She's Walking!!!

Syd took her first steps (by herself) this past Friday. AM, Kyle, Spencer and I were all on hand to witness the act. Sydney's been threatening for at least a week now and I guess she finally got up the nerve to try it (on the hardwood floor no less). She took about 5 steps to retrieve a toy that daddy stole. She knew that she had done something very special as she was smiling the whole wobbly way to daddy.

Life is still trying to make the adjustment to full "normal" (what's that?) around here. I'm getting slammed with having to travel for work in the coming weeks so I'm sure that normal will have to wait for another time. On the plus side of that, I should be closing alot of work so the Q3 bonus should be nice. Need to pay off those international travel bills!

The boys are both doing well adjusting to the expanded family. Kyle is helping out a bunch and changed his first diaper the other day(well, not HIS OWN diaper but his first time changing Sydney's). In the afternoons, he takes Sydney for mommy and plays with her so mommy can choose one of the following...make dinner, have a much needed shower, do housework...none of which are fun, but absolutely necessary in order for mom to keep her sanity for the day.
Spencer is trying to learn how to share everything and time/attention with an almost one year old and get used to the idea that his role has changed from "baby" to Big Brother (not an easy thing to master) There has been some issues here that have not been pleasant, from talking to a few other people...it sounds like he is behaving normally for such a huge change, but anyway...we all have to put much extra effort into trying to maintain the family unit so it works for everyone and no one is left out...never thought it would be so tough!!!

We have not had a lot of time to grab the camera lately, but we will post some action shots soon...stay tuned!

Other than that, not too much else to report. We'll keep you updated on anything important, interesting or funny that pops up.

Joe, AM, Kye, Spencer and Syd.

Happy Holidays

Well, belated Happy Holidays to everyone. It's been mildly crazy with the adjustments, Christmas, New Years, back to work and school, etc... so the holidays are a bit behind us now howevere, our daily routine is becoming substantially more established now.

First off, we want to congratulate our friends Heather and Ricky Wells on the referral of their daughter, Abigail Mae Shao Wells. Here is the link to their blog where you can see pictures and the like: http://www.journeytoabigail.blogspot.com . Abigail is from Guangdong so that should make their journey a little bit more tolerable from a weather standpoint.

Any how, the boys are back to school. They both brought home excellent report cards yesterday which will hopefully continue for the second half of the year! Great job guys.

Anne Marie took Sydney for her checkup and first round of shots last week. Like any child, Sydney doesn't really like the doctor too much. Six shots at once is enough to make anyone a bit grouchy.

Christmas was fun at the Rogers house. My parents where able to stay on until Jan 1st and believe you me, we needed all of their help during those first couple of weeks back. Thanks again Mom and Dad for all of your help. We wouldn't have been able to do this without you.

Here are a few Christmas Morning Pictures:







New Years was a blast. If you've never had the opportunity to stay at a friends house in Texas on New Years, you're missing out. Fireworks are pretty big down here and most subdivisions sound like warzones from about 8:00pm until a little bit after midnight. We of course chipped in with our $180 worth of fireworks (luckily we hit the store on 50% off day!). The boys got the arsenal ready while we hung out with Syd inside. We slowly made our way outside as our neighbors were lighting their batch and low and behold, Sydney loved it. The bigger the boom, the bigger her smile. We couldn't believe it. She actually made bad faces when the little ones were being set off. Kinda like "is that all you have?"
Shown here is a few pics of our fireworks...and in Texas...these are some "mild" ones!


















We're getting settled in pretty good now. Sydney sleeps through the night (and sometimes well into the morning) no problem. This is nice as it gives Anne Marie a chance to get the boys off to school, relax with a cup of coffee and then put the mom hat on.
Syd isn't too big on napping so bedtime is in and around 8:00pm.

We're going to start making plans for Syd's first birthday on January 21st. We're soo happy that she's home for her 1st birthday. Not too sure what we're doing yet but we'll figure something out.

Also getting ready for chinese New Year in February. The Chinese community center in Houston usually has a really nice fair\crafts show\performance so we're looking forward to that. We'll also have a dinner with the FCC (Families with Children from China) of Houston.

All for now, we'll try to update the blog regularly to let everyone know how we're doing.

Talk to Y'all later.

Joe, Anne Marie, Kyle, Spencer, Sydney and the dogs.