Jaiden is with her family at last!!!

Many of you don't know this, but Kim and I became very good friends and email buddies while we journeyed to Julia and she to Jaiden. I might not have come through the experience sane without her. So I am ecstatic for her tonight as she finally is holding Jaiden in her arms, and Jaiden is right where she belongs with her Mom and Dad that have held her in their hearts for so long and now have her in their arms as well. She certainly looks at home there. :) I'll try to see if I can put a link up to her site , so you can see this beautiful little girl! She's so adorable!!!

I even learned how to do something new tonight!!!! Yay! If you look at the "Links" on the sidebar you'll see "meet Jaiden" click on that and you're at Kim's site!!

Love from around the world.












Truly this child is loved. She's still got birthday gifts coming in. Check her out going through the box from Aunt Tiny! Did we mention she loves tissue paper?? LOL Seriously though she had fun looking at all those new clothes too. Some really cute stuff there Aunt Tiny! Aunt Donna we got your package too. She loves that little stuffed bird. It's so soft!

And you all have just got to see her wooden shoes from Holland! Thank you, thank you Ms. Noelle! Someday one way or another we will get to visit again with you and Tom and Noor! Miss you all!

I just had to add the other picture of her hamming it up for the camera. She played with some friends yesterday and I think she picked up crawling on her knees from her little friend Cora, she's been sticking with the low-crawl til now. She was paying close attention apparently to how quickly little Cora was getting around. So I guess she decided to give it a try. She did it some last night and again this morning, but she'll drop back to her low crawl when she gets excited and in a hurry. More used to it I guess. She's so funny. She's also learned to really climb that step quickly to get into the kitchen. And once she hits the kitchen floor she will try to speed up if she thinks you're going to stop her. Daddy's out now buying a gate. haha.

We thank you all for your love, support and prayers for Julia. Life with her is beyond a joy. Even with the teething and not sleeping that we've gone through this past week. She finally slept through the night last night for the first time in a week. And is having a nap now, so hopefully those teeth are giving her a little bit of a break. Who knows maybe the rainy day (praise GOD some rain at last!) is helping too. I know it makes me want to curl up with a blanket. Other than her teeth, she is doing wonderful and even those don't slow her down too much. She still has such an open easy personality that we learn more about each day. Time to go check on her. :)

Just some random pictures!











Thought I would add some more recent pics of Julia and of course one of Lacey to show you she's as spoiled as ever. Poor Lacey, she's really running out of places to hide now. Julia climbed up the step and into the kitchen last night and since Lacey can't hear anymore she was quite surprised to have Julia come up behind her! Lacey came to the step and stared at me in the living room as if to say "are you kidding me??!!" Haha.

The pics of Julia are just a few that we've taken of her here lately playing and standing up, obviously. She was really enjoying that cookie, that can buy Mama at least 20 minutes of not wondering where she's headed next and even time to do a little housework which unfortunately is on our agenda today. She's growing and doing something new every day. Sadly her latest new thing is spitting her food back out after nearly every bite....not sure where this is coming from but she thinks it's the best game. Hopefully it's just a phase that we can get through quickly. yah sure. lol

Anyway. That's pretty much it from Texas today. The temps have finally dropped below 100 (THANK GOD) so we should be getting out a bit more. We've got a birthday party to go to on Sunday at one of the local parks so that should be fun. Hope all is well with each of you.

First time Swimming

Well for the first time we got a chance to see what Julia thought of the pool. Seeing as she has started really enjoying bath time we thought it was time. She was a little nervous at first and held on tight to Mama but we got her used to the water moving around her and she started to loosen up. She did a little better with Dad and by the time we got her into a float.....she was off! She LOVED it! She was splashing and kicking and had that float going all over the pool. We naturally forgot our camera, so the photos and the day at the pool in general were all courtesy of Ms. Michelle. Thanks again Mark and Michelle for a great afternoon!!

Just an update. :)

Sorry, no new photos really to add, but had to tell you all that Julia is definitely pulling herself up on the furniture now!! She did it that one time with Chris and Kylee and I think it actually startled her, so she stuck to working on her crawling and sitting up and getting better at that for awhile. This weekend she was really trying and trying to pull herself up, but couldn't quite get it. Guess the incentive wasn't right. Lacey tried to hide on the couch tonight and Little Miss Julia was determined to touch that dog tonight! So she hauled herself up there, using Daddy's leg as support. Then later pulled herself up to me in the recliner! So I think we're in trouble, time to clear the tables! LOL

Poor Lacey. She's running out of places to hide and still be in the same room with us. This hasn't been the easiest adjustment for her, she took it in stride though and went to lie on the cool kitchen floor instead.

I'm amazed every day at Julia's progress. She was really chattering away a lot today too. Not much that I could understand, but she's starting to understand me more and that's a start. She had a ball and a toy fish from the tub earlier today and I asked her where her fish was....she reached for the fish! She's beginning to try to say more too...just a little but ya gotta start somewhere. She says "pooh" (what a shock right?? my child learning to say Pooh right away??" and ball, and she's almost got "bear" down as well. She's definitely got "Mama" and "Dad" down....she got those ones right away, but it's so cute to see her face light up and say "hi dad" when he gets home from work. Makes his day, he was born to be a dad. And she's got the cutest way of saying "mama" when she's happy now, at least it not always when she's crying for me anymore! And it sounds just wonderful coming from her.

She still loves her musical toys. Especially that soft cube that currently plays classical music. She will tug and tug on it til it starts to play and then sit up and rock to the music...we have got to get it on video for you all. I promise SOON before she stops doing it. And I guess she must like it when I sing to her, we were going to sleep a couple of weeks ago (yes one of the nights she got in bed with me) and I was singing to her, every time I stopped, she would tap my arm (more like hit) and it finally sunk in....that's what she does with her crib toy....she was trying to turn me back on!!! It was really too, too funny.

Well, it's late here and I'm sure that's not going to change Julia's wake up time, so I better wrap this up tonight. Love to everyone and can't wait to see everyone in Maine in October!

Just being cute

These are some photos that we've snapped of Julia in her element.....showing off! LOL... She loves to make Chris laugh (or anybody really) but she's not always sure what she's done that is so funny so just in case she'll repeat what she was just doing to see if that's why you're laughing... and that's her trying out Chris' sunglasses. Too cute!

She has certainly enjoyed all the company that has been in and out over the last month, and she is doing new things every day....for instance, she pulled herself to a standing position for the 1st time the other day for Chris and Kylee, of course I missed it, I had stepped out to pay the rent. Oh well, I'm sure she'll do it again soon, I think she was as surprised as Chris and Kylee that she did it!

We're finding some movies and dvd's that she seems to like, we knew about the Muppets and Sesame Street and we tried a Veggie Tales DVD last night and that was a hit. So pretty much anything with lots of music! She's still enjoying her jumper, though she's going to out grow it soon at the rate she's going. As is it's set on the highest setting for height. Oh well, guess it's good that she enjoys it while she can.

And yes, that is her and Daddy's favorite position. :)

Birthday Pictures

These are the pictures from Julia's actual birthday, opening her presents from Grandpa and Granny Stephens and from Uncle Joel and Aunt Kim. Couldn't get a smile, she was much too focused on what she was finding in those boxes!!

Thanks again everyone, she had a wonderful birthday.

Party Pictures

We celebrated Julia's 1st Birthday with a big cookout on Sunday July 30th. Which also happened to be my friend Candy's birthday too, so of course we had a little surprise planned for her as well. Julia's b-day is actually August 1st, so we did her family presents that night. I load those on a separate post as long as the blogger lets me. It's been very tempermental lately on letting me load photos, that's why there have been so few.

Her party was a big success and even though we asked for no gifts of course a few people just couldn't resist. So she has a new friend "Bambi" from Ms. Michelle and her family that she just loves to hug and give kisses to, and a tiara and wand from Ms. Jessica that was so perfect for her birthday, and a ladybug memo board for her room that is just adorable from Ms. Candy...thank you ladies, between family, and our Air Force family this child wants for nothing and she is just the happiest exploring new things and yet doesn't forget her favorites either. She's so funny.

She would not touch her cake with her hands, no messes with this child. When we tried to show her that she could, she looked at me like I had lost my mind. She did enjoy some cake but only when Kylee would feed her with the spoon. How funny. Kylee and Chris came down for her birthday and are having a great time spoiling her and just watching her play, and of course Julia is enjoying that!

Julia is growing and changing so quickly! She had her one year appointment on her birthday and weighed 20.4lbs and was 31 3/4" tall!! She barely cried even through the shots, only when they were actually sticking her and then stopped immediately and went on with life as usual. It's almost scary sometimes how good she is. She plays more on her own now that she's crawling and is happy as long as Mama doesn't go too far away.

I'll post some pics from her party and then do a separate post of her actual birthday with pics of her opening her presents from the Ohio grands and Uncle Joel and Aunt Kim. Thank you to everyone for being such a support to us and for being as excited as we are to have this little person in our lives.

Updates on how we're doing and new Pics!!

Well, finally, the promised updates. :) We've been home for nearly a month now and things couldn't be going better.

Julia has met both sets of grandparents now and loves them all. She is still smiling, loving life and just as outgoing as she was when we met her. She now has 4 teeth with more on the way and even through that has been smiling. So that's saying something.

I'll post a few new pics of Julia here. I've got some with each Grampa, playing with her Sesame Street toy that Grandpa Stephens brought her (one of her favorite toys!) and lots of her sleeping in various places. The child will go to sleep anywhere! In her Jumperoo (that she is really loving these days!) and on the floor holding her teddybear "ladybug" from Ms. Aubrey that while she crawls across the floor she will drag "ladybug" with her... and yes, she's crawling everywhere now! She started a week or so ago, and now is improving her technique and speed, she's getting pretty fast at getting into things that's for sure!

WE ARE HOME

Sorry everyone to keep you waiting. We got in last night around 11:00 and finally settled in bed around 1 am. And then all three of us slept til nearly 2 this afternoon. The flight went very well, whether that was due to Julia sleeping most of the way (on Mama by the way) or due to Ms. Gloria looking out for us and getting the couple next to her to switch seats with us so we had more leg room (we were right in front of the big screen).

Either way it was much better than the flight over. Despite all the hassle with the Airline.
Ms. Lori and Mom met us at the airport. So good to see friendly faces and Ms. Lori was nice enough to drag our luggage home in her vehicle. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

My email is acting up here at home so I'll keep trying to log into that later. For now just know that we are all home, we are safe, and beyond exhausted. LOL.

Found the museum pictures!

Located the right memory card and thought I would add some pics from the museum in Changsha. For me it was one of the more interesting tours we had. All of the tours were wonderful but for Ray and I as much as we love history and I love art the museum was a real treat.

Their most noted find was of course the 2001 year old woman, I'll post her picture but I'll keep the photos of her organs off the blog...I won't take you that far. LOL She was found in Hunan in complex of 3 separate tombs. I've also added her coffins....yes that's definitely plural. She was buried inside 3 coffins that were nested one into the next and all 3 housed in a huge wooden case that we saw the bottom part of in the basement and the top of we could look down through from the 2nd floor. Very cool.

Again Julia slept through part of the museum...she seems to need a power nap in the mornings ranging from 10 minutes to 30 and then she goes until after lunch (sometimes well after lunch) before her afternoon nap. That nap can be anywheres from an hour to 3 hours seems to be averaging about an hour and half to two hours.

We did find an embroidered silk bag that I intend to put away for her wedding day. The trick to all of this buying and putting away for later is of course going to be finding a place to keep it and finding it when we want it. LOL. Still have to work on that. By the way Kim, or anyone else headed to China in the future, let me know if you end up going to Hunan Province, we got a business card from the photo studio that was around the corner from the Huatian hotel. The pictures really did come out beautifully and I just couldn't describe the book that they made for us. Incredible.

Anyways. That was about it from our day at the museum. Just learning about history, artifacts and some beautiful pottery and ceramics that it's hard to believe date back as far as they do.

The White Swan at last!

Well, we are finally in Guangzhou, due to an error somewhere along the way our itinerary had us coming here yesterday afternoon, however we couldn't get the babies passports until 5:30 last night so we had another night in Changsha and left there early this morning. Julia did great on her first plane ride, of course that one was barely an hour long, I feel so bad for whoever sits near us on the Hong Kong to Chicago flight on Friday. LOL. Not that she screamed (cried for just a minute on the descent but she was very tired and fighting sleep too) but she plays hard! Her favorite games seem to be bouncing, waving and hitting Mama....not meanly hitting it's play to her and mostly when she's excited...we're working on it. lol.

Yesterday in Changsha we went to the Museum, fascinating stuff. I loved it! We saw the 2001 year old woman, it's truly amazing how her body was mummified and perserved. Nothing at all like an Eygyptian Mummy. I'll have to add those photos at another time (if any of them even came out) not sure what Ray did with the other memory card.

I do have a few pics of our first day in Guangzhou to post though, as you can see I wasn't kidding Julia was exhausted and I walked through most of the airport carrying her while she slept, naturally she sleeps after the plane lands. I finally had to just lay her across the top of the luggage. LOL. it worked for a little while.

It's very beautiful here, I don't think the pictures will do it justice but it should at least give you an idea. The White Swan is actually located on Shaiman Island along the Pearl River. If you step into our hallway there is a good view of the river unfortunately for us our room gives us a view of the street, which actually isn't that bad either, in some places you can barely see the street for the trees. We passed a nice park on our way to the medical exam and it feels much safer crossing the streets here as compared to Beijing and Changsha.

Guangzhou reminds us a lot of Charleston, only even more shopping! First thing we purchased was a stroller in one of the hotel shops! Just a small one, but no more lugging through airports for us! She would perfer being carried but seems okay once we get moving. We bought Julia some silk dresses tonight after dinner. It's cooler to go out in the evening of course and these shops out here in front of the hotel are tailor made for adopting parents. We were a minority in Changsha we saw one or two other small groups there adopting, here it seems everyone is pushing a stroller. As is most of our group now. 3 of us purchased strollers after arriving here today. Carrying is fine for short distances, but they wanted us to take a 15 minute walk to the medical exam (which Julia sailed through by the way! as a matter of fact I think she's the only one who didn't cry at all, most of the babies seemed upset by the ear nose and throat exam) so it was then that we became the stroller brigade. We also realized how far it is to gates and what not at the different airports and frankly my back just couldn't take anymore. She's getting better about letting Daddy carry her but since he has to carry the baggage as well.....you get the idea.

There are so many souveniers everywhere here, it's hard to know what to buy for some of you and for Julia to have as she gets older as well. We found some silk dresses for under $5 each and of course some squeaky shoes to match for under $4. We're going to try taking one of her pictures back tomorrow to have a marble etching done if we still have time. They do beautiful work here! Since tomorrow is a free day it's going to be spent doing just a little bit more shopping, taking some things out to the laundry, finding some lunch, and mostly doing a lot of relaxing and hopefully even a little swimming. We'll see how that goes, Julia is still afraid of the water but each bath gets a little less stressful. She seems to be the only one with this issue so I can't help but wonder why. We'll likely never know...

I babysat this afternoon while our one mom traveling alone went to do the paperwork, the rest of us just got to send one person. So Ray went for us, (thank you Honey!) both girls did very well together, at least for the first hour they took turns crying instead of doing it together, that is until Ray came back without her Mom (they left together) and her and Julia both woke up at the same time. Ray tried to take Julia so I could comfort Hannah but she was having none of that, so I ended up with both of them, Julia of course calmed as soon as she was in my lap and then proceeded to help me pat Hannah's back to comfort her. It was very sweet! Guess she doesn't mind sharing as long she makes it clear that she belongs there too.

One final note! We have a BONUS here at the White Swan I can finally view the blog!!! It was so nice to see everyone's comments at last! We miss all of you too and while we have definitely been having a wonderful time here we can't wait to be home. Almost there, we will have the oath taking at the embassey on Thursday afternoon and be headed home on Friday morning. Please say lots of prayers for the trip.

A few more from the photo shoot

I knew I wouldn't be able to narrow it down to 5 pictures. :) The book that made for us is absolutely beautiful, I can't even describe it to you. And sorry Grandmas but the big book is Mama's.

Everyone in our group is amazed at what a "happy baby" we have. She rarely fusses in front of anyone else. Guess she saves that for Mom and Dad, but even then it's rare. She truly only fusses when she's not feeling good or when she's tired and then I only have to sing to her for just a moment and she calms. I'm sure this won't last the more comfortable she becomes with us so I'm enjoying every minute of it while it does!

Look Joe we finally found someone who could work a camera! Happy now?? LOL

That's all she's going to let me do for the moment so I better get this published and pick her up. Love to everyone.

Photo Shoot

I mentioned I think that we took Julia for her first photo shoot the other day and amazingly enough they managed to get some very nice pics. It's so hard to decide which ones to post for you and I may end up doing two posts, depends on how long she's happily playing on the blanket beside me. At the moment she's playing quietly while Dad takes a nap. Hope he knows it's my turn next!

City tour

Because of the heat we opted for a "city tour" on the air conditioned bus today. So we all loaded up and took a ride. They drove us to the River Walk and some of us got off for a photo op. in front of the river. As soon as Ray took a pic of Julia and I in front of the river we went looking for shade. We found some in front of some sort of tourism booth, the two girls working there came out and of course Julia made some more friends. :) She is much more outgoing than her mama is...lol We almost got to have dinner on the boat but it was decided that it would be too late for the little ones. oh well....

Ray got some more pictures as we drove around the city and then we ended up at the "new Walmart" yup another outing to Walmart. Too funny. This one was nicer and had more to choose from, some things you're not likely to find in your local walmart. At least I found her some sandals that she'll keep on, though she keeps messing with them. We ended up at McDonald's again for lunch ( okay I'm even sick of McD's at this point you won't believe it but some in our group are even pickier than I am!) lol. I've managed to find something in our Chinese meals to eat at nearly every meal. Except last night, it was mutton and on top of that it was very spicy! So Ray took a walk after dinner and found the nearest KFC for some nuggets for me. But that's the first time I've had to do that on the whole trip so far! :) Julia slept through most of McD's again, it's that stroller any longer than 10 minutes and she's ready for a nap in it!

This afternoon was much calmer and we just hung out in the hotel. Tomorrow we are going to the museum and in the afternoon getting Julia's Chinese passport and then her paperwork for the Chinese side of things is complete. Tuesday morning (6 am) we leave for the airport and Guangzhou to take care of the US side of things. We only have 3 nights in Guangzhou and then we are on the plane home. We have loved our time in Changsha and Peter has done a super job of keeping us busy so that time doesn't stand still on us but we are all ready to move to the next step and be on our way home.

It's so hard to decide which pictures to post every night, not to mention finding time to load them all one at a time. The connection is much slower here than it was in Beijing. Once we get home I'll load everything into some online albums so that you can really see China through our eyes. Here you are barely getting a glimpse. It is truly a beautiful country and it's amazing to see how they have progressed so much in the last 50 years or so and at the same time their roots are so clearly defined here as well. Never have I seen the past and the present collide in quite the same way that they do here.

Well I better get some sleep, little one is restless tonight so I better try to rest while I can.