Happy B-Day Kim Mee Zee!!

Monday, April 7th was Kim Mee Zimmer's very first birthday -- yea! Boy that first year sure went fast ;-)
















The day began like any other day for her: breakfast!
















Love that smile!!

Then we celebrated her birthday at Chuck E. Cheese -- YES!!















Her crown says it all: It's Party Time!!
















We let Kimmee ride a few of the rides, which as you can tell: she had a blast!





























































The cake was a huge hit! It was a ladybug cake with cupcakes for the feet and head. Very cute! Party Time!!




























































I enjoyed the black-frosted cupcake! Oh yeah!!!
















Hmmmm?? Vaguely familiar.....











My ladies -- and yes, that IS Jade!!















The Zimmer boyz!















We gave the cleaning honors to Grandma!















Love the bow!















Here is the birthday girl, sporting a lovely new necklace from grandma (ParMar).















To answer the question that everyone wants to know: yes!
Kimmee is now walking!

Kim Mee Zimmer - Day 2

Hello my friends! It's getting late...and our nights are short!

First things first, Kimmee is doing great! She's a very healthy, alert, and curious little girl. She's very strong for her age, crawls everywhere and can pull herself up to a standing position. Very impressive! Her fine baby hair is falling out with the new thicker hair hidden underneath (Jade had the same thing!)

It was such a blessing to get her in time for Christmas! It completely changed our holiday plans, but in a good way! We feel special and complete now that she is here with us...

Last night was a bit rough on her. She cried a sad cry -- you could tell that she missed the familiar. Today was a new day, though! She has completely latched onto both Kathy and Jade. It's a beautiful sight! Jade is EATING it UP! When she is in their arms, she is quiet as can be. Kaleb and I....well, we're just a couple of goofballs to her! Kaleb, surprisingly is very resilient. If Kimmie doesn't come to him, he just waits for the next time, or the next, or the next. You can see in the pics that when she does sit with him, he's just glowing!!

She's hot and cold with me right now. I think her strong attachment to her foster mom makes her more content with being held by a female. This is just pure conjecture. It could be the strange way that my hair grows out of my chin! I'm patient though, and am just wanting her to be happy for the now. She'll warm up to me, just like Kathy eventually did! :-)





Today was a low-key day. We hung around the house, ate, played, and slept. Kim did great last night, sleeping from 9pm until 5am, waking up once for a mid-night feeding. We moved our mattress to the floor and are letting her sleep with us since this is the Korean way. No sense in forcing her into a crib just yet. The kids insist on camping out on our floor too! It's family style here at the Zimmer house! Come on over, bring your sleeping bag!




Kaleb is so happy about finally being a big brother! This smile is so genuine in this pic!














Our tired world traveler.










Sisters for life!

You can't see it here, but she has a beautiful smile and coo....her whole face lights up and lets you know when she's happy! I'll work on capturing a better pic with her smile!








The Zimmer kids!











We only have 2 more days left at home before we head up to Breck! Then we'll be skiing and hitting the slopes hard. But we'll probably only stay out for 3-4 hours a day. The rest of the time we'll be swimming and hanging out at the lodge. We haven't "tested the waters" yet with Miss Kim, but we hear that she loves to play in the water....she's going to fit RIGHT in with this crew!




From the words of Kaleb's favorite rock star: Hannah Montana
Good night everybody!!

SHE'S HERE! :-)

Friends and family, let me introduce you to miss Kim Mee Zimmer!!!
















Two years of anticipation and our "gotcha" day has arrived! In the adoption circle, the day that you receive your baby is known as your "gotcha" day. Our family will always celebrate the anniversary of December 18th as the day we became a party of FIVE!

Okay, first things first. I felt like at any moment today I was going to throw up! I could not contain my excitement. I called several friends and family members and talked my co-workers ears off because I just could not bottle up my excitement anymore!

Kimmee traveled from Inchon, Korea (near Seoul) to Hong Kong, then to Tokyo, then to Los Angeles, then to DIA. What a trooper! We think she traveled for about 24 hours.

When we got to DIA, my number one task was to get past the security screening so that I could meet my daughter at the gate! A very lovely and understanding ticket agent for Frontier made this happen for us! She found Kimmee on the flight and generated boarding passes for us so that we could make it into the terminal.


Of course I TOTALLY forgot that I was carrying my Spiderco pocket knife that I ALWAYS carry and had to make a mad DASH to our friends back at the fountains then sprint back to the screening gates. "Everyone outta the way!! My daughter arrives in TEN MINUTES -- let me thru!" as I'm sprinting thru the crowded concourse. They all did....with applause I might add! :-)



(One last shot with Jade and I before heading to meet Kim at the gate!)

We did make it the gate with time to spare. Relax. Calm down. And wait.









Then she arrived. She was so beautiful! And alert. And happy! And curious. It was a perfect introduction.










Kaleb could not WAIT to hold Kim! He was beaming!!!












Although this picture doesn't reflect it, Kimmie has taken an immediate liking to Jade. She'll quit fussing just by being held by Jade. It's very sweet!










One of my favorite shots taken at DIA today! Jade took it without my knowledge. Pretty much captured the moment!


Perfect.







After we met up with our friends at DIA, we brought the party home. We really discovered how active Kim is already! She scoots around just fine and can pull herself up and even enjoys eating Cheerios!


No, the camera's not out of focus. Even the equipment was experiencing teariness from the moment!

The Zimmer Kids! December 18th, 2007.










She has got such a great personality! I know all parents say this, but truth is she's very alert and constantly exploring her new environment.

The opposite side of this coin is that she does experience moments of sadness. You can tell that she misses her familiar environment and the only family that she has ever known. It's tough, but we expected this. Then she'll break through the sadness with a smile and a coo. She's lovely!




No fear of the dog! She jumped right into the Gwenie action. Gwen licked her face a few times in a very lovingly way. :-) They're going to be GREAT friends!








Today was a long day, but it was fun to share it with everyone that could make it! I'm going to work on a "Gotcha!" video that I'll post sometime after this weekend. I'll have video clips and more pictures and a GREAT CHRISTmas song to carry the clip.

Wish us luck and send out a prayer. Kim extremely confused on time, and very tired but sleeping lightly. The next few days are going to require a whole-family effort to make it through. I'll upload more pics and updates tomorrow!

Good night!

Presenting: Kim Mee Zimmer

Today, Wednesday September 19th, 2007 -- we received a much awaited call from our adoption agency: they made a match!

At 4pm today, they sent over her information and pictures and it was love at first sight. There she was: Kim Zimmer, waiting to be adopted by her American parents!

We are so excited. I know that this home addition commanded most of our time this summer, but the real reason we needed the space was for the additional child we wanted to add to our family. Now with the addition nearly complete, we can turn our full attention to bringing our little girl home.

So Mee Bae was born April 7th, 2007 to an unwed mother and father (21 yrs old). Knowing that they could not raise this child, they gave her up for adoption. She has been living with a foster family since her birth and is very, very attached to her foster mom (sigh).

She is a healthy and alert 5 month old, and as soon as we sign the paper work and send in our check, the legal red tape will begin being cut and we will become her foster parents with finalization following about 6 months later. Thus, sometime shortly into the new year we will be making a trip to Korea to bring back our daughter!

The kids are already in love with her and are very, very happy to add her to our family unit.

Her name is "So" = "bright" and "Mee" = "beautiful" and "Bae" = her family name.

We have always referred to our unknown daughter as Kim, or "Kimmi", knowing that we would change her name to this once we adopted her. Kathy calls our kids "miss beautiful" and "mr. handsome", so it's befitting that So Mee means "bright and beautiful". Note that by incorporating her Korean name "Mee" (beautiful), it yields: Kim Mee Zimmer, or Kimmi Zimmer! Pretty cool!!

We are very excited to bring her home and appreciate all of your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement as we snowball through the next four months. It takes a village to raise a child!

Can't wait for each and everyone of you to meet our new daughter! Please, please post a message for us here, all of us will be checking this posting and sharing it with others. If you just leave a message as "anonymous" you don't need to create an account, and we'd love to see your responses!

Your friends, the Zimmers: party of five!

UPDATE: Kim (So Mee) was born in Seosan City, South Korea (pop. 150,000). Here is link to her hometown: http://eng.seosantour.net/default.asp?go=40

Seosan City (or Sosan) is located about 60 miles to the south and west of Seoul, South Korea. And about 6,230 miles from her soon-to-be home in Aurora, CO. (thx Google Earth!)