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!