Happy Valentine's Day!

We enjoyed a wonderful Valentine's Day with our precious little valentine. I realized we've just started our second round of holidays with our princess. Even though Michelle was home with us last year at this time, it kind of feels like our first Valentine's Day together. I have to admit I have absolutely no memory of last Valentine's Day. I took a picture of Michelle in a Valentine's t-shirt (which I attached below) so I know we must have acknowledged the day in some fashion. I just have no idea what we did. We had only been home from China for 2 weeks and were still recovering from jet lag and illnesses so it was probably pretty low-key.

Michelle's daycare class had a party yesterday so she had a good time getting valentines from her friends and having some yummy snacks. Roman sent me some beautiful roses at work, which was so sweet. This morning we took Michelle to her gym class. She absolutely loves going there. She squeals with delight when we pull into the parking lot and she just can't get out onto the floor fast enough. It's really the highlight of her week. After class, we came home and gave her a nap before going out to dinner. We took her to our favorite Italian restaurant. She really enjoyed her meal (as you can tell by the pictures). She just loves going out to dinner. It makes her feel special.

We bought her a small stuffed teddy bear, some bubbles and an Elmo DVD. She loved all of her gifts. She even took her teddy bear to dinner with us. She's so affectionate with her stuffed animals. She gives them gentle kisses and pulls them to her and says "big hug." She's such a precious, loving little girl.

We're so happy that we have our princess with us to celebrate Valentine's Day. We had so many years where it was just the two of us. Now there's nothing more special to us than the three of us going out to dinner as a family.

Valentine's Day 2008
Valentine's Day 2009

Our other anniversary

Today is the anniversary of our officially becoming a family. Yesterday we celebrated the anniversary of the day we first held our precious little girl in our arms. It was the happiest day of our lives but the adoption wasn't official until the following day. They call it the "harmonious period." I have to laugh every time I hear that term because those first 24 hours are anything but harmonious. I think they just want to give families a little bonding time and have the parents make sure they really understand what they're doing and really want the adoption to proceed. We started our morning taking all of our completed paperwork to the notary. She asked us a few questions and looked at our paperwork. Then we went back to the hotel/govt office where we were united with Michelle the day before. There was another official who asked us some more questions. Finally, they took all the families back into the room from the day before and announced that we were all officially parents. They called us up one by one to give us our adoption certificates. The director of Desheng gave each little girl a silk ball and purse. I don't know the exact significance of each item but I know that these come from the region where Michelle is from so they mean a lot to us. We'll treasure these items forever. Right now we have them put away for safekeeping and someday we'll give them to Michelle. We're so grateful to everyone at Desheng. It was very obvious that the girls were very well cared for and loved. When Michelle came to us, she was dressed in 3 layers. The bottom 2 layers were sweat pants and sweatshirts and the top layer was a beautiful red coat and black pants. We could tell the staff really worked hard to make sure the girls all looked their best to meet their new families. I think a lot about the nannies and wonder if it's hard for them to say goodbye to the children they've spent months/years taking care of. I think it must be. The nannies came back in and we got to spend a few minutes talking to them. Of course it was difficult since they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Mandarin but we managed through our guides and a lot of sign language. When we were saying goodbye to Michelle's nanny, I wanted to tell her how grateful I was to her for taking such good care of Michelle. All I could say was "xie xie." I was starting to tear up (I'm getting teary again right now thinking about that day) and she patted my arm and said "bu xie." That basically means no thanks is necessary. I was feeling very emotional walking out of that room for the last time.

Once everything was completed there, our guides took us shopping at Wal-Mart to buy supplies. It was fun to walk around and see what things were the same and what were different. Then we went to lunch and had the best meal of our whole trip.

Back at the hotel that afternoon, Roman got Michelle to smile for the first time. It took me another day or two to get my first smile but it was so beautiful when I saw it. She has a smile that lights up the room.

All of the formalities were over and Michelle was officially our daughter!
When we went up to get our adoption certificate, the director of Desheng came up and gave Michelle a silk ball and hand-embroidered purse. These have special significance to the area where Michelle is from. We were very moved.
Shopping at Wal-Mart
Enjoying our first lunch with Michelle.

Gotcha!

Today we celebrated our one year anniversary of being a family. I still find it hard to believe that we've had our precious Michelle for a year. The time is going way too quickly. I wish it would move at the pace it did while we were waiting. It has been the best year we've ever had. She fills our lives with so much love and laughter. We love seeing the world through her eyes.

To celebrate our anniversary, we took a half day off work and picked Michelle up from daycare to spend the afternoon together. We bought a cake and gave Michelle her first anniversary present. We bought several small gifts in China to save and give to her on gotcha day anniversaries for the next several years. This year's gift was a stuffed panda purse and a small ladybug bracelet. After cake and presents, we had dinner at our favorite Chinese buffet. Everyone knows Michelle there and just adores her. They were all happy to hear about our anniversary. Michelle gave everyone high-fives and blew kisses on the way out. She's such a charmer.

I'll always remember every detail of the day we met our precious Michelle. I remember so clearly standing in the room waiting for the nannies to bring in the babies. I was excited and also very nervous. I just didn't know what to expect. I figured Michelle would cry and scream at the top of her lungs. After what seemed like an eternity, the nannies walked into the room and Roman spotted Michelle right away. He said, "There she is!" It took every ounce of self control to keep from racing over there and taking Michelle out of her arms. I felt like a runner at the starting line of a race waiting for the gun to go off. They called Michelle's name first and I sprinted the few steps to the nanny, leaving Roman and my mom behind (sorry guys). I became completely deaf and blind to everything else around me. I honestly didn't notice anyone but Michelle. The first thought that went through my head was that she felt so light. She looked so tiny. After the nanny handed her to me, I waited for her to start screaming and crying but she didn't. She was incredibly brave. She was very wary but she was looking around and taking everything in. She looked at all the other babies crying and seemed like she wanted to cry a couple of times but didn't. I really can't imagine what must have been going through her mind. That day was so happy for us but must have been so scary for her. We must have looked and sounded so strange to her. As happy as I was to finally have my daughter, I felt a little sad for her knowing that she was leaving the only home she had ever known and the nannies who had taken care of her and obviously loved her. She finally cried when the nannies started saying goodbye and walking out of the room. I think she probably thought I was just another person to hold her up until that point. I held her all the way back to the hotel and she fell asleep in my arms on the bus. When we got back to the hotel, Roman couldn't wait another minute to hold his baby and scooped her up right after we changed her diaper. She bonded with him very quickly.

At the time we couldn't have guessed what her personality was going to be but she has turned into the most sweet, loving, gentle-natured, thoughtful, polite, funny, smart, beautiful little girl we've ever been privileged to meet. We're so grateful to be her parents.

I posted some pictures of today's anniversary as well as a couple of pictures from last year.


No celebration would be complete without a cake.
My friends and I are ready for our cake.
Blowing out the candle with a little help from Dada.
I just can't wait any longer to get started on this cake.
The happy family enjoying a celebratory dinner.
Look at how masterfully she uses those chopsticks.
Yummy ice cream
Holding my daughter for the first time. What an incredible feeling it was.
This was taken just an hour or so after getting back to the hotel with Michelle. She bonded with her Dada right away.

A year ago today...

We were on a plane headed for China. The bags were packed and repacked, the documents were double, triple, quadruple checked and we were on our way. We were a bundle of nerves and excitement. I was awake when the alarm clock went off at 4:00 a.m. and I leaped out of bed. I just couldn't believe the big day was finally here. I'm a pretty emotional person anyway and that day there was no stopping the tears. I cried when we walked out the front door knowing that would be the last time we'd be there without our daughter. I also got a little teary boarding the plane in Chicago at the thought that that would be the last time we'd be on U.S. soil without our daughter.

I was kind of dreading the flight because I can never sleep on a plane and 13 hours is a long time to sit on a plane and be uncomfortable and wide awake while everyone around you is sleeping. My mom is the same way so we brought our iPods, books and a lot of puzzles to keep us occupied. They showed four movies but we didn't watch any of them because they didn't look very interesting. We got up every couple of hours and stood at the back of the plane and stretched and looked out the window. The view was actually nice. We were over snow-covered mountains. We think it was Siberia. Overall the flight went much faster than we expected and really wasn't as bad as we feared. The only issue was that my neck started hurting a lot and turned into a bad headache.

We finally landed in Beijing around 4:00 p.m. the next day and of course I cried again as the plane touched down. I couldn't believe we were in the same country as our daughter and would have her in our arms in three days.


Michelle's once adorable room looked like a tornado had gone through in the days leading up to the trip. Somehow we managed to pack all that stuff in addition to our own stuff.

Michelle's first Christmas

We had a wonderful first Christmas with Michelle. We spent the holidays in San Antonio with our families. We didn't want to ship the presents back and forth so we had our own Christmas the Sunday before at home. Michelle loved opening presents. It took about 2 hours because she wanted to stop and play with every toy instead of opening the next one. It was a lot of fun. Michelle is a huge Elmo fan so she got a lot of Elmo toys and clothes. I got her an Elmo Live but that seemed to be her least favorite gift.

We left for San Antonio on Christmas Eve and stayed through New Years. Michelle had a great time there. She loves Nana's house, especially the backyard. She loved being able to go out and play in the middle of winter. Grandpa left a pile of leaves for her to play in and she loved that.

We did a lot while we were there. We spent a lot of time with our families and we took Michelle to a park, to the Riverwalk, got her first haircut and went to a children's countdown party at the Children's Museum on New Years Eve. I'll post pictures of that as soon as I get them loaded.

It was wonderful having our precious Michelle with us for Christmas. I love seeing the holidays through her eyes. She didn't understand all of it but she liked it.
Enjoying a tea party with Nana.
I love running through the leaves.
She did really well getting her first haircut, especially since she got to sit in a jet and watch an Elmo DVD.
Michelle had a great time playing in the leaves in Nana's backyard.
Our precious little princess.

Can we open presents now?
Our first family Christmas portrait.
Checking out her stocking at Nana's house on Christmas morning. I actually forgot to pack the pretty stocking I had embroidered with her name on it so I had to use an old stocking of mine from way back when.
Christmas #1 at home. Showing off her new Elmo vest. Zipping and unzipping the vest provided hours of entertainment.
Trying out her new Christmas present.

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.