{One Year Ago} - Referral Day

One year ago today at 12:11 p.m. the phone rang with the most amazing news of our baby girl waiting in China. I still get teary when I remember Beth saying "Congratulations, you have a beautiful baby girl" It is so amazing that a year has passed and she is here with us after waiting so long. She has changed so much from her serious referral photo. After the flurry of the call, I of course printed off a dozen copies and posted them all over. When I would come down first thing in the morning I would stare at that sweet little face. It was so hard to be so far away from her, yet after so many years being so close. I will treasure always this special day.

So behind on the blog but....

I am so behind on the blog. I have photos from Easter, her baby shower, her baptism, her birthday, the list could go on and on. I promise they will show up, but for now here is a little bit of sunshine to tide you over.

1 month family anniversary!!

It's hard to believe we have had Maddie a month today. She is doing great! We could not have asked for a better fit for our family. She is so happy and loves to do whatever we do. She has learned so much this month and has gotten much stronger. She is trying to crawl and is pulling herself up on the furniture. She is also feeding herself puffs and crackers very well. She is saying Momma, Babba, Bye-Bye and is trying really hard to say Kitty. She likes the dogs, but loves the cats.

We are still struggling with our nights, we have her down to one bottle now. We feel fortunate that this is the only concern we have at this time. She is just doing so well and we are enjoying her so much.

We're home!!!!

We arrived in Billings yesterday afternoon. My parents, John's mom, Ashley, my Aunt Gina, Uncle Tom and my friend Nikki met us at the airport. I had told my FCC family that we would arrive in at 1:30 instead of 1:03, so all of Maddie's China sisters and their moms came little late. They brought her wonderful welcome home signs.

The girls did a great job on the flights, Maddie slept most of the Hong Kong to San Francisco flight. She was so good and it made our trip go so much easier than we were expecting.

We were expecting trouble the first couple of times buckling her in her carseat for the first time. I am not sure why we expected it to be such a big deal, she has been so easy going about everything else. She just snuggled in and looked around and we were off. We had all decided that we wanted Mexican for our first meal home. We enjoyed a great meal at Don Louis and then headed home.

We forced ourselves to stay awake until 8, except we had not changed our clocks before we left so it was really nine. Maddie woke up at 2:30 for a bottle and then played with Ashley for an hour. She then slept until 8. Bless Ash's heart, she played with her and fed her so we could sleep. Finally at noon I drug myself out of bed. John and the girls slept a while longer. We've had a few visitors and just started unpacking and hanging out. It feels so good to have Maddie home and to sleep in our own beds. I only have a few photos from the airport for now, I will have to get copies from everyone who was there. Pretty please. Thanks so much for all of your support and prayers, we can't wait to share Maddie with all of you.

Consulate appt. and red couch photos...

Early Thursday morning we had our consulate appointment, this is the final step for Maddie's citizenship. We had to present all of our documentation from immigration through our complete referral, match and placement time period. Before we left I had checked and double checked to make sure I had all of the paperwork we needed. It was still stressful to go through each part of the process hoping you had the right papers at the right time. Fortunately I had them all right!

After this appointment it is a tradition to have photos of the babies in their Chinese silk dresses on the red couches at the White Swan Hotel. There is always at least one baby in the group that is crying and the rest are bewildered at why they are sitting there in the first place. We were all shocked when it was Dani who was the one in tears! She is the happiest little girl, unfortunately she was coming down with the same respiratory bug that the rest of the girls had. I also got a few photos of our family and then one of her and Karis.

Guanghzou Zoo

Another catch up post...

We went to the Guanghzou Zoo on Wednesday morning. We have been on a mission to see the pandas since arriving in China. Next to getting Maddie that is what McKenna wanted to see the most.

The zoo is an old zoo, they still keep their animals in iron cages. They do seem to be upgrading some of the exhibits, so hopefully they will get more animals out of cages.
We also got to see a Liger, which is cross between a tiger and a lion. It was a unique looking animal for sure.

They had hippos, elephants, giraffes, monkeys, panthers and swans. Their animals were all very active so that made it fun to see.

When we got to the panda exhibit we found that it was closed for cleaning. McKenna thought we were joking at first, but burst into tears when she found out it was true. Our wonderful guide Jason went to bat for us trying to negotiate us visiting them in the back room. After several attempts he was able to talk them into letting us go and see them. We were not allowed to take photos, but they were only about a foot and half away from us. McKenna was beaming by the time she left the panda house. We were so glad she was finally able to see them!

We picked up an extra kid on our way to the zoo. Bree Lynn from Billings joined us for the day. It was nice for Lexi to have someone her age to hang out with and it will be nice for her to have someone she knows for Chinese New Year parties.

We are packed and ready to go!!!

Maddie is doing much better today. We have gotten some smiles, she is active again and she is keeping her fever down. Thank you so much for all of your prayers!!! It is amazing what 24 hours will do for a little one. She still has a bit of a cough and a runny nose, but she is so much better. I am not at all concerned about passing through the sensors now. Again, we so appreciate the prayers, they were definitely answered. We are so excited to be heading home, we will miss our travel mates so much. We have all bonded so closely, we will also miss China. We have enjoyed our time here, enjoyed the people and surroundings. We have not enjoyed the smog however, we are looking forward to our clean Montana air!!!

Maddie update...

Just wanted to give an update on Maddie. Her fever seems to be considerably better this morning, thank you for all of your prayers. She is still coughing and raspy in her breathing but she is cooler. We were also able to get some formula in her both last night and early this morning. Please contiue to pray that she will keep her fever down enough to get out of the country. I really want to get her to the US so if we need medical attention for her we can get it. Thanks so much.

I threw in a quick photo from Monday when she was feeling better. I still have Guangzhou Zoo and Red Couch photos to share. So check back later.