Spring

Here is a picture I took in China! This is for you Nancy!! I saw this sign and thought of you! China was lovely in Spring!

Also want to let you know of a great place to shop in GZ. She is a wonderful woman. Her name is Judy!! There is a road right next to the playground by Lucy's. If you start walking down the road toward the river, her shop is on the left side of the road. Tell her Tim and Lisa sent you. She does laundry too! Great prices! Here is a picture.

One month

One month ago today we signed the papers and Renee became our daughter! Today was an amazing day! Sunday thru Thurs. were tough days. We had food wars and meltdowns and adjustment having a two year old was just plain hard. I was discouraged. Then I read a face book post: "This is not an option, but a COMMAND!!! 'Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.' Joshua 1:9" It is a command to not be discouraged. I took it to heart. It finally was warm enough this morning to take Renee outside. I borrowed my friends jogging stroller and off we went! I have not gone for a run since before China. It felt so good! We stopped at a park and played just the two of us. It started to rain just a little before I got home. It smelled like rain! What a wonderful smell!!
When we got home Renee wanted me to paint her toe nails. I had painted mine yesterday and she shook her head no when I asked her if she wanted hers done. Today she was ready. Here are our toes!

There were no wars today. Just fun and relaxing as a family. I needed this to recharge my batteries. Thanks God!!


Renee understands so much that we say to her and her list of words that she can say is growing by the day. Here are the ones I can remember: toes, bye bye, night night, eat, tired, potty, water, coat on, shoes, bird, done, please, we think she is saying one of her brothers names(Daniel) otherwise it is guh, guh(this is Chinese for older brother. Problem is that she calls all four by this name. We are never sure who she is wanting.), baby(she also calls her baby dolls May May; which is Chinese for younger sister), Roco(That is our dog's name) and yesterday my youngest son had a tuna sandwich and said very loudly, "Tuna," Next thing I know Renee is saying tuna!
She doesn't like TV very much, but guess what her first show was that she sat glued to the TV? American Idol!!

We have our first post placement tomorrow and needed a few more pictures of her and us together.

And just for Annette here are some random pictures!!

My girl is a meat eater. A close second is her rice. She was very happy this meal. Meat and rice!! Which do I eat first? Let's just eat them both at the same time. A spoon for one hand and a fork for the other! Too cute!

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Pictures

We had a wonderful Easter! Enjoy the pictures!
This is my daughter!! I am so blessed!

I had a friend ask me to post lots of pictures. So this is for you Annette!!

Finding a new normal

We have been home for 4 full days. Our plane flight home went better than I thought it would She really didn't cry that much.

Her first nap she took found her playing and then all of a sudden laid down on my arm and closed her eyes. My first thought was it had to be the prayers of my many wonderful friends. What kid just lays down and instantly goes to sleep? She wasn't showing signs of being that tired. She slept for about an hour. Later near the end of the trip she cried just a little and then slept for about 3 hours. The worst part for us and not that big of a deal to her, was that we rushed through sercurity after we landed and ran to our gate in Detroit which was to leave in 30 min. and found out when we got there that it was delayed! They would give us a time we would depart and then they would extend it for a half hour later. They changed our gate 4 times and kept adding a half hour to our wait until finally we boarded the plane. There was bad weather earlier and planes were late getting in. Many planes were delayed. We should have gotten into South Bend around 4:30pm and it was after 8pm when we finally saw our family. Renee did so good when she met the family. She even went to her brothers and smiled at them.

We finally got everyone in bed by 12:30am. The boys had fun showing Renee her toys in her room before bed.

She woke up at 3:30am. We decided to just keep her in our bed until it was light outside. She wanted to go potty every half hour and it was quite a fun game for her. The funny thing was almost each time I took her she put pee or poop in the potty. She had no accidents on the plane trips. This girl is truly potty trained. I am glad, but I also made many trips on the plane to the potty.
I have been waiting to write because I have been waiting for the bomb to drop. Meaning right now I feel we are in the honeymoon stage. I am truly amazed how well things are going. The dog even seems to accept the fact that she is here to stay. She has a healthy fear of the dog, but is absolutely facinated with him. I am having to watch the two of them together alittle more closely as her healthy fear of him is wearing off. Last night she slept through the night and seems to be through the jetlag. We are not over our jetlag. The first three nights when she woke us up in the middle of the night, I was in deep sleep and then last night when she slept through the night, I could not get to sleep til after midnight.
She was a little more sober today and I wonder if it had to do with the fact that Tim went back to work today. She absolutely loves her baba(dada)! She called out for him today, but didn't cry. She was much happier tonight when Tim came home.
Don't get me wrong. She has her moments, most of what I have seen is normal 2 year old issues. She wants her way and is a very picky eater. We went out to eat to celebrate my sons 14th birthday and she started to go into a mini meltdown, but seemed to come through it much quicker than in China and soon was in her baba's arms and eating and smiling. We even made a quick trip to WalMart to find a few things we needed for her and she was fine. The hardest thing is just me adjusting to having a 2 year old again. I need to go back and remember all the things I use to do with my boys. She sometimes will give me a break and play with the boys, but today she only wanted mommy. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

My friend asked me last night if it had really set in yet that Renee is here and she is my daughter. I don't really think it has. I know that sounds crazy. She is right in front of my eyes, but it is such a whirl wind of activities from getting your letter of approval to travel and then packing to travel and then weeks in China that are jammed packed. You just find yourself living in survival mode. Seriously, my heart is just racing sometimes when I go to bed. It is hard to relax and just step back from it all and reflect. The few times that it has been quiet and everyone is in bed I am too tired to put thoughts together.
It is spring break right now. Life is not normal at all. I am glad to have the time with her, but I am realizing that I am totally unprepared to start homeschooling next week with a toddler. I know that I just need to give myself time to adjust. We have spent months doing paperwork and preparing for this time, but making the shift from preparing for Renee coming and living in reality that she is here is not that easy. Especially when you are dealing with jetlag and getting caught back up on home issues. On top of that, you go to bed just wondering what will tomorrow be like? Will the honeymoon end tomorrow? I feel like I have my guard up. It is a process as I said in China. I am trying to enjoy each moment of this journey.

We are free!

We have her passport and visa and we are free to leave China! We leave in the morning to ride a train to Hong Kong. We leave Friday morning on a jet plane back to the wonderful USA!!! It is bittersweet leaving. I can not wait to get home, but we are leaving our new friends in our adoption group and we are leaving Renee's birthplace.
Yesterday Renee had very short meltdowns and really did very well. Today was amazing! No meltdowns(some stubbornness and wanting her way. normal 2 year old)! She was so sweet and really could tell she is feeling more comfortable with us. Tomorrow we change everything all over again. She will be in big crowds and she really doesn't seem to like this. So who knows what the next two days hold, but I have today to remember.
Today we went up the mountains, well it was probably more like the hills, but they call it the mountains. It was beautiful(sorry no pictures tonight. we didn't download them. We spent the afternoon repacking) I am missing spring in Indiana, but I have spring in China and it is lovely! :) (wrote that for you Nancy C.) I think Renee really enjoyed the freedom to run and explore without crowds of people. She liked the fresh air.
Thank you so much for your prayers! Truly your support made a huge difference. God has been so gracious on this trip. We asked, you prayed, and God answered. Sometimes He says no,(He is God and He knows what He is doing even in the trials) but I can't imagine the trip going any better than it did.
Four years ago we started down the road to adopt. In 2008 we were looking into China special needs program. But I clearly heard God say to me in church one Sunday morning, "Do you trust me? Even if it means a delay in getting to your daughter, do you trust me?" I knew what he was asking. I was focused on what was the fastest way to get to our daughter. My focus was on the wrong thing. We had said yes and were ready to walk through the doors of this journey, but God wanted us to trust Him to lead us the direction He wanted us to go. So through tears by the end of the sermon, I told God I trusted Him. This journey has taught me so much. I will never completely understand the twists and turns. But God has shown himself very clearly. He asked me to trust Him on Mar. 30, 2008. Our daughter will land on US soil and become a US citizen on Mar. 30, 2012! Four years to the very day! Can God be trusted? Oh yes! He is so good!

We will be home in 4 more days!

Tonight is the 9th night I have put our daughter to bed. The first two nights were easy. The last few nights, not so much. But tonight she finally fell asleep laying on top of me. Such a wonderful feeling having a little one fall asleep on me again!
It has only been alittle over a week since we first met Renee. I can't believe how far we have come. She still has at least one major melt down a day at around 12-2pm. She is very tired then. She all of a sudden wants nothing to do with me and starts calling out mama. If I am able to put her down depending on where we are at I do. She usually cries on the floor and kicks and screams. If I have to hold her she is not violent like she was the first time. You can tell she so wants to pinch or hit me and you see her hold herself back since we have been letting her know that is not exceptable.
Today we went to Safaria Park. I have to say that it is one of the most beautiful zoos I have been to. She seemed to enjoy it. We got to feed the elephants and the giraffes. There was an hour long ride through a part of the park. We enjoyed not having to walk, but the entire ride had someone speaking in Chinese describing what we were seeing. It was so loud and obviously we understood nothing of what was being said. It was amazing how tiring it was to sit in the car and have this voice blaring around you in a language you don't know. I am sure there is some illustration that you could take from this, but really my mind is muss. Her melt down today went well. I was able to put her on the ground and after alittle while, she looked up at me with her hands up saying, "mama" Poor little thing! The confusion and hurt and anger that she is going through. She doesn't want me yet this time even when I put her down she had to be touching me while she pushed away at the same time. She fell asleep right after her meltdown and I had to carry her around while she slept. She really only wanted me today. This is the first day that she hasn't made her rounds to everyone. I can not wait to finally be home and help her feel safe in our home. I feel she is doing so well considering how crazy life is right now. I will leave you with a few pictures. When we were feeding the elephants she didn't want to give her banana to the elephants. She wanted to eat it and she did. She is very independent. I have already learned you don't open the banana for her if you want her to eat it. She won't want it. But if I let her open it her self she will eat the whole thing. You will see of picture of this. You will also see a picture of me finally being able to sit down with a sleeping Renee while everyone is taking a bathroom break. Enjoy!

It's a new day!

We are now in Guangzhou! Plane trip was rough yesterday. We had to say no to Renee about something she wanted and she had a melt down for about 45 min. of the plane ride. Today has been better. The meltdowns don't get as extreme as the last few days and they don't last as long. Truly some sweet moments with her today as well. I had to go and do paper work and left Tim and Nathan with Renee while she was sleeping. She woke up and played some with the boys and started asking for me. So when I was finally done with paperwork I went back to the room and Tim and Renee were in the hallway looking for me. She saw me and got the biggest smile and came running to me with open arms. Bonding is most definitely happening. Thanks for all your prayers they are felt here in China and truly believe that they are making a difference. I know you have been waiting for new pictures so I won't disappoint.

Here is Renee having her first chicken nuggets from McDonald's.

Renee is putting beads around Tim's neck. She already put bracelets on him!