Gotta Have Faith and Daniel: March 2012

Friday, March 30, 2012

Spring Adventures

As you can probably tell from our lack of posting updates & pictures - we have been busy enjoying the spring weather & our remaining time off work. We can't believe March is almost over & that Faith will be three months old next week. Unfortunately our time off is coming to an end, but we've been so lucky to be able to spend so much time as a family. We've had many adventures over the last few weeks including a trip to Annapolis for the day, Faith seeing her first musical, Skyping with family and friends, working in our garden planting flowers & vegetables, a visit to Mommy and Daddy's home town of York, PA and even attending a huge celebration in Faith's honor with our family & friends. Whew! No wonder we're so tired.

Faith continues to amaze us every day. She is babbling all the time now - if we only knew what she was saying life would be so much easier :) She is starting to actually like tummy time & bath time & now that we have a baby bath tub she gets to take her baths in the bathroom instead of the kitchen. Some of her favorite things in the world are her baby dolls - especially Evelyn (named after one of her buddies from the NICU), watching ceiling fans, playing on her ocean play mat, looking at (& talking to) bright lights and being sung to while Mommy & Daddy dance like crazy people around the kitchen. She also continues to spoil us with her great sleeping! I haven't been taking as many pictures (I know you're shocked), but for me that means that I still have more than a normal person. I've included a few here, but I mainly wanted to share with you the professional shots we had taken two weeks ago here at our house by the amazing Ashley Dougherty Photography. I included our favorites, but there are many more. Of course we love them all and have no idea how we'll ever choose which ones to print - so we'll just get one of each I guess :-)

Much love,

Jess

These are Ashley Dougherty's Photos

These are our not as good, but still cute photos :-)

Ready for a walk with Mommy.

Helping to get the garden ready for planting.

Hanging out with Daddy.

Playing on my ocean mat.

Hanging out in Annapolis!

Friday, March 16, 2012

Sunny Days

Spring has sprung in DC and we couldn't be more thrilled! Faith has had quite the eventful week filled with many sunny days, meeting new family & friends, and seeing lots of new places & things. She had her two month check up with Dr. Lee and got a great report. She is 10 lbs. 10 oz. already - hard for mommy & daddy to believe. She survived her first round of multiple immunizations with only a few tears (mommy's tears - Faith just cried for a bit and then calmed down right away). She is really alert much of the day & not the best napper, but we can't complain because she still sleeps really well at night. The last two nights she even slept 8 hours straight! Let's hope that continues. She is starting to actually like her baths except when daddy had a little fun with bubbles on her head when mommy got carried away with the soap the other night. And as you can see from the pictures below we have been cheering on our Tar Heels and are looking forward to March Madness.

We also decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather at least once a day. So on Monday we had a picnic lunch at a great park about 20 minutes from our house that has a huge lake and all kinds of paved trails for us to take long walks. It was so sunny we had to break out everyone’s sunglasses that day (including Faith's). On Wednesday we visited Gravelly Point in DC for another picnic lunch and watched airplanes take off from National Airport. It was very cool! After that we headed downtown to see the first few blossoms on some of the Cherry Blossom trees. We walked around the tidal basin to see the Roosevelt & brand new MLK memorials. Faith was snuggled in her sleepy wrap on mommy & slept through the whole thing. Yesterday we had family photos done here at our house and are already anxiously awaiting the disc to arrive in the mail. There should be some great shots to share very soon. Today we’re off for more adventures meeting friends & soaking up the sun. Our goal for the day while away from home is to master heating a bottle with our fancy new travel bottle warmer so that Faith doesn’t have to drink it cold – something she really doesn’t like to do.

Hoping the weather is just as beautiful where you are and that you're able enjoy it even for just a bit. Fingers crossed that it continues here - at least through the last couple of weeks of our time off with Faith. All for now.

Love,

The Groves

Thursday, March 8, 2012

2 Months Old

Faith is two months old today. Crazy!! She is growing so fast and changing every day. She is starting to respond to our voices & it's really fun to talk to her and hear her coo back at us. She is laughing at us talking to her more and more - which we love of course, but I wonder if she thinks we're crazy?! :-) She is really great at holding her head up and loves tummy time and playing on her play mat. She looks like a little turtle poking her head up and down. She's still having some trouble taking a bottle, but is doing better & better every day. She's very lucky to have a great pediatrician and we have a great Infants & Toddler program in our county which is also helping. As you can see from the pictures she is a happy girl almost all of the time. She's still sleeping about 5 hours straight every night - which we are VERY thankful for.

Some of you have been asking us about the adoption process so we thought we would give a little explanation about that here as well. We are adopting Faith through Adoptions Together, a local adoption agency, here in the DC area. They are wonderful! We signed our paperwork back on January 12th. Her birthparents signed their paperwork a few days before that. In the state of Maryland they had 30 days to revoke their rights. They did not chose to do that, so we've made it past that first milestone. This will be an open adoption in which we will send them updates (photos & letters) twice a year until Faith is 18.

Until we finalize the adoption, we are technically considered "pre-adoptive parents" which is sort of like a foster parent in a way. The social worker that performed our home study will meet with us and check on Faith every other month until 6 months have passed. At that time we can file paperwork with the courts in Baltimore to legally finalize the adoption. We'll be assigned a court date with a judge after all of the paperwork is submitted. So we're expecting that things will be "official" some time in September or October. If you're really curious about the whole process - send us a message and we can give you the details of how we got to this point. We love talking about our process, adoption in general & answering questions. We will say we were very lucky for many reason. First, because Faith's birth mother chose us to adopt her. And also because we weren't on the agency's waiting list very long - a mere 2 months, which is VERY fast. We count our blessings every day!

Much Love,
The Groves

Monday, March 5, 2012

Life at Home

As you can probably tell from the lack of blog posts - we have been very busy! Life at home is great (well most of the time). Mommy & Daddy are still a little shell shocked at 3 AM when Faith wakes up VERY hungry. And we think Faith is still getting used to many things around here too. We've had a great week and a half and it's hard to believe so much time has passed already. The picture below will narrate much of how we spend our time, but we'll also leave you with these few tidbits about our daily routine.

-Faith is sleeping between 5 and 6 hours at night - a silent yay, so we don't jinx it!
-Mixing forumla and sterilizing bottles is a MUCH bigger pain than we had anticipated. We've got a routine now, but at first we were very spoiled by the shake & open bottles we had at the hospital.
-Joey is now a guard kitty - laying right next to her with one eye open when she is in the co-sleeper.
-Faith sleeps better at night in her crib than the co-sleeper attached to our bed. Sad face from Mommy!
-We love our pediatrician, Dr. Lee, and have seen him twice already. Next week will be a rough appointment when Faith gets her two month shots :( Oh and she's up to 9 lb. 15 oz.
-Faith thinks afternoon naps on the recliner with Daddy are the best, but her favorite Daddy daughter time is dancing around the kitchen to the radio or helping to cook from her Boppy seat.
-Faith is not a fan of baths in the kitchen sink, but is starting to like them more.
-We are very thankful for Skype & webcams.
-Taking turns doing the middle of the night feeding works well for Mommy & Daddy. At least for now until we have to go back to work.
-The Fisher-Price "Rock 'n Play Sleeper" is the greatest invention ever! Faith sleeps for hours in it during the day.
-We took our first walk around the block and hope that the weather gets warm again soon so we go again soon.
- We had our first outing last week - Sushi for dinner at one of our favorite spots. Faith slept through the whole thing - UNTIL the sushi arrived at which point she started crying. Luckily her cry isn't that loud since she's so little :)
-Mommy & Daddy managed to finish putting together the nursery - Winnie the Pooh decals and all. Mommy & Faith even put together her bookshelf while Faith was strapped to her using the sleepy wrap.
-Faith has decided that her cousin Connor was her best visitor so far! She loved seeing her grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends too.
-Faith loves tummy time, notices her toys and is starting to smile when you talk to her and sometimes she'll even coo at you.
-Faith continues to be a great snuggle bunny. So much so that Mommy & Daddy some times fight over her :)

Enjoy the pictures and we hope to see many of you soon!

Love,
The Groves