Halloween 2011

My desk in a solid mess but my pictures from Halloween are uploaded and ready for viewing. Seriously, I was actually asleep about 15 minutes ago and just randomly woke up. I could not think of a single fun thing to do except to update the blog.

This Halloween marks Anna's third Halloween in the States. In so many ways it feels like she has always been here and in other it feels like she has not. I was trying to think back to last Halloween and I realized I missed most of it because both Gerard and I had to work. Last year I loved Anna's costume, she was pebbles and Hans was Bam-Bam. I remember driving to work last year upset that I was not getting to take her trick or treating. Thank goodness La-La and Me-Me have this holiday down pat. They stepped in and made sure that Anna got the full experience.

This year I made sure I was going to be off. Insert I had no idea what to dress her up as. Gerard and I are somewhat conservative and many of the girl costumes seem a little grown up for us. This is one situation where it is nice that Anna is so little because she fits into the toddler costumes.

My sister Jackie found a Mickey Mouse costume and I thought that was perfect until La-La and Me-Me found a Simba costume in Anna's size on clearance. I am a BIG clearance shopper so it was right in line with what I would spend. Plus here in New Jersey it gets pretty cold so I knew she would be warm.

As we waited for our first trick or treaters to come to the door, Gerard looked at me and said do you remember her first Halloween? He took the words out of my mouth. That first Halloween Anna had virtually no English speech. She was so quite, active but quiet. Gerard and I have remarked that she lately as to how much she speaks today compared to a year ago.

On Anna's first Halloween the door bell rang, at that point the door bell would startle her now it is one of her favorite toys. She jumped then went with me to the door to see who it was. When she saw the little child dressed she bolted. I remember thinking this is not good but oh how wrong I was. She bolted to get her bumble bee costume on. That year we only went to a couple of houses like 6 or 7 and those were family members and the neighbors. We walked up and rang the bell and she took the candy with no express on her face. Don't get me wrong I think she liked it but in retrospect I think she was scared.

This year has been so different from 2009 in so many ways. This morning she got up excited to go to school to show Mrs. Maloney her costume. They had a little classroom party just for the children no parents allowed which I think is strange more on that later. My cousin called to see if we wanted to trick or treat with them and I said sure. I knew La-La and Me-Me were going to have a bunch of kids with them so I knew that even though Anna would me missed, Hans would still have kids with him.

Gerard and I waited to see Anna's reaction to the first trick or treater. This year was much different she was excited to see them at the door but then went straight back to playing with her guys. Lyric arrived and he dressed as a knight which I thought was pretty neat. So off we went with 'Prince Philip' as Anna called him and Simba.

Anna and Lyric ran up to the first house, Anna rang the bell squeaked "Trick or Treat" and ran straight back to me yelling I did it. My neighbor than told us that she did not even take her treat. Well by the third or fourth house she had gotten the concept down. I think she was just so excited to be able to ring all the door bells.

At the house I had Grammy, Papa and Nanny positioned to give out the candy. Many of my neighbors let out bowls of candy and I was so pleased to see all the children only taking one piece. At this house we do not get many trick or treaters because we are on the out shirts of town. My other two house I was bombarded every year with more than 150 children.

Half way through the trick or treating Anna was tired of wearing her head piece so Momma got to be Simba too. We turned around and headed home. Gerard ran out to pick up the pizzas and Lyric left to go show his other Grandparents his costume.

So up until this point I thought Anna loved ringing the door bells the most until the trick or treaters came to her house. The bell would ring and she would bolt for the door yelling "trick or treat" she helped me give out the candy and was quite generous if she felt they did not take enough, which is fine by me less left over is a good thing. Then as they were leaving she told them "You go home now to your Mother!"

I know I will be sad when she stops saying this one day. I just love how far she has come in associating being "home" with having a Mother and and Father.


Wonder who isgetting to the door faster?

Simba

Prince Philip

Disney Photopass CD ordered

I can not believe I almost forgot to order the Disney Photopass CD. There were a few really cute pictures on there so I am very glad that I was able to still get a copy. I would have been seriously bummed out if I had missed the chance to order one. I wish I had gotten more pictures of her with her Grandparents. Maybe next time.

Anna has been talking about Disney since we came home. Every day she says "I go there maybe tomorrow." I love that she has good memories about our trip. Things have eased up here and Anna is getting back into her daily routine. My crazy work schedule is now calming down too.

There may be a few changes in the up coming months that will allow me to work quite a bit less. I am praying that the plan Gerard and I have set into motion will work out the way we think it will.

I have started to talk to Me-Me and La-La about our Christmas activities that we will plan. Last year was so much fun because we did so much together as a family. I love the Christmas season not for the presents but because of the time I get to spend with my family. I have a feeling Anna will be filled with excitement this year.

On my school home front, I have 5 more weeks of this class then I am off until January. I am considering taking two classes in January and then taking off for the summer. I think going to school in the summer is just so hard for Anna. I really want to just be able to spend everyday that I am not working playing instead of trying to fit school in there too. I still have time to decide on my schedule so that is good.

I promise to put some pictures up soon.

King

"Where are you?"


In of my post I forgot to mention that while on vacation King took an alternate vacation. That is right we lost King at the beach in St Petersburg. I did not even realize that King was not with us until the day after we checked into Disney. I called the hotel twice while I was in Florida. The man very nicely took down my name and number but King was not found. I tore apart all the suit cases and the rental car in the hopes that he was with us but just tucked in somewhere where I could not see him.

Anna was so busy that I am not sure she realized he was missing. We were careful not to mention his name in front of her because I was dreading the question "Where a King?"

Anna's King is a very worn, small, stuffed animal of Scar from the movie Lion King. What I did not realize is that this particular King was born in 1994. After we got home I started to search eBay for a replacement King. To my surprise, I was able to find a replacement King to the tune of 155 dollars. I decided to make one more call to the hotel. I was never so happy to hear the man on the other end of the phone tell me that he had King and he was going to overnight him to us.

I will say that I was still worried that it was not really "Our King" so I waited for the package to arrive. Once I opened it I started to cry. Even I missed King.

I picked Anna up from school and told her I had a surprise waiting for her. When she saw her King the tears started to stream down her face. I think that although she never mentioned King was gone she knew King was missing. I think this also had something to do with her asking if I was leaving her in Disney.

Gerard and I have vowed that King will never leave home again.




These are picture of Anna opening up the package that King was returned in

An Interesting Observation

I am not sure if anyone is still out there reading our blog but I can not even begin to tell you how busy life has been for me since our vacation. I knew ahead of time that once I was finished with vacation that my work schedule was going to be crazy busy.

Gerard has been caring for Anna in my absence. Between her full day at school and my work schedule I have only been seeing her for about 2 hours a day. I am so fortunate that he is still able to be home with her full time right now.

I did have an interesting observation for our time on vacation. Towards the end of the vacation Anna started to ask me if I was leaving her in Disney. This broke my heart. I would hold her and tell her that she was staying with us forever. Then I noticed that she started to keep track of everyone as we were walking. She would ask "Where a Nanny? Where a Papa? Where a mine Daddy?"

At first I thought it was cute that she was keeping track as I was doing the same thing. At work much of my time is spent counting babies, on vacation I was counting adults...Three grandparents, one baby and Gerard.

When we got home is when I started to get more concerned. Anna started to act out if I had to leave. She would start to cry and say that she missed me. We would talk about how much I love her and that I missed her too when I am not with her. Every morning when I would come home, she would look at me with a surprised look and say "You came home!"

Of course this has me a bit concerned. If I had been able to change my schedule to eliminate the extra shifts I would have in a flat second but that was not possible. What I have realized is Anna is home just a little over 2 years now. At about the age of two children start to have separation anxiety. So even though I am upset because Anna is missing me when I am not there, I am encouraged by the thought that she is perhaps building a strong bond with me.

Please understand in the past Anna never expressed a desire for me to stay home with her to this magnitude. Knowing that Gerard was right there with her and giving her his full attention was my only saving grace.

I guess I was a little shocked by Anna's reaction. As much as love a 10 day vacation, I think in the future I will be cutting our trips short perhaps to 4 or 5 days long.

How did it become October already?

I feel like the month of September was a complete blur. I did not write about half of what I wanted to write about last month. Yes we are home from Florida. I know I need to put up pictures of our trip but I have hit a bump in the road. The day before I left for Florida I purchased a new computer mostly because my 6 year old lap top that is missing a few keys was really starting to run slow. No my issue is I have all my pictures downloaded to that laptop so I am working between two laptops for the time being. I know this is no excuse but really I promise I will get a few pictures attached to this post.

The day after we returned from Florida I co-hosted a baby shower for AM, Eddie and Baby JoanMarie. We were blessed to have close to 50 close family members and friends join us in celebrating JoanMarie's arrival into our family. She is such a beautiful baby. The little stinker has gained a pound already. I hope to be able to see her this week perhaps when Anna is at school.

The rest of the week I spent trying to things organized, doing school work and trying to get Anna back into the routine of going to school. We have had a few challenges that I believe are left over from our trip with Anna. I hope to elaborate this week. I picked up a few extra days at work so I feel like my schedule is so tight that if one thing pops up the day will be shot. I hope to be able to slow down a bit in November so that I can enjoy the holidays.

The other day I realized that my two year calendar is ending this year. I am so attached to scheduling and my calendar I feel lost without it. I feel the need to sit down and plan my time off for next year. I do have one small trip planned that I am super excited about. I will be going on an adoption retreat in Atlanta and meeting up with a few of my blogger friends. The retreat is planned for March and I am sure I will welcome the break from our usual cold weather. We are in the 60's today so I fear summer is over.

I have a feel like this year has had so many blessings for me and my family. I do have a few things planned for next year and perhaps a few surprises too. Prior to going to Disney my goal was to have 1/3 of my debt paid off. I am happy to say that I met that goal. I hope to have more paid off in the next 6 months. On one hand I feel like slowing down and just enjoying life is what I should be doing but in order to reach my goal of working part-time I have to have all my unfavorable debt paid off. My goal is to not bust the budget this Christmas and stay on the path to being debt free.

My nieces and I have taken up couponing. Actually Me-Me is the Master-mind, La-La is the second in command and I just follow what they tell me to do. I love it because it is a nice switch up in our roles. Using coupons does take a little bit of time but I can feel a difference in the amount of money that I am spending.

I will leave you with a few pictures from Disney.











I am not sure when we are going back but even Gerard said we will be back sooner then he thought we would be.