7 Year Anniversary

Today Jen and I celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary. Last year for our anniversary we went to a romantic Italian restaurant, ordered an expensive bottle of wine and lingered over dinner and dessert. We used to love to just sit and talk and imagine what our life would be like once we had Grace home. I also surprised Jen with a diamond anniversary band as a gift.

This year was a little different for us. I picked up Thai take out on my way home from work and we ate on fold up tray tables in the family room and watched Grace crawl around on the floor. This year we set a budget of $50 for gifts so no expensive jewelry this year.

Our lives are drastically different now and we are loving it. We wouldn't have it any other way. We finally feel complete, who needs all of that expensive, romantic stuff when you have a face like this to look at....

We're in trouble now...

Last week Grace was really wanting to crawl. She would get into the crawling position, rock back and forth, and then flop on her belly. She just couldn't quite figure out how to get her legs moving. Later this week she put it all together and is now making her way around the house. Jen caught one of her early crawls on camera for your viewing pleasure.

She is also now pulling herself into a standing position without our help. She used to pull herself up by grabbing our hands, now she just grabs onto the edge of a piece of furniture and hoists herself up. Kind of scary to see our baby standing there smirking at us.

It is kind of funny, Jen met with the Early Intervention people last week and two of the goals we wanted Grace to achieve were crawling and pulling herself to a standing position. She has conquered those tasks and she hasn't even had a therapy session yet. Glad we didn't set jogging as a goal.

Our Adoption Video

So now that we have been home a couple months and had some time to settle into being parents we have finally got around to going through our pictures and videos from China. Jen has spent the last couple days putting together a picture and video montage of our trip and we wanted to share it. Hope you enjoy.

Milestones, Watersports and Teddy Rabbit

So since we are quickly coming up on Grace turning 10 months old (Tuesday) I wanted to document some of the new things that she is doing this month.

• She will clap her hands


• She waves hello and goodbye to people (mostly herself in the mirror)


• She pulls herself into a standing position


• She can get herself into a sitting position from her back and stomach


• She is really starting to mimic things we do (stick out tongue, cough, sneeze)


• Her incisor teeth are coming in

Grace had her first experience with a pool this week and loved it. We have taken her to the ocean a couple times but the cold ocean water up here in New England is a little too chilly for her. The pool seems to suit her just fine though. Check out those thighs.

Grace has a ton of stuffed animals but didn't really seem to have a favorite, that is until Teddy Rabbit arrived this week. Not sure what it is about this bear dressed as a rabbit (deranged Easter Bunny) that has her so smitten but she just loves the thing. She comforts herself with it and we think she hugs it and gives it kisses. Thanks, Heather!

Doctors, Citizenship and Bows

We were pretty busy this past week. On Tuesday we had an appointment at the International Adoption Clinic at Floating Hospital. We first met with Linda Tirella who is a developmental specialist. She basically played with Grace for an hour to assess where she is developmentally. Grace is slightly delayed in a few areas but is ahead or on target in other areas. Linda thought she may not even qualify for Early Intervention. After meeting with Linda we met with Dr. Laurie Miller. She played with Grace some more and gave her a thorough checkup which agreed with our pediatrician's assessment that Grace is a healthy girl.

On Thursday Early Intervention came by for their assessment. Three different therapists visited to play with Grace (she is a very popular girl). Their assessments pretty much agreed with our earlier assessments and it looks like Grace will qualify for services in a couple areas. Grace has come so far in the short time she has been with us and we want to make sure we are doing everything we can to make sure she is given all opportunities.

Grace also received her US Citizenship certificate in the mail this week. She actually became a citizen upon entry into the country but now we can apply for a Social Security number and take care of some other administrative things.

On Saturday Grace had a really big day, she attended her first rock concert. Well, I guess it wasn't technically a rock concert. More like a family friendly music show in a park on the harbor in Newburyport. This is an annual show that Jen and I have attended for the past few years. Prior to traveling to China we thought we would miss the show this year but Grace is doing so well we thought we would give it a shot. One reason we were excited to go was to see NEEDTOBREATHE again. That show was the last show we saw before leaving for China. Blind Melon was also performing who was popular while we were in High School / College. Although we left before they went on. We met a couple of other families with children from China at the show as well so that always makes our day. We also paid a little visit the the Beer Garden tent to get out of the sun while Grace napped in her Ergo. We were really there for the shade so please don't judge us and accuse us of being bad parents ;)

You will notice in the pictures below that Grace has discovered bows this week. She seems to be tolerating wearing them but there is a problem. She seems to cause a ruckus wherever she goes with one on. People fall all over themselves trying to get a closer look at her or to tell us how cute she us. We have found that we need to remove the bow before we go somewhere if we need to get in and out.

Fourth of July Fun

We decided to try our first night away with Grace and headed up to the beach for the 4th of July. The weather didn't really cooperate but we made the most of it. Grace did great sleeping away from home so it was a good test run for future trips. We weren't sure how she would react to the fireworks but she seemed to like them. We have a busy week ahead of us this week. We are heading into Boston to the International Adoption Clinic at The Floating Hospital and we also have Early Intervention scheduled to come out for an evaluation. We really think Grace is doing great but she is a little delayed in some areas so we figured it can't hurt to get some advice from the experts. Some pictures from our weekend below.