Mia's first photo shoot

I took Mia to have her first professional pictures taken today. Her red velvet dress matched her ivory cardigan sweater that matched her ivory tights with the tiny red bow on the back of her little ankle. She had a coordinating red velvet bow in her hair and shiny black shoes on to complete "the look". Yet the only added accessory you will find in her pictures is the red hairbow! Our photo session started out a little bumpy with Mia crying at the sight of the poor photographer. Tears streaming down her face (and dress!) and I thought there was no way we were going to get a decent photo. As I started to "de-accessorize" her she slowly warmed up and we got some great smiles out of her!

I am really happy with her pictures! So happy that all six of us get to do it again in a couple weeks when we return for family pictures!

Happy 8th birthday to my sweet boy....

You bring more joy to my life than you could ever imagine with your sweet smile and zest for life! I love you so much!

Like mother like daughter

Hey where is that music coming from?

I am going to figure this thing out!

I am putting this on my Christmas list! I have been a very good girl!

Update on appointments of the past week and random pictures

It was a busy busy week with all of Mia's various appointments. Her cardiologist appointment went well on Tuesday. She still has a small VSD but her heart was making its own rhythms when her pacemaker was checked. That is very good news because the hope is that she will eventually regain her own rhythm and will not need the pacemaker. Time will tell but it is great news! We are also going to be weaning her off of her medications over the next month and we will go back in December for another checkup. Her incision looks great and is healing nicely!

We also had an appointment at the local adoption clinic. I "heart" this clinic because they really get it when it comes to caring for the needs of adopted children. Her developmental skills were evaluated and she also had a medical exam. She will be starting PT soon and what I love about the facility that we will be going to is that it is family based meaning the parents are part of the PT sessions. We also met with a psychologist to address any social or emotional needs she may have. We are not having any bonding or attachment issues that we can see at this time. Praise God and praying that this continues! The doctor felt that based on our conversation Mia was doing very well bonding to us. Her medical exam went well though we are going to meet with the feeding team. Mia has started to "chipmunk" her food. She will eat a couple bites of food and then keep it in the roof of her mouth for sometimes over an hour. This just started after her surgery. The thought is that since her hospitalization was so long and difficult on her and that she had no control over what was happening to her that she is now controlling the food in her mouth. It makes sense, right? It doesn't happen every day but is frequent enough that we want to address it before it becomes a real problem. If she wasn't underweight we would probably wait to see if this phase would pass but she really needs every calorie she can get.

In a nutshell, there you have it, our past week recap! Lots of progress was made and I am looking forward to more to come!

Happy Halloween!

Can you believe all of our leaves? Seriously. We just had them cleaned up less than a week ago. It gives our Halloween photo that extra "fallish" look don't ya think?

Floor time

We have a couple appointments scheduled to have Mia evaluated for physical and occupational therapy. Unfortunately the one center that offers for the therapists to come out to your home for the therapy has a wait list of 2-3 months. We are going to fill out the paperwork to get on the list but in the meantime have another appointment at a local international adoption clinic for a second evaluation this week. Tommorow Mia has her 6 week cardiologist appointment at 8:00am. Oh how I dread, dread, dread, walking back into that hospital. The memories are still too fresh in the mind. This will definitely be a Starbucks worthy morning and it will be my first stop at the hospital. I might even order an extra shot and a venti just to get me through the morning full of test and what I am sure will be a tired and uncooperative girl!

We try to have alot of floor time at home. Most days Mia is all for it and cooperates. She is generally a happy little girl but today she fussed and I decided it was camera worthy and deserved to be documented. Of course the fussing didn't last long especially after she noticed the camera was out!

For the Bengals fans.....

Aunt Dani and Uncle Brian are big Bengals fans! Uncle Brian bought Mia her first football jersey and she was sporting it on Sunday. I, of course, appreciate that it is pink! On a side note Christian also proudly wore his Browns coat yesterday when we had some "mommy and me" time and went to lunch. There aren't any fair weather fans in this house! Yep they stay true to their teams win or lose (even if the lose every game~lol!).

All smiles at home