Wednesday in China

Photo descriptions
1) Sisters getting to know each other
2) Hey I'm sure cute (thanks Linda for the hat!)
3)Sisters dressing alike in panda themed outfits
4) My first swim in the hotel pool. She loved it.
5) Girls dressed alike again in "Daddy's little Valentine's shirts". It was a suprise for Charles.

It is Wed.in China now and we've had another great day with Lily as part of our family. Her vivacious personality came out today. She is a "jolly jumper" doesn't sit still, says mama and ate dim sum (sticky rice, congee, Chinese noodles) for breakfast. We are all in love with her and Lexi is so happy. Lexi harbors no jealousy for the lack of attention paid to her.

G & G - Lexi has been shopping for herself and Lily and bought some Barbies' with pink hair, rubber ducks for Lily and a new baseball cap for the sun.

We've had beautiful warm weather here in Guangzhou.

Today everyone is talking about the alligator that was decapitated at the table at the restaurant during dinner last night. It was a local who ordered this, no one from our group.

We are all over jet lag as of today. Last night I finally slept!

Lily has huge thighs and is wearing 18 -24 month clothes. I have to go buy her shoes as none that I brought fit her. She has a wide foot.

As for sleeping, I give her a bottle (I hold her), once the bottle is finished you hand her a blanket and put her in her crib and she goes to sleep in two minutes and doesn't make a sound until morning.

That's all for today.

We've got her!

(photo descriptions
1) Our first family photo about 1 minute after receiving Lily
2) Giving her some water after her tough day of travel to us and Lexi's first hold of her sister
3) Day 2 - Lily looking fashionable in her Year of the Pig outfit for the Chinese upcoming New Year - we are back at the adoption office doing more paperwork
4) This is the look how healthy I am photo before her first bath



We arrived in Guangzhou 12 hours in advance of the baby receiving process. Lily is great and so healthy and huge and heavy and just perfect. She has so much hair. We've had her now for 2 4 hours.

Lexi got one giggle out of her on the first night. Her first night she slept straight from 8:30 - 6:00! Not a peep.

Sometime she is getting a little stressed but she just gets quiet. We've had a few smiles.

We are all settling into her nicely and her to us.

She walks really well and eats anything we've feed her. Today she had rice cereal and applesauce and bottles.

That's it for now.

Life is good in China and Lily is fantastic. All the babies are!

Love,

Jill, Charles, Alexis and Lily Racquel Zi Tao

Flight delayed!

(photo - Lexi and I waiting to leave.)

It is Saturday afternoon now and at least they've let us off the plane. We are delayed due to weather in Toronto plus during this wait the pilot's time ran out so we have to have a crew change, so they left us to deplane, after we sat for two hours. The lineup to de-ice is two hours. Because our plane goes a long distance they can't afford to burn two hours of fuel deicing.

Right now they are saying we might depart at 3:00 pm. No guarantees.

We are getting to the time frame where we might be late to pick up Lily. Hah, patience gone, close to tears.

We are off! Lily bound

Lexi and I are much better - antibiotics worked! We are flight worthy now. Charles finished his case yesterday and believes it went very well. Our coordinator phoned from Hong Kong last night and believes we won't be capable of getting a taxi from the airport to the correct hotel. So she's organizing a car to pick us up. That is fine by me.

So we are packed, Charles is off buying a new car seat right now and we depart for Toronto in a few hours. It's his job to get the car seat installed before we leave, because we'll be so sleep deprived when we return to the Toronto airport that car seat directions will make no sense, although those directions are pretty tough to decipher with an advanced degree as well.

Only two more sleeps for Lily in an orphanage. Yeah.

We look forward to introducing everyone to Lily upon our return.

Zai jian,

Charles, Jill and Alexis

The countdown is on

We are now almost 48 hours from departing. Lexi and I have been battling all week coughs, fevers and mine turned into a chest infection. Charles has been taking care of us plus he has a huge case in front of a judge tomorrow in Toronto. He's had no rest and is a bit stressed.

We still have to pack our belongings but since we are limited by the amount of luggage we can take our clothes are a low priority. When we return you may see the same clothes in many of our photographs. We plan on taking advantage of the laundry service in the hotel for our items. Lily on the other hand is all packed up. I had to change her clothing sizes as we received word she is up to 22 pounds, that's a five pound increase since October! That is a pretty big one year old. She is also 73 cm tall now.

The forecast in Guangzhou is looking great, 70 F and sunny for most of our time there. Beijing floats between 41 and 28 F.

I hope to be able to post from the hotels but sometimes the access to Google products is down because well, we are in China. If that doesn't work my trusty friend Mark will be emailed the story and he will post to this blog.

We receive Lily Racquel Zi Tao on Monday, January 29 in the afternoon. Wow I can't believe it is really happening. I'm sure the experience will be mind-boggling and awesome.

Thanks to everyone who helped us get to this point.

A younger photo of Lily

We were so excited to receive Lily's finding ad this weekend. She is so smiley, it is such a wonderful photograph. A finding ad is placed in a local Chinese newspaper when the child is around six months of age. I'm not sure of the ad's purpose within the Chinese community but for adoptive families it sometimes provides a younger photo of their child. This is true in our case as the photo is three months younger than her referral photos. We are so pleased to receive the ad through Brian Stuy's services.

Lily's room

We put the finishing touches on Lily's room this weekend and the artist finished the murals of the panda and the bamboo. The clothes are organized. We are really getting excited and can't wait for Lily to join our family.

Thanks to everyone who helped put her room together.

A quilt for Lily

Here's a great welcome gift to Lily when she arrives. My mom and aunt got busy when the referral came to us and began making Lily her own special quilt that follows the theme of her room.

Here they are presenting the finished piece of work to us over the holidays. It's a beautiful piece and looks great in her room.

Hopefully her room will be ready next week.