Happy Girl

I put pigtails in Lauren's hair this week. Oh My Gosh! She a cutie pie. Lauren will be turning 1 after Christmas and this picture of her really make her look like a little girl.

Lauren is 11 months old

Lauren celebrated turning 11 months old this past Saturday. It is so bitter sweet. I am so happy to celebrate these milestones with her and yet feel like my time with her as a baby is rushing by so fast. She is as cute as a button and brings a smile to everyone she meets. I attempted to clean out the linen closet (yes, attempted...not accomplished). I found this robe my boys used to wear. I had Lauren give it a test drive for old time sake. She was so cute I had to take her picture.
Lauren and Mommy

I tried to do a little photo shoot with Lauren this weekend. I had her wear some fun holiday dresses. Here are some of the cute pics.

She is just so sweet!

Some fun facts about Lauren at 11 months:

*She crawls VERY fast.

*She is easy going, smart and fun.

*She loves to eat real food. She likes chicken, potatoes, pasta, meatballs, cereal, pancakes, yogurt, broccoli, peas, carrots, cucumbers, grapes, strawberries, blueberries. Well, actually, I haven't found anything she doesn't like to eat.

*She loves her bath. She crawls straight to the tub when we say tubby
.*She has 8 teeth

* She loves her brothers

* She squeals with delight when her brother get in the car at school pickup

*She gives great hugs and gently pats Mommy's back and arm. So sweet.

*She loves our 2 cats and yells "keeeeeeee" whenever she sees them.

*She sleeps through the night

*She is not a fan of formula but does like apple juice and water
*She has turned getting dressed into an aerobic work out for Mom.

*She stands and can bend done and pick things up with out holding on

*She took 1 step toward daddy.

* She babbles all the time

* She loves to play and loves to be around kids

* She knows the sign for all done

* She says numi-num when she is hungry

* Phil has nicknamed her "the vacuum cleaner" because she puts anything that she finds on the floor in her mouth. Anything!

Lauren is such an amazing addition to our family. We are so happy that she is home with us.

We love you Lauren!

Ginger bread Houses

Today we built and decorated gingerbread houses. The boys love to decorate them. It is a VERY messy project in our house. Lauren hung out at the table and had some graham crackers while we worked on the houses. We ended up building her a little house our of graham crackers and Matt decorated it for her. The works of art are (from left to right) Josh, Jake, Matt and Lauren



Matt concentrating very hard on roof design.

Matt, Phil and Jake decorating.

All my boys :)
Lauren hanging out at the table with us.

Lauren's 1st Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We are so fortunate to have Lauren in our lives and celebrating her 1st Thanksgiving with us. She is such a sweetie and her brothers are so great at helping take care of her. Last weekend Lauren was able to meet Phil's extended family. Here is a picture of Lauren having a chat with Diane and Sarah.
A picture of all the girls. Yes we have ALOT of boys in our family. We really cherish our girls.

All the kiddos on Phil's side:)

Miss Lauren trying hard to get a chance to climb up the stairs
at Nonni's house today. I love her little outfit. Thanks to Shelley from my book club for the very cute outfit.

Happy Thanksgiving baby girl!

Trick or Treat Fun

Happy Halloween from our Clone Tro0per, Anakin Skywalk*r, Harry Pott&r and Cheetah Ballerina.

Happy Fall

Matt's Great Game

***Caution: This is a post for grandparents****
Matt had a great soccer game today. His team won. Matt scored 3 great goals for his first ever hat trick. My friend J shot these pictures. They so capture Matt's excitement after goal number 3.

Although we do not have a picture of Jake playing soccer he too scored a goal today. Yeah Jake!

Not to be left out, Josh had a great baseball game this weekend. Josh was able to pitch 2 innings for his team. He got his first ever strike out as a pitcher and did a fantastic job.
Our boys had a great weekend.

Life with Lauren

I have been a very bad blogger lately. I have to say that life has gotten in the way of my computer time. That's a good thing though:) Here are some pictures of happenings around the house. Lauren LOVES our cats. She squeals with delight when either cat walks in the room. On her first day home she was not too sure of our furry friends. I do not think she had ever met a cat before. Here is Riley letting Lauren pat him.
Last weekend in the middle of October we got snow! This is definitely not the norm here in New England. Even though it wasn't super cold Jake just had to put on full snow gear. He worked hard on the 1st snowman of the season.

Lauren and I stayed indoors for the snow storm. You can see the snow flying outside her window. The snow flakes were HUGE.

Lauren spending some time in her garden

Lauren and Daddy hanging out in the toy/lego room. Phil was helping the boys build a cool ship and Lauren wanted in on the action
She tried her hardest to get into one of the lego bins.

The picture is for my cousin Tracy. Thank you for all the great gifts for Lauren and the boys. We had so much fun opening everything. We can't wait to see you all at Christmas

Thank you also to my great book club. I know everyone did not get to see what was in the wonderful basket so I took a picture.

I have more pictures to upload and share. I will have to make a separate post after all the sports today. I just wanted to get some new pictures of Lauren out.

Off to the Game

Josh and Phil are off to the Red Sox game today. Josh is truly one of the biggest fans in the Red Sox Nati*on . At 9 years old he knows more stats, both current and not, than many adult fans. He has on several layers of Red Sox apparel, his glove for catching fly balls, and a ball and sharpie for getting autographs. He is so excited!!! Have fun Josh and GO SOX!

Meeting Friends

Lauren and I got together this past Friday with friends from our old Playgroup. It was so good to catch up with the moms. There are 4 of us who have grown our families through international adoption. My friend S lovingly refers to this crew as the Asian Invasion. Little girl A and sweet boy M came home from Korea this past spring and have been waiting for Lauren to arrive. Another sweet girl, M is a little bit older and is in preschool. Here are the 3 youngest playing in the baby friendly area of my kitchen

Here is a picture of Lauren's face after M gave her a kiss. The stunned look on her face is too funny.

Happy Nine Months Lauren!

Little Miss Lauren turned months old today. I was so happy to finally be with her on such a special occasion and to take her month picture in the chair like we did for all the boys. Sigh...Maybe we can make 9 months last for 90 days. I would really like to enjoy her babyness longer:)
Here is big brother Matt helping to get a picture. She is such a mover!

We are ALL so in love with this girl. She is the perfect baby girl for our family. Happy Nine Months Lauren! We are so happy you are home.

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Some quick pic's

We ( or I) made it through the first week home! We are crazy busy here so I have not had time to finish posting about the trip, our homecoming, or anything for that matter. We successfully made it to soccer x 2 boys, baseball x 1 boy, karate x 3 boys, 1st doctor's appointment x 1 girl, 3rd grade open house, 4th grade open house, 1st parent teacher conference, school pictures x 3 boys and class elections x 2 boys. I think this week was a little more packed than the average week, so that is good news. Next week should feel relatively calm after this (ha, ha).

A big shout out to Josh and Matt who decided to run for class representative in the school council this week. They made posters, wrote speeches and helped design fliers. I was holding my breathe at pick up and was met by 2 smiling and excited boys. Both Josh and Matt were elected as class reps!!!!! Way to go boys. I am so proud of them just for running and very excited for them to have won.

Here is a picture of Lauren with a beautiful hat that was made for her by my fellow yahoo buddy Heather. It is he cutest hat and she looks adorable in it. Thanks Heather!
Here is Lauren hanging out in her room. I Love this outfit:)

This is not the best picture but it does capture big brother Matt taking good care of Lauren while helping her pet the cat.

I never got a chance to post this picture before I left for Taiwan. Fellow gift swap buddy/yahoo group friend Joanna painted this for Lauren. I just love it! Thanks Joanna!

This picture is for Auntie Shannon. Thanks for the super cute outfit! She looks good in purple:)

I hope to have more time to post pictures and fun trip notes next week...

We are Home

We are home and we are doing really good. I apologize for the lack of posts. I was so tired at the end of my days in Taiwan that I was falling asleep before I got a chance to download pictures or blog. We arrived home on Wednesday night after our layover/stay over in San Fransisco. Lauren did great with the flights. We were all hit with jet lag as we were flying home from CA and have been recovering as much as possible the last couple of days. The boys just love their baby sister. It is really amazing to watch them care for and play with her. I will try and post more about our trip and many more pictures this weekend.
Thank you to everyone who commented here and sent emails. It really made the trip even more fun to share the journey and be cheered on by you.
Robin

Wulu Village

I tried to blog last night but was sooooo tired and blogger would NOT let me upload any pictures. Here are some quick photo's of our day at Wulu Village. At the Wulu village we got to see many dances, artifacts and woven tapestry that is part of the aboriginal culture. This was really a very interesting field trip for us. It was especially meaningful for us as Lauren is 1/2 aboriginal herself. Lauren's heritage comes from the Amis tribe. Every where we went the other aboriginal people would stop and say Amis and comment on how beautiful she was. Here is Lauren trying on a traditional baby headdress. Too cute!



Here is Lauren with Mr. Yeh and Alex. They are the most amazing med. They love babies and love sharing their culture. They make this trip so fun.

Here we are at the top of the mountain heading into the Wulu village. So beautiful!

Miss Lauren sleeping and sucking her thumb.

Here is a photo from my mom's camera. This is me being given Lauren for the 1st time as I walked into the foster mothers house. Amazing.

Off for the day with Mr. Yeh and Alex:)

Gotcha!

At long last Lauren is in my arms. I first held her at about 2:00 today and she has not been out of my arms since.
We went to the foster mother's house and as we pulled up I could see Mrs Tung, through the open door, sitting down holding Lauren. I could hardly wait for Mr. Yeh to park the car so I could go to her. She took a few minutes to warm up. so I played and talked to her and asked Mrs. Tung questions until she was ready to come to me. She was was very brave. Mrs. Tung told me that Lauren is a very easy going baby, loves to eat, loves to play and is very intelligent. She is also sweet, fun and busy.
Once we left Mrs. Tung's house we went to the baby store and bought all kinds of good supplies for Lauren. We are set with diaper, wipes, formula and baby food for our stay here,
We headed back to the agency to sign 1 more paper, Lauren's birth mother was there to meet us. We talked and I gave her the gifts that I had brought for her. We both have the same charm on a bracelet representing Lauren. This meeting is such a gift for Lauren and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity.
We headed back to Taipei and ran into some rush hour traffic. The ride home was very long. Lauren was very calm, hung out a bit and was able to nap.
Once we got back to the hotel room we were able to do a quick sk!pe session with Phil and the boys. Lauren loved watching and listening to Phil. Josh was so sweet talking to her. After the call Lauren started to feel the loss of her foster mother. She was quite sad and cried for over an hour. She has calmed down but will not let me put her down for any reason. She is sitting in my lap right now as I type.
Today was an amazing day. I feel blessed to be Lauren's mother. She is so tired and has had such a big day. I am going to try and get her to sleep.