No Ordinary Family

As I quietly left our bedroom this morning I uttered those words to Jim.  Chloe slept on me for most of the night a habit that we had stopped in China because mommy lost too much sleep and could not deal with the rest of the day with out sleep.  However, it was clear after our brief honeymoon period that Chloe was not as happy to be home as we were.  We can work on sleeping in her crib later, for now it is much easier for her to sleep on me at home than in a hotel room. This little girl has had so much change in her life in the last 2 weeks that I can't even imagine what she must be thinking.  She loves the dogs though, I was a little afraid she would be scared of them but not our fearless girl.  She tried to stop Gypsy's tail from wagging by diving into it.  Toby is fun to pet too but not as much as Gypsy. My parents picked us up from the airport and I was so happy for that.  We were way to tried to drive home.  Chloe HATES her car seat so we will have to work on that in s

We had a free day so we did a little shopping on the island and then we ventured off the island to a street market. I am sure Jim will share lots of pictures of crazy things, like dried lizards on a stick, yummy.  It was quite a day. Tomorrow we start our journey home.  We get Chloe's visa and we head to Hong Kong for the night.  Then we catch an early morning flight back home.  We have enjoyed China but we are ready to come home.  I can't wait to get Chloe into a routine that is not centered around meetings and sight seeing.  Tonight she really opened up, she crawled around the room while we packed some things up and discovered the mirror.  She found that incredibly amusing.  She would talk and laugh at herself it was too cute. Andy (the other father in our little group) calls Chloe a gremlin and I think he might be right :).  She has a little gremlin voice sometimes and tonight she tried to rip the mattress out of her crib before going to sleep.  She was laughing and gig

One of my readers asked what we meant by spicy when we referred to our Hunan girl.  Well, we have learned that the people from Hunan province are known to be great warriors and they are very brave.  We noticed this in the traffic that we saw in Changsha, you had to be very brave to cross the street there.  But our girl has got attitude, she is only 16 months but I can tell she is going to keep us on our toes.  She already knows how to express herself very clearly. If she is mad, angry or frustrated we know it (so does the rest of the third floor of our hotel) if she is happy or excited we know that too.  She has the best giggle I have ever heard.  We have also seen the very serious side to our little miss Chloe.  She studies everything and takes in so much.  We may be biased just a little but we are pretty sure she is a genius.  She is also all girl.  She tried to comb her hair when ever she finds a brush and she uses her links as bracelets.  So I think right now spicy to us means we w

Blogging has been a little more difficult with a Little Miss stuck to me like glue.  Chloe loves her mama and has been quite attached to me over the last week.  Although it is getting better.  We are working on spending more time with her daddy and that is going well but slow.  It is amazing the change that we have seen in her in the last week.  I can not wait to get her home where we can truly get into a routine and feel a little more comfortable as a family. Today we went to the local shops and looked around and I got Chloe a couple dresses.  I am going back to get her some squeaky shoes and a few other things tomorrow.  Although I don't think we will come back with as many souvenirs as I thought we would. It just does not seem that important any more.  We are anxious to get home and we have lots of pictures to remember this trip by. We went to the pearl market today and then to a Buddhist Temple.  Tomorrow we are going to a University or a Museum or something.  I think it is

First I want to thank Diana for posting pictures for us. We can not seem to do that from here. We can post pictures to Facebook but for some reason not on Blogger. We are even having trouble emailing pictures. First success of the day was our first and second dirty diaper! Boy were they good ones too! All she eats is rice cereal and formula so it is no wonder it took a couple days. We have tried other foods but she had not had anything like that before so having texture in her mouth is not something she likes yet. I am sure in no time she will be eating like a champ but for now we are just trying to keep things the same for her. So much has already changed in her little life. I know people have said that babies in China like their bottles hot but I never imagined I would be giving a bottle to a baby that was this hot. I almost need a cardboard sleeve like they give you at Starbucks for her bottle. She loves it, they instantly make her sweat but she drinks a hot bottle in

Jim & Cora have not been able to access blogger or send photos from Hunan, so I am grabbing what they are able to post on FB and posting on their blogs for them. Same post for both blogs! ~DHM The adoption was completed today and Chloe is officially theirs FOREVER!

We have Chloe!  She is super sweet, super beautiful, and perfect in every way!! Pictures to follow when we can! (Jimh.) Oh, and OF COURSE she is Cora's little girl.  :-)

Sorry I haven't been writing much,   I have been sleeping a little bit more than Jim.   I thought I was handling jet lag pretty well but then the last 3 days of touring finally caught up with me.   I am glad we have this afternoon off.   I just got up from a nap and could probably sleep a little longer if I wanted but I also want to sleep tonight.   It has been so cold out the last 2 days it was almost unbearable.   The first day it was chilly but comfortable and I thought this is going to be a piece of cake, so yesterday I did not layer quite as much and I regretted it.   Today I doubled the layers of our first day and I was still very cold.   The temperatures are very similar to what we have at home but the wind and the fact that everything is outside makes it much harder.   Luckily our hotel has very good heat as long as we keep the curtains closed.   We have been blessed with incredibly blue skies and clear days.   Our guide told us today that Beijing only has a few very clear