Another special day...

Note: I wrote this yesterday but due to the time it took to upload the videos, it's not getting posted till today. So below is what occured yersterday, Tuesday, March 17th.

Blessed we are. We have now been with Angel almost a day and a half already. With the way she acts it's hard to believe that is all the longer it has been.

I got up at 3:30 am again this morning, this has become a trend since we arrived. I do have to say it is the best sleep I have gotten yet. Angel went to bed very easily last night, right on schedule at 8pm. (Her daddy beat her to it though) She slept the whole night without a word and woke up on schedule as well, about 6:30am. We have discovered she is not a morning person. She takes a little bit to wake up, so we snuggled a little this morning and then got her something to eat. Once she had some Cheerios in her tummy (which is all I could get her to eat from what I had in the room), she was a happy camper.

Jason and I then got our showers in and ready so we could go down and eat some of the breakfast buffet. The buffet here is not as great as the hotel in Beijing but it works. We discovered this girl can eat. Even though she had already had some Cheerios, she ate lots of watermelon which is the only fruit I could get her to eat. As I Think I mentioned yesterday, she'll try just about anything and if she doesn't like it she will open her mouth to let you know so you can catch it when she spits it out. She also ate a bowl of Congee. Tried to feed her eggs and she didn't like those either.

350 pairs of socks for the orphanage, thanks so much to all who contributed!

From there we went back up to the room to gather up donations as we were heading to her orphanage, Jinan Social Welfare Institute, for a visit. So at about 9am we met our guide/interpreter, Susan, in the lobby and we jumped in a cab. Angel began to fall asleep just as we arrived at the orphanage.

Angel did really well at the orphanage considering she had just left the day before. She was seen by many of the ladies who cared for her and had a few hang ups with coming back to Jason or I after they held her but in all she really did well. We took several pictures of her with her nannies and some of the children in the orphanage. We were also shown where she slept. Well, low and behold she has not been sleeping in a crib, she is in a toddler bed so we may have to do a quick switch of that when we return home.

After vising the floor she lived on, we were taken back down to the directors office and they burnt all the pictures they had of her onto a CD for us. We are so blessed to now have pics of the day she arrived at the orphanage. We got a glimpse of them as she was searching for them and it brought tears to my eyes that they had saved these and shared them. We were also given a little red hat that was with her, YAY another special memento. Before we left the director also took down our e-mail address and gave us hers so that we could keep in touch. How wonderful is that.



From there we grabbed another cab and headed to the train/bus station where she was found. This was a bit emotional for me, as I pondered how her mother and possibly father must have felt as they walked in and found a place where she would be found quickly and then had to have left quickly so she/he would not have gotten caught. (It is a year and a half in jail if caught) How she/he must have felt walking away and probably hiding some where to be sure she was discovered and taken away to be taken care of. I am certain her birth parents did this out of love, knowing they could not provide her with the care and necessities she needed. My blessings go out to them and I am thankful that they loved her that much. It could not have been an easy thing to do.

On the way back to the hotel from there, Angel once again fell asleep. She took a great nap from about 10:45am till about 1:30pm. The past two days have been big ones for her, I'm sure she needed it. Then we fed her some noodles we picked up at the market. Who knew a little girl could eat that many noodles and she's really good at it too - watch...



We hung out at the hotel the remainder of the day and played then made a quick trip to the market (catercorner to the hotel, you just have to get through all the traffic) to get more bottled water and milk for Angel. She wanted nothing to do with the toddler formula we purchased yesterday. Luckily the orphanage gave us a milk while we were there so we knew what exactly to get her. We had no clue yesterday, it all happened so fast.

Her personality is really coming out and she seems to be understanding us a bit and has begun to mimic us so we can say she is now speaking and here are the first few words we have heard her repeat:

1 - Mama (she will now call me that at time too!!!!)


2 -Hello (she has been putting things up to hear ear like a phone so we would say hello, well she repeated it a few times today)


3- Baba (Daddy in Chinese)

She has also started mimicking us on some of the sign language motions we have been making with the words: more, ball, eat and all done. She catches on so quick.

We gave her a bath this evening and she seemed to like it. She sat in there fine and had fun playing in the water trickles that drained from the bath cups we brought. She didn't even cry when I washed and rinsed her hair. So far I'd say she is pretty easy going but will let you know if things aren't going her way. The only crying she has done was when I went to cradle her this evening for bedtime, she threw a bit of a fit and once we stood up, instead of sitting, she settled and fell right to sleep. Hopefully she sleeps just as well tonight.

Great giggles...


We are excited to meet back up with the other 12 families on Friday and see how all their Gotcha Days went and to meet their little ones! We only got the blog link for one of the families and are excited to see how their week progresses.

Michiael, Logan and Kailey, we miss you all lots and can't wait to see you next week. Love you!