Our First Forever Family Day

May is a month of celebrations for us. One year ago, on May 9, 2007, we met Maiya at her orphanage in Vung Tau, Vietnam. I can't even remember how small she was - barely 12 lbs. at 5 1/2 months. All I remember is she was the baby who came out all smiles & ready to check out the world, and that hasn't changed after a year. Here's a short video of her one year ago....(and it really is short since of course we didn't have a charged video camera on this important day!!).

A few days later on May 14, 2007, we made the long trek back to Vung Tau from HoChiMinh City in the pouring rain to make it official - and she legally became our daughter forever, although she had stolen our hearts from the minute we saw her picture two months before.

The year has flown by and it's hard to believe, especially after a freezing cold long weekend, that this time last year we were sweltering in the heat of rainy season in Vietnam. On our Forever Family Day we looked back over the pictures from our trip and it brought back so many memories of little things that we had seen and experienced - both the good & the stressful! We can't wait until Maiya is older to take her back to see the beautiful country where she was born.

She is almost 18 months old now, and is running around like crazy. She is trying to say new words every day & rarely stops "talking". She also thinks she is extremely funny right now - she'll rhyme off a big spiel and then look at us and laugh and laugh, as if what she said was the funniest thing in the world. Too bad we can't understand it! She is also very into saying the sounds that animals make, as she demonstrates in the next video - she is definitely a little monkey!

Lots of changes over the last couple of months - I started back to work in March teaching a Multiple Exceptionalities class, Brett's been busy with work & flies out to Vancouver this week, then Omaha in July. The big news is that we sold our condo in Toronto & bought a house in Kitchener. We're looking forward to having a back yard for Maiya to run wild in & hopefully burn off some energy - and Brett is looking forward to having a bbq! We get the house in 2 weeks & move mid-June, so things will be busy!! So the next post will likely be later in June with pics of Maiya in the new house!

Here's a couple more pics to tide you over until then - Maiya at 17 months & still full of smiles:o)

Oh Canada....

After months of waiting, Maiya was shocked to hear the day had finally come....

she was indeed Canada's newest, #1 CITIZEN!!

The official citizenship papers arrived on March 31st, 2008 and we were all very excited! Of course we had to go outside and wave our Canada flags to celebrate...

And as a true Canadian, she decided that since the Leafs were out of the playoffs, she might as well get her "hockey hair" cut off to celebrate the end of the hockey season.Now that she's 17 months old, she has decided she better start practicing up for her driver's license...

...and when she's not busy driving, she's just hanging around waiting for the spring showers to end and summer to begin.
Stay tuned for our next post which will celebrate our first "Forever Family Day" - the year anniversary of Maiya's adoption on May 14, 2007. Time flies when you're having fun!

A very special blog day...

One year ago, on March 11, 2007, this little face appeared on our screen after we said "yes" to our agency that we were ready to accept a proposal for a little girl. We waited as the pictures slowly downloaded onto our screen and instantly fell in love the second those eyes first smiled back at us from thousands of miles away. A whirlwind of a year later, she's had many firsts - first airplane ride, first teeth, first steps, first words, first snow, first Canadian Christmas, and many more...

Some days have brought challenges...

And some days we could all use a little more coffee....

But every day has brought us surprises and smiles ....

And a whole lot of love...

Christmas, a New Year and Another Month Passes By...

Well, over a month and I've been promising to get Christmas pictures posted so thought I'd better get to it before we're into February! Christmas was of course lots of fun as Maiya experienced her first Canadian Christmas. She especially loved the gifts wrapped in gift bags with lots of tissue paper, as her favourite activity was to rip the tissue paper into progressively smaller and smaller pieces. She'd hand each piece to me, until she was down to a tiny little piece, and then put it in her mouth. Who needs presents!!

We spent most of the holidays back in Brussels visiting with grandparents and other family & friends. By the holidays crawling was still the preferred mode of getting around, but she was walking more and more with all the encouragement she was getting! We were so tired out from the Christmas holidays that by the time we returned home on New Year's Eve, we decided to just have a relaxing night at home (translation....we're old and tired and had neglected to make any plans!!).

We started Maiya's visits to her first daycare in January, as that was to be my return to work date. I'm off until after March Break now so that I can continue to work on my research for the Masters, and Maiya can get used to daycare. We had some fairly serious issues from the first day I took her to her daycare (all I'll say is, being escorted to the door by two plain-clothes police officers - or so they said - was a little unnerving for our first day!) Needless to say, it was a very stressful week, but we were very fortunate to find a daycare not far from my work that was able to squeeze us in, and we made the switch. She loves her new daycare and I think she's gained 5lbs. already from all the good food they serve! She's brought home her first artistic masterpiece entitled "Snow" (black construction paper with some little white crayon marks on it) so we're sure she's destined for greatness in the art world now as well. Her class is now gearing up for the big Valentine's Day party on Feb. 14th, so it will be interesting to see what that entails with 7 little 12-14 month olds running around!

In January, Maiya & I were able to get together for brunch with a few of the families who also adopted around the same time as us. It had been a few months since we'd been together so it was fun to see how big all the kids are getting. They are all growing and thriving in their new homes and it's great to be able to maintain such great connections to Vietnam with them. We will be celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese New Year in February. It is based on the lunar calendar, the same as the Chinese New Year. This year will be the Year of the Rat. The Families With Children From Vietnam group will be celebrating together downtown on Feb. 23rd, and we're hoping to have our own family celebration by visiting the new Vietnamese restaurant that opened down the street from us.

At 14 months, Maiya is going strong. We think she must be close to the 20lb mark now, and seems to be getting taller every day. She has 6 teeth so far, and I think a few more are working their way in. She walks/runs everywhere, although she has discovered how to slide backwards on the hardwood floors so every once in a while I find her sliding past me, bum first with a big grin on her face. She has learned a few words in sign language, and signs for more, milk, all done, fan and light. She's not saying many words yet, but is "talking" non-stop, so I have a feeling it won't be too long before she's talking our ears off. She has a great sense of humour and keeps us laughing (although she has started to assert her independence a little more so we may see some of the "terrible twos" a little early!).

Hopefully it won't take me as long to post next time, so keep checking in February for more news!

First steps...

No luck getting the birthday cake video to post, but hopefully you can see some "foot"age of Maiya's first steps. As you can see, even walking is a performance for her! She's taken about 4-5 steps in a row a few times, so she's getting there!

Happy Birthday!!

November has been busy and Maiya continues to grow & change every day. We mailed off our 6 month report to Vietnam - November 14th was the 6 month anniversary of our Giving & Receiving Adoption Ceremony. It seems like it's been so much longer, and just yesterday at the same time. We will continue to send reports until she is 18, as part of the international adoption agreement between Vietnam & Ontario. It's a great way to reflect on all that she's accomplished in such a short time!

Maiya officially celebrated her first birthday on November 28th! It's hard to believe she's already a year old! She's definitely changing from being our little baby to being our little girl.

We celebrated with grandparents, aunts, uncles & cousins on Sunday - and most people managed to brave the snow, ice & rain to get to Toronto! We were a little worried we'd have a lot of food & no guests!

The party started with a Toi Noi "ceremony". Traditionally, Vietnamese usually celebrate their birthdays on Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. However, first birthdays are sometimes celebrated, and one tradition in the first year is to lay out a variety of objects in front of the child to see which ones she picks first. Each object is meant to symbolize something that her future holds. At first Maiya just sat and looked at everyone looking at her, so we were a little worried, but then she leaned over & grabbed the Vietnamese money, and then wondered what all the fuss was about when everyone cheered! She then grabbed the pen, a hairbrush, a calculator & a map. So as far as we can tell, she is going to be a wealthy writer with great beauty who will be successful in business (like Daddy) and a traveler (like Mommy)!

Maiya had lots of fun - although the party ended up getting into full swing right around nap time, so she was a little grumpy at times...until she had her first sweet taste of her delicious, sugar-laden birthday cake that is! As you can see in the video, her tears stopped pretty quickly once she realized what was being offered! (NOTE: I can't get the video to load - will keep trying so check back for the video in the next couple days!) She ate the WHOLE piece - very delicately, pulling off one little piece at a time!

The sugar was enough to keep her going through gifts, and she eventually passed out on Aunt Shannon's lap - just long enough to re-energize for another few hours of play time with her cousins & the dog.

So all in all, it was a great 1st birthday! We are so lucky to have such an amazing daughter, and although we are always conscious of it, on her birthday we think even more of Maiya's birth family and the many wonderful caregivers at the orphanage who took care of her until we arrived. In honour of her birth family, who is forever a part of us, we are planting a bulb which will then flower in the spring around the time of the anniversary of her adoption. We hope this will be an annual tradition that will eventually result in a beautiful commemorative garden that will help us celebrate Maiya's birth family with her. We are also hoping to donate a washing machine to the orphanage where she stayed to help with the care of other children there waiting to meet their new families.

Looking forward to the Christmas & New Year season and hope to see lots of you then! Will post a blog for the holidays so check back again in a few weeks!

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....