A year ago today

It was a year ago today that Hannah Alina became our daughter! Can you believe it has been a year already? And what a difference one year makes!


On a different note, our permit was approved this week for our renovations! Now construction can begin. Let the chaos ensue....

Good times

Yesterday, we went to Tanya's 12th birthday party in Salem, MA. We met Tanya and her family in Kazakhstan last year when we were adopting Hannah and the Buchanans were adopting Tanya. We hadn't seen them since we picked up the girls last year. It was great to see them. Tanya's English has come such a long way...it is amazing to see how fast a language can be acquired! And she was great with Hannah, as usual. She grabbed her from the moment we walked in and didn't put her down until we left.

The 3 Kazakh blondies! Korinna (also adopted by a MA family at the same time as us), Tanya, and Hannah.After the party, we came home and just relaxed in our backyard. We finally have some absolutely beautiful weather and wanted to take advantage of it. Hannah had so much fun trudging back and forth through the dirt (the sandy dirt is where once there was a brick walkway but we took the bricks up in preparation for the remodel). She then got the bright idea to sit and bury her leg in the dirt

And last figured it would be fun to bury her feet in the dirt and then try walking...

Too funny! And very dirty!

Hannah and Charlie

Another picture from the other day that Joe really liked....

Going sailing

OK, we really didn't go sailing (it's too flipping cold here), but I thought Hannah looked like she was ready for it.


What we really did was go shopping for a stove, washer/dryer, etc (oooooohhh...fun!). Best of all though was dinner at Rainforest Cafe! At her age, it was probably better than an amusement park. She had so much fun checking out all of the animals. She did get a bit scared during the "lightning/thunder" storm but luckily her Daddy was smart enough to take her out of her highchair and hold her. She enjoyed it, but clung tightly to his neck. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera.

Happy Easter!

Our first Easter with Hannah! The Easter bunny came and left a wonderful basket of goodies and even knew that Hannah likes milk first thing in the morning!Milk was followed by a chocolate egg (quite a nutritious breakfast). yummy!!!

Hannah looked adorable in her Easter outfit Grams and Gramps gave her...

For Easter we went to Cheryl and Frank's because not only was it Easter, it was Owen's first birthday party! The first picture was from a balloon game the kids played. And then came the egg hunt. Unfortunately, it is VERY cold here hence...an indoor egg hunt. Hannah quickly figured out how to get to the candy in the egg and so after finding 1 egg (with the help of daddy), she was happy with her jelly beans.

Coloring Easter Eggs

Hannah and I decided to color Easter eggs today (ok, I decided and Hannah went along with it....Joe being the smarter of the all of us and only taking pictures of the adventure). Hannah was quite hesitant at first and just wanted to eat everything...it didn't matter what.

But then the fun began. Apparently the holder was too much for her and she opted instead for the full hand (with the egg) in the cup method.
She then went on to dip 1 egg ferociously from one cup to the next to the next (I was at least smart enough to only do 3 colors). I finally pulled the plug when the dye started flying everywhere. What we ended up with are some beautiful eggs and a little girl with a blue hand....

New England Aquarium

Yesterday we went to the aquarium with some friends and family for my birthday. We had a great time! Hannah loved the huge fish tank that goes up the entire 3 floors of the aquarium. She could've watched it forever. She also really liked touching the starfish (I'm sure the starfish do not feel the same way). There were also penguin statues (mostly smaller than this one) sitting on benches, etc and she would go up and kiss each one she saw. Terribly cute (and very sanitary, I'm sure).

After the aquarium we went to my favorite restaurant in the North End of Boston, LoConte's (where I ate much of what we had just seen at the aquarium). And no visit to the North end would be complete without a stop at Mike's Pastry for a cannoli! So good!!!