Christmas Chaos

Christmas with a 3 year old...well what can I say....total chaos, excitement and overall fun.  We started out Christmas eve with dinner at our house with some of Jen's family.  Grace has a great time exchanging gifts with Me Me, Pa Pa and her cousins.  On Christmas morning Grace came into our room nice and early letting us know it was time to get up.  She was very excited to go downstairs to see what Santa had brought her.  Later in the day we headed out to my mom's for dinner.  By the end of Christmas day we were all wiped out but it was a great day.

Happy Holidays

Our holiday cards are going out a little late this year.  For our blog readers not on our holiday cards list the list the 2010 edition below.  Hope everyone has a great holiday season.

This kid needs to be in theater

No idea where she came up with this or what she is singing but it is pretty damn cute

Getting ready for the holidays

We are about a week late getting started with our holiday activities this year as we had some home improvement stuff going on and are just getting our house back together.  We ventured out to the mall this weekend for a visit was Santa.  We weren' t sure how it was going to go as last year Grace wouldn't sit will Santa unless mommy was with her.  Grace seemed excited but we thought she may freeze up when her big moment came.  But she surprised us and marched right up and plopped herself down next to Santa and rattled off the list of presents that she has in mind this year.

After our trip to Santa we headed home to finish decorating our tree with a little help from Grace.  Perfect photo oppurtunity.....

Really!?!?!

Last Friday after Jen picked Grace up from school they were having  a conversation about Grace's day.  During this conversation Jen referred to herself as mommy, after which Grace stopped her and said "but not the real one".  Jen's first reaction was a bit of shock and sadness but she quickly composed herself and asked Grace who had told her this.  I think Grace knew from Jen's reaction that something wasn''t right so she tried to get change the subject.  Jen eventually got it out of her that one of the little girls in class had told her this.  Jen handled the situation pretty well explaining to Grace that she did not grow in her belly but she was still her real mommy.  Luckily Grace didn't seem to be upset by the whole situation, but I am not sure she fully understood either.

Now we knew we would be dealing with this type of thing eventually but not so soon.  The kids in Grace's preschool are three and four years old.  We have to assume that this child was just repeating something she heard at at home.  We don't blame the kid, it is obviously the parents that need a little education.

The teachers at Grace's school are really good but we realize that not everybody is as familiar with Positive Adoption Language as we are so we printed out a couple adoption language documents to bring in to school on Monday.    Jen had a conversation with one of the teachers on Monday and to say the teacher was surprised would be an understatement.  She totally got why this was an issue and was very supportive.  She told us she would keep an eye out for future conversations of this type between the kids and would be sure to correct any of them if it comes up again.  Unfortunately you can't teach the parents proper adoption language but hopefully if a kid is corrected at school this will find its way back home and make the parents think twice about the conversations that have with or in front of their children.

We were really happy with the way the school handled our concerns but still were a bit shocked that this has come up so soon..... Since this was kind of a downer post I will sign off with a cute pic of Grace...

Action Packed Weekend

We had a very busy long weekend.  Thursday wa,,s of course Thanksgiving.  We had dinner at MeMe and PaPa's and then traveled to Gram's to spend some time with cousins James and Sammy.

On Saturday we took Grace to see the Annie Musical.  She has the movie and watches it all the time so when we noticed that it was playing locally we had to take her.  She loved it,  but was very quick to point out all of the differences from the movie.  After Annie, we headed into Lowell for the City of Lights Parade.  Grace was on the GLTHS Candy "County" float dressed as a peppermint.

Today we hung out at home and got started raking all of the leaves in our backyard.  Luckily for me Grace was able to help me out this year.

I Whip My Hair Back and Forth

Grace channeling Willow Smith

Foliage Photos

Spent some time enjoying the fall weather outside with Grace this weekend.  It was a great opportunity for a little photo session.  I bought a new portrait lens for my camera so I had to take the opportunity to try it out.  Results below....

Trick or Treat 2010

We had a very busy Halloween today.  We started out around mid afternoon visiting with family and friends for some early trick or treating fun.  We did a quick little run through our neighborhood and then headed over to the Shahs' for some more trick or treating on their street.  The last couple years we have been really lucky with warm weather for Halloween.  Not so much this year, we were treated with temperatures in the mid 40s and some brisk wind.  The girls were real troopers though, nothing was getting in the way of their candy getting.  A couple pics from the day below.

Our Princess - Snow White

 Hanging with the Superheroes

Grace and the Shah Princesses

Clean Teeth and Jack O' Lantern Carving

Earlier this week Grace had her first dentist appointment.  Grace was actually pretty excited about going to the dentist which apparently is pretty unusual.  She did great and the hygienist was able to clean her teeth.  I guess sometimes they don't actually clean kids' teeth on their first appointment because they are so freaked out.  Grace is even more excited about her next appointment since she got a doll after her cleaning.



On Saturday we decided it was time to carve our pumpkin.  Grace had a great time helping out daddy although she didn't really like getting her hands messy.   Such a girl.



Pledge of Allegiance

We just love when Grace comes home from school with a new song or something that she didn't pick up from us.  At her new school they apparently say the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning.  Grace's rendition isn't perfect but it is pretty cute.  Our favorite part is: One "Asian" under God.....enjoy.

Catching Up with Friends

This past Saturday we got together at Honey Pot Hill Farm with a couple of Jen's friends from college and their families.  We had lots of fun eating apples, feeding the farm animals and getting lost in the hedge maze.  Some pics of the day below

On Sunday we met up with a bunch of families from our China Travel group to celebrate the girls 3rd birthdays.  We got together at Southwick zoo again this year as it is always a hit.  Seeing these girls together is always a highlight of the season for us.  It is apparent that there is still a connection between all of them as they always pick up right where they left off the last time we got together.

Our New Toy

For the past 6 months or so Jen and I have been discussing picking up a DSLR camera.  Our current point and shoot is really bad causing us to get blurry shots or totally missing shots of our fast moving three year old.  With the holidays as well as lots of great photo opportunities coming up we decided not to wait any longer and went out and bought a Canon Rebel EOS XS.  We are still learning how to use it but this thing takes pictures 100 times better than our old point and shoot.  Some of our first practice shots below.

Three

On Wednesday we celebrated Grace's third birthday.  As Grace gets older she is really starting to get excited about parties, and presents and getting dressed up.  We celebrated her actual birthday with just the three of us.

Birthday Outfit

Three

Mom, I can fly!!!

On Saturday we had some friends and family over for a party.  Grace loved hanging out with her friends and cousins and celebrating her big day with them.

Birthday Girls

We had yet another bithday party to attend on Sunday for Grace's China travelmate Annika.  We were also joined by another travelmate, Mei Lu.  It is great seeing these girls playing together and how much they have grown over the past few years.