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