Monday, January 18, 2010
From China
Hello all,
Here are some of the latest and greatest pics from the other side of the world. Sorry no update yesterday... it was a long travel day getting from Fuzhou to Guangzhou. We are now at the White Swan in Guangzhou where we are in the process of getting Grace's visa. We got her Chinese passport yesterday before we flew out. YEA!
There are many steps in getting a travel visa for an adoptee- one of which we completed today. Grace had her medical evaluation this morning and did an amazing job! There are photos attached but imagine being a 2 year old in an office with about a zillion other people (many of them crying children) being weighed, measured, ears eyes and nose checked, body inspection, and shots (immunizations are requires for children over 2 entering the US) and not really knowing what is going on... I was overwhelmed for her! She did not cry or get upset at all with the exception of getting her second shot- and even that was minor whimpering. What a good girl!
Everyone here is so impressed with her- someone this evening thought she had been with us for a long time- not just one week. She is picking up new english words everyday and we are starting to transition our limited Chinese to English. We have got to be the luckiest parents here. She is so fun, sweet, and beautiful. :) Not that we are biased... hee hee!
So here is the explanation for one of the photo's: She loves shoes! Every night after bath and p.j.'s she wants to put her shoes back on... tonight Brian gave her some slippers to help her forget about her shoes. I will say this- what did we used to do for entertainment? Seriously- I don't know if I have ever laughed as hard or often as I have in the last week.
We will try to send more tomorrow- we are going to a temple and the zoo in the morning...
Kim and Brian
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
What Grace likes - Inbox - Yahoo! Mail
Jake and Liz,
"We've come up with a little list of stuff for Grace. Nothing huge, so if you don't get a chance no worries.
Like her Dad she is not a very picky at all. (I actually tried octopus, tentacles and all tonight). Thus far here are some of her favorite things to eat:
bananas and banana chips
hard boiled eggs
rice, she eats more rice than Liz
garbanzo beans, go figure
jello, green has been her favorite
cauliflower
hot dogs, I'm being serious
She's not really into bread or cheese, though we have not found any good pizza. I'm sure a slice of Hotlips would persuade her. Our hotel has a buffet, which gives us the opportunity to have her try a lot of different things. We will send you updates
As far as toys she is very easily impressed, 'wow!' is her favorite expression. Her toy selection at home is going to blow her mind. Some of the things I noticed she likes that we do not have at home are toy cars, she loves rolling cars around and makes the cutest noises. She is destine to be an engineer, she absolutely loves figuring things out. She continually takes things apart and puts them back together. She's very intent on figuring things out and how they work she actually figured out how to turn the water off for the toilet in our hotel room, OK maybe a plumber not an engineer. She'd love any toys or games where she can physically manipulate the parts or have to think to accomplish a task. I think she'd love Legos. You guys are going to love playing with her. She has the best personality and she cracks me up."
"We've come up with a little list of stuff for Grace. Nothing huge, so if you don't get a chance no worries.
Like her Dad she is not a very picky at all. (I actually tried octopus, tentacles and all tonight). Thus far here are some of her favorite things to eat:
bananas and banana chips
hard boiled eggs
rice, she eats more rice than Liz
garbanzo beans, go figure
jello, green has been her favorite
cauliflower
hot dogs, I'm being serious
She's not really into bread or cheese, though we have not found any good pizza. I'm sure a slice of Hotlips would persuade her. Our hotel has a buffet, which gives us the opportunity to have her try a lot of different things. We will send you updates
As far as toys she is very easily impressed, 'wow!' is her favorite expression. Her toy selection at home is going to blow her mind. Some of the things I noticed she likes that we do not have at home are toy cars, she loves rolling cars around and makes the cutest noises. She is destine to be an engineer, she absolutely loves figuring things out. She continually takes things apart and puts them back together. She's very intent on figuring things out and how they work she actually figured out how to turn the water off for the toilet in our hotel room, OK maybe a plumber not an engineer. She'd love any toys or games where she can physically manipulate the parts or have to think to accomplish a task. I think she'd love Legos. You guys are going to love playing with her. She has the best personality and she cracks me up."
Monday, January 11, 2010
These are photos that they have taken over the past couple of days while they are in Fuzhou. They are officially Graces's parents now and have custody of her. It seems that they are all doing very well and that Grace will be keeping them very busy!!! The next couple of days they are planning to visit some different places around Fuzhou including a Panda Zoo and the park where Grace was found as a baby. 
Friday, January 8, 2010
Meeting Grace
Well, we met Xiao yesterday... she is a riot! It was so surreal meeting her after seeing pictures of her for the past few months. She is absolutely beautiful and quite the firecracker. She was all over the place the entire time that we were with her.
We took a tour of New Day Foster home and got to meet her foster parents. When we walked into the room, her foster mom told her "mama" and "baba" and pointed to us. Grace pointed and mimicked right along with her foster mom. Then she pointed to the foster family director and yelled "yeye" (Take note dad's, that means grandpa). She was delighted when everyone around her started laughing. Her voice and laugh are so beautiful. We gave her the present that we brought for her- a "zhu" (pig) that her cousin Izzy and Aunt Liz picked out for her. She was not sure what it was so she looked at it and hugged it and started her animals- "gao" (dog), "mao" (cat)- I told her "zhu" and she pointed and pulled the squiggly tail out and laughed. Then her foster mom told her to give me a kiss. Folks, all I can say about that is, I'm a goner. I am 100% in love with that little one!
The orphanage/school is very nice. Again, it was surreal seeing all of the surroundings from the pictures we have so studiously examined. It snowed last week in Beijing and in the last pictures we saw of the kids before leaving the US they had built a giant snowman. We were walking over to where Xiao has school and Brian stopped dead in his tracks and said "this is so weird", I looked outside and there was the giant snowman...
When we went back to the room where Xiao was we got to meet with New Day Foster Care staff and her foster parents. They went through her medical file and let us ask her foster parents questions about likes and dislikes. The entire time, Xiao was playing with her zhu and rearranging furniture. Good thing there are a lot of chairs in our house. She is like an ant, we are pretty sure she can lift a lot more than she weighs. :)
New Day Foster Care gave us all the pictures that they have of her and her foster parents gave us a journal that her mom has been keeping about Xiao for the last 18 months. They also gave us pictures of themselves with Xiao and their 4 1/2 year old son. These insights about her life until now are invaluable.
We then had the opportunity to give gifts to the foster parents and exchange words through a translator. So- the question is this: How do you thank somebody for raising you child for the first two years of her little life? They clearly love her like their own child and are heartbroken at saying goodbye. For all those who had a bet going on....this is the point where I started to cry. I said something insignificant compared to the love they have given Xiao, Brian said something slightly more significant and then we had a group picture. Not a lot of detail about this because I am still overwhelmed by the moment. I will say this, after the picture was taken her foster mom said "mama" and pointed at me again and handed her over. That was the first time I held my little girl. For about five seconds....then she was off to play some more and hand out candies.
Today we have a free day. We are going to Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and to buy some size 2 underwear. That's right! Our genius daughter is potty trained!!!!! Ha! We are skipping diapers folks... :)
We will write more later...maybe much later, we fly to Fuzhou tomorrow EARLY morning with Xiao at which point we will take custody. This may be tough to update for a little while.
We took a tour of New Day Foster home and got to meet her foster parents. When we walked into the room, her foster mom told her "mama" and "baba" and pointed to us. Grace pointed and mimicked right along with her foster mom. Then she pointed to the foster family director and yelled "yeye" (Take note dad's, that means grandpa). She was delighted when everyone around her started laughing. Her voice and laugh are so beautiful. We gave her the present that we brought for her- a "zhu" (pig) that her cousin Izzy and Aunt Liz picked out for her. She was not sure what it was so she looked at it and hugged it and started her animals- "gao" (dog), "mao" (cat)- I told her "zhu" and she pointed and pulled the squiggly tail out and laughed. Then her foster mom told her to give me a kiss. Folks, all I can say about that is, I'm a goner. I am 100% in love with that little one!
The orphanage/school is very nice. Again, it was surreal seeing all of the surroundings from the pictures we have so studiously examined. It snowed last week in Beijing and in the last pictures we saw of the kids before leaving the US they had built a giant snowman. We were walking over to where Xiao has school and Brian stopped dead in his tracks and said "this is so weird", I looked outside and there was the giant snowman...
When we went back to the room where Xiao was we got to meet with New Day Foster Care staff and her foster parents. They went through her medical file and let us ask her foster parents questions about likes and dislikes. The entire time, Xiao was playing with her zhu and rearranging furniture. Good thing there are a lot of chairs in our house. She is like an ant, we are pretty sure she can lift a lot more than she weighs. :)
New Day Foster Care gave us all the pictures that they have of her and her foster parents gave us a journal that her mom has been keeping about Xiao for the last 18 months. They also gave us pictures of themselves with Xiao and their 4 1/2 year old son. These insights about her life until now are invaluable.
We then had the opportunity to give gifts to the foster parents and exchange words through a translator. So- the question is this: How do you thank somebody for raising you child for the first two years of her little life? They clearly love her like their own child and are heartbroken at saying goodbye. For all those who had a bet going on....this is the point where I started to cry. I said something insignificant compared to the love they have given Xiao, Brian said something slightly more significant and then we had a group picture. Not a lot of detail about this because I am still overwhelmed by the moment. I will say this, after the picture was taken her foster mom said "mama" and pointed at me again and handed her over. That was the first time I held my little girl. For about five seconds....then she was off to play some more and hand out candies.
Today we have a free day. We are going to Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and to buy some size 2 underwear. That's right! Our genius daughter is potty trained!!!!! Ha! We are skipping diapers folks... :)
We will write more later...maybe much later, we fly to Fuzhou tomorrow EARLY morning with Xiao at which point we will take custody. This may be tough to update for a little while.
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