More Smiles Today

Well, today we went to an Embroidery Factory and watched the women work on their projects. Some of the works will take 6-12 months to create. We purchased one for our home and hope to get it back in one piece. We also visited an ancient university here in Changsha that has been around for 1000 years. We are standing in front of the Longevity character in this photo. You can see we finally caught Lydia smiling in a photo today. She is smiling and laughing a lot more now, but she also has her serious face times, especially when we are out of the hotel room. She loves to play with Daddy, but also teases him with not letting him hold her hand or feed her at times. I told him she is playing "hard to get." But, she knows she all ready has him wrapped around her finger. Tonight she had a hard time falling to sleep and was seemingly just wanting to stay close to Mom and make sure she wasn't going anywhere. Caleb and Mom went swimming today in the hotel pool while George and Lydia napped.

We also had a wonderful dinner tonight in a restaurant near our hotel with some awesome food. We cooked our food in front of us in boiling broth, sort of like fondue and the food was very good, including bunches of exotic looking mushrooms, bundled with thin strips of beef, and rice noodles and pork sliced very thin. We had a number of other delicious dishes, too and Caleb enjoyed the fried rice, sweet and sour pork and the watermelon.

We continue to focus on getting to know Lydia and trying to help her understand that we are not going away but will be hers forever. It is late and time to turn in for the night. We appreciate your prayers and comments. We enjoy hearing by email or comments from all of you, and look forward to being home with our family in less than a week.

Wednesday at "Martyr" Park

On Wednesday, we had no official adoption things to do, so we headed to the park for a walk and a few rides for the boys. Of course, there were fish to feed, too. We then went to have a wonderful Chinese lunch with a number of dishes that I had never had and all were delicious. While we are out and about Lydia looks a little serious and just seems to be taking it all in, watching everything around her. She feels like she is relaxed especially when in the sling on Mom. But, when we are in our room, she runs around playing and talking and laughing quite a bit with Caleb and Daddy. Today I will have to get photos of her sliding on a slide in the play room on our floor because she really enjoyed that yesterday afternoon. She and Caleb are learning to interact and she doesn't let Caleb push her around or take her toys she is playing with. She let me trim her fingernails with no hesitance yesterday and she seems to be very relaxed now when I change her clothes or help her with the potty. She didn't eat as much yesterday but did take her bottles quite well. I think she had eaten so much the first day and might not have been terribly hungry yesterday.

While we were at the park vendors selling toys for children kept coming up to Caleb and putting the item in his hand, then wanting us to pay for them. I was really proud of Caleb when he was asked to give the item back he did so without a fuss. But, we knew he really wanted to come home with something. So, one of the more intriguing items that was being sold is this small clear bag attached to a key chain loop with a small fish swimming in a small amount of colored water. I warned him that the fish might not live very long, but we decided this souvenir was better than a noisemaker toy. So far the fish is still swimming even after being dropped a few times. So, on Thursday we are supposed to be going to a couple of tourist sites including an embroidery factory shop. So, I am looking forward to doing some shopping today. We wish we could come home tomorrow, but since we cannot, I figure I should just enjoy this vacation from house work and cooking as much as possible and just enjoy the time with my husband and Caleb and Lydia. Still praying for those at home and anxious to see you all very soon.

It is Official!

Today we went back to the Civil Affairs Office to make her adoption final in the eyes of China. In one photo you can see Lydia getting her foot print done on the paperwork. We answered a few questions and also had our thumbprints taken. Lydia had a few moments of fear today especially as we reentered the building where we received her yesterday. But, she seemed ok with meeting the worker from her orphanage that you see in one photo. She no longer wanted to go with her like yesterday. As we drove away on Monday with Lydia crying in fear I prayed that God would somehow help Lydia to know how much we loved her. At the same moment I wondered how God must feel when He loves us so very much and yet we don't trust Him or His love for us that is so very perfect and complete. Even though our love for Lydia is far from perfect, we love her very much all ready and were awed today when she started to begin to trust our love a little bit and began to smile and laugh so much more. She has a delightful voice and laugh and her smile will melt you away. She is eating great and sleeping well and so far has kept her panties dry! She was so excited when I put her pretty swim suit and coverup on to head to the pool this afternoon, but she did not think the pool was such a good idea, so we never made it past the first step. So, we obviously have some trust to gain still. But, Caleb enjoyed the water and she watched him closely as he jumped in and splashed around. In our conversations with the orphanage worker, it was made clear that she has been a favorite at the orphanage and that they are so happy that she has found a family. We promised to send updated photos and I showed them a photo of her big brother Yuri swimming in a swim meet and told them she would not be limited by her differences much at all in her life.

We spent some time playing in the hotel play room and she has great use of her fingers and hands making tall block towers and using duplo like toys to make very tall towers of linking blocks with no assistance. After finishing dinner tonight, she enjoyed tearing small pieces of her napkin apart and crumbling it up and blowing them off the table towards me with a huge grin on her face. We are just so awed by her life and the fact that we have been joined together in this wonderful mystery called adoption once again. We miss terribly our other kids back home and are so excited for our home coming on Christmas Eve! Thanks for your prayers for our family.

More Pics - First Day

We have Lydia!

We met Lydia around 1030 this morning (Monday, Dec 15th in Changsha, Hunan) and she is beautiful! We had a longer time to get to know each other in the office before leaving, but it was still very traumatic for her when we left the orphanage worker and headed back to the hotel. The other family adopting with us have a little three-year old girl and they were both crying together in the van on the way back to the hotel. I feel sorry for the van driver. :-) We have spent the last few hours in our hotel room trying to get to know each other. She does love cheerios and took half of a bottle of milk from me. She seems to be very interested in what Caleb does and he is always trying hard to get her to laugh...with eventual success! We have seen her smile a few times and she has an awesome smile. She really likes the doll we brought her and has been holding on to it a lot. I am trying to get her to take a nap right now, but I am not sure it is working. We found out she was in foster care for about a year, but when they found out we were adopting her, they moved her back to the orphanage. So, she has had a number of changes in her short life. She was also involved in a preschool program at the orphanage sponsored by "Love without Boundaries". Caleb seems very happy with his new sister and George and I feel so incredibly blessed! Please pray for her and the challenges she now faces with her life changing in all ways. It seems that she had a very close relationship with at least one of the nannies. So she is going to have a lot to grieve.

More later,
Mary Ann (and George)

We're Here!

We arrived safe and sound in Changsha, China and will meet Lydia Monday morning (Sunday evening your time). Pray we can all recover a bit from a long trip before we meet her. We will try to post asap after we have her and include some photos.

Bags Are Packed!

As I finish packing the final things in the suitcase and struggle with leaving my five teenagers behind, I also think about a little 2 year old girl in China who has no real idea how her life is about to be changed. Everything she has ever known and all that is familiar she will be leaving behind. We have chosen her and she has been in our hearts and minds for nine months now. A photo of her has been in my wallet and on the refrigerator for nine months. And, if we are lucky someone has shown her the little photo album that we sent to her in a package a few months ago. How long will it take her to understand that we love her and that she is going to be with us forever. Will she be terrified of us or will her new 4 year old brother help her to warm up to us faster? Will she struggle with her adoption when she is a teenager and struggling to just figure out her identity or will her adoption help her to understand her adoption as a child of God, something even more confusing and mysterious. I cannot explain how very much I love this child that I have only seen in photos. But, I can tell you that it is only because of the love God has given me. I am blessed and privileged to participate in this journey of adoption once again. I am sure there are challenging days ahead where I will be sleep deprived and exhausted by the needs of my family. But, I will go to bed thankful that God has given me the opportunity to love one more child and call her my daughter. I have been overwhelmed by the love and support that I have felt in the past few weeks as we prepared for travel. Thank you so much to all of you who are praying for us and helping out with the kids left behind.
We will leave our home tomorrow afternoon and arrive in China about 36 hours later, on Sunday afternoon. We will meet our new daughter on Monday morning, so our next post will probably not be until Monday. Christmas Blessings!