3 Months Home

It's amazing to think that Rebecca has been home for 3 months.  She has changed so much and changed us so much.  Here are some things that we've noticed in the last month.

Favorite Activities
Swimming
Taking a shower
Washing her hands
Do you notice a trend????
Playing with her Bitty Baby, Mei Mei
Being held
Playing with her brothers and sister
Reading books

Firsts
Trip to Grandma and Grandpa's in Tennessee
Boat ride at Grandma and Grandpa's
Swim in the lake
Jumping off the boat
Trip to Gatlinburg
Ride in a Gondola
Ride down a mountain in a toboggan
Visit to the aquarium

New Words
Vocabulary is growing daily
Pip po per = Christopher
Jon ni thin= Jonathan
K = okay
Put it back
Up
Rub my back
brush teeth
deodorant - yes she insists on putting it on each morning
Ta da
Mine
Becca
Sit down
Watch
Ready?
1, 2, 3 Go
Potty and more potty
oiwels = oils
shoes on
mon = come on
my books

Favorite Foods
Yogurt
Noodles
Chicken
Strawberries
Watermelon
Ice Cream
Chocolate
Eggs in any form
Chips
Rice

She has grown about 3 inches and at least put on a pound or two and grown 1 shoe size.  She can walk up and down the steps like a champ and runs and jumps.

2 Months Home

Today is 2 months since we landed home from China and oh how our lives have changed.  It is amazing how one little girl can change so much in our lives. Mainly things we never thought about but now we think more of others and how we can make a difference.  Well in the last month, Rebecca has had a few more firsts and grown in all areas.

Some firsts she experienced this month:
1st family trip
Met Janet's brother and her cousins: Olivia and Aidan
1st swim in the Atlantic Ocean
1st Independence Day picnic with neighbors
Watched 1st fireworks
Met Janet's sister and her cousins: Erin and Ryleigh
Ate 1st Sunset Slush
Played in sprinklers outback
Played in Pirate water table
Started using the shower
Started using the potty

New words:
Uh Oh
All done
more
pool
Aureo (Oreo- the cat)
Hel (help)
bow
baby

Things she loves:
Reading books (especially those with photos of children that she can copy facial expressions)
Swimming
Her brothers and sister
Rice, noodles, eggs, yogurt and watermelon
Laughing and making us laugh
Our smartphones

Here are some pictures from the month

First beach trip to Oak Island, NC

 

 Rebecca LOVED jumping the waves with daddy or the girls

 

 Enjoying Sunset Slush with her siblings & cousins Olivia and Aidan at the beach

 

July 4th picnic with the neighbors

 

 Watching the fireworks with daddy

 

 Rebecca with her friends Saylor and Naomi

 Second beach trip to Holden Beach, NC

 First time asking to sit on Grandma's lap

 

Fun with our cousins Erin, Aidan and Ryleigh

 

Looking pretty with Elizabeth, Ryleigh and Erin

Home 1 Month

I promise I am going to back date posts from the rest of our journey to China but I thought I'd make a quick post about our first month home.  Rebecca is adjusting fabulously!  She is sleeping 10-12 hrs each night and taking a 2 hr nap on the days we're home for that. :-)  She eats just about anything we offer her and has grown .5 inch and .5 pound in the last 3 weeks!!  She understands just about anything we say to her and is starting to say more on her own and repeats us all the time.  Here are some of her firsts and favorites from her first month home.

Favorite Foods:
Cold cereal and milk, especially Frosted Flakes
Chocolate Chip Granola bars
Pepperoni Pizza
Macaroni and Cheese
Corn on the Cob
Watermelon
Ice Cream
Sweet Tea

Favorite Activities:
Playing outside
Swimming
Taking a bath or shower
Playing with her baby dolls
Drawing
Swinging
Being held and/or carried
Looking at pictures of herself and other Asian babies
Riding in the Power Wheels truck with the boys
Eating

Words She Can Say:
Uh Oh
No
More
JieJie (sister)
GuGu (brother)
Baby
Peek-a-Boo
Oreo (one of the cats)
Merlin (our other cat)
Bye-bye
Night-night
Please
Thank you
Yay!!

Some of her FIRSTS this month:
Swimming in the pool
Going to movie theater (Saw Inside Out)
Watched Elizabeth's dance recital (all 3 hours)
Started going to church (LOVES the music)
Learned how to eat Corn on the Cob
Ate ice cream cone (with a spoon)
Roadtrip to the beach
Jumped waves and LOVED it
Watched fireworks
Goes to sleep at naptime by herself

She has transformed from a sad, scared little girl that we first met on May 18, 2015 to a smiley, laughing, happy little bundle of joy with BIG personality in 4 short weeks!  It seems like eons ago that we were in China and Aaron and I frequently talk about how long ago that seems.  We are SO HAPPY to have her in our family and make the Kamenick family complete.  We can't wait to see how much she grows and changes over the next 11 months!

First Full Day in Lanzhou

Today we went to the Civil Affairs building and made everything official.  Aaron and I put our red fingerprint over each of our signatures and Rebecca put her red hand print to signify her signature. While there, we were able to talk to the assistant director some more and Rebecca was able to play with her and another orphanage staff member who accompanied her today. Ms. Zhou was a staff member who woke Rebecca each morning and took her for exercises, since she came to the orphanage nearly 3 yrs ago.  You could really tell that both the assistant director and Ms. Zhou loved Rebecca and all of the children at the orphanage.

I had pictures from a few friends who have recently adopted from Pingliang as well and both were super excited to see them and how well they are doing.  The assistant director was really excited to see all of the children and asked me to email her their pictures.  I also had a few pictures from updates that I showed her and asked more details about and a video I got about 1 month ago.  She was able to tell me the names of the boys in the video and a little about each.  One is in the process of being adopted and the other has a CHD and she said was not available for adoption. That made me really sad to hear.

They walked out with us and said good-bye to Rebecca and I could tell they were really happy to see she had a family but also sad to say good bye.  It brought me to tears.  Just thinking about Rebecca losing all that she's ever known and all of her caregivers.  I know she'll do great and God has great things planned for her but it was still a sad part of my day.  Those were the tears I'd been waiting for. Now we begin praying for her little heart to be open to receive our love and for her to not be anxious and afraid of all that lies ahead.  Big changes for such a little girl.

We then ran to a mall to get diapers, snacks and a couple other things and lunch from KFC. :-)

Came back to the hotel to grab our gifts (I forgot them all this morning but Jessica was going back to Civil Affairs this afternoon and was dropping them off and then would drop the others off with the orphanage staff at their hotel) and Rebecca just burst into tears.  We knew the time would come and know that more days lie ahead and boy is it tough.  I just held her and let her cry and whispered calming words into her ear.  I think it was a combination of grief and exhaustion.  We heated her up a bottle, she let me hold her and give her the bottle and she promptly fell asleep.  That gave me time to update my blog.  She's still napping and my prayer is she'll be less anxious when she wakes up.  She is a happy little girl and very smart!  She's going to be a joy to have in our family and she has already blessed us in more ways than she'll ever comprehend.

Putting our red thumb print over all of our signatures to assure they are really ours.

 

 

 First picture with Baba

 

 

Putting Mei Mei's red hand print on paper as her signature to finalist adoption.

 

Mei Mei playing with Ms. Zhou while paperwork is getting finished.

Notary getting papers ready

Mei Mei with the Assistant director. 

Mei Mei with Ms. Zhou and Assistant director. 

Assistant Director and staff worker, Ms. Zhou looking at pictures of friend's children who have been adopted from Pingliang SWI over the last year.

Us with the assistant director and Ms. Zhou

On Our Way to Mei Mei

Today we flew from Beijing to Lanzhou.  What an amazing difference in the landscape!  Lanzhou is in the Gansu province and it is very desert-like.  Mountains of clay, little vegetation and few trees. And up out of no where pops the city.  We were starving from not eating breakfast.  They actually served us a hot meal on the plane but we couldn't identify what it was, so we ate the bread and I had a yogurt. LOL Our guide, Jessica, took us to her favorite restaurant in Lanzhou that serves Beef noodles.  Beef Noodles is a famous Gansu province dish and they were delicious!  Jessica said we were the first family to come to Lanzhou and go out for Beef noodles first thing. It was a local restaurant, we were the only Americans and they only had chopsticks.  It was a wonderful way to start our week in Lanzhou!

We settled into our hotel about 12:30 and Rebecca is scheduled to arrive between 2:30-3.  Well about 3 we receive a phone call from our guide that she is stuck in construction traffic and they are now expecting to arrive between 3:40-4.  She finally arrived around 4 pm.  The director and assistant director of the orphanage brought her to out hotel room.  They talked to us about her routine, answered our questions and gave us a wonderful book about Pingliang, then they snuck out.  Amazingly, Rebecca did really well and didn't cry at all.  We played on the floor a little, signed a few papers to get ready for tomorrow and then our guide took us to get her passport picture taken and our first family picture. A storm blew in, so we called it a day and just returned to the hotel, instead of going to pick up a few things we needed.

She is pure joy and we are already in love with her!  We got her to smile a few times and she began to loosen up a little with us.  We just ate at the hotel restaurant and boy, this girl can eat.  She eat just about anything you put in front of her. Tonight she polished off rice, noodles, pork strips, watermelon, another piece of melon and a cookie.

Then we went upstairs, had a warm bottle of milk and went to bed. All of us laid down and passed out at 8 pm (Seems to be our time).  She slept straight through until I woke her at 7:30 am because her big sister and brothers were dying to meet her over Skype.


Janet talking with Director of orphanage about Mei Mei's time in orphanage.

Looking at the city with the assistant director

Getting passport picture taken

 

 

 

Eating dinner in the hotel restaurant

She LOVED the congee (rice porridge)



Beijing- Day 2

Today we met Angela again at 7:30 a.m. To head off for a busy day of sightseeing.  Another WACAP couple joined us.  First we headed to Ti An Amen Square.  At 8 am, the place was wall to wall people.  It was CRAZY!!  From there we walked to the Forbidden City.  This is the inner ring of Beijing.  It is built on a ring system, with 7 rings (similar to a beltway) and the center of it is the Forbidden City where the emperor of China lived.  It has SO MUCH history and the buildings are magnificent. The emperor and the empress did not reside in the same buildings and the emperor would attend to different business in different buildings.  It took nearly 2 hrs to walk through the grounds and we did not wander to the side buildings, we took the straight path.

After the Forbidden City we headed out of town to the Great Wall.  We stopped and had a traditional Roasted Peking Duck lunch on our way.  It was supposed to be a 2 hr trip but the traffic was so awful it took 3 hrs to get to the section we were going to.  We rode a chairlift up to the wall and then hiked along it for a good bit.  It was so amazing to think it was built thousands of years ago and that it took 500 yrs to complete. After hiking it we rode toboggans down to the bottom, that was a highlight of our trip!  We then started the journey back to Beijing, which took another 3 hrs.

We made it to the Chinese Acrobat show with 15 min to spare!  Those people were amazing to watch and so flexible!  The show ended at 8 :30.  Angela brought Chinese takeout back to us at the hotel.  We finished packing up and went to bed right after eating.  We've been so surprised that the Chinese food in Beijing is not much different than the Chinese food we get at home.

Tomorrow, Angela picks us up at 5 am to head to the airport and fly to Lanzhou, where we will meet Rebecca Mei in the afternoon.

Ti An Amen Square

 

 

 The Forbidden City

 

 The Lover's Tree in the gardens of the Forbidden City.  Great story behind it.

The Great Wall

 

 

Tobogganing down from the Great Wall 

 

 Chinese Acrobat Show