Standing still!!

Emma joined our family 4 weeks ago today. While her health and spirits seemed pretty good overall, she couldn't get around much yet, wasn't crawling yet. Now, 4 weeks later, not only is she crawling up a storm and getting around a little too well for our liking, but now she's standing on her own for a good amount of time and walking around with a walker... we think she'll be walking by the time she turns one in a month or so! She's a real little monkey and climbing and getting into everything already, we'll be in big trouble once she gets around even more!!lol

Jailbreak!

Emma of course immediately heads to any part of the house she's not supposed to be in... check her out, examining a gate then testing one to see if she might be able to beat it... she sure knows her own mind!! And check out Toby, at least someone enjoys the Exersaucer!! And then there's Thomas and Emma hanging while I make breakfast.

Life is finally returning to normal here. Emma slept through until 8:00 this morning... of course Gary and I were up at 6:45 listening for her!!

Emma is doing great. She seems to be adapting to her new life really well. She had her doctor's appointment and all is well. She's in the 10th percentile on the height and weight charts - so not huge, but at least on the charts...she's about 17.5 lbs. She got a shot and screamed like a banshee for a good 10 minutes... she's definitely got a dramatic side!!lol She turned 11 months old yesterday... can't believe she's almost 1 already. :-) The doctor says she's on target with her development. She's crawling all over the place and pulling herself up and cruising all over. She's a tough little cookie... she just falls and gets up and keeps going. She loves the cats and tries to chase them all over the house. They'll come and plop themselves just out of reach and bat at her with their tails... they're still faster than her, but not for long I'm sure!!

Emma and The Boss

Okay, so you might be thinking that there's a typo in the title and it should read Emma IS the boss, and perhaps that's true, but not the point of this story!lol Emma has had to come with me to run an errand or two and it would seem that she has two different decibel levels while in the car: shatter your eardrums and shatter the windows!!lol Well, in an effort to preserve my hearing, not to mention my sanity, I hit the CD button and there was Bruce Springsteen, singing Dancing in the Dark and suddenly I realize that all I'm hearing is The Boss... no little boss showing off her lung capacity!!lol We've since been on a couple of outings and while Emma screams while I'm getting her ready in the car seat, as soon as I put on the music, she sits quietly and listens...the girl's got good taste in music! Here's a pic of her yesterday, getting ready for bed. :-)

Emma at home!

Well, we've got a couple of days at home under our belt and boy, is it hard!!!lol We haven't slept much since we've gotten back. Emma needs to be in our arms at all times, and that includes sleep time...and of course with a 12 hour time difference, sleep time isn't exactly obvious at this point!!lol Yesterday, we were all up for the day at 4:00am, today, it was after 5:00am, so I guess that's considered progress!lol Gary or I spent a good part of the night with Emma on us, so not much sleep, but today she seems, so far, to be more her old self. I think she was in shock when she first got here, another big change for Emma... today she's actually willing to sit beside us rather than just on us!lol Here are a couple of pics of Emma at home, including one of her enjoying her breakfast this morning. :-)

We're home!!

We made it back home safe and sound. Got in late Friday afternoon. Our flight was long but uneventful. Emma slept for about half of it which made it pretty smooth. :-) Wish I could say she slept for half the night last night though!! She was up on and off through most of the night and we've all been up for the day since 4:00am... a 12 hour time change is pretty hard on the body!! Sure hope tonight goes better, we're exhausted! Will post some home pics later this weekend when I have time to take some and post them. :-) Thanks to everyone for following along on our journey. We enjoyed all the supportive e-mails throughout our trip. :-)

Tianamen Square and Forbidden City

Today, we strolled through Tianamen and the Forbidden City. Another gorgeous day in Beijing. I put Emma in the Baby Bjorn and she slept for a good part of the 3 hours we toured. I have to admit that using a public washroom in China is an experience in itself, made that much more interesting when you try to use said washroom while wearing a sleeping baby!!lol Thomas' favourite part of the whole visit was watching security get rid of the folks selling fake watches in the square!lol There was of course no mention of 1989 in our whole tour of Tianamen Square! Tomorrow most of our group leaves. Gary wants to go back to Tianamen and go see Mao's body which we didn't get to do today...long lineups and babies don't go hand in hand!lol Thomas, Emma, Susan and I will head to a nearby park to play while he does that and Susan and I will head off to shop for a few last things tomorrow afternoon. Then, it's packing and getting ready. It's been a wonderful trip but we can't wait to be home! Let's hope Emma takes well to her 14 hour flight home!! I'm attaching a pic of Emma and one of Emma and Thomas from yesterday. Not sure if we'll be able to post tomorrow, so thanks to everyone for keeping up with us in China. :-)

Winding Down!

We're in the home stretch of our trip to China. The last couple of days have been quiet, mainly shopping for those who were interested. Gary and I aren't big shoppers, but we've gone to a place or two. We went out for Peking Duck tonight, it was delicious! Emma and Thomas are doing well. Emma is getting to know us better each day and getting more comfortable with us... we're getting more giggles and smiles all the time. She's learning to enjoy all the attention and is starting to demand it! Tomorrow, we head off to the Forbidden City and Tianenmen Square. Should be interesting. :-)

Great Wall

Today, we spent most of the day at the Great Wall and at shops around the area. The Great Wall is amazing indeed. It turned out to be a beautiful day today, perfect for this excursion! So far, our time in Beijing has been pretty fogged in, but a little wind and rain during the night, and we finally saw a blue sky in China!! Visibility was great and it was a wonderful day trip. We're enclosing a few pics.

We made it to Beijing!!

Today we flew from Guangzhou to Beijing. Emma handled her first flight pretty well...it was about two and a half hours and she didn't cry for more than half an hour or so!!lol Her ears didn't bother her at takeoff or landing though, so that bodes well for our flight home. Then again, my ears, which normally kill on any flight, didn't bother me at all... I'd hate to think that flights are better pressurized in China than North America!!lol Getting all 51 of us on the flight was absolute chaos, they had to hold the flight for us, but in the end, we all made it! Haven't seen much of Beijing since we're all pretty tired...all we can tell you so far is that it's REALLY smoggy and you don't see too far ahead of you!! We're very much looking forward to all the tours that have been arranged for us. Tomorrow we should head off to the Beijing Zoo which Thomas is quite excited about and we should also see the Summer Palace. We were warned time and time again to bring winter clothes for our trip to Beijing and when we arrived today, wearing all our heavy coats and having our babies all bundled, it was about 20C!! We quickly took layers off and of course got chastised for not having our babies dressed warmly enough...the Chinese seem to think that babies need about 22 layers to be comfortable!!!lol Anyhow, here's a pic of Emma from today... isn't she cute. :-)

Last day in Guangzhou

Today is our last day in Guangzhou, we head off to Beijing first thing in the morning. We're very much looking forward to all the activities planned in Beijing - we should be going to the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Summer Palace, Beijing Zoo, etc. We should be pretty busy! We're all doing well. This has certainly been an experience of a lifetime. We did a little shopping yesterday and visited a Temple. Miss Emma is doing well and we'd say so far, our guess is that she'll be quite the little character!! We look forward to getting to know her better. Here's a pic of Emma sleeping on my shoulder...thank goodness we brought some Motrin because my arms feel like they're about to fall off!! Miss Emma has decided that the only acceptable form of transportation is in Mommy or Daddy's arms and since she weighs about 18 lbs, our arms are taking quite a beating!!lol We're hoping to convince her to spend a little time in the stroller we bought for her on a shopping excursion a few days ago. I have to say, half the fun of these shopping excursions is getting there... the traffic and traffic patterns are simply unbelievable! As far as we can tell, there are no rules...buses, cars, motorcycles, bicycles and carts all fight for the right of way, as do pedestrians. How 1000s don't get killed each day is beyond my understanding... it's just crazy!! It's like a big game of chicken and whoever has the most guts gets to go first... no such thing as being in the right lane to turn right... just cut off whoever is in front of you and off you go... since we're in a large tourist bus, it's not particularly nerve racking, but if I were on a motorcycle or in a small car, I think I'd be white knuckling it all the way!!lol Anyhow, hopefully enclosing a pic of sleeping beauty in my arms and Thomas with some new friends at the Temple. :-)

All potties not created equal!!lol

We all heard a lot about the famous (or infamous??lol) squat potties in China... I've gotten to use them a couple of times... definitely no biggie... I guess it's a lot worse if you're in the countryside and it's just a hole in the ground... these are clean and easy to use... interesting to Thomas too!!lol So here are pics of luxury (our hotel bathroom) and not quite so luxurious (bathroom at the Civil Affairs building).

Hanging out in Guangzhou

Today was the first day we had no official appointments. We're just now waiting for our adoption paperwork and Emma's passport to be processed. We met our group at 10:00 (lovely not to have to rush to make the 8:00am meeting time we've had every other day - of course, it would have been even lovelier if Emma hadn't decided to get up at 6:00am!!lol) and we went out to the Carrefour store to get some diapers, formula and a stroller... what a shopping experience... total chaos!! Interesting though and you realize how frustrating it is to not be able to read the language... we were all standing in front of a row of formula, trying to figure out which was the kind we needed - not an easy task when you have no idea what the packages say!!lol From there, we went to a gorgeous park and got to have a little fresh air. The older kids (Meg, Sushan, Sarah and Thomas) got to run around and play in a playground. Okay, so we realized as we kept walking and happened upon a children's playground that what we were playing on was actually exercise equipment!!!lol The kids loved it though, they thought it was a very different kind of park with fun, colourful equipment! After that we just came back to the hotel to relax and recover. We'll probably go for a swim this afternoon and since everyone could use a little taste of home, we're ordering from Pizza Hut for dinner!!lol Including a few pics from today. :-) We're having a bit of a rougher day today. Emma's a little grumpy. The kids all seem to be constipated which is making them a bit less than happy right now... hopefully the prunes and juice will help our cause!lol Gary and I were joking that now that the papers are signed, Emma figures she doesn't need to be the angel she was on the first day!!lol Just kidding...she's still pretty angelic. We think the kids are just totally overloaded with sights and sounds at this point... what a shock this all is to their little lives!! I have to say, they're all handling these changes amazingly well... they're quite the little darlings.