Awesome B-Day Cake! - Click to Zoom
Sorry I haven’t written lately, but as you may be able to guess…things have been busy! It has been 9 days since Halle came into our lives and her transition is what I would consider very smooth. The sleep deprivation and jet lag after we got back was pretty extreme. So extreme that Jake was dismissed from going to school for the rest of the week (3 days).
As always, Jen has been nothing short of spectacular while acclimating back to being a mother of an infant. We both have to admit that we completely forgot what it was like to be parents of a one year old. Jen has a theory that our brains are trained to forget what hard work it is to care for an infant so that we want more. 
Unfortunately Halle has attached herself to Jen so much that Jake and I don’t get much close up time. Today that changed a bit, but I will go into that later.
Halle’s progress was moving along so quickly that we thought it would be ok for Jen’s mom and her husband to come up from Chicago for Thanksgiving as long as they understood that Halle needs to bond with us before she bonds with them, which may take awhile. Parenting an adopted child has a completely different set of rules…which I wont get into detail here, but it isn’t like bringing a baby home from the hospital that you can pass from family member to family member.
This Thanksgiving we decided that we didn’t want to cook, but we didn’t want to go out. Enter the amazing food wonders of Super-Target! For $69 we got a full blown Thanksgiving dinner that you only pop the Turkey in the oven for 4 hours and heat up some sides. I was expecting something similar to The Sizzler (not sure if that translates to the midwest), but it was spectacular! The mashed potatoes were amazing, the green bean casserole and stuffing were just right and the cranberries didn’t suck (not a big fan). I know buying Thanksgiving dinner from Super-Target seems pretty ghetto, but I don’t care what you say! It rocked! So there!
She pick the pencil! - Click to Zoom
So after stuffing our faces we had to change sets like we were a big Broadway production. Why? For Miss Halle’s birthday of course! Halle’s BIG first birthday happens to be on Thanksgiving this year. Tol is a Korean tradition that celebrates the birthday of a one-year-old baby. To tell you the truth, we really didn’t have a lot of time to plan for this and make it the big production that Halle deserves, but we did our very best. The big event of a tol is to put the child in front of a table of food and objects such as a pencil, microphone, money, medical instrument, computer mouse, etc. The child is to then pick one of the objects which will determine the child’s destiny. Halle picked a pencil which is believed to mean she will be a scholar. She then picked a body temperature gauge and then money. I know only the first one counts, but I would like to believe she will be a well educated doctor who makes the big bucks!
Halle wasn’t in the best of moods for the tol so we had to quickly run through it. Halle’s foster mother gave us a traditional Korean dress called a Hanbok. It is beautiful. We slipped her into it with a medium amount of fussing and got some photos of her in it. It was a bit big for her small frame, but I’m sure she will grow into it very soon.
We then celebrated an American tradition of letting Halle stuff her face with cake and make as much of a mess as she wanted to. I love that one!
Feed Momma The Cake! - Click to Zoom
I would say the day was a success given the amount of time we had to prepare, the day being one of the biggest American holidays, Halle only being home for 9 days and having house guests. I took a ton of photos and video today. I don’t have the video ready, but you should go look at the photos in The Johnston Family Photo Gallery (click on Halle’s 1st Birthday/Thanksgiving 2009) here:
http://www.clayjohnston.com/galleries/the-johnston-family/
I have also put up a couple of other photo galleries from our trip, but I haven’t updated the captions yet. So feel free to look at the photo, but some may not make sense until I put captions in them.
Thanks!
Great pictures! Korea looks interesting. I don’t remember it at all from my one trip there. Jake looks like he had fun but I could have sworn some of those pictures were taken at the Mall of America?
I feel as though I was there with you from your wonderful account of Thanksgiving Day and Dol. Halle looks sdorable in the korean birthday dress and later on when she grows into it a little more, you will have to take some shots of her. I am so glad that you had a wonderful day but most of all I am glad that you are all healthy and happy with a new daughter and a wonderful son to complete your family. We love you and missed you yesterday!
Mom
Happy Birthday Halle. I LOVE your cake…and I LOVE you in your Hanbok even more. Soooooo cute! Your first b-day on Thanksgiving…so much special stuff rolled up into one day. Congrats to all of you…9 days home and you did awesome for her Tol.
Ok…I’m confused. Wikipedia (which I’m sure I shouldn’t trust all that much) says it is called a Dol, but I also see “Tol”. I edited the post to call it a Tol because I’m sure Janet did much more research than I did…she’s some sort of adoptee mom super-hero.
I’ve seen the spelling BOTH ways. I’ve noticed many words in Korean can start with a “t” or a “d” and others can start with a “g” or a “k.” I believe I read somewhere (who knows where at this moment) that one is an older spelling and the other is a more modern spelling or pronunciation.
Some Tol items I ordered were spelled with the “D” but then most other sites, where I did research about the traditions to figure out what to include in our Tol were spelled with a “T.”
I believe at Korea Night at CHSFS Jane Lee did mention this…but I’ve blanked out on what she said. Next time I see her…I plan to ask.
And…ummmmm…I’m not sure I’m really a “super-hero,” but thanks. I had way more time to plan and prepare for our Tol over here.
Happy Birthday Halle!
You guys are doing a fabulous job! Kudos to you all!
Love love love the recap of Halle’s birthday. Thanks for sharing.
we send our love to all from fla. and a big huge to our one year old! are you spending christmas at home or on the road?clay,youre narratives have been so informative that we feel like we are there with you….good job. we love ya’ll call soon.
Wow! I’m so happy for you guys. Congratulations – she’s beautiful! Happy holidays from California. Come out and visit soon.
Joel
Happy Birthday Halle! Glad to hear that the Johnston family had a good Thanksgiving ( I’ll have to remember the Super-Target trick next year
)
I am very happy for you as your family starts your new journey.
Best of luck and I’ll keep you in my prayers!
Schuweeeet…you did the Paegil ceremony!!! That’s great that she picked the pencil. My oldest did the same when we did his. Looks like things are settling down for you and yours. It’s awesome to see you guys doing so well.
My bad…sorry…for my son we did the Paegil and the “tol” ceremony within that celebration. (I should have read the whole thing and not just looked at the pretty pictures)