What a Difference 3 Days Make!

I apologize for the quality of the pictures but our little peanut won't be still! Just look at her! She is smiling and giggling and walking everywhere! Well, someone has to hold her hands but she is like to energizer bunny! She just keeps going and going and going!

Her little snaggle tooth grin is so cute! And her giggle melts your heart. Yesterday she was lethargic and I was so worried about her. Today, she is a different child. In only 3 days her personality is coming through and she really loves on us!!

I am so blessed to be given this wonderful little girl! Thank you Lord!!!

Dingxi City

I am a little emotional today so I will explain in detail our experience of yesterday later. But I wanted you all to see just a few pictures of our experience yesterday. We went to a remote city named Dingxi where Laura was found and where she lived in a small orphanage for the first 19 months of her life.

Picture 1 - Mom and Laura on the bus ride to Dingxi City.
Picture 2 -homes along the highway to Dingxi from Lanzhou.
Picture 3 - A spring festival celebration in Dingxi.
Picture 4 - Our family and the orphanage staff.
Picture 5 - A narrow lane.

This is Laura and Daddy after she downed her bottle earlier today.
We wanted to show you the comparison of our little peanut with the hand of her big Daddy!!! She should surely feel safe!!!!

The next pic is of the head chef of the hotel restaurant. His chefs will make you beef noodles, or farm fresh eggs just the way you like them. Everyong said that the coffee is terrible here. I love it. It's about twice as strong as mine, for those of you who have to drink my coffee! It is so much fun to watch him make the beef noodles by hand. I am a bread maker and I don't hold a candle to his ability to manipulate dough! He is very friendly too.

The last picture is of a small part of the buffet in the restaurant. The food is delicious. The presentation is so impressive, at least to me! Last night they had sushi flanked with gerber daisies. It was so colorful! However, I didn't attempt to eat the sushi!

We are leaving for Laura's orphanage in a little bit. When we undress her our hearts ache for she looks like one of those children in a starving children's commercial. But it won't be that way for long. She has already had 2 bottles today!

Pizza and Pictures

I almost forgot to post some things from yesterday. After we got Laura, our guide took us to have a family picture (me, meredith, and laura) and Laura's passport picture made. We sat down on the stools for the pic and Sally (our guide) and the photographer laughed. They then moved the camera backwards and laughed again. They were talking to each other and Meredith and I laughed. We knew the problem and knew they were wondering how to tell us. The problem is that we are so BIG they couldn't get us all in the pic and we needed to move backwards too. We asked them so they wouldn't have to ask us and they smiled. We moved and we all laughed together!! Laughter is a universal language and is good for the spirit!

After our picture, Sally took us to the Pizza Mira. We had so much fun. The pizza, no kidding, was better than in the US and we had coke with it. No one was brave enough to eat a salad but we munched on the Pizza!

Sally is very interesting and she told us alot about herself , her husband, aand her life here in China. She and Bradley really hit it off and they went shopping again after delivering us back to the hotel. I get a little nervous letting Bradley go off without me in a foriegn country but he love it and he has to grow up sometime. What a wonderful experience for him.

I accidentally added the same pic twice and don't know how to cut it so look at Bradley in one and John in the other!! Boy are we learning to go with the flow!

My Dad's 62nd Birthday Party

This is how you celebrate a Grandad's birthday in China after traveling for 30 hours, missing 2 nights of sleep, and celebrating Gotcha Day earlier in the day.

Sunshine Plaza Hotel made my dad, Bradley Anderson, a beautiful and delicious cake and brought it to our room. We tried to wake up the boys to celebrate but the pictures show how much success we had with it!!!

Everyone is settled into what we all HOPE will be a full nights rest.

Happy Birthday Granddaddy!! We do love you.

Laura hasn't cried a bit! She fussed when I bathed her and cleaned her mouth. But other than that, she is playing with us and smiling and hugging and cuddling. I am in shock. When they left her with us she couldn't care less. It kind of worried me. You know, the attachment thing and all. But she seems to like all of us and loves to be played with.
She has a VERY difficult time eating. VERY. It just takes her so long and so much effort. I got a syringe and started feeding her with it, she seemed relieved. She opens her mouth and I put a tiny bit in her mouth and she works it to the back of her mouth and swallows. It takes a long time and I am sure that is some of the reason that she is so tiny. Meredith held her and cried as we fed her as we talked about the fact that she is almost 2 years old and struggles to eat!
She can crawl slowly and sit and stand while holding on to something. She loves to roll around on the floor or bed and play with her toys. She is totally interested in EVERYTHING she sees.
We are totally smitten! Thanks for all of your prayers and for sharing the excitement of our Gotcha Day.

Gotcha Day

Well, Laura is ours. She hasn't cried yet. She is very happy. She is laying on the bed playing with toys while her Daddy and Granddaddy admire her.

Her brothers adore her and so far Luke hasn't been very jealous. Yet...

She is very beautiful and she smiles alot.

They brought her late because of the snow last night. So we had to wait until noon.

We are very happy that we finally have her.

Sally has been great. She is very friendly and we have a great time talking. More to come. I am missing out on my bonding time. Oh, her Granddaddy thinks she really cute.