we've moved! (blogsites that is)

i've decided to change blog sites so that i can take advantage of privacy settings and feel more comfortable posting pictures of max. please join me over at: www.waitingformax.wordpress.com

some of the posts will be private and require a password. if you want to check out those posts as well just email me (apappano@hotmail.com) or post a comment requesting the password and i will send it to you.

now hopefully i can figure out how to use this new website!

"yep that's totally your kid..."

i love what my sister wrote when she saw this latest picture of max:

"yep that's totally your kid... reminds me of your wardrobe back in your hippie days LOL!"

and i couldn't agree more! : )

it's october!

i love october! the crisp temperatures (although it's in the 80's this weekend!), the changing leaves and the bright blue skies. next year at this time, hopefully we will be carving pumpkins, going to fall festivals and looking for a halloween costume for max!

since i haven't been blogging as much as i would like to (for the whole photo/memory thing), i will at least try to summarize our month of september.

labor day weekend: we went to wild iris in lander, wyoming. this included climbing on a bunch of pockets, camping in the van, and scoring at an outdoor gear labor day sale.

september 7th was our 10 year anniversary. brian was excited to give me gifts the night before (in true brian style). he did well with his shopping... ipod, backpack for upcoming 14'er hike and a snuggie :)

at work i was surprised with roses and a card. later that evening we went out to dinner and then had fun shopping for a new work wardrobe for brian... as he received an awesome job offer!!!!!

september 11th: michelle, gabe and james met brian, steve and me at our house at 1am to head out to hike long's peak! we began the hike at 2am with headlamps. there were a lot of people out on the trail. as the hike was immediately and pretty consistently uphill, i quickly realized that this 15 mile hike was going to be more difficult than i had anticipated... especially after only having an hour or two of sleep the night before.

after about 5 hrs of hiking in the dark, we approached the keyhole right around sunrise. it was beautiful and i was so relieved to be hiking in the sunlight which was also beginning to provide us with some warmth.

here we looking up at the keyhole.

we knew after the keyhole was only another 1.5 miles to the peak... so we thought we would be there within the hour. we were wrong. it's hard to believe that it could take 4 hrs to hike 1.5 miles, but it did! my lungs and heart were not used to the elevation and steep, dramatic incline. michelle was scared on all the technical rocky parts of the climb, but she did awesome!!!

this was the last stretch up to the peak.

finally at 11am we reached the peak. i was exhausted and my gi system was not doing so great. i think i had a bit of altitude sickness as i was dizzy, nauseaus and couldn't really eat. the views were amazing though, and i was so proud of michelle!

the hike down seemed to last forever. it was kind of neat how we would keep seeing the same people that we saw on the way up. i had several conversations with various people on the trail. 7 hours later (6pm) we were all back at the car and exhausted. it was definitely a highlight of the summer for me.

the next day, september 12th we celebrated max inchan's birthday. although his birthday is the 13th because of the time difference in korea, we wanted to celebrate while he and his foster family were celebrating. we went toy shopping and then had a little pizza party (me, brian and steve).

september 13th: brian started his new job! this is very exciting and absolutely perfect timing. this job kind of fell into brian's lap. i heard there were around 80 applicants, and the administrator respected brian's work and personally called him to come interview for the position. after 10 years of marriage, this is brian's first job with benefits/health insurance and the timing is perfect with us getting ready to bring our son home. it just gives us (me) a lot of options with parenting/schedules etc.

since brian is working full time, i am trying to become more domestic. i've been cleaning and cooking more... fun, fun. i'm also trying to use this last bit of time to get as prepared as possible for our son. i've been researching montessori learning. i am contemplating doing a mixture of montessori activities at our home as well as having him go to a montessori preschool 2-3 days per week when he is ready.

some other things on my to-do list:

learn some korean (easier said than done)

baby-proof the house

prepare menus (plan to prepare a bunch of freezer foods)

purchase and plan for activities for max (educational toys etc)

create a list and/or register for toddler items we will need

work on max's bedroom and play area

finish decorating our house and making the space how we like (take the house off of the market soon)

check out/apply for preschool (apparently you have to do this early)

finish and read more adoption books... specifically focus on bonding and attachment

purchase some good beth moore bible studies and make this a priority

figure out a good workout schedule that won't take away time from parenting

work on max's "life book"

so even though we still have 8 months or so until we bring max home, i am realizing that i have a lot to accomplish before then. i think the time is going to go quickly!

look who's one!

our sweet baby turned one last week, and we were thrilled to receive these updated photos of him! the pictures are from one day after his birthday (my sister's birthday!), and he is holding some of the items we sent him in his care package.

he looks so adorable and innocent. he's such a little tiny guy. he only weighs 18 pounds! at least he's on the (korean) growth chart. i can't wait to meet him and bring him home.

happy birthday max!!!

yesterday was max's first birthday! brian and i decided to celebrate our son's big day by going toy shopping and then enjoying some pizza and a cake!

maybe the above picture was taking it a bit far?!?!?!

this was a bittersweet day for us. your baby's first birthday is such a huge celebration both in america and in korea, and it was hard to not have him home. i'm hoping his foster mother spoiled him on his birthday. we certainly will in the years to come!

the day after his birthday, max had a well baby check at Eastern and he received a care package from us. and we received what i had been hoping for: new pictures! i'll post them in the next blog!

new pictures!

I was happily surprised this evening to open my email to these pictures! I am pretty sure they are from his 11 month well baby check...he turns 11 months on the 13th. I know I'm biased, but he is just the cutest little guy I've seen in a long time... maybe ever :)

He looks to be deep in thought here. I wonder what he is thinking about.

I hope it's my imagination, but he looks a little bit sad in the picture below. He's already gone through and will go through more hardships before his young life becomes stable.

I wonder if he got a vaccination or something. I'm glad he has his pacifier and his foster mother to hopefully help soothe him.

I think he's laughing here! I can't wait to actually hear his voice one of these days.

While this wait is terribly long and quite depressing, there are some things I am certainly thankful for. He seems to be healthy and developing well. It looks like he is being well taken care of. I am SO thankful that he is not in an orphanage. And I am thankful that we have been receiving fairly routine pictures and updates. I feel like we can at least watch him grow.

Hopefully he will receive his care package at his next well baby check....it is still sitting at our adoption agency here in Colorado, waiting for a family to get word that they can travel. I'm going to have to add to the package, since it will now likely be arriving to him for his 1st birthday!

fasting and praying

i was moved by this post on a korean adoption forum the other day. if anyone feels compelled to fast and/or pray on august 1st others will be joining in.

http://www.holtinternational.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=120010

care package blues

it may seem strange that i am feeling a little bit sad about dropping off our second care package for max at our agency today. the past week or so i had been working on getting some stuff together to send to korea for our little one. oddly, having the care package around made me feel closer to my boy. i was able to hold what he will soon be holding and look at the pictures that he will soon see. so now that it is not in my reach any more, i feel a bit sad.

i'm sure i will feel better when i know that he actually has received it though. we were originally told that a family from our agency would be traveling in july, but now they are saying it might be a few more weeks. so until then, max's items that were chosen with care will sit in our agency in colorado. here is what we're sending him!

some adorable clothing:

a rattle/teether/crinkly toy:

and my favorite: a soft baby photo album!

here are a few of the pictures that are inside his little album:

also in the album is a picture of max with his foster mother. we are hoping she will be able to use this album to help explain to him who we are. we also included a few small items for the foster mother and foster father. of course everything needed to fit in a 1 gallon size freezer bag, so the items have to literally be "small".

i enjoyed putting this care package together more than i did his first one. for his first one i felt extremely rushed. we had received our referral on april 5th and i found out on april 6th that we could send a care package, but that everything needed to be purchased by april 7th since our agency was leaving for korea after that weekend. here are some pictures of the first care package that max received in april:

i searched the stores for this item. my nephew had something similar and he seemed to love it. i hope max does too.

i had actually purchased two outfits, but later realized that they wouldn't both fit in the bag.

out of the two, brian liked this one better, and i liked what the little tag says. : )

his file said that he liked taking baths, so i bought him some bath stuff.

we also included a few things for the foster family, however, these chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels didn't fit in the bag... that's ok, brian and i enjoyed them!

10 month update!!!!!

This update came just when I needed it. FINALLY we got to see our little one's smile!

I was thankful to see that he is using a pacifier. I read somewhere that when a baby sucks, it helps with the development of neurotransmitters. I was debating sending him a pacifier in his next care package, but was happy to see that his foster mother gives him one.

I just love this next picture. He just keeps getting cuter and cuter. I LOVE his wild hair... and the fact that he is not dressed in pink finally! And his lips... and chin...and cheeks... and eyes... and little hands. I've already printed these pictures and can't stop looking at his adorableness.

In addition to these surprise pictures, we got his ten month measurements. He has moved up a bit on the growth chart!!! Yay Max!

test results are in

a few posts ago, i asked for prayers regarding our son's blood test that would be done in korea. thank you for those. we got the results back yesterday and they were normal! i am very thankful for this.

i don't feel quite as relieved as i should though. there are so many unknowns and possibilities and nothing with a child's health is guaranteed. it looks like i might be one of those moms who worries too much! i'm trying to trust in God and know that he is in control of our lives.

i wish i had a new picture to post, but i don't. our agency said hopefully we will get updates every other month or so... our last one was after his 8 month check up, so maybe after his 10 month one??? (fingers crossed!) it's hard to believe he will 10 months old next week.

in his 8 month update we learned:

• he is crawling
• he likes to splash in the bathtub
• he is mimicking sounds well
• he likes to touch people's faces when he meets them
• (and my favorite) he is an "easy laughing (happy) baby"

we did get 9 month measurements... and he is tiny. while he is making consistent growth on the growth charts (which is good) he is only in the 10th percentile for height and the 5th percentile for weight. brian says he's going to be a little ninja. i want him home so i can feed him more and get some meat on his bones!

moab!

the trip to moab, utah was a great mini-vacation. after the scenic drive across colorado (and the entertainment of listening to "twilight" on the ipod) brian and i arrived in moab and continued about 20 miles up the mountains.

expecting desert, we were pleasantly surprised at how green and wooded the mountains are.

we decided to take a hike up to a mountain lake. (i forget the name of the lake). we enjoyed the pine fresh air, the wildflowers and the beautiful aspen trees. brian decided to take a dip in the lake which was way too cold for me. in fact i had goosebumps and i didn't even go in the water.

after our hike we got a hold of noah and siemay who were just pulling into town. we met them for a nice dinner in town and got caught up. it was so great to see them... they are some of our closest friends. i only wish we lived closer to each other so we could spend more time together... especially since they are having a baby in about 6 weeks!

we were all pretty sleepy after a day of traveling and headed back to camp after dinner. i had my doubts about the quality of the cheap $30 tent brian purchased, but it seemed to do the job for the first night.

(prime camping spot right next to the creek)

after a leisurely breakfast and coffee the next morning we ventured out to check out the rock climbing. the guys were excited about the quality of the rock. siemay and i warmed up on some easier 5'10ish climbs. she couldn't exert too much energy being 32 weeks pregnant, and by the time we moved on to harder climbs, i was too cold to motivate to try much. we did venture over to some more 5'10's and were ready to do some more climbing, but it started raining.

(this is brian on a hard climb)

because of the cold rain we decided to forego the tent sleeping and take noah and siemay up on their offer to let us sleep in the camper. siemay cooked us up a dinner of mein, beef and vegetables and we played game after game of boggle as we listened to the rain hit the camper roof. surprisingly, when i peeked out the window later, the rain had turned to snow!

the next morning the snow had melted on the ground, but the highest mountain peaks were now covered. beautiful!

rich pulled up to our campsite, and it was great to see him as the last time we saw him was almost 2 yrs ago at noah and siemay's wedding. the 5 of us decided to go down to moab to get some coffee. we left the mountain with down jackets and hats, and when we stepped out of the car in moab it was hot! like 90 degrees hot.

we got coffee and juice at a local coffee shop and then went to big bend where there were some great boulders we played around on. later in the afternoon we went back up the mountain and brian and i took a beautiful hike on the trans mountain trail. the aspens were gorgeous as were the freshly snow capped mountain peaks. brian and i found a beautiful and peaceful spot amongst the wildflowers and a babbling brook.

(like brian said, 'two bumps on a log')

after our hike, we met up with the rest of our friends and began cooking up dinner in the camper. we ate some good food and celebrated rich's birthday.

(siemay is SO thoughtful!)

(this is rich before the "marshmallow challenge")

(this is rich after successfully completing the "marshmallow challenge" despite being tricked by brian who didn't mention that he had "jumbo" marshmallows. this gave us all some great entertainment!)

the next day we had a nice day climbing. after i tired out from climbing i decided to take a hike. soon after i began my hike, i realized just how tired i was. all i could focus on was completing my hike so that i could get back and eat my gluten free muffin!

our final day in moab was spent hiking around the arches. it was hot!... but beautiful!

siemay only hiked part of the way with us because she was having some braxton hicks contractions.

i followed the guys up to the top of the arches. halfway up, i realized that i was going to have a difficult time climbing down. when we got to the top i saw chains meaning that most people used a rope to get up to where we were... we didn't have a rope. and i was wearing sandals. and the rock was burning my hands.

so i kind of freaked out a bit... actually i was contemplating my funeral. it would have been easy for me to start panicking (maybe i did a little). thankfully brian and noah totally helped me out. noah climbed down beneath me and blew the sand off of the holds while brian stayed close to me in case i needed to grab onto him.

i was sure happy to be back on the ground and alive! and i was thankful to have such good friends willing to put themselves in danger to help me feel secure. (And a God who protected me... i was really pretty scared!)

after our hike we were super hot and went across the street to hang out at the river. the current was strong. the guys jumped in while siemay and i dipped our feet in. we had a very funny experience with a passing tour boat that will probably be a story that we will laugh about for years. i can't describe it on here as it's not exactly rated for general audiences.

during lunch at a local restaurant we discussed how fun it would be to all purchase some land together and build separate homes and have our kids grow up together. hopefully one day!