Big Days in October!

October has been lots of fun as Maiya has been changing almost daily. She loves to practice standing up on her own & is quite proud of herself - she usually has to clap for herself afterwards! She hasn't taken steps on her own yet, but has learned to use her little walker & tours around the condo crashing into everything and beeping the horn on it. Her top 2 front teeth just cut through last week so she's had a rough few nights, but otherwise is her usual happy, smiley self. Here's a video of her first steps with the walker!



She loves going to storytime and is now doing the actions for a couple of her favourite songs when we sing them to her. She loves being sung to and has lots of favourite books that she looks at throughout the day. We got her a Little People barn to play with and she plays with it constantly, putting the animals in and out...and in and out...over and over....!

Unfortunately Maiya was sick with a flu bug for the Mid-Autumn Festival and we weren't able to celebrate it in Milton as planned. However, we had a fantastic time with some other families who also adopted from Vietnam recently when a delegation of officials came to visit Canada through our agency. We were happy to see our translator again, and were surprised and happy to see the director of Maiya's orphanage as well. It was great for them to see the changes in Maiya since they had last seen her 5 months before. It's hard to believe that our 6 month report has already been sent off (we have to complete reports on Maiya's growth and development until she is 18, for the Vietnamese government). It will be 6 months on November 9th since we first held her in our arms!

We had Maiya's baby dedication service on October 21st at Grandma & Poppa Heise's church in Fordwich. She wore her first ao dai, and looked beautiful in the red and white colours. It was great to spend the day with lots of family afterwards as well. Our pictures didn't turn out so we dressed her up again the next day and managed to get a few good ones!




Halloween was also lots of fun (although more for us than her I think!!). She made a lovely little butterfly and looked pretty cute crawling around in her costume! We didn't have many options for taking her out, but managed to get down to see Uncle Breydon, Aunt Shannon & the girls. Their dog was quite taken with Maiya's pink feet and decided they'd be fun to chase, so we had a few good laughs!

Although there's been lots of great events this month, we were a little sad to go in to Daddy's work at TLS this week to say goodbye. Everyone there has been fantastic to Brett and were so supportive of us when we went to Vietnam and returned with Maiya. We hope lots of "TLS-ers" keep checking in on the blog! Daddy starts a new work opportunity today at ConAgra, so we're wishing him a good first day!

Only a few more weeks until her 1st Birthday Cake....