Halloween 2013

Happy Halloween..... or not!

For Halloween Lauren dressed up as an owl.  This is technically her first Halloween since we were still in China last year.  Since she still does not get the concept, we went to Becky's house to practice trick or treating. 

On Halloween, because we had practiced at Becky's house, she kept saying "trick o treat Becky!"  LOL!  Unfortunately trick or treating did not last long as she got scared so we went home thinking she might enjoy giving out candy.  That plan did not work well either as one scary mummy monster came to the door and scared her.  So from then on, when trick o treaters came to the door she said, "No open door!"  Instead she amused herself playing trick or treat by moving candy from the Halloween bucket to her Halloween bag.  Oh well... maybe next year!

Our short Halloween walk

The wheels on the bus go round and round......

Someone started school!
Lauren officially started pre-school right before Halloween.  She is going 5 days a week for 3.5 hours each day.  It is a long day for her because she spends the morning at daycare and then goes to preschool and back to daycare for the last hour before we pick her up.  We are lucky that transportation is provided by the school district, so the yellow school bus comes to pick up and drop off Lauren from daycare.

We drove her to school on the first day of school, which was not a happy moment.  She had a hard time separating from us and not happy that we were leaving her.  However her teacher reported that although she cried for the first hour, she was able to calm herself down and participate in the classroom routine by the afternoon.  And of course she finds a little boy to be her friend!

We decided that she should just take the school bus on the second day to see what would happen.  And she did great!  Not a single tear, just smiles all around.  All the rounds of singing, "The Wheels on the Bus" paid off because she was all too happy to get on the school bus.  Her afternoon pre-school schedule means that she no longer gets to take a nap at daycare, so it does make for a long day for her.  The benefit of that is that she almost begs to go to bed by 7pm and is asleep within minutes!

We are excited for Lauren to be in school.  We hope she enjoys school and we are looking forward to seeing her grow and discover new things. 

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!