Sweet Theo,

Before you were born...

your Grandma always told me, "The first one raises you. You raise the rest."

You, baby boy, went to work very, very quickly.

My first days as your Mama were the most difficult days of my entire life...

(Don't be fooled... it was no piece of cake for your Papa, either.)

More than any feeling of guilt

or anxiety

or frustration

that I might have had

during your first few months,

one million times more,

you were loved.

And loved,

and loved.

Better than anything else, I know your birth day.

The day

you started

raising me.

Theo,

I wouldn't be me,

if there hadn't been you.

make a wish...

(and that, my friends, is a bundt cake gone bad...)

And the winner is...

Woo hoo!!

Congratulations, Mama!

No one deserves a little reward more than you do right now...

I know that you've been working hard this past month,

loving on your beautiful son,

preparing for and celebrating his first birthday.

Send me a message with your address

and we'll get your goodies in the mail, pronto!!

Thanks to everyone for playing along.

I have many new recipes to try

and Aunt Sica and Uncle Dan have an incredible list

of places to visit/things to do

when their adoption journey takes them to Korea.

w.w., brought to you on tuesday night.

brothers

(get your names in our giveaway, girls! time is running out...)

brace yourselves. i know i am.

it honestly feels like i just wrote this post yesterday...

and here i am, nearly 19 months after announcing (at least to the blog world...)

that we were expecting our third child.

that our family was growing, through korean adoption.

little did i know, then.

little did i know about how incredible the adoption journey would be.

little did i know that the boy who would become my son

was already 3 months old,

just waiting for us in korea.

little did i know about his love.

last night, these were the faces (some of my favorite)

that i saw at my dinner table:

my nephew and nieces gabe, lucy, and nora

spent yesterday evening in our care.

their mama and daddy, my sister jessica

(commonly referred to here as aunt sica)

and her husband dan, had a very important meeting.

the first meeting necessary so that our family can grow,

once again,

through korean adoption.

jessica and dan are expecting their fourth child.

little did i know that all three of my boys would have another M family cousin.

little did i know that i would get to share this way to motherhood

with one of my sisters,

who also happens to be one of my best friends.

little did i know about this love.

_____________________________________________________

now, i do realize that it hasn't been that long since my last giveaway.

to be honest, when i hosted it and when, afterwards,

i saw how perfectly the prize fit it's winner...

(the proof. pretty perfect himself, no?)

...i wasn't so sure that i was going to be able to top the event in it's entirety. if you've been following along, you might remember that i'd decided, through future giveaways, to feature the incredible talents of some of the creative women in my life.

the cap that ellen made for me (for x!) was extraordinary.

(again, see proof, above.)

of course, there was no other option but to celebrate

my sister's first step in her adoption process with a giveaway!

but... what?

our last giveaway was merely a celebration of spring,

and the loot stole my heart...

this prize would have to be a show stopper.

enter lorie lu:

see? a show stopper, right?

now, i'm probably going to get hurt for posting this photo on the www for all sorts of strangers to see... but this photo paints a perfect picture of my sister jessica (right) and her soul mate/best girl/sister-friend.

lorie (the really, really sweaty one, above) has been a part of our lives

and our family for the better part of a decade. she has seen my sister

through thick and thin.

who better to create the booty for this marking?

and so,

without further ado,

lorie and her pièce de résistance,

created expressly for thisfamilysquish...

(the back)

(buttons)

(pocket)

(the apron)

i'll be entering my own name in this giveaway, girls. you can. not. stop me. because this apron is the most delightful little number. the fabric, perfectly and appropriately kitschy. the detail, to die for. (the buttons? my favorite part!) and as if it, in and of itself, isn't plenty, you'll find it's pockets stuffed will all sorts of goodies to include:

(a few copies of thisfamilysquish's favorite recipes...)

there are a couple of ways that you can enter:

you'll notice some bias as

1.) if you've become or are in the process of becoming a family through adoption, leave us a comment telling my sister something that you wish you'd known OR something fantastic that you learned between that first appointment with your social worker and whatever point you are at now.

2.) if you've become or are in the process of becoming a family through korean adoption and you've already traveled or researched traveling to korea, leave us a comment suggesting a must see, must do in seoul.

3.) if you are a blogger, leave us a comment telling us that you have linked this post to your blog and also share one of your families favorite recipes there. (i'm running out of ideas, and it isn't easy to creatively feed these three boys day in and day out!)

4.) and finally, if you don't fall into any of the categories above, leave us a comment about your favorite dish. try to find it's recipe online, and post a link (or the recipe itself) in my comment section.

(if i am doing my math correctly, your name could be entered three times. lucky, lucky you!)

we will pick our winner (the spoon method, of course) one week from today, on thursday april 22nd... (which also happens to be the one year anniversary of our travel call!)

_________________________________________________________

i have to leave you with this, my first and favorite photo of jessica holding rubin. taken moments after we pulled into our driveway for the very first time with him in our arms...

i can not wait to help you hold and love your baby boy the way you've helped me hold and love mine. as usual, i'm with you every step of the way. little did i know...

the truth be told...

rubin has a severe case of the very common korean prince complex right now...

what, you've never heard of it before?!

i'll never forget our second post placement visit from our social worker, j.d.

she was over around breakfast time and had the unfortunate opportunity to witness what the morning hour was (and still is, sometimes...) like at our house. one of my first (of many) indicators of rubin's strong will was his absolute. refusal. to sit down in his high chair. upon seeing his early tendency toward adamancy, j.d. clued us in: rubin (my son!) was definitely a korean prince.

she guessed that he never, ever, ever heard the word no (he laughs at me now every time i say "anio!") from his foster mother. quite the contrary, she guessed that he was very quickly given whatever he wanted whenever he asked for it. basically, while loving him to pieces, his foster mother laid the foundation for the creation of my littlest monster.

recently, that monster has begun to rear his ugly (adorable) head around here. again.

this time, in the form of a hardcore mama's boy.

it's like i have a growth, some days, at my knees.

with very scratchy fingernails

and an extremely loud voice

quite adept at yelling "no!" and "mine!!" and "mama!!!"

this shot shows my view every single time i looked down this weekend.

it says, "pick me up, woman. now!"

and, if i refuse, you might ask?

well, picture this:

arms flailing.

loud squeals.

full blown temper tantrum (read: falling to the ground and shaking uncontrollably.)

recently, similar behavior is exhibited whenever it's time for a diaper change and every. time. someone has to get buckled into his car seat.

and i'm NOT talking about theo or emmett...

that's a whole other story.

Easter

Besides Theo's birthday at the end of this month, Easter of 2009 was really the last holiday that we celebrated without Rubin. From here on out I'll no longer be able to write Rubin's first Independence Day or Rubin's first Labor Day or Rubin's first Christmas. Our first year as a family of five is nearly over, and soon enough we'll start counting twos. (And everybody knows, after firsts, you just don't keep track as well. At least, you don't if you have three kids!)

Anyway, it was Rubin's first Easter home and, since Dave had to work, the boys and I took a road trip to Grandma's house for the weekend. We had so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa Yucky, aunts and uncles and cousins and friends.

We took in the NEW Zoo with Lora and Zeek. We ventured out to the tree farm in the evening to eavesdrop on the spring peepers. We hit the campaign trails for Grandpa Y., and we hunted for Easter eggs and baskets before church on Sunday morning.

At the zoo.

Playing in Zeek's woods.

On the hunt.

Trying to get a shot of Grandma with most of her grandsons.

And then, on the ride home,

something that has NEVER happened before...

Another FIRST for Rubin, Theo, & Emmett:

One pleased mama!

wordless wednesday: grandma's bed

all by himself

rain most of the day today meant no trip to the park.

i can't tell you what a difference the warmer weather (and therefore more time spent outside) has made in my life.

(i also can't tell you why everything i'm writing tonight is underlined?)

anyway...

this winter, my first as a mama to three little boys, had plenty of trying times. it was not easy being all cooped up together most of the time. we are loving our wide open spaces once again. thoughts of all of the summer things we have to look forward to this year make me giddy.

today was rain on my parade.

when i woke up to the realization that my morning run was being washed out, i thought back to this group of photos that i took of rubin sometime last week or the week before. without much practice, he's already mastered these inverted monkey bars.

all by himself.

he's also not afraid to jump into the swimming pool, at 4 feet deep, without a floatie or grown-up arms to catch him.

which means that i won't be able to take my eyes off of him this summer.

(that's probably not going to be an issue...)

it's almost been a week...

since our great play date!!

to be completely honest, i was a little bit worried that this family squish, in full force, the total trifecta, might be a little bit... overpowering?... overwhelming?... overstimulating?... for our bloggy friends kris and x.

but, i think i was wrong...

x jumped right. in. and his mama dazzled my boys, who asked for d.a.y.s. afterwards, "mama, where is miss kris?!"

so, to our newest bloggy-turned-in-real-life-friends... can we do this again? soon, please?!