I can't believe that I just set this up!

O.K.  I have to admit it:  I can't believe that I actually set up this blog on my own!!!  (Well, MeiMei just helped me to set up the ticker on the side.)  I'm kinda scaring myself...  I just hope that we can access this thing from China.  We are looking into VPN Express to help us post to the blog in China.  We have to circumvent the "Great Firewall of China"!

This is scary!

So, I'm on the lookout for smaller clothes for Betsy Anne, since she's alledgedly so much smaller than we'd thought.  I found this really cute, on sale outfit at Children's Place today...  Notice the Barbie in the picture for size reference....

This child is really small!!  We are going to have a baby here in a month!!  I need to pause and breathe...  I guess that we need to go pick up the crib.  MeiMei seems so small right now, but I'm sure that in a little while she will seem really big!

Chinese New Year

We went to the city for our FCC Chinese New Year celebration.  It was just us and about 400 of our closest friends!  It was really fun!  MeiMei got to dance with her Chinese Dance class.  Her teacher is wonderful and has the girls dancing traditional Chinese dance.  We were able to eat some great Chinese food and visit with a lot of our fellow adoptive families.  After the dancing was the Lion Dance.  The children were able to "feed" the lion their red envelopes.  Luckily I was able to save one of the envelopes for her class to see!



Feeding the Lion the Red Envelopes



MeiMei was all dressed up in her Chinese Dance costume.



I love Target!

So, now that we have updated weight for Betsy Anne, I realized that ALL of the clothes that I have for her will not fit...  I grabbed the big girls and we headed over to Target to have a look-see.  It was great!  All the winter clothing was on sale (Yay!) but there wasn't much of a selection (Boo!).  After perusing the tags, I realized that she is really in a size 9 or 12 month size...  Yikes!  I grabbed a bunch of 9 month and 12 month size things and we headed home.  After washing everything, I layed it all out and had MeiMei make outfits out of it all.  Since she loves "What Not to Wear"  I knew that she would be able to come up with some great outfits.  And she did!  As soon as I get the pictures downloaded, I'll let you know what we got for Betsy!

We got an update and pictures!

WooHoo!  We had requested an update before we travel, but hadn't really expected to receive one.  The SWI's (orphanages) over there are all really busy with the new year and with trying to get everything ready before the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations begin on January 23.  Actually, everything begins the week prior to that since most people are going to travel to get home for the Lunar New Year.  So, we were quite surprised to get an update complete with pictures this morning!
In all the other information we've received prior to this, she has been weighing close to THIRTY pounds!  Not!   I know that in China the children are weighed with lots of clothes on, but still...  She seems like such a peanut.  So we are happy to find out that she really weighs only 17 pounds - just right for someone her age.  Now I can finally wash the size 18/24 month clothes that I have.  I've been holding off taking any tags off things just in case she really was a size 3T!
AND - in the update it stated:  "She likes climbing from her own crib to others'.  Because she wants to play with peers in other cribs and play with their toys."  Read:  Extremely active and social!



Does she look like a size 3T??




I think she looks more like a 12 month!!



Where will we be going?

We will start our journey to Betsy Anne in Beijing.  There we will tour the Great Wall, have a ride on a rickshaw through a Hutong Village (one of the old inner city neighborhoods in Beijing), and visit the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.  We'll also have an important meeting with all the other families traveling from our agency.  From Beijing we'll fly south to Guangzhou, a city in Guangdong Province.  There we'll meet Betsy Anne.  She will be traveling from her SWI which is in Yangjiang City in far southern China.  We'd love to visit her SWI, but I think that it might be too far for us to travel.  We'll see once we get to Guangzhou!

We are going to China!!!

We have finally received our Travel Approval and Consulate Appointment time. We found out that we'll be picking her up exactly one year from the date that we decided to adopt again. God is so cool in His timing! We are so blessed to be able to add to our family. We are all looking forward to visiting China again. We really enjoyed our last adoption trip and are looking forward to another wonderful journey this time.