Princess Halloween

What a day! What a night! Today, I picked Marie up at school at her regular time. Normally we go right home for nap. Today we had to drive around for 45 min till Marie's doctor appointment. She had her 3 yr old physical and the doctor was thrilled with her. But, it took an hour and we didn't leave for home till 2:30. She was exhausted and badly needed her nap. The visit ended with a nice, intramuscular immunization. She cried and cried from that moment until we were almost home. Plopped her right into the crib at 3 and woke her up at 5 to go T or Ting. She was still so tired. She had a massive meltdown because I dared to flush the toilet for her! So thoughtless!

This is her just as we left...you can see she is still on the sleepy side.

Getting the hang of it. Every piece of candy was thoroughly investigated after it was placed in the pumpkin basket. We managed to limit her to a piece of licorice and some smarties afterwards. She won't miss that Snickers bar that she contributed to her parents!

With some older buddies.

"I got this Halloween thing figured out!"

All in all, she had a blast. We treasured every second of it.

Update tomorrow on the Boo Box Marie received this week!

Baby Whall!..

Baby Boy Whall!!! We got a phone call today after waiting 13 months with a referral for a baby boy! Here he is on August 28th at a 2 month check-up. He weighed in at 7.0kg which translates to roughly 15 pounds. Some of you may recall that Marie weighed 15 pounds at 9 months. .. As my friend Rossette put it, " Marie might have to settle for the title of "older" sister (not bigger!)

Our "little" boy has a Korean name of Ji Tae Hwang. This name was not given to him by his birth parents. We are in deliberations about the name we will give him. He was born June 4th. He is currently living with a foster family near Seoul and we hope to travel in March to bring him home!

For Lisa

Here they are! We had an amazing gorgeous day Saturday and today was a little bit colder and cloudier. Today was the day we could get outside though. We went to Crystal Mountain and took a few turns down the alpine slide. Then we took a walk through the Michigan Legacy Art Park. What I remember most from the day was how loud our walk was as we crunched over a few inches of leaves. The Art Park is a short 1.5 mile walk in the forest, up and down easy hills and along the trail there are large sculptures and other pieces. There is a small labyrinth with a lookout in the middle of the trail and a few nice views. These pix are inspired by our Florida friend, Lisa, who asked to see some autumn color.

Fall Fun

We had the pleasure of some friends' company last weekend. Three different families came over with their young children last Sunday afternoon. All the families had adopted internationally and had children Marie's age. They loved checking out the different toys and we braved "pumpkin painting." You can see from Marie's face she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She keeps moving her pumpkin to prominent locations "so everybody can see it."



We also have sacrified "style" and feng shui for a little while and moved the play tent up to the main level just to have something different to play in for a while. Most nights, after dinner, Marie and I retire to the tent for some reading. Jim caught us the other day.

It is a beautiful fall! I was lucky this weekend and had the opportunity to ride a chairlift up a ski hill. The view of the trees was amazing; we are almost at peak color. Marie is noticing it and she will point out the colors to me as we drive home from school. "Look at that red tree Mama!" She collects the leaves and pine cones and wants to share them with others. Many of you have small leaf piles at or near our home carefully selected by Marie.

A Ridiculous Amount of Scissor Footage...

I got carried away...Uncle Rob, I have a 5 pound bag of paper here for you! Jim thinks we can hire her out as a paper-shredding service; what do you think???

Giggles

Paper for Uncle Rob

More Paper for Uncle Rob...perhaps her PJ's are a little too big?

okay, okay...I am done now. Nobody said you had to watch the entire thing...

Marie's New Fave

Marie is learning lots of new things at school. New songs, new manners (she tells us to put our napkins in our laps), and how to use scissors. We learned that if we want her to not watch TV, all we have to do is remind her that she can use her scissors and she immediately runs off to her desk to do "her work." Just this moment, she just finished breakfast, took her plate to the sink and then sat back down at her desk with her beloved scissors saying in her little sing-song voice, "Back to my work!" She also likes to call Jim over to show him how to use the scissors and then she gives him what she calls, "a baby turn" with the scissors.