Another week another play date. Melissa and I have been having fun taking Julia and Bradon to Jump for Joy lately. Here are a few shots from inside last week. They have a blast running, jumping and climbing on everything. Here you see Julia making a new friend, something she's never afraid to do, and of course following Bradon's lead! We took them to Olive Garden for lunch after last weeks play date and date was the operative word there. We had set them in high chairs next to each other and they were being so good, eating their lunches and a couple of times holding hands. Not sure where that was coming from but it was really really cute.

Updated measurement. Well Ray finally got a chance to place Ms. Julia against the wall and make a mark last night. When we took the measurement she was 33 and 3/4 inches tall. Not entirely sure how accurate the method was but at least it gives us some idea. Haven't weighed her lately either but I can tell you she is gaining. Even some of the pants are starting to fit...lol. So she is one healthy solid little girl. She has even decided that she knows what the phone is for now. She's talked to both grandma's recently and to her Uncle Robert the other night when he called. And she took the phone last week and talked to Daddy for 10 minutes while he was on his way home from work. Yep, despite all the bumps, scuffs and bruises (from playing hard and falling down) she is a girly girl at heart. Started with the purse and taking money out of my wallet, of course when shopping with Daddy she reaches right for the Debit Card first, now the phone and of course her obsession with anything Cinderella. But as long as she's not afraid to get dirty and play hard (though she's not big on her hands staying dirty for any time at all..lol) I think she's got a pretty good balance.

As always if you go to Dropshots there are lots more photos and a couple of videos too. They'll give you an idea of how many it takes to get a good shot some days. LOL.

A year ago last Friday, we were waiting on pins and needles for that phone call from CWA telling us that we had a referral and giving us all the info on Julia. I had to make our case manager stop 3 times so I could get tissues. That was the one thing I didn't have ready as I'm not generally a crier. HA. So much for that. Just hearing her voice telling me I had a daughter and where she was from was too much for me. I did have pen and paper and my list of questions ready, most of which I even remembered to ask. And then finally the next day the envelope arrived. I'm so glad Lauren was off from school and was able to be here with me when it got here. Though for a little while I'm certain she thought I'd lost my mind. I'll never forget Lauren's first words after seeing Julia's pictures..."well she looks China" LOL. Keep in mind she was only 6 years old at the time. :) I thought it was cute. And she had fun running all over town with me to show Julia first to Daddy and Ms. Candy and then of course to Ms Erica whom I had worked closely with for so long.

All of the nerves melted away, the stress of the wait. Gone when I saw those brown eyes and that oh so serious face. I just wanted to make her smile. She hadn't in any of the referral pictures and I just couldn't wait to see her smile. She quickly gave me that a couple of months later when we picked her up. I had worried she might be too serious or sad, but this child was anything but. She's now serious when she is concentrating on a task, trying to figure something out, or meeting someone new but she comes back to her usual grins and giggles very quickly once she's done or when she decides to like a person. :) Mama's girl. No doubt. I got a serious photo recently that I'll share next to her referral photo, it's the first one I've taken that you can really see the baby from the referral pictures in. Most of the photos we take she's showing off or playing or something. So this was a rare one.

The nerves, stress and anxiety, I'm sure you can understand. We had waited so long to be parents. So many different paths over the years had finally led on this journey to Julia and to China. And with the wait being extended every month starting just a few months before we were originally expecting our referral, it was very hard especially for me to not wait for the other shoe to drop. Surely something would go wrong. Or at the least we may have had to wait another month. Doesn't seem so bad now when you consider people are waiting much longer. But it was the uncertainty of it all that was so hard.

After going through over 10 years of infertility, the paper chase taking us around 7 months once we actually got started because of delays and having to have the dr's physical report on both of us having to be redone and notarized again because he wouldn't listen to me and do it right the first time. All those little bumps in the road and then what was supposed to be a 6 month wait when we started being extended to nearly 11 months. But it taught me once again to trust God's timing and not my own. For surely this was the child he meant to be mine. He even gave me hope a couple of times through the wait and showed her to me. Once when she was oh so tiny in the fall and then again in Feb right after her paperwork had been signed and sent to the CCAA where it would later be matched with ours. I've always had my faith in good times and bad, but this was a true test of actually letting go and letting everything be in God's hands. Never an easy thing and especially hard for a planner like me. But I did and we have Julia and all is well. :)

I'm also going to add the translated letter or parts of it anyways. I realized I've never done that before and couldn't think of a better time than now when we are celebrating the one year mark of receiving it. It might give you some insight into what Julia's life was like before she became Julia Marie Tian, when she was
Xiao Ying Tian or as they liked to call her in China "Tian-Tian" I'm so very glad that we had already decided to keep that part of her name.

Here are some things from our initial report on Xiao Ying Tian

Xiao Ying (reflect; shine) Tian (sweet), female, was found by the gate of Zhuzhou City CWI on 8/8/2005. She was wearing a white cotton outfit with animal prints on it. There was a bag containing clothes, cloth diapers, and her DOB note by her side. After receiving the report of the abandoned baby, Qingyun Security Office in Zhuzhou City tried to find the parents/family, but failed. The baby was then claimed as abandoned infant and was brought to our CWI on the same day. Upon admission, our doctor examined the baby and found that she was healthy and with normal development. Based on the note with her, her DOB is 8/1/2005.

Development

Yingtian joined our big family days after her birth. In here, she grows happily and healthily.
Our doctor gave her basic vaccines according to the law.

Yingtian lives in a group life, so she has good living habits. She gets up at 7:30am, naps at noon, and goes to bed at 8:00pm. She likes to sleep in her own crib and falls asleep quickly. She wakes up a couple of times and falls back to sleep once changed or patted lightly. She does not like to be alone. She has good appetite; eats 5 meals a day, 240ml each meal, mainly milk, rice pastes, and milk mixed with little eggs; eats at 7:00am, 10:00am, 2:30pm, 6:00pm, & 11:00pm. We added some congee and egg yolk and she likes it. She has 1 BM every morning.

Yingtian is very open, active, and energetic. She is not afraid of strangers; likes to be held; laughs out loud when being played with; Yingtian cannot stand alone at this time yet; needs to be held by care takers; but with care takers holding her arms, she can stand very straight; has strong little arms and legs. Yingtian likes to watch TV and is very curious about colors; yells “Ah! Ah!” when happy. Yingtian loves toys; she likes to grab a toy, waves it, and puts it in her mouth after a while. Yingtian also likes for her care takers to take her outside to play; likes to watch other kids play on the lawns. She imitates bigger kids dancing, singing as well, and appears very happy. She curiously watches flowers, green grass, birds, and moving cars, etc, as if wanting to take in the whole world.

In our CWI, Yingtian lives very happily and becomes lovelier and lovelier. All of our care takers wish her a nice new family and continues to live healthily and happily forever.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!

Just a quick note to say "happy Easter" Julia had a wonderful a first Easter at home. And as always we were overwhelmed at the gifts from family. Aunt Kim and Uncle Joel, those books ROCK!! I can see them being some faves for a while now. Aunt Tiny, you always overwhelm us and that outfit is just too cute. And the OhioGrands! Y'all are just too much and you know it. Ty-Ty, Julia loves her Pablo toy, thank you so much:) We love and miss everyone and hope that you each spent today remembering the Blessings of Easter and the Resurrection and enjoying each moment that you have with each other.
Much love.

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Easter Party!!

Julia had lots of fun at the squadron Easter Party. She loved the bounce house and we had some big kids looking out for her in there. She really got into the egg hunt and as Mama had miscalculated how many eggs to throw down (due to a few people leaving early, not my fault) there were lots of extra eggs for the little ones to find :) Good thing, Julia filled her bucket, with Braden's help of course! She did share her eggs with one of the younger girls too though. :)

She even went to the Easter Bunny! Of couse Mama was busy setting up the egg hunt and missed that (bad Mama) but I'm hoping that one of my friend's will email the picture she took and if she does I'll post it here. :)

So that's been our week. Lots of new things going on and Julia seems up to the challenges and even invites them. I can't help but marvel at the progress this child has made. She's even starting to spell....of course it's O-H-I-O, but hey, not bad huh?? LOL.

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

After getting off to a bit of a rocky start at gymnastics, you can Julia quickly warmed up to her teacher and couldn't wait to take her turn! We've been practicing a bit at home and she loves to sit down and do her stretches and though she still needs help with the somersaults she'll keep coming back to do more of them! So I guess we'll keep doing it for awhile and see how it goes. As long as she's having fun :)

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos


Showing that like any child, she has her moments too..she's just not so sure about them being caught on camera! LOL.

FIRST PIGTAILS!

She was not being real cooperative on the pictures but we just had to share her first pigtails with you! I think I need a lot more practice before we wear them often. LOL. But you can get the general idea and believe it or not they are actually still in. We'll see how long they really last. I don't give them more than 30 minutes. The other picture is just a random one from the other night, you can see where that new tooth is though! :)

Alas, with Spring also comes allergies. The Zyrtec was no longer cutting it and Julia was waking up frequently through the night with an allergy cough...so starting this week she started using an inhaler...we'll see if that's enough, she did better last night already but was still pretty full this morning so only time will tell I guess. My poor baby, but as you can see she does great with it, as long we make Pablo or Tyrone try it first! She's so funny.

Other than the allergies she's in great health, no ear infections or anything (knock on wood). Heck she does a lot better than I do. Thank goodness one of us does! And she has more teeth coming in. A MOLAR has cut through on the bottom left and it's match is coming on the right... go figure.

Well, I think that pretty well should catch everyone up. Hope you enjoy the pics and I'm sure we'll have more after Easter.

Just some random pics of our little Miss being cute. As you can see it's getting harder and harder to get good pics as she is almost always on the move. Yes, she certainly runs now. And no matter how girly I dress her, she plays like a boy. Falls down, jumps back up, runs into things....her legs are going to be bruised all summer at this rate. But she rarely says a word about it and just keeps going. She is talking more and more all the time. Today she started saying "Bradon" his whole name (she was just saying "Bray".... it seems she is adding more to her vocabulary every day lately.

All dressed up to go out to dinner with Lane and Ms.Melissa. This is a dress that Ms. Lisa gave me for Julia at the baby shower the Spouses Group gave me just before we traveled to China last year. I'm so glad it still fits this spring and she's had a chance to wear it! If it had waited much longer to warm up, she might not have. But it fits perfectly right now, and we're all agreed it pretty much doesn't matter what she wears, she's just too cute.

Weekend in Dallas.
We took the opportunity a few weeks ago to head to Dallas and spend the weekend. We had a great time relaxing at the hotel, taking Julia to the Aquarium and had lunch at The Spaghetti Warehouse before heading home. It was a really nice time, but I think we wore Julia out a bit. Mama's girl indeed, she insisted on having the map of the Aquarium the whole time we were in there.

Well, time to get little one settled down for the night. I'll have more tomorrow and you can look at Dropshots for photos as well.

Chinese New Year. Yes, we're really late with these, but we celebrated Chinese New Year Feb 18 with other families in the area that are or have adopted from China. It was so very cool to look around the room and see so many happy families and Chinese faces! I'm so glad that we got to go. I can't publish all the photos as I don't have permission from people, but trust me when I say it was very cool, and of course Julia loved the chance to dress up! :)

Ray helped friends of ours put up a privacy fence last weekend. As you can see they had some added help! No matter what I did, she was determined to be glued to Daddy and HELP! Good thing she's cute!!

I still have more pics to load onto the pc but haven't located my cable for the camera yet. So keep checking!!

Okay, Okay, I know these are very late in being posted. Sorry it's been a bit crazy. I have many more to post later (once I find the cord for the camera!) But these are some Ms. Melissa took a couple of weeks ago with Julia and Bradon getting a little too into the smooches! Ms. Melissa has been kind enough to watch Julia while I go to phsyical therapy twice a week, and as you can see Julia makes herself right at home!!

I promise to have more news and pics posted later this week. :)

GO BUCKS! Yup, Daddy's been working with our little girl trying to turn her into a sports fan. (we'll see) At the moment he's winning. He sang one line of the "Buckeye Medley" (we don't give a dang about the whole state of Michigan) and my child makes a bee-line for the computer, where the song is stored! I kid you not, and she started bouncing to the music once it was turned on, which of course we had to do. So Auntie Alissa and Grampa Stephens these pics are for you! :)

Julia had a Dr's appointment yesterday, been dealing with a cold and she is just not herself, but as this is the first time in months she's been sick, I count us fairly lucky so far. It's just a little trying as she doesn't want anything but Mama most of the time. We did get updated measurements at the Dr's though.....23 lbs and
32 1/2" tall. Daddy took her to the Dr's and I guess she was very good as usual and as long as the Doc did everything to "Tyrone" (her favorite Backyardigan toy) first then she would sit and let the Dr. check her out with no problem. :) She's too funny, and developmentally she's right on target now. Amazing.

She's becoming our little mimic and trying to repeat a lot of what we say. For instance "Go Bucks", "apple", "lao-lao" (grammie Hall) and "nai-nai" (granny Stephens) and pretty much anything we ask her to repeat she'll usually at least try. She can tell you the Sheep says "baa" and the cow says "moo" and the cat says "meow". Now we just need to get her to work on saying it to everyone else and not just us.

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Finally got some new pics and video. We had a little impromptu photo shoot this afternoon, so there are more pics at the dropshots site, http://www.dropshots.com/rgshrs This video Ray took this morning, AFTER we had tried to get her to talk to Grammy and Grampa Hall and Robert and Riley and she refused everyone of them. This is what she does afterwards when there was NO ONE on the phone. Figures huh?? LOL. I know, soon enough I'll be wishing for a time that she wouldn't talk on the phone.

Things here are going well. My back is healing nicely and this week should find us settling back into a new routine again with Daddy going back to work. Wish us luck. As you can see in the videos and pictures Julia is doing wonderful, she now not only walks but runs as well. It's amazing how far she's come these last 7 months, this coming Saturday (Robert's Birthday! Happy Birthday Rob!! WE LOVE YOU!) will be the 7 month anniversary of Julia being put into our arms. It's hard to believe that it's only been 7 months and amazing to look back and see how much this person has changed our lives. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Hope you enjoy the pics and the updates. Drop me a comment at either site anytime and let me know. It's nice to actually hear that someone's still reading once and a while :)

Happy New Year!

Ok, so we're a bit late with that. :) Cut us some slack, we had the Christmas trip to Ohio and getting back just in time for me to catch the bug that started with Allie Christmas Eve, so New Year's Eve I was pretty down for the count. But that's over, and we're all fine (no one else got sick!) and time to catch up.

I've been adding new pics from Christmas to dropshots today, so stop by there and check them out. Most we took, but some Aunt Alexa took and sent as well. We really had a wonderful time in Ohio (despite the illnesses) and it was hard to leave and come back. Julia had so much fun with her cousins and you can really see some differences in how much more settled in she is, between this trip and the trip to Maine we had. She's gotten much more comfortable with other people for one thing. So that made the trip a bit easier. But wow, what a car ride.....lol....no actually she did remarkably well, but by the end of the trip we were ALL ready to get out of the car. Actually I think yesterday was the first day her and I have been back in the car at all since being home. No I guess that's not right, we did go visit Ms. Nikki on the 2nd. Still, shows you how much of a break we needed.

And we can officially say that she is WALKING now. Walking and babbling all the time. It's amazing how much more vocal she's become. Most we still don't understand, but she tries with all her might to get it out! I'm not talking a step or few here and there anymore either, more and more she's determined to stay on her feet. And more and more we see how determined she is to not let her friends get ahead of her. So we'll be keeping up those play dates, just to keep her on her toes! LOL

Julia and her Godfather finally got to meet as well! And what a sweet meeting it was! She showed off for him by walking all over the house, and just showed him what a sweetie she is in general. And as I mentioned she's gotten much better around strangers and pretty much went straight to him and even let him hold her.

So all in all, tons of progress going on here everyday. It's been so nice having Daddy home for awhile too. It's going to be hard next week when he goes back to work. However, for the moment he'll only work til Thursday and then be off for another week and a half to help here at the house while I recover from my upcoming back procedure. That's on the 11th and we should know within a week or so if it was successful. Wish me luck everyone. With it, I'll be in a lot less pain and be able to do that much more with Julia in the coming year. So say a prayer that it goes well:)

We'll keep you posted and of course have lots more updates on Miss Julia in the near future.

Christmas came early at our house.

Since we'll be hitting the road to Ohio tomorrow, we opened our presents here at home today. Ms. Julia certainly got into it!! She's got the art of unwrapping figured out now. lookout!! Thank you Uncle Joe and Aunt Kim, Jeremy, Kelsey and Angie, Grammy and Grampa Hall, Uncle Norman, Robert, Riley, Great Grammy Kinney and Nai-Nai and Papa!! She had a WONDERFUL time, unfortunately we discovered that our camera does NOT have a microphone....GRRR! So while we have video there is sadly no sound. Sorry everyone, but you'll get the idea at least :) Jeremy, Kelsey and Angie the hit of the day was amazingly the old fashion pull toy you sent ;)!!! We had to hide it to get her to move on....LOL....She is truly too, too funny.

It's been a long day, so I'm just going to give you the dropshots link again and you can view pics and soundless video there. (live and learn..) On the upside, the image quality on the video is GREAT! LOL. I give up.

Go to www.dropshots.com/rgshrs Enjoy and really thank you everyone, it was a great day.