March 2008

I'm always way behind in pics, sorry. These are from Jan. Paigy has lost quite a bit of weight and her hair is longer. Ethan has just grown taller but still a shorty in his class. These two pics are from Christmas morning and are each of the kiddos favorite presents from Santa.


Roo Update--
Okay so this is definitely the age when they soak up information like a sponge. Ethan has started so many new things lately. Here are a few big ones:

• Starting to read!--About a month ago Ethan started sounding out words out of the blue. He needed help on the vowel sound but sounded out bat, fat, and map. He now can sound out up to 5 letter words with one vowel. We've been sticking to soft vowels and still have to help him with the vowel sounds and sometimes G, C (letters with more than one sound).
• Starting to add!--He also surprised us the other night by showing us that he understands the concepts of adding and subtracting. He was playing by himself with 2 groups of cars/trains and said to himself, "Here are 3 cars and here are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 cars. That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 cars." Then when we overheard that we starting changing the groups around and he starting adding and subtracting.
• Learning Mandarin!--Ryan has been doing the Rosetta Stone to get prepared for our big move to China next spring. Ethan sits on his lap for a lot of it. Now he randomly says mandarin phrases and knows what they mean. He can't recall anything if you directly ask him in English, but if you attempt to ask in Mandarin he sometimes can tell you what you said. He's definitely picking it up easier than Ryan and I!
• He is also at the stage of asking difficult questions like, "What happens if someone doesn't have a brain?" and when he seemed really troubled last night Ryan asked him what was troubling him and said something like you know you can ask us anything if you are worried . . . Ethan said, "Zippers! I don't know how zippers work, can you show me?"

Ethan has also developed a few obnoxious habits which we are trying to break. He bites his nails all of the time, takes little bites of his favorite blanket (pink blankie), picks his nose, and the worst one is when he's upset at us he blows raspberries at us.

Paigy Update--
We definitely have a girly girl. Paige loves to get dressed up, wear hats, put on sandals, have her hair done, baby her dolls and teddy bears, and be told she looks, "oh so pretty".

She really hasn't started talking yet or signing even though we know she can sign and definitely understands what we're saying. The only thing we've given her credit for is "Whatsthat?" and "Whatisthat?" and barking at dogs--well all animals really.
She has 8 teeth now and I think it's time to officially call her eyes brown. She is still a great eater (if she feeds herself) and a great sleeper. She's really a very happy baby but has a short temper. We don't see the temper very often but when it shows, WOW, we are going to be in trouble when she's 3!


Adoption update:
We have sent all of our paperwork into our agency. Now we begin the big wait. We will be waiting approx 4-5 months for a referral so Aug-Sept. Then once we accept a referral we will have to wait another 2-4 months to travel. So we are hoping to travel in late Oct or Nov. Hopefully the timeline will stay this short!