Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all from our little Easter Bunny in her Easter dress

A Very Good Day

Today was one of those days that will stay in our memories for a very long time. I took the day off work because we had an appointment at our local probate court for Grace's re-adoption/finalization. The process is really just a formality since we already adopted Grace in China but the process allows Grace to get a US birth certificate which will make things easier for her down the road.

The local courts like to make a pretty big deal about it as they are used to dealing with criminals and people suing each other so it's nice when they get to see a happy family. So we had to be at court at 9am where we met up with Grammy, Grandpa, Gram King, Aunt Melinda, Uncle Jim, James and Sammy. They called us into the courtroom around 9:30 and we went back to the Judge's Quarters where we met Judge Manzi and the rest of the court personnel. Of course they were all enamoured with our Grace. Grace got to sit on the Judge's lap and help sign the paperwork. It was all pretty informal but everyone there was so nice and we could tell they really enjoyed being a part of the finalization of our adoption. After everything was signed we took some pictures and Grace got a special picture taken on the judge's chair.

We all went back to our house afterwards for coffee and donuts and then we took everyone out for lunch at a local restaurant that we like. It was a very cool day and we were so glad that our families got to be a part of this special moment for our family. Some pics of the day below.

Wee Ride

Back when Jen and I had free time we used to often go for bike rides. Grace is still a few years from a bike of her own but we knew she would enjoy coming along with us. We started looking around for a kid carrier for our bikes a couple weeks ago. We didn't like the idea of those old-fashion seats where the child sits behind you and you can't see them. One of our neighbors has one of those trailers that he pulls his twins around in but I am not sure how safe those are for riding on uneven pavement. Then we found the Wee Ride Kangaroo seat and we really liked the concept. The seat mounts to the top tube so the child is right between your arms and legs for protection. It also has a three point harness so it seems pretty safe. It came in last week and when the weather warmed up today we took Grace out for her first ride and she loved it. It is good for kids up to 40 pounds so we should get some good use out of it.

I wasn't sure how comfortable it was going to be for me as you need to bow your legs out a little bit so your knees don't bump the seat. It wasn't too bad, a little more work going up hills but that is to be expected with an extra 25 pounds along for the ride. Grace doesn't really like wearing a helmet but the giggling all the way down the hills proved she didn't mind too much. Some video below of our first ride.

One Year

It is hard to believe that it was one year ago today that we got the call from our agency telling us we have a daugher. A few hours later we saw the most beautiful face we had ever seen.

That day was one of the most exciting days of our lives. If you want to relive the day with us you can read about it here and here. We were on such a high that day and that high has continued to this day. It has been quite a year, it seems to have gone by so fast yet it is hard to remember what life was like before Grace.

Jen went out with some friends today so I got to spend the day with just Grace and I. At one point today I was sitting on the couch with Grace sleeping on my chest, reflecting on all that has happened in the past year. It was a pretty surreal thinking back about how much our life has changed and how much it will change in the years to come.

Busy Weekend

This has been a crazy week in our household. I had a couple days toward the end of the week where I had meetings after work so I got home after Grace was already in bed. When that happens I don't get to see her at all since she is usually in bed when I leave in the morning. When I finally did see her on Friday it seemed like she looked just a little older. The good thing is we had an action-packed weekend and got to spend plenty of time together.

On Saturday we represented our Adoption Agency at a local adoption conference. The conference had a workshop for families considering adoption from China or waiting to adopt and we were asked to bring Grace and talk a little bit about our experience. Talking about our agency, our adoption and Grace are our favorite things to do, so we couldn't say no. We had a good time at the conference and I hope we were able to help some of the families trying to decide which path to take and helped ease the mind of the waiting families. We really know what they are going through as just a year ago we were in their shoes. Hang in there!!!!

After the conference we visited with some of our travel mates from China--Zoe and family. The girls had a great time together. K cooked a wonderful meal for us which Grace enthusiastically acknowledged by literally licking her plate clean. It was great to get together and catch up and see how great the girls are doing. Some pics from the day...

Today we went to the local mall to get Grace's Easter/18 month pictures taken. After the pictures we decide to go for a visit to the Easter Bunny which let's say did not go so well. Grace wanted nothing to do with the furry guy so we hopped out of there as fast as we could. I guess we should have known how it would go from the look on her face in the picture we took while waiting in line.

We made up for it by taking a ride on the carousel which seems to make everything better in the world of Grace.

18 Months

Grace turns 18 months old today. She is starting to act all of her 18 months as well. We are noticing much more independence out of her lately. From wanting to feed herself and becoming more picky with food to figuring out how to push our buttons to get a rise out of us. She definitely knows what "no" means but doesn't always choose to listen. She is way too cute to get mad at though even when she is being naughty. Recently she has also started calling us by our first names, I guess Jen and I will have to start referring to each other as Ma-Ma and Da-Da from now on.

While we were outside the other day Grace discovered the concepts of terrain and momentum. Grace has been walking for almost 6 months now so she is pretty much an expert as long as she is inside. Now that the weather is getting nicer she has had the opportunity to attempt to navigate the not-so-flat ground in our back yard. She took off as she normally would, stepped in a little hole and found herself flat on her face with almost a mouth full of grass. She was not so happy about that but she has since learned to slow down and is doing much better.

After conquering the back yard we moved on to the front yard where we have a little bit of a hill. This is where momentum came into play....She couldn't quite figure out why her walk turned into an uncontrollable run. So she did what any toddler in trouble would do and used her deepest voice she could muster and yelled "Nooooooo". I was laughing pretty hard at this point but was able to scoop her up before she face-planted again.

No pics this week but we do have a cute video of Grace finding new uses for cleaning appliances.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

From the cutest leprechaun ever!!!!!

Sick Baby

A couple weeks ago Jen and I were having a conversation about how healthy Grace has been. She has had a couple little colds here and there but nothing major so far. We knew we were jinxing ourselves just by having that conversation. So of course this past week Grace got sick with a 102.5 degree fever. The fever only lasted a couple days but she has had a cough and congestion most of the week. It has also affected her appetite which is WAY out of character for Grace. Normally Grace will eat everything and anything that we put in front of her so we knew she wasn't feeling well when she wasn't finishing her meals and turning down some of her favorite foods.

We did start to notice a couple weeks ago that Grace is getting a little fussier about certain foods. Most of the time the fussiness is just that she wants to feed herself which can get messy with certain meals. It is probably just her age or a phase she is going through but I guess we are due, she has made it pretty easy on us so far.

Even being sick this week Grace was still in a relatively good mood. She did get a little more whiny than normal at night but overall she did pretty well. We were even able to get outside for some fresh air and a little walk around the neighborhood today as the weather warmed up to almost 60 degrees.

A couple pics from the week below.

First PB&J

Apparently it's serious business

Love that smile

Not sure what is going on here but her expression is too cute.

Motion Shot

Teddy Rabbit Has Some Competition

Since we arrived home with Grace her favorite stuffed animal has been Teddy Rabbit. He keeps her company on car rides, goes to bed with her and sometimes joins her for breakfast.

Lately though she has developed an obsession with Melmo (Elmo). We aren't really sure how it started, she only has one musical toy with Elmo on it and it isn't really a toy she plays with all that much. Her interested started a few weeks ago when changing her diapers she has to hold a diaper because there is a small picture of "Melmo" on them. Then a few days ago we were out for dinner and there was another toddler on the other side of the restaurant and Grace help pointing at her and calling her "Melmo". We kept correcting her and telling her "No, that is a little girl, not Elmo". But she was adamant, it took us quite a few minutes to realize that the little girl's sippy cup had a picture of Elmo on it. Guess she told us.....

So this weekend we headed out on a special shopping trip to get Grace a stuffed "Melmo" of her own. We found just the right one and seems to be fitting in just fine. We were a little worried that he was going to bump Teddy Rabbit out of the top spot but he is still the top bear. But I think we definitely now have a 1a and 1b. It is so fun just to watch her walk around with the two of them clasped in her arms and see how happy and excited she gets. This is the type of stuff we were waiting for and makes parenting so much fun. Some pics of the three amigos below....

The frozen one

I think I may have mentioned somewhere on this blog that back before we started the process to adopt Jen and I (well mostly Jen) went through fertility treatments. There were around 6 IUIs and 3 IVFs the last of which left us with one frozen embryo.


When we started the adoption process we were glad to leave all of the stress of the fertility stuff behind. Although there were new stresses of the ever extending wait but for us that was much easier to deal with that the injections and crazy drugs* from fertility treatments. So we pretty much forgot about all that until sometime in 2007 about 6 months before our referral when we got a bill for the storage of the frozen embryo. We either had to pay $500 to store it for another year or use it. There were a couple other options such as discard it or donate it but none of those options appealed to us. We couldn't use it with our pending referral, so we paid the bill and not too long after we had our referral for Grace.


A few months back we got another bill for storage of the embryo. We didn't want to continue to pay $500 a year to store the embryo so now it was decision time. Based on our previous experiences we were pretty sure if we did use it, it wouldn't result in a pregnancy. We weren't even sure if the doctor would be willing to transfer only one as they usually transfer two to increase the odds of it working. Unless you are Octomom then they transfer 6.....well that is a blog post for another day. So last month we had the (FET) Frozen Embryo Transfer. We went into it this time around with no stress, if it worked that was great, if it didn't well that was OK too. We have our Gracie and our life is pretty perfect right now. We found out a couple weeks ago that it didn't work which was pretty much what we expected. There were no tears, it was almost a feeling of relief and closure on a rough period of our lives. Plus Jen really loves her coffee, cocktails with the girls and her skinny jeans.


So now we are moving on trying to figure out what is next for our family. We want Gracie to have at least one sibling, a Chinese sibling would be ideal, a brother would be pretty cool too. Or maybe a Special Needs Chinese adoption will be in the cards for us. No decisions have been made yet, just talking, discussing and dreaming.


* This is my name for them as they sometimes made Jen really emotional

Sledding

We are in the midst of another sizable snowstorm in New England so I decided not to drive into the city today and stayed home for some fun in the snow.

A couple months ago we went to the local Target and unsuccessfully tried to buy a sled for Grace. Unfortunately, no stores actually sell sleds in the winter, I guess you need to buy them in the fall, who knew? So we improvised a bit today and took Grace sledding in the backyard in a laundry basket. She didn't seem to mind that it wasn't actually a sled, she didn't even mind Mommy dumping her. See the fun below.

Mmmm....Ribs

We took a trip into the city this weekend to have dinner with Cat and Joe. Back when we were waiting for Grace we all went out for ribs at Redbones and were anticipating a time when Grace would be enjoying barbecue with us. Well the day finally came and now that Grace has almost a full mouth of teeth she was up to the task.

A couple of weeks ago we were a bit surprised when Grace started refusing food, not like her at all. We soon figured out that she wasn't actually refusing food, she wanted to feed herself. We have been doing a lot of the feeding for bonding and attachment but Grace seems to have had enough of that. It can be pretty messy and meals now take a lot longer but she is doing pretty well.

Some pics of our Redbones trip below, Onsie complements of Joe and Cat.

Put down the camera and gimme some ribs!!!

Mommy, look at the flying pig!!!!

Mmmmm....

17 Months

Today Grace turns 17 months old, she is just growing so fast. This weekend I was organizing some of the pictures on my computer and I was just amazed by how much Grace has changed. So I figured it would be fun to do a then and now post.

This pic was taken in China, her hair was so short.

This pic was from a few months after we got home.

These pics were taken today of Grace enjoying a cupcake after dinner. Unfortunately the sugar in the cupcake had Grace pretty wired all night.

Big Bird In China

We recently received this DVD as a gift and we were pretty excited about it. Grace was pretty excited too as her new thing seems to be bringing DVDs over to us to to watch. The movie follows Big Bird and Barkley as they travel through China to find the legendary Chinese phoenix. Along their journey they are escorted by a cute little Chinese girl named Xiao Foo who translates for them. They are also helped on their journey by the Monkey King who kind of freaked Grace out. He was a little scary. It was nice to see some of the places we visited on our trip like the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. There are also a couple songs throughout the movie used to teach some simple mandarin phrases.

The DVD is about 75 minutes long which is about an hour longer that Grace's normal attention span for this type of thing but she did stay pretty interested for about a half hour. I think this is definitely a DVD that she will enjoy as she gets older and will be a good tool help us introduce China to her in her younger years.

The original movie was produced in 1983 (which shows in some areas) but won an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program. The story was actually pretty interesting, I was pretty impressed that it kept my attention as sometimes these Sesame Street productions can be pretty mind numbing for adults. Overall we were pretty impressed with it. Thanks B!

Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day

Hope everyone had a good day with their special Valentine. I was extra lucky this year as I had two special girls as my Valentines this year. We played it pretty low key, no flowers or chocolates. Jen and I did go out for dinner and bottle of wine. But we missed Grace and spent the whole time recounting the funny things she did over the past week.

Day With Daddy

We had a pretty eventful week this week. Grace had her last Early Intervention appointment, really wasn't an appointment just a follow up from her final evaluation. Grace scored at or above her age in all areas. In retrospect, we don't really think Grace needed EI services but we figured they couldn't hurt and she seemed to enjoy them.

The winter we have had this year seems to be worse than anyone can remember. Not only have we gotten a ton of snow but the temperatures have been extremely cold. Until this weekend that is when it warmed up to 50 degrees. Which means the snow on our roof is melting, really fast, and leaking into our windows. We ended up sleeping in the spare bedroom last night because the drip, drip, drip in our bedroom was driving us a bit batty. Seems to have stopped for now though.

The weather is getting to Jen a little bit as well, being cooped up in the house all week with a 16 month old can drive one a bit insane. Luckily she had a play date planned with Kris, Karina and Kathryn that broke up the week a bit for her. Jen also had a get together down in Connecticut with some friends from college. She had a great time catching up and I got to spend the day with Grace.

We started the day with a visit to my mom's and spent the afternoon just hanging out at home. I decided to be a little daring and attempt a dinner out in a restaurant with just Grace and I. I decided to go with a family friendly place so we went to Fuddruckers. It worked out pretty well except for the fact that there was no waitress service so every time I needed to get up for something I had to unstrap Grace from her chair and take her with me. I also had a minor panic attack when I realized that if either Grace or I needed to use the bathroom I may need to take her into the men's room with me. Not sure if Fuddruckers has a family restroom but luckily we didn't have to find out.

Some pics from the week below....

Crackers and Mommy's Feet

So I just had to post some recent video that Jen took. The first part of the video is Grace saying her new word "cracker". Although she doesn't get it quite right. Not sure how to spell the sound she makes for cracker but it is pretty cute.

The second part of the video requires a little explanation. When we are getting Grace ready for bed we go through this little routine where we take off her socks, smell her feet and yell peeewwww!!! She seems to really like it. I was pretty surprised a few weeks ago when I was sitting on the couch and she walked up to my foot, smelled it, waved her hand if front of her nose and yelled pewwww!!! Now it is one of her favorite things to do. Enjoy.

Lots of Fun

We attended our adoption agency's Chinese New Year Party yesterday and had lots of fun. We met up with many of the families from our travel group, all of the girls are getting so big. The party itself is pretty chaotic, there had to be hundreds of families at the party with kids of all ages running around. The highlight of the party was the lion and dragon dances that Grace seemed a little freaked out by. The party fell right about the time where Grace takes her nap so she was getting pretty tired by the end of the party but she was quite a trooper. We also got to meet a couple bloggers in real life so that was pretty cool.

We also hit a pretty significant milestone this past week. Grace has now been with us as a family longer than she was in China!!! Some pics of the past week below.

Happy Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year starts tomorrow so tonight is New Year's Eve. I was looking at the Wiki page on Chinese New Year and there is some really good information there. It says that it is traditional to eat fish on New Year's Eve, we didn't have fish tonight but we did have shrimp.

We are looking forward to attending CAWLI's Chinese New Year Party next weekend. We attended the party the first year we were waiting back in 2006 but have skipped the event since. It will be nice to see our travel group again and hopefully meet some fellow bloggers.

Some pics from the past week below.

Snowed In

I just love days like today. We woke up to about 4 inches of snow on the ground and forecast for much more so we got the wood stove cranked up and just stayed in all day. Nothing like a day snowed in with my girls. Snow during the week usually irritates me since it usually messes up my commute to work but on the weekend I just don't mind. The day was made even better by the left over Chinese food from our Chinese New Year Party last night. We have been celebrating Chinese New Year for the past couple years so it was nice to finally have Grace here to celebrate with us.

This has been a pretty rough winter, we have has more snow than I can remember in very long time and this past week we had a stretch of days with temperatures in the single digits and below zero. Usually this is the time of the year that Jen and I start planning a trip to somewhere tropical but I just don't see that happening this year. As much as we think Grace would love Jamaica I think we may have to wait a couple years.

Some pics of Grace clowning around over the past week.

Missed our baby

Jen and I attended my company holiday party this weekend at a the Water's Edge Resort in Connecticut. We stayed overnight on Saturday so this was the first night that we have both been away from Grace overnight. Grace stayed home with Grammy and did really well. She was a little confused when we left and were saying goodbye as she thought Grammy and Grandpa were leaving and not mom and dad. When she realized that we were leaving without her she got real quiet and had a sad look in her eyes, and a little pout, no tears though.

Grace did really well. Overall we were only gone for 24 hours and Grammy and Grandpa kept her really busy. She had no major meltdowns and pretty much slept though the night. We had a good time at the party as well. It was nice to get away for the night and sleep in a bit. To keep things interesting my company sometimes has a themed holiday party. This year's theme was The 80s. Jen pulled out an old dress that she wore at a high school semi-formal dance, which amazingly still fit. I was getting a little scared as she was getting ready putting on all of her "accessories". She seemed to be enjoying herself way too much.

As much as we enjoyed the party and our night away we really did miss Grace. Seeing her smiling face and getting hugs and kisses when we got home was pretty much the best part. A pic of our outfits from the party below.

Lunch with Teddy Rabbit

Apparently Teddy Rabbit was hungry and needed to eat lunch with Grace this afternoon.

Back to work

After almost two weeks off for the Holidays with my girls I am heading back to work on Monday. It was nice having the time off but what I really appreciated was getting some good bonding with Grace. The last few weeks before the holidays were kind of crazy and there were quite a few days that I got home from work so late that she was in bed before I got home. So being able to put her to bed and see her cute little face first thing in the morning was quite a treat. Grace and I do have a pretty strong bond but I think the last couple weeks really strengthened it.

We actually had an adoption related task to complete last week, our 6 month post placement meeting with our social worker. This is basically just a meeting to put together a document on Grace's progress that get sent to China and allows us to go through the re-adoption process which we will be doing within the next couple months. During our first couple home study meeting we were so careful what we said but now that we have Grace home I decided to have a little fun to Jen's chagrin....the conversation went something like:

Social Worker: I see you wrote that Grace likes to eat everything. Can you give me some examples for the report.

Jen: Bananas

Steve: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Jen: Diced Fruit

Steve: French Fries

Jen: Yogurt

Steve: Chocolate

Jen: (shooting me the look) You don't have to mention all of the unhealthy foods.

Steve: Ok

Jen: Pasta

Steve: Filet Mignon

Jen shot me another look at that point and we moved on to other questions. Of course Grace charmed our social worker so I am sure we will get a good report. Grace (as she usually is in new situations) was a bit shy at first but within 5 minutes was stealing her pen and car keys which were momentarily lost almost making for a longer than anticipated home study visit.

We've been slacking a bit in the picture taking department the last couple days so I will post a video we took of Grace enjoying a cookie on New Year's Eve. The past few years we have gone out for dinner and/or hosted parties to celebrate the new year. This year we were snowed in and just the three us but as you can see we had a blast just the same.

Closing the door on 2008

For us 2008 was a pretty good year. I guess that is a bit of an understatement, it is probably the best year we have had as a married couple. If I had to sum up the year in one word that word would be "Hope". We started out 2008 with a lot of hope. We knew we were getting close to a referral but just weren't sure how many months we would wait.

In February 2008 we took our last childless vacation to Jamaica. We had a great time in the sun and came back refreshed ready for what the next few months would bring. In March 2008 referrals came out with a cutoff of Jan 4th 2005, meaning we missed the cutoff by one day. We were pretty disappointed but it was not at all unexpected so we just looked forward to April when we would see our daughter's face for the first time.

April 4th, 2008 is a day that we will never forget, the day that we got that call that we have a daughter. I won't rehash it all but you can read about it here and here. The remainder of April and May 2008 were spent getting prepared for our trip.

On May 12th, 2008 a huge earthquake hit the Sichuan province of China. We were pretty confident that Grace was fine but the quake killed almost 70,000 people so our hearts were heavy thinking of all of the destruction in the homeland of our daughter who we had not yet met.

On May 22nd, 2008 we boarded a plane bound for Beijing China for a trip that would change our lives forever. It was trip of a lifetime, we became parents and fell in love with the sweetest little girl you could ever meet.

We arrived home in early June and jumped headfirst into parenting. Grace was a pretty easy-going baby though so we didn't have it too rough. She slept well, ate well and was generally pretty content.

Not sure where the six months since then have gone. Grace has grown and changed so much. She has gone from an infant who could barely sit up to a toddler that lets nothing hold her back. She knows what she wants and knows how to get it. She is smart, sweet, loving and funny and we can't wait to see what 2009 has in store for her and us.

So from our family to yours we want to wish you a happy and healthy 2009.