Tae is baptized!

All Saint's Day will forever have new meaning for our family.  Tae's baptism that Sunday was a beautiful, big, fun, and festive celebration of his identity as a beloved child of God.  Tae's "Grandmary Jane" (Mike's mom) made a beautiful baptismal banner for Tae that hung behind the font:

As a pastor, I have a new appreciation of the promises that parents and sponsors make when a child is baptized.  Here we are making our promises to raise Tae in faith and love:

We feel blessed that Tae has such fabulous sponsors -- our siblings -- to help us keep those promises.  Here are Mike's brother and sister Pete and Julie, and my brother Mark (being "held" by friend Leslie via Skype from La Paz, Bolivia where he and Michelle are travelling in South America for 4 months -- see their great blog Wanderings about their adventures!):

The water being poured - Tae becomes God's child forever:

I got to mark Tae with the sign of the cross on his forehead with oil from the Holy Land: "Tae, beloved child of God, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."

Prayers for Tae from Pastor Marj: "Sustain Tae with the gift of your Holy Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever. Amen."

Our baby is baptized! May he live forever wet!

Our families -- our greatest teachers in the faith -- surrounded us on this day:

Tae loved playing in the baptismal water (we mixed some Jordan River water which my parents brought back from Israel into "holy" San Luis Obispo tap water).  We pray that Tae will daily plunge into his baptismal waters to remember he is a beloved, forgiven, claimed, named, beautiful child of God!

Two other special things about Tae's baptism...

A few weeks ago we attended a Korean-speaking church in SLO and watched 4 baptisms which helped us talked with Tae about baptism - about the "great bath" he was about to have.  Since then he used the sign language sign for "bath" whenever we talked about his baptism -- he gets it! :-)

Plus, in the middle of his baptism, Pastor Marj said "Hallelujah" and Tae lifted up his hands, Hallelujah!  Here we are celebrating it again.  Hallelujah, indeed!

Our smiley boy

Despite an infirm hand from his burn last week (which is much better now, thanks), Tae had lots of smiles this week:

Getting kisses from mom

Playing in the toy basket

Sitting on dad's lap

Jumping, jumping, jumping

Playing at the park

And having fun with Grandma Sharie who came to visit on Tuesday

Tae will have lots to smile about in the next couple weeks when family and friends are here for his baptism on November 1! Y'all are invited -- Sunday Nov. 1, 8:45am worship service, Mt. Carmel Lutheran Church. And you'll even get an extra hour of sleep the night before! Thanks for checking in on Tae!

Tae's first trip to the Bay Area

We took a trip to the Bay Area last weekend for a wedding and got to introduce Tae to people and places dear to us. We first stopped for a picnic in Pacific Grove with former church members:

Tae got to crawl around on the grass at the park next to the bay, except that he really doesn't like how the grass feels on his knees so he "crawls" up on his feet!The wedding reception was at my seminary in Berkeley, so Tae got to see where mama went to school for 5 years!

Here's Tae and dad with the bride and groom - congrats Meghan and John!We stayed with dear friends who were opening a new coffee shop/cafe in downtown Oakland while we were there, so Mike helped get the space ready (for those of you in the Bay Area -- it's Modern Coffee on 13th St. in the Tribune building -- go get an excellent latte)!We also went walking along the bay in Alameda where I used to live (and have we mentioned how much we LOVE our B.O.B. stroller? It can go anywhere!):And we spent a fantastic day at the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco...that is, until there was a fire alarm and they evacuated the entire museum! But we did get to see the rainforest and aquarium -- what an incredible place!

We are so grateful that Tae is a champion traveler! And here's an update on Sophie the giraffe teether: he still won't even touch it, much less use it as a teether. Ah, parenting....

P.S. I wrote the above this afternoon, but since then we've had a big event -- Tae's first minor medical emergency! While I was getting dinner ready, Tae managed to get his fingers in between our oven and broiler, getting 2nd degree burns on the tops of 3 of his fingers. We called his pediatrician who just instructed us to dress it, so here's Tae's wrapped up hand. At least the milk and teddy bear made things feel a bit better. Poor kid, and poor freaked out parents....

"Status" teething

Poor Tae has really been struggling with teething recently - he has 8 teeth now and 2 more coming in on top. A friend told me about the "giraffe teether" her 16 month old son loves, and that even though it was pricey, it was well worth every penny.

Well, yesterday I found the teether at a local children's store and gulped as I handed over my gift card to the cashier to pay for the thing (luckily it was a gift card...).

Later in the day I was telling another friend about the teether and she said she had just read this article in the LA Times about this exact giraffe teether named Sophie. Who knew that I was buying a "status teether" for my son?

So, the teether seems to have worked for Nicole Richie's and Kate Hudson's kids. How has it worked for Tae? Let's take a look:

"Hey, this thing is pretty cute!"

"You want me to do what with it? Put it in my mouth?"
(Once it had fallen on his hand): "Ewwww...get it off! Get it off!"

Needless to say, Tae has yet to put the thing in his mouth. So it goes for status teething....

Fun for Tae

Tae has had a fun week...

Finding treasures under the furniture:

Eating grass off the sidewalk:

And eating sand at the beach (egads...):
Playing with his new friend Grady at Parent Participation class: Playing in our "backyard pool" since it was so hot today:
And sleeping. Tae is now sleeping in his crib exclusively and we've moved back to our room. For the most part, it's working out well, though since this change he seems to be an early riser -- 6am most mornings -- ugh!I guess it's not true that he "exclusively" sleeps in his crib. Today he fell asleep on my back as I vacuumed...with a death grip on his teddy bear's ribbon. Poor bear!

Hope you've had a fun week too!

A couple cute videos

We've been teaching Tae some baby sign language, as well as how to act out the phrases "I have no idea" and "I can't believe it." Here he is putting them together -- cute!

Tae has the most adorable giggle, and it's the littlest things that get him to laugh, including kisses from mom on his arm...

This past week Tae and I started attending a fantastic mom/kids play group which includes a beautiful boy adopted last year from Ethiopia and a wonderful mom who was adopted from Korea when she was a baby. We also had our first weekly "parent participation class" with songs, games, crafts, and outside play for toddlers. Tae is the only one in the class not yet "toddling" -- but it won't be long! He keeps standing up and holding on to furniture as he takes steps.

We're well, happy and grateful for the gift of our Beautiful Star!

Birthday celebrations continued...

We had a fantastic week in Oregon with Mike's family (and extended family and good friends) introducing Tae and continuing his 1st birthday celebration. No doubt Tae would say that his birthday cupcake was the best part:

We spent a day hiking at Silver Falls State Park with 10 waterfalls, some of which you can walk behind. Tae loved it and tried to touch the water:

The best part was being with family, including Grandma and Grandpa Isensee, Tae's cousins, aunts and uncles.
Now we're home and getting into a real routine, including improved sleep! Thanks for checking in on the birthday boy!

Tae's 1st Birthday!

We joyfully celebrated our little boy's first year of life on Monday, August 31! We were in Colorado for a week visiting my (Jana's) parents in the mountains. On his birthday we had professional photos taken of all 3 of us in our hanboks (the traditional Korean dress for first birthdays and other life celebrations).

Here we are trying to fit Tae's hanbok hat on his head for the photo session, which was successful for only a couple photos:

Later in the day we celebrated with a Korean "Tol", a traditional first birthday party with special Korean food and decorations on the table:

We also had a Korean "toljabee" table on which party guests placed items which they hoped Tae would choose to help determine his future. As Tae's mom, I was super happy that he chose my item (and I didn't even rig this!) -- a Bible to signify his growth and critical inquiry into faith. He also chose a rock from a geologist friend, so he'll be rooted in the earth while he grows in faith! :-)
We shared a traditional Korean birthday cake and blew out one whole candle:

Throughout the week all eyes were on Tae, including his Aunt Michelle's and Uncle Mark's in this photo at an "outdoor living room" next to the river in Buena Vista:

Tae's also had his first pet of a cat:

He had fun with Grandpa Rod:

And fun with Grandma Sharie at the library:

How grateful we are for our sweet one year old boy:

Now we're in Oregon where Tae is meeting his relatives on daddy's side of the family. We continue to be smitten by this beautiful little boy. Thanks for helping us celebrate his first year of life!