More from the Birthday!

1st Birthday Party!!!

I know Kaleigh's birthday was almost a month ago but since we didn't have her at the time we wanted to celebrate it again with us. Kim from my work made her cake and it was beautiful and tasty. Her Granny Lelia, Uncle Jon, Aunt Teresa and cousins Zach and Sydney were here to celebrate with her. This was the first visit from family and it went well. She was a little overwhelmed at times but Brent and I were good at picking up on the signs and would pick her up and hold her until she felt better. She got lots of new toys like she really needed those and ate her first ice cream which she really seemed to like. Her new favorite toy is a balloon. Anyway enjoy the pictures and to the friends back home who have commented on the blog thank you for following our journey to our beautiful daughter and hopefully someday soon you will get a chance to meet her.

Kaleigh Update

Well thankfully she is for the most part sleeping thru the night. She starts getting restless between about 4 and 5 am and is usually up by at least 5:30. She will have a bottle and play for about 1 to 2 hours depending on when she gets up and then she is falling asleep while playing at that point so we usually let her finish her sleep until about 9 when she get up for some cereal. She may have a small nap from 10:30 or so until just before 12 and then she is up for her lunch and then she is usually up until at least 3 or so and will sometimes take another nap. This afternoon one depends on if she had a morning one and how long it was. She is then up until about 8:30 unless she skipped her afternoon nap and then we fight to keep her up until 8. I would like to get her to stay up until at least 9 so that she will sleep later of the morning but we will work on that over the next couple of weeks. She is eating lots now and will even take some small bites of adult food. She loved the carrots and potatoes in the homemade veg beef soup I made. She likes the chicken from chicken nuggets, maybe a bite of scrambles egg and the soft pieces of hashbrowns. We are working on a sippy cup and can get her to take small drinks from time to time but not loving it yet. We are working on fluids other than milk and formula in the sippy cup. We are doing half and half with the whole milk and the formula right now which seems to be working well (except for when someone forgot to pop it in the microwave for 15 seconds to take the chill off). She is doing much better in the car seat and even let me move to the front yesterday afternoon. She is doing great at sitting up now but hasn't figured out how to go from sitting to crawling or crawling to sitting without help yet. She is a very happy baby and loves Abbigail almost as much as Abbigail loves her. She has pulled the ears and fur and kicked and smacked Abbigail and surprisingly....Abbigail just sits and takes it. Malcolm likes her but could do without her just as well and she stares at him and on occassion will pet him but for the most part could care less about him. I think he is just too old to care now. Anyway enjoy these at home pictures.

At home pics!

Okay, here are a few pictures of Kaleigh at home.

First Doctor's Appointment

Well, let me start first by saying that the doctor seemed pleased with Kaleigh today. He was not all that concerned with her weight and said to let her put it on at her own rate. He gave to ok to start switching to whole milk and to start trying any foods other than the things like peanuts and popcorn. He also said to make sure that we are giving her water for thirst between meals. Brent and I had talked about that on the way to the appointment but he answered it before we could ask. We then proceeded to give three injections one in one thigh and two in the other and a tb skin test in her arm. She stoped crying as soon as I picked her up other than the sniffels. She cried more when he looked in her ears which by the way you will all be surprised to hear look great. We then proceeded to the lab to have a bunch of blood drawn, that was the hardest part of the day for her because it lasted for a couple of minutes and wasn't over in a second or two. By the time I got her home and gave her a bottle and got her changed and dosed with tylenol she was fine and ready to go for a walk with mommy and the neighbors. Unfortunately the doctor's appointment caused her to miss her afternoon nap and she fell asleep around 6:45 or so. We decided to let her sleep because she would not wake up she would just cry with her eyes closed. We were going to wake her up at 8 and feed her and keep her up a couple of hours and then back to bed (we made progress last night and wanted to continue). Lets just say that she woke up just enough to have her bottle and was a limp noodle. No possibility of keeping her awake.

She woke me up about 12:30 or so just moaning and I got up to check on her and realized that she has the expected fever from the shots and is obviously in pain by the way she is moving her little legs. So I have given her more tyenol and she us now laying in her crib crying off and on with her legs pulled up under her. So the doctor has disrupted her new sleep schedule but the crying has almost stopped so I guess the tyenol is working.

Anyway my new technique for sleeping better is when she cries during the night I don't get her up I simply stand by her crib and rub her back until she falls back to sleep. I discovered that if I get her up she thinks it is play time and rubbing her back relaxes her enough to get her back to sleep for at least a couple more hours.

Anyway I will let everyone know how we end up surviving the night!

Home

Home has never felt so good and we are still exhausted. Kaleigh does not have her nights and days straight yet, we are trying something different tonight so hopefully we don't get our 3 to 4 am wake up cry. I know most of you are probably wondering why I am still up at almost 1 am if I am expecting a wake up cry in just a couple of hours but I seem to get a second wind at this time of the night right now. I think part of it is me just wanting to see how she is sleeping. Anyway it was a long trip home but made so wonderful by all of our friends here in Murfreesboro. Mike and Susan met us at the airport with a Welcome home Kaleigh sign and an American flag for her. Kaleigh did good in the car seat until about 10 minutes before we got home but we think part of that was just 30 hours of travel. Then we have an "It's a girl" sign in our front yard and lots of food in the house. Susan, Paula and Beth made sure we had a wonderful dinner (home cooked!!) stuff for sandwiches and snacks and a beautiful ladybug cake. We were so tired at that time I don't think I took it all in until several hours later and about 45 minutes of sleep. I hope everyone knows how much we appreciate everything. The first meeting between Kaleigh and the dogs went much better than expected. Both dogs seemed to like her very well and Abbigail was very gentle and even went in for the first kiss. Malcolm was a little too eager with his kisses and Kaleigh gets frustated. Today Abbigail has been getting a little more aggessive but not in a mean way, she is just trying to figure out how to play with Kaleigh and trust me today Kaleigh has done a lot of squealing and playing so the dogs are a little more unsettled than they were.

As many of you know Kaleigh would not eat very much for us in China and mainly just took the bottle until the last day or so. Well all I can say is that has changed now!!!! She is eating baby food like there is no tomorrow so we should see that 17 pounds go up fast. Today she spent a lot of time bonding with her daddy so mommy stayed back and let daddy do all of the feedings but one. We both love to feed her.

We had several small visits with neighbors and my work yesterday and today and she seems to do good with everyone but we are still keeping her with us to help the attachment and bonding process. She had her first visit to Target this evening and did great until about half way home when she hit her limit was decided she was tired and hungry. Yes we were trying to get her good and tired and to make sure she went to bed with a full tummy hoping she will sleep thru the night.

Anyway here are a few pictures to enjoy and hopefully you will see more later or maybe even see our little sweetie in person. The one of me squatting is her first steps in the USA. There is one of her first kiss from Abbigail and a couple others of her first couple of days here.

Almost Home!

Okay, Sandy and I are at the Gate B22 at O'Hare and we are tired. This is the last leg of the trip. We started the never ending Wednesday at 4:00am in China....It's now only 5:10pm cst on Wednesday. We are reliving the same hours of the day over again. We have now flown for 14 hours total today. That equals to 5 security checkpoints of some type....It's getting old. With that being said, we would not trade this insanity for anything else. We are enjoying each and every moment with Kaleigh. We took a picture of her at the customs center. These are her first steps on US soil. Sandy wants me to let everyone know that she is tired and cranky and that my brain is a haze from the lack of sleep and I have had to re-type these sentences and words multiple times. Well this may be the last post for a while, as we get settled into home life with "little bit". To all of ours friends on the journey with us, thank you for making it a wonderful experience and we will all see each other again! A big thank you to all of the Family and Friends for your support and help! Well, I know this will be my last post, as Sandy will do updates from now..SOOOO...Till next time....Brent

You know it's the end when....

Red Couch and more....

More from our last night and the Red Couch!

Last night in China

Well, today was our last day here in China and part of me feels sad that today is Kaleigh's last day in her birth country but the rest of me (and Brent) is just excited to be heading home. We are dreading the flights since our little peanut did not do well on her first flight so everyone be sayings some prayers that she does better tomorrow.

We had our consulate appointment today and got THE brown envelope that we have to give to immigration so they can process Kaleigh as a US citizen. The swearing in ceremony was not grand but it was moving to know what it stood for. We had our last group dinner tonight.

Brent wanted me to let everyone know that we (he) did so much shopping while we were here that we not only had to break out the expandable piece of luggage but we had to buy a small extra piece. We did not buy a lot of clothes except for the traditional dresses but we did buy several things to give her for years to come and a few things for family to say thank you for standing by us. Anyway can't wait to be home tomorrow and Susan I am glad to know that Abbigail went out in the snow both dogs love playing in it. Enjoy the pictures and see you tomorrow.

The fab 25!!!

So, here is a sampling of some of our purchases while in China. Count the pairs of shoes.

Pretty in Pink

More and More from last night and today!