Six Weeks Together

This summer is flying by! I can't believe it will be August tomorrow! We are enjoying the time off from everything! We are done with baseball and are able to play and get to know Myah better. She is doing amazing, she is getting stronger and stronger every day. She is scooching everywhere, she won't crawl on all 4's but she manges to get anywhere she wants to doing it her way. She also pulled herself up to a standing position today for the first time. It is incredible considering that she couldn't even roll over when we first got her. Every day it is something new. She is so funny and continues to try to make everyone laugh at her. She also has a temper when she is tired or hungry, she has a screech and she lets everyone know that she isn't happy. Sometimes I forget that she hasn't been around English speaking people her whole life because she seems to understand everything that we say. Like I said, it is amazing. We have been venturing out and meeting friends and relatives now that she seems more comfortable with being around more people. She reaches out for blondes and older people, it is so funny especially since I doubt she ever had seen a blonde person before. Dayton is adjusting very well to his big brother status. He loves getting her out of the crib and having her hold onto him. He also runs as far away as possible when diaper duty calls. I don't blame him! She is pretty attached to me and gets upset when I leave but she is learning that I do come back! Mark loves his daddy time with the kids. He is so great with both of them and has such a funloving way of playing with them and teaching them at the same time. He sees things in a totally different light than I do at times and puts such a fun spin on the simple and ordinary. We are so happy right now, things just seem so much more relaxed now that all of the waiting and the trip is over. Mark asked what I wanted for my birthday and I really couldn't think of anything special. We have been so blessed by having our family completed and a wonderful trip to China on top of it. I feel very content. I am just enjoying being a family.

Our First Month Together

Myah's first month with us has been just amazing. I can't believe the transformation in her personality since we got her that first day in Wuhan. She has opened up so much more to us and is so eager to learn our ways. She has been such a blessing to us and everyone she meets. I can't take her anywhere without her getting attention. She is really fitting in! I think she thinks that we are ok also! She loves Dayton and always squeals when she sees him in the morning, he can't wait to pick her up out of her crib each morning. The time has just flown but in the same respect it seems like we have had her forever. I told Mark the other day that I can't believe that we are back already and she is here with us! After all of that waiting, everything went very fast once we received our travel approval, and our trip to China was so busy that it was a blur too! Thank goodness I journaled every day because I have forgotten the details already and it helps to refresh my memory! I got all of the pictures back that we took on the trip and I just love looking through them. We also received a photo album from the orphanage when we got her and those pictures are just priceless, we have pictures of her from the day she was left at the orphanage up until her first birthday. They took pictures each month for us. We are so thankful for them. She is loving meeting our family members as I knew she would. Everyone just loves her too. She is quite the character, she loves to be silly. She is also understanding many of the things we say. It is incredible. She kisses goodnight, waves bye bye, is trying to crawl, says mama, dada and Dayton. We are starting to enjoy our summer vacation and starting to venture out more. We took her to Mackinac Island and the Toledo Zoo. She loves to be on the go. She has met her Great Grandma's this week and let them give her a bottle. We are so happy and are very blessed to have our family complete now.

Myah's Second Week Home

Myah has really bonded with us! Mark went back to work and had to work alot of overtime this last week so Dayton and I really got to spend alot of time with her. We took her up to see my parents and go out on their new pontoon, she seemed to like it, I wasn't sure because she is just warming up to the bathtub and has freaked out when she sees a pool. She actually fell asleep on the lake! I feel so blessed to have her in our life. Our family feels so complete now and I really feel like I could not ask for more. We are so happy and are so glad to be settling in. We are enjoying just being a family right now. It has been such a long time coming so we are going through alot of adjusting but I think that in time this will all become routine to all of us. Mark and I celebrated our 13th anniversary last Monday and we just wanted to be with our kids. We don't get alot of time together as a family with work and sports and other committments and it was so nice to share our special day with them. Our doctor called the other day with all of Myah's test results and said that she is just wonderful. She also said that within 2 months if she hasn't started walking or crawling that we will get her into a physical therapist. We are working on strengthening her stomach muscles. I actually got her to giggle the other night. She is looking at us like we are familiar and we make her happy. She will squeal when she sees us. She likes to eat and gets really angry if you have food and she doesn't ! Today is her first 4th of July. She is a new US citizen and I can't imagine what her life would be like if we wouldn't have brought her here. We will never take our freedom for granted, especially after spending time in China where they have to ask permission to have a child, they have to retire early in order to give the young people a job, and where they have to sign in with their local officials in order to leave the town that they live in to visit another place. We have it so good here. I hope you all had a safe and happy holiday!