Thanksgiving and other updates

Grace has really started to like food! It's been so fun. I just love her eyes in this picture:


All dressed up and ready for church:

We traveled to Utah for Thanksgiving to be with Nathan's family. It was a great time, though the travel was terrible with snowstorms and such. Everyone was SO excited to see Miss Grace of course. And, she got to meet two of her cousins for the first time.

She LOVED the pumpkin pie:


Visiting a huge display of Christmas lights in Salt Lake City:
And, they recently got In N Out in Utah, so of course, we had to go!

Playing on the bed with her cousin, Sophie:
In her Christmas dress:
We got our tree this weekend and Grace loved playing with the non-breakable decorations, but mostly, she just wanted to eat the paper that everything was wrapped in!

Getting together?

Now that Grace is six months old, we would love to get together with you if that's something either or both of you would like to do. It seems like at three months, we were pretty vague about when we'd want to see each other again, so we're just putting this out there. We're totally willing to come up to Vancouver or whatever is convenient. We also completely understand if you'd rather wait and see Grace at another time in the future. Really, we are flexible and would love to do whatever is comfortable for both of you.

Louis has our home and cell numbers, you're welcome to call whenever, or just leave a comment here and we could call or email you to work it out if you'd like.

Regardless of when we see you next, we want you to know that you are never forgotten in this family. We love you and think of both of you often, and hope things are going well for you. We love Grace so much and are eternally grateful for her being in our family.

6 months!!

Wow, Grace was 6 months old this week! Unfortunately, she's had a rather tough week. First, two ear infections, on top of which, she's also cutting another tooth. That's enough to make a for one sad, fussy baby. But, she also had to make a special trip to a dermatologist and get a biopsy done on her arm, which resulted in a single stitch, hopefully not a scar, and a lot of soreness.

About five weeks ago, Grace woke up one morning with this weird red mark on her arm.
It didn't go away after a few hours like I thought it might (thinking she had just gotten her arm caught in the crib slats or something) and it was kind of hard underneath. So we called the doctor and went in. The doctor originally thought it was an infection, but when we went back for a follow up he said it wasn't. Since she was otherwise very healthy, the doctor said not to worry about it, though he was stumped on what it could be. It faded away over the course of a couple of weeks. And then, without warning, it popped up literally overnight this week! We went back to the doctor and have now officially stumped all four pediatricians in the clinic. We got sent to a dermatologist who took a biopsy. So, now we're just waiting to hear the results. It's so strange and we really really hope there is nothing wrong.

As you can see, this girl's been through a lot this week. It's so hard to see your baby sick and in pain!

But, other than the ear infections (which are getting much better with the antibiotics) and the weird arm thing, her 6 month doctor appointment went well. She's continuing to grow well, she sits up great, we're still working on sleeping through the night and we're trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to get her eating some solids. The only thing she manages to swallow so far is applesauce. She spits out sweet potatoes, rice cereal and carrots. In fact, the carrots were so bad she gagged herself and threw up! I did try mixing the vegetables with the applesauce, and she does okay with that.

Her measurements at 6 months are:

Weight: 19 lbs. 6 oz, 96th percentile
Height: 26.5 inches, 78th percentile
Head Circumference: 17.5 inches, 94th percentile
Still our very big girl!

Even with her difficult week, Grace is such a joy to be with. We are constantly stopped by strangers when we are out, at the grocery store or wherever. People are always commenting about how adorable she is, she is so smiley, she smiles at everyone. Though, she definitely prefers Mom and Dad, which we sure like! We are so grateful for her, everyday.

Grace's first Halloween!

What a cute crab she made!

This picture cracks me up. It's like she knows she needs to smile for the camera:

We went to our church's Halloween party Saturday night. She was such a happy girl (as usual.) She loves being around people and had a great time looking at all the other kids in their costumes.
We had borrowed the crab costume from Grace's cousins so we decided to try to match the ocean theme and go as pirates with a pet crab. We even had our little treasure chest with the candy we were passing out. We got all kinds of compliments on what a cute little crab we had!

Weekend of firsts

First bath without the baby tub:

First solids! She looked so happy before we began...

But this is what she really thought of it all:

She's slowly getting better at swallowing instead of gagging.

First trip to the pumpkin patch! Tractor ride:

Out with the pumpkins:

Our cute little lamb:

She's been sitting up now for over a week.

Update, finally!

Okay, so we're finally set up with a working computer, yay! This update is WAY overdue, sorry!


Grace has hit some milestones lately, first, sitting up without support! (just realized I don't actually have any pictures of this, bummer!)


And, a tooth! It seems so early, but here it is:


And today it seems as though the one next to it is ready to pop through any day. No wonder she's been sleeping so terribly at night, as well as being the queen of drool lately.

She LOVES her exersaucer:


And tummy time!

And she's generally just a smiley girl!

She's also just started to want to chew on everything, and is learning how to grab things with her hands in order to pull them to her mouth, especially the toys on her exersaucer, her shirts and our shoulders when we're holding her.

She brings us so much joy and laugher everyday!

Grace's favorite pasttime

Here's a cute video of Grace and her tongue skills :)

Sorry the picture isn't more clear. I tried a bunch of different ways to upload it and this is the only one that would work!

I'll be trying to get more photos up soon. I feel bad that we haven't been posting very much lately, we've been having some computer issues and may be getting a new computer here soon. But, we have lots of cute pictures we want to show you!

4 month checkup

Grace went to the doctor last week for her four month checkup and here are her stats:

Height: 24.5 inches, 61st percentile
Weight: 17lbs. 2.5 oz Nearly off the percentile chart, yikes!
Head: 16.5 " 76th percentile

Here are just of few of the things Gracie loves recently:

• Eensy Weensy Spider

• Her bumbo seat, we call it her "throne"

• Listening to Daddy play the piano

• Church - so much stimulation, the music, the people, the girl goes nuts!

• When we can get her to laugh - there are all manner of ways

• Being swaddled for bed (she hates it at first, but once she relaxes, it's heaven)

• Sitting up (supported of course) she's like a turtle on her back these days, the girl just wants to be able to see everything and be involved!

• Being outside, whether she's in the stroller or the Bjorn, she is SO content

And she's developed some new skills as of late:

• Blowing raspberries

• Sticking out her tongue

• Experimenting with new vocal noises. She does this hilarious thing where she'll make these really high noises and then wait for us to do it back to her.

• Moving around in her crib at night (not so sure this is a skill per se, but something new that's she's been doing.)

• Smiling at strangers, she used to reserve her smiles just for Mom and Dad, but is starting to get a little more friendly these days

• Thumb sucking - yep, she figured it out all on her own how to get that thumb in there. She's been a finger sucker ever since she figured out she could control her own hands. But lately, she's got the thumb much more under control.

Grace is a pretty decent sleeper these days. She still wakes up once a night most nights, and total is down for about 9-10 hours. Though sometimes she wakes up at 5:00 AM and decides she wants to be awake for the day! And she's getting better and better at napping for long stretches all the time.

Here's some recent photos. The first three are a hike we went on on Labor Day:

Grace and her cousin Macy. Gracie is absolutely ADORED by her cousins. They all beg to hold her anytime we get together.

She is always so smiley when she wakes up!

Hope everything is going well for you guys. We think of you often.

Labor Day weekend was a big one for Miss Grace. On Friday, we went to the courthouse to have the official adoption finalization with the judge. Now we'll be able to get her birth certificate and social security number and such.

Waiting outside the courtroom.

We had an awesome judge who just held and played with Grace the whole time and thought she was the cutest thing ever.

Then, Sunday was a big day for Grace at church. In our church, when a baby is born, it's traditional for the baby to be presented in front of the congregation and the baby's father gives her a special blessing and official name. It's a really special event and we had a lot of family come to watch and participate. Afterward, we had a big dinner at our house for everyone who came. Grace wore a white dress (which is tradition) and she looked so beautiful. It was such a wonderful day for our family. Here are some photos from then:

Cute pictures

I feel like it's been so long since we've posted anything new. Thank you again for coming to see us last week. We are so thankful for the both of you.

We haven't been up to anything too exciting lately, going on walks and just being together. Here are some of the latest day to day pictures. I know there are a lot, but they're all just too cute!