Our First Tol

A couple of weekends ago, Raleigh and I were able to attend our first Tol. A tol (or you might see it written as dol) is a traditional Korean first birthday party.

Raleigh and I have read about and seen pictures of tols, and we were so honored when our friends Tanna and Karen invited us to their son's first birthday party.

The party was so much fun! Tanna and Karen did an awesome job celebrating Isaac's first birthday. Hop on over to Karen's blog to read more about the special day and see lots of pictures.

I will leave you with a few pictures from the special party.

Tanna, Isaac and Karen during the ceremony.

After the ceremony, the guests were treated to delicious food from the Yumbii food truck! This was Raleigh's favorite part because he LOVED watching the Great Food Truck Race on Food Network.

This is a picture of Isaac's Tol table.

Homemade Pizza...Yum

Have you visited the site The Pioneer Woman? It is one of my favorite cooking blogs because she almost always takes step by step pictures of her yummy recipes.

A few days ago, Raleigh and I decided to try a new pizza recipe. We love making homemade pizza because it is fun, easy, and inexpensive.

Click here for the Pioneer Woman's recipe and pictures.

Here is how ours turned out! Not too bad for our first time. I must say that we did not make homemade crust like the recipe calls for, but we followed the rest of the recipe.

Adoption Update

Our social worker came to our house this afternoon to update our home study. I felt like this occasion was worthy of a blog post, but there really is no update. She said our time frame is still looking like 18 months. Our home study was approved July 30, 2009 so January 30, 2011 will be the 18 month mark.

Obviously this timeline is just her best guess, and we could get our referral sooner or later than Jan. 2011.

For now, we will continue to wait and rest in God's perfect timing for our family.

The Eye Chart

Raleigh and I spent 3 hours today at the walk-in clinic. We do not have a primary care physician, so we use the clinic near our house. Last year we went there to have all of our blood work done for our adoption paperwork. Since it has been over a year since our home study was approved, we needed to go back for a second visit.

Fortunately we did not need any blood work done this time. We just needed a letter from the doctor (on the office's letterhead) stating that we are still in good health and able to parent a child.

When we arrived today, the nurses were not really sure which physical to give us, so they chose a basic form and started going through it. To our surprise, Raleigh and I both had to take an eye test. We both wear glasses and see perfectly fine with them on, but I was totally nervous being put on the spot to read the eye chart. I had to cover one eye and read a line and then cover the other eye. It was awful. Ok...not really awful, but not fun.

In the end, we left with our letters from the doctor...so I guess our visit was a success.

Anyone recommend a good doctor in Atlanta? Raleigh and I generally stay pretty healthy so we've just never found a doctor in Atlanta.

The Feel of Fall

Ok...I know that Fall does not officially start until later this month, but I am definitely enjoying the cool mornings this weekend! During the school week I don't have time to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air, but the weekend air calls me outside.

Yesterday I enjoyed putting out new pine straw and mulch around our landscaping and cleaning our patio. I have a love/hate relationship with our patio. Our back yard is very private, which I love. However, we have tried to plant grass twice without success. There is also a beautiful crepe myrtle in our back yard and a few of the branches hang over our patio. The bright pink blooms are beautiful during the summer...but when those beautiful blooms die and fall off the tree, they are SO messy. No matter how often I clean our patio, the little blooms still leave stains! This fall we are going to trim to tree WAY back and see if that helps at all.

I hope you are enjoying the Fall weather too!