No Ordinary Family

One year ago today/tomorrow (the time change always confuses me) we were getting ready to be introduced to our daughter for the first time.  She had no idea what was going on.  She rode a train with a caregiver (not her normal nanny) and the director of her orphanage for the first time.  The changes in her little life were just beginning, as were the changes in ours.  It was a rough 2 weeks in China, getting to know each other but we survived and started our life together as a family of 3.  Our internet connection in Changsha was horrible so we didn't post many pictures so many of these may not have been on the blog previously. Nerves and excitement show more on my face than I ever knew.  Walking down the hall to meet Chloe! Our first moments. First family picture. And just like that we are back in our hotel room, suddenly a family of 3. Just a glimpse of the Joy that we will see again but not for weeks. Thank you Angie and ...

One year ago Jim and I were packing to go to China, we are also coming up on Chinese New Year so I thought I would try some new recipes.  While in China we had some pork dumplings that were AMAZING! They had soup in them and I had them every chance I got.  I have been craving them ever since and I have not seen them anywhere.  So a year later the light  bulb goes off and I googled pork soup dumplings and this is what I find,  Steamy Kitchen !  Perfect but wait that is a lot to attempt in one dish!  So I thought I would start at the end and work my way to the soup dumplings, my biggest concern was the dough.  I have never done dough from scratch before and I was a bit intimidated.  So I thought before the big, yummy, soup dumplings which are apparently called Xiao Long Bao, I would use some egg roll filling that we had left over and just try the dough.   We didn't have a bamboo steamer so off the the kitchen store we went.  Not to sk...

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...

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 bracel...

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 Univer...

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!