Our little firecracker

We had a fun 4th spending time with family and Anna enjoyed the fireworks. She wasn't scared of them at all, but she did like for us to cover her ears and if we didn't, she would...pretty cute.

No, I'm not trouble...

Daddy's Girl

Happy Father's Day, Daddy....I love you, Anna

Our growing girl

Anna turned 18 months old this past Monday! She is really starting to look like a toddler these days!

We went for the dreaded check-up yesterday. Our poor girl is terrified of the doctor...why must it take 20 mins from the time the nurse exits the room until the doctor comes in and then another 20 mins from the time the doctor exits until the nurse comes back to give the shots?! Good news is that we're done with the doctor until December when she turns 2! The other good news is that Anna is a healthy, growing girl...she weighed 21lbs and had grown to 30 1/2" (she was 18lb 6oz and 28 1/4" when we had our first visit 5 months ago). That puts her in about the 15% on the American charts...but I looked it up on the Chinese charts and it's the 75%. The doctor thought she was doing great!

Hope you all have a great weekend. We are gearing up to celebrate Greg's first Father's Day!!

What a difference a few months make

We took a few pictures before we went out to dinner last night and couldn't believe the change in Anna over the last few months. The first picture is from last night and the next one is from Valentine's Day. We have watched this sweet little girl blossom over the last several months...while there are still some things we're working on, she has come such a long way...just look at the sparkle in her eyes now!

Hope you all have a good weekend! Anna is going to be doing a little gardening...
and a little playing...

10 years ago today...

I married my best friend!

Happy Anniversary, sweetie...I love you!!!!

Every weekend should be 4 days!!

Anna had a great weekend filled with many firsts...first trip to the zoo, first big hug with Aunt Julie, first time playing in the river, first time petting one of our dogs without our help, and first time playing golf! Here are some shots (click to enlarge) from the weekend, will try to add some video later. Hope you all had a nice weekend too!

Weekend fun

We're still here...

Things have been a little crazy lately, but we are all doing good. We had our first visit with our Parents As Teacher educator...she is WONDERFUL! We were lucky enough to get the name of a PAT lady that is also an international adoption social worker!! We were thrilled to find her! We had put off our first visit because Anna is still pretty leery of most women until she gets to know them...which takes a while! Lisa (PAT teacher) knew just how to interact with Anna and by the end of the visit (she stayed 2 hours), Anna let Lisa hold her and gave her a big hug. If you know Anna, you know that this is huge!

Not only was Lisa able to talk to us about Anna's development, but since she's an international adoption social worker, she also took almost half of her time talking about Anna's adjustment. We appreciated this so, so much!

She reassured us that she thought Anna's attaching and bonding to us was going great. We were pretty sure about this, but there are times when we've questioned it. Lisa was encouraged by Anna's eye contact, her affection to us, her preference for us, and her letting us comfort her when she's upset.

She also reassured us that we've made the right decisions by keeping our circle pretty small. She said it's good that Anna just wants us (and sometimes the grandmas) to hold her and that, over time, she'll feel comfortable going to others, but to certainly not push it. Anna has had many disruptions in her young life and it is very normal for her to be leery around new people and a very good sign that she likes to know we're near.

The only bad part about the PAT visit is that this will be the last visit until the school year starts again in the fall. Lisa did say we could call her any time...we might take her up on that, we don't want Anna to forget her new friend over the summer!

Here are a couple pictures from this week. Anna is finally in all 12 month clothes now...she's growing like crazy, we can't wait to see her measurements next month at the dr! The bottom picture is from this morning and is especially great to see from the girl that 4 months ago didn't want anything to do with touching anything soft and had no idea what to do with a stuffed animal...now she can't sleep without her snugglie and won't get out of bed without bringing her doggy, elephant, blanket, and snugglie with her!

Happy Mother's Day

I had a wonderful first Mother's Day! Anna got me a beautiful new necklace with 3 small pearls in a pea pod, Greg got me a new Fiestaware pitcher that I had been wanting, and we all went out to eat at one of my favorite places for breakfast. I feel very blessed!

Looking forward to my first Mother's Day!

She has arms and legs!

It's been so funny to watch Anna as she has started wearing her summer clothes. The first time I put her in shorts and short sleeves, she just kept looking at me like 'where are the rest of my clothes and why are my legs and arms showing'! They keep the children pretty bundled up in China, so we're pretty sure she hadn't seen her cute little legs and arms too much before!
Anna is doing great. She's cutting teeth like crazy, probably saying at least 15 words and signing double that, learning to climb (found her in the middle of the coffee table last week!), still loves to eat, and really loves to dance!

First trip to the park

Sunday marked 3 months since the day we first held Anna in our arms. With the weather finally getting warm, we ventured out for our first trip to the park. Anna loved it! I'd say the swing was her favorite...

Adoption travel fix (for you stalkers out there)...

Last October, after we were matched with Anna, I "met" (through an online adoption group) another gal that also had been matched with a little girl in Kunming. Their daughter, Grace is just about a month older than Anna and we believe they were in the same foster care village together the last few months and we know they were in the orphanage together for about 6 months prior to that. Anyway, she and her husband just arrived in Kunming and will meet Grace Sunday night (Monday morning, China time). I checked her blog this morning and got excited to see they have the same, wonderful guide that we had! So, if you all need a blog fix...click here.

Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful first Easter together ... spent the morning at church and the afternoon with our family ... couldn't ask for a better day!