Gotta Have Faith and Daniel: October 2014

It's October and guess what?! The Orioles are still playing baseball. Not only are they the AL East Champions this year, but they just made it past the Detroit Tigers in a 3 game sweep to move on to ALCS series next weekend. Randy & I have both been to some of their big games recently and the only word to describe this team is "magical". Enough said for now except...Go O's!

Now what you are really here to read about: Miss Faith Marie. It's been a busy fall around here. I'm not even sure where to start. Most exciting is that Faith started preschool two days a week right after Labor Day. Now that she has a few weeks of the routine down, things are looking up. We had a bit of a rough start as she adjusted, but now the last two weeks there were no tears. She loves her teacher and always has a smile on her face at pick up time. She is still practicing keeping her hands to herself, but no one will be surprised to learn that only one week in she was the only kid in her class to know all 9 other kids names. By now she also knows almost all of the other teachers and assistants names too. We couldn't be happier with her teacher and the school. She is learning new things every day and even had a visit from the local fire truck last week. Mommy is looking forward to the upcoming Halloween parade in a few weeks.

Faith also started taking a basic dance class once a week. She absolutely loves it. She marches into class in her tap shoes and doesn't even look back. I wasn't sure if she'd stick with it, but so far so good. Her little tiny ballet shoes and tap shoes are adorable. There is a big recital in early June. I'm sure that will result in some VERY good stories and photos.

We also recently went on a road trip to beautiful Vermont to be a part of the wedding festivities for our dear friends Jen and Evan. The photos speak for themselves, but great fun was had by all. Jess and Faith were in the wedding and Randy played the very important role of "flower girl wrangler". Faith and her new friends (basically everyone at the wedding became her new friend by the end of the night) danced the night away until the bitter end. We have some great video to post at some point.

And we'll leave you with just a few of her new favorite things to say these days.

We've entered the "Why?" phase of toddler life. We literally hear it about 150 times a day. Conversations go like this: Faith, please pick up your toys. Why? Because it's time to go to bed. Why? So you can get a good night's rest for school tomorrow. Why? So you can play with your friends and see Mrs. Olson. Why? Let's go, we're going to bed. And then Randy or I pick up the toys ourselves after bedtime. Sigh.
"Never mind." We have no idea where she picked this one up. Unfortunately she doesn't use it after a barrage of "why's". For example, yesterday she wanted to send Connor a video telling him she was excited to see him tomorrow. I started the camera and said go ahead Faith. What do you want to tell Connor? And all I got was "Never mind". Sigh.
"Can I hug him/her?" She wants to hug everyone and everything these days. Every morning she wants to hug daddy - after he has already left for work. She loves to hug Joey (he loves it less than her aka not at all). Tonight she wanted to hug Jonesy during the O's game. The list goes on and on. She's full of hugs. It's sweet really except when you hear it 150 times a day about everything and everyone. Try explaining to your 2 year old why she can't hug a baby bunny in the back yard. She just doesn't get it.
"Can I take a picture with you?" Everyone. Everywhere. All the time. We've created a monster. Enough said.

Enjoy the photos below! And be on the look out for Halloween photos later this month. Someone says they would like to be a ballerina and has been sticking with that story for a couple of weeks now. I hope it continues since we happen to have quite a few new ballerina type outfits in our house. Very convenient.

Much love,

The Groves