Our style queen!

The sunglasses were a HIT! She loves to put them on and take them off continually! and....a girl can never have too much shoes right??????? At least that is what Sophie and mommy think!

More Pictures 7/10/07

These pictures were at Green Lake park. The men at the table are playing a game similar to chess in the US. The retired people here seem to be more social than in the US - they keep very active and busy and hang out with one another. The big beach balls were taken at the lake - the children love them and it is good for balance! The last picture with all the people was a group of older parents trying to meet other parents to find mates for their children. They meet at the park, discuss their grown children and try to play match maker. Our facilitator tells us the grown children don't enjoy this much!

Green Lake Park

Today we walked around green lake park. It is a beautiful park with so much to see and do. There is a little amusement area for little kids and people dancing, singing and exercising. There is also a place where children gather to feed fish (Sophie thought the fish were amazing). There are little paddle boats, which we hope to be able to ride with Sophie later in the week (she is running a low grade fever with a bad cough so we have started her on antibiotics and are trying to lay low with her until she feels better). The older ladies were giving the thumbs up and coming up to us and wanting to see and touch her. One older lady felt her head and told me that she must have a bad cough even without ever seeing or hearing her cough - WIERD! We walked quite a bit until miss Sophie seemed to have to go potty and we decided to head back to our room (now she is napping now and has not had one potty "accident" yet. It is challenging because we do not communicate well yet and there is not a definitive way to know if she has to go potty that we have established yet. We meet our group of friends tonight for dinner at the Blue Bird. It has been a total blessing to have these people to talk with and eat with. We are all in the same boat and encourage one another continually which really helps. I can not say more positive things about our facilitator - he is the best we have seen - he is so helpful and kind and really funny!!! Americans Adopting Orphans families are very blessed to have him - he makes this process so doable and we really enjoy him!

Bathtime is so much fun!

Sophia LOVES her bath!!!!

Forever day!

Today was just a busy day! Today marks such an important milestone because Sophie is officially ours according to China law. We took an oath that we would not abuse or abandon her. When filling out paperwork for our adoption, we were told that the camera in the civil affairs office was broken and we were to go to a photo studio to get our family photo done. By this point, little Sophia was just so tired and the photographer freaked her out. Our family photo is one of a precious screaming baby girl. From that time on - she has been much more weary of men in general.

We finally got back and had bath time, which Sophia LOVED. She is just such a hoot - she is spunky and crazy all wrapped up with really sweet - she is just the perfect child that God hand chose for us and for our family. She is very social and giggles to herself when she plays. She likes it when we get crazy with her too!

She is such a teeny little one. Her hair is also quite thin. We were told that she lived in a foster home with two teenage sons in the country and wonder if she did not get enough food. Her ribs just stick out. The amazing thing is that she loves any food that we give her without rejection - so we anticipate it to be only a short time until she is to a healthy weight for her size.

She is also fighting something. I gave her Tylenol tonight and called UW who told me to give her the antibiotics, just because babies with cleft do have a harder time with ear infections and we will be flying very soon. She seemed ok with both meds. Her chest cough is pretty bad. Please pray for her.

This is just the awesome proof about how awesome God is. The lady from California that I have become very close to, who happens to be Cana's mommy - and we have had dinner with them and hung out with them often, adopted the sweet baby girl from Sophie's farming village and she was in the same baby room as Sophia in the orphanage! Sophia really loves this little girl and you can tell that she knows her well. It has just been so awesome and I know that because of our girls and God's hand, we will be friends for life.

We are so in love with this little one! Can't wait till tomorrow to see what we get to know more about this amazing little one!

Kids - Sophia is going to LOVE you guys so much! Daddy and I showed her the pictures of you guys and she always wants to look at the photo book and touch you and have us tell her who you are! Only 10 more days!!! We love you guys.

On a total side note, which we will write about later, Kunming is GORGEOUS!!! This place is great!!!

Gotcha day

Hello!!! We have been filled with the wonder and miracle of this wonderful sweet baby girl of ours. God is so good. We are so blessed. We can't believe how much in love we are with Sophia already - she is such a little spunky thing.

We got to the Civil Affairs office at 8:30. We sat down and we saw a nanny bring in two babies. One was apparently very upset. They were in another room so we were not sure which one was Sophie. Our facilitator told us Sophie was not the crying baby, but once they brought her to us, she was VERY upset. Daddy held her then mommy. She cried for about 10 minutes and then we got the bottle out which did the trick. She drank it well and then ate her filling of fruity Cheerios (thanks to the advice of the been there done that mommy, our friend Cathy). She then was playing and laughing and smiling. She has taken to us both equally so far.

She is a VERY tiny thing - she wears about a 6 month size and looks thin - daddy says give her a couple weeks with the Hopp snack drawer and she will be her right size in no time!!

She does have a little cough and we plan to take her to see the doctor just to be sure she is ok. She seems happy and content though. She is on the bed playing with her new toys. She is SOOOO smart - stacking cups and reading books and LOVING her sunglasses and her new baby doll. LOVES THE BABY DOLL!

She is in fact potty trained - her motion is a dress tug and then I take her in and she goes. I still have a diaper on her - she does not seem to mind the diaper.

We were told once the nanny gave her to us to be VERY careful - that even though she seems quiet because she is upset - she is WILD and will get into EVERYTHING! I guess we may need to Sophie proof the house more!

We will write later - we are just so in love with this little one that God has blessed us with.

Gatcha Day

More pictures later but wanted to let you know that we finally got beautiful Sophia in our arms today. At first she was a little hesitant but now has taken to us very well. We are so happy.

Our favorite site!

This is my favorite picture that we have sent yet. Look at what we were greeted with when we checked in to our hotel and entered our room!! That little blue crib was my favorite site so far. I can just imagine my baby girl asleep dreaming in it all snuggly in her new blankets. Looking at this little crib brought tears to both of our eyes. Life is about to change in an amazing way!

Can't sleep

It is 3am the morning that we will be getting Sophia. I am soooo excited and have anticipated this day for so long. I wonder what she will be like, look like, and who she will prefer. We have been told by our facilitator that it is VERY likely that she will choose one of us to prefer and completely avoid the other, this is a normal and expected reaction by most babies in this situation. We have been told that the babies are typically one of three ways

* VERY upset (cries for 3 days or so)

* Happy and indifferent, but prefers one parent over the other

* sullen with a blankish look and distant (attachment is more of a challenge)

What will miss Sophia be? Maybe she will be the 4th way that has not been created yet, she certainly seems like a girl with a mind of her own (hmmm, who does that sound like).

I am going to try to get a little more sleep so I can be ready for this bundle of joy........ 6 hours!!!!

We will have Sophie in our arms in 10 hours!

It is 11pm and we are trying to get our supplies ready to meet our precious Sophia. Our facilitator tells us that tomorrow will be a very busy day - doing most of the paper work for the government and preparing documents for Sophie's passport. We will be here until Saturday and then venture off to Guangzhou to go to complete the rest of the adoption (the US side of things). We are so excited to finally meet this wonderful girl that the Lord has so richly blessed us with. We can not even begin to have words to express how thankful we are for this gift! China has been so wonderful! The weather is GREAT! The people are fantastic and continually taking our pictures and talking to us to practice english. It is our one and only opportunity to act like real life movie stars (yeah right). We were also able to meet up with Stacy and Paul, an awesome Christian couple from China adopting their 5th - yes 5th child. We had dinner with them tonight and talked. We feel blessed that God has brought them into our lives and that our paths have crossed. They get their little angel, Cana, tomorrow at almost the same time as Sophie. goodnight for now! Sophie, ready or not, here we come...... oh yes and by the way - Richard told us today that she is potty trained...21 months....potty trained.....not a lot of ability to communicate....another fun and exciting venture on this journey.

The Family Plan in China

We found out more on what the Family Plan Policy is in China. It may be different than what you think it is...

The basic policy for China is that each family is allowed 1 child.
There are 56 nationalities in China. The Han nationality makes up ~90% of the Chinese population.
If either the husband or the wife is of a minority nationality (there are 55 minority nationalities), then they are allowed 2 children.
In some cases, if both parents are of minority nationalities, then 3 children are allowed.
If you have an illegal child born to you and if you are an employee of the government, then you will lose your job.
If you have an illegal child born to you then you have to pay a fee of 150,000 yuan, or about $20,000.
If you don't report the child to the government, then you will not be able to get an ID card that allows the child to go to school. I believe these are the same cards that Beijing will use during the 2008 Olympic games to determine if you are a Beijing local. Anyone without a card will not be permitted to be in Beijing during the olympics.
If your firstborn child is a girl, then you are allowed to have a second child after the girl is 8 years old. I believe this is a fairly new law to promote the families to keep their girls.
There was an article in the local newspaper about how China will have many millions more men in the 2020's than women. I wish I had kept the paper.

pictures of our room in kunming

Ni Hao from Kunming China!

Hello everyone! We made it! What a journey it has been so far. All of our flights were great. We did not sleep much at all, but we think that it may have actually helped us get used to the time difference here. It is pretty humid here. We arrived in Gunagzhou at 11pm China time (which was about 8am Washington time). We went right to bed after checking in and got up this morning, had a wonderful brunch, met our facilitator Richard, who is wonderful and we are now settling in at our hotel. We were greeted in our room with the soon to be crib for Sophie to sleep in. We are in utter awe at the miracle that is waiting just miles from us. We were told that we will get Sophia at 9am tomorrow morning. This is sure to be a sleepless night! In about an hour we are going to Walmart to get water, and some supplies for Sophia. Please pray for us and for Sophia, our facilitator did tell us that he thinks she is still in her foster home (which was a shock to us) so this means that tomorrow morning may be an emotional challenge for her. As Richard told us, "she will hate you and then she will love you". Richard did confirm that our baby is VERY busy and that we need to keep a close eye on her. Her foster family lives in the country and it is likely that she has been able to run around on her leisure. Below are some pictures of the airport, our hotel in Guangzhou and a few others. We miss you kids and we loved talking to you today!!! Give grandpa and grandma a big kiss from us and we will send pictures of Sophia as soon as we can!!!!

It's 1:41 and we are about to board!!!!

Well all, we made it!!!! We got through getting our ummm 50plus bound bags checked in (for no cost courtesy of the wonderful and gracious North West Airlines baggage checker who thought that us adopting was a "wonderful thing")! We are sitting here so excited to get on board. I is surreal that we are at this point and that we are only hours away from meeting our new baby girl!!! We plan to post as soon as we can! Hang tight and watch the Lord move!!!

To my youngest daughter and her mother from China

Hui Juan,

You will not be aware that your life is about to change. You are going to have a mommy and daddy that love you more than you know. We have dreamed about the day that you would be placed in our arms and now our dreams are becoming reality and our faithful prayers are being answered. We love you without knowing you and without reservation. We love the baby you are, and the girl you will become. We know how blessed we are to have the joy of watching you grow.

Somewhere in Yunnan is a woman who gave birth to you. She made sure that you were carefully placed in a soft blanket in front of the busy market place so that when the sun rose, people would find you and you would be taken care of. She loved you sweet one. You have the softness of her eyes. I know that your mother from China wanted you to have a full and rich life. I am so in debted to her. I pray she will feel the love I have for you in my heart and know that you will be loved beyond compare.

Hui Juan, I love you and I can not wait to kiss you. We are hours away from being right beside you for the rest of your life!!

Love, mommy

WE ARE COMING SOPHIA!

After all the waiting, we finally leave tomorrow. All our bags are packed and the kids are sound asleep (It's almost midnight). We have been praying for Sophia to be united with our family and we can't be more excited.

Sophia's room Done just in time

Sophia will be so happy to have her own room. We cannot wait to show it to her. Baby we love you. We are coming soon.