Very Cool Site for Korean Adoptive Parents

I have to give a shout-out and huge thanks to Alicia with The First Glimpse. Alicia is an adoptive parent that has a terrific creative eye and does custom announcements, cards and invitations. While I'm sure she would do a beautiful job for any family, her specialty is creating things for Korean adoptive families and their children.

We looked all over for invitations for James' Tol and couldn't find anything. I really wanted something that coveyed more than the typical "baby's first birthday."When we found Alicia's site, we fell in love with her very personal creations.

In a previous post I mentioned that we struggled with getting good pictures of James in his hanbok but she was still able to create this:

These are press-printed cards that are printed on front and back. She gave me a copy with the address/last name removed so that I could share them here. You should be able to click on the picture to make it a little bigger.

We are so happy with them and can't wait to put them in the mail to our family and friends.

She had all kinds of terrific options that incorporate Hangul characters and are very unique and special. I know I've struggled to find items that incorporate Korean language/customs and she does a nice job with this.

I've linked her site above so that you can find her too.

Thanks Alicia!

Lauren

Preparing for the Big Day

James' first birthday is coming and we found a wonderful company that designs Tol invitations. The catch? You need to send pictures of the baby wearing their hanbok and they design the invite around the picture. On their website you see these great invitations with pictures of adorable babies dressed in hanboks and smiling to the camera. There are absolutely no pictures of angry babies crying in their hanbok.

You can tell what's coming, can't you?

We set out to Brookside Gardens this morning to take pictures of little James in his hanbok. His foster family gave this to us when we met them in Korea and we've been excited to see him wear it hoping we could send back pictures to them. They could then see he's doing well and also know that we're doing our best to maintain a cultural connection. Good feelings all around! Well, one out of two isn't bad, right?

It was a little bit warm when we got to the gardens so we decided to start indoors. In the lobby of the conservatory, we stripped James down to a onsie and loaded him into the enormous, and mostly pink, hanbok. He did look very cute but was almost unable to sit up due to the fabric smothering him. Several people stopped by to say that our daughter was very cute. Umm, no, it's a boy. However, one Korean couple introduced themselves and ooohh'd and aaaahhh'd over him. We had a nice chat as I was sweating jumping up and down trying to get some sort of smile out of James. I was also making crazy noises and singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" (his favorite) trying to get his attention. Not much worked but we did get one smiling picture out of the 25 or so we took. I think the smile was smothered under the sheer weight of the fabric...notice you don't see his hands in this picture and the red tie is supposed to go around him twice and tight (it doesn't).


We thought we'd take him outside for a bit to see if we could get some shots there. We found a beautiful spot by a fountain and tried to take some pictures. Note the terrific shot of almost the back of his head! The water proved to be too much of a distraction.



So we moved on , determined to get the right photo. One that shows his happy personality and shows off his beautiful hanbok. Who would have thought those things might be mutually exclusive?

Here is my favorite picture from the entire experience. Gee, I'm sure his foster family would be so pleased to know that we've been able to make James this happy:


And we're done here. Shortly after this photo there was a lot of crying (by all parties) and we threw in the towel.

At our car we were getting ready to strip off the dreaded outfit and another car pulled up next to us. An older woman jumped out and signaled to her husband to wait. She was from Korea and spoke very little English. She conveyed that they had been driving through the parking lot and suddenly saw the striped hanbok sleeves and told her husband to stop. She was SO excited to see a baby in a hanbok! She asked all about him and smiled and cooed to him in Korean. He ate it up and was his absolutely charming self. We talked about his upcoming Tol and she couldn't believe that two American parents would bother to do this for an adopted child. She was very touched and very sweet to us. I didn't bother to explain that most of the adoptive families we know are doing their best to incorporate Korean culture into their lives but it was nice to see how important it really is from her perspective. So finally some good feelings!

When we got home I called and made an appointment with a professional studio. It's not until the day before his party but I can live with that. I sent 1-2 pictures to the invitation lady to see if she can use them. If not, I'll buy packages of regular birthday party invitations and quit torturing myself (and my son).

Lauren

Shame, Shame, Shame....My Only Political Post

I read political blogs and follow the news but don't care to get into the red and the blue on this blog. I'm more purple than red or blue and no one wants to read my very middle-of-the-road opinons. I live in a very blue state and a cobalt blue county. I want the best chances for people but also believe that people have to be responsible and accountable for their actions. I was raised under the "work hard, pay your way" plan. I don't believe that home ownership is a right, I believe you work for it. When you can afford it, THEN you buy the house. I believe in access to affordable health care but don't believe in a socialist medicine. Free health care is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution and you know, someone has to pay for it. I acknowledge that our health care system is broken but a free ride for everyone based on the backs of the middle-class hamsters pisses me off. Because I'm on that hamster wheel and I keep paying more and more for less and less.

It floors me that our government approved a bailout for companies that basically have made such poor business choices that they've run themselves into the ground. With everything we know about markets, we've created a false one and this bailout just pumps additional funds into the fantasy. Believe me, I hear the large sucking sound in the background letting me know that my 401k is tanking but we know that markets adjust. Any basic economics course will tell you that adjustments happen and the more we interfere, the worse we make it. But right or wrong, we have a spending problem. This whole country is like a teenager out of control with a parent's credit card. Guess what folks, Mom and Dad finally got the bill in the mail. We have been living far beyond our means both personally and governmentally. We can't afford many of the programs we have in place but both politicians can't wait to roll out the newest ways to spend our money. Of course, all plans come with some statistician's explanation of how it will actually save us money. This combined with our eternal focus on the material, new plasmas, new shoes, new clothes, new cars. We need it! We want it and we don't care because we have our stocks and 401ks that will save for our retirement. I understand that there were some instances of predatory lending practices but seriously folks, no one forced you to buy more house than you could afford. I'm sick of interviews with people saying they deserve help to stay in their homes and they have new cars in the driveway in the background. Did they ever stop to think that maybe they shouldn't buy that new flat-screen tv because THEY COULDN'T AFFORD IT?

Okay so back to purple and my single political post. I've already mentioned that I was furious about the bailout. I'd consider a plan that was well researched and developed on the principles of transparency and what was best for the public but that's NOT what was proposed and certainly not what passed. The bill was based on fear, secrecy, panic and greed. And they couldn't resist, could they? In this bill passed in "dire financial straits" there is PORK! Children's toy arrows, car racing tracks, fishermen, etc. Golden parachutes all around too because the poor performers are already lounging by the pool with their fruity drink.

Seriously, both McCain and Obama are bright people. I honestly don't think either one of them would have supported the bailout if we weren't looking down the barrel of the election. It's hard to have the "people need to live within their means" discussion now, isn't it? But whomever carries the election in November, PLEASE STOP SPENDING BEYOND WHAT WE CAN AFFORD!

My parting shot...after we spend $85 billion to bailout AIG we get this:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5973452&page=1

The poor execs at AIG were so stressed out by their week on Capitol Hill that that they had to recover at a luxury resort and spend close to $500,000 for a retreat. I threw up a little in my mouth when I hit the $26,000 in spa charges. Manis and pedis with our bailout. We got ripped off...seriously ripped off.

Shame on them, shame on our Government leaders for forcing this on us without the research, due diligence and discussion it needed, and shame on us for our spending habits and not taking savings seriously.

As a purple hamster, I'm getting really tired on this wheel.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.......

Something to Share from Another Blogger

Jane Jeong Trenka who is a wonderful blogger living in Seoul wrote a beautiful post that everyone should read. It made me cry (not the reason to read it) but it contains the hope that I have for my son. That someday he will meet his birth family.

http://jjtrenka.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/%EC%9A%B0%EB%A6%AC-%EC%97%84%EB%A7%88%EC%97%90%EA%B2%8C/

It pulls some of the universal threads for the people who are not adoptees but who very much love an adoptee(s) and their birth families.

Lauren