Pretty Pink Piggies...and more

My first shot at painting her nails...did them while she was asleep

Can't wait to see what she thinks about them

"C Man" playing on Saturday-my how old he looks!

Cheering for her brother!

Andrew taking his pony ride at his Pre-K Graduation Party

You might have guessed she'd be sampling the sweets at the party!

On his way to Kindergarten!

So, last game, he decided he wanted to wear baseball gloves

during the game-

didn't seem to hurt him at all-he scored 3 goals in 5 minutes for

his team!

The lasting evidence of her first ice cream sandwhich!

Lovin' her noodles!

We had yet another eventful week here, with school almost over, soccer, and "A man's" preschool graduation and party. It's hard to believe we are coming up on the one month anniversary of our Gotcha Day! Although it's only been 30 days since we've been with her, it's as if she has been a part of our family forever. She is doing SO WELL with adjusting to everything and everyone. She can now say in English, mama, dadda, baby, baby cry, I Love You, (wish I would have gotten that one on tape), Puppy, Cody(our male golden retriever), Katie(our female Golden Retriever), kitty, potty, go, pizza, cookie, juice, Chloe, and of course, NO. She picked up on that way right away :) She is like a little sponge, learning these words in less than a month!

We got the kids a Wii, and let me tell ya, Chloe will try to pick up the remote and imitate the movements of the boys-soo funny! Especially the boxing game!

That's all I have for now...until next time...

Soccer, Memorial Day and misc. pics

Aunt Kristi is so much fun!
Too cute!

Chloe, Kristi, and our niece cool off in the pool

Feeding Great Pappy Mac n Cheese

Look at this HUMONGOUS frog that was in our back yard by the pool! Biggest frog we had ever seen!

She loves to ride on her Barbie Tricycle

Ready for a day on the town

Check out the adorable shirt from our good buddy Terran! She sent it to us when we got home with Chloe! It is so cute!

"A" man getting ready for his game-he scored 3 goals this game!

"G man" keeping up the pace

We have been so busy since we got back from China. I think we haveonly ever spent 1 day fully at home. Between shuttling kids to school and soccer, field trips, and picnics, we are spent! Here are a few pictures of "A" man and "G" man's soccer games, and picnic pics!

Zoo trip!

"A" man riding the Flying Turtles

Playing Peek a Boo with a Polar Bear

My sweet boy

Having a blast!

One of my all time favorite pictures

Big brother helping little sister

My little preschool buddy

Checking out the monkeys

Drink Break!

Mufasa

We had a wonderful day with A man's preschool class on a field trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo. Although it was hot, we had a good time. Chloe LOVES animals, so this was right up her alley! Enjoy

Just pictures...

Finishing up her paperwork...

Yea, I know I'm cute...

Girl in green

First trip to church, and yes, I did buy them all matching outfits!

But, don't they look cute?

First soccer game

Eating hard boiled eggs with her buddy Andrew

Update!

Yep, you read that right, 15+ hours

The beginning of our flight

Watching the planes

I like ice cream!

Our guide in Guangzhou, Simon
After the oath ceremony!

Don't you just love my bow? Thanks Aunt Jen!

Marc, Amy, Finn, and us-What a great family!

Bay Area Adoption Services Families

Ya gotta love this picture!

Why, oh why do they do this to us?? they wonder
infamous red couch photo

Lobby of the White Swan hotel

Fashionista

Well, now I know why people who get back from their trip to China don't post right away! We have been super busy with getting settled back into the groove of being home, doing laundry, coordinating schedules with the kids soccer games, doing laundry, school work, doing laundry...
The boys are absolutely in love with Chloe, arguing over who gets to sit beside her in the car, who unbuckles her from her car seat, who feeds her, you get the picture! And, SHE just loves them to pieces too. They are the ones who really get the belly laughs going. Today was our first day home alone together, without the entertainment of the boys, and I have a new nickname for her, my little shadow. She follows me everywhere, and even if she's two feet away from me, she yells, MA. then I'll say what? and she tells me this drawn out story everytime-it really is cute! Here are some pics from the red couch photos at the White Swan, ans a few other miscellaneous since we've been home. Sorry for the short post, I am hoping to be able to stay up past 8:30 pm soon, and post more!

Hong Kong to Home Recap ...5/15

It's hard to believe we've been home 2 days now...With the jet lag, I'm not even sure what day it is! We left Hong Kong at 7:30 am and arrived at the airport by 7:45. We went to get our boarding passes and asked if they had any available bulkhead seating. We lucked out with 2 seats, and Danny sat right behind us. Although Chloe wouldn't sit in her seat, it was nice to have the extra room. The flight was a little over 15 hours-yep, you heard right-15 HOURS with a toddler! She fell asleep as we were taxiing to the runway, and slept for 2.5 hours. She was then awake for 2 hours, and thanks to a little "sleepy time" medicine, (Thanks A!) she slept for another 2. All in all, she did WONDERFUL! There were three adoptive families on our flight, and all of the kids did great. We were rushing to catch our connecting flight. We had to go to immigration, where we handed over our "brown envelope", the officer stamped her paper, and said welcome to the United States. We then had to go get our luggage, go through customs, recheck our luggage, go through security AGAIN, and found our gate. We had 15 minutes to spare. The flight from Newark to Pittsburgh was only 1 hour long, and we all three crashed for that hour. We were SO HAPPY to see the boys, my mom, brother Eric, sister-in-law Jen, and niece Adisyn there waiting for us, complete with a huge banner, balloons, and lots of hugs! We are so thankful they took the time to come meet us at the airport! We then got our luggage and put Chloe in the carseat for the first time. She did not like it at first, bit decided there was nothing she could about it. We all went for a celebration dinner of Pizza. We got home around 10 pm. I was so exhausted, I literally couldn't see straight. We didn't get to bed until almost midnight, and Chloe was up at midnight, just as our heads hit the pillow. I sat holding her in bed, and literally kept falling over I was so tired. She then went back to bed and slept until 5. She got up and played and it was is she always lived here. She walked around and babbled, and played. She LOVES her big brothers-they get the belly laughs going with her, and the dimples showing! We then had visitors yesterday, and today. She is definetly an outdoors girl. We dressed her warm last night and let her run around outside-you should have seen the smile on that face! Last night, she fell asleep around 9:30, slept until 1, took a bottle, then slept until 6. So it is getting better. My worst time of day is mid-late afternoon though. I start to DRAG! Last night, sitting on the front porch steps, seeing her toddle around, watching the boys play baseball, I realized that we finally have our family of 6. It's still surreal to me that we have another female in the house.

Home Sweet Home

This is gonna be a quickie, since we have been traveling for 28 hours, flew halfway across the world, all our luggage made it, and we made our connecting flights. I will post more tomorrow, I am REALLY jet-lagging hard!

Quick Post

Well, we made it to Hong Kong. It is 11 pm here, and we got to the hotel at 10. We are pooped. We missed getting the earlier train by 2 MINUTES! AAAGGGHHHH! We just ordered room service, and got Margherita Pizza (that was in tribute to you Amy and Marc!) a cheeseburger and fries, and chloe got Spaghetti, french fries, and chocolate ice cream. We are happy now that we have a full belly! This hotel is AMAZING! Hong Kong is beautiful at night-lights everywhere! I will try to post more soon. We are leaving the hotel at 7:30 am for the airport. We will land in Newark at 2 pm US time, and then leave fir pittsburgh at 4. We are so excited to see all of you at the airport tomorrow. Time for bed for us-we're exhausted. PLEASE-pray for us tomorrow that the flight will go as quickly as possible and that Chloe will be ok.

Shopping, Zoo, and Pearl River Cruise

Beautiful View from the River Cruise

Proud Pappas and their girls

Pear River Cruise



Eating Noodles...again

For those of you RQ fans, we met JelloAnyone and her twin boys!

Happy Girl at the Zoo

This pic is for the boys...

Picking out pearls

Breakfast club

Jade Market

Children lining up in the courtyard before school

We had a busy, busy day today! We started off with trying to fit in some more shopping on the island this morning after breakfast, and then we were off with our "buds" Amy and Marc to the Electronic Store and the Pearl Market. We also ventured off the beaten path and went onto some of the street markets. Things are soooo much cheaper here than on the island! After our shopping spree, we made our way back to the hotel to freshen up for our trip to the zoo. We were amazed at how much Chloe loves animals! Her little mouth started running from the minute she saw the first animal to the time we left the zoo....It was too cute to hear her talking! We then hopped our bus and made our way to the Pearl River Cruise. We had dinner onboard, and then were able to go on top of the boat and enjoy the sights of Guangzhou...It was absolutely beautiful at night! I can't believe we are leaving tomorrow...Dan is starting to pack up as I type this...We have our red couch photo tomorrow morning at 9 at the White Swan. We then have to leave the hotel at 2:30 for our Oath Ceremony at the Consulate. After that, our guide Simon will take us to the train station, where we will take the train to Hong Kong and stay the night. Our plane leaves at 10:25 am Wednesday morning, and we arrive in Pittsburgh at 5:58 pm that same day. We invite anyone who would like to be there at the airport to come-we would love for you all to meet Chloe! I will try to post tomorrow if I am able to.