Gotta Have Faith and Daniel: July 2015

Well I didn't quite keep my two posts in one week promise, but at least I didn't let another month go by...ok I almost did, but not quite. Needless to say we've had a busy summer so far. We took a few day trips as a family including Dutch Wonderland and the Land of Little Horses, which were stomping grounds from our childhood days that we now get to share with the kids. And road trips are much more exciting in our brand spanking new mini van. I was sad to say goodbye to our Highlander, but I have to admit that I really haven't missed it. And even Randy agrees that the van is pretty amazing. Now we are "those people" with our two kids and our freaking mini van...and we're loving every (okay almost every) second of it.

In addition to our day trips, Randy and I got away this last weekend for 48 hours without the kiddos (thanks Grandma and Pappy!). We both needed a little break and adult time to focus on each other. It honestly felt like we were gone for a week or more. And of course there's nothing like a reunion with your munchkins after a little time apart. It was good for everyone and we're grateful we had the chance to do it.

It's been quite a while since I posted an update on the kiddos. Faith is still 3 (or 3 and 1/2 as she likes to tell people) going on 13 or 30 depending on the day. Daniel is closing in on 7 months and is acting less and less like a baby and more and more like a big boy every day. Here are some of their favorite things these days:

Miss Faith Marie. She loves...

anything purple and proudly announces it's her favorite color.
salami. She once ate a whole pack for lunch for one of our favorite babysitters.
music and dancing. Some of her current favorites are: anything by "Kerry" Perry (don't try telling her it's actually Katy Perry), Maroon 5's "Sugar" and "Funky What" aka Uptown Funk. We have no idea why she calls it Funky What, but we've had some pretty epic dance parties in our kitchen to these songs.
boo boos. Maybe she's going to be a doctor like her Aunt Erica. She is constantly worried about other people's boo boos and wants to see them.
talking to strangers in restaurants and stores and asking their names. One of our favorite recent stories is from a dinner out in which the STRANGERS sitting behind us left in the middle of our meal without our noticing. Faith turned to say goodbye to them when we packed up to leave and realized they were already gone and gasped saying "But they didn't even say goodbye to us!"
finding new ways to stall going to sleep at bedtime. While laying in bed she's said things to us like "Can I do a craft right now?" or "I need to text Joey RIGHT NOW". And nightly favorites are " I need you to snuggle me." and "Can you do something?" When we say "sure", we get back a smirk and her saying "Um, um, um, um" over and over and over while she thinks of another way to stall.
calling Daniel is her "handsome boy".
brushing her own teeth. And now that she finally learned how to spit we can let her do more of the actually brushing herself.
announcing loudly to the entire vicinity whenever she uses the potty in public. She is officially potty trained (thank the lord!) and is quite proud of her new found big girl skills.
pretending to go to the beach with her dolls. She'll pack up a bag and tell us goodbye and when you ask where she's going it's either the beach or the park - but mostly the beach!
some new favorite sayings "That's a good one" and "Just give me a second" and "Grandpa and Joey are in Kevin" (aka Heaven. See above where correcting her does zero good to change her mind.
finding ways to give her parents heart failure. Like sprinting across the entire Dutch Wonderland park with me chasing her. Or sticking (a lot) of clay WAY up her nose. My amazing hubby gets the creative award on the clay issue. While I was preparing to take her to the ER he put some pepper on her hands so she would sneeze it out. God I love that man - for many reasons including his brilliance and calmness in a crisis.
And last but not least, she LOVES to be naked. Within 30 minutes of getting home or getting up in the morning her clothes are off and she's running around in her undies!

Daniel Allan. Aka Handsome Boy loves...

to scratch his head. We don't know if it's the long thick curls or just his thing, but he loves to get his fingers in there.
watching Faith dance. She can get the most and best giggles out of him and he's constantly just watching every move she makes.
sleeping on his belly. And (knock on wood) he's (mostly) be sleeping all night at least 10-11 hours.
pears and bananas mixed with avocado. He's doing really well with baby food, but like his sister is still not a fan of any green vegetables. We'll keep trying.
holding his own bottle.
babbling and screeching. We've even heard dada and mama from time to time.
rolling, scooting, sitting, and pushing up on all fours and launching himself forward. He's crawled a few times, but isn't doing it consistently yet. That could happen any day now and once he's on the move he's never looking back.
Sophie the giraffe, frozen teethers, really anything he can chew on. He's still working on those two bottom teeth - poor little guy. They are the culprit for our middle of the night inconsolable crying fits lately.
grabbing everything and anything in sight including his sisters hair, toys, food, drinks, etc. He's already well aware he's got some serious work to do to keep up with her.

I think that's all for now folks. We'll try not to go so long between updates next time, but honestly the day to day pace of two kids, full time jobs, communicating with the adoption agency and social workers and all around busy schedules is more than we can keep up with most days. So sadly, blogging falls to the bottom of the to do list for weeks and weeks at a time.

We'll leave you with one last exciting piece of news. We're coming up on the 6 month anniversary of welcoming Daniel into our family on July 23rd. That means that we will soon file our petition to the Baltimore County court to make his adoption official and wait for our day in court with the judge!! Very, very exciting! Stay tuned for more on that very soon!

Happy Summer and Much Love,

The Groves