Our Life, The Universe, and Everything

a quick post...

2010-01-27T21:52:00.005-07:00

So last Tuesday the 19th, I registered Autumn for kindergarten. That's right...kindergarten. YIKES!! Has my baby girl already gotten old enough to be going to kindergarten?!

She's been in a pre-school program this year so far and an entry level (or as I say..PRE-PRE) pre-school the year before. So what's the big deal? Well I guess it's just the realization that she's going to be 5 in September and entering kindergaten. Since school starts mid to late August she'll actually have started before she turns five, but you know what I mean. Crazy. I don't know how other places do it, but in our school district, you have to register at the first of the year of the year they're entering kindergarten so they know how many children from the particular school's "home-school" territory will be attending so they know how many kids from outside they can enroll.

Autumn is definitely looking forward to going to "real" school although she's already started saying she's alittle nervous about it. Understandable, but with the personality she has...once she gets over the initial newness of everything, she'll be fine and get along well. Mommy and Daddy it seems will probably still be trying to figure out where time went to. :)

Everything else is going well. We're actually looking forward to spring (sooner than later) and getting out and hiking, biking, and spending time at the nearby lake and park. Our new goal this spring is finally getting Autumn over her fear of riding her bike (she fell over a few times last year...yes even with training wheels...and she's not wanted to try it again). She's doing well with most everything else though. She loves dancing around, playing games, spending time with her (local) grandma and grandpa, going to "Chinese school" at the JCCC, colouring and painting, etc. We've gone on almost 5 months now of her going to bed in her own bed without a single fuss or anything. It's been sooooooooooooo great. :)

Okay so my quick post wasn't so quick...oh well. Enjoy the pics. I took them a week ago and I think they are some of the better ones I've taken of Autumn in a little while...if I don't say so myself. hehe!

Until next time...

Happy 3 Year Family/Gotcha/Metcha Day!

2009-12-10T22:04:00.002-07:00

In another "hard to believe" moment...

It's been three years ago today that we were in ChongQing and were handed a very beautiful, scared, withdrawn little baby girl. Now we are celebrating this anniversary with a gorgeous, outgoing, precocious 4-year old spicy-girl! She has been and continues to be the light of our lives. She never ceases to amaze and amuse us!

Here's to all of our travelmates who share this wonderful anniversary with us!

crazy 8's and a crazy Autumn

2009-11-08T21:31:00.006-07:00

we ended up with around 19 inches of snow when this storm was done.

So Autumn has been trying to learn a few card games. We taught her how to play crazy 8's which is rather fun and she's doing alright with that. We also thought we'd teach her Go Fish, however that has proven to be quite the endeavor. She gets the general idea of how to play, but between not really knowing to check all her cards when asked for one...or deciding that she really doesn't want to give away any of the cards, it makes for a frustrating time. We try to explain that when she doesn't play the game by the rules (i.e. holding onto cards) that it's not right or fair and is called cheating. It's taking some time, but she's slowly getting it. Another game we got to play as a family is Monopoly Jr. She's really good at it and totally understands that one. She regularly wins. Of course when she gets older I'm going to teach her the regular Monopoly game which I love and then "it's on!". hehe.

Halloween proved to be a very fun time as we went over to out friends Jeff and Val's place and Autumn got to trick-or-treat with her little co-hort Malia. I just can't get over how much alike those two act and man do they love spending time together. We took them around the neighbourhood and watched as they went from these timid and quiet little girls to loud, screaming "trick or treat" before even reaching the porches spicy girls. Afterwards we had dinner and the girls got to play and have fun. I took some video of them being particularly silly and hope to post that soon. It's sooooo funny!

We went to a neat place call Mr. Biggs today. It has bowling, miniature golf, pool, arcade games, go-carts, etc. Autumn played her first round of miniature golf. She's been playing the Wii Sports golf for a bit now, but this was her first time trying it with a club and ball for real. It was fun to watch and fun trying to teach her how to do it. Mom and I bowled a couple of games...something we hadn't done in a long time. We saw that they had these ramp things that little kids and disabled people could use to bowl with so next time we'll let Autumn in on the bowling action too.

Autumn's doing well in both her Pre-K and JCCC school. In fact she's already been talking about going to kindergarten next year. Due mostly to the fact that a few of her friends started kindergarten this fall I'm sure. She's really been working hard at counting and some simple addition and subtraction (the Monopoly Jr helps with that). She's still working at trying to sound out words and is doing okay at recognising words that we read to her and trying to remember them when she sees them. It's so weird to watch this develop because obviously we can't remember when we were that young and trying to figure out how to read. It's also pretty neat and fun...especially when she gets close to getting it right or does gets it right.

In other thoughts...it's hard to believe that the end of the year is coming. We just passed the 3 year anni of her referral and in just over a month, 3 years since we first saw and held her in ChongQing. It's also quite hard to believe that another Thanksgiving and Christmas is just around the bend.

Well, enjoy the photos and I hope to post more soon!

cutie time!

2009-10-17T11:44:00.003-06:00

Just a few pics (more to follow soon).

Autumn's definitely looking forward to Halloween where she's dressing up like a devil princess and her friend Malia is going to be a panda from what we hear. AR's looking forward to having fun and "not being so scared" when we all go trick-or-treating. I'm definitely taking my camera then!

Today was 'Picture Day' at JCCC so I'll have a few pics I took myself of Autumn in her adorable outfit she wore.

two peas

2009-09-11T20:51:00.002-06:00

...in a pod

and two sweet peas as well. These two are quite the pair. They giggle, talk alike, crack each other up, you name it. And...now they're in the same JCCC class together (Sorry Ms. Lu!!!)

This pic was taken at the Wildlife Experience. It's a place in south Denver that really is more for kids than adults. It teaches kids about different parts of the world and what kinds of animals, fishes, etc live there.

Obviously I knew exactly what they were thinking/saying when I took this photo. Hehe!

the things that come out of a child's mouth...

2009-09-04T20:59:00.004-06:00

She said it...

I made a sticker out of it.

Apparently all the girls dancing and shakin' the booty just got a new "name" coined for them.

sunset love

2009-08-19T20:51:00.001-06:00

Showing some love to wonderful sunsets at the lake....

Photo Entry

2009-08-10T17:05:00.003-06:00

nothing but trouble...

Hey all! nothing much to write about really. We're still settling in and gearing up for the coming fall (hard to believe). We've got ms. Autumn enrolled into the JCCC class for this year. Very exciting! She's looking forward to it and also being in the same class as Malia. I'm to a point I think where I'm going to be able to set aside some time and get back into my online classes in multimedia design. I've been so bad about not doing anything and of course with the upheaval of stuff and moving, etc I haven't had much time. I'll be glad to be back on track.

Well, enjoy the photos. They've been taken over the past few months. Just so you know how behind I'm at with things. Hehe!

moved!

2009-06-29T22:47:00.002-06:00

Finally things have settled down a bit. We've moved and while not completely unpacked of course, things are getting to have a small sense of normalacy.
Where we are now is just a few minutes from a place called Clement Park. It is for all sense and purpose, the "backyard" to Columbine H.S. (for those who recognise that name...) It is a huge and lovely park that contains an equally huge and lovely lake with a path done around its entirety. A fave place to walk and enjoy life. The dogs get walked there often by G and I plan on trying to make that a place to bike to and from as well. I going to get a bike and a trailer for Ms. Autumn to ride in since it's a bit much for her and she's still just really getting the hang of riding her little bike with training wheels. There's a ton of places within easy enough biking distance that I've decided (once cleared with my doc...) to try to ride around more.

I have a few pics that I need to get uploaded so hopefully that'll be soon and I can share.
Until then...take care!

new pic

2009-06-03T21:42:00.002-06:00

Hi and hope everyone is doing well. Just wanted to post a pic and let everyone know that all's well with us and we're finally gearing up to move in a couple of weeks. Fun fun! I'm having flashbacks thinking how weird it is to be moving with Autumn at the age she is. I recall that my mom, dad, baby sister, and I moved to a new place when I was about 3-4 years old.

Talk about history repeating or whatever appropriate cliche type thing fits. Hehe!

whew! what a strange year so far!

2009-05-24T21:22:00.003-06:00

So finally a post, eh?!

Yes, I am finally posting.

Things are looking up finally around here. I have a new job, we're going to be moving to a new place (smaller, but very inexpensive), we're going to be living closer to friends and family, and have a chance to really get back on our feet and enjoy everything again.

Autumn is doing very well. "Chinese" school (AKA JCCC) ended two weeks ago. Hopefully we'll still be able to enroll her for next year now that we know how things are shaping up. She's really becoming more and more independant (along with the fits and "talking back" that goes with) and we have seen her imagination really explode. It's great to hear her singing and making up little songs....pretending....acting out scenes...etc. She's really grown a bit too. she's in a size 9 shoe and is wearing alot of her 4T clothes. She just has those moments where we still look at each other and can't believe how lucky and blessed we are.

Well, enjoy the pics and I'll try to post more sooner than later. Things will be alittle hectic over the next few weeks as we get ready to move and all.

Until then, take care!

mmmm HotPot!

2009-04-05T22:17:00.002-06:00

My dear wife loves when I make hotpot. Although we missed the opportunity to have true ChongQing hotpot when we were there, I did alot of research on what can and does go into making the CQ hotpot numb and spicy. She's been dying for me to make it again for awhile now so since we were planning a birthday get-together for her dad's wife, I agreed to make it for that. Luckily while roaming around in our closest asian grocer, she found an electric sectioned hotpot! I had been hoping to find one somewhere local without having to order one as I had been using a nice big cast-iron pot and a burner. Works great if you're doing just one level of hotpot...not so if you want to do numb/spicy and then plain. So I was in hotpot making heaven. I put my concoction together and we had chicken and a lovely seafood mix for the meats. I laid off the really hot stuff this time, but it was enough to give those of us who ate it a good kick. :)

Nice thing about this new hotpot pot is that it's "small" enough and easy to use so we can have it alittle more often. :) yum!!!

when the ground shifts under your feet...

2009-03-17T22:00:00.004-06:00

Si Xiao Xiong Mao (four little panda...Autumn is on the left if you didn't guess haha)

"it's good to be princess!"

so I'm finally getting around to posting. yay me. haha.

truth be told, I haven't been remotely thinking of this blog nor keeping it up. nothing personal to the few of you who actually visit and read it, but there's been alot going on behind the scenes.

I'm not going to get into it here because I'm not going to use this blog as a dumping ground of problems or anything. Basically we have had some things going on and changes that have left us on some shaky ground in a couple/few ways. The three of us are getting along fine...we are in good health (although I question my mental stability from time to time) and Autumn is just going right along and being her spicy, now 3-1/2 year old self. On top of that, I had to take my baby of 14yrs (my Border Collie) Sydney in to put to sleep last Monday. We've had her since she was 8 weeks old and she turned 14 in January. She lost the ability to use her hind legs and her hips deteriorated. We and Syd held on as long as we could but she had gotten worse the past couple of months until we knew she couldn't deal with it anymore. She is sorely missed.

Autumn is loving both pre-school and her "chinese class" at the JCCC. She's actually alittle sad that her first year at JCCC will be over in a couple of months. Autumn is already looking forward to turning 4 years old because a few of the kids in her preschool class are about to turn 5 and most of them are already 4 years old. Her and two other kids in the class are the only ones under four actually. Of course we keep reminding her that her birthday is still 6 months away. After which mama and I look at each other and say...wow only 6 months. Autumn is working really hard on writing. She's still not quite at the able to read level obviously, but she spells everthing perfectly and we do work with her on sounding out the letters and words after she spells them. But, if we tell her what letters make up a name or a word she tries really hard to write them. She can write her name for the most part...she has a tad bit of trouble with the "m" and "n" but I tell her she's just got to practice and she's doing a great job even if they end up more squiggley line looking than she'd like. hehe. Occasionally, and I have no idea why or what to make of it yet, she starts writing backwards...meaning she's got the letters in correct order, but she writes them from right to left as if you were looking at the reflection in a mirror. for example "NMUTUA".

The big thing for all of us has been Wii Sports bowling. It's like our nightly family fun time after dinner together. Autumn is actually really good. Her highest game so far has been 205 and she consistantly bowls between 150-190. It's actually quite something. I recorded a game on video and hopefully I'll put it on here soon. hehe.

Well, I'm posting a few pics too so enjoy. And hopefully things will smooth out and I can devote time again to our blog page. :)

Take care everyone!

photos...

2009-01-22T22:11:00.004-07:00

Hey there. long time no post I know...and...not going to get much this time unfortunately. However, I am posting these photos so you all can see kind of what 'Roaring Tigress' has been up to.

Take Care!

Happy 2nd "Gotcha/Metcha Day" Anniversary

2008-12-11T12:26:00.002-07:00

To all of our travelmates from CCAI Group#1077...Happy 2nd!

And to all of those who we know who's day was today 2 years ago...Happy 2nd to you and yours as well!

Someone told us that having such wonderful and special memories like we all share is something in itself, but they really make the holiday seasons even more special than before.

Love you all!

Time for a Post...

2008-10-18T21:22:00.005-06:00

Wow, so I didn't realise how much time had actually expired since the last post. I perused some of our friends and travelmate's blogs and thought "okay I need to post since it's been awhile."
So, I'm listening to Sarah Brightman and Schiller (a German electronic/trance group) while mama and Autumn sleep, putting addresses into a new file, and working on an Adobe After Effects project for my classes. Okay...the other stuff is in between this posting...and after it's done.
Things have been going alright thus far. With the big mess in the financial markets it's gotten a bit hairy and uncertain with things, but we trudge on and do what we can. I have much left to do with the foundation (base) courses for my MultiMedia cert. but I'm hell-bent on getting this done and getting something going. I'm also working out getting our website going for displaying and selling some of our photography. This has been something G has wanted to do for a while now and we're not getting any younger (a fact I notice everytime I look in the mirror and see multitudes of grey hair on head an in beard...) so I'm doing what I need to do to help get it started. Once again, this financial crisis couldn't have come at a worse time...but what do you do, yeah?!
Anyhoo...
Autumn is doing well with Mandarin. The class is fun and she loves Ms. Lu, the teacher. Between that and watching 'Ni Hao, KaiLan!' she's really getting a good grasp on things. She and I continually try to work on words and phrases when we can. She's pretty much got counting out 1-5 (sometimes having trouble with remembering 4) and is moving towards getting 6-10 added to that. She's nailed down some colours: red, blue, green, yellow, pink; and loves the part in the class where all the kids make a circle, hold hands, and sing in Mandarin. Her fave songs so far are 'Good Morning, Teacher!' sung to the tune of happy birthday...and 'Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Feet.' (yes, feet because toes in Mandarin doesn't fit into the song quite right.)
I love the moments here lately where she's taken to singing out loud around the house and at the store when we're grocery shopping. We do our grocery shopping on the way home after class and today she's belting out "Zao Shang Hao LiaoShi!" while I'm chuckling and telling her "heng hao!" (good job!)
She's a great helper and shopper. She'll get an item we need and either put it in the cart or hand it to me. I'll tell her "xie xie Autumn" and receive "bu ke qi!" in return....great job kiddo! Today I tried to sneak something past her and failed....which is actually good. She was looking at cereal and I started down the aisle to go to the next one. I get all the way down the aisle and shout out "guolai!" which is like "come with me" "follow me" or something to that effect. This is used in 'Ni Hao, KaiLan' alot but I wasn't sure if she had figured out what it meant yet and I have never told her. Silly me. Just after I spoke that she turns and comes running down the aisle saying "wait for me...wait for me Daddy!!!"
As far as her regular entry pre-school days go, Mama reports that the teacher says she doing very well. She also reports however, that ms. Autumn is having a few more tantrums than she would like (although having none is the best!). The problem is that she is so restless and full of energy...she figures things out quickly...helps out the teacher sometimes and helps some of her friends with things...and then gets bored (teacher's assessment). She has been having fits mostly over not getting to do what she wants and not being able to wait to do something or wait her turn. I fear that she's going to have this issue as she gets into true pre-school and kindergarten the next couple of years. She's very much like this at home with us as well. She bores very easily and quickly and then gets upset that sometimes she doesn't get to do what she wants and/or gets to do/have things exactly when she wants to. Obviously mama and daddy have some planning to do. Besides all this, she is amazing and never ceases to give us moments where we are like "how old are you??!!" or times where we can only just look at each other and shake our heads.
*mama and daddy are preparing dinner and I ask her what she would like to eat since we're having steak and potatoes which are not on Autumn's "I like to eat..." list. She turns and goes to the freezer, pulls out a kid's dinner, hands it to me and says..."I think I'll have this...can you cook this for me daddy?" Of course I say yes and turn the box over to the front to see what she chose. Almost immediately Autumn says matter-of-factly "the directions are on the back! you need to turn it over and read them!" and as I look at her like "what the..." and laugh while turning the box over, she says" yes right there!" I stop and look at her and ask "how old are you?!" "three!" "no, really, how old are you?!" "ummmm..." and then I get a big grin.
* we have I, Robot on and Autumn walks in while I am watching the scene where the robots are jumping all over Will Smith's car and finally cause him to crash. Autumn says "what are those robots doing? awww he crashed!" "yes he did." "awww is he okay?" I say, "yes he's okay but he's alittle hurt still." this is the part where he climbs out of the car and stumbles around a bit. "why does he have blood on him?" "because he got alittle hurt in the car crash hon." "oh, because he wasn't buckled in." I have to think for a moment and then I say, "exactly!". smart chickie. :)

We leave for a few days vacation on the 2nd. Two weeks. We're headed to Vegas for a couple of days then the real trip which gets us up to Bryce Canyon and then back down to Zion National Park. Autumn is excited to see the fountains at Bellagio however since mama has showed her video and photos. "the water is dancing...that is sooo pretty." she says.
I think Autumn will enjoy the time in Bryce and Zion as well. We suspect that we might get into some snow at Bryce and we should get some awesome fall colours on the trees in Zion. I mention this now because the way things have been going, I probably won't find the time to post until after we get back. I'll definitely have some photos to share though which will make up for the lack of posting. hehe :)

One last note before I go...Autumn still apparently has this thing about not liking Santa Claus and not wanting him to bring presents at Christmas. When we ask her who she wants to bring presents then her reply is....ready?..... the Easter Bunny. "huh?!" I always say. "the Easter Bunny doesn't do that sweetie he just does the whole Easter eggs and candy thing when it is springtime." I will tell her. "But I don't want Santa to come I want the Easter Bunny to bring presents." One time mama tells her "the Easter Bunny hibernates in the winter." Okay, what?! all this time I didn't know this and thought bears hibernated and not rabbits. Of course mama was being funny in the way she usually is. We did have to tell Autumn that bunnies don't hibernate so she doesn't start believing they do. Very important thing to do considering how we all know the ways of a 3-year old mind. Especially one that picks up things as quickly as this particular one does. :)

"do you want some water daddy?" (a day out at the zoo)

not so good at shadow puppets, but adorable none-the-less...

this is a prime example of what happens when you have a busy day and didn't want to take a nap. time of day: 5pm. lasted: until about 10pm and then back to sleep for the rest of the night.

nothing good can come of this...

a quick post...

2008-09-21T21:27:00.005-06:00

well it's been several busy weekends in a row, so this was a not-so-busy weekend which we enjoyed by relaxing and just hanging around the house for the most part. We went to Party City today and Autumn picked out her Halloween costume. She's going to be a butterfly faerie. She tried the costume on there to make sure it fit and she was just tooooooo adorable. She wants mama and daddy to dress up like Star Wars characters. It's funny because she's never seen the movies and the only time she's really been exposed to Star Wars was the costume catalogue and we pointed out the outfits. We asked her again while we were at the store if we could dress up too and she again said that we should be Star Wars people. We're not however, as daddy likes to dress in scarier costumes, although I might just go for the black robe and hood thing.

Autumn and I are having fun in the Chinese class. This was our third class and we learned a few more words. We created a "Wan An" (good-night) art project which involved a blue paper, yellow stars with gold glitter, and a piece of paper with the word in English, PinYin, and Chinese characters. Autumn is doing a pretty decent job of learning and using the words. She knows what things are but will typically hold back and not speak out the answers very loud. Or, she will play a game of acting like she doesn't know and look at me with her little grin. I definitely enjoy learning the words and phrases and it is helping me get pumped up and wanting to make alittle time to start using the Rosetta Stone program again that I had bought earlier in the year. Autumn loves watching 'Ni Hao, Kai Lan!" alot so between all that I think she's really soaking it in. We've been trying to use the words and phrases we learn when we're at home when we talk so we can practice and really remember them.

We got together with our friends south of town for a dinner and to observe Mid-Autumn Festival. Autumn and Malia had such a great time. There was also the 5yr old daughter of one of their neighbours there to play with them, and her mother really enjoyed watching the three girls playing and having fun. I commented on how much Autumn and Malia seem to just have this natural ability to just get along like they've been friends forever even though in reality we don't get to visit with them but once in awhile. They giggle and start playing and acting up together almost spontaneously. They kind of just look at each other, get these little grins and then away they go. I don't know how that all works, but they just keep us parents laughing and constantly smiling when they get together to play.

Watching the two of them also makes me think more about the possibility (and probability) of a sibling for her.

Silly faces!

the tyrannical threes (aka happy 3rd b-day ms. spicy-girl!)

2008-09-10T21:32:00.005-06:00

Last Thursday the 4th Autumn turned 3yrs old. wow. hard to believe our little baby-girl has grown up already. *laughs* well, okay...what I mean is that it doesn't seem that long ago we were holding this little 15month old girl in our arms. Then I think about it and realise that in alittle less than three months (short months too) it'll be 2yrs since we were in China meeting her for the first time.

Anyways, Thursday came and we took her out to eat (a family tradition of ours that birthday people get to go to where ever they want) and she received one of her gifts from us. She also got what I called the "fake" card. I'll tell the story in a bit....

Saturday we had our first day of class at the JCCC (Joyous Chinese Cutural Centre) where Autumn and I learned a few words in Mandarin, sang a couple of songs, and made a yellow sun with a smiley face on one side and "Zao Shang Hao!" (good morning!) on the other. It is now hanging from the ceiling in our living room. :) Autumn and I both agreed that going to our "Chinese Class" will be fun and we'll learn alot.

After stopping to eat lunch and grocery shop, AR and I got home and we did some stuff around the house with mama before we headed down to G's dad's place for a birthday party. Autumn made a good haul of gifts, had ALOT of fun, and surprised me a bit by perfectly blowing out all three candles on her birthday cookie/cake while we sang to her. It was a busy day, but she did really well and loved every minute of it.

Sunday we did some quick shopping for 3T clothes better suited for the cool fall and cold winter temps which are right around the corner. In fact, fall here has already started to appear and in another week or two we'll be enjoying the gold and yellow aspen leaves along with some orange and the occasional reds from the other trees.

This Saturday we're visiting with our friends to celebrate Mid-Autumn (or Moon) Festival. We had a nice get-together last year, but this time some of our families can't make it so it'll be three families with a 33month, 3yr old, and a 5year old running around. can't wait! (seriously!)

Now for the story. Starting several months ago, Autumn started making the transition from the Terrible Twos to what I'm calling the Tyrannical Threes. Why, you may ask? Well, ms. Spicy-Girl has been showing us her demanding, authoritative, and "tyrannical" side. Intelligent, strong-willed, and strong physically mixed with ChongQing spicy-girl makes for an interesting time. Plus, throw in a wicked sense of humour and we don't know whether to laugh or tell her to "straighten-up or it's chill-out time in the chair".

Mama has been telling her that sometimes she's just "bad to the bone". This gets an immediate reaction of Autumn replying in a sad almost whimpering voice..."i am not bad to da boneeeee". We've told her that we're not being mean that it's a song...plus she just has that attitude about her sometimes. So skip to me looking for a musical card for her...she loves the cards that have a song or make noise. I found one I thought was great for her...then I found one that has alittle cartoon skull with a party hat on under the words "be bad on your birthday..." On the inside it says "be very bad." with said party-hatted skull guy smiling and then the opening riff for "Bad to the Bone" begins. It plays the first verse and chorus. Awesome. Now that Autumn has heard part of the song via the card, she digs it. She had a big smile on her face as she listened to it a couple times.

Good stuff. Now for pics!

time at the zoo...

2008-08-30T21:56:00.005-06:00

We had the priviledge of being able to spend several hours with Jim, Karen, and their son Kai last Sunday. They were on vacation and were spending some time up in the mountains, but had a few days here in Denver. They were part of our travel group to China. Kai is from WanZhou, ChongQing as Autumn is. They are a wonderful family and we enjoyed the time at the zoo immensely. Kai and Autumn seemed to get along just fine and both seemed to really have fun. It was a bit of a hot day and both hadn't had really good naps the day before, but considering; they were great and it helped us parents relax and enjoy it all.

I'll be posting more after a few days....Autumn's Birthday is Thursday (the 4th) and we are starting JCCC Chinese Class Saturday morning the 6th, which will be followed by another trip to the zoo and then a small B-Day party for the spicy-girl. I'll definitely have some words and photos to share.

Kai and Autumn ready for a zoo-riffic adventure!

mama and Autumn

"AiYa!!! Daddy, what is that lemur doing?!"

"heyyy, they have ice cream...i want some of that!"

"yeah, i got a good deal on it really...it's got a few scratches on it, but that just means it's loved. plus, it's a two-seater AND it's red...can't go wrong with that!"

"ummm Kai, this is my ride cutie..."

"...and then Bob said..."

go, go, gorilla

aforementioned lemur. I'm not really sure what she was doing, but I don't think it was meditation.

"please someone...anyone...I'd really like a juicy steak and a cold pint."

Ferro's and Davis'

wait...who's taking the picture? don't tell me...the lemurs right?!

Changing it up...

2008-08-16T21:40:00.003-06:00

Sometimes, you just have to change it up a bit. It was time for that I thought. New layout, colours, design, etc.

And some really adorable photos for the moment....

Tapping Into Culture...

2008-08-04T21:35:00.007-06:00

So it's a month until ms. Autumn's 3rd B-day. where does the time go?! Oh, I know I'll be asking myself that alot over the next many a year. I'm just practicing you see.
We were going to try to do a little party thing at the Zoo....but we've opted for a trip to the zoo that Saturday the 6th (since we don't have the 4th off...) followed by a party afterwards at our home or G's dad's home.

Speaking of Saturday Sept. 6th...
I enrolled Autumn into CCAI's JCCC classes which start that day and run through next May. They're an hour long and Saturday mornings. I just enrolled her into the 2-3yr old program which is the first one...first level and I get to attend with her. I figured it'd be just as well to start at the beginning even though she's doing extremely well at daycare/preschool. I've been telling her about it and she is quite excited to get to learn new things...Chinese cultural things. I've been occasionally trying to teach her a few words of Mandarin. the basic stuff obviously since I'm not a master of the language by any means. She tells me "wo ai ni!" and I've recently taught her wanan (goodnight). She knows 'Ni Hao!' (alot because of the show Ni Hao Kai Lan too) and ZaiJian! (goodbye!). And of course 'xie xie' because she should be polite. Every once in awhile I'll ask her how to say something...for example bye-bye in Chinese and she'll look at me a second then say "bye-bye in Chinese!" and then grin. (smart-ass girlie...just like her dad. hehe!)

I had training last Monday/Tues/Weds out in San Francisco. I ended up bringing G and Autumn along because they wanted to go and Autumn was really sad the last time I had to go to something work related and was gone a few days. We left Sunday morning and stayed at a hotel a couple of blocks from Chinatown. It was wonderful. we could just walk there and we had a fun time perusing the stores and places. Some of it reminded us of being in ChongQing or in GuangZhou. We spent Monday morning up at Pier39 then drove by the Golden Gate Bridge on our way to So. San Fran where the training class was. G and Autumn drove back up to the Wharf area Tuesday while I was in class then left that evening to come back home. I stayed until Wednesday afternoon and then flew back. It was a quick but nice little get-away for the family.

This summer has gone by fast. too fast. And we've had a record breaking heat wave here in Denver the past couple of weeks. It's been kind of tough because we want to get out but sometimes we've opted to just stay inside where it's cool...or go out to places we can be indoors. There's been a few things and places we wanted to get to and do but suddenly it's one week into August already and opportunities get fewer and fewer. G and I have already had the realisation and discussion of how we're going to have to re-think where and when we do our excursions in two more years when Autumn starts going to Kindergarten. And when we start to think that "oh well it's still two more years..." then we realise that as fast as this year has seemed to go by, it'll be here before we know it.

Well, I'll try to get back on and write some more soon. Until then, here are some of the many photos I took in San Fran. :)

Erhu for change

sunrise out our hotel window in so. san fran.

grant st. at evening time. (it was foggy quite a bit there hence not much of a sky)

"what was that mr. lion?!"

main entrance to Chinatown (Grant St.)

a new friend (a very nice girl who ran one of the shops. she's only been in San Fan and not travelled anywhere else in the US. We suggested she come out to Colorado.)

an A for effort

'Lonely Playground'

looking down Grant St.

Aiya!!!!

2008-07-22T21:09:00.008-06:00

I finished my PhotoShop course online (1 class down and 19 to go...) and passed it with flying colours so to speak. I ended up with a 97.5 out of 100 which earned me an Outstanding mark for the class. my last project was a movie poster. we had to come up with something based on real movies or TV shows, or we could make something up. Here's mine. the instructor raved about it and told me he was going to submit it to the student gallery which is made up of featured work picked by instructors. Honestly I was a bit surprised by that, but woohoo for me!

Well it seems like I've joined the rest of our friends who have blogs in the 'Lack of Posting' department. My apologies. It has been one crazy summer (isn't that a movie?!) for sure!

So much has happened that I don't know where to start and basically if I did I would be typing for a long long time. So here's the Reader Digest Condensed version:

Father's day was almost non-event-full if it wasn't for the walk and play time at the park near G's dad's house. Autumn was a blast and had sooooo much fun. I got to push her in the swing for a bit and play on the slide with her.

Fourth of July weekend was pretty cool too! my parents came up for a visit and we all had a great time. I also didn't have to worry too much about irresponsible neighbours like last year which was a relief. I went golfing with my dad which I've not ever done before...while all the girls did some shopping and visited a do-it-yourself pottery and craft place. Autumn had a wonderful time with her grandparents and of course was sad when they had to leave to head home.

My birthday was fun. We celebrated it on that 7/4 weekend along with other family members with July B-Days when alot of said family members were in town visiting. Autumn picked out a very fun card for me and enjoyed helping Daddy blow out birthday candles. Okay so the thing is is that the top of the cake was nothing but a forest of candles. I don't think we had quite the hundred and something candles to represent the ages of four of us combined (one teen, one early 30's, one 40-something, then me) but it definitely was a fire-hazzard.

The other really fun thing was when our friends from south of town came up with their daughter so they could play and have fun together. I made a pretty darn-good Ma La Hou Gou (numb and spicy hot pot) which we all enjoyed. Of course the two girlies had hot dogs, chips, and then noodles from the non-spicy hot pot. We had a wonderful time visiting and watching the girls play and be silly.

the good, the bad, the agony, the dad

2008-06-10T21:50:00.005-06:00

TADA!

rolling around on the floor and being cute (or is that called "working the camera"?)

Diva in training

Autumn and Jack having a rest

SASSY!

so ms. Autumn is moving right along with things. she's less than 3 months from her 3rd Birthday and we're already experiencing the "awful 3s" as we've been told they're dubbed. AR will launch into a whiny fit at the drop of a hat if she doesn't think she's getting her way or what she wants. Other than that though, she's a doll and always makes us smile (well, when mama's not frustrated) and has just an amazing sense of humour. She also has quite the vocabulary and is really using words and phrases she's picked up in the proper way. Okay, not all of them are necessarily welcomed by mama and daddy, but luckily we've been exceptionally good about watching what we say.

my fave so far is: mama tends to tell Autumn that she's making her insane. this usually happens when AR starts in on mama with the whining and fit throwing. the thing is, Autumn knows this and that doesn't help matters. so the other day during one of these "showdowns" mama walks into the kitchen while Autumn is on the sofa by me. As mama returns Autumn looks up at her and says "you un-sane mama!" sometimes I think Autumn is too smart for her own good. wait...I take that back. she IS too smart for her own good.

I just read earlier today the story from the AP about the funeral that was held in Wolong for Mao Mao the panda. Mao Mao was an older female panda that was tragically crushed during the earthquake. The head of Pandas International live here in the Denver area and had flown over to help and bring lots of supplies to the people and center. It was a very sad article to read especially when they talked about the gentleman who had cared for Mao Mao since she was little. He was in total agony over the loss. I almost sobbed up reading it. The center was severely damaged and according to the article, will have to be rebuilt/relocated in another area of Wolong because where it is now has been deemed unsafe. Luckily the rest of the pandas fared okay during the quake although there is a male that is still missing. It will take alot of time, money, and effort to get the center back on it's feet.

hmmm I mentioned the dad in the title of the post. OH! well Sunday is Father's day. this will be my 2nd one and one that I think will be more fun because of Autumn's age and where she is developmentally. She couldn't wait to give me her gift she picked out so I have that already...hehe.

she's getting better at riding her tricycle as well. she's finally getting the pedalling thing down (i think) and she still will lose some momentum and then start saying "it's too hard for me" but with alittle encouragement she gets going again.

well I'll post more later in the week. until then...here's some more photos. :)

the yin and yang of Autumn Rose

2008-05-29T22:34:00.003-06:00

Okay all those with toddlers will tell me that the whole "one day (or moment) they're wonderful and then the next day (or moment) they're monsters" is par for the course. Well we definitely got to see the good, bad, and ugly of toddlerdom the past few days.

Tuesday was kind of a wash as far as the weather goes. It wasn't any better than Monday except that it didn't rain and the wind wasn't as bad. We started off with AR being totally defiant and whiny and you name it. She didn't want to eat breakfast which was the first bad sign. This only led to more crankiness later when it came around to lunchtime. There wasn't much of a nap-time for ms. Autumn which again was not a good omen for the afternoon/evening. We made the mistake of going out to pick up a few things at 'World Market' and 'Pier One'. The next mistake was believing that AR was being good in said stores only to find out it was just a calm-before-the-storm senario. We had dinner at an Irish pub/restaurant and that's when it all went downhill. The thought was that she was really tired by then so she'd fall asleep and we could finish walking up and down the outdoor shops, etc etc. Nope. Things got ugly and we'll leave it at that.

Wednesday, however, the weather was nice and we went to the Zoo and was there for almost 4 hours. Autumn was amazingly great and enjoyed everything. She didn't want to leave she was having so much fun seeing all the animals (except for the monkeys...she doesn't like monkeys at all for some reason) We took some great photos and Autumn especially loved visiting the places of the zebras, giraffes, and elephants. That afternoon was wonderful with her as well as she was pretty much a joy and silly girl like usual.

G and I both felt a sense of wonderment at how different she was both days. G said it best when she told me: " it's so weird that one moment you just want to scream ARGH! and the next you have this funny adorable little girl which you can't get enough of."

Today mama went back to work and AR and I went to the Asian Market here in town. Believe it or not I haven't been there before although I've wanted to for some time. (it's alittle out of the way from work and home) I was in search mostly for some things for making my 'ma la hou gou' at the grocery markets but also wanted to check out some of the shops and such that are there. AR and I first went into a Chinese shop where they had an incredible amount of home decor items, clothing, and other knick-knack things. I got a shirt for myself and Autumn got a lovely yellow outfit complete with shoes to match. Autumn picked it out from two other colours of outfits the woman showed us. This woman absolutely loved Autumn. She asked that she was "from China, yes?" and I told her yes, from ChongQing. "ohhh I love you already little one!" she replied. After we picked out the outfit I asked Autumn what she says to the woman..."thank you!" Autumn says. Then I ask AR if she can tell her "xie xie!" "Xie Xie!" Autumn says to her and the woman smiles real big and tells her she's very welcome.

As we're paying for the clothing, another woman dotes on Autumn as well. The one gentleman there comes over and hands Autumn a very neat lollipop in the shape of a star. "thank you!" Autumn says and I mention to her to say thanks in Chinese again. "Xie Xie!" she says and the gentleman smiles and tells her "you're welcome beautiful girl" in Mandarin. Finally as we go to leave he tells me thanks for coming in and shopping there. After our pleasantries, he tells me and Autumn goodbye. I whisper to Autumn to tell him bye bye in Chinese..."zai jian". A very clear well pronounced "Zai Jian!" came out from Autumn and the biggest smile spread across the man's face. "Zai Jian!" he replies and waves to her. Even here apparently they love it when they see that the adopted children are learning and experiencing the language and culture of China. It made me feel good to see Autumn enjoying the interaction and looking at all the wonderful items they had.

We then ate a late lunch at one of the restaurants which I have to say was pretty good. I didn't get to carried away with my food selection however so.... Maybe another time. Afterwards we walked over to one of the grocers. I found some of the ingredients I wanted and also found the proper utencils for moving foods to and from the hot pot. If I were going to be making it this weekend I would have also picked up some fresh fish and meats along with some produce as they had a great selection and it all looked wonderful, but since I'm not I didn't. Once again...maybe another time.

Autumn had a great time with me there as I did with her. We'll definitely have to go back some weekend with mama.

just fun.

2008-05-27T09:04:00.002-06:00

hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend!

not much going on around here.....mama and AR went over the mts to visit with some relatives for a couple of days while daddy stayed home with the pooches and did some yard/house-work that desparately needed done without the distraction of a certain toddler. :)

yesterday was dreary, overcast, and rainy. typical Memorial Day day. We still had family up and I grilled burgers, brats, and hotdogs for our feast. Autumn enjoyed spending time with her one set of grandparents, her aunt (my sister), and her one uncle (G's little brother).

we're planning on going back to the Butterfly Pavillion this week since Autumn's been really really wanting to go back. We're also planning a trip to the zoo once the weather warms back up...which looks like this coming weekend. All in all we hope to have some nice little family outings during our week off this week.

Autumn's two new words that cracks me up when she says them (in the right usage as well!) are "excellent!" and "disgusting!" for example: "Autumn, would you want to have 'beef taco' for dinner tonight?"....."yes!"..."okay then beef taco it is."....."Excellent!" another example: "daddy i took my shoes and socks off!"....."yeah? and why did you do that? are your feet stinky? (laughs)"...."ohhh yeahhh disgusting!" (mama and daddy both laugh)

will write some more soon...enjoy the photos of ms. Autumn I've taken over the past few days.

the bubblewrap dance

2008-05-15T22:02:00.002-06:00

so here it is...the first non-extravagant little video done with my new editing software (that I'm still trying to figure out...).
This is Autumn being Autumn. She was supposed to be telling me "night-night" and heading off for bed. Instead...well, you'll see.

I still think she got some of this routine from when we watched the dancing at the Chinese New Year's celebration. Regardless, this was the first real "moment" where she just let it all go and let her silliness and spicy-ness take over. Oh, and by the way...she did finally go to bed and slept soundly....after some wrestling with daddy and getting her puppy Jack to chase her back and forth a bit first.

she does this by herself...really I didn't coach her at all.

2008-05-14T17:46:00.003-06:00

ON A LIGHTER NOTE:

My daughter the goofball appears to have some natual ability to "work the camera" as the saying goes in the model industry. I think she also has some rock-star attitude in her as well judging from some of the pics. (these are the no-effects version photos)

And honestly, all I wanted to do was take a few pics of her in her little denim dress and with the pigtails. "go stand over at the wall" I said. The rest, as the say, is history....or herstory. hehe

too close to "home"....

2008-05-13T21:23:00.002-06:00

As you may have heard, there was a large earthquake in the Sichuan province of China a couple of days ago. The epicenter of the quake is roughly 220 miles northwest of ChongQing City where we stayed when we got Autumn. WanZhou, where Autumn (and all of our travelmate's children) is from is appx. 250 or so miles away. To put it in our perspective, that would be basically the distance from Denver to GrandJunction (west) which, even traveling over the mountain passes, is only about a 3.5- 4hour drive. We've done that drive many times to visit G's family and when we're going over to hike and photograph in Utah.

So far, we have found nothing on our search of China sites that says of anything but some minor damage in the CQ municipality which is good. However, the tragedy that's unfolded in the Sichuan province is heart-wrenching. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those families in that area. Half-the-Sky and CCAI both are accepting donations that will go to the orphanages in that area to help with anything that is needed to take care of those children.

We're also hoping that things are okay at the panda center which is located not far up in the mountains from where the quake hit. We have not seen or heard where contact has been made with anyone there so far, but we're hoping it's just communications related and nothing that we'd like to think about. In case anyone wondered, appx 80% of the remaining panda population is located in that region.

the following is a summary from the USGS site:

The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: An earthquake occurred 90 km (55 miles) WNW of Chengdu, Sichuan, China and 1545 km (960 miles) SW of BEIJING, Beijing, China at 12:28 AM MDT, May 12, 2008 (2:28 PM local time in China). The magnitude and location may be revised when additional data and further analysis results are available.
Felt Reports
At least 12,000 people killed and severe damage in the Dujiangyan-Mianzhu-Mianyang area. Landslides blocked roads and buried buildings in the Beichuan-Wenchuan area. Felt (VII) at Chengdu, (VI) at Xi'an and (V) at Chongqing and Lanzhou. Felt in much of central, eastern and southern China, including Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan and in Hong Kong. Also felt in parts of Bangladesh, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Tectonic Summary
The Sichuan earthquake of May 12, 2008, occurred as the result of motion on a northeast striking reverse fault or thrust fault on the northwestern margin of the Sichuan Basin. The earthquake's epicenter and focal-mechanism are consistent with it having occurred as the result of movement on the Longmenshan fault or a tectonically related fault. The earthquake reflects tectonic stresses resulting from the convergence of crustal material slowly moving from the high Tibetan Plateau, to the west, against strong crust underlying the Sichuan Basin and southeastern China.
On a continental scale, the seismicity of central and eastern Asia is a result of northward convergence of the India plate against the Eurasia plate with a velocity of about 50 mm/y. The convergence of the two plates is broadly accommodated by the uplift of the Asian highlands and by the motion of crustal material to the east away from the uplifted Tibetan Plateau.

Happy Mama's (and Gramma's) Day!.....more bouncing and crashing....and finally: butterflies and not so itsy-bitsy spiders.

2008-05-11T21:30:00.007-06:00

Whew! (I'm finally catching my breath after what seems like a whirlwind week and weekend.)

Okay. So here's to all the Mamas and Grammas out there! Happy Mother's Day. G actually had a very nice day today. Autumn was (mostly) on very good behaviour and was being very silly and goofy. Autumn called her one Gramma (my mother) and wished her happy Gramma's Day while I wished her happy Mother's Day. It was very nice.

Autumn has decided that she really does enjoy bouncing in her trampoline. However, what she Really enjoys more is to have her big ball in there with her so she can either sit on it and bounce until she flies off, or, she'll lay with her back or belly on top of the ball and then lift her legs and arms up so that she rolls off in some direction and crashes down onto the bouncy surface of the trampoline. Needless to say, I have some pics as you can see. (Daddy finally got the flash for his camera he's been wanting along with a flash bracket so now those pics will come out better!)

Yesterday, we met up with our friends and their beautiful little girl at the Butterfly Pavillion. I myself do not like insects in general except for butterflies and spiders. why spiders don't creep my out I don't know. I wasn't looking forward to being around all those bugs, but turns out that there really wasn't much to the insects part of the Pavillion so I just stayed away from those few displays and was good. Autumn at first wasn't being very social and into anything but finally she snapped out of it, started hanging out with Malia and started enjoying everything. She really opened up and had alot of fun with the displays and our friends and ourselves.

Tarantula's are very big spiders typically and several varieties of them are mostly harmless as long as you don't bother them. They'll likely run away from you (or jump up in the air and scare the bejeezus out of you in the process). There's one particular one at the Pavillion that they call Rosie and if you want and when a handler is there, you can have her crawl across your hand. I was the only one that let her do that (and I got a sticker for it..hehe) although Malia almost did with her baba holding her...but then decided it might not be that fun after all. Autumn didn't want anything to do with that either...even when I told her she'd get a sticker afterwards. oh well. her loss. haha

There was one spider dude in the room that had the name 'birdeater' in his 'species' name. that kind is the largest spider. period. And I'm thinking that if your kind gets the name birdeater attached to you...then you're pretty much a bad-ass spider and that's that.

The butterfly area was the coolest (not in temp though as it was balmy, humid, and so not Colorado.) and the most enjoyable by everyone. G and I took quite a few pics in there...and Autumn kept hoping that she could get one to land on her hand or something.

The neatest part was what we found in the gift shop. We've tried to keep an eye out for anything like the cups, keychains, etc that places have that have the boys and girls names on them. Haven't ever seen Autumn anywhere...except the gift shop at the Butterfly Pavillion. G hands me this butterfly necklace that's purple on one side and blue on the other. I told her that was cool but then she told me to look at the name. Sure enough the name on the necklace was Autumn. Ms Autumn wore her necklace all day today and was very proud that she was entrusted to wear somekind of jewelry...especially with her name on it. :)

The weekend was very nice, but short (aren't they all?!). Thanks to our friends for sharing a fun time out with the girlies and we definitely had fun visiting with them again.

enjoy the photos!

i guess she told me...

2008-05-10T08:44:00.002-06:00

so after we picked Autumn up from daycare (i.e. school) mama asked her if she wanted to eat out or go home and eat. Initially she said she wanted to go home and eat 'Beef Taco' but soon picked up on the fact that mama wasn't really asking, but prompting her to say 'Chili's'. So once again the question...this time out came "Chili's!!!!" with a smile.
I decided to get off the highway an exit early and go "the backway" to the shopping area where Chili's is. My mistake apparently.

Autumn: "daddy where you going?!"
Daddy: "to Chili's...but I'm going the backway"
Autumn: "Chili's."
Daddy: "yes, but I'm going the backway...a different way."
Autumn: "okay. That's It Daddy! you don't drive no more. get outta Car!"

Obviously mama was in tears from laughing so hard.

spoiled daughter, bouncy girl

2008-05-04T20:20:00.005-06:00

okay, isn't the dog the one that fetches the ball?

mischief, thy name is Autumn Rose

well, daddy's trip to California was fun but long. they had stuff scheduled it seemed for every minute of the day and evening right up until the departure from the hotel at 6am Sunday to catch the 8:15am flight back to Denver. daddy was exhausted to say the least, but was very happy to see the family again and to get those extra big tight hugs from Autumn. she didn't go unspoiled of course. daddy and some of us guys walked over to Downtown Disney to spend alittle money on children and spouses. Autumn ended up with a Minnie Mouse visor/cap, plush Nemo and Dory, a magnet of Disneyland, and a fleece hoodie of the Disney princesses which appropriately enough had the word 'Spoiled' emblazeoned beneath said princesses.

that Sunday afternoon, we went down to our neighbourhood Wally World where we had her trampoline shipped to and picked it up. a couple of hours of putting it together ended with about an hour of non-stop bouncing, falling, giggling, squirming, rolling, and bouncing some more.

this weekend we were going to go to the zoo but the weather ended up being cool and windy Saturday and we ended up having a 'family' medical issue which caused us to stay home today as well. Our one dog, Kelsey, the shepard/husky mix, had her right ear flopping over and it seemed to be bothering her. G and Autumn took her to the vet Saturday morning while I went to Home Depot to pick up a few things. I got a call from G stating that the cartilage in her ear had cracked/fractured and broke down causing a rather large hemotoma. They needed to do surgery and did it later that morning. She also had a growth on her neck just back of her lower jaw which we originally thought was just an "old dog" growth. the vet had thought that at one point as well, but upon further investigation after she was sedated, they discovered it wasn't just that. They believed it to be benign but needed to send the mass off to check it out. They removed it before they worked on her ear. Needless to say the poor thing was hurting Saturday evening and they had put an e-collar (a rather huge one) on her to keep her from scratching her neck and/or her ear which had been shaved and full of about a dozen stitches and splints to keep it firm while it healed. We bought an inflatable collar thing which attaches to the dogs everyday collar. it's alot more comfortable and light and Kelsey seems to appreciate the fact we did that for her because she could get around and function more regularly while still being unable to scratch those spots she shouldn't. She'll be working that for at least another month before the vet said she'd consider taking her off the meds and collar. At least she's going to be just fine when all's said and done.

This week looks to be busy so might not have any posts. But, this coming weekend is going to be very fun and I'll definitely have some sharing of words and photos after. :)

the alphabet song

2008-04-23T22:08:00.003-06:00

I decided I couldn't wait to post this quick little gem.

Autumn, in the midst of learning the alphabet, is learning the alphabet song. She misses a letter or two or mixes up a couple of letters, but all in all she does a fine job of singing it and it's very very adorable. Of course she couldn't resist changing it up and is doing her own little version now. Boredom? Spicy-ness? you be the judge.

She'll usually delete either D or E but she'll go: "A, B, C, D, F, G....H, JI (pronounced like Jai which sounds Chinese and when asked if JI is Chinese, we get a resounding "yes!") okay where was I? oh yes.: H, JI, K, L, E-emmy emmy emmy, P-U!!!!! (giggle giggle giggle). Q, R, S, T, U, B (which I think she means V), W, X, Y, and Z (sometimes B) now I know my ABCs...next time you sing...with ME!!!!"

that's my girl! ~

and not enough time to do it (all).

2008-04-22T21:12:00.003-06:00

so yeah, it's been awhile between posts. of course the weather here is finally warming up and that means spring cleaning and yard preperation. It's a good thing that Autumn is as old as she is and loves to help mama and daddy otherwise absolutely nothing would get done. haha!

I'll post more and have some photos next week. why next week? well, daddy is headed off to Anaheim on Thursday and won't be back until Sunday afternoon. it's a work thing...a convention. I wasn't originally supposed to go, but one of the people that was picked is afraid to fly and well...there apparently wasn't an effort to make other arrangements for her. Oh well. It'll be fun enough I guess. The last time I went to one was about 5 years ago. I didn't have a toddler to miss then. We will be right across from Disneyland so the little chicky-la-la will end up scoring some goodies I imagine. ;)
We also took a cue from one of our travelmates...well that and Autumn watched videos of her little friend playing in hers and wanted one too. Yes, that's right, we got Autumn a trampoline (with enclosure) and we should be able to pick it up in a few days. I'll definitely have some media to share of that!
I'm also working on some songs again finally (amongst working on my multimedia design certification and everything else I've got going on...) and one of the songs I decided would be an Autumn song. I'm calling it "sugar and spicy-girl" and will feature a nice groove and ms. Autumn herself providing vocals.

well, as I type, I have a sleeping spicy-girl draped over me. until next time!

add sugar and spicy-girl; mix together with wicked sense of humour and look out...

2008-03-31T20:29:00.005-06:00

First, here's ms Autumn in her easter dress daddy got for her. After I tried to get her to stand still long enough for some quick photos with a neutral background and having her do the "stand here?" and then run to another spot...I finally fired of a few continuous shots while she spontaneously did something along the lines of modeling poses mixed with spicy-girl toddler-ness. Either way, she helped daddy get some great shots!

So, genetics aside, our daughter seems to have her own wicked little sense of humour...well, her sense of humour mixed in with what she's taken in of her mama and baba's. G and I both have pretty good senses of humour. G's is more silly and off the wall where mine I would say (and have been told) is a more wry variety. I have found that this all makes for one spice-ily funny two and a half year old. Here are a few examples:

*G and I have done the apparently typical "kiss it and make it feel better" parenting thing when it comes to owwies. Autumn has used this obviously to her advantage as such when she bumps her head or falls down or something. this involves her head, fingers, elbows, knees, and typical owwie places for kids. she'll go: "owwie! (sob sob whine...) mama kiss it please!" you get the idea. So the other night after frustrating mama by running back and forth from the potty saying she needs to go/doesn't need to go for about three times, she comes running out of the bathroom and steps the wrong way on her foam mat on the floor. BOOM down she goes on her backend. Here comes the pseudo-whining and I say, "awww you're okay sweetie".

Autumn gets up...looks me straight in the eye...produces a very mischievous and knowing grin...and says..."daddy, kiss butt!"

*Autumn has decided she gets to drive. The past few days her game has been when we go out somewhere she goes up to the driver's door of G's car or mine depending on what we're taking, and yells out "Autumn's driving!" I procede to tell her "noooo, Autumn's not driving (for another 12-13 years thank you very much.) and you have a great car seat in the back." "no Daddy, Autumn's driving! mama sit in back seat with daddy!" all this time she has that grin on her face. Once I picked her up and told her okay she could drive but she can do it from her special Autumn driving seat as I properly deposit her in her car seat to buckle her in. She doesn't buy that of course, and I get the "daddy sit in car seat and Autumn driving!" with that little grin.

*Autumn has had mama rub her tummy to supposedly help her fall asleep. Not that this works, but who knows, maybe it does relax her alittle bit. Introduce the song 'If You're Happy and You Know It..' which ms. Autumn loves to sing, especially with her "sing doggie" toy that sings and teaches the alphabet, etc. The other night G comes out of AR's bedroom after the little chickie has fallen asleep. She doesn't just come out of AR's room, she comes out with her hand over her mouth and trying not to laugh out loud. I ask her what was going on and G procedes to tell me that Autumn decided to sing to mama "if you're happy and you know it rub Autumn's tummy." I asked, "she sang that to you?" "oh yes, just out of the blue...all by herself!"

she cracks me up!

where do I begin?

2008-03-17T20:59:00.004-06:00

Autumn shares a wafer

Two cuties!

duuuude!

my that's a good question...

well I guess I'm just going to write this out as I think about it so excuse any random jumps in time and train of thought. :)

First thing, we met up with some friends who's adopted daughter is a few months younger than Autumn. They were on the flight over to Hong Kong with us and in fact their group and our group did things together those couple of days in HK before we went to our respective provinces...or municipality in our case. We enjoy blogging, chatting, and visiting with them but as things go we don't do it often enough. Anywho, we met up at the Denver Aquarium last weekend for some fun and lunch. Autumn and Malia had a great time and ended up wanting to do what the other was doing (this went back and forth for a bit) and eventually they were holding hands as we left the restaurant and through the gift shop for a bit. It was totally cute and they both had a great time...as well as us parents. Thanks for the great time guys!

So Autumn has been watching Sesame Street (we have a few 'episodes' on the DVR) for some time as you know, but the funniest thing is how she wants to watch a particular one over and over (I'm sure this is normal toddler behaviour...) The one she likes right now is 'Chris helps Elmo write a letter to Abby.' Autumn calls it "Elmo colours to Abby." why? well because she has been learning ABCs and I think she doesn't have the concept that letters that you write are different than the letters in the alphabet. No biggie; but definitely cute to here her say someone (or Elmo) is colouring something to someone.

The other thing about this 'episode' is that Ben Stiller and Telly do their version of "a Person in My Neighbourhood". Now Daddy kind of started this one with Autumn...but I'll take responsibility for it because it's too adorable. So after Ben and Telly learn and sing about the mail carrier and the cable guy (obviously this is pre-satellite boom) Ben wants to sing about himself. Telly starts off "Ben is a person in our neighbourhood...in our..." "Wait!" Ben says. "I want to be someone else instead!" and runs off to get a costume. Suddenly he appears in a cheese wedge costume and begins singing about cheese being a very fine fella, like swiss cheddar or even mozerella. "I make a very tasty dish...try melting me on tuna fish!....A cheese is person in our neighbourhood...in our neighbourhood..." Telly of course being very confused by now finally gives in and sings along with Ben the Cheese.

Daddy thinks this is hilarious and sings along everytime. So of course the other day Autumn runs up to me while I was working on putting stuff in the bedroom I finally got painted and says something to me. I at first think she says "Daddy cheese push please" I'm like, "huh?!" "cheese push? can you tell me again hun?" "Daddy...cheese person!" I finally got it. "a cheese is a person in our neighbourhood?" Autumn smiles and says "yes! daddy sing cheese person in neighbourhood please!" So I do. And she sings along the best she can. (I go a bit slower than they did on Street) So every once in awhile Autumn will ask me to sing that...or she'll start signing it and I'll join in. After all, a cheese is someone that you meet when you're walking down the street...yep it's someone that you meet each day. :)

Autumn has taken to pretending to make mama and daddy coffee and tea. She knows that I don't care for tea and so I get the "daddy don('t) like tea? drink coffee?" "yes Autumn" "me make daddy coffee?" "yes please". So over to her play kitchen she goes and makes hot water. brings me a cup and says "here Daddy. be very careful! very hot!" and makes a face that I can only describe as a very toddler-esque rendition of "seriously concerned" She then makes mama tea and brings that to her. Tonight (here's that jump in time thing...) she decided to make us chicken soup. After three servings of that (Hey, I was hungry...hehe) Autumn asked me if I wanted more. So I asked her if she could make me something else instead. She goes "umm yeah!" and looked at me waiting for me to tell her what. "How about spaghetti and meatballs?" "Okay Daddy!" and off she goes. I hear the mixing of spoon and bowl and then here she comes. "No meatballs Daddy..." "what? no meatballs?" "no Daddy, no meatballs." Then I had fun. "awwww but I want meatballs! meatballs!" (sad pouty face) "Autumn, I want meatballs with spaghetti!"

She walks over to me and gives me a hug and says "sorry Daddy...me sorry there no meatballs" I play along and tell her it's okay so she runs off to get the spaghetti; which at that point I'm almost in tears giggling. By the way, I had two helpings of spaghetti sans meatballs.

According to the scale at Banfield Animal Clinic (inside PetsMart) Autumn weighs just about 29lbs. According to my recent measuring with the yard stick XL (it's 4ft instead of 3ft go figure) ms. Autumn is 35inches tall. She is definitely a ChongQing girl for sure.

Her and Jack are getting along so well (see past posting) it's amazing. He really bonded to her right away and is very patient, loving, protective, and gentle with her. When her and I play around and he sees me pick her up and turn her upside down or whatever we happen to be doing, he'll get up and/or run over and stick his head between me and Autumn. I guess mastiffs do this. Supposedly instead of being "agressive" they will get between their person and the other person if they feel that their person may be threatened or is putting off bad vibes about the other. Even within the mastiff's family they do this apparently. And after having it happen a few times when me and Autumn roughhouse or whatever, I believe it. And to counterpoint, when Jack and I play/roughhouse and he's lunging and I'm pushing him away, etc....when Autumn comes in the room Jack will immediatly cease and come over and sit or lay down by us. That just gets me. It's pretty cool actually.

So the last bit of info I can think of right now is that I finally got the other bedroom finished and have been moving my keyboards, computer, and equipment, etc into there. I'm now working on clearing the open area upstairs that I had occupied with all that stuff so we can get that done up, cleaned up, and what have you. It never ends. :)

I'm also enrolled in an online coursework to get a certificate in multimedia design with a focus on web design and digital imaging. I will be starting on that in the next few weeks after I get the money set up so I can purchase all the software needed to do the coursework and projects. I should probably be done in about a year and a half if I don't push myself (of course with a toddler finding the time will be the tricky part obviously) and do it right and do it well. The cool thing is when I get done I'll have (hopefully) a very nice portfolio to take to job interviews. I'm excited about this because I actually feel like I'm going to be finally doing something that involves my creative abilities and my interests...I've been in doing music since I was a "wee" child so that's my first and best thing but being able to incorporate video, photography, web, and music into something makes me feel better about things than I have in awhile (outside of getting Autumn of course).

Well that's it for now. Zai Jian!

catch up!

2008-03-16T22:15:00.002-06:00

no, not what you put on burgers or dip fries in...

catch up is what I intend to do tomorrow evening.
stay tuned!

:)

silly girl

2008-03-02T08:57:00.001-07:00

mama always said not to talk with your mouth full!

*sorry for the video quality...still trying to work out some bugs.*

Adoption is a wonderful thing...

2008-02-28T20:49:00.003-07:00

Our Shepherd/Husky female, Kelsey, is 9 years old. We adopted her when she was a baby puppy. My Border Collie, Sydney, is 13 years old now....we got her when she was a puppy as well. Syd doesn't really get around much anymore. She's in her late stages I feel. She doesn't do anything but lay around all day and go out to do her business. She struggles to get up and has a rough time usually getting up the stairs. We hope that as the time changes and the weather gets better we can get her out on short regular walks to help, but inevitably her purebred BC lifespan is nearing the end. *sniff, sniff*

We've also talked about when we felt Autumn was "ready", we'd get another puppy. Well, as it so happens, Kelsey has been showing behaviour that she really needs a 'buddy' that she can play with and all that since Syd isn't hardly active anymore.

So here it is last Sunday and we decide to go to one of Denver's large animal shelters just to see if there was a potential "new member of our family". After looking around, finding a husky pup that as it turned out wasn't ready for a home yet (G was alittle sad) we decided that we wanted to meet this....ready?! Mastiff/SharPei mix. They said he's 10 months old, very sweet, but they only had him for a week from another shelter. He looked to be a pretty nice looking and a mild mannered boy. We went into one of the 'visiting rooms' and waited for the girl to bring him in. A few minutes later she walks in with him. Autumn's eyes got bigger and she goes "doggie!" The dog came right over to her and gave her a lick on the cheek. She hugged on him...even tugged on his tail a bit. He just circled around the room sniffing at us pausing long enough to occasionally give Autumn a lick. We knew then and there he was the one. He had to be ummmm 'fixed' and all that so we had to wait until Monday evening to bring him home.

We asked Autumn what she wanted to call him. I asked..."Grover? Oscar? he kind of looks like an Oscar..." Autumn just says..."ummm no....Cookie Monster!" "no Autumn I don't think we should call him Cookie Monster." G spoke up and said she liked the name Jack....she thought that fit well. The two of us thought about it...decided a character to reference with his name, and settled on Jack. Monday as we were picking him up, Autumn said "me no like Jack." "Jack the dog or the name Jack?" "name." Autumn replies. "....well what would you want to call him?" "ummm Kittie!" she says. "okay, that's not a boy dog's name sweetie. How about mama and daddy call him Jack and you call him whatever you'd like?" "okay...."

So when the guy brings him out for us, Autumn says..."Jack! 'mere Jack!" very nice.

So. Here we are with Jack. Captain Jack Barkness. We referenced a character from the TV series Torchwood; Captain Jack Harkness, as he's the main character. The character was also a part of Doctor Who (new series obviously) So, if anyone's seen the show...there you have it. For anyone who hasn't, Torchwood is kind of a dark, adult version of X-Files meets Doctor Who. Capt. Jack is the main character who's very handsome, dashing, and runs the organisation. He seems cold and tough, but he's very caring, protective, and wants to do what's right. A fitting reference for our Jack who absolutely adores Autumn and is very gentle and patient with her.

Kelsey already has shown signs of perking up and she seems to really enjoy the playmate she has now. Sydney is even letting him hang around her occasionally. And mama and daddy feel great that we've adopted a wonderful dog who's going to benefit from all the love and care that our family....especially Autumn, will give him. :)

my little hockey chicky

2008-02-23T13:49:00.006-07:00

this is some great hockey action

yeahhh looks like they might score!

time to make a snack!

so how cute it is that daddy and Autumn went to an Avalanche hockey game on Valentine's day while mom got some much needed time to herself to relax and enjoy some peace and quiet? very much so. that was my gift to G; an evening to herself. mine was to spend some quality time with my little hockey chicky. I thoroughly enjoyed it as well as Autumn. We ate popcorn and drank soda (daddy) and water. We cheered loudly...for example ms. Autumn's: "yahhh hockey!!!" or "go Avs!!!!" or "wooooo!!!!"

and how cute is it that during the 1st intermission Autumn yells out "Daddy! look Zambonis!" to which the woman to the right of me turns and looks over at Autumn with a funny look on her face. "She really loves hockey. and she really does actually watch what's going on and asks about it" I say. "It seems that way yes! How old is she? 3...3 something?" she asks. "umm actually not quite 2 1/2" I reply. "ohh. wow." the woman says.

I continue; "it's funny because I jokingly asked her one day if she wanted to learn how to play when she got alittle older and she without hesitation said Yes!" "wow!" the woman says...then, "my son didn't really get interested and started in hockey until after he turned 6 but he absolutely loves it" I nodded and replied, "that's great! well I figure she has a couple/few years to really see if she stays this interested. I might try to get her on skates later this year or next." (Autumn then says "yes me hockey!")

So we left late in the 3rd period and went down to the "hockey store" because Autumn was very good and didn't act up or anything. I told her we would if she was good since the last game we were at she started out okay but then went into full spicy-girl toddler mode. I said no hockey store and she got even more upset. So this time she did very well. We wanted to get her a new outfit because the ones we had got her before she's too big for now. They didn't have much to chose from in the store, but I did find the 2T-4T jerseys and asked Autumn if she'd like one of those. "ooooo hockey! me like....me hold it daddy!"

She loves hockey and so does daddy. So I figure I will enjoy this while I can because who knows if she'll be this into it for long.

In other 'news'....currently we're still in re-paint and re-decorate mode at the house. It's been a long process obviously, but it's moving along.

Some exciting news is that next week we're going to get to visit with one of our travel-mates while she's in town. That'll be great! We're looking forward to seeing her and catching up a bit about her, her husband, and their amazing little boy who's been such a gift to them.

And in two weeks, we're going to go to the Aquarium with another wonderful adoptive family from here. That's also going to be a great time. It'll be really nice for Autumn to visit with their daughter and have some fun.

CNY celebration

2008-02-11T22:31:00.001-07:00

as I had mentioned in the previous posting, we managed to attend the Asian-Pacific Spring Festival this past Saturday. It was alot of fun. We ended up sitting near the back of the auditorium (as you will see in the one photo...) but amazingly I was able to use my tele-zoom lens w/ no flash and get some good shots. Some of them are a tad blurry but considering the distance and all that....not to bad. :)

Anyway, Autumn had a great time and she even asked us if we liked it! I looked at G and said..."wow she just asked US if we liked it and not the other way around.." She really enjoyed the dancing the most. I was alittle sad that they didn't have acrobats like they did last year, but all in all it was a great time and fun to be a part of the crowd. In talking with a young woman of Chinese descent who sat in front of us (and was gushing over Autumn) we realised that she was the same girl we talked to a bit last year and the great part is she's from ChongQing! I had forgotten that bit of info from last year, so I went on about how Autumn is very much the "spicy-girl" and that brought a big smile to her face.

We got home and AR continued her fun playful mood for a bit so I captured a couple/few shots of her being her goofy spicy self!

somewhere along the lines of bigfoot, the loch ness monster, etc

2008-02-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

I am happy (I think...) to say that I've finally kind of captured Autumn's "spicy-girl" look. She has two versions...this one which is the more serious "spicy" look and then there's the one with the sly mischieveous grin. It's not the best "spicy-girl" look she's given us, but it's the first one I've been able to successfully capture with a camera.

So I didn't get to post on Thursday the 7th which was the Lunar New Year. Yes, daddy's been sick the past few days and have stayed home in bed taking cold meds and getting lots of rest. I've found it better to just attack these things like that and get over it quicker than have it drag on for a week or more. Obviously if I were smarter I'd try doing the zinc and vitamin C thing, but I'm a guy and that should probably be enough explanation of why I don't. haha!

That being said, tomorrow afternoon we're attending the 'Asian-Pacific Spring Festival' Celebration. It's an annual thing that's held the Saturday closest to Chinese New Year and is sponsored mostly by the Denver Chinese School along with other Asian owned businesses. They have boothes and things for kids...and then there's a big program with acrobats, singers, dancers, etc. Last year when we went Autumn had only been home with us about 2 months. She actually enjoyed the music and dancing then. We think she'll really enjoy much much more this time around. I'll have some photos to post later!

Happy New Year....the Year of the Rat! Mama is a Rat...and so is Autumn's one aunt (my sister). Hopefully this will be a good year for all of our families as well as all of your families!

great Google-y....

2008-02-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

So I thought I'd share a few "snapshots" from Google Earth where I had been checking out places we were in China (with the exception of WanZhou). I'm very happy that we're able to view and "explore" places in China through Google Earth.

Obviously now I'd really really love to go back. :)

a wonderful discovery...

2008-01-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

practicing the supermodel "hair flip" technique

Okay, first a couple of AR pics...

but this post really doesn't have anything to do with what Autumn has done lately...which has been alot; but rather something I discovered last week when messing around on Google Earth.
Apparently the satellites have been busy lately. Google Earth's latest update brought a wonderful discovery. WanZhou is now "on the map". Ever since I first jumped on Google Earth, WanZhou was pretty much a green/brown/blue fuzzy area. Pretty much all you got was the location of where it is. (ChongQing had some detail and you could zoom down to a degree, but alot of it was "un-documented" on Google Earth). Now, you can literally see buildings, roads, parks, topographical details, etc for WanZhou. People have even pinned photos of around the city there. I'm excited about this because.......well, we don't know that much about the place where Autumn's from. I've seen a few pics of WanZhou by scanning the internet, and have read alittle bit about the city, but now it's more "real" and feels more "accessible". ChongQing City as well. We were there to get Autumn and stayed at a wonderful hotel (Empark Golden Resources) and went to the zoo, 'old town', etc. But I never knew where we really were. I finally found the hotel and places and could see where we were in relation to where other places in CQ are. It's just been a neat feeling to be able to see these things and especially check out WanZhou to a degree since we didn't get to go there. It's also a feeling of having found a piece of Autumn's background.

Autumn's Budda???

2008-01-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been alittle while since our last post (sorry!) but as you know things get to happening...and add a toddler to the mix and things that you try to get done takes alot lot longer.

Daddy's in the process of repainting our large bedroom (we opted for one big 3rd room instead of #3 & #4 bedroom) because we're moving ms. Autumn into the big room. She'll have all of her toys, desk, table/chairs, and art stuff and lots of space to play in. We're hoping that it'll also mean she'll feel more comfortable with sleeping in her own bed and by herself when she feels that her bedroom isn't just a place to get changed and sleep. Daddy will then be moving all of his music and computer equipment back into the smaller #2 bedroom. On top of that, Mom has decided to take on repainting and redecorating the living room and dining room. (yikes!)

Anyway, you're probably wondering what's up with the title of the post. Simple enough to tell. Tonight we (and AR's aunt) went to the Avalanche hockey game against the Columbus Blue Jackets! It was alot of fun. As we left the Pepsi Center, they were handing out big water bottles to everyone. On the bottle was pictures and graphics of one of the AVS goalies; Peter Budaj (pronounced Bood-eye). A certain aunt has a fondness for mr Budaj and so she was happy to see he was on the water bottle. She tells Autumn that "we really like Budaj because he's good and very cute!" So in addition to being very happy for having her own water bottle, she proceeded to tell us all "I like it! my Budda!" Of course we were like...'Budda? it's Budaj sweetie' and giggling at how cute she was being... "I like! my Budda!" she repeats. It was hilarious. Then Daddy made it funny to some other people walking by when I said "it's Budaj honey...Budda's back in China..."

I'll try to get a photo with AR and her Budda...oops I mean Budaj. ;)

ms. Spicy girl is becoming quite the little funny girl too. She was very seriously (yet had us laughing until we cried) telling us that her and Tracy were going to the hockey game....but not Mommy and Daddy. She'd tilt her head to the side, serious look on her face and say..."daddy home. daddy you stay home. mommy too. mommy stay home." We asked ' so we can't go to the hockey game?' "noooo Tracy and Autumn go (to) hockey game...no mommy daddy. you stay." Once she realised that Daddy had the tickets and she couldn't go without those she changed her mind. hehe.

Her vocabulary is just unreal. She's been putting sentenses together more and more...and more than just two or three words too. She's counting 1 through 6...usually skipping 5 for some reason..who knows...hehe. Then she'll also go "6,7,8,9,10!" She's gradually begining to have little conversations instead of just saying a word or two or three in response. She's also realised how to tell (in fragments) the story of what happened to her balloons. (she got one at a restaurant, it escaped up in the air as we left, we went to grandma's and got a couple of non-helium filled balloons, one popped and scared her as she played with it several days later.) She tells us "my balloon. up in sky. bye bye balloon. mommy daddy and autumn go grandma's more balloons. one pop and scary."

Perhaps my favourite Autumn moment lately came a few days ago. Autumn had been very excited to be going to the hockey game with mommy, daddy, and tracy. She'd tell us that we were going to see hockey. At the time it was two weeks away. Then this last Friday came around. That evening we were watching the AVS play Chicago on tv. Autumn said "yah hockey! two weeks!" 'no, in two Days sweetie!' During this time Mommy was trying to get Autumn ready to go up and take a bath. Off and on she'd mention it to Autumn. Finally, Mommy says "so Autumn, when are you going to be ready to go take a bath?" to which ms. Spicy-girl says..."ummmmmm two weeks!"

Happy 2008!

2008-01-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

cuteness by the christmas tree

a white christmas

Autumn getting ready to check the Santa Tracker on Google Earth (seriously...)

a visit from Santa (at G's company christmas party)

signing a gift

so being adoptive parents of a beautiful "Spicy-Girl", not only did we ring in the new year with Autumn (ummm yeah she was up until 11:30 and still woke up at 6:30am) but I also mentioned to G that in about 5 weeks is Chinese New Year. Looking forward to that especially since last year AR was only with us for less about 2 months. She should be alittle more into it this time around. :)

We had a wonderful Christmas holiday. Both sets of grandparents were over including an aunt and uncle. Autumn loved all the attention and all the gifts she got. Half of the gifts were toys and half were clothes. She's actually been playing with most of her toys. Her fave so far seems to be the little doctor kit. She loves 'taking our blood pressure', and 'checking our hearts' with the stethescope. We call her Dr. Autumn when she's examining us and she's saying that to us now when she wants to 'check us out'. She'll end the session with a 'shot' and when we ask her how the results are she says "Good!". She'll put her equipment in the bag and then in her shopping cart and push it to the next patient. Too cute!!

In other news, we meet with our social worker Friday afternoon to have our 12 month follow-up meeting. This is the last official post adoption item left to do. As I mentioned in the post below, we received her birth certificate a few weeks ago. It's a very wonderful thing. :)

One Year ago 12.11

2007-12-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

so it's a few days later than 12.11 but once again finding time to do things around here can be a challenge. Anyways, it's been a year since we first got Autumn Rose...when we received her at the ChongQing Ministry of Civil Affairs. She's grown alot and developed sooo very much. It's been an amazing first year with her. I had put together a DVD for the grandparents and along with this post is one of the segments I did. It's a "look back" over the year with her in photos and video. It ends at Halloween because I was wanting to complete it by Thanksgiving. Now that Christmas is alittle over a week away I'll probably work on something for that as well! :)

One other wonderful thing of note, Friday the 14th we finally received Autumn's Birth Certificate! Our post-adoption work is done and having received her birth certificat right around the holidays just makes it all alittle nicer.

Enjoy the video!

thanksgiving week

2007-12-04T21:39:00.001-07:00

okay so i'm alittle behind...haha. but it's been alittle crazy around here, not to mention daddy and mama have been sick.

anyway, here is a small slideshow of some of our pics from our trip over Thanksgiving. Autumn had a wonderful time and did very well almost the entire trip. I say almost because towards the end I think she was alittle ready to get home because she started acting up a bit. It didn't help that her sleep schedule and well...her whole daily schedule got turned upside down regardless of how hard we tried to kind of stick to it. but that's a 2year old for you!

Autumn enjoyed visiting her grandma and papa at their home. We went out a few times, walked around the neighbourhood a couple of times (although it actually got cold and windy there!), and went to a CHL hockey game. That was alot of fun...and Autumn definitely enjoyed that. Her fave thing though I think was the skating taco. yup...there was a person dressed like a taco for one of the taco chain restaurants and was skating around during the intermissions throwing coupons and such out to the crowd. Autumn for some reason got a big kick out of that taco.

I'll write more later...it appears that I'm being summoned by the spicy-girl. D'Oh! well, to quickly finish, she did exceptionally well on the plane trips...one couple on the flight back commented that they would have never guessed a toddler was on the plane because she was so well-behaved. (my child...behaved?!) The one really funny thing...something that got me was while we were going through security at the OKC airport. Taking into consideration that when we left and went through security Autumn saw us taking stuff off and out and putting them into the trays. I told AR that we needed to take our shoes off, put everything in the trays and go through the little gate thing. So fastforward to us in OKC going about to go through security. G and I start putting our stuff into the trays and Autumn sits right down by me and starts taking her shoes off and yells "Daddy! Shoes!" as if to remind me to do that. I looked at G and started chuckling. Then, as we were about to walk through the detector, the TSA girl told me that I needed to take AR's hat and sunglasses off. no problem. Then she said I'd have to have her jacket off. So as I started to unbutton her jacket and tell her that we needed to take it off to go through the gate thing, she starts fussing and says "nooooooooo!!!". almost instantly the TSA girl says.."umm okay don't worry she's okay". obviously she was well trained in the finer points of not pissing off a toddler at the airport. HEHE!

will write more real soon...enjoy the pics! :)

planes, pains, and gobble gobbles!

2007-11-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

one of the photos I took from ARs and my game of hide and seek

so we're off for a visit to my parents! Autumn so far is excited about the idea of getting on a plane and flying to go see grandma and papa. I guess we'll see how that is when we actually get on the plane...haha. well mama will have her laptop armed with a couple of Elmo DVD's.

should be a fun time and I'll be taking lots of photos!

fun bits: Autumn knows now what being "spicy" is and even has a look she gives when she's being really spicy! (maybe I'll capture it on a photo sometime and share...) I've also told her a few times about ChongQing (with her attempting to say ChongQing) and that alot of spicy girls come from CQ. so when she's being a brat, etc etc...we'll say "Autumn you know you're really being..." "Spicy!!" she'll finish and grin. Today on the way home, it was just her and I and we talked alittle (me asking questions and her responding). there was some silence and then I hear "spicyyyyyyy". why? i don't know. but I tell her "yeah you're a spicy girl alright...a ChongQing spicy girl. she says "yahhhh Chng Qing spicy!" it was too cute. :)

Happy Thanksgiving all and will post after we get back and settled!

another thing.

2007-11-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

Here's to all the veterans who have given so much to serve their country and those in other countries. Here's to all the service-men and women who are presently out there around the globe doing the same.
in addition to the post below: I would like to say that although Autumn does coorelate Chinese to herself, we have also let her know that she is an American which coming from her sounds like "merkan".
We only hope that some day she'll be proud to have both heritages and truly understand what it means to be American...and Chinese.

"ME!"

2007-11-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

Hi there!
nothing much too exciting going on. ha! okay so we're getting ready to fly to Oklahoma City to see my parents for a few days during Thanksgiving week. We've been trying to take care some things around here as well. I've been working alot on putting a DVD together of photos and videos we've taken of Autumn since we've been home as a kind of "look back" at her first year with us. I've finally completed that and made a copy to take with us to give to my parents. I plan on posting one of the "chapters" on here...but probably not until Dec. 11th which will be our 1year Gotcha Day anniversary. :)
Autumn in the meantime has figured out that we are going to go up in the sky in a plane to go see Grandma and Papa Davis. Since about a week and a half ago, every time she sees an airplane whether for real (we live by the airport so that's often...haha) or on TV, she starts saying "plane! me! mama! daddy! up!" followed by "Grandma! plane! Papa! me! up! plane!" and/or various versions of that. She says this very excitedly so it's not that she probably couldn't string a sentense out of these words but as I'm starting to say: Spicy Is as Spicy Does.
She has been extremely Spicy lately...and wearing mama out in the process. Autumn knows which buttons to press to get mama going and I end up having to take Spicy Girl aside to quietly and calmly explain to her that it's probably not in her best interest to frustrate mama so much. Usually there is some fussing and several attempts at pushing my point across follwed by some "sowwy mama"s and hugs between Spicy Girl and mama. This doesn't work all the time, but mostly. Autumn to her benefit however is finally comprehending how things work when she makes mama and daddy happy and when she doesn't. A friend of mine (with a 3yr old and 1 1/2yr old triplets) told me that once Autumn figures the "happy/unhappy mama and daddy" thing out it's a powerful parenting tool to use when situations warrant as she discovered with her oldest. Sure enough...when Autumn starts being Spicy and mama says "do you want mama to be upset (or unhappy) with you?" things tend to settle down. I just hope that something works out when Autumn gets older. I definitely wouldn't want to be in the middle of a Spicy Girl vs. Redhead showdown! hehehehe! (nervous laugh)

One last thing I wanted to share before I head off to sleep (it's been a long week)...
Autumn has realised several things lately...whether on her own or by our teaching/showing/telling her. One thing she has really taken to is watching the DVD I put together of our China trip to get her. She recognises herself and has asked what things are in alot of the photos she sees then in each subsequent viewing she points these things out to us by name. We've been just generically telling her that we went to China and occasionally have mentioned "bringing you home with us" to her. She loves watching the DVD alot and in her naturally curious toddler mindset has been asking what "that" is as she points to photos as well as in-home things such as paintings, scrolls, decorations, and everything really. Just the other night while reading to her in her bedroom to get her to relax and go 'night-night'...she points up to a scroll I had bought for her room that depicts a girl and boy outside with two deer by a tree. There are Chinese characters on it which if I remember correctly talks about friends. She points to the girl, the boy, then the deer and I tell her what they are. Then she points to the writing and says "ooohhh....that?" I tell her they're Chinese characters...writing...that I don't remember exactly what it says but it's Chinese. She turns to me and then points to herself and with a smile blurts out a very loud "Chinese!.....MEEEEEEE!!!".

November 3rd 2006

2007-11-02T20:57:00.000-06:00

May 2006

As hard as it is to really truly believe....it has been a year since we received "the Call" from our agency to tell us that we had our referral. November 3rd, 2006...a Friday morning...G and I both staying home with the day off from our workplaces in anticipation of "the Call". We nervously and anxiously had our coffee and breakfast talking about everything and nothing. Finally, close to 10am, our social worker called to officially announce that we had our referral. She asked if we wanted her to tell us about our new daughter or wait until we arrived at the agency. We opted to wait...although she couldn't help but tell us that she was "reeeeallly cute!".

We excitedly and immediately grabbed our camera and video camera and jumped in the car; heading down to the agency office to finally see for the first time the daughter the CCAA matched us to and her to us. We had that morning decided that Autumn Rose would be her name along with the name she was given in China. G had laid awake that morning thinking and all that came with being anxious and anticipating the big day when 'Autumn Rose' popped into her head. Autumn was the name I had favoured most while G had liked the other name we had agreed to chose from. Rose came from...? we don't know really. And on the way to the agency G kind of mentioned how it would be funny if her given Chinese name had something to do with flowers.

Finally after arriving and sitting down with our social worker at one of the tables in the room...the folder was placed in front of us and we opened it to meet Wan Chun Lan from WanZhou District in ChongQing. The referal photos of her were both beautiful and a bit heartbreaking...noting the look on her face in each picture. We read through the files and signed the acceptance letter. She would soon be our daughter...our adorable, "reeeeally cute!" daughter. Chun Lan would become part of her name (which we chose to meld together as ChunLan) and yes.....her given name had everything to do with flowers. Spring Orchid.

Here's to the one year anniversary of our referral of Autumn and the 5 hectic crazy weeks between then and when we flew to China to get her. The next big day being December 11th when us and the nine other families in our group finally met and received our children.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T21:08:00.000-06:00

a return to calm mornings

2007-10-17T21:08:00.000-06:00

in the great tradition of rock and roll musicians ;)

fall colours from our backyard

Something around a month or so ago, it was time for ms. Autumn to move from one class at day-care (where she absolutely loved the three girls who oversee the class) to the 2-3yr olds class. Autumn's been in the potty training stage for alittle bit now and along with that and being bored it seems, she was ready to make the move. Always when there's something new and different from the norm...the routine...there's a bit of a step back and of course fussiness. This event was no exception. It didn't help that the woman who oversees the 2-3yr class doesn't quite have the same bubbly outgoing personality as the other girls do....and Autumn definitely knew that. She really didn't want anything to do with this woman so of course dropping her off at day-care meant leaving her in tears and throwing a fit. Come to find out she only did this for a few minutes longer after we left and then was fine...but she definitely was letting us know she wasn't quite happy with what had happened. Not that nobody, including ourselves, tried to prepare her mind you. Autumn just really knows how to let us know what she thinks and how she feels about things going on in her world.

So now after a few weeks and some time with some new 'classmates' along with a couple of other girls around her age that moved up into that class soon after, Autumn has figured out that everything's cool and she's figured out that the woman in her class isn't all that bad. In fact she's finally taken to her a bit. And now that Autumn's been in her class, the "teacher" has kind of taken to Autumn and has relayed in her daily reports how great Autumn's been and commented on how helpful and personable she is. Needless to say, dropping her off in the mornings since last week has been nice again. A return to calm mornings...no fussing really, and no tantrums. This makes mom and daddy happy and alittle less stressed. :)

ms. Autumn has also really been coming along with things again. She's now (with the help of mom, daddy, and her Elmo DVDs...) figured out counting to 3. This doesn't necessarily come out everytime, but she does know 1,2,3 and even tonight while her and I were colouring and playing with her sticker/activity book, I pointed out a page where counting is involved and I told her "ohh look numbers...they're counting...1..." and Autumn confidently says "1..2..3.." (the three not quite having a solid 'r' pronounciation). She's been working on pointing out colours to us as well. She knows the basic ones I believe but is obviously still trying to sort it all out. Green happens to be the default colour at the moment but when we mention that the item being pointed out is not green we get the "oh...ummm..." and the furrowed brows as she's rethinking her colours. It's definitely cute and I'm impressed...especially that between daycare and the time we spend with her at home she's figuring things out as well (and sometimes quickly) as she is.

The opposite side of the spectrum is that she just does not want to go to sleep. She'll go 'night-night' but to her that doesn't mean laying down and going to sleep right away. She wants mom to stay in her room with her for a bit. She eventually falls asleep but will typically wake in the middle of the night. She definitely seems like more of a night-owl too. I think mom and daddy starts getting tired and ready to go to sleep before ms. Autumn does. And if you think that the little chicky-la-la sleeps in on the weekends...think again. She's awake by 6am and ready to start the day. (unlike her daddy).

Finally I figure I'll share G and I's new little song we sing. Since Autumn's become a huge Elmo fan it was just a matter of alittle thinking on our part. So we sing to her our version of the Elmo's World theme...and she will "la la" along with us.
"la la la la...la la la la...Autumn's World. la la la la...la la la la...Autumn's World. Autumn loves her mom and her daddy too....that's Autumn's World!"

attack of the two word sentences!

2007-10-10T20:48:00.000-06:00

things really got exciting over the past weekend. Autumn just out of the blue started using two word sentences when she was talking to us and her aunt T when she came over for a visit.

okay no huge surprise really, because we always encourage her to try using more than one word to talk and along with reading and just talking to her plainly, we've given her the platform in which to take that developmental leap. She's very proud of herself and is excited to be able to say things which she knows we totally understand. We've also noticed that when we ask her something...typically if we're giving her a choice...she is showing us that she's really thinking about it and is more verbal with her response. For instance, if we ask her if she'd like to play with her PlayDoh or colour, she gets this look on her face like she's contemplating her choices and then with a cute "ummm..." she tells us her answer. "ummm...playdoh!" when she wants one of us to help her with something we get a very polite "help peease." That's just some of the exciting communicative development we've seen over the past few days. It's really something to see and experience as first time parents...witnessing the results of a toddler's brain putting another piece of the developmental puzzle together.

Of course the other thing that's come about from this little 'leap'...is the "my _______!" filling in the blank with whatever object she is talking about. The "mine!" syndrome is common for all toddlers we read...and obviously there are the numerous listings of advice on how to traverse the "mine"-field. It's not as easy as it seems typically though.

We've quickly learned that we can acknowledge the "mine!" but throw some rationalisation &/or decision-making ability to Autumn and head-off an impending tantrum. Autumn has (luckily) a very firm grasp of the concept of: if she listens to mum and daddy she'll typically end up coming out ahead of the game and happy. This carries over into any trip out and about. We don't bribe her with stuff (although that's happened once), but instead we've figured out how to present her with options that basically make her feel like she has some control or say in the situation even though for all intents and purposes, we're dictating the outcome we'd like. Of course we're going to have to start getting alittle more creative with things now that she's understanding and communicating things even better than before.

Another bit of great news for Autumn is that her little friend Ella Diki, who was adopted from Nepal, has recently moved up into the same class at day-care. I asked Autumn the other day if she was excited that Ella Diki was in her class now and she said "yeeeahhh cited!"

We're also trying to explain Halloween to Autumn and she already had picked out a little kittie-cat costume to wear a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure that she understands of course what's going on with Halloween, but she seems to be excited about the idea of getting to dress up in her kittie-cat outfit and carry her 'Hello Kitty' tote bag around. I'll have pictures of that for sure!

Finally, since the theme of this post apparently centers around the word "exciting"... I've included a couple of fun and....yes exciting pictures taken recently. :)

that's my girl..."yaaaah hockey!"

2007-09-27T20:22:00.000-06:00

yes, you guessed it. Hockey season is upon us finally. We were lucky enough to be given tickets to the exhibition game the Avalanche played against Dallas on Tuesday the 25th. Needless to say, daddy was thrilled to be taking his child to her first game (of any kind). We had bought a 2T Avalanche cheerleader outfit before referral (hehe) and so ms. Autumn wore that and her Avs sweatshirt/jacket to the game. Since we were excited we told her that we were all going to go watch hockey. "Hockey!" she blurts out. "yes, hockey." "yaaaah hockey" she says. So it's "hockey" all the way to the Pepsi Center. We got there alittle after the game started and Autumn was excited and was looking around at everything and pointing. I told her the boys were playing hockey on the ice..."Ice!" she said. "hockey!"

and then the Avs scored....

with the crowd cheering and clapping...the horn sounding...the music blasting...you know it: Autumn got frightened. Too much stimulation...too much of everything at once. and suddenly. She started whining and and fussing and grabbing onto mom. She finally wanted over with me and I held her...her standing in my lap and her laying her head on my shoulder. She soon fell asleep...basically 'shutting down' after all that racket. About 15 minutes later she woke up and then was fine. She stayed in my lap most of the rest of the evening and clapped and cheered "yahhh" and danced/wiggled when the music played. Then next time the Avs scored she tensed up but I reassured her that it was good and she was fine. After looking around at everyone else around us and realising that mum (that's what she calls G now...no more 'mama' unless she's not feeling well) and daddy were cheering and clapping she relaxed and was fine the rest of the night. She had mum take some more photos of her and daddy. I pointed out some things and Autumn followed along.

My favourite part was during the second intermission when the zambonis were on the ice. "Car!" she says pointing to one. "no babe, that's a zamboni." I say. She attempts to try to say zamboni with no luck. I ask her "can you say 'zamboni'?" to which she inhales and stops...looking at me as if to say.."ummm no". So I told her "okay, how about just 'boni'?" "BONI!" she blurts out. Soon the zambonis were almost done. One of them starts to head off the ice and I point out to her that it was leaving. Autumn begins waving and saying "bye-bye!"...and then "bye-bye boni!". it was just adorable.

I was pretty much on Cloud 9 the rest of the night and into the following day. :)

the first time's usually scary...

2007-09-17T21:00:00.000-06:00

autumn's first real hike was beautiful if not hot for her...but....

she soon grew cranky and was ready to go cool off at the hotel pool

This is true for different things...like Autumn going on some hikes in Moab, UT (see above) which I'll cover at another time. And then there's me cooking something new.

So a week ago Sunday, I made a small serving of my carefully researched, but inevitably "thrown-together" version of Ma La Huo Guo. otherwise known as "numb and spicy fire pot"...or just hot pot for us commoners. I wanted to craft something that could possibly represent the ChongQing version even though we passed on trying it while we were actually in ChongQing City.

I am happy to say that I think I was relatively successful. G was totally into it and commented that it was very good! It was hot/spicy...and I found out first-hand about the "numbing" effect of the Sichuan peppercorn. It is quite a sensation to have a wonderful taste in your mouth layered by a"hot, spicy" feeling on your tongue then suddenly feeling part of your lips begin to tingle and 'numb'. as Keanu would say: "whoa"
So Saturday I'm making a larger portion and will try it out on some unsuspecting guests...(just kidding those who are attending hehe) when we gather to observe the Mid-Autumn Festival. (which is technically the 25th but since that's a Tuesday...)

lots of things going on which I'll try to cover another time, but I have to say we have had "Elmo's Potty Time" DVD playing every day after we all get home for the past two weeks. You see, ms. Autumn is..yep you guessed it...working on those potty skills. We've had one successful attempt and lots of "just went right before getting to the potty" and "just went right after being on the potty" happenings. The idea and concept is there...it's just the timing she's got to work out. In her own time of course. We learned that from Elmo. okay...we knew that already, but somehow it's more fun hearing that from a little furry red monster than reading it from a book. :)

Happy 2nd Spicy-Girl!

2007-09-04T20:57:00.001-06:00

daddy's portrait studio-esque photo

is this how I'm supposed to do it mama?

daddy gives his chicky her own 'board'

present determination

Here it is, end of the day...September 4th, 2007. Ms. Autumn Rose ChunLan's 2nd Birthday. It's her first with us obviously, and I think we did alright celebrating it with her. We didn't do anything extravagant or "over-the-top", but rather had AR's one set of grandparents as well as her Aunt 'TeeCee" over for supper, present un-wrapping, and cake. Everything went wonderfully (except for our poor rendition of HappyBirthday of course haha!) and Autumn really got into the celebration after her usual 'I'm just going to examine and think about this first before I do anything' approach.

She received very nice gifts from both sets of grandparents, her aunt, and her mama and daddy. I loved the fact that my sister got her a stuffed Brutus (Ohio State Buckeyes Mascot) to go along with the Buckeye outfit she had gotten her for Christmas after we returned home with her. Autumn loved the R/C school bus from G's dad and step-mom and greatly loved the Target gift card that my parents sent (along with lots of other stuff) since she is such a girlie-girl shopper chick. :)

Autumn wasn't sure about the ice-cream cake...whether it was too sweet or just because she's "watching her girlish figure" but over all the little party was a hit and she was very happy and excited. Now we know that her first real Christmas with us is going to be amazing. We can't wait!

Happy 2nd Birthday Autumn!

RockStar: Autumn Rose

2007-08-24T21:13:00.000-06:00

This is the title G has been throwing around lately. why? well, as you can see by the photos, ms. Autumn Rose is a little rocker chick. She loves rock and roll! (well she loves most types of music too). I got 'Guitar Hero II' a couple of months ago and Autumn really loves when I or mama and I play it. However, she only had a Backyardigans guitar which really didn't look or sound anything like what mama and daddy had going on. Sooooooooo thank you Target for having the really cool looking $10 guitar. Now, Autumn will get excited and start yelling "tar! tar! tar!" and run and grab hers. Then she'll point to the TV (WeeTee as she says...don't ask...maybe it's toddler Mandarin? hehe) and look at me to get the game going. She loves to rock out. she moves back and forth, from foot to foot and when we say "rock n roll Autumn!!!" she sticks a hand out and does the rock n roll sign...well with her thumb and pointer out as she still hasn't mastered keeping her little finger out there too. It's so adorable though. I've told people at my work who get a kick out of it...but I said, it's all good, but when she gets older there will be no drugs and no flashing at concerts! LOL but then what am I thinking!? she'll be the one up on stage playing 'tar and kicking ass. ;)

what does mama think? well she loves it and just cracks up every time. Mama already says that AR's going to end up being an "engineer/architect/model/rocker-chick" oh, and add 'heartbreaker' to that as we found out that the one new little boy in her daycare class is like totally gaga over her. The one woman who oversees the class says that this boy's mom said in a follow-up meeting recently (they have one not long after the child's first day) that her son was "talking about Autumn" alot. I'm sooooo going to have my hands full when she gets older.... oy!

Daddy's awesome photos...

2007-08-11T12:05:00.000-06:00

These are some recent photos that Daddy has done.
It doesn't hurt that AR is so darn photogenic!

AR's first real outing...and AR being AR

2007-07-13T21:29:00.000-06:00

so we had a family get together this past weekend up at Snow Mt. Ranch, which is just north of Winter Park. It's a lovely area, although this year the pine beetle infestation has done considerable damage to the trees.....which is very sad. Anyways, we all got together there to have a couple of days of fun and "getting away from it all" times. This was Autumn's first real outing. We've been planning on getting out and doing some hiking or things like that, but there's always been something else going on or we just never got around to doing it.
Autumn was awesome. She had some trouble getting to sleep, but she's been like that here at home for the past couple of weeks. Otherwise, she did really well and just had a blast at whatever we were doing. And of course, she loved being the centre of attention! We all took turns at a climbing wall inside of one of the facilities. I myself gave it a go even though I'm acrophobic. Autumn really wanted to do what we were doing so we let her "climb" (i.e. hold onto) some of the rocks/footings. We went canoeing (AR stayed on shore however) and then Mama, Daddy, and AR waded around in the water. In general we just had a great time and it was wonderful to see Autumn take to everything as well as she did. She was even great in the car ride up and back (appx 1 hour and a half from home).

We decided that in the next weekend or so we're heading up into Rocky Mt. National Park to shoot some wildflowers and of course lots of photos of ms. Autumn. :)

I put a slide-show together and the 2nd 'half' of the photos are Autumn being...well...Autumn. She is a silly spicy-girl.

and why couldn't the time have gone by this quick when we were waiting?!

2007-07-05T20:37:00.000-06:00

december 12th 2006 - day after 'Gotcha Day'

June 2nd 2007

so our SW called this evening to set up our 6 month interview. yes it's been 6 months since we've been home with AR. well, June 24th was technically 6 months, but who's counting....

so this time it's the interview where our SW sees how everything's gone since the last meeting and we get to submit photos to her. she gets to write up a report and send it along with the photos to the CCAA so they can see how Wan Chun Lan has blossomed into Autumn Rose ChunLan...a very beautiful and adorable, outgoing, very loved, and VERY spicy girl from WanZhou District, ChongQing happily living with her family in Colorado. :)
it is hard to believe it's been 6 months since we returned home with her. and in two months from yesterday she'll turn 2 years old! I'm already trying to get her to respond with "two!" when asked how old she'll be.

speaking of speaking...

she's definitely gained a bit of ground on the vocabulary front. she's learned to say 'thank you!' when she's given something although right now it's more of a "dang you" which in itself makes me chuckle. she just today while we were picking her up at day-care and chatting with her teacher pointed toward the door and said "home!" which caught me off guard a bit so when I asked her if she had just said 'home' she got this big grin on her face and giggled in satisfaction of knowing I understood what she said. she does that when she says something and we repeat it and know what she said. it's soooooooo cute. :) she's picking up a few more words and has on occasion said "no more" and "more wa-er" or "more tea".
of course along with that she's also decided she'd try going downstairs on her own and also reach up and grab stuff off of the counters in the bathroom and kitchen. which kind of scarily means she's grown tall enough to do that. sooo mama and daddy have to start watching out for that and taking care not to leave stuff towards the edges of the counters and tables.

finally for this post, my most favourite (even though i know it's not necessarily good) thing AR has been doing as of late. she started doing this with us a few weeks ago and just recently did it at day-care. when she's done something she shouldn't have done or is about to do something she shouldn't do and we call her on it...she'll tilt her head to one side and smile the biggest cutest smile she has as if to say..."i can't be in trouble...i'm too cute!!!" of course she does this mostly with me more than mama...and she definitely doesn't get away with it, but it's incredibly adorable when she does it and let's face it; the spicy girl definitely knows how to work it already.

the flower girl blossoms alittle bit more...

2007-06-20T21:02:00.000-06:00

this is how they PPPBBBRRRTTT in ChongQing

'sketti' meditation

Autumn Rose ChunLan (spring orchid) is definitely a 'flower girl'. well, she's definitely a ChongQing 'Spicy Girl' first and foremost (mom and dad experience this everyday...hehe), but she loves flowers and is a total girlie-girl. This past weekend the flower girlie blossomed alittle more.
Over this past weekend, my parents came to visit. It was only the second time since we've been home that they've been up to spend time with her. We hung out around the house, went shopping, went to our agency's reunion/picnic, went out more, she spent time with both sets of grandparents and her aunt...it was a very "packed" time for ms. Autumn.
We watched as she became more and more interactive with my parents. We watched and listened as she said more words, put together some words, and being more animated as she spoke them. G said to me Tuesday morning as we drove in to work and dropping AR off at daycare..."it kind of makes me sad to take her back to daycare because it seems she progressed more in 4 or 5 days than she has in months." Obviously having everyone around, talking, and interacting with her had alot to do with that. But G had a point.

My favourite words/moments were these:
...as I'm putting her shoes on one evening, a Wendy's commercial comes on the t.v. and "triple cheeseburger" is spoken by the narrator. Autumn already can say 'cheese' (she loves eating the pull apart cheese) but all of a sudden she says "cheese burbur". I repeat to her 'cheeseburger' and "burbur" is said back to me. We repeat this a few more times. "Burbur" it is. :)
...we're all having a dinner together; both sets of grandparents and some other relatives, when AR reaches for a bottle of green tea I've set just out of reach. She gets into the whole "whine" and reach thing. I look at her and ask her to please say what she wants. After giggling she finally leans forward to me with a smile and a soft voice "teeeeaaaa" like it was a secret password.
...G and I both have iPods, but have never messed with them in front of Autumn. my sister brings hers one day and is showing us photos she has on it. Autumn reaches for it and my sister allows her to hold it. Next thing we all know she's sitting there using the 'dial' as if she's done it a few times before and going through all the pictures, stopping to go "ohhhh" and "oooo" and the occasional "dog!" when she's on a photo of my sister's dog. Then of course she has learned to say the dog's name which she easily offers up to us as well. My dad was in disbelief as he sat and watched.
...wondering if she'd be scared by the performance of the Lion Dance at our agency's reunion, I was relieved and amazed by her jumping up and down and dancing during the entire thing. My sister got her just about front row for it and while some of the other little girls (and boys) cried and got scared as the Dragon and Lion came close to them, Autumn just ate it up and enjoyed it. She still almost a week later will see pictures I took of the Lion Dance and wiggle and want the drums and gongs to be playing. :)

we sat the other day and realised that in just alittle over two months she'll turn 2 years old. I can't wait until we take her in for her check-up and see how much she's grown taller and how much she weighs because she definitely seems like she's grown alot from the little chicky we brought home 6 months ago. I can't wait to see how much she grows emotionally and developmentally as a 2yr old...knowing her, both of us will be on our toes and trying to keep up with her like we have been the past few months. We both are just enjoying her so much.

family time

2007-06-12T21:00:00.000-06:00

lemme outta here daddy I've got flowers to take care of!

There's nothing more exciting when family gets together (for good or bad). My parents are on their way up to visit and we'll have, for only the second time since we got back with AR, both sets of grandparents together with their granddaughter. The last time my parents were here was late January so Autumn was only with us over a month and still not 100% sure what was going on, barely walking, and barely doing a whole lot except being really cute.
I've "warned" my parents that Autumn is definitely not the same little girl that they remember seeing and is totally into toddlerdom it's not funny. Of course they're incredibly excited to spend time with her and throw in our agency's National Reunion Picnic, etc...it should make for a wonderful time.
I can't wait myself actually. and I plan on taking lots of photos. :)

'Gotcha!' a video by td

2007-06-09T08:12:00.000-06:00

I put this together partly as a look back from Gotcha Day to recently, but also I submitted it to our agency to post on their website as part as their 'Red Thread' page. There, families who are currently in the long long wait can view videos submitted by recently returned families in the hopes that seeing the 'pot of gold at the end of the rainbow' will help ease the pain and frustration of the wait time until referral.

I used Vegas 5.0 and Pro-Tools M 7.3 to put it together. I wrote the music specifically for this project and for Autumn because I felt the need to try my hand at a somewhat traditional sound.

I hope you all enjoy....and to all our travel-mates: Happy 6 Month Gotcha Day!
td

almost 6 months

2007-06-01T20:16:00.000-06:00

so it's just about 10 days until June 11th.

so what's so special about that day? well for our Travel Group...it'll mean 6 months...6 MONTHS since our Gotcha Day! it is alittle bit hard to believe. all the time that it took for us all to get to the moment we received our referrals...and the moments leading up to that big day...and now it's almost been 6 months since that day. I'll write more when the time comes, but as we enter June I can't help but pause and recognise just that simple impending date. and...in two weeks our agency has their National Reunion. We'll be attending of course with (happily to say) both sets of grandparents in tow. Our rep/guide from ChongQing, Marie, will be there and we're both more than excited and anxious to see her and let her see how much Autumn has grown physically and emotionally. Lots of photos to be had at that event for sure.

one other observation of note is that Autumn has figured out the whole going outside and going inside thing to the point where she can tell us when she'd like to go in or out depending on if she's in or out. the funny thing is...you'd think she would have learned to point and say "in" or "out"...but instead it's "ide". as in "ins-ide" or "outs-ide". Seems alittle weird but then again she is our daughter....hehehe. So "ide" now goes on the official "List of words Autumn can say (or partially say) when she feels like it". Only words that go on the list are those in which she knows that they mean what they mean and we understand that she means what she says when she says them. ;)

the Chocolate Pudding Chronicles pt 1

2007-06-01T20:09:00.000-06:00

so I suppose you figured out at least that the two main ingredients to this story is Autumn and Chocolate Pudding.

AR's been messy before with her food obviously, but the other night she decided that after originally not liking the chocolate pudding...she might just try it a different way. Once she got started...and kept going...G and I both started cracking up big time and I just had to run and grab my camera. Click on the pic to see the collage better...

toddlerdom and how it's never too late to learn.

2007-05-23T20:16:00.000-06:00

'bubble-girlie' (i submitted this pic in a PC Photo contest...)

flower girl

happy Autumn!

going out to play

crouching daddy...not so hidden 'dragon'...

well it's been alittle while since I last wrote. shame on me. but I have an excuse...kind of. things have been alittle weird around here and busy. mostly it's been G and I learning how to do things we want to (and need to) around ms. Autumn's schedule. you know; by the time we all get home and have dinner, there's only a couple of hours to spend with AR before it's 'sleepy-time'.

I've found it more of a challenge than I thought in trying to fit in time to work on home-type things along with working on music...and not to forget keeping up with the photography side of things. Bedtime is typically between 8-8:30pm and after that is when G and I end up doing those things we need to or want to do. Some where in there we also try to have "us-time". We're both working this whole concept out. Autumn really does take centre stage in both our lives.

and that brings me to the little chicky-la-la herself. at 20months I observed that she has reached that level of toddlerdom that marks the beginning of when us first time parents (at no matter what age) realise that we must admit one thing: that regardless of what we believed...our parents WERE right and now the tables have turned against us. We are no longer the instigators and conspirators...we have become our parents in this chess match and that little pawn moving square by square closer to us isn't as sweet and innocent as she/he looks. Now begins the time we test our mettle and learn how to keep all those millions of frayed nerves from completely jumping out of our bodies. But...it's also a very incredibly fun time.

Some of the things I'm slowly learning:

teething really does suck. not only for the child but for the parents who get the full force of that little storm. luckily it does pass fairly quickly....until the next round.

"No!" no matter how cute the word sounds coming from your child...is still "no" and they mean it.

the phrase "be careful what you wish for..." has siblings such as "be careful what you say..." "be careful how you act in public" "be careful to remember those bob and weave boxing moves when your child gets tired/hungry and cranky and decides that pinching and hitting is actually quite humourous..." and my fave..."be aware of where your camera and/or camcorder is at all times so you can capture that really fun stuff that happens like your child being a total goofball or throwing a full-on classic toddler temper-tantrum.." Oh, and one other thing is...forget actual 'vacation days' you're allowed from work. those days are really mostly reserved for your child's needs. whether it's because they're not feeling well or whatever...you're not really going to get alot of vacation use from those vacation days.

I wouldn't trade any of this in for anything though. Just one look at my daughter reminds me of that.

action-packed week of whoa...

2007-05-04T21:15:00.000-06:00

this ref sucks...

all you ever do is talk talk...

So things were just going and going this past week. First, we took AR to the Zoo on Sunday morning. We got there alittle bit after they opened (yup, it was still pretty crowded), and Autumn did great. She pretty much stayed in the stroller snacking and drinking water and looking at the animals. She loved it. After awhile it started getting hot and she started getting a little cranky. Then she started getting tired and rubbing her eyes...well which then got sunscreen in them. That's when the crying started and we ended up heading home. We didn't get many photos of her at the zoo since she stayed in the stroller. It was great fun though for the most part and we did end up spending some time outside later on that day. Monday morning I left for N.C. for a training at a company that deals (i.e. makes) fibre optic cables and pieces parts that go with it. Mom and AR had a good time...Autumn said a big 'ol "mommy" for Mommy on Tuesday...she started trying to say "car" as in "let's get in the car and go...time to go in the car...". Oh, and yes she did miss her daddy and gave me a big ol hug and kiss when I got home Wednesday night. She definitely is trying to say more words now. She's learned how to say "no"...mostly "nah" with a head shake but she has the concept figured out. Thursday and today both she was very matter-of-fact with trying to say some things. She's getting so close to busting out with a bigger vocabulary...

The one thing that is totally cracking me up but at the same time amazing me and mommy is that Autumn loves...LOVES...i mean LOVES tea. G gets the 24oz bottles of green tea and white tea and Autumn just is addicted to it. G let her have a sip one time a week or so ago and she loved it. Now when she sees mommy with a bottle of it she wants it. The funny thing is that she has now mastered the art of grabbing the bottle with one hand...but usually she used two...tilts the bottle up and starts drinking like we do. She'll then try putting the cap back on...then take it off and drink some more. She hasn't quite got the screwing the cap on and off thing figured out but I'm sure that will come soon.

till next time...

adjusting, hair-dos, and all animals go "grrrrrrrr"

2007-04-26T20:30:00.000-06:00

well, ms Autumn seems to be adjusting quite well. the most noticable being at day-care. She's gone from crying and wailing all the while we are handing her off to one of the girls who works with the toddler room to smiling at said girl as we hand her over and then turning around to say "bye bye" and waving and blowing kisses to us. It's nice. We started spending a few minutes in the toddler room with her playing and relaxing after the drive from home. Autumn likes that we do that and so by the time we walk over to the gym where everyone meets and starts the day, she's in a calm happy mood. She seems to be over the little hurdle at day care as well. The girls tell us that she's not needed to be held much at all lately and is happy to go play on her own or with some of the other kids in her room. She particularly seems cool with one of the girls who just happens to be adopted from Nepal. Ella Diki is her name and she seems to like Autumn as well. When we go to pick up Autumn...ms Ella Diki and ms Autumn Rose ChunLan exchange waves and "bye bye!" with each other.

Her hair is getting long enough now to do alittle something with. This is not lost on the girls at daycare who have a few times had "hair-do" times with the kids. (okay so there are two boys in the room who obviously don't get this treatment. hehe) Autumn is even more adorable with two little pigtails...one on either side of her head. Of course we all can't wait until it get longer and we can really get it under control and actually do something with it.

Finally I must say that we're taking Autumn to the Denver Zoo for the first time this coming Sunday morning. This will be fun if not interesting because she's only really seen in person dogs and cats. Because we have two dogs, Autumn has picked up on the fact that dogs bark (which she tries to imitate) and dogs go "grrrrrr". She pretty much will go "grrrrr" when she sees the dogs, a picture of a dog, or someone mentions the word 'dog' to her. We've also discovered that currently in Autumn's world, all animals make the "grrrr" sound. Something I demonstrated to our social worker the other evening when she paid one of her visits...and which totally cracked her up. Horses, ducks, and cows all go "grrrr" Of course Autumn's never seen a horse, duck, or cow except in pictures and books. The zoo will be fun. We anticipate (and will be videotaping it) that Autumn will go "grrrrr" to every animal we see. I can't wait. Plus it'll be another great opportunity for dad to take lots of pictures. :)

and i think to myself...

2007-04-20T21:00:00.000-06:00

So here I sit on a Friday night...Autumn's in bed...wife's working on something on her notebook...and I'm giving my brain and ProTools a small rest.

This has been needless to say an interesting if not sad week. First of all, as everyone knows, someone lost their conscience and their soul...needlessly taking the lives of many people including himself. I'm not going to get all philisophical and preachy here, but the thing that is the most striking about this particular incident is that it really is, at the core, no different than many past senseless acts carried out by individuals who's background and lives kind of mirror each other.

Today was the observance of the eight year since Columbine. The OKC bombing was observed yesterday the 19th. The Waco tragedy happened in April several several years ago. April it seems, has not been a good month for the human race lately. In fact the most freaky, shocking, and unimaginable thing I discovered this week in conjunction with the VT shootings was that there was a girl there...in a building not far from the second more devastating group of shootings, that was a freshman at Columbine H.S. and fled the cafeteria but not moments before Harris and Klebold arrived and continued their murders. I can not imagine the horror and disbelief this young woman must have felt that day...having something so horrible as Columbine happen to her again eight years later. Granted, she was not immediately in harm's way, but the very fact that she was there and had to face the emotions and fears as she did that day in 1999...I just can't begin to imagine.

We all probably have at sometime wondered what kind of world we are raising our children in...looking at their sweet innocent faces wondering what the future holds and hoping like hell that they never have to go through anything remotely like that. But then as the article about this girl continued to state...she inevitably turned to her fellow students and helped them work through their fears and emotions, drawing on her experiences and maturity since that day at Columbine. It's at this point that one realises that regardless of the evil things that happen...hope, love, family, and friendship will always prevail and go on.

Easter Autumn

2007-04-10T21:45:00.001-06:00

Autumn being, well...Autumn.

2007-04-10T21:05:00.000-06:00

So my daughter is a goofball (when she's in a good mood that is) and I love her to death. Her personality couldn't be more like ours and it's just scary that she was perfectly matched to us by someone in China from the CCAA who doesn't know us from Tan, Dang, or Chou (Tom, Dick, or Harry for us yanks). She's more than changed our lives for the better. She definitely is a spicy girl in all sense from what we've read and heard about CQ girls. Yeah, I know she's only 19months but she's already tall, gorgeous, and we can't forget strong-willed and outspoken (even though she's only saying a few words so far). She definitely lets us -and everyone else if we're in public, know how she feels. She never ceases to amaze me how sweet she can be though...giving us hugs, kisses, and waving and saying hi and bye to everyone...including everyone at day-care. I am so totally looking forward to seeing how she develops and grows. I feel that there will be nothing she can't accomplish if she wants, but I also sense that she definitely has a path to follow with two very loving (and blessed) parents along for the ride.

hey dad, come on in and change my diapie k?!

oh, so I have to come get you is that it?

she's definitely got musical genes (which makes her musician father happy!). Here she shows off that she's already a pro and handling a microphone.

AR 'pic 'O the day' 3/30/07

2007-03-30T21:35:00.000-06:00

look into my eyes...

now that her right eye has been getting better....

refocusing

2007-03-29T20:35:00.000-06:00

I've decided to end my website. tgredthread.com will be no more. sad I know, but I've not really had time to devote to it's upkeep. I've not had alot of time for updating here much as you've noticed haha. Anyway, I ended my terms with the hosting company which has been awesome and I told them so when I wrote to cancel the account. :) Everything will go through here now so I guess that's better and I can focus more on doing things here.

As far as me and AR's health, we're both much better. I've been eating normal food now for the past couple of days and feel much more like myself, and Autumn's eye is wayyyy much better and she's obviously feeling better because she's been eating better and has been acting like her normal silly and fun self! yah!!!!

and then on top of everything else...

2007-03-24T21:03:00.000-06:00

First of all, apologies for not posting in awhile.

Secondly, there is an explanation for this...and of course the header of this post will make a bit more sense.

As posted previously, Autumn has had an eye infection (now for about three weeks) and it was initially diagnosed as periorbital cellulitis. During this time, and after four visits to the pediatrician later, it was suggested that the bumps that formed around the eye might be herpes (type 1) blisters...or for lack of a better description..."cold sores". Cold sores are basically caused by herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 1. Type 2 is the STD version. So on the forth visit to the pediatrician, it was strongly suggested that we get her into a pediatric opthamologist as soon as possible. This day would be Tuesday the 20th as it was that morning I had gotten her scheduled (barely) to see the P.O. which happens to be on the other side of town from us. I took that day off to take her in. That morning I woke up feeling a bit off...had some 'intestinal' issues and at one point felt alittle nauseaus...but I felt okay enough I thought to get going. Basically by the time I got down to the PO's office and checked in, I felt horrible. I called G at work and told her she needed to come down to the doctor's office because I didn't know if I was going to be able to manage Autumn or the rest of the appointment.

Good thing I did and good thing she left work and came down because within about 15 minutes I was in bad shape. I was throwing up, etc, and by the time G arrived I had gotten me and AR to the reception area and I ended up on the floor throwing up and short of breath to the point of where I started hyperventilating. Long story short, I ended up being taken from the doctor's office by EMTs and to the ER of the hospital which luckily was the next building over. I was released Thursday early afternoon. I apparently got hit by a nasty nasty intestinal virus or bacteria...the docs didn't know exactly which honestly...and basically my electrolytes, phosphates, and other related "levels" had bottomed out. I'm luckily feeling lots better now, but can't eat anything but bland food for almost a week.

Autumn did so wonderfully though. She didn't fuss and sat fairly quietly next to me the whole time at the doctor's office while I was 'being sick' until G arrived. She did well in the ER while they were there with me as well. The next day they both visited me in the hospital which made me feel really good.

So...Autumn had contracted Herpes Simplex Eye Disease. What was found was that she had two "cold sores" on the cornea of her eye, scarring of the cornea, and a mild ulceration. Luckily...very luckily, the antiviral eye drops and the oral antibiotics started kicking HSV ass and Thursday's follow up appointment proved to be positive. She got taken off the antiviral eye drops and her oral medicine increased in dosage. She has an ointment now that goes in her eye as such to coat it and the P.O. says that after she's done with the pre-requisite days of medicine they'll put her on a steroidal eye drop which will heal up the corneal scarring. Her eye looks incredibly much better in just the short time since Tuesday's appointment. And there will be no eye surgery or anything more dramatic involved...which I had worried about. WHEW!

So this last week has been a weird and trying week. But we got through it. The two last things I have to say about this last week is that one, G was amazing at how she handled everything and how she was able to single handedly administer eye drops and such to AR. She went into super-mom and super-wife mode and had everything handled...even this past couple of days since I've been home since I'm still recovering to an extent.

And finally, and as I suspected, there's probably not a greater feeling in the world than to have your little girl see you after essentially being away for two and a half days and come to you with a big smile on her face. Picking her up and having her give you a big long hug all the while going "mmmhhh....mmmhhh....mmmhhh..." because she missed you terribly. And yes, I got alittle verklempt. :)

just let it Slide...

2007-03-13T21:42:00.000-06:00

I saw Slide on one of our group travelmate's blog sites and thought it was awesome. So...thank you Lisa for your use of Slide in that I discovered it. :)

AR is feeling much better...this morning not so much, but this afternoon and tonight she was "chatting" away and being her usual fun and silly self. I take her to the pediatrician tomorrow afternoon to re-check her eye and everything...and if all is okay, get her IPV for 18months. good times.

I'll write more tomorrow! :)

2007-03-13T21:40:00.000-06:00

update 3/7

2007-03-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

Autumn's 'eye infection' is (as I forgot to mention yesterday) actually periorbital cellulitis. She has a somewhat mild form...which probably is because we happened to have her at the doctor soon enough. The doctor seems to feel that she'll be fine with just going through her antibiotic cocktail. We have to keep a check on her eye though because if it gets worse it's definitely not a good thing.

Basically this is a bacterial infection of the tissue around the eye. The doctor seems to think it's related to the ear infection which happens to be in the ear on the same side of the infected eye. At this point it's treatable with the Rx and most like won't spread. Untreated however, she could have been at greater risk for it becoming orbital cellulitis which affects the eye itself, the socket, etc. This would've meant some time in the hospital. I have to say that we're definitely relieved that it's not too bad and in fact AR's eye was looking much better this evening. whew. definitely won't let things like that go anymore. We could have easily dismissed it as a bug bite or some type of irritation that she was making worse by rubbing...and the fever attributed to her teething. Had things not gone the way they did it could've been worse.
But...this is how new parents learn things. And so far it's working out okay. AR was already starting to act alittle more like her usual self tonight...and that's definitely a great sign. :)

file this under "well that really sucks".

2007-03-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

so much for our 18month check-up. I guess I should start with Saturday morning when Autumn wakes up. we noticed that her right eye was red and the upper lid was a little swollen. Obviously the first thing we thought was 'pinkeye' since she's had a bit of a head cold for about two weeks now. I had took her to the doctor last Tuesday where her temp was normal and her pulse-ox right on target. We were told to just keep an eye out for her congestion if it worsens or her temp got high and stayed there. She's had a low grade fever/temp off and on which we all (including the day-care girls) attributed to teething since she is getting both upper incisors coming in simultaneously. well, one's grown in a bit more than the other but they're both through the gums. ouch.

So the eye thing wasn't pinkeye. we thought maybe something got in her eye and was irritating it. we flushed it. nothing. Monday it seemed alittle worse but then seemed to clear up a bit that afternoon. Today, Autumn didn't want to really wake up this morning and didn't drink her milk/breakfast like she had been doing. I got a call from the day-care later this morning saying she wasn't feeling good at all and was wanting to sleep alot. Well, luckily we had the appointment already for the afternoon.

Turns out our ms. Autumn has a mild ear infection and an eye infection to boot. So she's on a mix of Amoxicillin and some other drug for the next ten days. yeah.

So we'll try the exam and IPV shots next Thursday apparently.

At least we know some fun stats though. 'skinny-butt' as I've taken to calling her lately is now 20 lbs and 31- 1/2 inches tall. seriously...she has this tiny skinny little butt and long skinny legs. it's so cute.

A Year and a Half

2007-03-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

today March 4th, Autumn is officially 18months old...a year and a half. wow. what's even more hard to believe is that next Sunday will be three months since we got her.

AR has been walking around full time for a few weeks now and has on occasion shown little bursts of speed in her walking. She got a big kick (with lots of giggles) in power walking away from mom and/or dad in Target yesterday while we were shopping. At first she didn't want to be put down...she's always rode in the cart or was carried by myself or mom, but soon she was enjoying the fact that she could walk and check stuff out like a big girl. This was fine since she was constantly holding onto one of our hands. Then of course the toddler instinct kicked in and soon one of us would have to grab her as she giggled and sped away from our cart and our hands. Independance is a powerful drug to a toddler. No harm done though as mom and dad, ever-watchful, loved every moment of her excitement in getting to walk around while we kept her close and out of trouble.

She's doing well with day-care...the girls are great there and there are other little friends for her to interact with. They say she's doing pretty well mostly...she of course has moments where she needs to be close by one of the girls, and she still cries when we drop her off. It's just alittle seperation anxiety that is normal and to be expected this early on. They say she calms right down. and she definitely loves seeing mom and dad come pick her up in the afternoons. There's been no "backlash" at home as she loves and eats up every moment with mom and dad by playing, sitting in our laps, and/or just hanging out with us. We even got our first drawing to put up on our refridgerator last Wednesday! (okay it was lots of lines and scribbles but she used many many different colours and seemed to have really worked at it.) I was very impressed and proud.

Autumn's come a long way in the short time she's been with us. Many people have commented to us that she acts like she's been with us the whole time. She's amazed me and continues to amaze me with her personality and her ability to adapt to things. Any way I look at it, whether it's behind that furrowed brow..."that look" she has, whether it's behind those sad crying eyes when things don't go well or her teeth are bothering her, or whether it's behind the goofy playful nature...there's a girl who's got alot of love and dreams to share and she knows that we're mom and dad and we're here to share it all with her. And I don't think I could have asked for the more perfect child for us.

next up...Tuesday the 6th: the 18month check-up and shots! also; some more random photos

AR pic 'O the day 2.23.2007

2007-02-23T17:52:00.000-07:00

come closer dad and I'll bean ya!

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

2007-02-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

look guys...no hands!

all dressed up with somewhere to go!

whoa!

Today is the Lunar New Year, more commonly known as Chinese New Year. This year is the Year of the Boar. There are many traditions involved with CNY, and we will definitely become more "into" them as Autumn gets older. This year we observed it in a minimal way.

Yesterday we went to the Colorado Asian-Pacific Spring Festival (Spring Festival and CNY are synonymous). We saw some performances and some crafts being displayed. It was a fun time. We had to leave before the Dragon Dance (I was bummed) however since it was getting late in the afternoon and ms. Autumn hadn't had her nap yet so she was getting cranky and squirmy.

Where we were sitting in the auditorium wasn't real close and so I didn't get great photos, so I used PhotoShop and made them "artistic". hehe Enjoy! Next year we should have a more meaningful celebration as (hopefully) Autumn will be talking some and might understand alittle bit of what the New Year/Spring Festival is all about.

AR pic 'O the day 2.15.07

2007-02-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

"you know I'm gonna throw this at you, right Dad?!"

go figure. part2

2007-02-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

umm I think I did an original 'go figure' post some time back...i don't remember, i don't recall, i have no memory of anything at all. (seems like it sometimes LOL)

so we received more snow today yipee! (sarcasm) I think we were real close to seeing some of our yard but now we will have to wait and see how it goes this weekend as it's supposed to be warmer.
I think I'm pretty much done with winter now. I mean, I don't mind snow and grew up with winters like we've had here or worse, but I guess I got spoiled by the fact that since I've been here in Colorado it has snowed and then melted away within a day or two typically.

well things have gotten a bit better on the daycare front. Autumn on this third day of daycare actually ate breakfast there (pancakes even!) and lunch (corndogs) and had an hour long nap. She hadn't napped the other two days...well she'd sleep for like 20 minutes or so, but to actually lay down and nap for that long was good. She was in a good mood, didn't cling to the one girl all day long, actually walked around on her own away from the girls and played, and danced (read: wiggled and waved arms) to the music they played. The girls said AR had a really good afternoon and was happy that she seemed alittle more 'comfortable' there. of course mom and dad were very happy to hear that (and proud to see the progress already). I figured something was up when we got there to pick her up. She's cried when she sees us...reaching out her arms for us; well, mainly mom, and then when mom holds her she sobs a bit, etc. This day however, when mom got hold of her, she smiled and was quiet and even reach over to have me hold her. She gave us both kisses and even waved bye-bye to the girls as we got ready to leave. Go figure.
It's nice to see Autumn slowly coming around and adjusting. I know, it's only been three days, but when mom and dad have been alittle unsure and worried, it's good to see her progess.

baba's back to work bash and boy oh boy daycare...

2007-02-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

so today was my first day back to work since before we left for China. I can't say that I wasn't kind of glad to be getting back to more normalacy in my life, but there was a bit of a moment where I was sad that our time off had come and gone already. Everyone was very glad I was back...especially my customers who emphatically welcomed me back and told me how glad they were. and while they meant no offense to those co-workers of mine who covered for me, they were glad that they were finally getting to have things back to normal. I now have a plethora of photos on my desk to show off. ("do you know what a plethora is?"..."ummmm no El Guapo." - I love that movie) So besides figuring out what was going on and catching up on things at work, hearing how glad everyone was I was back, I repeatedly heard from everyone how incredibly cute/adorable/sweet AR is. I was very flattered. AR on the other hand would have said..."why yes I am thank you so much!" LOL I only say that because she definitely knows how to use her cuteness with us and family to her advantage. :)

Speaking of, ms Cuteness had her first day in daycare. All in all things went okay. She didn't eat tooooo much and didn't really drink much water (which she downed once she was home though). She had trouble napping and what little bit of nap time she had was broken up throughout the day apparently. the two women who oversee the kiddos said she did pretty well considering...she was alittle 'clingy' but they figured she would be with it being her first day and also taking into consideration she's only been with us for two months. She checked out and played with most of the toys and kids, but preferred sitting in the laps of the girls and such. So not much to worry about for this first day. Everyone agreed that she'll warm up to things just fine and probably fairly quickly. She definitely was a happy girl this evening and took turns walking/lunging/crawling between mom and dad on the floor and playing with her toys while listening to Radiohead. She seems to have great taste in music. hehe ;)

the end is near

2007-02-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

driving ms. Autumn

okay, you do realise I'm gonna throw this at you, right dad?!

"behind-the-scenes" while someone else is taking a photo.

argh. I have only four more days and then it's back to work for me. G went back this past Monday the 5th, and I go back on the 12th. It's alittle hard to believe that the time we've had home with ms. Autumn Rose is done/almost done. We're glad that we took the time away from work to be home with her as it has really helped her to adjust and feel comfortable with us, her two canine sisters, and her house. I think in a way though that we're ready for this next step. AR will go into day-care at a nice little place (church) just about a block away from where we both work (G's place of work is up the road from mine) where she can have several little friends (a couple of whom we found out are adopted as well...one from China the other from Nepal), learn to socialise more, and reach a balance between her self and her need for mom and dad to be there 24/7. It will be a healthy thing for her...and a good thing for us as well seeing as how we can get back to what we know...working, interacting with our peers, etc. not to mention seeing money going back into the bank account instead of just leaving it. LOL

I've been...well I should say "we've" been (AR and myself) enjoying this week together while mom's at work. Since Autumn really attached to mom right away it's been good having time to strengthen our bonding. AR's gotten the chance to act up with her dad and see that he's perfectly capable of taking care of her as well. Not to mention she got a great pair of pink Converse high-top shoes while we were out running around on Monday. (yup, mom looked at her and then me and was like "uh huh" knowing that daddy's already into spoiling his little girl LOL)

AR "pic 'O the day" 2/5/07

2007-02-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

"dahhhling, I Am the best rattle shaker there Is don't you know..."

from 1/8/07...a Diva in the making apparently. LOL

17months old

2007-02-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

Today Feb 4th 2007 AR turned 17months old. I think back to when I first saw her referral photos...studying that serious, furrowed-brow face...realising she was 8months old at the time they were taken. I think back almost 2months ago now to our Gotcha Day and recall how she was. I also think about how things were when we finally got home with her and how she reacted to everything.

I look back at how she was this evening with friends and family over watching the Super Bowl...how she smiled and had a good time...how she enjoyed everyone's attention and loved spending time with us all.

I know 17months isn't necessarily a big deal...next month's the 'year and a half' observance; but all thing's considered...especially how well she's just about "caught up" developmentally to her age in just a few weeks, I just have to say:

You've come a long way, baby! :) G and I have truly been blessed.

pic 'O the day

2007-02-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

"it's not working mom because all I'm getting is gibberish"

I thought sporadically I'd post an AR "pick 'O the day". I've found that I'm taking more photos of her and why not because she's my cute adorable beautiful little baby. (adjectives provided by a 6yr old adopted girl from Nanjing we know)

more snow and cold...AR does some neat stuff...and one of the more not so good days we've had

2007-02-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

so yeah, more snow yesterday (thursday) and bitter cold throughout today and into tomorrow.

we're soooo ready for spring-time. Phil the Groundhog didn't see his shadow today...which is funny because he always does since they shine so many lights on him when they do their little hoopla. I figure everyone's been tired of this wacky winter we've had so far around the country so they either turned him in such a way that he just couldn't see his shadow...or they called up Phil's cousin Guido in the Bronx to pay him a visit and discuss the whole "what will happen if we get 6 more weeks of winter" issue.

Yesterday wasn't such a good day for us however...snow and cold or not. We went to the Social Security office to apply for AR's card/number. We went to one on the other side of town because it was supposed to go faster and easier. Someone (me) forgot to bring the actual Citizen Certificate instead of the copy so we couldn't do anything. We went to the county sheriff's office to get fingerprinted in order to send that to the CBI...something which is required of us for this post-adoption petition mess. (yes I think it's a mess how they have it set up). I don't carry alot of cash with me typically and so after paying for an hour's worth of parking I didn't have hardly any money. Unbeknownst to us we needed to pay the county sheriff's office for using the fingerprint cards we were given by our agency along with the actually procedure of fingerprinting. Stupid thing was that they weren't "taking credit or debit cards at this time". The only other option was cash...which would have been great if the ATM in their lobby was working. So that was a wasted trip as well. I don't understand why the CBI can't do the fingerprinting when it's them that needs the prints in the first place. You'd think they had the ability to do this. I also would've thought it'd be even easier for them to just get ahold of the USCIS and get our fingerprints...but apparently there's this thing about the federal and state government agencies not playing nice with each other or something...who knows.

anyway...ranting and venting there. Needless-to-say...guess I'll be making another trip Monday to the Social Security office and G and I will have to work out a time to go do the fingerprints.

AR update: with alittle help and guidance from Dad, Autumn ate a third of her little bowl of chicky-schnoodle soup by herself with her spoon. I put her hand on the spoon the way she needed to hold it and held her hand and spoon and fed her for a few times. Then, Autumn decided that she wanted to try it out on her own and sure enough she did. Of course once she really figures it all out and starts wanting to feed herself...table, clothing, and flooring will all experience whatever AR is eating at the time.

Good Times....

the week ahead...

2007-01-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

so I figured I ought to do a post since I hadn't in a couple or so days.

AR is sleeping, G is checking emails and working on something for her boss (she goes back to work next Monday...), and I am taking a small break before getting back to working on a song in ProTools.

As I mentioned, G goes back to work next Monday so there are a few things we have going on this week. The biggest thing is heading over to the Social Security office and getting Autumn's Soc. Sec. number and stuff. I'm not sure how that exactly works, but we have the stuff we need and the form to submit. Hopefully we get the number (I'm sure the card is mailed) while we're there because I've got our tax return to file. That in itself is a big deal and one that I'd really like to finish sooner than later. (money money money...ain't it funny...) We also have a visit scheduled with our social worker...we're meeting some people Saturday who are getting their referral for their 2nd any day now, and another couple who are adopting their first. It will be fun to get the one couple's daughter from China together with AR. Although Autumn won't be able to like talk and stuff to her...I think she's got some similar personality traits with this girl. :)

And of course the AR update:

Autumn just today was walking around the kitchen and living room on her own. She fell a few times of course, but the one thing she hadn't done before was get up on her own...or at least get up without grabbing something to pull herself up with. Nope...today she discovered how to stand up all on her own. I have to say I had a bit of watery-ness in the eyes while I clapped and cheered her on. It was an amazing thing to watch. The look of happiness and excitement on her face as she stood up and started walking...falling...getting back up...just really made this daddy-o proud and overjoyed. Of course, on the other end of the spectrum...she's really getting more and more assured of herself, and comfortable enough with us, to push things a bit. Doing things or acting like she's going to do something she knows we don't want her to and giving us that little 'grin'. Her and mom have had some fun little moments...battle of wills if you will. Autumn definitely is a "spicy girl" and lets mom know it. Of course mom is a redhead...and we all know the thing about redheads. I try not to laugh when this happens, but it is kind of amusing. Autumn threw her first majour tantrum last night and G let her cry and scream it out. AR finally realised that the tantrum was not going to get her anywhere and stopped. All was right in the world again. Finally...I've got to remember to try and take more photos (and video of her walking). In the meantime, here's a great one from when we were in China.

Back to ProTools...until next time...

Be It Known that...

2007-01-25T20:28:00.000-07:00

"Autumn Rose ChunLan...having applied to the Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for a certificate of citizenship pursuant to Section 341 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, having proved to the satisfaction of the Director, that she is now a citizen of the United States of America, became a citizen thereof on December 21, 2006 and is now in the United States:

Now Therefore, in pursuance of the authority contained in Section 341 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, this certificate of citizenship is issued this 11th day of January 2007, and the seal of the Department of Homeland Security affixed pursuant to statute."

We received the certificate in the mail today and feel that another milestone in this remarkable journey has been reached. :)

gotta love it...

2007-01-23T23:14:00.000-07:00

here's a pic of AR in the middle of doing a little dance to some world music G had playing...

how AR got her groove back...

2007-01-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

Autumn loves to "dance".
By dancing, I mean, I hold her and bounce up and down from flat footed to tip toes. Autumn then starts waving her arm around, sometimes doing the 'raise the roof' thing with her hand, and the doing the occasional head nodding. All this of course to dance music...or something with a good groove.

Now daddy-o (me) has started something quite hilarious.
Anyone who's ever seen 'Madagascar' knows the scene where the characters come across the lemurs having their party. And anyone who's ever seen this and remembers it knows the song. "I like to move it move it..." This song is also used (in it's entirety) for the credits. Autumn now LOVES to dance to that song and loves watching the characters on screen. Every time she sees the part leading up to the 'Move It' song she gets excited and looks at me waiting for me to pick her up so we can dance. The even funnier thing now is that I can just start singing it anywhere we are and her face lights up and she starts 'groovin'. She did that at Chili's today while we were eating lunch. My parents (who have been up visiting their one and only granddaughter for the past few days) just started cracking up. Much like myself who just loves to get her going. It's just wayyyyy too adorable and fun to watch her. :)

why did the song 'comfortably numb' pop into my head?

2007-01-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

"relax...it's just alittle pin-prick. there'll be no more "AAAHHHH" but you may feel alittle sick."

my brain works in weird ways.

We took Autumn in to the pediatricians to go over the bloodwork and get her shots. She got the TB test (which we'll have to stop in Monday to have them check it out), and she got two shots (a mixture of things I'm sure) to get her 'caught-up' on all her immunisations. :)
Oh, yeah...she did wail. Especially during the TB thing...which was just "a little pin-prick".
But, since her father (that's me) hates the whole shot/needle/getting blood drawn thing...I'm empathising with her on this one. hehe.

now let's hope she doesn't get alittle sick.

I take requests...just not 'Freebird'. ;)

2007-01-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

I love this photo! I call it 'meditation'.

okay, so packing lists. Fun subject. I swear I read and copied a ton of packing lists that others had posted on Yahoo! Group sites, blogpages, etc. I can now safely say that with the exception of a few items, I wish I hadn't taken time to read through all of them. We also got plenty of suggestions: "take whatever you plan to take and remove half"....."just pack as light as you can and buy stuff in China"...

Hmmm. It's really a tough thing to work out because you start thinking of what you Need along with things that you Feel You Should Take.

I'm sure there are lots of people that swear by a certain way of thinking when it comes to a packing list, but I found like most things, it's going to end up swaying towards what you in your head think you want to travel with. There are some items that you can just flat out eliminate off of your list, and those are: shampoo, hair dryers, razor and shaving cream, and based on where we were, toothbrush and paste. The hotels have these things. If there isn't something, you definitely can buy it in China because inevitably, there will be a grocery &/or department store close to where you stay.

So, now, if we were traveling and knew what we know now, here are the "basic" things we'd take:

4-5 sets of clothes (there is laundry services available, but ask if there's a "local" place, because the hotel service is expensive)

batteries for anything you take that require them.

prescriptions

any Hygiene type items needed such as "personal" stuff, perfume/colonge, hairbrush, lotions, etc we didn't take mouthwash because of the whole liquid thing and really those "travel" size bottles just don't cut it anyways.

sanitizing gel (hands) and travel size is perfect if you get like two of them

sanitizing wipes (hands and/or objects) and travel size is great for these as well...we took four pkgs.

coats/jackets if applicable...we took gortex (water repellant) jackets because supposedly ChongQing is rainy during the winter months, but it never rained when we were there and out and about.

comfortable shoes because there's alot of walking to be done.

some baby outfits, but you can buy more in China. we took like 5 outfits for Autumn and she was a styling girl.

a blanket to cover baby. why? Grandma Police. and believe me you WILL get busted if there's skin showing on your child other than her/his face.

sling/snugli/hip-hammock: we bought and took a Snugli. had AR in it facing mom the first week...but when in GuangZhou we faced her out and she came alive.

baby/infant meds-stuff: BabiesRUs has a couple different types of "kits". We took the "Little Remedies" kit which had tylanol, gas drops, cold drops (nose), saline spray, etc. We didn't need to use toooo much of them, but we also let a couple other families use stuff from the kit. Good thing to have.

definitely have a travel wallet/body belt to hold your money/passports, etc. the hotels all have safes in the room so you can leave things in there and only take what you need when you go out.

anything that plays music (iPod, portable CD or MP3 player)

cameras and video camcorders are a must (obviously). :)

a roll or two of toilet paper. you may not need it, but I found that the hotel in ChongQing we stayed at hardly had any in the room when we got there and what they used was horrible...so I'm glad I packed it.

This is what I can think of off the top of my head that we definitely Needed. I would say the only thing I'd have for carry-on luggage is something to hold your paperwork/adoption stuff...prescriptions, cameras/camcorders (I Never pack these in check-in luggage ever), your money, and anything else you might think of to keep you "occupied" on the plane. The planes do have video/movies and channels of music, but we used our iPods. and slept when we could. The only other thing would be is after you get your child, have a carryon bag (backpack is best I think) to have diapers, food, formula, etc for baby. I actually felt we could have done with one less carry-on and I do feel like we took some things we didn't need to either because we could have just as easily got in China, or we just never used at all.

My thoughts are that you should use your best judgement, I mean..you will be living out of suitcases for two weeks or so. And you will buy things in China such as souveniers and gifts which will need to be packed and traveled with. and, Most Importantly: you will have a child that will occupy all your time and attention. This will factor into what you bring. We took books to read...and never opened them. Puzzlebooks? same thing. Just imagine what you thought you might be doing there and then just think one thing: Baby. :)

Oh, and lastly...computers. Hmmm. That's a tough one too. We almost took our laptop, but then didn't. G wished we would have, but I didn't want to lug it around as a carry-on. Also, we have heard from others and did have a family whose laptop "quit working right" after being hooked into the hotel room internet access. It would have been nice though to have it for things.

Hope that helped!

the Spider Monkey experiences the Gorillaz

2007-01-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

our dear beloved daughter can be finicky about some things. Food happens to be a big thing. what toys that just happens to 'catch her eye' is another.
music is something we discovered she isn't AS finicky about as long as it has a good groove or beat to it. G and I both listen to music alot. I'm a musician and I have a certain kind of music I'm into playing and writing, but for the most part I listen to most anything. G is more into the alternative rock, punk, etc. although she does enjoy other genres occasionally. More often than not I'll be listening to the likes of Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Rush...harder rock like Disturbed, Metallica, Godsmack...and then trance/electronica (mostly because anything with lots of keyboards and such always gets my attention).
So we pretty much have a variety of music floating about the house at anytime. Autumn, as I mentioned, pretty much loves anything with a beat or a good groove. However, once in awhile she'll hear something that just makes her move and get excited more than anything else. I've discovered that there are songs by Big Country she likes alot. Then there is dance music. Three 'artists' that I've really been into lately are 4strings, Paul Van Dyk, and Armin Van Buuren. Each of the three have their own 'style' imprinted on the world dance/trance/electronica. Autumn apparently loves Armin's music because I was playing some earlier today and she was just moving up and down, nodding her head, waving her arms and being happy. And a happy Autumn is very good.

Now, you may ask, what's with the title of the post. Okay, I'll "get on with it". I dubbed AR my Spider Monkey because ever since we got her in China, she'd hang off of our necks, writhe around in our arms, loves to be held upside down (safely of course) and sit on my shoulders while I bounce up and down. She'll just drape herself over our bodies or arms and just get a kick out of it.
So tonight we were watching TV...we don't watch alot...and typically when we've got it on we've got it on cartoons for Autumn. She will look at the TV occasionally, but not for long...like nothing really keeps her attention for more than a minute. Tonight however, we were watching a show on HD-Net and right after they were showing the Gorillaz. The difference being that this was a live performance so the guys played, and they had backing musicians, singers, and the "guests" that appeared on the CD doing their thing. Now the Gorillaz have some songs that really groove, but I figured we'd be watching this for our own enjoyment. We were surprised when Autumn suddenly stopped playing with her toys on her playmat and sat and watched and moved around to the music. The stage was backlit with lots of colour and video, the backup singers were grooving, etc. It was quite something to realise that this kept her attention like nothing else had as well as had her grooving in her own little way. She even mimiced the crowd a couple of times and clapped...as well as clapped when a group of children who performed on one song were dancing and clapping. G and I both looked at each other and giggled with happiness. Who knew?!
the Spider Monkey experienced the Gorillaz...and it was good.

and I would've gotten away with it too if it were'nt for those darn...

2007-01-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

teeth.

okay. question. who all remembers what it was like when your teeth were coming in. I don't. I have several memories of losing teeth and having teeth pulled, but not from when I was an infant/toddler and they were coming in.
When we got Autumn in China, she had four front teeth up top and four front teeth on bottom. She also pretty much had the two lower molars on the way through. Since that day through a few days ago, she's gotten the two upper molars in. I don't know if they're totally done, but for the most part the obvious pain and aggrevation Autumn felt was over.

Cut to today.

AR has been very very cranky thus far today. She did get a good nights sleep...I went in to perform a diaper change about midnight. G had already gone to bed and was asleep and I was working on our pictures and video...putting it into Sony Vegas for my DVD of our adoption journey, so I took care of Autumn's "business", put her back in the crib and she fell right back to sleep (through the rest of the night). We weren't too sure exactly why she was being cranky and "clingy" to us this morning until we noticed the drooling and the fact that everything was going into her mouth...toys, fingers, anything (obviously we immediately inserted the teething toys). Baby Oralgel is great...it really works for AR.
However, I can imagine that when you're napping and sleeping peacefully when suddenly "blam-o!" you're awaken by your gums and teeth hurting...that's not so good. Her afternoon nap cut short, I again did the father's duty...went in, changed wet diaper, and then moved to lay AR back down in her crib so she could fall back to sleep. And I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for those darn teeth.

See, she has two upper teeth now showing like they're about to break through and they haven't been as kind to her as some of the others. She's been noticably more aggrevated by these so far than when her upper molars were breaking through. Personally, my heart aches for her because believe me over the past three years I've had the wonderful honour of having several root canals done on a few teeth and having the pleasantries of swelling and infection to warrant said root canals. Not fun. So I can imagine how it must feel to have this process of teeth breaking through gums and setting into place. Owwwie wowwie! :( Hopefully these two teeth will come in quickly for her.

*update 1/14* upon further reading, we discovered that AR's getting her upper canine teeth. She's been really really needy/clingy/cranky so far this morning. We did alittle infant tylanol (not quite a full pediatrician recommended dose...yet) and frozen gel teethers, soft rubber vibrating teether, etc.
According to what we've read and been told, she still has her bottom pair of canines, and both pair of upper and lower back molars left to come in after this. At least on the bright-side, that's all she has left for incoming teeth.

a visit to the doctor...

2007-01-12T14:26:00.000-07:00

so we officially had our first visit to the pediatrician. It wasn't tooooo bad.
she's in good health and has actually grown a couple of inches taller since the exam in GuangZhou! She hasn't put on much weight however, but we figured as much since she hasn't been eating anything but cheerios, crackers, vanilla pudding, and the formula. The doc she told us to just keep at introducing foods (table foods) as long as it wasn't a chocking hazard. Easier said than done, but we'll keep at it. She does show interest in what we're eating so eventually something will get swallowed and not spit back out onto the highchair. LOL

We stopped at Children's Hospital to have all the bloodwork done (the doc recommended that we do) and we have an appt with the doc next Friday to go over the results and start the shots! fun fun! The pediatrician also suggested getting into a pediatric ENT and opthamolagist to get hearing and sight checked and get those stats set up in her record.

All in all it was good. :)

sometimes you just can't win them all...

2007-01-10T14:19:00.000-07:00

well, finally had to post this. LOL

Now that I've recovered from the butt-whoopin that Florida gave our beloved Buckeyes, I've decided to post this. (well, that and we've been running around the past day and a half.)

My sister came over and well, DIDN'T have all her Buckeye gear on, I had the black jeans, grey turtleneck, and football jersey, and little Miss Autumn Rose was sporting a Buckeye onesie that my sister bought her along with black pants. We mugged for the camera a bit, then had pizza, plenty of mt. dew, and watched the game. Okay, so AR played on her play mats in front of us and didn't so much "watch" the game...but it was fun. Of course there wasn't too much to cheer about after the opening kick-off return for TD by Ted Ginn Jr. Oh well...can't win them all I suppose. I honestly can say though that the Buckeye team we saw on Monday night's game was not the same team we'd watched during the season. Ugh.

Meanwhile, AR has continued to show interest in walking and as of yesterday evening can stumble around a few steps on her own...and walk fairly decently holding onto one of our hands or with our hands under her upper arms just for support and not help. It's been something to see really. Next up, we visit the pediatrician tomorrow morning for the first time. I'll follow up sometime after with a post. I'm sure it'll be a fun fun visit to the doc. woohoo! LOL