85 years young

This past weekend we celebrated my grandma's 85th birthday!

My Nani is my only living 'grand'  relative and also the only grandparent that I have had the privilege to know.

She is an amazing woman, born and raised in China, who then lived and raised her children overseas moving every three years with her husband who was in the oil refinery business before settling back down in the States.  

We are so blessed to have a relative in the restaurant business. 

My uncle Pete and my mom helped host a brunch for my Nani, her family and friends at one of my Uncle's restaurants in Chapel Hill. 

We decorated a private room, where the brunch was held, with flowers and sweets.  

For brunch we served fruit, salad, shrimp carbonara, beef tenderloin, roasted veggies, and crepes! 

The food was to die for! I think I ate two huge plates full.  

Finley was very excited to greet Nani when she arrived. 

I was a little afraid he was going to knock her over he was so excited. 

We were lucky enough to be able to fly in Auntie Michelle for the occasion. 

We had many of my Nani's friends, neighbors, and relatives there to help us celebrate!

This is Nani's first cousin Sally. She recently retired from marathon running and has taken up biking. And yes I said recently! Her most recent bike adventure was biking the entire length of England in 9 days! This woman inspires me, and unfortunately I did not inherit her athletic endurance. 

Of course she rode her bike to the party, so Finley enjoyed trying on her helmet. 

And here are some fun facts about my Grandma that I would like to share: 

She is the mother to five amazing children including a soccer coach, a restaurateur, an interior designer, a PA, and a nurse. She gave birth to my dad in Bombay, India in the middle of an earthquake. The nurse told her to 'cross her legs' and wait until the doctor arrived to deliver the baby. She is also the grandmother of three lively children, and great grandmother to the adorable Finley.

 While my grandmother and her young family were living in Ethiopia a coup erupted to overthrow Emperor Haile Selassie. Shots would often ring out nearby and the family would roll down iron shutters to protect themselves and their home. One evening my grandpa was reading in his favorite armchair and stood up to get a drink, a few moments later a bullet penetrated the iron shutters and pierced the back of the armchair before ricocheting around the living room. My Nani saved the bullet and wears it on her charm bracelet calling it "Pete's Bullet". 

At one point during the coup my grandpa called home and told my grandma to get in the car and get to the Embassy. She piled her children in the car, yelled at them to keep their heads down, and drove right down through the battle line where a crossfire was occurring and the soldiers had no idea they were shooting at Americans. Once she got to the embassy, they found themselves in danger of scatter shot mortars landing on the grounds all around them. She decided it would be safer for her family at home and drove back through the gunfire to their home. And yes everyone made it home safely. 

The Dorrance's all got their athletic abilities from my Nani. She grew up playing all sorts of sports. She was captain of the tennis and swimming teams at American University. While swimming there she set records for the number of events won in a single meet. She also regularly beat my grandpa in golf and enjoyed teasing him about it. 

She is an amazing artist! She studied Chinese water color in China and all of our homes are decorated with her beautiful paintings. She also use to knit up a storm! I am lucky enough to have some sweaters that she knitted for Donovan when he was little. My mom saved them and passed them down to Finley. 

In Chapel Hill she use to work at a knitting shop and would often help friends fix their projects after dropping many stitches while watching intense UNC basketball games. 

She is a fabulous cook! 

I still crave many of her recipes including her nasi goreng, stewed tomatoes, peanut sauce, and cheese dip.

I think I also inherited her sweet tooth as she loves all things chocolate. She loved hosting elaborate parties for her American friends overseas and would go all out making costumes and painting sets for their themed parties. She was the ultimate hostess in her heyday. 

Happy 85th Birthday Nani! 

We love you and are so glad we live so close and get to see you all the time!

Our Little Man

I have been avoiding writing this post for a while now. 

Maybe I am in denial. Maybe I am not ready for him to grow up. 

Whether I am ready or not, it seems like my baby, is no longer a toddler. 

He is a little man now. A little boy. 

Sigh. 

Over the past three months there have been some huge changes in this house resulting in the transformation of my "baby". 

1) Bye Bye Paci 

Back in October we went to visit my cousin and her family up in Maryland. 

While we were there we decided it would be a good time to give up the pacifier. 

My cousin Linda had just had a new baby this past summer and we convinced Finley to give his pacis to the baby Annie because she needed them more than he did. 

It really went over pretty well. 

He gave them up without a fight. After we got home he would ask for his paci and whine a bit about where they were, but there were no major meltdowns or tantrums to tempt us to give them back. 

Let's just hope he doesn't harbor any permanent hated towards baby Annie, the new owner of his pacis. 

The only major downside was that once his pacis were gone, he also gave up his naps!

2) Toddler Bed

In preparation for Cousin Gabi to come and visit us for Thanksgiving we went ahead and converted Finley's crib into a toddler bed so that when she was visiting she could sleep in it. 

Finley was really excited about his big boy bed. He LOVED that he could get into and out of his bed all by himself. And that mama and dada could crawl up in bed with him now too (let's just hope our weight hasn't done permanent damage to the crib). 

He only had a couple of nights where he would get out of bed in the middle of the night or super early in the morning. After that he was pretty adjusted and happy with his new found freedom! 

I still can't believe he never figured out how to get out of his old crib on his own. 

3) Potty Trained!

I almost don't want to jinx our most recent accomplishment because it has been going so well. The week after Christmas we started potty training Finley (he is 2 years 8 months old). This was probably the hardest thing we have had to teach him to date! The first three days were rough, but after that we started making some really good progress. 

We used a rewards system to get him excited about the process. He was already really excited about his new undies and potty from Santa, but now he had the extra motivation of a sticker chart and M&Ms to get him going! 

Every time he went in the potty he got to put a sticker on his chart. 

Then he got some M&Ms. 

(3 for pee, 5 for poo)

On the fourth day Finley decided he wanted to put his diaper back on. We had church this day and we didn't want to force him so we let him wear a diaper to church. He told me 

"Mama I am tired. I want to wear a diaper". It broke my heart and I feared all of our progress and hard work was going out the window. But after we got home from church he decided to put his undies back on much to my surprise! 

By the fifth day we were starting to have some accident free days! 

Woo Hoo! Just when we were about to give up and post pone we started to see major progress! 

I just love seeing him in his big boy undies!

With our M&M supply running low we switched over to a new strategy. 

Now Finley only gets one sticker a day for having an accident free day. 

And he only gets a treat for pooping in the potty. 

We are slowing working our way up to the fire truck ie our big reward of visiting the fire station!

I can't tell you how proud I am! And so is he!

Another big surprise is that Finley wakes up in the morning with a dry diaper! I can't believe it. I thought that would be something we would wait to tackle down the road, but once he figured out this whole potty training thing, he stopped peeing in his sleep. The only downside is that he will sometimes wake me up in the night to use the bathroom. 

Even though this kid may be small, he sure is acting like a big boy these days. 

If only he were still taking naps!

He will occasionally give in and pass out when he is really worn out. 

Here are some great pictures of him napping in strange places: 

 

On the couch. 

In his chair. 

And the best one to date: on the floor of the kitchen while eating a snack!

Finley & The Fish

You have heard about the tortoise and the hare, right? Well, here is Finley & The Fish . . .

TAR!!!!

HEELS!!!!

This past Saturday was another first for Finley.

It was his first time attending a UNC men's basketball game.

We were all very excited for his first game.

And grateful to pop pop for letting us use his tickets!

Some of Finley's favorite parts of the game did not involve basketball.

They included the cheerleaders, the pep band, meeting and giving a high five to Rameses, and clapping when anyone scored (either side - we will have to work on that).

He did really well staying in his seat or on one of our laps.

And no accidents! Another huge plus! (we are potty training)

David enjoyed taking some action shots with our new camera.

And this is the money shot that he took right before he retired the camera for the night.

Our Tar Heels did not disappoint as we won our game against Boston College.

We left the game a little early (I know) but Finley was getting tired and we didn't want to fight the crowds to get out. All in all it was a successful first game for Finley and I think we have successfully brainwashed him into being a Tar Heel when he grows up :).