Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Lots of Pictures....

Here are some pictures from the past weekend.

Ana Kate trying to get her hands on my new camera....I didn't notice until later that she had food on her mouth.


Ana Kate telling me she's stinky.


Ana Kate and cousin Brad playing in her tent.


Brad pushing Ana Kate in her baby doll's stroller. They did this for a while and it was pretty funny to watch.


Ana Kate playing outside yesterday:





Favorite Christmas Presents

We had a great Christmas and everyone loved their presents. Ana Kate's favorite present was her tent, and Whitney's favorite was her laptop. Doug's favorite was probably his spiral saw (he loves tools)....and mine was my amazing new SLR digital camera...I LOVE it!

These pictures were taken with my old camera, but my future posts will all have pics from the new camera. I'm still learning how to use it, so hopefully they'll continue to get better.

Ana Kate loved her tent...




Whitney's favorite present had to be her new laptop....and it was actually a surprise!


Ana Kate opening more presents...


A sweet Christmas Day picture of baby girl...

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas!


Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Ana Kate Dancing

Monday, December 15, 2008

6 months ago today....

Six months ago today we first held our precious baby girl. I can't believe it's already been 6 months!! It's hard to believe in some ways....but it also seems like she's been part of our family forever. She is such a blessing! We love her SO much.

Here are a couple of pictures from our first moments together back in June:



Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Ana Kate at 15 months

Ana Kate turned 15 months on the last day of November, so I thought I'd post an update and some pictures. She is doing SO many new things each and every day.....she is hard to keep up with.


  • Ana Kate has been off the bottle for a couple of months now and she's doing great! We switched her to regular milk at the same time and she transitioned very well. She never seemed to care about not having the bottle, so the whole thing was very painless.
  • She now has 12 teeth...the last 4 (molars) seemed to come in all at the same time. So she can pretty much eat anything she wants now, but she still isn't what I'd call a good eater. But even though she's not a big eater, she loves any type of sweets or candy and will never turn any of it down. When she sees candy she will ask for it....it's really cute and hard to resist. : )
  • She now weighs approximately 22 lbs and is 30 inches long. So she's still growing quite a bit even though she doesn't eat much.
  • Ana Kate loves to dance and it's so funny to watch her....I've never seen a baby her age dance like she does and it's adorable. I've tried to catch her on video, but the camera always seems to distract her. I will try to get some video of her soon and post it.
  • Her vocabulary is growing and her newest words this week so far are backpack and turtle. She is getting interested in some of the cartoons....her current favorites are the Backyardigans and Wonder Pets. She loves dancing to the Backyardigans.
  • I also have to mention that she is obsessed with Elmo. Every time she spots him she points and says 'Elmo' repeatedly. She does this quite often....you'd be surprised how many things have Elmo on them. She knows all of the characters names, but for some reason Elmo is her favorite.
  • Ana Kate also LOVES the theme song they play for the 'Jon & Kate plus 8' promos on TV. She starts dancing to the music and then when it's over she gets mad because she still wants to dance. I found the video for the song online and she will listen to it over and over.
  • One of the funniest things Ana Kate does is the hold her nose and say 'stinky' when anything smells bad. It's so funny!

I haven't taken as many pictures lately as usual, but I do have a few new ones. Enjoy.





Saturday, November 1, 2008

Happy Halloween

Ana Kate dressed up as a kitty for Halloween. She loved trick or treating and did very well.....I think her candy bag weighed almost as much as her. Here are a few pictures of our little kitty.






Kitty meets puppies...



Enjoying her Halloween candy this morning:

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Re-adoption Day...

Well, not tecnically re-adoption. Today we went to court to finalize our 'Recognition of Foreign Adoption'.

Our adoption was already finalized in Vietnam on June 16th. However, all of Ana Kate's paperwork had her Vietnamese name on it and we only had her Vietnamese birth certificate. So completing the 'recognition of foreign adoption' allows us to get a U.S. birth certificate from our state (listing Doug & I as her parents), to have an adoption decree issued by a court in the U.S., and it also allows us to legally change her name at the same time. Up until today her Vietnamese name (Linh Nhu) has been her legal name, but she is now officially Ana Kate!

This is one of our final steps in the adoption process and I think probably the easiest so far. Now we just have to wait until her birth certificate comes in and we can apply for her social security number and U.S. passport. Our last step will be to change her name on her Certificate of Citizenship paper. We weren't sure we were going to do this, but since our embassy incorrectly listed her name on her visa....her name is all wrong on the Certificate of Citizenship....so we will just change it to her legal name.

A picture of us before we left.


Ana Kate in her pretty butterfly dress:



Picture with the judge.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

More Video of Ana Kate

This is some video from yesterday. The best part is the kiss at the end.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

A few more pictures...

Waiting for big sister to get home:


Showing off her adorable hat and bracelet from Amanda.



Friday, September 26, 2008

Ana Kate at 1 year...

Today we went in to the doctor for Ana Kate's check-up as well as her second round of immunizations. She weighed 20lbs 10oz and was 29.5 inches long. So she's grown a bit since she's been home. Her doctor said she's doing wonderfully. She charmed him today along with the nurse and they thought she was adorable. The nurse felt so bad when she gave her the shots...Ana Kate had big tears running down her face and she looked so pitiful. But by the time we got out to the car she was fine.

I thought I would also give everyone an update of what Ana Kate is doing at 1 year old.



  • She still has eight teeth, but she is working on number nine...in fact I think one little part of it has just broken through her gums today.

  • She's walking, running, and climbing...she has been doing this for a while, but she’s getting faster now and is able to climb on more and more things.

  • She is also saying many new words...her vocabulary gets bigger every day. Her newest is her first two word combination 'good girl'...but her other current favorites are ‘hot’ and ‘Hi’. She really is starting to use her words in context.

  • She is also beginning to understand everything that is said to her and is starting to follow directions. Did I mention one of her other favorite words is 'No'...so we often hear this when she doesn't want to follow directions. :)

  • She gives lots of kisses...all you have to do is ask for a kiss and she’ll usually give you one. She’s such a sweet girl.

  • When we count to three she will hold up 1 finger when we say ‘one’ and sometimes if we don't go fast enough for her she will say 'two' on her own.

She's doing so much more every day. This is such a fun age....it's just amazing to see them grow at this stage and see how quickly they learn new things.

She is still not a great sleeper, but we're making some progress. She has started taking longer naps the past week or so. She has also only been up 1 or 2 times per night.

She is also not much of an eater, but I'm hoping she'll get better as we phase out her bottle. She will eat some foods now, but usually only a few bites. Then at other times she will shove everything on her highchair tray into her mouth...then when she realizes she can't chew or swallow such a large amount of food she starts gagging and spits everything out. That wouldn't be so bad but she then continues to gag until she throws up everything else in her stomach. It doesn't happer that often, but she can throw up on demand when she's mad. She just starts coughing and gagging and if I tell her to stop it she can....so it's totally controllable. I've never seen anything like it.

I thought I would also include some recent pictures. These are from the past couple of weeks. Enjoy.


I'm pretty sure she was doing a high five in this one.


One!


She finally realized she had a headband on...and took care of the problem. :)


My little bowlegged girl...


In her cute little sweatsuit.


Another one....


Finally she has enough hair to get bedhead.


All worn out....

Friday, September 12, 2008

Our Sweet Baby Girl...

I thought I'd post a couple of pictures that I love. I've also added a video of Ana Kate. She has already grown so much and is learning new things everyday.