Gotta Have Faith and Daniel: January 2014

Monday, January 27, 2014

Cold enough for you?

Hello friends and family!

We hope you are reading this from somewhere very warm and cozy. What a winter we are having! We've been enjoying the snow and having daddy home more often - but not so much the cold weather which keeps us inside more than we'd like. We've been spending lots of time at home - hosting friends and having play dates. It's been so great to not have to travel and pack suitcases for so many weeks in a row. We love to travel and visit family, but we really love sleeping in, cooking for friends and staying in our pjs all day sometimes.

Backing up a bit - Faith had a great 2nd birthday. We celebrated on her actual birthday, January 8th, by taking her out to dinner at one of our favorite spots - a little Mexican restaurant called Guapos. One of her favorite meals is quesadillas and she's recently starting loving salsa - so everyone was happy! We didn't tell our server it was her birthday, but she made friends with another server by playing peekaboo and she noticed her birthday girl shirt. So after we ordered some ice cream for all of us to share - we see them headed our way with a candle and a very gigantic sombrero. At first Faith seemed unsure of the crowd singing her happy birthday, but by the end of the song she was smiling and clapping.

The biggest thing to report is the crazy increase in Faith's vocabulary. She is saying so many more words and even starting to put two words together every now and then. We're working hard on that right now and I'm sure it will click for her any day now. Here's a list of some of the funny things she says all the time:

-dip dip: Faith LOVES to dip her food in anything and everything. I think that's why she loves salsa so much. Ketchup, BBQ sauce, hummus and many many other things are among her favorites. She will eat just about anything that you can dip in something (or if you put old bay on it).

-one more okay: She says this every night at bedtime after every single book we read. We usually read three books - and after the first book she says "one more ok" until we get to three. I think she would keep saying one more ok all night if we let her. We love how much she loves books!

-yote: What she calls yogurt, one of her favorite foods!

-happy happy (in a singing voice): Her version of people singing happy birthday. The best part is that she is still talking about when they sang to her at Guapos and she watches the video of it on my phone at least 10 times a day.

-seeth: My personal favorite. This is how Faith says her own name. It is absolutely adorable and I won't tell you how long it took Randy & I to realize that was what she was trying to say.

We'll leave you with my favorite Faith story of the week. The other morning she came out of her room wearing her sunglasses and said "mama, pool"! As much as we love winter - we must admit the Groves are starting to count down the days until the pool is open! Think warm thoughts everyone :-)

Much love,

The Groves

Opening her present from Grandma and Pappy - Dollie, who came strapped to her own backpack

Such a big girl

Birthday peek-a-boo

Her adorable surprised face

dip dip at Guapos

little girl in a big hat while they sang "happy, happy"

our attempt at a family selfie on Faith's birthday

Birthday girl at her party

Family photo post birthday cupcake

Daddy & Faith

Cousin love

Someone didn't want to get up from her nap during one of the recent deep freezes

A glimpse into what the teenage years will be like in our house

Discovering you can play peek-a-boo with yourself

Her crew - can't go to bed without bear, pooh, piglet, and neigh-neigh

our little Picasso trying out her birthday present

Playing outside last Monday on Daddy's day off

Hi mommy!

And then the next day it looked like this outside - 8+ inches of snow

Trying out the new sled with daddy

Loving her new dress up toys aka mini Elton John

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

2 years

Our sweet Faith is two years old. Today, while she was playing with her friends at school, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the last two years (as I assume most moms do on their kiddos birthdays). I remember doing the same thing last year on her first birthday. I thought about the first moment I held her, looked into her eyes and knew my world would never be the same. I thought about what her first breaths and cries must have sounded like. I can only imagine those moments since I wasn't there for them. In fact Faith was 4 and a half days old when Randy and I saw and held her for the first time. That's 109 hours and thirty minutes to be exact. That's how much of our sweet Faith's life we missed. While four days doesn't seem like a long a time in the grand scheme of life (even to me as I type this), I still can't seem to stop longing for a glimpse into that time. I've read the medical chart and heard the stories from Faith's birth mom, but I'll never know the details of those moments and days. On some selfish level that makes me sad. But as much as I long to have those memories, I would never dream of taking them from Faith's birth mom, N. They are hers and hers alone. You see as much as I long to experience those memories, I know N is out there today thinking about all of the memories that she is missing with Faith every day. And knowing that, how can I even think about complaining. She chose us to have the privilege of raising this amazing little girl. And that's the beauty of all this - it takes both of us to complete Faith's story. Together we are all a family. Adoption is many things - amazing, challenging, inspiring, sad and beautiful. Today the word that stands out the most is beautiful. We may only see N once or twice a year, but we talk about her and look at her picture all the time. She is definitely with us - with Faith - in spirit every day. So today, we celebrate our sweet, smart and fearless girl. And we also celebrate the woman who brought her into this world and chose us to be her parents. It is the greatest gift I've ever been given and thank you just doesn't simply seem like enough, but I'll say it any way. Wherever you are today, thank you N. We're thinking of you and we love you!

And to my sweet Faith - Happy Birthday! Keep growing brave and kind. You are so very loved by so many people!

Love,

Mama

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Christmas and 2013 Wrap Up

Before the month of January gets away from me I thought I should write a blog post about our Christmas. This first picture above pretty much sums it up. It was carefree, full of joy, laughter and catching snow flakes :-) We were so blessed to spend lots of time with family and friends and Faith was spoiled by every single one of them! The pictures below tell their own stories and will give you a glimpse into the memories we made. Enjoy!