Thanksgiving

Well this certainly wasn't how we pictured spending Margaret Rose's first Thanksgiving but we are very thankful that my Mom (the girls' beloved PoPo) is recovering well and is in good spirits. Mom fell picking MC up from daycare and has broken her hip. They did surgery Wednesday and were able to fix it with pins and are hopeful that that a replacement can be avoided. We are quite put out -okay maybe furious is a better word- with the daycare director who left my mom alone with MC while he went to review his surveillance tapes so that he could assure her that she'd fallen over MC's feet and not the daycare door threshold. I'm sure that made her feel much better as she sat there in pain hoping MC didn't run out the door into the parking lot. The lack of compassion just completely appalls me.

Margaret Rose is in serious need of a hair trim but she refuses to allow us anywhere near her head with the scissors. We took her to Miss Debbie who cuts MC's hair and she wouldn't let her trim it either. She just grabs her head and repeats "long hair, long hair" over and over. So we'll put up with the shaggy look for a bit longer.

The drought situation was brought home for me as we were walking to the car today. It started to sprinkle and MR looked up at the sky and in all seriousness said, "Turn off, peas (please)." Guess we haven't had enough rain for her to even know what it is.

Here's Mary Clare in her wonderful turkey overalls. MR wore them to school earlier in the week so today was MC's turn. And here's MC doing her flat frog imitation to entertain PoPo in the hospital.

God's children by adoption baptized into his grace

Today was Margaret Rose's baptism. It was a wonderful day and we were happy that so many of those we love came to be part of our sweet girl's initiation into Christ's Body the Church. Both our girls share All Saints' Day as their baptismal day. We sang two of my favorite hymns - For All The Saints and I Sing A Song of the Saints of God- and the choir once again used the descant that Lee wrote for Mary Clare's baptism for the hymn on the way to the baptismal font. Early Sunday morning I was able to show Margaret Rose a video clip of another child being baptised and she watched with great interest. She is an extremely neat child and we were afraid that the water getting all over her clothes would upset her. Before leaving the house we were running through the checklist - camera, bulletins, coats and Margaret piped up with, "I need towel. He gonna wash da hair." Well, I guess that is what it looked like in the clip she saw. During the entire service she showed remarkable poise and was nothing but cooperative. I think her lovely smile says more than I ever could about the signifcance of the day.

October in Review

The girls' bunkbeds and wonderful Lantern Festival bedding arrived! They LOVE these beds (and we LOVE the underbed storages drawers) Thank you Aa-Aa for such a humongously terrific gift!!!

Our State Fair is a great state fair...and it was even more fun since we went with our good friends and their China sweetie! The girls had a great time especially Mary Clare our roller-coaster baby. Margaret Rose enjoyed herself as well. She really liked fair food - cotton candy and candy apples!

This is Margaret Rose's first pony ride. From that smile I don't think it will be her last!

Fun at Country Adventures with the local adoptive families group. It was a great day and we enjoyed the hayride and the hotdog roast. We took our own veggie dogs and the owners were kind enough to cook them on the grill for us.

Sister love and fun at our neighborhood park and out in the yard! The girls love being outside and we've had great weather for it.

The picture above is of Mary Clare being a pirate kitty- we don't ask we just go with it :-)

Margaret Rose and Mary Clare started dance this month. MR's nanny asked us to please let her take dance as it was one of the things she enjoyed most at the SWI. We're still looking for a way for her to study Chinese traditional dance but why we look we're starting ballet. I only intended for MR to go to dance but Mary Clare announced that she wanted to do "tippy tap". We've no idea where she got that phrasing but we're now running MC to a half tap-half ballet class on Monday and MR to ballet on Thursday.

Margaret Rose had a day off from school so Lee and I both took a day and we had a great 3 day weekend in Boone. We hiked and played in the leaves and then Lee's parents took the girls to a fall festival at their church. The costumes were last minute (read I called my mom and told her we needed costumes about 2 hours before we left) additions. Popo rocks!

The girls had a great time choosing pumpkins and making a jack-o-lantern with Baba. The woman at the pumpkin patch wanted to take Margaret Rose's picture and use it to advertise. She said she'd just never seen a child with such joy on her face. We agree!

Margaret Rose LOVED Halloween!!! She got very good at her "Happy Halloween!" greeting. My mom made the wonderful princess dress. MR found MC's in the closet from last year shortly after coming home. She held it up and I told her Popo made it. The next thing I knew she was handing me the phone - "Popo peas! I need pwincess dwess!" The girls got to wear their costumes to school and daycare. MC decided she wanted to wear her Hopper Train Engineer outfit to daycare and her princess dress for trick-or-treat. MR was a huge hit at her school and came home with tons of candy which she immediately began to divide with her little sister. She always shares things with Mary Clare but we were amazed that she'd share the candy from her pumpkin.

So Mary Clare put on her princess dress and we were off to trick or treat with friends. The girls got so much candy that I bet they'll still be eating it at Christmas. The first picture is of them marveling at how Popo made the middle of their dresses match and the last is of them posing with Raggedy Ann Popo. Happy Halloween!