She likes the dog!!!!

It has been so exciting to watch Annabel grow and learn to trust us this week. It has been such an incredible week and a fantastic two days. First of all she is in her Port-a-crib for the 4th time. Each time we have been able to get her to sleep in it for about an hour. She has still been in bed with me each night(we finally gave in two nights ago), but it is a start. I believe tonight might be the night she spends the entire night in the crib (or at least a good part of it) only because she is very tired tonight and is already asleep. It is only 8:39pm. Praise God!! That sure beats 4am. She has had her first car seat experience this week. She LOVES her car seat because she enjoys looking out while we are driving. Everything is so new to her. She also did great at Walmart in the shopping cart for the first time. As you can see from the pictures one of her greatest accomplishments is that she is finally NOT terrified of the dog. In fact she follows him around everywhere. It is just too cute. We have to stop her over and over from trying to kiss the dog as you can see in the picture. She just puckers up and is ready for kisses. Of course the dog thinks it is great. So she has heard the word "no" a lot today. This morning she attended her first Sales Director meeting away from home and welcomed a few more of my friends to the house. She is definitely proving herself to be a child who can handle change with stride and can very easily adjust to just about any situation.

Falling into some routines

Hello everyone, I know many of you have been keeping up with my blog and wondering why I haven't posted anything substantial yet since getting home. So here is an attempt to catch up. First of all Annabel is doing amazing considering all she has been through. She has been pulled away from everything she has ever known and taken to a foreign country with people she never knew before. Wow..that would be scary for me, I can't imagine what she is thinking. She is doing great during the day. She has taken to the whole family and is actually starting to pet the dog. She was terrified of him at first. Poor puppy. He couldn't figure out why each time he came near her she would scream bloody murder. haha She is eating great and babbling like crazy. We hear some American words mixed in there amongst the jibber jabber. We took her to urgent care yesterday so we could get some medication for her eye (the doctor thought it was the start of pink eye). But after getting her home we felt it was probably just a cold in her eye because she caught a cold after flying. We couldn't get in yet with her Doctor because her paperwork was still processing to be put on our insurance so it was very nice of them to see her considering she wasn't even covered yet. They worked it out with us though because they knew we had been through so much in the days prior with travel and all. We ventured out today to the bank, church and a couple of stops on the base. She did great. She absolutely LOVES her car seat which shocked me. She loves just sitting there looking out as we drive. Thank You Lord for that one. I do have a prayer request for you all and that is that Annabel would fall madly in love with her porta crib, or her crib or even a sleeping bag on the floor. Anything that doesn't involve sleeping on my stomach. I think I have an invisible umbilical cord growing out of me. She only sleeps if she is attached to me. In China she slept all night in her crib with no problems. In fact she didn't want to be in bed with me at all at night. Here she wont go in her crib awake and if we move her she automatically wakes up. So the first two nights I slept either on the floor or on the recliner in my room with her. Last night I gave in and put her into bed with me. But she wiggles too much and doesn't sleep sound. Which means we have been taking a lot of little cat naps on the recliner during the day. Our sleep is all messed up to say the least. haha But she is still very happy when she is awake. My travel group has been emailing back and forth and it sounds like another family is experiencing the same thing which is very normal for these children. I would imagine she is scared that if she gets in that crib and falls asleep that we wont be there in the morning. Bless her heart. Other then the sleep issues I could not ask for a better situation. She loves us so much as we do her and we feel so very blessed to have her. God did an amazing job of matching her to us. As for us, feel free to call now. I know many of you have been so kind as to email asking for permission to call as you didn't want to disturb us. We would love to catch up and are even up to visitors. I do thank you for the privacy you have all given us the last couple of days though and the emails checking in on us. We are so grateful to be home. God Bless, Mark and Tamara

We are HOME!!!!!!!

We are finally home!!!! It felt like we were never going to make it. It took us 34 hours of traveling from the time we left our hotel until the moment we hit home. I have never been so tired in all my life but at the same time so happy and relieved. I will post later with some pictures and more details but I wanted everyone to know we were home safe and sound. Annabel is doing great and did amazing on our long journey here. She totally excepted Amber, Joey and Grandma. Praise God!!!! She is having so much fun with the kids. Our biggest issue right now is the time difference from here to China. We will have to work really hard the next few days to wean her onto our time schedule. We wanted so badly to go to church today but since she finally went to sleep at 4 am this morning, church just wasnt going to happen. But we will be there next week for sure. Thanks for all your prayers and emails while we were gone. Believe me we felt the prayers all the way in China. God bless and I can't wait to introduce you all to Annabel.

Our last post from China

Well this will probably be our last post from China as we head to the airport first thing in the morning. We have had a great last couple of days as a family. Most of our time has been spent shopping and exploring the area. We went out to dinner with our group last night for some very much welcomed Italian food. It was a great change from Chinese food. haha We bought an extra suitcase because we have had soooo much fun shopping. I can't wait to get home and see what I really ended up with. Annabel will have some great things to remind her of her culture and Joey and Amber, yes there are some great things for you as well. We have really enjoyed ourselves over the last 2 weeks. We have learned a great deal about Annabel's Province and Country that I hope we can pass on to her as she grows older. I know we will be back again someday and hopefully we will have done a great job in helping her to gain a respect and pride for where she came from. The Chinese people vary just as much as the Americans do in attitude and kindness. We have met some very wonderful people that I am sure Annabel would feel proud to call friends. The desire for these children to be adopted and loved by foreigners such as ourselves is very apparent. I am looking forward to getting home and putting together all the hours and hours of video clips we have on our camera. So be checking into the blog site periodically for those clips. It is just too hard to do it from over here because the connections are so much slower. While we have enjoyed ourselves so much here, I am so ready and excited to come home. Most of you know that I am a serious homebody. I love being home with my family and am so looking forward to watching how Annabel fits right into that. I am so proud of you Amber and Joey for sticking it out the last 2 weeks. You have been real troopers. I know it is very hard to go from having your parents there on a daily basis to all of a sudden not having them around. I promise once you meet Annabel it will have all been worth it. Please pray for our trip home tomorrow. From start to finish is 30 hours of airport and travel time for us. We have a lot of layover time in Beijing. I pray Annabel makes it through without too many meltdowns. I am sure we will be circling the plane many times on the long trip back to the states. Thank you for following our journey. It is not over yet. Now we head home and readjust again. I am sure we will see some set backs as we move into new routines. But I can tell you we could not have asked for a sweeter little girl then God gave us. She loves us so much as we do her. She loves to hug and kiss and you can tell she is just in heaven having a mommy and daddy. From day one God layed it upon our hearts to add two children to our home. I cannot wait to see who God has in store for us next. What's funny is that even the families who intended on only adopting once are talking about coming back again. There is something very contagious about seeing these kids grow and learn to love in such a short period of time. I wish there was a way to rescue each and every one of these lonely children. I know I don't have the power to do that. But I do ask you to pray for these children. Pray that men and women all over the world would open up their hearts and homes to a child who desperately needs a mommy and daddy. The blessing you will receive is greater then anything you could ever imagine. I have never seen God's love as much as I have in the past 7 days watching these children learn to trust and love their new parents. The miracle of love that God has for us and his orphan children is forever etched on my heart.

What a great day we had!!

Medical Appointment and Shopping

Well how do I sum up our medical appointment today? Organized Mass Chaos!!! You take hundreds of families with brand new adopted babies and throw them all into a very small medical building with no room for strollers or even diaper bags, turn off the air, turn on the heat and prepare to listen to all the babies cry at the same time. Doesn't that sound like something you would want to do on a daily basis? haha Oh my was it insane. Annabel did great. I was expecting her to scream and fight the Doctors, but remember, today was a good day for her. She woke up on the right side of the bed and stayed that way all day. She just sat there totally compliant with the Doctors. I was actually a little sad I didnt get all the pics of her screaming bloody murder. haha She looked just fine in her photos. So I found out she has ear wax. Thats it. She turned her head when they squeaked the toy so her hearing must be great. Our guide said please don't ask for a copy of her medical report because the medical report is somewhat of a joke. He said hopefully your DR back home with give her a better check up and if he doesnt get a new DR. haha After the medical appointment was over we chose not to go back with our group to the hotel and stayed on the the island to shop. We had lunch at Lucy's (all Americans in there and yes we ordered Cheese Burgers and fries). Lucy's is kind of like a Denny's I guess. After that we bought some silk dresses for Annabel and had her photo done on the red couch at the While Swan hotel. Quite the tradition for adoptive parents. Then we shopped shopped shopped. Annabel was amazing. She loved all the shops and everyone had to hold and play with her in each store we went to. I was grateful because it made her very happy. I have no clue how we are going to get all of this home. We are going back tomorrow to have some silk items custom made. Can't wait!!! We had to stop shopping because we had so many bags that people stopped bargaining with us because they assumed we must have had a fat wallet. We actually just got some really good deals. I love shopping at places like this where the prices are negotiable. Prior to that it was easy to talk them down. It rained a lot today but it felt so good. Annabel loved standing out in the rain reaching up and grabbing the water drops. It made me wonder if she has ever felt rain before. It is 8pm and she is still laughing and giggling as I type. We ordered pizza tonight from Papa Johns. They deliver to our hotel so we are pretty excited about that....... Ok it is now a few hours later. We ordered spaghetti for Annabel. She LOVED IT. She kept giving me the spoon to feed her. As fast as I was shoveling it in. She chewed, swallowed and opened her mouth up again. It was hysterical. I am assuming she never had that taste before. I know what I am cooking me first day home. haha God bless, Tamara

We had a fantastic breakfast!!!!

Ok, we now know how to have a great meal with Annabel at the table. LET HER FEED HERSELF!!!! We have been mashing everything up and spoon feeding her because we really weren't certain what she was capable of chewing with her palate. This morning I decided to just cut everything up really small and put it in front of her. IT WORKED!!!! She just wanted to do it her self. She ate and ate and ate and was totally content and happy the entire time. Last night I was beginning to wonder if our days of eating at a restaurant were over. haha So we just need to make sure we have plenty of baby wipes for her sponge bath afterwards as you can clearly see from the pictures. Believe it or not only 2 pieces of food made it on the floor this morning. I included a pic of our laundry coming back from the cleaners. Mark likes the way they fold his underwear and stick it in plastic for him. haha We are off now for a medical appointment and shopping shopping shopping.