Visiting Grace's birth dad's family

Back in January, we went to visit Grace's birth dad and his family. We had so much fun and it's so wonderful to see how much love this little girl has.

Grace with her birth dad and birth cousin. Her birth cousin just ADORES Grace! :)
Birth dad and Grace walking. She will be anybody's friend if you help her walk. Lol.
Checking out birth cousin's hair. I think Grace is jealous. :)
Getting smooches from her birth cousin. He loves Grace too and kept asking me to put her on his lap. :)
Grace with Birth Grandma (Nana Glenna), Birth Dad, and Birth Grandpa (Papa Pride)
Grace with her birth dad, birth aunts, and birth uncle.

Open adoption is so amazing in my life. I love having all of these wonderful people there for me, for Robby, and especially, for Grace. I'm so glad she will have this part of her heritage and she will always know that she is so loved by this family (as well as birth mom's family).

What Grace has been Learning

Grace is growing like crazy. Every day it seems like she is so much older. She is constantly learning and amazing me. Here are a few of the things she has been learning. :)

How to give kisses. She loves giving any of her toys kisses. It takes a little more coaxing for Robby or I to get a kiss, but she will sometimes submit to being kissed. Lol.
She is learning to blow kisses. This is pretty much as far as it goes. She doesn't understand the whole blowing the kiss. I think she just likes kissing herself. Lol.
She is learning to crawl on her hands and knees. She's been scooting on her belly for over 3 months so it's about time! :)
Here she is crawling some more. She gets really excited when she does. It's still really slow but she's starting to get the hang of it. She still scoots on her belly when she gets frustrated though.

She's learning to feed herself. These are one of her favorite foods. Peas. She also loves Broccoli, carrots, butternut squash, and cauliflower. She loves anything that we are eating. But her favorite food by far, Cilantro Jalapeno Hummus. Weird, I know. :)
Checking out the peas. She's definitely working on that Pincer grasp!

And Grace just being her cute little self. You can see her bottom teeth in this picture. She's also just had 1 top tooth poke through last week and her second middle top tooth will be poking through in the next week. And she is definitely, like her shirt says, a Princess. :)

Time Passes Quickly

6 years ago on the 17th, I said Yes to one of the best questions ever. "Will you marry me?" It's been a crazy ride since. A little over a year after that, we started going through infertility. 4 years after that, this happened. It's been exactly 2 years since that day. I've been feeling really depressed thinking about it. It's been really hard the past few weeks. I keep having this feeling that I want to be pregnant. I blame it on hormones and being a woman. ;) I'm trying to remember that it's ok to want that. Even if it will never happen. (Side note: Found out from one of my adoptive mommy friends that only 7% of women who adopt then become pregnant. Everyone just happens to know someone in that 7% so it seems like it's more). I'm trying to remember to continue to allow myself to grieve that I won't get to feel the little kicks on the inside of my tummy. I won't get to read the "Pregnant" on a little white stick. I won't get to have them rub that goop on my tummy and hear the words "It's a..." And it's ok to be sad about it, as long as it doesn't consume me.

I was then going back over old posts and found this one and this one. I am so incredibly blessed. I am so grateful that our infertility led us here. I have an incredible daughter. She is truly my light and my joy. She is my saving grace. I count my blessings every day for her. I'm also blessed with two amazing birth families that love her and love Robby and I. It is so incredible to have so many people who love this one little girl. She is such a miracle and I wouldn't trade any of my experience for anything. She came exactly the way she was supposed to. She is sealed to Robby and I for time and all Eternity. Just as if she had come through birth. I love her as much as if she were my flesh and blood. She is a miracle.

Bath Time

Grace is really starting to enjoy bath time. This coming from the baby who screamed the entire time during a bath for the first several months. She now splashes happily for at least 10 minutes and gets a little upset when I take her out.

Grace with her Tinkerbelle toy.
Grace thinks it's hilarious when I put a cup on her head.
She loves trying to catch the water in her hand. She will even try catching it with her mouth sometimes. Lol. She has started swimming like a little froggy on her belly too. She is definitely going to become my little fishy this next summer as we enjoy pool time. :)

Valentine's day

Here's Grace in her Valentine's outfit. I couldn't find anything I liked (and that was her size) that was Valentine's related so I found this cute little thing. She is a little Princess and I hope she doesn't have to kiss too many frogs. ;)

Grace pulls herself up on to everything nowadays. I think it shows off the cute little ruffles on her pants too. :)

Tried to get Grace to help hold the Valentine.

Grace with her Bear. She is so big and keeps getting bigger.

Checking out her Valentine. :)

8 Months

Grace crawling over her teddy bear to get some toys.

This is a very classic Grace face. She sucks in her lips. She recently learned how to make them "pop" when she opens her mouth. She thinks it's hilarious (and so do I).

She seriously is the cutest thing ever (and I'm pretty sure she knows it too).

Just hugging Sam the Bear. :)

I can't believe how big my little girl is now compared to her bear. The bear used to seem so much bigger. Time to get a bigger bear. ;)

Grace is officially 8 months, as of the 4th. I have been meaning to write this post for almost a week, but with an unexpected illness and Robby hogging the computer to actually do work (I know right?) I wasn't able to get around to it. But I finally stole the computer from him and wanted to write about our sweet little 8 month old.

Grace has so much personality for a baby. She is constantly making me laugh. She doesn't do and like things that most babies do. For instance, Grace hates to eat. She could be starving and not have eaten for 12 or more hours (that's how long she sleeps at night, thank you Babywise) and she still would rather play than eat. She'll take a couple sips of her bottle and then push it away and try to sit up so she can talk. Or she will just chew on the bottle and tell me a story while little drops of milk drip down the side of her mouth onto my arm. While she is eating her solid food, she will turn her body completely around in her high chair so that she can stare at the ground. And then to make it all the more comical, while she fights eating so hard, she will start screaming because she realizes she is in fact hungry and won't stop screaming until food is back in her mouth. I'm learning that this (and many other things) is something I have to let her do on her own time. Sometimes it will take 15 minutes to feed her a bottle, other times 30-45 minutes (which if it does take that long, I generally need to rewarm her bottle because she doesn't like her formula cold). She is definitely very stubborn and can't be rushed to do anything.

Grace has been scooting around like crazy. She is on her tummy still and using her elbows and her right foot. She still refuses to push off with her left foot and just lets it kick up and down while she scoots. She has started pulling herself up on things. Today, for the first time, she pulled herself to standing by using the couch. It was so adorable. She stayed there for a couple minutes just giggling because she was so excited. Then she turned around and took a step. I'm not counting it as her first step because I literally had to lunge to catch her before she face planted. Lol. I think it was just her getting excited and trying to kick her feet. Such a silly girl. She has also learned that if she whines and crawls to me, I will automatically pick her up. If I don't, she starts screaming and showing me her pouty lip (which is so not fair because no one can resist that).

Grace is still showing a definite aversion to strangers. If I am holding her, she is fine. She will smile and "chat" with anyone but if someone else comes near her and I'm not holding her, she will scream. I blame myself for not having more babysitters come over or having more people hold her at church and things. But after waiting 4 years to hold a baby in my lap at church, I just love having her in my lap. And when I have let other people hold her, my arms feel too empty. So for now I enjoy my sweet and spoiled little girl only wanting mommy and daddy.

At her last doctor's appointment, Grace weighed 15 lbs 14 oz and was 28 1/2 inches tall. I am constantly worrying about her weight gain since that is only 11 oz in 2 months. The doctor said not to worry but I am pretty sure it's a requirement in being a mom. She did however grow 2 inches tall. So the slow weight gain is probably just from being a finicky eater and constantly on the move. But hopefully at her 10 month appointment she will have gained a little bit more than that.

Grace has also created a new "fun" game. She crawls for the Playstation, I tell her no, she looks at me and smiles, then starts crawling faster, I run to get her, she gets mad and screams at me, I move her 4 feet away and give her a toy, she begins to crawl for Playstation again. I try really hard not to laugh when she does this because I don't want her to think it's even more funny but her little mischievous smile just cracks me up.

I can't believe it was 2/3 of a year ago that she came in to our lives. It's just so surreal and amazing to me. She is an incredible little girl and I love her so much.

Christmas Party

Sorry this is so late, but here are some pictures of Grace from our Ward Christmas party.

Grace LOVED her candy cane. It was the perfect chew toy.

She did not like Santa Claus. To be fair, she doesn't like pretty much anyone holding her other than family. :)

Christmas Pictures

The whole family. :)

Grace in her sealing/blessing dress

Our whole family again

She just loves her daddy

She was exhausted by the time pictures were about to be done. Look at those poor little bags under her eyes. She had a long day. :)

My amazing friend Shannon took our family pictures. She took Grace's newborn pictures and we just adored them so of course we would use her again for pictures. :) She did a fabulous job again. We HIGHLY recommend her so if you're in Arizona, and want fantastic pictures, definitely give her a call!

Thanksgiving

Wearing her Thanksgiving bib and looking too cute. :)

Eyeing her cousins fork. She really wanted to play with it. Her new favorite toy is her plastic spoons so it makes sense. :)

Reaching for the fork and cousin Connor not letting her get it. :)

This girl loves to smile. :) And it makes me smile.

We had so much fun spending time with Robby's family for Thanksgiving. I actually cooked all of our own food for the first time. It was a lot of fun. Everything I made was vegan and incredibly tasty. :) And super fattening. We went through a lot of fake butter. :) Grace loved watching her cousins. Her favorite thing was to chase after them (while I was holding her). They would run and laugh and she would just laugh hysterically and reach out for them. She loves watching and interacting with older kids so she was in heaven.

It's Official!

Grace is officially and legally a Colvin. I can't believe it. We are so thrilled to have her be a part of our family. In a few short days she will be part of our eternal family and I cannot wait. It has been the most amazing journey and I cannot wait until we can add to our family again through adoption.