Pedaling on her own

Someone learned to pedal on her own this weekend!  And she likes to go fast!

Thank you Ms Jean and Ms Shannon for my bike!

Pumpkin Patch

Her first pumpkin patch visit as we were still in China last year.  She was more interested in the rides than in the pumpkins.  She said the pumpkins were "too heavy!"   She did however get on her first merry-go-round and loved it.  Waved to everyone as we went around and said, "Bye everybody!"

There was a small petting zoo and Lauren told all the animals to "eat" as she forced grass in their mouths. 

Stay tuned for the Halloween post and her first costume. 

One year ago today.......

 

 Loved you from the moment I saw you.  Love you more now, so much! xoxo

Birthday Party

 Finally, the birthday party post! (and lots of pictures to follow)

We started with help with the family in getting the decorations put up.  Lauren is all about cars so a Hot Wheels birthday party she had!

 

 We kept it simple food wise with chips and salsa, a veggie platter, ceviche, and tacos.  And tante Cintya made a yummy fruit punch!

A jumpy house and oom Ruben playing the guitar were the entertainment for the kids.  I don't think Lauren left the jumpy house except for pinata and cake time. 

Pinata and cake time was next.  Lauren saw the hot wheels cars on her cake and said, "Wow cars!"  Then wanted to take the cars off! But we convinced them to leave them alone while we sang happy birthday to her.  With help from Kirra, she blew all her candles off.  

Kirra and tante Joanie made a day trip to celebrate!

After Lauren finished licking off cupcake frosting it was time to open presents.  We had to show her what to do, but after a few she got the hang of it.  

When we took the decorations off a few days later, Lauren woke up, looked around the room and said, "Happy Birthday no more!"  Thank you all who made her first birthday special!  We are certainly glad that our girl is here now celebrating the first of many birthday parties to come. 

11 Months Home

Happy October!  We look back to last October before Lauren entered our lives and can't imagine what we did without her here. We finally developed the disposal camera that the orphanage gave us on her "gotcha day".  There were not that many pictures, but here are two from the birthday party they threw her.  We used a service and sent cake and gifts to the orphanage and requested that they celebrate her birthday.  So here she was on her second birthday last year.  The stuffed dog she is holding in the second picture was her first gift to her from us.  They also gave us the dog for her to take home. 

11 months has gone by so fast.  It seems as if she has always been here.  We are so proud of the progress she is making.  Her speech is starting to explode. She is now putting 2-3 word sentences together.  Her favorite food is mushrooms.  She loves, loves, loves mushrooms!  Pizza must now be ordered with double mushrooms. If there are mushrooms on any dish, you can bet that she will pick them all out first to eat.  And she will not hesitate to reach over and either ask you for your mushrooms or get her fingers in your food to fish out your mushrooms!  LOL

She is growing, growing, growing!  3 feet tall and 30 pounds!  The pro-biotic that was prescribed seems to be helping in getting her to gain the weight.

Our energetic girl loves to play outside and when we pick her up from daycare we often find her playing in dirt with the boys.  If not in dirt, then sticks or wrestling.  She can name all the boys at daycare and says "bye" to each of them when she leaves.  The girls... well she doesn't even know their names!