Eden has become such a little grown up. She’s a great helper with Grace and likes to do “grown up” things like make her bed, drink tea in the morning with Deda and do almost everything by herself. She’s also very bossy (I have no idea where she’s learned that…) and I often joke that Andy doesn’t really need me because he has Eden to mother him!

I often see Eden taking care of younger kids, even at child care, but it was really fun to see her trying to keep up with the older kids this past weekend while we were visiting the Cooks. Eden was quite inspired by the things that 4 and 5 year olds can do and decided very quickly that she wanted to be able to do those things as well, like swimming without her float and having races in the yard.

Eden is currently taking gymnastics and ballet and really loves both classes. She’s normally the only student in her ballet class and I think she likes the attention, although we have to continue to remind her to watch her teacher instead of herself in the mirror! She is thrilled by the stamps that she gets in her classes and was VERY proud of herself for the extra stamp she got in gymnastics last week for being a good listener. Eden has learned to flip around on the bar all by herself and is the only one in her class that can do it. She’s also started watching gymnastics on tv and is now a HUGE Gabby Douglas fan. We’re quite excited that Gabby is going to the Olympics!

Eden likes going to “school” and enjoys her Thursdays at child care and Sunday school. She also had an opportunity to attend a Wonderful Wednesday class without Andy for a few weeks and loved going to school without him (and talked about it constantly!).

While Eden is still a very happy and outgoing girl, she has entered a whiney stage which is not so enjoyable. Ben and I work hard to be consistent in not responding to her whining but it’s a challenge to not say to her “Stop whining!” 🙂 We’ve done a lot of traveling already this summer and Eden has been a trooper and has been pretty flexible with all of the changes.

We’re very proud of Eden and the enthusiastic, over-achieving, and loving rule-follower that she is becoming. It’s very fun to watch her grow up and we are so glad to be her parents!

Well, I’m sure it’s hard to believe, but things aren’t slowing down at all around here! Grace is starting to sit up and is desperate to crawl. She pushes herself (face first) across the floor which has resulted in some bright red spots on her cheeks and forehead. She really wants to be involved in whatever Eden and Andy are doing and hates to be by herself for even a few minutes.

Gracie is doing really well with her baby food. She’s had peas, green beans, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, peaches, apples and pears and continues with the baby cereal for breakfast. She’s not a huge fan of the green beans, but seems to do alright with everything else. It is sometimes a little bit hard to feed her because she wants to pay attention to everything at the table EXCEPT her food.

We’ve regressed back to swaddling at nighttime. Now that Grace can roll over onto her stomach, she can’t sleep without the miracle blanket because she rolls onto her belly. The problem is that she hasn’t quite figured out how to turn her head to the side yet. She ends up with her face buried in the mattress, screaming, until someone comes to roll her over. Obviously, it’s much easier to just swaddle her and avoid this drama, so for now, she’s back under wraps.

Grace has been a good sport about all of our travels recently, although she doesn’t do very well sleeping in the same room as me. Fortunately, she likes her car seat and does great eating and sleeping in it while we drive.

Below is a picture I took and happened to catch her sitting up! She fell over after the flash, but looks very grown up in the picture. 🙂

Gracie is now 4 months old and she is so much fun! She loves to smile and squeal and demands your attention when she feels ignored. She is getting very good at sitting in her bumbo and recently started standing in her exersaucer. She’s just barely tall enough so she can’t stay in it for very long, but it is nice to have another place to put her during the day. Gracie had her four month check up last Wednesday. She weighs 12 lbs, 14 oz (she’s already doubled her birth weight!) and is 24 inches long. She got 4 shots and an oral vaccine and she barely cried after the shots, but the rest of the day was pretty rough. I was rewarded for putting up with her crankiness during the day though, because that night she slept 11 hours straight! It was a nice reminder of what the future will hold.

Grace had cereal for the first time last week and seemed to hate it the first couple of times, but is getting into the groove now. She is doing great in her own room and tonight she is sleeping without being swaddled for the first time.

Grace is now three months old and she is getting more fun every day. She likes to sit in her swing and go for rides in the stroller. She sleeps eight hours and then four hours at night and soon we will move her to her own room. She wakes up in the morning with lots of smiles and likes to join us at the table for breakfast.

Grace was a wonderful baby in Florida. She slept through the flights to Florida and was very patient about spending so much time in her car seat during our time at Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom. She didn’t seem bothered by the heat and was able to go on a couple of rides at the Magic Kingdom. Gracie liked to sit by the pool and even got in a couple of times.

There are lots of coos and giggles coming from Grace these days. She gets excited and gasps occasionally and really likes to have “conversations” with us. I’m afraid that we might have another chatter-box on our hands. We were pardoned from our 3 month check-up with the doctor because we’re “experienced” parents so there isn’t a weight update, but Miss Grace is definitely getting heavy and has developed some chunky cheeks, as you can see below.

It’s been a while since we have updated everyone about where we are in the adoption process and we’ve had a lot of people asking for information, so here it is. We’ve been in touch with a new attorney that specializes in complicated adoption and immigration cases. She is very knowledgeable and has actually had cases similar to ours.

The new attorney looked over our case and gave us a wonderful suggestion which we are currently pursuing. We’re hoping that in the next couple of weeks we will have more of an update for you and more good news. Please be praying for the process and our team of attorneys that are working so hard on our behalf.