Steph and Chloe

Stephanie, David and Keegan have Chloe. They are in Guangzhou, and will be home soon!

Showering Julie and Kacey

The mama's and the babies. Kacey's mom is in red, and will be going to get her mid September. Baby S's mom is on the left and will be going to get her as soon as the CCAA gives the word. I bet her bags are packed already! Chloe and Liza and their moms aren't pictured, because they are in Guangzhou now! we cant wait to see them.
Julie and Amelia

Silly China Babies on the sofa Kailee testing out Kacey's blankie

Emily testing out the time out chair----the red dot on her face is a lady bug sticker, by the way.

Gidiup Horsey

One Year Old Today

Amelia is One Year Old today!

We'll have a birthday party in a few weeks. We want to combine the birthday party with her baptism, so today we celebrated, just the three of us.

Amelia had alot of firsts today. First time on a carosel, first time to pet a goat, first taste of ice cream, first time to drink water from a sippy cup---BY HERSELF NO LESS!

FIRST BIRTHDAY!

Happy Birthday to our little Empress. We love you more than ANYTHING :)

Gotcha!!!

Jill and Seth have Liza! isnt she beautiful? It gives me butterflies to watch them on get their baby. Mater of fact, Jimmy and I sit down with the computer each night to see the updates, and Boy, does it bring it all back........and oh my, does it make me want to do it again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gee, I think Amelia has a baby sister in her future.

Our friends Stephanie and David are also in China. we're waiting on gotcha day pics from them.

Is there anything better in the world than Gotcha day??????

A Sunday Kind Of Love

Learning to Share

The Ladies Who Lunch

Celebratory lunch for Julie and Kacey

Julie is going to be such a great mom, and we are so happy for her.

I know the girls will be fast friends!

thanks Lisa S for the pic

Babies Cant Wait

This is an FYI post for those new to adoption. If you already know about this program, disregard :)

In the state of Georgia, we have a program called BABIES CANT WAIT. Its an early intervention program that provides low cost/no cost therapy to children experiencing developmental delays due to illness or disability, babies born prematurely, orphanage delays, whatever. I set up an appointment with them for an evaluation of Amelia's development. I think she's doing great--dont panic--we're not experiencing any real problems. Since we got her on June 12, she has learned to sit up, roll both directions, army crawl, find a hidden toy, manipulate toys to make them play music, roll up to a sitting position, hold to furniture and stand, and eat! yes, she is now eating 2-6 ounce meals 3 times per day. we have cut the cereal completely out of her bottles. now its cereal, baby food, and yogurt at meals, and formula only in the bottles. we are so pleased with her progress and especially with her attachment so far. I say "so far" because attachment is a process that moves through stages. The goal: secure attachment. Babies dont "attach" immediatly. Amelia bonded with us immediatly, but this is NOT the same thing as attachment. True attachment takes effort and consistency OVER TIME.

Anyway, I digress! I called the program because it certainly wont hurt to know if there are areas in which we should do some extra work. I figure that even if they dont sign her up for therapy, they will at least teach us some exercises and play activities that we can do to bolster her progress and continue to build her strength, and they'll do it all in our home for low/or no cost. Its a win, win deal. here's the link in Georgia with contacts for each county :
http://babiescantwait.net/resources/

Other states have similar programs if you want to check it out.

The process in GA, is this: I called and set up a visit over the phone. The county nurse came out yesterday and asked me questions about Amelia's abilities and progress, and observed her playing. she also brought me a whole kit of safety tools and all kinds of info on development, nutrition, etc. She was here maybe a half hour. The next step is for a team of therapists to come out and do an intensive eval here at home. Then they'll give us their opinion on her developmental progress in various areas and put together a plan for therapists to come out and work on any areas where we need a boost. It will probably be a week or two before the eval, so it takes about a month to get rolling once you place the initial call. For those that have expressed an interest in setting up the appt. prior to bringing your child home, the nurse said that you can do the initial set up over the phone after referral, but prior to travel.

thats it! I'll let you know how it goes

Oh, and my friend (thanks Tricia) recommended a GREAT book. It called Baby Play and is marketed by Gymboree. I got it for about 7 bucks at Barnes and Nobles. It is filled with fun activities that you can do with baby, and it tells you which skills each activity works on. Its just a great book and I highly recommend it!

Delight

You know the great thing about babies? they know about the small pleasures. Look at that face....... Delighted at taking a bath in the sink.

Where does that go?

Its the ability to delight in the every day..... thats what the babies understand.

Its watching her joy, amazement, accomplishment, and discovery, that fills me with more delight than i've known since I was a child myself. Its becoming a mom, that has reminded me how to appreciate the smallest moments; holding my breath when she crawls for the first time; feeling my heart melt when she grabs my hair on both sides of my head and buries her face in mine; racing my husband to her room after naps, because we both want to be first to see her wake up smile :)

Its true that becoming a parent is challenging, and exhausting, and sometimes overwhelming.

But its also the most incredible, heart stopping, butterfly skipping adventure.....and

the wonder of it sometimes catches me off guard.

Becoming a mother has been everything I anticipated AND SO MUCH MORE. I will never have another experience that could compare with adopting Amelia.