Cute Pictures of Emily Grace

Here are a few cute pics of our sweet little Angel. We are totally in love with her!!!

Happy Easter!

Today we celebrated Emily's first Easter with us. The Easter bunny also visits kids in China as Emily was treated to a white chocolate egg and chick treat as well as her very own pair of Easter bunny ears. Happy to Easter to all of our family and friends!

Interesting Dinner with Friends...

We went to dinner last night with some good friends from our group. It was an authentic Chinese restaurant that had some very interesting choices on the menu. Some of the items served were boiled chicken claws, stir fried pig intestines, barbecued baby pig, sauteed beef tongue with onion, ox tail soup and braised fish intestines with egg in clay pot. Yummy! Actually, the food was excellent! We had the seafood dumplings (safe choice) and our friend Julia tried the boiled chicken claws and, go figure, she said that it tasted like chicken!

Emily goes to the doctor in China

All of the babies in our group went to the doctor to receive a final checkup. It was very basic and included height and weight measurements, temperatures, and ear, nose and throat testing. Everything checked out fine, however Emily did not like being poked and prodded at all.

Emily walking (or trying to)...

Nothing brings a smile to Emily's face more than her trying to walk! We walk back in forth in the hotel room over and over again each day and night trying to help her develop her muscles and balance. She is getting the hang of this walking thing pretty quickly and expect her to be able to walk on her own very soon. Also, we have a picture of many of the families in our group with their babies all eating breakfast at the hotel.

Amy's Birthday in China (April 8th)

Today was Amy's birthday and what a better way to celebrate than with a new baby girl! We are in Guangzhou which is a very international city. The people speak Cantonese and eat Cantonese food which is a little different than the other parts of China that we have stayed. We toured a museum today and also went to a Chinese Tea House. I surprised Amy and had the Tea House treat everyone to dessert in honor of Amy's birthday. It was a great day!

Nanchang

We loved Nanchang as well. In Nanchang, we obviously met our beautiful baby, but we enjoyed the city too. We would take frequent strolls throughout the city and talk with the people and enjoy the culture. David and I made these walks with our new good friends, Phil, Julia and their new baby Dora. We all loved meeting and talking with the people. We also went to a rural village just outside the city that should be similar to the villages from which our daughters came. It was one of the most interesting experiences of our lives.

About Emily Grace Mei

We have already nicknamed Emily "Our Asian Tiger" as she definitey has spirit. She is very independent and inquisitive and has quite the temper when she is hungry or tired. Every day gets better, but the "tiger" still roars occasionaly! Emily is the tiniest baby in our group and weighed approximately 16.5 lbs. when we got her. We expect that to change very soon as she has never met a piece of food that she does not like! She eats more than we do at a sitting. Although she is the tiniest baby in our group, her feet and toes are very big. She is in 9 month clothing, but wears a size 03 infant shoe. We think she is going to be tall just like her mom. We know that God has blessed us with the perfect baby and could not be more pleased! She is attaching well and every day gets even better. Recently, we went for a walk in Nanchang which was really cool! Many of the people came up to us and told us in broken English that they had never seen a westerner before. They all were very nice and friendly. They call America the "Beautiful Country" and all wish that some day they could travel to America. The children all followed us around town and talked to us. It was a wonderful experience.

Gotcha Day

Monday, April 2nd was our "Gotcha Day" which is the day that we finally met our beautiful baby girl, Emily Grace! What an amazing and emotional experience! We found out that Emily was with her foster mother literally up until minutes before we got her. She has been grieving the loss of her foster mother heavily. She cries for her "Na Na" (grandmother in Chinese) over and over and it breaks out heart for her. We are so happy and can't believe that we are finally parents! Each hour is a little better than the last. The first couple of hours were extremely trying as she was inconsolible. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We will include more posts and pictures in the coming days.

The Great Wall

Today, we visited the Great Wall!! Wow!! It was incredible!!! It was still cold and windy, but we still had a great time. It is more amazing in person than any photo ever seen. I didn't realize that the steps were going to be that steep. I tried to take pictures of them so everyone at home could really see. Going up the steps wasn't as fearful as coming down. Did I mention how really old these steps were? Restoration can only do so much. Did you knwo that the great wall is 4500 miles long? I can't even imagine traveling the length of such a wall. We also, went to a jade factory and learned about jade jewlery and how really expensive good quality jade really is. After having a real Peking Duck dinner, we went to a Chinese Acrobat show. WOW!!! It was fantastic. These people can contort their bodies into more directions than I can even bother to imagine. Tomorrow is GOTCHA DAY!!! We should meet Emily Grace around 3:30-4:00 pm. Pray for us!! This will be a day full of emotion for us all. More tomorrow...