The Many Adventures of Keira!

This is our page to document our family's adoption journey- starting from when we first started planning for our little one, to when we brought her home. We're also going to keep this updated with all of the things that Keira has been up to since she's been home with us here in the U.S!

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Newbie Parenting Mistake #703

Gave Keira her first taste of Orange Juice yesterday. She LOVED it! She has only had congee, noodles, crackers, milk, eggs and water so the Orange Juice was definitely a novelty. The big mistake out of it was giving her a ton of it late last night- it was like Rocket Fuel! Poor little thing had so much energy she didn't know what to do with herself! She still has followed the same routine where she understands when the lights are out that it's time to go to bed, but she just laid there last night squealing, playing with her feet in the air, kicking bouncing around all the while trying to sleep still. Let's just say that I have learned my lesson and that juice and things with lots of sugar (even if it's good sugar) will be reserved for earlier in the day. We went to a bird, pet and flower market today to give Keira lots of things to point at and "Ooh!!" at. She loved looking at the puppies but was definitely scared of them. By the time we got to the park, she was fast asleep and what a bummer! There were lots of little babies running around and rides. She would have loved it, so we're going to attempt to go again tomorrow when she is awake. Dan forgot the camera at the hotel, so no pictures for today. I'll try to post more tomorrow. We'll be leaving for Guangzhou in a couple of days and even though I love Guiyang since it is where our baby is from, I can't wait to get to Guangzhou. This is kind of where all babies and familes go through with adoptions, so at the White Swan Hotel, there are playrooms and lots of fun things for babies to do. Keira LOVES being around other little kids and loves looking at herself. She's VERY smart and figures things out really fast. Somehow her name that she has developed for me is "Da!" She'll call out "Da!" when she is looking for me, so I have to make sure that I answer her everytime- that way she understands that I haven't left her. She hasn't quite developed a specific name for Dan yet except to point at him, but I'm sure that will come soon.

Just one more thing...

Ok, just HAD to add this. Keira has totally been cracking me up today! I was trying to get her to sleep a little earlier, so I laid my head down on the pillow and started to make snoring sounds. She started trying to copy me.....and Dan and I were in hysterics! She just kept copying me with everything that I have done today. I was dancing around for her earlier and she was singing and dancing around trying to mimic what I was doing.
Just before she finally took a nap after wearing Dan and I completely out today, I started to change her diaper. She started to pull the baby wipes out of the container and took one and started wiping her face and sticking it in her mouth. After that, she played peek a boo with me for a while with the wipe until she finally fell asleep with the baby wipe across her eyes. She's such a funny baby...











I don't know what Sharon wrote today and I'm too lazy to learn Chinese so I can figure out the blog page format, so if I repeat something deal with it.




Today was such a different day. Our beautiful little treasure slept all day or cried yesterday and then this morning I went and lay down next to her as she woke up. She blinked and smiled and it was a new day!




After we checked her diaper we found out why, she made about 40lbs of poop! She was so happy that she did it again a couple hours later. She's pretty much either eaten like an Ethiopian at the Hometown Buffet, or played with every dangerous object in the hotel. She has been a lot of fun today but I sure was glad when she went back to sleep. The sorrowful crying has stopped for now and we pretty much just have normal baby crying stuff...feed me, change me (and I'll cry worse when you do), feed me again, I want to yank on power cords.




We went to Wal MArt (yup they're everywhere) and we got her a toy phone so she would stop calling the front desk.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

First Poop....and THEN some....







Keira is such a wonderful, sweet, beautiful little girl. It's so hard to see her when she is grieving. She had a very loving foster family and will probably be grieving for a while. Yesterday poor Dan was getting such a complex because when she woke up, she kept looking over at him and scream/crying. He didn't know what to do. I would pick her up and even though I would hold her and try to soothe her, she was completely inconsolable. Everytime she would look in Dan's direction, she would start all over again. Poor Dan! Poor Keira and although I'm not one that likes to feel sorry for myself....Poor me too! Finally Dan moved and she was still looking over to where he was previously sitting and there it was. Her foster mother gave Keira a little duckie backpack with crackers that she loved to eat and when she saw it, of course she thought of her foster mother. We tried to distract her some so that Dan could move that and anything else that might remind her. We want to keep it and give it to her at a time when she might understand more, but right now is much too hard for her. She slept through the night and woke this morning a new baby! She was so happy and had been such a sweet little angel- maybe because she FINALLY let out a great big HUGE poop! Max would have been proud. We went on a tour of a park area with an old school and temples and even though she did get a little fussy when the sun would get in her eyes....who wouldn't? We headed over for the biggest adventure of all after that.....the local Walmart Superstore! CRAZY! They are even crazier there than at our local Walmart. Who would have thought that was possible?!?!?! After Aggie our guide helped us with trying to figure out what things were (saline solution etc)...we are back in the hotel room. One of the BEST things that we found was a play telephone. She is having the best time with it as well as a little book. We're also getting a little more used to each other...it's all such a learning experience, on BOTH parts!

Monday, February 26, 2007

Fun Facts about Keira
















Last night was so fun! She is such a little character! She is just starting to toddle around a little although she doesn't quite have all of her balance yet. She loves to copy whatever you do like most babies. Dan would take on of her soft balls that are like a rattle and shake it around shaking his head, so she does that now all the time. Now keep in mind, I'm now a new parent, so many of the things that I am just in awe of, all of you experienced parents are thinking---yeah....I know....all babies do that! lol Anyway, Keira has definitely figured out which parent is for what. She is pretty bonded to both of us and does period checks every once in a while to make sure that neither of us has left her. When she is sad, sleepy, hungry and needs certain things, she comes to me. When she wants to have fun and play--then Dan is definitely the go to guy! Last night they played for hours while I took a nap preparing to possibly be up the whole night with her if she couldn't sleep. He called her the Night Watchman because she was toddling around the room everywhere carrying Max's toy keys. Well, when we were both tired, she was sitting on the bed wide awake. I helped her to lay down with me and we turned out the lights. She was still wide awake and quietly looked at me---looked over at Dan to see if he was still going to play, finally realized that he wasn't and she just layed there quietly taking in her environment until she finally went to sleep. Not a peep and slept pretty much through the whole night. She did start thrashing around a little bit around 2am and pretty much took OVER my bed. Dan has a separate bed. We feel kind of like Ricky and Lucy on I love Lucy.

She did end up having a VERY rough morning. I couldn't eat any breakfast because any move I made, she would start scream crying. We brought her back up into the room and she started screaming again. Being new at this, we tried to figure out if she was wet, hungry, tired- what on earth was wrong... still didn't really figure it out, but she finally stopped after I carried her around for a bit. Today, we went to the park in Guiyang where a Buddhist Temple was. It was so crowded, but a great place. Monkeys roam around freely in the park and there are a ton of stairs to walk down (still not as rough as the Great Wall!) to get to an area where people are doing Tai Chi, Dancing, Playing instruments. Keira was so cute. She pretty much spent most of the time snoozing, but when she was awake she marveled at everything, pointing at it and saying "Ooh! Ooh!" We're back in the room for the rest of the day. She is napping right now. I have to say, parenthood is a wonderful thing, but I do admire all of you that have been there done that. It is definitely a challenge, although VERY much worth it!

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Our Beautiful Baby Girl











This morning was a rough morning for Keira. She is grieving and that is OK because she had a very good foster family and life was very good there.

She is not grieving all the time though and Sharon has gotten to bond with her quite well. I guess it helps to be silly sometimes.

The adoption paperwork is finished and we are now waiting for Keira's passport, and then we go to Guangzhou to get visas and do some other government stuff.



Keira is only 14 mos old but she certainly has a personality. She loves to have her picture taken now that she knows what I'm doing pointing that thing at her. She wouldn't let me get a good photo at first but then when we were at the adoption agency I showed her the one good picture I finally got of her and then she was interested. She is also very smart and likes taking things out and putting them back in, or spilling them on the floor. She can already stand on her own and can walk a little but seems to like to have someone to hold on to.


Hi All! It's Sharon. Keira is asleep right now- she's pretty wiped out and so are we! It was some morning. We started out with the intentions of video taping when she first arrived, but she was really freaked out by the light on the camcorder, so Dan stopped taping. The foster family arrived (mother, father and grandparents) along with 2 teachers from the orphanage and our Guide. Keira's foster mother and I both started crying. She brought some milk as well as some pictures of her which was WONDERFUL! You could tell that they loved and cared for her so much. They wrote a letter to us that we will keep and our Guide will translate for us. We promised to love her and take good care of her. She is truly a beautiful little girl. We are both so madly in love with her. She started getting a little more used to us. She took a nap for a little while and started playing with her toys. All of a sudden, she started wimpering and sobbing. Not just crying like she was wet or hungry, but a really sad sob of grieving. It's alot for her to take in all at once and we're going to do everything we can to try to make it as easy as possible. She's napping right now and after this when she gets up, we're going to take her downstairs to the restaurant to get some congee (porridge) and milk. Dan and I watch her periodically to make sure that she is breathing because we are new paranoid parents....that has a nice ring to it. The parents part, not the paranoid ;). More to come!!!



Made it to Guiyang

No pictures of Guiyang yet because it's too late, but I will descrbe it a little.
Guiyang is in a mountainous area and the buildings run up and down the hills like in Southern California. This is a very modern and upscale city. Most of the business areas are very new. My first impression is that I like this city. The guide says that the best babies come from here, so that's a pretty good endorsement.

One thing coming in here though was some pretty hairy turbulence in the plane. There's not much you can do about that but I found it amusing (after my heart rate slowed to normal) that on all the big drops the children in the plane were cheering like it was a Disney ride.

Now that we have the small talk out of the way...
We will meet Keira at 8 am tomorrow. I think that is about 3 PM your time, but I'm not sure the day.

Sharon is going to burst and she will probably not sleep much tonight. I am also very excited and hope I do sleep tonight cause I'm gonna need the energy in the morning. Good Night!

Saturday, February 24, 2007

The Forbidden City






















Last night, I went to get my hair washed in the beauty salon. Told you I was paranoid about drinking water in the shower. Now, I don't really honestly think that I look very Chinese, but apparently, I must. Many people have approached me asking me if I speak Chinese. At the salon, the lady that was going to wash my hair started talking to me in Chinese, then asked me if I was Chinese. I said that I was part. Her and the other lady looked at each other totally baffled and asked me why I don't speak Chinese. I told them that I wasn't from there. They then looked confused again and asked about my mother and father. I told them that they also did not live in China. She still looked a little confused. Then she asked me if I like Chinese people. I told her that I like them very much. After that, she was happy. It was kind of an odd exchange, but hey...it was a GREAT shampooing! :)






The next morning, we headed over to the Forbidden City. Candy, our guide said that the last movie that was actually filmed in the Forbidden City was The Last Emperor. Other movies after were just on movie sets. We walked along the streets to get to the City because buses and cars are not allowed near enough. As we walked, it was kind of similar to Mexico with the street vendors, except instead of Chicle, it was Forbidden City postcards and hats--they are also MUCH more persistant! They walked a good few blocks following us. Candy said the way to avoid it is to just ignore them and look straight ahead not speaking. Sure enough, that worked. All I can say to describe the Forbidden City is-----WOW. It is so huge and beautiful with so much history. There were several displays such as clocks, jewelry and art. I stood outside in one of the courtyards taking things in and it really hit me---WOW! We are here in China! Here are some of the pictures. In a couple of hours, we head to the airport to go to Guiyang. One step closer to meeting our little one!

Chinese Acrobat Show
















This evening, we went to the Chinese acrobat show. Fantastic show! It's so amazing what they can do and how the acrobats were able to twist around in ways that you never thought was possible. Imagine the crazy things you could do on your skateboard if you were double jointed like that Arjay?!?!?! :) Anyway, here are some pictures as well as a picture of the lobby at the hotel that we are staying in...I wish that the pictures could really show all of the amazing twists and turns that the acrobats were doing...





We were starting to get pretty tired since it would have been about 2am time in California so after the show Dan and I are in for the night and ordering room service. Tomorrow morning, we'll be going to see the Forbidden City before packing up to head out to Guiyang on the plane. It's about a 3 hour flight... after that, we check into the hotel and the next day-----we meet Keira! Good night for now :)

Friday, February 23, 2007

He SWEARS....


Yeah, like he can actually read the magazine...

The Great Wall of China






















First we headed to a Jade Factory where we were able to watch how they carve the Jade figurines. After that, we headed over to the Great Wall. We've all seen the pictures of the Great Wall, but it doesn't come anywhere close to doing it justice when you compare it to actually being there. It's phenomenal! It's also something else thinking of all the manpower and work it took so many many years ago to build it. I was the great chicken and made it up to about halfway to the first tower before getting freaked out about the steepness and the height. I'm not normally scared of heights, but these steep steps are almost straight down. Dan did much better than me and made it to about one tower away from the top before heading back down.

Interesting Signs In Beijing




Not sure what the deal is...but they were interesting! :)

Conversion...

After typing that all out I just realized.....MAN! It's a good thing that I memorized where all of the buttons and nick nacks were on this site! I must have gotten used to seeing everything here being in Chinese because I just realized that this website completely converted to Chinese! Not that I understand a word or character of it-- but it's pretty funny that I didn't even notice! I think I need to go back to bed! :)
Dan and I just had a discussion on trying to figure out what day it is here and what day it is over there. Now he has me as confused as he was! At least the computer is still on local time in California so that hopefully will keep us on track with what time it is there so that we aren't calling any of you guys at 2 in the morning. Hopefully we don't end us so confused on trying to keep track of what time it is there that we forget what time it is here. Too much to think about besides remembering not to drink the water! I have to buy bottled water I think to even wash my hair since somehow I always get shampoo and water in my mouth in the shower. Dan says I should just close my mouth. That's too easy :)
There were fireworks last night for some celebrations that are still going on for Chinese New Year- the year of the pig. The pollution is pretty thick, so it might take us a while to get used to it. Either way, we're SOOOOO excited to be here!

From Dan:
Getting here was no easy task because the pilot on our flight out of LAX to San Fran (SFO) needed his beauty rest and so that flight was delayed, causing us to miss our United flight to China. Fortunately I do not follow instructions and went to the wrong line to beg fr help. The clerk got us on Air China from SFO and I did not even have to resort to crying. People do have a soft spot for some situations!

So far China hasn't been too eventful beyond the fact that I was able to get plenty of coffee. By the way, people here like to be hot. The temperature in the jet was about 80 and the only air conditioning available is if you would like the condition to be 80.

We are very glad that we made it here and I can't tell you how relieved we were once we finally got on an aircraft headed to Beijing. It is a very long flight but we were happy to do it.

Beijing!

Hi All! Well, here we are in Beijing. We made it!!! Although, to be honest, I wasn't sure that we were going to. Turns out the reason that our flight was delayed was because the pilot got in really late the night before and is required to have a certain amount of sleep before flying again. Well, we ended up taking Air China and got our Chinese experience started a little earlier than usual. The seats were pretty tight and cramped and VERY VERY hot! Now you know Dan being the walking furnace was pretty uncomfortable, but he was a trooper. As soon as the drinks were served, it suddenly became a flying mall! They broke out the carts with the cartons of cigarettes and perfumes and money was flying everywhere. Now this PROBABLY happens all the time on international flights, but since Dan and I are novices, it was pretty funny. We both slept on the plane a total of 2 hours so we were pretty tired when we got here at about 6pm local time. We got our stuff together and apparently the other 2 families had been delayed as well so they only got there about 30 minutes before us! The hotel is BEAUTIFUL! The room service is crazy fast. We got in and slept until about 5:30am and got ready for breakfast. They had a great breakfast buffet downstairs where I ate noodles, steamed veggies and fried rice. Dan was a little more adventurous than I was and ate sausage and rice. He also made best friends with anyone that would bring him coffee. Right now, we're back in the room getting ready to head out to the Great Wall and later on tonight we are going to see a Chinese Acrobat show! I don't have any pictures yet, but apparently it's pretty hard to add pictures here for some reason, so Brenda said she would help out with that (Thanks Brenda!). Hopefully we'll be able to post some great pictures when we get back from the touring around today!

Thursday, February 22, 2007

LAX

Well, Dan and I are sitting here at a computer kiosk at LAX waiting for our flight. We got here in the AM from the hotel only to find out that our flight was delayed going to San Francisco due to CREW delays...Hmmm......NICE! Anyway, the delay was enough to where we were going to miss the flight to China, so Dan had to manuever his way around to get us booked on not only a different flight, but a different airlines. We are now flying on Air China instead of United to get to Beijing. We'll be a couple of hours later now into Beijing, but hey...considering that our earlier flight that we were going to end up missing was the ONLY flight to Beijing today, I'm not complaining too much.....

WISH US LUCK that the rest of the trip goes out better than this morning :)

WE'RE LEAVING TO GET KEIRA!!!! YAY!!!!

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Frustration!!!





Yesterday, I went to the bank to get the cash needed for the adoption. Some of the last expenses we have aside from the actual trip itself is for the donation to the orphanage and for documentation expenses in China. It's a pretty large sum of money and it needs to be newer bills, no tears, no rips, no folds and no ink or pen marks. Because I understand that many people such as myself fold and crinkle money, I tried to be as prepared as possible by contacting the bank ahead of time. Now, mind you, I have had an account with this bank for 20 years and have personal, joint, savings as well as business accounts with them. I would say that I'm a pretty good customer. Well, this particular branch ALWAYS gives me problems--they just can't seem to get anything right. Why I would think that they could get something as important as this right, I don't know. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them LOTS and LOTS of notice. I started asking about how MUCH notice I would need to give them a couple of months ago. I have never been able to get a consistant answer from them. One says a week, one says 2 days, one says 1 day. One says just ask one of the tellers, one says you have to call the Customer Service Number to have them arrange it for you, the other say you have to contact the Branch Manager. I didn't want to have the cash sitting around the house too soon and obviously they can't HOLD money for me for too long, so I can't give too much notice...
I decided to give them a week since that was the longest amount of time that I could give. I contacted the Branch Manager and she didn't sound all that happy at first that someone gave me her direct number. I explained the situation and had to check my savings account letting her know that was the account that the money would be coming from in case they needed to pull it out. I stressed how important it would be that the money be in the condition that I was asking for. She said that she had a friend that adopted as well and she understood how important it was. She said that she would have to order the money so that it was brand new and that they would have it by Tuesday (yesterday). Well, the weekend came and Monday was a holiday, so I went into the bank yesterday to get the money. Wouldn't you know it...
The tellers had no idea what I was talking about and said that they wouldn't have the money because there weren't any orders for new money. I told them that I talked to the branch manager and they said they would ask her about it, but she's with another customer. They checked with her and lo and behold... no money. The teller's supervisor said that she tried to order the money, but they said that she couldn't. Uh...so why didn't they call me? Well, we didn't have your phone number. You mean to tell me that you have HOW many accounts for me here for HOW many years and you don't have a phone number---I'm SURE you do somewhere. No, we don't have a way to contact you. Your telemarketers sure call me all the time, so don't tell me that you didn't have a phone number for me. I KNEW they were going to screw this up...The lady's attitude was basically like- Oh well, we don't have it...deal with it. Well, I told them that they needed to do the right thing and fix the problem by helping me find newer bills either in their branch or at another branch because I was going to be leaving the next day and had to have it. The other tellers were looking through the money that they had and the supervisor flat out REFUSED to even try to call other branches to look for any newer bills and walked back over to her desk. The teller that was helping me said that she would call while looking for newer bills. The supervisor didn't like that very much and told her that she needed for her to stay there and help other customers. I heard this and told her, that she wasn't DONE helping me yet and that she might as well keep looking because I wasn't going to leave the window until they got the money for me. Interesting----NOW she wants to help just to get me out of there because by now, I've started talking very loudly so that all of the customers in the bank knew how they screwed up and were uninterested in helping fix their mistake. I really hate causing a scene, but apparently that was the ONLY way that I was going to get them to fix the problem. Well, after much digging and searching, they were able to find enough new, unfolded, newer condition bills to cover me. Well, of course by now, the Branch Manager decides that she doesn't need to bury her head in the sand anymore and comes out to say how glad they were that they could fix the problem...ARGH...I don't think I need to go into detail on my response to her ;) I have so many other things on my plate right now that the last thing that I want to have to do is look around for another bank although it looks like after this fiasco, I might have to do that when I get back. I didn't want to say what bank it was here, but if anyone really wants to know, I'll tell ya ;). All that aside......YAY!!! We're leaving tomorrow!!!!

Friday, February 16, 2007

Baby Shower!


I work with a wonderful group of people! They planned a surprise shower for me at work which was a blast. Everyone has been so great and supportive of everything that Dan and I have been going through with trying to have a baby and starting our family. It still is very surreal that we're almost there! All of the presents were fantastic and so thoughtful and when I got home, Dan was so excited about the exercise saucer and her little chair. He pulled the box with the chair out of the car, pulled the chair out and started to put it together right there in the garage and driveway! It was so cute. He brought the chair in and asked me "So, how long do you think that it will take her to figure out that this is HER chair?" Oh....about 2 seconds. He put it in the living room so that she will have her own chair to sit in along with his chair.
James Lee from work is SO creative and made the funniest invitation for the shower. I will try and post it---you've got to see it! In the meantime, here I've posted a picture of Keira's chair :) It even has little pockets on the side for bottles and stuff!

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Back from Boston


The trip out to Boston for the Travel Meeting was definitely an experience. The meeting itself was great! I printed out my boarding passes for the plane then I took a taxi to the meeting from the hotel which was funny. I had printed up a Mapquest of the directions and gave it to the taxi driver. Needless to say they were all across the board, so it didn't exactly help. It was so nice to get a chance to meet Linda and the 2 families that we will be traveling to China with! We got to know each other a little and they both seem like such nice families and are just as excited as we are to go if that's possible! lol We all got the hardcopies of the Travel Approvals which was very cool. We will have to give those when we go to China, so I'm going to make sure to make copies to keep for her to have.

After the meeting, Dan's dad and Margaret met me to pick me up and take me to lunch. I haven't gotten to see them in a couple of years, so it was great to get to spend some time catching up and talking about the trip. Dan's dad told a funny story about how Dan's name would have been Murray. Murray Curry. I think Dan is glad that the name Daniel won out! I told Dan that it was "like father like son" when Dad ordered Meatloaf for lunch. I could make the most gourmet meal on earth and Dan STILL would prefer to have Meatloaf. Too Funny...

They dropped me off at the airport where I ended up getting a manicure believe it or not. It wasn't a great manicure, but hey! Anything to pass time was good enough for me. We talked some and I told her about the adoption. Her response in a VERY strong East Coast accent was "WOW! You must be just BURSTIN' with Fruit FlAAAvah!" That cracked me up! I don't know if that was her own thing or if it was an East Coast term I had never heard of before--hilarious...

I started trying to find my gate and when looking at the United monitor for departures, there were only 5 flights showing and none of them were mine. I stopped at the desk and apparently they changed my flight from going to LAX->Carlsbad, to San Diego! Uh....my car was at Carlsbad. The interesting thing was that the flight was not until 6:30 and the flight that they changed me to was for 5. What if I showed up at 5:15? I would have missed the flight. Well, I ended up having to call Dan to have him pick me up in San Diego. It was VERY confusing because my boarding pass said it was Boston->San Diego, but everyone else on the plane was going to Chicago. Turns out I had to switch planes even though it was the same flight number in Chicago. I've got a pretty huge headache now from all of the flying and jetlag.
I received some VERY cute stuff in the mail while I was out. My friend Sarah sent the CUTEST pink and yellow ducky bathrobe, booties and towel. I just love this set! Brenda sent some cute warm clothes as well as a CD of songs that she sang. It will be so nice to play this for Keira at night as her lullabies. I'm so very grateful for good friends and family that have been so supportive. :)

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

BRRRRR!

Today I'm heading to Boston to meet with the 2 other families that will be traveling to China with us as well as people from the agency. I've been corresponding by email with Joy, Linda, Lauren and Amanda from WHFC now for the past almost 2 years and it will be nice to put a face to the typed words. We're all the way out in California and the agency is in Boston. It would have been nice to be able to visit the agency more and have more face to face meetings with them, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. Our baby was on our agency' waiting children list (Horizon Kids) and if we hadn't been with this particular agency, we would not have OUR baby. I feel that everything happens for a reason. The people from the agency have been great in keeping us up to date with info etc, so I have nothing but positive things to say.
I've been sick now for the past few days so I'm not necessarily looking forward to traveling to a cold part of the country right now. Hopefully the flights won't be delayed or anything. I'm flying out this morning and won't be arriving until really late tonight. The meeting is tomorrow morning, then I fly back out after that.
We received some things from Brenda today including a baby carrier for if Keira sits on my lap on the plane as well as the cutest rocking horse you have ever seen! I can't wait until Dan can put it together in Keira's room--although he's even sicker than ME right now! Thanks so much Brenda! :)

Sunday, February 4, 2007

What's in a Name II?



When Dan and I were first trying to start our family, we made a deal. If we had a girl, I would get to name her. If we had a boy, he would get to name him. He mentioned a few names such as "Beef" (Get it? Beef Curry). HOPEFULLY he was kidding! Since chances were pretty good that if we had a biological child, he/she would most likely look more like me. You know those Asians and their strong genes ;). Anyway, he wanted to select a name that kept with his Irish heritage.

After we tried for a few years and made the move to adoption, China was the country that we decided on. With the situation in China, we knew that we were almost certainly going to have a girl. Because of that, the compromise that we made was that I would select the name, but it would be an Irish name. We looked through Gaelic names and finally found "Ciara" which is the Gaelic spelling for "Keira". What does it mean? It is an Irish name meaning a girl with dark hair and eyes. It was perfect! That is how our little girl's name was selected!

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Happy February!!!


I just wanted to point out that today is the first day of February! What does that mean aside from the fact that tomorrow is Groundhog Day and Mom's Birthday (Happy Birthday Mom!!!)? What does it mean aside from the fact that I remembered to give Jackson his once a month Heartworm medication on time this morning? It means that this is the month that we get our baby girl!!! Yes, it's the SAME month that we are traveling to China to meet our baby for the first time!!! It feels so very different from yesterday since yesterday was a completely different month. Today, we hit the SAME MONTH!!! Today, it's February---and we are going to China THIS month on February 22nd!

You can't tell that I'm excited or anything, can you? ;)