Progress!

I only have a few minutes to post, but I wanted to let everyone who is praying for us know that Grace is doing so much better. She has especially blossomed today. She now loves the boys and thinks they were put on earth to entertain her. She's warming up to going outside, but won't stand in the grass yet. She rode in her car seat today without making a peep! We took her with us to take the boys to AWANA and she was pretty nervous at first, but when we went to pick them up she opened up and laughed and smiled some. She loved grocery shopping at Kroger. She rode in her stroller while Paul pushed the cart and any time he got behind us she would yell "mon!" (come on) She likes to help me load and unload the dishwasher, and put away groceries. The only area of concern right now is getting things done with school. It's been less than a week though, and it will take time to find our rhythm. Also, my back and arms are still giving me trouble, though I'm not holding her as much. We have lots of pictures to share as soon as I find a spare moment. We thank you all for your prayers, they are being answered for sure.

Thursday until Now

We are safe at home now with our daughter and sons, and Grace is adjusting. It is a process for sure, and at times it is a hard one. I am SO proud of my boys for loving Grace even when she is so angry at them for looking at her, or touching her. We would appreciate prayer once again that she would be healed and the boys would persevere. We all get glimpses of her now and then and for that we are so thankful. She only slept until 2:00am yesterday and it is 4:30am today and she is still asleep. That is huge! I on the other hand have been up since 3:00. Everything from my jaws down to my knee hurts from carrying her, but I am thankful that I haven't felt too tired or grumpy.

I want to catch the blog up from where I left off. On Thursday, our last day in Guangzhou we decided to take a cab with our friends to the Safari Park. We were pretty apprehensive about going for several reasons, but I am SO thankful we did. It was the most amazing zoo I've ever seen, and it really helped Grace come alive even more. The cab ride back was harrowing, and I prayed silently several times that we would make it home. We said goodbye to the other families and the shop owners who we had become friends with and left for the airport at 7:00. There were elements of China that I was happy to be leaving, and I was dying to get home to the boys, but it was also sad. Overall we loved China, it was a hard but amazing trip, and it is Grace's home. I was really sad leaving the other kids in our group, not knowing when or if I'd see that again. It was also hard for me to remove her from her culture, and language and bring her to a place where she is now a minority. I am glad we did it, and I know God has a plan for her, but I really did feel a little like a kidnapper sometimes during the trip.

The plane ride home was something I wouldn't care to relive. :) We did have a wonderful family with four kids (two from China) in front of us, and I found out that they homeschool too. There were a huge selection of seat back movies for people to chose from the entire flight, so hopefully not too many people were ticked at the toddler who was screaming and laughing and throwing food for most of the trip. I think we made at least 15 trips to the lovely toilets, which were an improvement over the hole-in-the ground potties in China. :) Paul's dad and Sherry were there to pick us up at the airport, and drive us to our house. Grace was so tired and sad, and did not like sitting in a car seat for the first time ever and cried for about 10 minutes for me to hold her, and then fell asleep for the rest of the trip. We were SO excited to see the boys and they were happy to see us. My parents had been staying with them at our house for the week. We had a wonderful welcome home party with our immediate family, minus my two sisters and their families and my neice and nephew- who all I missed. The boys had made a welcome home poster with our good friends the, and we came home to food, toys, flowers and balloons. Grace was pretty shut down and nervous but by the end of the night my sister-in-law, who really has a way with kids, had her laughing and playing. She even let other people hold her a little. We want to get her used to the boys before we take her to any large group activities that might put her back, but small groups of visitors to our home are fine. I plan to keep up the blog, but I have never been very good at that.

I want to say thank you again to everyone who has prayed for us and helped us on the trip. I honestly didn't know what people would think about us adopting #5, but the reception has been nothing but wonderful. It has been such a humbling blessing to be carried by our family and friends. And I must acknowledge again our beautiful Savior, who adopted us while we were in rebellion to Him and made us heirs to His Kingdom. He constantly amazes me with His faithfulness.

Wednesday

We had our appointment at the US Consulate in Guangzhou today. It ws pretty emmotional when they had us take the oath for our children and then announced that we would be signing our last piece of paperwork for the adoption. Grace is ours, we are finished with the adoption process! We are so thankful. Every day we see more and more of our girl. There is so much more I want to say, but time on the computer is always short here. I want to try and write out a lot of what I've learned while here, but it never seems to work out. I don't know that I'll have more time when we get home, but we'll see. This may be the last post from China depending on Grace's day tomorrow. Grace will be an American citizen when we land in Detroit!

Tuesday

We have spent the last two days walking around the island, shopping and playing with Grace in our room. In the room she is wide open, wild, running around yelling and laughing. She is a wild girl. Outside the room she is either grumpy or shut down with occassional moments of being content while being pushed around in her stroller. She's gone from being terrified of the bath, to angry at it, to loving it so much we can't get her out. She is no longer eating everything in sight, in fact it's been hard finding things she likes the last few days. Although, she loves Pringles. She jabbers a lot in Chinese, and can say bye-bye and wave. She says mama, baba (daddy), Bei Bei (what she calls herself and we call her) and ge ge (brother). She hates to wear clothes and we have force them on her. She is a lot of fun, and we can't wait for her to fully bloom, although we will have our hands full for sure!!

Grace loves the bath!

Daddy and Grace in our hotel.

Our group of kids on the red couch. Hannah, Grace, Sha Pu, Lily, Silei, Daniel and Mary.
Look who was not happy that mama put her down.

Mom and Dad with Grace on the famous red couch in the White Swan hotel.

Mom and Grace, she wasn't thrilled to be in her Chinese Dress.

We are really missing our boys, but being on Shamain Island has been wonderful. We've got lots of phenominal bargains, had Starbucks, met some Chinese Christians, and lots and lots of other adoptive families. It is really heartwarming to see all the new families. The very large majority of the children being adopted are waiting children. Please excuse my poor spelling and writing from this trip. I'm either distracted by Grace or exhausted when I write these. Love to you all.

Pictures from Sunday on Shamain Island

Sunday

It's been really hard to update the blog since getting to Guangzhou. Grace is a handful! And any spare moment we spend chasing after or playing with her. Our flight to Guangzhou was pretty uneventful until the descent when she started crying to go to the bathroom as soon as we began descending. She was pretty upset by the crowds at the airport and the hour bus ride back to the hotel. It wasn't fun. I held her pretty much the entire day and by the end my back and arms were killing me. She and I fell asleep as soon as we hit our hotel room, clothing and all.

We are staying at the White Swan Hotel, which is on Shaiman Island, on the Pearl River. It is an amazing hotel. We feel very spoiled. Shaiman Island is like a little respite in the hustle and bustle and chaos of most of the cities in China. It was a British colony at one time, and has beautiful buildings, tree lined streets, statues and a park. The traffic in China is INSANE. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. There are no rules, or lights, nor does anyone stay in the lines. Little kids ride on the back of their parents mopeds, crossing right in front of huge buses without batting an eye. We saw a little kid pushing a smaller child on a toy across a terrible crowded intersection. My palms were ltteraly sweating watching them. Shaiman island has a lot less traffic, though they do still drive up on sidewalks, and do not watch for pedestrians, you must watch for them.

Grace had a medical exam yesterday, which was really just a formality, and a TB test. She was terrified of the Dr.'s and nurses and screamed when they took her from us. She is a "girl" for sure, with lots of different moods. Sometimes she is hilarious, making funny faces and laughing, sometimes she is strong willed and throws a fit when we make her wear a coat. In China, they bundle up the little kids. She came to us in like four layers of clothes. She will have none of that now! She won't even wear covers at night and we have to force her to get dressed to leave the room. She still has moment where she shuts down, and moments where she whines when Paul even looks at her. But, most of the time she is okay with him now. New situations still scare her and she clings to me. At night and before nap she lays in bed and talks to herself in Chinese. Today she was singing, and we videotaped her even though it was dark in the room to get the sound on tape.

Today was mostly a free day for us and we walked around Shaiman Island. We ate at Lucy's an American Style Restaurant. We walked around a park, something new for Grace. Luoyang was all concrete and big buildings. She seemed to enjoy taking everything in. We kept saying, "Wait until you see home." She wasn't ready to play on the equipment yet. She did ride in her stroller after a small tantrum. We felt like we had to have one to save my back and arms. Everyone comments on how big she is and can't believe she is two.

Paul and I are doing well. Physically we haven't been sick or had any trouble adjusting to China (except for the driving). I was pretty exhausted after carrying her so much, but I am doing better. It's amazing how quickly we bonded with Grace, even if it took her a little longer to bond to us. She was definitely ours before they even placed her in our arms. We are constantly surprised by how like the boys she is. She loves to rough house with daddy, she doesn't want to wear anything but comfy clothes, no more hairbows! She is super strong willed. A trait everyone in our family but I possess. She throws her dolls on the ground and loves anything that she has to figure out, or has buttons to push. God matched her well to our family. Skype has been a huge blessing, I love seeing the boys every day. Though, in some ways it makes me miss them more. I can't wait to be united as a whole family. The boys seem to be doing really well. I will try to most more tomorrow. This Internet connection is very slow and it's taking all day to load even one photo. I'll try to post more later. Thanks for all the prayers and messages. We are blessed!

Friday

I only have a few moments to post. I had written a really long post and this computer deleted it!! I felt like crying. Anyway, Grace is doing much better! She is precious and fiesty, a spicy girl! She is much like her brothers were at two, into everything. She loves Paul again, most of the time. Yesterday was rough. She was somewhat out of her shell, but mostly moaned and whimpered all day. Last night she seemed to turn a corner. She still has moments of agitation and some whimpering. But she knows what she wants now and is busy trying to boss us around. :) We fly to Guangzhou today. I am excited about this leg of the trip, but somewhat sad I didn't get to take in more of Grace's home province. We mostly just saw the inside of the hotel, because that is where she feels safest. We've eaten at the Italian resteraunt here in the hotel several times. Sometimes we eat leftovers in our room, carry-out from the noodle shop, and once we paid a small fortune to eat a t the lunch buffet, but it was worth it to get some meat. Breakfast here is also an out of this world buffet, which we eat as much as we can of every day. I try to keep Grace's diet bland, but truly she would eat anything. In fact we have to cut her off before she eats herself sick which makes me sad. I'm a little aprehensive about the flight, but it can't be avoided, so Guangzhou - here we come!