Tae is an American citizen!

Yea! On Friday, April 16, Tae's adoption was finalized at our county courthouse and Tae became an American citizen. It was a fun "red, white, and blue day" to celebrate both his Korean heritage and American citizenship. and Tae loved waving his Korean and American flags all around:

During the short court appearnce the judge asked us if we approved one another adopting Tae, and then we signed some paperwork to make him forever our son!

We loved our judge -- she gave Tae a quilt made by courthouse clerks "to celebrate the warmth of family" and shook Tae's hand to welcome him into our family forever.

When we asked if we could get a photo with her, she said it was a rule in her courtroom that she got to hold the baby:

We were thankful for family and friends who joined us at the courthouse - they even got to sit in the jury box!

We are officially a family forever and ever!

And Tae is officially a "cool" American - especially walking with Grandpa Rod.

We celebrated with a "red, white, and blue" party!

Mama and Uncle Mark were especially in the spirit:

And Tae happily continued his day with a yummy cup of milk. What a celebration for our red, white, and blue beautiful star!

Finally...a new post!!

Well, it's official - going back to work is detrimental for regular blogging!  Life has been a bit crazy adjusting to both of us working since early November, but we think we have the hang of it now, and we feel very blessed that we only need 2 days/week of child care for Tae.

The past few months have been full of joy -- Thanksgiving in L.A. with friends (we went out for excellent Korean food on Thanksgiving in Korea Town!) and a trip to the L.A. zoo; my parents visiting all of December and a delightful first Christmas with a baby; time at the beach; and Mike's parents visiting last week. 

Tae's big milestones the past few months have included learning to walk like a pro, becoming an artist (with a crayon on the back of our front door), and going from 2 naps to 1 - big changes!  Rather than bore you with more words, here's our life with Tae the past few months:

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....