Nanchang

Hi,

Sorry we didn't post yesterday. It was quite a busy/long day. Paul & I were up around 2:00am and Halle and the kids were up around 5:00. Yesterday was the paperwork day. After eating breakfast we had to make three stops to complete all the adoption work for China and to apply for Halle's passsport. We are pleased to announce that in the eyes of the Chinese Halle is officially our baby now. We got home from that around 12:00. We had our guides order a pizza for us and had that for lunch. At 1:00 Jacob, Halle and I met with the orphanage director. We found out that Halle had been in foster care until April not August like the previous paperwork had stated. The director answered questions from all the parents. He gave us the newspaper with her finding ad and a picture from when she was just a month or so old. After that we took a wild trip to Wal-Mart. I'll talk more about that but it was an adventure to say the least ;) We got home around 5:00. I think I started falling alseep around 6:30 and everyone else was shortly behind. Needless to say it is 5:30 and we are all up and ready to go, except for Halle, she is already back asleep.

Halle is doing great. She is definitely a daddy's girl. She will tolerate me some of the time but not always. It looks like she is already potty trained. She hasn't had a dirty diaper since the night before last. You just hold her old the toilet and she goes. She loves her stacking blocks and cheerioes. She will transfer them from one block to the next and then eat some and play again. She hasn't taken a bottle since yesterday morning. She just isn't interested. I tried putting formula in a sippy cup when she woke up this morning and she chowed on that. She also ate some raisons and banana. She ate everything at the breakfast buffet yesterday morning. Paul has nick named her the chuncky monkey as she is definitely quite a handful. It is hard to hold her for very long without your arms giving out.

The big kids are doing great too. I am so proud of them. They are trying new things and are great with Halle. Although Sami taught Halle how to throw blocks at Jacob's head and now it is a game to throw them at everyone. She definitely has a good throwing arm! Needless to say we went out and bought her some soft balls! Sami gave Halle a bath last night and got her to fall asleep on our bed. Jacob went to the director's meeting. He tried to leave early and Halle just started to cry - twice. She didn't want her big brother to leave her.

Today is almost a day off. The only thing we have to do is have Halle checked by the peditrican at 9:30. I hope we can get out exploring a little today. I'm a little worried about walking though. The traffic/driving is just amazing here. I can't believe there aren't more accidents. Jacob asked yesterday why they have lines painted on the roads because they definitely aren't used. People just drive/scooter/walk right in the middle of the intersection and don't think twice about it.