Gee, I can’t believe another two months have gone by since we last posted. It’s amazing how quickly time goes by! So much has happened, but I’ll try to go back and catch up on everything. We completed our first post-placement report and everything was sent through to CHI. It was so fun to have our social worker meet Grace!

In our last post I mentioned that Grace was finally saying some real words. I was so concerned because it seemed delayed. In February, she had two words – uh, oh and bye bye. Now she tries to say almost every word that we say. Her regular words are Mama, Dada, Gama, Gapa, hi, thank you, moo, quack, yellow, purple, red, blue, ball, bubbles, and more. I was packing my lunch the other day and I was holding Grace while I was doing it. I said, “Okay, let’s pack my lunch.” She repeated the word “lunch.” She repeats a lot of the words that we say at the end of sentences. I sing a lot of songs to her. Surprise! Anyway, I have been leaving off the last word in the song that I’m singing. Grace has been singing the last word to finish the song. One of her favorites is “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” I’ll sing the song and not sing the word “low.” Grace will finish the song for me by saying ‘low.’ It is so cute!

On March 29, we celebrated our six month anniversary as a family! It’s funny, but we honestly can’t remember when Grace wasn’t a part of our lives. We look back at pictures from when we first met her and the change is unbelievable. She is so expressive now and so affectionate. She laughs all the time, especially when tickled!

I was on Spring Break last week. It snowed!!! It just wasn’t right! Grace didn’t seem to mind, especially when I got the sled out. We went sledding around the yard both Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday, the snow was all gone, but Grace still wanted me to get the sled down. She kept pointing to the garage wall where the sled was hanging. Hopefully, we are done with the snow for awhile.

On April 8, Grace turned 18 months old. We had her 18 month check up with her pediatrician. Grace is doing well. She has continued to gain weight and has grown over an inch since her 15 month check up. She is still petite and still wears 12 month old clothes. Developmentally she is just where she’s supposed to be or a little ahead in some areas.

We took Grace to a local park that has a nice playscape. She loved the slides. We could hardly get her to leave them to try some of the other things. She wasn’t real crazy about the swings, which surprised me. However, we tried the swing over at our neighbor’s and she really seemed to like that. We’ll keep trying the park’s swings and see how it goes!

Grace made her first visit to the zoo. We bought a membership, so we can go back as often as we want. We had such a good time. I’m not sure that Grace really understood what was going on, but she was looking around and taking it all in.

We took Grace to the farm at a local Metro Park. We saw cows, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, ducks, chickens, rabbits, etc. There were absolutely darling baby goats, sheep, pigs, and a calf. Grace got to pet a two-day-old baby goat. I started to cry, because it was just so precious! Greg didn’t get it!

Easter was so special! My mom bought Grace the cutest dress. She looked absolutely gorgeous! We went to my parents for the weekend, so we went to church there. Grace was the center of attention as always! After church we had an Easter egg hunt. Grace had been on an Easter egg hunt on Saturday with a friend, so she already knew what to do. Here’s a picture of her when her basket was pretty much full!

Well, I think that catches everybody up. We are so blessed!