Gracie is 6 months already!!

Hello Everyone,

Tomorrow, Grace is 6 months old...wow time flies! Since the last update....eye appt. was great, no eye prying open torture devices, just looking at some little toys and come back in 9 months! That was uneventful! Yea! Cranial ultrasound was the next day, and besides going to the wrong hospital....everything looks good, nothing to be concerned with. I do have to say that Scottish Rite is a top notch hospital and they graciously took me even though I was at the wrong hospital (they said it happens all the time), and I was out of there 15 minutes after my scheduled appointment time.

Next step in the adoption process is a trial on March 28th and it "should" terminate parental rights on both the father and mother. They are not expected to show, and creatively with the judge's help, with a no show, the trial turns into "Yea, we have court time blocked out and no one here, so let's terminate right here and now". It has been eye opening on many accounts to the court system. So after the trial, we will sign 33's (releasing her to adoption) after the 1 month waiting period and 3 weeks for the lawyer to draw up the documents. And then it will be 3 - 5 months, depending on court availability as to when we can finalize the adoption. So, she will probably be about a year old. And this is from an uneventful, can't find the mother case. I know, it doesn't make much sense. But we will just keep lovin' on little Gracie while we wait for her to officially be a Shaheen.

We had a surprise visit from Uncle Timmy, Michael's best friend from Boston. He was just in town for a short visit, but we got to go out to dinner and catch up.


We have also had a couple of visits with possible future boyfriends. Here she is with Barrett Ulam, who brought her 1st Valentine....so cute! He was born just about 6 days or so before her, but he was full term. Talk about all boy!


She also got to visit with Beau Billing....notice her hand gesture, nice! And the hands of the proud doting fathers.


Here is Gracie in her Pats outfit from Uncle Tony, unfortunately we weren't Super Bowl Champs....but what a season! There is always next year, and they have proven even after 35 years, it can be done! Note that under the uniform she does still have on her lucky Pats onsie that she has been wearing ever since she came home from the hospital.



This is the same onsie different design, but look at how big it was on her.


I know I see her every day, and it is hard to believe how much she has changed, but here is one of the early days, and you can see how skinny minny she was....she has come a long way baby!



Just some more cutie shots....yes I am obsessed with photography lately and these are from a recent "photo shoot" when it was girl's night when daddy was out of town...yes those are all from one 2 hour span. And she still won't smile for me. I think she can't see my face because she is too interested in the camera.

Hearing Results

Hello,

Just got back from the hearing. The judge granted the TPR (termination of parental rights) to both mother and "assumed" father (we aren't sure who she named is really the father, and haven't been able to locate him either). TPR paperwork will be filed today by DFCS. The next step is a trial on March 28th at 8:30 am. At that time they are expecting to terminate parental rights on both and aren't expecting them to show up. This is longer than what I thought, but I guess I didn't realize the other step involved. Judge was just smitten by Grace's cuteness and as soon as she handed her back to me, she spit up. I said "Good girl, you know not to spit up on the judge". The good news is that there really isn't any news, and we get to keep lovin' on little Gracie. DFCS is also transferring us over to the adoption unit and everyone seems to be optimistic that will be where it ends up. My hope is with all of this waiting once we get the TPR that there will be no need to wait too long to finalize the adoption. I was told that DFCS has 16 months to finalize. We are not thinking that all of this will go on that long. So tomorrow Grace turns 5 months. She weighs 13 lbs. and is just cuter and cuter every day.

The other day I did a little photo shoot (64 pictures) and could not get her to smile in one of the pictures! I kept bribing her, "Just one smile and mommy will stop"......that didn't work. She is precious though in her fishy sweater from Uncle Jared (my brother), Auntie Kelly and cousin Delaney.

Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers! I will try to be better posting pictures more often.

Have a blessed day,

Jodi...and Michael and Grace too!

Watch Gracie Giggle!

Happy New Year!!

Hello there! Happy New Year! Wow, time really flies by when you have a baby. It is hard to believe that Grace was born 5 months ago on 1/16/08. We are still having so much fun with her, and even more fun sleeping through the night!! Let's see where we left off the last time.... Michael's family was here for Thanksgiving, so we had a house full of family and it was great seeing everyone and Gracie getting to meet them. Here are pictures from her Baptism on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We had it at Wesleyan (Michael's school) in the chapel by Marc Khedouri, one of Michael's colleagues and friends. It was very nice and intimate.







The beginning of December I took Gracie to South Carolina to visit with my old roommates from Wakefield, MA - Beth and April. April lives in South Carolina with her husband and their 3 kids, and Beth drove to meet us at April's from Charlotte, NC where she lives with her husband and 2 kids. So it was fun to get us all together and visit for a few hours. Gracie did great on the drive to and from, which was great. Here are some pictures from our visit. Mind you the pictures with the grown ups were taken by the kids, so sometimes we didn't know which one was going the snap the picture 1st. So unfortunately we are not looking at the same camera.







Michael, Grace and I took a little trip to Nashville, TN right before Christmas. We hadn't been to downtown Nashville before and since Michael has a baseball player playing at Vanderbilt next year, we thought it would be a good trip to take. Also, it is only about 4 hours away. Again, Gracie amazed us by sleeping most of the way to and from. We visited the Vandy campus, which was pretty much a ghost town due to finals and break. We got to go on the baseball field, and see the football stadium. We ate, and ate, and ate some more.....YUM! Then we went down where all the magic happens on Broadway where all the country bars are. It was during the day, but there were actually some live acts performing. We didn't take Gracie in anywhere, but hope to return again when we can enjoy it without Gracie in tow.






Christmas Day we woke up, had breakfast, and opened presents. We spent a relaxing morning at home and then went to Robert and Nicole Andrews' house for Christmas Dinner. We enjoyed playing with Jordan, who turned one in October, and brand new baby Jackson David who was born on the 17th. It was great to be with old friends and new babies!!







Here are just some cute pictures - how fun!!

My cutest monogrammed dress from Uncle Timmy, Auntie Melissa and Michael Costello

I LOVE bath time!

I love my Baby Einstein exersaucer...and I am getting the hang of how to make everything work...YEA!!


Look how quick I kick, you can barely see my legs!

Here I am watching Chad Hall for Air Force during a Bowl Game. I am starting to see a lot of sporting events in my future watching all my Daddy's past players!

I really don't like this tummy time thing, but I finally rolled over the other day...a whole new world!


I really like my gymini much better, I like to kick and grab at everything....so fun!

I don't know what they think I am going to do with this rattle thing....I think they called it a baseball and daddy has been talking about me being a righty....not sure about all of that!

I love to sleep like this, aren't I cute? And those socks my cousin Delaney sent me, so stylish!


My daddy is so silly, he cracks me up!


Happy New Year!

The Shaheen's