One month anniversary!

Today we've held Hope in our arms for one month. We continue to scratch our heads and wonder how it could only be 30 days, she just fits in so well. I am still kicking myself over all the worry and stress I brought into my life waiting for this change to happen. I mean, I gave myself kidney stones over this, and for what? Pure Bliss. If I don't learn my lesson from all of this, that worry never changes anything and to just let go and let God, well then, I may as well start this life over.

We just had a really great visit from David's brother, Mike, and his four year old daughter, Francesca. It's too bad his whole clan couldn't make it, but we appreciate the short time we had with them. Claire and Francesca are only one month apart and play together so well! They were holding hands and playing incessantly the entire time. We went to Golden, Breckenridge, and Boulder for a hike. It was Hope's first time on a mountain and she laughed pretty much the whole way. On Friday, 8/8/08, we all went to an Opening night party for the Olympics with our adoption agency. They had a live satellite with one of our local reporters from China answering questions from the kids, Chinese dinner, relay races where the kids won gold medals, and a craft table. The local news was there, and later that night, David, Hope, Claire and I were on the news! Just pictures of us in the background, but still it was us!

Hope is getting stronger and stronger each day, today she pulled herself up and scooted around the end table - progress for her. We have to take her to get her blood tests this week, and she continues to chow down as often as she can. At this time, mashed potatoes still rock her world and warrant us head "butts" whenever she's fed them. She's babbling more and more, but no words yet -however, we are so curious to know if she can even comprehend English yet, it's only been four weeks! She knows "no" though, and is not a fan of that word.

David is an awesome Mr. Mom, I could get used to this! He's loving the moment, but the days are long and the pay is terrible, so he's not willing to leave the temporary status of it all.
I'll post pictures once I dig the cameras out of the hiking bag, we got some great ones of the cousins and Mike and David, so stay tuned!

It's only been 3 weeks?

Yesterday we all went in our shiny new minivan (yes, I know, that's a whole new blog...) for our first mountain trip. We trekked up to the Great Stupa, not to be confused with The Great Pumpkin, near Red Feather lakes in northern Colorado. During the 2 hour trip, Hope cheerfully sat in her car seat and slept, giggled, demanded Cheezit's, and played. Big Sister Claire sang along to the tunes in the car and kept us entertained by asking how much longer about 150 times. David and I are just scratching our head at how smoothly this has gone. It's like we time warped and suddenly we have another kid and are living the suburban dream overnight. Crazy, but grateful!
Hope had her pediatrician appt. this week and so far, she appears healthy, just a bit underweight for her age and her legs are pretty much jello. She's been eating like a heavyweight champ though, and every day she's standing longer and sitting up for longer and longer periods. On Sept. 8th we have the appt with Children's to assess her cleft palate and get some surgery dates on the calendar. She's also showing bits of her "Hunan" (i.e temper), she does not like the word NO, and if she doesn't want to do something, she flat out won't do it. This is a good sign though, she's comfortable enough with us to boss us around. Claire's a great teacher! She's still sweet as can be, and one of our friends described her demeanour best: Grateful. Aren't we all.

This weekend we are having our first visit ever from David's brother, Mike and his daughter Francesca who is Claire's age. We are very excited and can't wait to show them all of Denver!