We have slacked a bit on updating our site…because we moved into a new home! After spending the past few years toying with the idea of moving to Colorado, buying a farmette in rural Illinois, or other various states, we finally found a house we liked! Shortly before my birthday we closed on the house and moved in a few weeks before Christmas. We are renting out our old house to a young family and they seem to be happy there…and have already heard the story of our daughter being born in the upstairs bathroom through the grapevine! ha
We have been loving our new home! The girls have been enjoying the huge yard and multiple playrooms. Brad and I have been loving all the space and the beautiful views from the deck. Our dog Gracie has been enjoying the fenced-in yard, which means she can run freely off-leash! Brad has an office of his own again…woohoo! It is much appreciated and much deserved for my work-from-home hubby. Brad and his Dad put together a swingset for the girls. It was quite the project, but it turned out great! Maya loves the climbing wall and Shiloh loves the baby swing. It’s going to be a great summer at the Folkens home!
Happy 1st Birthday, Shiloh!! I can’t believe a year ago she entered the world on our bathroom floor! ha Her birth was one of the most amazing moments of my life and I am so thankful for her! Shiloh celebrated her 1st birthday with a giraffe themed party. She wore the Korean hanbok our friends The Yi Family gave Maya for her 1st birthday, which was very special. She had a great time! Maya’s 3rd birthday was three days later and she had a Minnie Mouse themed party, per her request 
I can’t believe Maya is already three years old! She is such a little lady and wonderful big sister. An all-around awesome kid 
We had the parties back to back, so it was an intense, but fun weekend!
We have pictures from Christmas, our vacation in Arizona and California, Easter, birthdays etc to post. We will get them up soon!
We have had a super fun summer that has kept us pretty busy, hence the lag in blog posts. Shiloh turned 100 days old on August, 6th, 2010. That was special for me (Sara) due to my interest in Korean culture. Koreans typically honor a child’s 100th day by throwing a baek-il. Family and friends get together for food and festivities in honoring the child reaching the age of 100 days old. Many, many years ago Korean children were lucky to make it to their 1st birthday, much less 100 days old, so this is considered a milestone worth honoring and celebrating in Korean culture. We sure are thankful for the Lord’s blessing over Shiloh’s health! Anyways, we decided to do our own little baek-Il for her and it was a blast! I prepared a huge spread of traditional Korean food for dinner, and surprisingly my mom ate (and enjoyed!) it all. haha I even dressed Shiloh up in a tiny hanbok (traditional Korean dress) and Brad snapped a few photos. Shiloh fell asleep pretty early, but a fun time was had by all Happy 100th Day Shi!
Shiloh is 4 months old now and doing awesome! She seriously is the sweetest baby ever. I am constantly saying she is “my sunshine”, because she has such a sunny disposition. She totally caught us by surprise and sprouted two teeth the other day! Maya was 14 1/2 months old before she got her first tooth, so we figured Shiloh would be a late teether as well…not the case! She is such a little trooper and besides the drooling and gnawing on things you can hardly tell anything is going on. I love her beyond words Her big sister Maya is two going on 20. She is so well spoken and perceptive of the world around her. She has been talking in complete sentences much more often, which is neat to hear. She still loves her little sister Shiloh, so I guess we can keep her
Check out pics in the gallery of some of the things we did this summer (Shiloh’s baek-il…HoneyFEST…tour of the local airport by our friend Scott…etc). We even went to our first truck and tractor pull at Elburn Days Festival a couple weekends back, but forgot to bring the camera…next time!
Shiloh had her 2 month check-up recently and she is doing fabulously. She is nearly 12 pounds now and growing so fast. Some of her 3 months clothes don’t fit and we had to move up to 6 month sizes. It is a welcome change since she is wearing cloth diapers…gives us some extra room for her extra padded bottom Maya is still enjoying being a big sister. She loves sharing toys with Shiloh, giving her hugs and kisses, and helping mommy soothe her if she is crying. 
She does has her moments of jealousy if Daddy is holding Shiloh though. Maya weaned only 7 months ago, so we weren’t sure how she would react to seeing Sara nurse Shiloh constantly. We were surprised to discover that Maya now likes to “nurse” her dolls and stuffed animals! It is really cute and really funny Sometimes she will even ask Sara to nurse a stuffed animal! lol Who knows…maybe one day Maya will be a doula or a lactational consultant!
Brad turned 30 years old recently! He wanted to keep it low-key, so we enjoyed dinner out just the two of us. Sara wanted to throw Brad a party, but all he wanted was a quiet date night…won’t argue with that! Sara’s parents watched the girls and it was our first time out since Shiloh was born, so it was much enjoyed
We had a great 4th of July this year. Maya got to see her grandparents every day that weekend and she really enjoyed the fireworks! Shiloh didn’t realize what was going on of course, but we are sure she will next year. Mommy got attacked by mosquitos…only on her left foot! It was terrible. She was supposed to have a pedicure with her good friend Melanie a few days later, but had to postpone it. They did eventually make it out at the end of the week and had a great mommy-pedi session
We have joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) this year and have really enjoyed it! If you aren’t familiar, a CSA is where you buy a share of a local farm and receive a portion of the crop each week. We have considered doing it for years, but finally decided to take the plunge. It has been great…it’s like getting a present every week! We get a email newsletter earlier in the week that let’s us know what we can generally expect to get that week Then, each Friday afternoon we take a trip out to the farm to pick-up our share. So far we have had kale, green garlic, garlic scapes, cherry tomatoes, summer squash, raspberries, red potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, salad mix, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, green onion, etc. You can also pick your own fruits/veggies/flowers/herbs etc that they allow that week. Maya especially loves visiting the farm and petting the farm dogs. We highly recommend joining a CSA. You can always split your share with a friend/neighbor etc if the share is too much for your family. It is a great way to give back to your local community and eat freshly picked produce too!
Shiloh is now 7 weeks old and doing great! Nursing is going wonderfully and she is gaining weight like a champ. She has yet to take a bottle, but mommy doesn’t mind…yet She is nearly 11 pounds now, super healthy, and such a happy and calm baby. She smiles tons and is very easy to read. Much to our surprise her eyes are still blue! The midwife said if she made it to 8 weeks old with blue eyes, chances are they will stay…how neat! Shiloh loves watching the people around her and has recently found her voice…her sweet little coos are music to our ears 
We finally got Shiloh’s room finished, for the most part…be sure to check out a few pics in the gallery. She is such a blessing to our family and such a sweetheart!
We decided to take the plunge into potty training Maya! We had planned on waiting until Shiloh was closer to four months old to ensure that all the new baby stuff had died down, but Maya seemed ready and so were we. We did the 3 day potty training method and it worked great! She caught on quickly the first day and it was smooth sailing from there. We can’t believe our little Maya is such the big girl now…way to go Maya
We visited Blackberry Farm with Sara’s mom the other day and had a blast! Brad and I both went there as children, so it was really special taking the girls there as a family. It was no surprise that Maya enjoyed seeing the animals and riding the carousel and train. There is still so much more to explore there, so we will have to go back soon!
We had a phenomenal storm the other day and Brad took the most magnificent picture of the sky afterwards. We love storm spotting and Maya is definitely enjoying watching the storms too.
