Vacation Week

Jen was on vacation this past week, overall it was a pretty low-key.  Jen and Grace had a couple play dates and the weather was pretty nice so they got to enjoy the outdoors.  Unfortunately our old digital camera decided to stop working so she wasn't able to take  as many pictures as she would have liked.  We were able to get out this weekand and pick up a new camera so just a couple pics below.

First bike ride of the season

This strawberry is bigger than my head

Wheeeeee!!!!!

Swingset!!!!

Grace's Swingset was finally installed today and she couldn't have been more excited.  We waited until I got home from work to bring Grace out to play on it.  Keeping it hidden was no small feat for Mommy given that it is huge.  Some pics of Grace enjoying her swingset below.

Hand me downs

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Princess-Easter-Anniversary

Busy Busy weekend over here.  We started out on Saturday with a trip down to Worcester to see the Disney Princesses on Ice show.  We didn't tell Grace where we were going, just that it was a surprise.  And boy was she surprised.  She absolutely loved the show.

Today of course was Easter and we have been talking a bit lately with Grace about the Easter Bunny coming to leave her candy.  She really got the whole Easter thing this year and was in our room at 7:30 (at least she slept in an extra hour) getting us out of bed to go downstairs to hunt for Easter eggs.   We spent the rest of the day with family and enjoying the beautiful day that we had today.

Lastly, it was two years ago today that we got the best news of our lives.  It was referral day, the day we first saw the beautiful little face below.  It was only a picture but it kept us going for the next month and a half while we waited to travel and meet our sweet Grace.

Those days of waiting are a distant memory now that we have this beautiful, smart, funny little princess in our lives.  Happy Easter!!!!  Hope everyone had as great a day as we did.

More Easter Fun

Lots of Easter fun today.....We picked up an egg coloring kit at the supermarket this afternoon and helped Grace color some Easter eggs.  Some pics of the fun below....

Thank You Easter Bunny

We took Grace to the mall on Saturday for a visit with the Easter Bunny.  Last year she wouldn't get anywhere near him unless mommy was with her so we weren't sure how it was gonna go.  This year she toughed it out and even attempted a forced smile.  She called it a day when the photographer asked the Easter Bunny to give her a hug though. 

Spring Wonderful Spring

Mother nature cooperated and gave us a beautiful first day of Spring on Saturday.  We were able to head out for a walk around the neighborhood without winter coats for the first time in a while.  Sunday was a little cooler but we still were able to get outside for a little bit of swingset shopping.  Grace picked out a cute little model equipped with a slide and playhouse.  It should be delivered and installed within a couple weeks so I will post some pics then.  Couple pics from our week below.

State of Grace

I havent posted on the latest milestones that Grace has reached recently so I figured tonight I would post a little update....

• Grace will be turning 2-1/2 later this month.  We can't believe how fast she is growing.  She amazes us daily with how smart she is and always has us laughing with the things she comes up with.
• It has been a rough winter for Grace health-wise.  She has had an ear infection, a sinus infection, pnemonia, a stomach virus and at least a half dozen colds.  She was barely sick last winter....must be daycare.
• To go along with the above sicknesses Grace has been prescribed three rounds of antibiotics, the third we are currently in the midst of.
• We converted Grace's crib to a big-girl-bed a couple months ago.  Grace is doing great with it although we often get a little visitor staring at us in the middle of the night.
• Grace has been going pee and poop on the potty for months now, although not consistently.  We think she is ready to go diaper free but we will probably wait until Jen's April vacation to officially start.
• Grace is now at the age where she is testing boundaries.  We have started issuing time-outs to stem the unwanted behavior.  This seems to stop the bad behavior when it is happening but doesn't keep it from happening the following day.
• Grace was given a developmental assessment at daycare a few months ago and she scored above average in all areas.  We had a meeting with her teacher to review the assesment aand she was very impressed with Grace.  The only area she said Grace needs to work on is cleaning up after play.  Grace tends to dissapear at clean-up time.  We have the same problem at home.  Probably pretty typical two year old behavior though.
• Grace's communication continues to improve by leaps and bounds.  She can recite her ABCs and can count to 20.  She speaks in full sentences now and it is pretty rare that she says something that we don't understand.
• She has her daily schedule down better than mommy and daddy.  She knows which days of the week she goes to Me Me's, Gram's, and daycare.  And she has been known to correct us if we get the day wrong.
• She can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the Barney Song and The Wheels on the Bus and certain parts of many others. 
• She can get a drink of water from the sink by herself.  I actually found this out as I was writing this and she snuck upstairs.  All was quiet (never a good thing) and I found her upstairs (without pants on) on her stool pulled up to the sink.  When she saw me coming up the stairs she said "My getting a drink of wa wa".

Monkey Feet

I know I have been a little lazy with just posting videos lately but this stuff is too funny not to post.  If this kid is anything she is a creative dresser.

My, What Big Hands You Have!!

Just a video post tonight of Grace trying on Daddy's ski gloves

Vacation Week

Jen was on vacation this week so Grace had lots of mommy time.  We still sent her to daycare on Tuesday and Thursday since we pay for it anyway but Grace really enjoyed her extra time with mommy.  Overall it was a pretty quiet week.  We got some snow on Tuesday and Grace had a playdate with the Shah girls on Friday.  On Friday night Jen and I had a date night, kind of a belated Valentine's Day Italian dinner.  Thanks to MeMe for babysitting.  Some pics from the week below....

Attend Juilliard she will not

We were out for dinner the other night and Grace was singing at the top of her lungs without a care in the world.  Must be great to be two and fearless.   Not sure how much the other diners appreciated it but we thought it was pretty funny.  We captured her encore performance the other morning for your enjoyment.

Gung hay fat choy (Happy New Year)

I know I am a week early but we attended our adoption agency's Chinese New Year party this weekend.  It was a good time as usual and we were able to meet up with a couple of families from our travel group.  It's always nice to see how big the girls are getting.  We almost thought we weren't going to make it this week as I picked up a nasty stomach virus and then Jen started feeling sick on Friday as well.  Luckily Jen didn't get the same virus as I had.   A couple pics below of Grace enjoying the party,

Big Bird and Big Girl Bed

Seems like it has been a while since I last posted but that is not due to the lack of things going on....seems like we have too much going on sometimes.  Ok a little catch-up.    Two weekends ago we took Grace to see the Sesame Street Elmo Live Show.  She absolutely loved it.  Seeing Elmo in the flesh fur was so exciting she fell to sleep for the last 5 minutes of the show.  Unfortunately she wasn't too happy when she woke up and Elmo was gone.  All in all a pretty good day.

Last time I posted Grace was recovering from a slight case of pnemonia.  A few days after she finished her antibiotics for the pnemonia her fever came back.  So we were back to the doctor with a diagnosis of an ear infection and another 10 days of antibiotics.  

This weekend was a much anticipated event in our household.  We converted Grace's crib to a big girl bed.  We have one of those cribs that convert to a full size bed so we let Grace help us take the crib apart and attach the rails.  Then mommy locked herself in the room and put all of the pretty bedding on.  The video below is Grace's reaction to seeing her big girl bed for the first time.

All went really well at bedtime, she went right to sleep and slept well through the night until about 4am, when Jen heard her coughing and went in to find Grace vomiting all over herself, the new bedding and eventually Jen.  Fun times!!!  So Grace spent the rest of the night in bed with us.  We will give it another shot tonight, hopefully with better results.  Some more pics below of Grace trying out her new bed.

As long is everyone is healthy next weekend we are planning to attend the CAWLI Chinese New Year party.  Looking forward to seeing our travel mates and others so if you will be there leave us a comment so we know to be looking for you.

Sick Princess

We had a fairly eventful week last week.  It started with Grace's ongoing cold getting worse.  She has had the cold for the past month (may have been two different colds) but last week it moved into her chest so we took her to the doctor.  The doc confirmed that she has pnemonia.   Sounds kind of scary but even pnemonia hasn't slowed our girl down much.  The doc prescribed antobiotics so she is now on the mend.

For the past month or so Jen and I have been discussing moving Grace out of her crib and into a big girl bed.  I have been a bit hesitant for fear that Grace will wake up in the middle of the night and wander into our room.  I finally relented and we went out this past weekend and bought a mattress.  It will get delivered this weekend so we have some time to talk-up sleeping in a big-girl bed.  So far she seems excited.  We'll see....

We had another sizable snow storm this weekend and this one was a really wet snow so we went out with Grace and attemped something we have been looking forward to for a while.  Making a snowman.  We present "Frosty" below.

Sick Princess

Helping Daddy

Makin' a snowman is hard work

You're freakin' me out Frosty

 My first snowman

Our Little Princess

One of Grace's favorite Christmas gifts was a little princess dress up set that we got her. We are not really sure where her obsession with princesses started as she hasn't seen any of the Disney movies yet but she loves anything with princesses on it.  The set has three costumes, Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and Grace needs to be wearing one or a combination of these contumes for all waking hours.  Some pics of Cinderella (I think?) below.

Quality Time

Going back to work tomorrow morning isn't going to be fun after being off for two weeks. Spent some real quality time with my girls which was nice. We didn't really do much for my time off, just hung out and got some errands done.  Grace did have a sleepover at MeMe and PaPa's on New Years Eve so Jen and I could go out for dinner and to a party with friends. Was really nice to be out with adults for a change but we did miss our Gracie. We also finally got around to opening a UFund college investing plan for Grace, something we have been wanting to do for a while but we just never got around to doing it. We ended this week with a nice little snowstorm that had us pretty much housebound for the weekend but we did get out to do a little sledding. 

Happy New Year 2010!!!

Grace is just too cute in this hat.

Showing Lucy some love.

Mommy slides down the hill

Daddy pulls the sled back up the hill