New Meaning to the word Thanksgiving

Today was our first Thanksgiving with Jennifer Rose and I could not stop thinking about how thankful we are to have her in our lives. What a blessing to have her so happy and healthy and in our lives. We had a really nice Thanksgiving at Etu and Eugenios with a lot of family -- about 18 people total. Jennifer loved being there -- playing with Talia, taking turns being held by various aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, etc. It was nice to be able be part of that and just take in the love and happiness. Of course, there was a ton of food and I ate a tad too much! I have to go running tomorrow. I took some videos of J Ro this morning (using the video function on our regular camera). Had not done that since we were in China. I liked how it came out and will try to upload it here if I can remember how. Was the China trip even this year? It feels like 3 years ago! Ok - signing off now.

J.

J Ro's First Halloween

We had a great time on Halloween. R and Ellen found two cute ladybug costumes so of course they had to get both of them! So J Ro wore outfit #1 during the day to meet me at work and go to the library; she then wore outfit #2 for the evening festivities walking around our neighborhood and visiting with neighbors. Here are the photos.

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J Ro Birthday Celebration

I know it seems like we've had 3 or 4 J Ro Birthday celebrations -- but since we had lots of family and friends in town on Saturday for the baby naming, we wanted to have a big party to celebrate (we talked about having a big party like that even before we went to China!). So we had 100+ people at the restaurant Tragara in Bethesda, MD. Here are some photos.

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J Ro Baby Naming

After the wonderful conversion ceremony on Wednesday, October 10, we had a really beautiful baby naming ceremony on Saturday, October 13. It was extra special because it involved the naming of four cousins: Jennifer, Jessica, Noa, and Eli. It was so nice to have friends and family from near and far at the event. R's college roommate Andrea stayed with us on Friday night and we had a great time (see photo of her feeding J Ro on Saturday morning). We were also honored to have the Herskowitz family join us for all of the weekend festivities. Here are some of our favorite photos from the day. On Saturday night, Etu and Eugenio hosted dinner at a neighborhood Italian restaurant and everyone had a great time visiting and passing the baby around!

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J Ro Conversion Ceremony

Ok - yet again we have let several weeks pass without updating the blog with some of the wonderful photos we have taken of J Ro and the supporting cast. So many amazing things have taken place over the past couple of weeks. On October 10, we participated in a conversion ceremony at Temple Adas Israel for Jennifer Rose. In addition to Rabbi Seidel and the two other Rabbis, we were joined by both sets of grandparents plus Elana and Adam as well as Ellen. Ellen and R picked out a really beautiful outfit that was one of the really nice Guangzhou purchases so Jennifer looked very special for the ceremony. The ceremony itself involved R taking the baby in the mikvah (with R in her bathing suit and J Ro in her birthday suit!) and dunking her three times followed by blessings. It was a little traumatic seeing Jennifer get dunked under water (R did an awesome job making it more fun and less scary for her). But Jennifer seemed to take the whole thing in stride (perhaps the swimming classes helped) and it was a very special ceremony for all of us. We finished the afternoon by having afternoon tea at the Four Seasons in Georgetown. Here are some photos of the day.

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J Ro with Etu and Eugenio

On Sunday, we had tickets to the Shakespeare Theater with Doug and Morna so Jennifer Rose got to spend Sunday night with grandma Etu and grandpa Eugenio. Everyone had a good time -- so good in fact that Jennifer didn't want to go to sleep. So she was still up playing when we got home at 10:30 p.m.! She was tired on Monday and slept in! Before we went out, I got some really nice photos of J Ro with Etu and Eugenio.

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Apple Picking with Doug and Morna

It was an absolutely beautiful Fall day today and we went with Morna and Doug to a local farm in Maryland to pick apples. Jennifer enjoyed it and we got some good photos.

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Jennifer, Katie, and Caitlin B-Day Get Together

We all got together yesterday (Saturday) at the Sullivan's house to celebrate the first birthdays of the three girls. It's the first time we have all gotten together since we got back from China. It was a lot of fun and everyone is doing great. Here are the photos from the party. In particular, I like the one of the three girls in their birthday hats (reminds me of the Red Couch Photo Shoot in Guangzhou, China). Notice that Jennifer was crying - was not too pleased about the party hat and having to sit still for the photo!

J.