Josie is finally home!!!!

I got to meet Josie today!!!!! Isn't she the cutest???!!!???? My friend Carrie and her husband Jeff, along with big brother Riley met her at the Detroit airport last Wed. She flew all the way from Korea to be with her forever family. She is already over jet-lag and sleeping through the night.
This morning Audrey, Paul and I went to meet her. Audrey got all excited....she looked at Josie and said "CHINESE?????" (She thinks all Asian people are Chinese...but hey, she's only 3). When we were getting ready to leave Paul gave Josie a kiss, of course neither Carrie or I had our cameras ready. It is so obvious that Josie loves her new mommy. Carrie let me hold her but as soon as Carrie walked out of the room Josie made it very clear that she was not happy that her mommy left her with some strange woman. I gladly handed her back over to her mom and just enjoyed her cuteness from a distance.

We tried to get a group photo but with two 3 year olds, one 2 year old and a baby it was kind of hard. Audrey and Paul are holding the special chocolate-airplane suckers that Carrie is passing out to all of the kids that come to visit Josie.
My niece Emily made her First Communion yesterday. As I was sitting in church I was thinking to myself that it just seems like yesterday that we were all in this church for her baptism. I wish these kids would quit growing up so fast. She was so beautiful for her special day!!

There were lots of pretty girls at Emily's party to help celebrate her big day.

A little piece of China

Hand rail that Ted made.

More remodeling pictures

Well our latest remodeling project is complete!! For those of you who don't know the history of our house...I'll give you a quick run down. We bought our house at an auction in 1999 for next to nothing........but NO one had lived in it for at least 10 years (I still vividly remember the dead raccoon in the basement when we walked through it the first time). Ted along with the help of many friends and family remodeled it in about 4 months. Over the last 5-6 years we have been going back room by room to make each room extra special. When we brought home Audrey 2 years ago, I bought all kinds of "stuff" with the intentions of having a "China" room in the future. Of course I had to pick up some more "stuff" when we brought Paul home. Ted didn't just paint this room and hang up our China stuff....this remodel was a little bit more complex than that. He tore out two closets that separated this room and the hallway for the staircase. We have this beautiful staircase that we've never been able to appreciated before because it was enclosed in the hallway. Ted had to redo the flooring where the closets were and rebuild the wall in that corner. He also made a handrail to match the staircase for the entrance to the basement. I think he did any awesome job!! We were on a budget...so I hunted down cheap furniture and window treatments. We found the red love seat on eBay and the couch and chair came out of our local newspaper's classifieds. I then bought plain roman shades on clearance from J.C. Penny's catalog and glued black ribbon to "frame" the shades. ( I copied the idea from the Pottery Barn catalog).

I know....Christmas is over...but I just had to share this picture

Isn't this picture great?? I actually forgot to bring my camera to Christmas this year (it's not like it was Paul's first Christmas or anything....duh). My sister-in-law just emailed the picture to me this week. Keep in mind Paul had only been home for about 10 days at Christmas....doesn't he look great!!!!