Halloween

Boy did she love Halloween! Lauren took Caroline out in the neighborhood and collected a whole bag of candy. Not good for us since there is a lot of candy in the house. I guess next visit to dentist?

Fall 2008

Lots of things have happened to the Casey's in the last several months. Lauren is now in her senior year of high school, Michael transferred to private school and Caroline started nursery school three days per weeks. The weeks are very hectic getting Michael to school 6 days per week 30 miles away. With both of us working, we have to carefully plan our days. Usually I bring Caroline to school or her Gramma's house. We have been inundated with soccer. Everyday day this past week we went to see either Lauren's game or Michael's game. Lauren is finally out of PT and is able to play for short periods of time. Knee is still bothering her though. Mike is doing well starting Varsity soccer at school. Both are doing well in school. Caroline goes with the flow and is happy to play with all of her friends at the games. Last nights game was the toughest when the temperature went below 40 degrees. That is when Caroline and I decided to go home and warm up!

Caroline is doing well, can carry on a conversation and most of the time the words are understood. There are still some words she is working on and sometimes i have to translate when others don't understand.

Caroline has been healthy (knock on wood) and besides a cold or two has been well. She is completely done with all of her shots and doesn't need to go back until next summer. It became a burden to bring her in because she knew she was getting more shots. Quite sad when she would have tears coming down her eyes even before we walked into the doctors.

Soon to be our first anniversay of "Gotcha Day", we plan on going out to eat with the entire family. Can't believe it is almost 1 year. Picture to your right is Michael, Lauren Caroline and Nana and P-pa!!

Summer in Rhode Island

Well the older kids are out of school and Caroline is still in nursery school three mornings per week. The interaction with other kids her same age is really important instead of hanging with teenagers all day. Lauren and Michael both had great academic years and will likely take in many hanging days at the beach this summer. Caroline had her first biting incident at school. they tell me that it is very normal two year old thing. We are trying to explain to her at home about how biting is bad (I recall doing this about 15 years ago with Lauren). Work is very busy for me and I thank my mother every day for picking keeping Caroline those extra hours so I can meet our year end deadlines. Scary thought, but next year end Lauren will be graduated from high school and going to freshman orientation! Yikes.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer i am quite happy with the warmth versus the coldness of this past winter!

6 Months

It has been six months since we returned from China with Caroline. I have said this before, but I still can not believe that she hasn't been with us our entire life. Most people ask me, your life has probably changed, hugh? Well it is true, our life has changed a lot. We had Michael and Lauren in our lives for the past 15-17 years and now we have this beautiful daughter - Caroline.

Caroline is walking, running, tumbling, and almost talking. She is starting to put words together like Dadda, Momma, Lo-Lo, yellow, purple (she loves to say purple), most animal sounds, book, cracker. you know those important things. Her sleep is fantastic, she goes to bed at 8:30 and gets up around 7. Since the weather has warmed up, we spend a lot of time outside. She is starting to walk barefoot outside. She doesn't like the feel of the sand, dirt or grass on her barefeet, but now she is getting used to it. Our pool will open this week and it will be interesting if she goes in it.

Lauren and Michael are doing great as big sister and big brother. They are going through final projects and exams for the year so very busy.

I have attached more pictures, her hair is finally growing and since she is deathly afraid of sissors i am expecting more pig tales, and pony tales!

It has been awhile since I have last posted. We are really busy with the teenagers, then Caroline. She is such a trooper going to all their activities. She has probably been to about 10 soccer games in the last week. I am back to work full time, but my friend Sharon and my mother were great and took Caroline for pictures. She really has changed and matured. She has quite the independent personality and is trying so hard to talk. I think she gets very frustrated that we don't understand her, because she understands everything that we say!

Updates....well Caroline has hit the 20 pound mark, 30 inches long and has had all of her shots. She goes to nursery school 3 mornings per week then goes to Gramma's and sleeps for about 3 hours. She loves Barney, Wiggles and Baby Einstein. We rented a van in Florida that had a DVD player in it and she became very addicted!

Florida was great, the whole family went. Not too much longer Michael will be in prep school and Lauren off to college. Hopefully we get 1 more vacation with all of us able to go.

Take care everyone!

Second day of nursery school

Caroline had her second day of nursery school today. She goes two mornings a week with other children between the ages of 18 and 22 months. One of her favorite activites is fingerpainting! We were not sure if she was going to make it to 12:15 for pickup because she usually falls asleep by 11:30 when she is home. She makes it to 12:15 but then takes about a 3 hour nap! Good for Gramma so she can get some things done. to the right is her after her first day of school. do you see the choc cake still on her lip!

Happy Chinese New Year!

I can't believe we are going on our third month with Caroline, she has been a wonderful addition to the family. She enjoys our busy life of soccer games, basketball games and reading books from ABC Books to AP Environmental when Lauren is studying. To us she has grown tremendously, but the scale still says she is 18 pounds. We all did have a pretty bad cold that lasted for weeks, and Caroline has been walking if not running up a storm.

Caroline has her own personality which we are still finding out. She has a mind of her own and does not like to hear "no", the bottom lip quivers and tears star coming down her eyes. When we got her she was so stoic, now that she is able to stretch out and do things she doesn't like being held back. Her eating is also very good and probably can get away without drinking a bottle a day. We still give her a bottle before bedtime, just to get milk into her.

We are so excited that Caroline will start toddler school next week. She will start with 2 mornings per week in a child development center that starts at 18 months. We spent about an hour at the cdc the other day and she loved it. Not that she doesn't like staying with Gramma, but she does need some activities with kids her own age.

Lauren and Michael are doing well. Michael actually picked up Caroline the other day on his own. Now if we can get him to change her diapers!

Pictures of Caroline's "Crib Mates" and Nanny at Orphanage

I wanted to post some of the pictures that the orphanage took of Caroline's friends, nanny and where she lived for her first 16 months. Caroline is in the middle. Would love to know if her two friends have been adopted!

Heading back to work

Tomorrow will be my official first day back at work since we left for China November 8. I have stayed in contact with the office, and when I did have a spare moment, I did go in for a few hours. I am confident that Caroline will love staying with Grandma a few days per week. My plan is to enroll her in part time toddler school by mid to late February. She loves playing with other kids. Right now we take her to the toddler program two days per week at our local recreation facility.

Wish me luck!