Christmastime with Michelle

We're so excited about Michelle's first Christmas. We dreamed about it for so long and now we're enjoying every minute. We've had so much fun shopping for her (perhaps a bit too much fun) and I loved baking cookies with her. I couldn't wait to have her help us decorate the tree. I took her out for a few hours and Roman got everything out and had the tree all set up and the ornaments ready to put on the tree. We thought Michelle would be really into decorating the tree but she put a couple of ornaments on and then completely lost interest. She handed them back to me and said, "Mama do it." At least I got a couple of pictures. I got her an Advent calendar and have some small Sesame Street ornaments for the gifts. She enjoys putting those on the tree. She has very definite ideas about where each one should go and some branches have three ornaments. I thought about moving them after she goes to bed one night but then I decided to leave them. Christmas is all about her now and if she wants three ornaments on one branch, that's fine with me. She loves the stuffed animals we have decorating the living room. My mom and I are really into moose so we have a ton of them sitting out for the holidays. Michelle has to kiss each one goodnight and she calls them cows. She also has a few stuffed dogs, a few snowmen and even a dancing jalapeno that she has to kiss before bed. We have to start saying goodnight a few minutes earlier now because it's taking awhile to say goodnight to everyone. It's absolutely adorable, though. Hmmmmm....Where should I put this one?
This looks like a good spot.
Did I do a good job?
Relaxing after a hard day of decorating
I'm excited about my presents!I love hugging and kissing my pandas.

December 6, 2007

The happiest day of our lives up to that point. I barely slept the night before knowing we should be getting the call that day. We were so excited and nervous. I was at work and I kept my cell phone next to me and kept checking it every few minutes to make sure it was on and the battery was charged. I told all my friends and family not to call me because I didn't want to take any chances of missing "the" call. The minutes were ticking by with no call. I was getting more and more nervous and antsy. I was shaking like a leaf, my heart was racing and my stomach was queasy. Finally at 11:20 a.m. my phone rang. I almost jumped out of my chair. I grabbed the phone and found I could barely speak. It was M. from our agency and she said "I have good news for you. We have your referral." All I could manage to get out was "Oh my God!" She told us our daughter's name was Sheng Xue Feng (in my nervousness and excitement I misunderstood and thought she said Seng instead of Feng), she was born on August 26, 2006 and she was in the Desheng SWI in Guangxi Province. I had my list of questions sitting next to me but I was incapable of any sort of rational thought. M. asked me what time we wanted to go in and told us we could go in any time after 1:00. I said 1:00 would be perfect. I called Roman the second I hung up and practically shouted "We have a daughter!" We met in the lobby of my building at noon to go to the agency together and we ran to each other hugged with tears streaming down both of our faces. That was a very long hour waiting for our appt at the agency. Finally, a little after 1:00 we met with M. and she showed us Michelle's pictures. We both cried again looking at this beautiful little girl who was about to become our daughter. We were completely overwhelmed and madly in love. We were looking at the daughter we had dreamed of for so long. We had to pinch ourselves to believe it was true. The rest of the day was a whirlwind. We spent the afternoon mailing out the visa applications and the referral information to the international clinic for review. Then we spent the evening making calls and sending out e-mails to our friends and family.

That was such an incredible day. I don't think I had ever experienced such pure joy in my life. I don't know how the matching room does it. Michelle really is the perfect child for us and we're the perfect family for her. We look at her every day and thank God for her. As painful as the wait was, we wouldn't change a thing. We'd gladly go through it all again to have our precious Michelle.

A year ago at this time...

We were just over 24 hours from seeing our daughter's face for the first time. Wow! Has it really been a year? I was such a nervous wreck. It was a Wednesday and rumors had been really quiet all week. I was checking Rumor Queen every 2 minutes but there just wasn't much out there. I was trying to prepare myself for the possibility that we might not hear anything until the following week when suddenly the first report came in from the West Coast. Somebody had just gotten "the call." I was so excited. At that time referrals typically arrived on the West Coast first and then the next day the East Coast got theirs. I knew then that we should be getting our referral the next day. I started shaking and I had to fight back the tears (since I was at work). I called Roman right away to tell him we were a day away from getting the most important call of our lives. He was cautiously optimistic after all the disappointments. It was so hard to focus on work or anything else. All I wanted to do was sit at the computer and check RQ. I couldn't wait for that day to be over. The next day we were going to be parents!

It's Official

This morning we went to family court for our adoption hearing to re-legalize Michelle's adoption. The adoption was official and complete in China but it's recommended that families have it re-legalized in their home state to make it easier to get an official birth certificate and things like that so we did it. It was very simple. We met with the judge in her chambers, she asked us a couple of questions and then signed the adoption decree. So now Michelle has been officially declared our daughter by the state. We were allowed to pictures of Michelle with the judge. Most people take pictures of their children sitting on the judge's lap. You can see below how well that went over.

This afternoon Michelle and I made sugar cookies. She had a very good time helping Mama. She helped me roll out the dough and make shapes with her cookie cutters. She was most helpful with sampling the dough to make sure it was okay. That was definitely her favorite part of making cookies. I spent so many years dreaming of baking Christmas cookies with my daughter. Today another dream came true.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we enjoyed our first Thanksgiving as a family. We're very thankful this year. It's wonderful celebrating the holidays with our little princess at last. We had dinner at home and then went to a friend's house for dessert. Michelle was pretty excited about all the food and she charmed everyone at our friend's house.

She seemed to really enjoy the day. She was even able to say "Happy Thanksgiving." Roman and I were both shocked. We hadn't even tried teaching it to her. She was just talking to my mom on the phone and my mom wished Michelle a happy Thanksgiving and Michelle said it right back to her. I tried to get her to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with me this morning but she wasn't interested. She watched about 15 seconds and then she had to go play. She's a very busy girl.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!






In other news, I enrolled Michelle in a class at My Gym. She absolutely loves it. They have a slide, lots of things to climb on, a ball pit and swings. I discovered the gym at the Halloween party we went to. They had a booth there and Michelle had a blast checking out some of their equipment. The kids get to spend part of the class running around playing on the equipment and the other part of the class is circle time where the kids and parents sit around in a circle and do different activities. Circle time was hysterical. It's impossible to get a group of 2 year olds to sit around in a circle for more than an 1/8th of a second. They pretty much all made a break for it, with Michelle leading the way. I didn't get any pictures from the class but I have a couple of pictures of Michelle playing at the gym's booth at the Halloween party.

Around the house

So this is what a laundry basket is for.
She's got her purse on one arm and her pumpkin on the other and she's ready to go. Is there anything cuter than a baby in footie pajamas?
Michelle's household hint #1:A lady always wears pearls while sweeping the floor

Our Little Genius

We've always known Michelle was smart but lately she's getting so smart it's almost scary. She seems to pick up a new word or skill just about every day.

We've been working with Michelle on numbers but we weren't sure if she was really grasping the concept. She was able to hold up all five fingers and say "five" but we weren't sure she really understand what that meant. Then Saturday we were walking out the door and I had my purse on one shoulder and a tote bag on the other shoulder. She pointed to each bag and said "Mama, two bags." I was blown away. I was amazed that she was able to count and understand that I had two bags and I was also surprised to hear her articulate it so well.

We've also been working with her on colors but, again, we weren't sure if she really understood the concept. On Sunday I went out for awhile and called Roman when I was a few minutes away so they could watch for me at the window. I saw Michelle at the window squealing with delight when I started to pull into the driveway and I raced inside as quickly as I could. When I got inside, Roman told me that Michelle saw me half a block away when I was turning the corner. He said she pointed excitedly and yelled "green car!"

She's our little genius. Expect a graduation announcement from Harvard by the time she's five. :) We're just dreading the day she realizes she's smarter than we are. It won't be long. I can just picture the look she's going to give us now. It will be half disappointed, half pitying. We do find it curious, though, that she's so smart and yet she doesn't understand the concept of the word NO.

Halloween and Ponytails

The Halloween outfit that Dada bought for the party at school. Good job Dada. Hmmmm....I wonder if there's any candy in this pumpkin.
Having lunch after the party. We were able to get her to wear the hat just long enough for a picture.
I must have taken at least 15 pictures on the haystack trying to get her to smile but she discovered the yummy treats in her pumpkin and had no time for posing for pictures.
Coming through the tunnel.
Mommy's little monster.
Our precious ladybug getting ready for the Halloween party.
Two tiny ponytails! You can't even imagine how exciting that was for us. We've waited nine months for this moment.

Little sweetheart

Tonight I had one of those wonderful, precious, this is why I became a parent moments. I was sitting on the living room floor folding laundry and Michelle was "helping" so Dada asked her if she wanted to go to the kitchen. She said "buh bye Mama" and gave me a high-five as she left the room. A few seconds later she came running back and gave me a kiss. Then she gave me a sweet smile and went back to Dada. I'll cherish that moment for the rest of my life. If that weren't precious enough, about an hour later I was sitting on the sofa folding another load of laundry and Dada went to take her back to the kitchen for a snack. She gave me a kiss and started to walk off and then she turned back to give me a hug. I'm tearing up again just thinking about it. Michelle is so precious. I'm so grateful to be her mama.

I finally got some pictures loaded. Enjoy!

Michelle's first teeny tiny ponytail on top of her head. It's small but it's there.

Enjoying tea time.

We went apple picking again and ran into another family from our travel group.

Michelle's first hayride

Picking out her first pumpkin

Michelle's Favorite Things

Ok, so I know pictures are what you really want but we're having issues with getting pictures loaded so I thought I'd share some cuteness in the meantime.

Michelle's personality is coming through more and more all the time and she's developing strong preferences. She lets us know in no uncertain terms exactly what she wants and what she doesn't want.

Michelle adores Elmo. Someone bought her an Elmo DVD for her birthday and now she can't get enough of him. We had to buy a portable DVD player for the car so she can watch her Elmo DVDs during our daily commute. That DVD player has been the best purchase we've ever made. It has saved our sanity so many times.

Michelle also loves Teletubbies. We found a few episodes on PBS Sprout and Michelle fell in love with them instantly. We were able to find one Teletubbies DVD for her and she alternates between that and Elmo. When she wants to watch it,she rubs her tummy and says "Babies."

Michelle has her first boyfriend. He's a little boy in her class at daycare and the two of them are inseparable at school. She actually dismissed me without a look back one day when she saw her boyfriend. The kids were out on the playground and she saw Garrett and wanted me to put her down right away (normally there's a little clinging) and gave me a quick wave and a "buh bye" without even turning around to look at me. It was so funny. They're so cute together. I think Dada is a little jealous.

Michelle's two favorite songs are "The Wheels on the Bus" and the ABC song. If we start to sing or play anything else, she says "no no" and tells us she wants one of these two songs. She has the hand motions down perfectly for "Wheels on the Bus" and she's trying really hard to get her ABCs down. She's so smart, she'll probably have the alphabet memorized by next week.

Michelle has become a little chatterbox. She loves to talk all the time now and we love hearing her sweet little voice. She seems to pick up a new word just about every day. She's also putting words together now. That makes us so happy to hear. She says "buh bye" to everyone and everything. It's really cute. She'll say it when we get out of the car or when she gets out of the bathtub. I love hearing her saying "buh bye wawa" at the end of her bath. She also points out what belongs to different people, ex. "Mama coat. Dada coat. Me (pointing to her coat)." Here are some of her new words and phrases:
Elmo
Garrett
Apple
Shoe
Sock
Mine (this is her favorite word)
No no (her favorite phrase)
Baby eating apple (she actually said this the other day when she was eating an apple)
Babies
Mommy (she's starting to say this more than Mama)
Daddy (she's starting to say this more than Dada but Roman definitely prefers Dada)

I added the Follow this Blog feature so if you're a Michelle fan, please follow her blog. It's fun to see who's reading it.

I'll do my best to get some pictures loaded soon.

Apple Picking

Saturday we had a great time with our good friend Carolyn a/k/a Auntie Carolyn. We went apple picking. We went to a farm with a huge orchard and a lot of activities for children. They had a petting zoo, which Michelle loved. She got to pet goats and sheep. They had a hay pyramid and Michelle couldn't get enough of it. She ran over to it and left me behind. We had to go up and down the pyramid several times. We also went through the burlap maze with Michelle leading the way. She had very definite ideas about which way she wanted to go and only made one wrong turn. She even got a pretty ladybug painted on her face. We all had a really good time. Michelle really loves her Auntie Carolyn. Whenever Carolyn took a few steps away, Michelle called out for her. She called her "Ah-nie" and one time we really thought she said Carolyn. It was a perfect fall outing (except the weather could have been a little cooler and crisper).

We had a lot of fun during the summer but I've been really looking forward to fall. It's my favorite season, especially living in New England. There's just so much to do. I love apple picking and I'm looking forward to taking Michelle to pick out her first pumpkin.

I can pick apples all by myself.
Apples right off the tree taste yummy!
Petting the animals was a lot of fun.
She was so excited about the hay pyramid, she left Mama behind.
The apple of Mama's eye
She wasn't too sure about the woman painting her face but she liked the ladybug afterward.
She was worn out by the time we got to the pumpkins.

San Antonio, Part 2

Sorry I've been so behind on my posting lately. I started a new job recently and it's keeping me very busy. It's a great job but it definitely cuts into my free time.

While we were in San Antonio, we decided to take Michelle to SeaWorld. She wasn't as impressed as we were but she seemed to have a pretty good time. She loved the ice cream but hated the stuffed whale I bought her.

Hanging out with Mama by the dolphin pool.
Taking a stroll with Dada and Nana.
Checking out the parrot.
Shamu.

Enjoying the Shamu show.
Ready to go home at the end of the day.