Just Truckin' Along...

Ahhhh, where to begin? Things have been fairly busy around the old homestead since the end of October. I was home alone with the girls by myself Wednesday-Friday of last week since John was in Connecticut on business and he will be in Colorado all next week on business. All in all this past week ran pretty smoothly.

• The girls had an awesome Halloween. You would have never thought this was Sammy's first Halloween. She trick or treated like an old pro and Sofia was so funny, she would run from house to house so fast that John had to run ahead to keep up with her while Sammy and I tried to keep up with both of them. Last year Sofia had to be carried most of the way but this year was a totally different story. Sofia wanted to be a pirate so we bought a cute pirate costume at Target, and I picked out a sweet little bumble bee costume at Target for Sammy. The weeks leading up to Halloween Sammy kept saying "Sofia is a pirate, Samantha is a bumble bee". It was really cute and in fact she is still saying it.

• Speaking of Sammy, this girl is really unbelieveable. She already picked up approximately 50 words in English and can understand most of what I say to her. She has transitioned so quickly in such a short time. Of course that doesn't mean that everyday is hunky-dory (sp?) because of course that would be crazy to say with a newly adopted toddler, but we are surely getting into a groove now and are at a good place for the time being and that is really all I can ask for.

•  At 37 mos. Sofia is officially potty-trained!   She finally did her first potty on the toilet Thursday before last (11/5) and has been pottying on it ever since. I can't believe I was able to catch it on video! (okay, I know - enough already ). I just had a funny feeling I should grab my camera and VOILA. She has not had an accident at night yet but had a couple during the day for a few days after she started using the toilet. We are still putting a diaper on Sofia and Sammy at night. Sammy seems to have regressed a little since we first brought her home. She used to go pee and poop on the potty in China but now she seems to be pooping at night in her diaper almost every night. We are working on  it.

• Samantha received her Certificate of Citizenship two weeks ago and I took the girls to the Social Security office last week so we could apply for Samantha's SS card. We should receive it in about 5-7 days. Samantha was so brave when I took her back to the dentist this past week. He filled her cavity and fixed her chipped tooth. She received novacaine and did not even flinch when he put the needle in her mouth. Our dentist could not believe how well she did. He had the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Handy Manny on the television in the office and both Sofia and Sammy were pretty absorbed by it. He did such a great job and it only took him about 45 minutes to do it all. You can't even tell Sammy ever had a chipped front tooth.

• I got a chance to catch up with two good friends last week and it was really nice to kick back and let the kids play. Last Thursday night my friend Norie and I decided to meet up with our girls at Red Robin and when we walked in it seemed unusually busy, so we were seated and all of a sudden the Syracuse cheerleading team walked in. Then we realized Jim Boeheim was sitting a few tables over doing a live broadcast to commemorate his 800th career win. It was fun but super loud. The girls started getting a little squirrely when the huge Syracuse Otto the Orange mascot came out so we decided to get out of there and head over to Target for a little retail therapy. I just LOVE Tarjay. Here's a few miscellaneous pics from the past couple of weeks.

The girls being cute on Halloween. Please look past the steps with the peeling paint, we paint them every year and they continue to chip every year.

Luckily the rain stopped so the girls could go trick or treating.

The girls did pretty good considering they only went around the block. Of course Mom and Dad had to do a "safety check" on some of the candy (lol).

Can you believe we woke up to this a few weeks ago??? Luckily it melted quickly.

Our sweetie received her official Certificate of Citizenship. Congrats Sammy!

Our trip to the zoo last week.

Sammy waiting to see Dr. Draveck to get her cavity filled and front tooth bonded.

Sammy being brave.

Check out Sammy's duper-duper front tooth. I think the dentist did a really great job, don't you?