw in, again!  He had to do it every time.  Not just with our kid.  "Ah, Americans and futbol" he sighed in exasperation.  :)

Lil' peanut was there showing his support.  Well, really just there eating snacks. ;)  He sat happily in the wagon until the last ten minutes or so...then he started to lose it.  We forgot the toys this time, so we'll be better prepared next weekend. 

They didn't win, lost by a goal or two.  But, C did pretty well.  His coach said he needs to work on keeping his head in the game and that he doesn't need to be doing all that talking on the field.  Some of it was general chit chat, but mostly arguing.  (The arguing, gah!  It is our biggest issue right now...at home, at school, and apparently on the soccer field.)  I agreed saying, "Yeah bud, you need to keep your ears open and your mouth shut."  Mr. Brit laughed and said "Good luck with that" as he walked away.  C had a lot of fun and I was proud of him!  I'm looking forward to watching the rest of his games.

감사합니다

 

At the beginning of last week I got an email from our agency saying they had received a package for lil' peanut from his foster mom and it would be on its way to our house the next day.  He had just come in from outside, so he's all sweaty in these pictures!  He was so excited to see what his Umma had sent.  There were all kinds of goodies inside.  He was most excited about the snacks. ;)

She also sent this beautiful ceramic set, which I assumed was for me.  If not, I totally stole it from lil' peanut.  I love having things from Korea around our house.  I like these even more than the things we bought ourselves because they were chosen and sent to us by such a special person!  We are very blessed to still have a connection with his foster mom over a year after bringing him home.  I hope it continues long into the future!

Lil' peanut speaks quite frequently these days about Korea and his Umma.  It is in his broken sentence toddler talk, but we understand most of it.  "Fly sky see Umma Jae."  "Go ride airplane Korea Umma Jae's house."  "Ride Umma Jae's car."  We tell him that one day when he's bigger, we will go back to Korea and see her.  I hope it's sooner rather than later.  I still think of this special woman in his life often...and it makes me happy that he does as well.

Backyard Fun

Man, when you live without your own yard for 4 years you really forget how awesome they are!  I'm so glad we (talking about myself here) were able to look past some of the flaws on the inside of the house and embrace it's potential...because we love our great big yard!  Once cooler weather hits hubby has some plans for the space, but for now the boys are enjoying it as is...including the newest addition, a swing set!

Couple of daredevils they are!

Cruisin'