Gotcha Charlotte Jing Yi! Day 3

Today was the day we actually got Charlotte! After breakfast, we checked out and Lily picked us up and took us to Harmony House where we picked up Charlotte and headed to the airport. I was nervous that she would be upset to go with us since last night ended on a sour note but, although she wasn't exactly thrilled to see us, she didn't cry. So we drove to the airport and said our goodbyes to the amazing Lily. For some reason while we were at the airport, Charlotte got all happy while I was toting her around in her carrier and just started smiling and kicking her feet. It was my first time seeing her smile and show her personality and it was precious! A little later, I was trying to get her to eat some lunch and she froze up and wouldn't eat.  Erik had gotten us some Snickers bars from a vending machine for our lunch because we didn't have time for anything else before we boarded our plane so I gave her a little piece of chocolate and she smiled really big and gave me a huge hug!!! After that, she ate her lunch just fine. So apparently she likes sweets! I was nervous about the flight because we had no idea how she would do on the plane but she was a perfect angel! I was stuck sitting between two men because our seats weren't all together so I was worried about her crying the whole flight but she didn't cry once. She just sat there playing with my watch and looking at her little photo album that we sent her. She also loved my phone (of course) and loved looking at herself on it. I would face the camera toward her and she would smile. One time she dropped my phone on the ground on accident and laughed! Such an adorable laugh! Then she had to keep dropping it and laughing because she is a toddler, after all. Not that I minded.

After our flight and drive to our hotel, we just played in our room the rest of the evening. The kids all just adore her! She has three siblings fighting over her attention. She was dragging Ella all over the room by her finger. She colored with Liana. Ethan keeps petting her head and calling her "cutie". They adore her and are all just doting on her.

She had gotten sick on the plane big time so I wanted to give her a bath. She was very scared of taking a bath so I think she probably has never had a bath like that before. So I just got in the tub with her and she did fine but stayed on my lap. She loved splashing the water so I'm sure she'll be a water baby before we know it. I hope so or she'll never survive summers in Texas!

I just gave her a bottle and put her to bed. She went down to bed like the little angel she is and it is just the most amazing feeling having her here with us! I can't even begin to explain how surreal it is to actually have her with us! I'm in tears just thinking about it! She is just the most amazing little thing and I'm so excited to have her in our family. We are so lucky to get to be her parents!!

Charlotte with her nanny

For keeps this time!

Harmony House

Proud jie jie (big sister)

Ge ge (big brother) is just dying to make her laugh!

The newest jie jie with her mei mei (little sister)

Her first selfie

Caught her smiling!

Reading a book and playing with Baba. She looks so tiny sitting with him!

Leading big sis everywhere

How cute are these two?!

Our four!

After bath. So tiny!

Her expression kills me!

Cuddles with big sis

Sightseeing with someone special! day 2

I will start off with the shocking news that we all slept well last night! What?! I woke up around 3:30 and assumed I was done but was actually pretty happy with that.  After reading a while, however, I fell back asleep until Erik woke us up at 7. Beautiful, blissful sleep...ahhh. Anyhoo, so Lily (the director of the foster home) met us and another family at 7:30 to go sightseeing but before we went, we got to go to Harmony House and pick up Charlotte and the other little girl being adopted by the other family so they could  come with us!!! She was very standoffish when we met her but after a bit, when we started to head out, she let me pick her up.  She is itty bitty and beautiful! So off we went to see The Great Wall of China!!! It was pretty amazing...and exhausting! I carried Charlotte in a carrier and I will just go ahead and blame it on her extra whopping 21 lbs that I felt like I was going to die by the end. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We got to ride a chairlift type thing to get to the wall and then a toboggan on the way down! Well, Charlotte and I were forced to ride the chairlift back down but Erik and the kids had a blast riding the toboggans down this crazy, windy track! The wall...is great! I don't know if pictures will do it justice but it was amazing! The stairs are crazy, steep in some parts, short and tiny in others, and completely tilted in some places.  Ethan, of all people, was scared of being so high up! I couldn't believe it! Never in my life, would I have thought he would be the one to be afraid! It was so cool and so big and so EXHAUSTING! I've heard before that climbing the steps is quite a challenge and it really is! 

After the Great Wall, we drove to the Summer Palace. It was also amazing but super crowded and by this point in the day, we were all pretty done.  It is beautiful there though and there were a lot beautiful things to take pictures of.  We hadn't had lunch when we got there (around 4) so we bought some hot dogs on a stick.  They were the worst! Erik, Ella and I threw ours away after a couple of bites. Ethan and Liana ate theirs just fine and claimed to like them.  Weirdos.  So we were all super tired and the kids were grumpy at the Summer Palace until one person asked to take a selfie with Ella and Ethan and then all insanity ensued. A crowd gathered around and our blond kids were the biggest hit there! They loved every second of it, the little freaks! Unfortunately, a few people forced me in on the action because apparently I'm blond enough.  After we were done at the Summer Palace, we headed back.  It doesn't sound like a long day really but every drive took forever and we didn't get back until around 7:30. Charlotte, who was stoic the entire day, lost it about 30 minutes before we got back to Harmony House and nothing would calm her down.  Poor baby was exhausted, probably starving because she wouldn't eat or drink much, and fed up with these crazy strangers who call themselves family taking her all over everywhere! She also gets very carsick, poor wee thing.  So she was very glad to get back to Harmony House and back to her nanny.  And we were pretty ecstatic to get back to our hotel! 

I will have write more about Charlotte later. Today, she was very much like Liana was when we toted her around China, quiet and very serious, so we haven't really learned much about her personality.  I mean, what an insane way to get to know your new family! She was such a doll baby though! Oh my word, so precious!!!

Okay, now to the pics...

Yesterday

This is inside our hotel

She's tolerating me but really wants away!

Charlotte's crib

The girls

Riding the chairlift up

The Great Wall

The Summer Palace

This craziness just cracks me up!

Beijing- day 1

Well, we made it to Beijing! I'm so exhausted so I'm going to keep this short and no pics. We haven't seen anything pic worthy yet anyways. The flight(s) went well besides the fact that we were on the flight from Detroit to Beijing for 14 hours. I really hate that flight! The kids were really good and we ended up with an empty seat by one of us, which was amazing! I started out by it and Erik ended up by it. It's really weird because we boarded our flight at 1:30 pm on 3/16 and ended up in Beijing at 3:30 pm on 3/17 but we traveled with the sun so we didn't get one minute of night. We didn't get to our hotel until after 7 and  then the director of Charlotte's foster home took us to a really real authentic Chinese place for dinner which was amazing!  Okay, so I have been awake except for periods of dozing for over 48 hours because of not being able to sleep the night before we left so I am DONE! Big day tomorrow so I WILL get on here and get some pics up!

Lots of news!

I wrote this blog post a week and a half ago  but never got around to posting it because I was trying some pictures on here. Long story short, I never got around to it and we are leaving for China tomorrow!!! I will try and post every day. I know I've been terrible about it lately but I really want to remember everything about our trip so I will really try!

Long time, no blog! I actually started a post a while ago and then just never finished and now that I'm back, none of it applies because a ton has happened since then!  So I scrapped the whole thing.  So here we go...we got our LOA (Letter of Approval) from China to adopt Miss Charlotte!!! As I have said before, we waited a whopping 106 days for our LOA for Liana and I couldn't help but feel like we would have a long wait again. The wait for LOA was really short when we first started this adoption but, of course, the second we start the process, the waits grew. BUT, we were actually really lucky this time and only waited 48 days!!! We found out that China had given us our approval on January 9th, which just happened to be the day before Erik and I headed on our first ever (well, my first ever) trip away from the kids! Erik was going to a conference for work in Orlando and staying in a resort at Disney World so I couldn't resist joining him this time! We decided to give this to each other as our Christmas gifts to each other because we are both Disney obsessed and Erik knew that he wouldn't visit the parks without me. We also knew that this was our last chance on a "just us" trip for a very long time with our littlest one joining our family shortly. I had been praying that we would get our LOA before we went on our trip because I knew that otherwise I would be stressing about it the entire trip. I was shocked and so thankful that it actually happened! We didn't receive the actual piece of paper until the day before we flew home but just knowing that it had been issued was amazing!!  So we were able to enjoy an amazing kid free trip to Disney World! I know, we are the worst parents ever! But it was worth it. ;-) We would normally take the kids with us but they are going to already be missing too much school when we take them to China so we didn't feel too bad. I mean, how many kids get to go to China?! Twice!! So, whatever, we confessed we actually went to Disney World after we came home and showered them with gifts. They forgave us. :-) Especially because they got to spend that time with Grammy (my mom) who they adore! Erik and I got to visit Epcot one evening for free because the whole conference was going to a dessert banquet in this special area on it's own little island for the fireworks show! It was AMAZING!!! The next day, after he got off a little early, we went to Hollywood Studios and got to meet Kylo Ren and Chewie! Then the last day, we got to Magic Kingdom in time for the rope drop and stayed until The Kiss Goodnight when it closed. We were definitely feeling our age as we limped to catch the shuttle to our hotel. Holy smokes! But, what an amazing time!!

Back to the adoption. After receiving our LOA, we applied to USCIS for our I-800. Sound familiar? We applied for our I-800a before the LOA.  The I-800a is approval to adopt a child from another country (China, obviously, for us) and the I-800 is the approval to adopt your specific child. They just needed to make sure that Charlotte matches up with what we were approved for in our home study, basically.  After a major slowdown in I-800 approvals, we got very lucky and received our approval in just 14 days!  Thank you, Jesus!!!

So, after our I-800 approval, there were a few other steps that, honestly I don't even really understand all of it BUT I do know that Travel Approval (TA) is the LAST step and we were extremely lucky and got Travel Approval yesterday which was only a 3 day wait! And then today, we got confirmation that Consulate Appointment (CA) will be 3/29 which is what our entire trip revolves around SO...we're going to China in THIRTEEN DAYS!!!! Oh my gosh!!!! Baby girl, we're coming!!! I can't believe we are actually going to make it to Charlotte in March, which was always my hope! God has definitely been behind all of this! We have had a lot of luck in things going quickly for us and, thank the Lord, or we never would have made it! So we will get to bring Charlotte home before she has her birthday! I am so happy that we will get to celebrate her birthday WITH her!

Here is our itinerary:
3/16- Fly to Detroit, then Beijing
3/17- Arrive in Beijing
3/18- Tour Great Wall and Summer Palace
3/19- Get Charlotte!!! Fly to Guangzhou
3/20- Official Gotcha
3/21- Adoption day!!
3/23- Apply for passport
3/25- Visa paperwork check and medical appointment
3/29- Visa appointment and oath taking ceremony
3/31- Visa pick-up/ train to Hong Kong
4/1- Hong Kong Disney!
4/2- Fly home

LID

Happy Thanksgiving! We have had a great week! Yesterday, I found out that we have a LID (login date) for our dossier of 11/22.  This is great because this means that we are officially in our LOA (Letter of Approval) wait.  The LOA is basically China saying that yes, they agree that we are a good family for this child.  Our LOA wait for Liana was insanely long.  We had to wait a whopping 106 days so we are really hoping for a short wait this time around.  Apparently it has gotten a lot quicker since our last adoption.  Average back then was probably around 70 days.  The average wait now is around 45-50 days.  Fingers crossed and prayers said that we have a short wait this time!

Last night, we got to video chat with Charlotte again!  Ethan and Liana got to do it with us this time and it was a lot of fun!  She mostly just stared at us again but the director of the foster home did get her giggling at one point.  She has the cutest giggle ever!  She also had her pointing to us on the screen when she would ask her which one of us was her mama, baba (dad), gege (big brother), or jie jie (big sister) and she would get it right!  I think she's a smarty!  We also learned that sucks her fingers.  I love thumb suckers!  They're so cute!  The director said that we can video chat every week that we can so that Charlotte can get to know us!! I can't even believe how lucky we are!  She is the sweetest lady ever and Charlotte clearly loves her!

Here are some screen shots from our chat: