Lady Gra Gra

Just in case you didn't know, we have a budding rock star in the house. See for yourself.

Pictures

Grace had some pictures taken at school recently and we also had some studio pics done for her 2nd birthday(a little late)

Missed my girls

Jen and Grace took a little trip down to Florida this weekend for Uncle Rich's change of command ceremony. This was the first time that I have been away from Grace for more than a couple days. It was nice and quiet in the house but I was really missing her by the end of the day today. I did get some nice big hugs from Grace (and mommy) this evening when I picked them up at the airport. They were supposed to come home Saturday night but there were some flight delays so they ended up coming home tonight.

Grace and her uncles

wa wa

Can't catch me Me-Me
Exhausted....

Enjoying some Halloween Candy

First Five Word Sentence

Yes, we are still alive....

Been a couple weeks since I last posted, sorry about that. We have had a bout of sickness go though the house that had us all out of sorts for a couple weeks. Nothing too serious, just upper respiratory stuff that seemed to linger longer that it should have. We seem to be back to normal now though.

We are still trying to settle into our new routine with Jen back at work. The first couple weeks dropping Grace off at daycare was pretty easy. Then the honeymoon period seemed to abruptly end and she wanted nothing to do with daycare. It is pretty heart wrenching to leave your kid while she is screaming and reaching for you. Even though her teachers say she is fine a few minutes after I leave it is still rough. This past week though she seemed to have turned a corner and didn't cry for drop-off so hopefully it lasts.

And of course this weekend we celebrated Halloween. We pretty much made a day of it starting in the early afternoon trick or treating at family and friends. We did a quick loop around our neighborhood in the early evening and then headed over to the Shahs' for some more fun with the twins. Grace really got it this year and loved saying trick or treat and getting a handful of candy. I hope she doesn't think that will work year round. I think Jen and I had as much fun as Grace did.

Our Little Ladybug

Gracie Ladybug with her cousins James "the frog" and Sammy "the monkey"

Getting ready to loot the hood with the twins

Planning our attack

Two at the Zoo

We met up with a few of the families from our travel group today at a local zoo to celebrate our girls' 2nd birthdays.

Want MaMa

Want MaMa seemed to be the Grace's favorite phrase this past week. She started with a little fever early Thursday morning and at one point on Friday it was over 104 degrees. It was pretty scary for a little while but we were able to get it back down to 101 with a little Motrin. With Grace being under the weather all she really wanted was to stay attached to Jen's hip. She would tolerate me for a while but was sure to let me know that she "wants mama".


Grace is normally on the go for all waking hours and doesn't usually sit and snuggle with is for more than a couple minutes at a time. This weekend there was plenty of snuggling to go around as all Grace wanted to do was lay on the couch with us which was kind of nice.


Even though she was sick, she needed some fresh air so we bundled up in a fall outfit and went out for a ride....

Dora Party

We celebrated Grace's birthday this weekend with family and friends. Some pics of the day below.

Blowing out my candles
For me?

Dress up with Bames

My sweet new ride

Happy Birthday Grace

We had a little party with just the three of us to celebrate Grace's 2nd birthday. As you can see she is excited.

Settling In

Last week was a pretty crazy week. I mentioned earlier that Grace started daycare on Tuesday which is going surprisingly well so far. We are trying to get used to our new schedules of getting up much earlier in the morning which has us really dragging by the end of the day. Grace is taking it all in stride. She seems to love daycare. She is in a very small class so she gets a lot of attention which is good. She has cried a little during the day because she wanted us but we haven't had any hysterical screaming at drop off yet.

Grace has also been dealing with some sort of allergy this past week. It started last Sunday when she woke up with some redness under one of her eyes. The next day she woke up with her other eye swollen on her upper lid. It seem to be bothering her much but we took her to the doctor just in case. The doc just prescribed drops and Benadryl. Over the next few days the swelling seemed to subside and reappear every other day. We haven't yet been able to figure out if it is something in her diet that is causing it. Hopefully it is not the cat. She has a checkup with her doctor this week so hopefully we will learn more then.

We ended this week ed with a trip up to Annika's to celebrate her 2nd Birthday. Mei Lu was also in attendance. Hard to believe that our girls are all turning two!!!

First Day of School

After School we party

Lunch with Annika and Mei Lu

First day of school

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Trip To The Farm

We took our annual trip to Smolak Farm today for some apple and pumpkin picking. It seemed a bit warm for apple picking today but we weren't complaining. Some pics of our day below.....

Ridin' out to the pumpkin patch
I want these daddy

Finding the perfect apple

A little help from daddy

Emjoying the "fruits" of my labor

"Huss"

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Fishy Face

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Mommy Work

Most of our friends and family know by now that Jen is going back to work tomorrow after staying home with Grace for over a year. Grace knows that I leave every morning to go to work, she has even been there a couple times so I think she makes the connection. We have been trying to prepare by asking her where Mommy is going to work next week. So every one in a while she will tell us "Mommy Work" so we think she gets it but I don't thing she fully realizes what it means for her yet. We are pretty confident that she is going to do great though. She isn't starting daycare for a couple weeks so she will be splitting time between Gram's and MeMe and PaPa's.

Jen, on the other hand, is not doing so good. We have had couple bouts of spontaneous crying and we have been very busy running around getting everything ready. Jen tried to make the most of her last week home last week as well. Monday was my 38th birthday so we celebrated when I got home with a nice dinner and cake.

On Tuesday Grace and Jen went to the beach with MeMe and the MKs for for her last beach excursion of the year.

On Wednesday the girls came into the city for lunch with daddy. There is a nice park not too far from where I work so we had ourselves a little picnic. On Thursday Jen and Grace met up with Carrie and Annika for a playdate at a park up in New Hampshire.

Birth Culture

I came across an interesting article in the Boston Globe today about embracing birth culture with adoptees. I thought some of the adoptive parents who read our blog would find it interesting.

The article is written by a Taiwanese adoptee who warns parents not to go too far with celebrating or idealizing their child's native culture or it may have damaging effects. Back when international adoption started to become more common in the 70s and 80s adoptive parents were told to bring their children up as "American" and not to confuse them with their birth culture.

When these adoptees became adults social workers realized that not teaching adoptees about their birth culture was damaging to adoptees. Some adoptees felt that because of the way they looked they did not really fit into American culture and they also did not fit it with their native culture because they know nothing about it.

So adoption experts switched gears and social workers now stress (as ours did) the importance of birth culture in our children's lives. The author of the article warns adoptive parents not to just focus on the fun parts of birth culture like food and music. But to also to discuss the more difficult topics like racial stereotypes and bullying.

Overall though the author advises adoptive parents to just "relax". Find a happy middle ground and give your kids the space when they need it. Grace is a bit young to start with any real birth culture type stuff but is nice to have articles like this to refer to for later on. If you are interested in the article it is linked below.

Boston Globe

Firsts...

It was really hot here this weekend so on Saturday we decided to go to the local mall to get out of the heat. While we were there we decided to take Grace on her first trip to Build a Bear Workshop. She got a gift certificate for Christmas and we figured she is old enough now to appreciate it.

Grace selected the spotted snow leopard and named him "Kitty"

Watching Kitty get stuffed.


Washing Kitty with Mommy

I love my Kitty

We also took Grace to see her first baseball game this weekend. We didn't quite make it to see the Sox play the Yankees but we did see their Single A affiliate The Lowell Spinners. The Spinners have a nice little park, the tickets are cheap and the games are really kid-friendly. It was a little warm out but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

Another Homerun!!!!

Three hats are better than two

Story Land

We took off on Tuesday for a trip with the Shahs to Story Land. This was Grace's first time at an amusement park and she had a blast. We stayed at this themed hotel called Adventure Suites. Most of the rooms had some sort of theme, except ours. The room we stayed in was called the Owners' Quarters, it seemed to just have all of the leftover decorations from the other rooms. But it worked out for us since it had two bedrooms, a sitting room, a living room and a kitchen. So after the kids went to bed we got to stay up and catch up a bit. The bedroom we stayed in had a bunk bed and Grace slept the whole night in the bottom bunk. This was a pretty big deal as it was the first time that she has slept through the night not in her crib or with us.

We had a little bit of rain at Story Land but we made the most of it. There were a couple rides that Grace was not tall enough for but most of the rides seemed geared toward small kids. Some pics from the week below.

I Rock!!!
Bunkin' with the girls

The Kings

Ridin' the whale

Family Portrait

Milestones

I haven't posted in a while about some of the new things that Grace is up to so.....

• 2 Year Molars - Earlier this month Grace had a week or so that she wasn't sleeping well. We didn't think much of it at the time. Then last week Jen noticed that Grace has one of her two year molars about half way through. Guess we have a few more to look forward to in the upcoming months.


• Potty Training - We started noticing lately that Grace has been really interested in all things potty. She knows that when mommy and daddy go into the bathroom it is for pee-pee. With all this interest we decided to introduce her potty seat. We have a couple of those kids' seats that just go over the toilet seat, the regular potty seats kind of gross us out. So we started sitting Grace on it before her bath at night and most of the time she will pee. She has also been telling us lately when she has to go poo-poo so that makes it really easy, we just bring her into the bathroom as long as we are home. The whole potty thing took us a bit by surprise, I think it will be a while before she is completely trained but she is pretty good about it. Jen went out this week to get some panties so I guess that is the next step.


• Possession - Lately Grace has picked up on the fact that certain things belong to certain people. It is pretty cute when she points out Mommy's chair, Daddy's chair, Grace's chair. Or Mommy's car and Daddy's car.


• Sentences - Grace has started using three word sentences. Some of our favorites are: Git Dow Oo-Tee (Get down Lucy). Mama Ba ba Pees(Mama Bottle Please) and I la lu (I love you).


• Independence - Grace has also started showing is she has quite a mind of her own lately. Sometimes it manifests in a temper tantrum. Unfortunately she has had a couple lately in restaurants so we have to be a little more careful of when and where we go out to eat. She has also started needing to pick out which clothes and shoes she is going to wear for the day. Makes for some interesting outfits but mommy is glad she has a girly-girl who usually prefers to wear a dress.

I am on vacation this week so we have some fun stuff planned. I will try to do a mid-week post with some pics since I haven't posted any lately.

The Kid's Got Rhythm

Ignore the guy lounging in the background