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Happy Forever Family Day!

It's hard to believe that one year ago today we met Daniel for the first time. Looking through the photos brings back so many memories of being in China. As stressful and emotional as it was, we had such a great trip. I look forward to going back one day and enjoy it with Leah and Daniel. Ok, let's see, where to begin.... We awoke that Sunday November 18th, 2007 and headed out to see Tianemen Square and the Forbidden City. It was FREEZING. It was so windy and cold and I remember walking through the enormous city shaking. Here is Dave and I outside the Forbidden City.

And one of hundreds of photos I have inside the Forbidden City :)

The Nine Dragon screen wall:

Here we are at the "lover's Tree". two Cyprus trees grew together and it is a very popular picture spot. There is a story behind it which I do not remember. Our wonderful guide Maggie told us so much that day that most went right out of my head. The Cyprus trees were so beautiful. they smelled so nice. After we toured the Forbidden City we met with Mrs. Li who is the in-country facilitator for our agency. We ate at the BEST restaurant and Mrs. Li had the staff at her feet :) This woman can stop traffic in Beijing. She is a riot! We had so many servers around us that I challenged Dave to finish his tea. He couldn't do it as every time he took a sip someone was there to re-fill his cup. And the cup wasn't very big. At this meal Mrs. Li informed us that Fu Jie would be waiting at the hotel when we arrived in Zhengzhou, Henan. We were in shock as we were planning on meeting him the next day. We were not prepared with food for him as we were planning on having the next day to go shopping etc.

At any rate, our flight was late and Daniel was early! We got out of the van in front on the hotel Sofitel and there he was being carried by one of his teachers.

He had just travelled 4 hours by car and was most likely very confused. I could not believe how tiny he was. It was surreal seeing him live and in person after carrying around his photo for 6 months. He was scared, however, he hid it well. It didn't take long to get a smile on that little face.

There was so much commotion as Lee, our guide, was trying to check us into the hotel. I don't think he realized the importance of the moment :) Here Daddy was breaking the ice letting Daniel check out the video camera. We brought so many toys that we planned on having at our gotcha moment. Everything we had was packed in our bags. Oh well. It all worked well.

Daniel's caregivers came up to the hotel room and stayed for a few minutes. Daniel whined briefly when they left. He ran to the door to try and catch them. I remember feeling so sad for him at that moment. The only people he knew were leaving him. It didn't take long before he was on the floor playing with Daddy. I don't think he ever looked back. Our social worker asked us the other day if we have seen his personality emerge over the past year. Dave and I both agreed he has been open since the moment we met.

We ordered room service after his caregivers and our guide left. It was probably about 7 o'clock. He ate like a king that night.

We stripped him slowly of his layers. He then cuddled with Daddy and had a bottle. We put him in his crib to see how he would do. He just stood there watching TeleTubbies (in Mandarin!) that we had brought with us. He kept repeating everything they were saying. Eventually I took him out and tried to rock him. He wasn't used to that so he fought sleep all the way. I guess I would too if I were him. Finally he gave in and fell asleep while he laid in his crib with Mama patting him.

He awoke in the middle of the night and joined Mama and Baba in bed. After that none of us slept as this boy can kick and move it in his sleep!

It's been an amazing year of firsts for our little man.

We plan on going out tonight for dinner to celebrate. When Daniel woke up this morning I said Do you know what today is? Leah answered Family Day! Then Daniel said "My Family Day!"

He keeps telling me "Mama and Daddy come to get me. China. Bring me home".

And I answered him, "yup, where you'll be forever and ever." He just smiled and nodded his head.

Bad Blogger

I apologize for my lack of blogging recently. Not much to write about. We've been busy doing a little of this and a little of that. We had our final post-placement visit with our social worker on Wednesday night. She was amazed at how much Daniel has grown. When I measured him for the report I had to write, I realized he had grown a lot. He's grown almost 4 inches in a year! And put on at least 5 lbs. Not bad at all :) It's hard to believe that one year ago today we were getting ready to hop on the plane to China (11/15). Next week we will celebrate our 1 year Family Day. We plan on going out to dinner to celebrate.

Daniel received his first progress report from Pre-school yesterday. His teacher says he is doing well. I had to laugh at a lot of the comments. "tends to FLIT from one activity to another". Basically a nicer way of saying what Dave has always said ....he has the attention span of a gnat.
There's just too much to do and he wants to make sure he does it all! He won't miss out on ANYTHING in life. This I am certain of.
The other comment was in response to whether he is communicating orally. The response was "he uses language well. I can't understand a lot of what he is saying, but he USES it!" We know that well. He talks and talks and talks and talks. All day.
Oh well, not too many photos taken recently. Here are a few outtakes from our Christmas portrait session.

Leah was singing and Daniel was not happy with it so he was stopping her

She thought it was pretty funny

Then all was well and we were posing nicely...until Fager decided she had had enough of these kids getting all the camera time. She walked right over, plopped herself down right in front of them. As you can see, Daniel was none to happy to have this dog stealing his thunder. Fager has the same issue Leah does..she's a photo blinker

Oh well, if you can't beat them, join 'em!

Halloween

Yeah, I know I'm almost a week late. That's my life.

We had a great Halloween. After Dave and I got home from the Phillies parade we relaxed a bit, had dinner and got the kids dressed. Buzz and Belle were ready to go!

Pumpkin cake from Aunt Sis pictured here with GG!

Buzz and Belle. Even though Buzz happily stated for weeks "Mom! Halloween's Coming", I don't think he had a clue what to expect.

After the first house, he started to get the idea REAL QUICK. He joyfully skipped to the next house (dragging his vinyl boots along) yelling "Light's on! More trick or treat!" He even went as far as to enter one of the neighbor's houses to help him find the candy. Luckily we knew the man! Daniel would come running from the house with his new piece of candy and say "TaDa!" and do a little dance. It was a riot. Then if we knocked on a house and no one answered he'd come walking back to us saying "oh well". Leah had a blast too. She decided to be Belle again this Halloween. She loves Belle and that was fine with me as I wasn't to thrilled with the costume choices for her age this year. I've seen enough Hannah Montana and Hugh School musical. i like the shows, just not the costumes.

Sorting through the loot

Leah actually suggested the Phillies P for our pumpkin. Really, it wasn't me :) She suggested the phanatic too. I think she thinks her Mother has a masters in art.

Busy weekend

The weekend started early with a glorious parade for the Phillies. It was somewhat insane. Dave and I took public transportation to the parade. Getting there was easy. We were in our spot by 9 AM. All we had to do was hold our spot and wait for about 3 and a half hours until the parade passed us. By the second hour my body was feeling the pain. The crowds of over 2 million estimated were moving in. We were about 3 rows in which wasn't too bad. We had a good spot right by city hall with William Penn looking down on all the crazy people gathered. By the time the parade started the crowd was insane jumping around. i got a few "OK" pictures. Wish they were better but being pushed and shoved does not make for clear photos when using a zoom lens (unless you have a very expensive camera and lens). The Phillies passed us by in about 7 minutes flat and we only got to see half the team as the other half were on the other side of the float. A little disappointing for a 3 and a half hour wait. But, we can say we were there and it was exciting to be with 2 million of our closest friends ;)

Getting home was another story. We did ok in the end, but S*EPTA had major problems getting people to the parade and stranded many. There were many people who were stuck below the subway and couldn't reach the street level to see the parade. they had to stop running the trains and these people were stuck. When we tried to get to the subway we couldn't as there was no where to go. So figure thousands of people trying to push and shove there was on. Wasn't fun. We were being squished for about 15 minutes. When we got on the train all was well. I really wish we could have gotten to the ballpark for the ceremonies there. We could have had tickets easily but would never had been home for the kids to trick or treat. We had to make a parental decision and sacrificed for our children. Damn Halloween! :)

I'll update the rest of the weekend in another post. Until then, here are some pics from the parade.

The BEST mascot in sports. Our Phanatic!

The ageless Jamie Moyer

Carlos "Chooch" Ruiz

The legendary Harry Kalas

What it's all about :)

Ryan Howard and Chase Utley laughing about something

Mad Dog Ryan Madsen

WE WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PHINALLY!!!!

What a night! Our Phils are World Series Champs!!!!!

The rains came on Monday night during game 5 and rained on our parade, however, the Phils would not let that happen. We will be having our parade on Friday now :) Dave and I are trying to see how we can go to the parade and still be home for Trick or treating. Do you think Halloween can be moved to Saturday for us Phillies fans???

Leah has been napping in the afternoon so she could stay up and watch the games. They have been on so late (8:30) and she never makes it past 10. Last night was the perfect set up since they started in the bottom of the 6th. The game was over by 10 or so and she was able to stay up and watch her crazy 35 year old Mother running outside like a loon banging pots and screaming. I'm yelling at Leah "C'mon! grab that pot! Yell!!" Poor Leah who is half asleep is standing there banging a pot in the freezing cold and saying (not yelling like her loon Mommy) "Yay" I think she was a little confused. Fager was barking and enjoying the celebration with me as the rest of the block was out yelling and shooting off fireworks and beeping horns. Poor dog was wondering what was going on.

It is wonderful! They deserve it. the city deserves it after a 25 year championship drought. Let this be the beginning of good things. Congrats Phils! Thanks for a great season. Looking forward to 2009 :)

3 Down 1 to go!

The Phillies are 1 win away from winning the World Series! This is so exciting. We're really hoping they do it tonight as these late nights are starting to take their toll.

It's amazing to think that tonight they can be the World Champs. Dave and I were thinking about how just a few short seasons ago we could sit in our seats at Ci*tizen's B*ank Park and look across our row, across sections and not see another person. We went to every Sunday home game (as well as watched every game on TV) and we cheered even though they didn't give us much to cheer about. 5 seasons of sitting through many "not so great" games all come down to this. It's all worth it.

I hope tomorrow I'll be posting that the championship drought has finally ended.

We're planning our trip to the big parade with about a million other folks :)

Oh please let this be it!

Day at the Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we went to a local farm to pick a pumpkin. Daniel is getting excited about Halloween. He has no idea what Halloween is but he keeps seeing all the decorations and says "Mama! Halloween's coming!" He'll be even happier when he sees the candy being dropped into his bag. We met a group of friends at the farm and had a great time. The kids got to pet some animals. Daniel was not so sure when the horse sneezed VERY LOUDLY on him. The girls thought it was pretty funny :)

This was the first time Daniel rode a horse. He seemed to enjoy himself. As long as it wasn't the same horse who sneezed on him.

Leah is a pony riding pro and knows to turn, pose and smile for the Mamarazzi :)

After the pony ride and the hayride (no pics, sorry!) we got a wheelbarrow and went out to the patch to pick the perfect pumpkin. I think Dave had two perfect pumpkins in his cart before we picked the orange variety.

Of course Leah chose the largest one she saw. We immediately said "No" and told her to pose for a photo with it instead.

I told Daniel to sit on a pumpkin for a photo. He was not happy with the one I chose cause it was "too messy!" How come a pumpkin with a little dirt on it is too messy but he's OK with ripping apart his peanut butter sandwich and smearing it all over himself?

And finally the happy family with the chosen pumpkin :)

And cannot finish without adding :

Bring on those Rays! Go Phils!

Series starts Wednesday night. I still have a few nights to rest up.

We're Goin' to the Series!!!!!!

After 15 years, the Phils are heading back to the World Series! It was a late night but well worth staying up to watch the celebrations. We have a week to rest up before the series begins. Heading out at 9 AM to purchase the new shirts :)

Lights Out Lidge

Good 'ol Charlie

I promise to be back to blogging about the kids soon. It's not often we here in Philly have anything to cheer about when it comes to our sports teams. We're going to bask in this excitement for awile.

Go Phils!