Mei Lin Day!!!

Okay, with all the technical problems, I'm now just putting up a few photos of Mei Lin and I'll try to figure out why the filter is blocking all the slideshow websites and post more.

We hardly slept last night. I still can't believe all that has happened today. We met Mei Lin at the adoption bureau at 9:00 this morning. We barely walked into the room and set our things down when they came walking in with our babies. Mei Lin is beautiful, sweet, and happy. She hasn't really cried yet. She is totally a daddy's girl and wants nothing to do with mommy yet (sigh). It looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me. She loves her big sisters and thinks Miyah is hilarious. We usually get laughs out of her when Miyah plays with her, otherwise she's been fairly quiet, just taking it all in. She just lights up whenever she sees Miyah. She even initiated several hugs. It's so fun to see them interacting together. I can't wait until we have more time to let them just play together.

Her little face and hands are so tan. We were thrilled to find out that she's been in foster care with our travel companion's little girl, Grace. It's apparent they've spent a lot of time out in the fields with their foster parents, most likely strapped to their backs as they work. The foster village is about an hour from Kunming, in a rural minority area. They were each in four layers of new, warm clothing and it was in the 80s today!

Mei Lin is almost walking, but she has some gaps in her motor development. She creeps and crawls a little, but I suspect she hasn't had a lot of time on the floor. She has taken several steps today without support and I wouldn't be surprised if she isn't walking by the time we get home.

She's quite sturdy, too. She's wearing about a size 12 or 18 months. I have to try some outfits on her yet, but some of the 12-18 months I brought her (the biggest size I packed for her) look like they'll be too small. The little capris I put her in today Miyah wore last summer! She's definitely not petite, but she's not especially chubby either.

We had a busy, busy day. All of the adoption paperwork was finalized, passport pictures taken and applied for. We left the hotel at 8:30 AM and except for a short lunch break, didn't return until around 6:30 PM.

Jennifer and I commented several times today about how amazing our new girls have been with all the changes and the hectic schedule with barely any sleep. Miyah has done great, too. She hasn't felt well on and off and I know that there are so many factors that have made the rigors of travel wear on her, but she's been an amazing little trooper.

Before we returned to the hotel tonight, we stopped at the Carrefour department store and stocked up on baby essentials and some food for the hotel room. I guess we never went to the Carrefour on our first trip. It was nice to find everything in one stop....even the live toads and turtles!

Mei Lin loved her bath tonight. She and Miyah splashed and played and one of the few times she even whimpered today were when I took her out of the bath. Pat got her to bed tonight easily. Both Miyah and Mei Lin were exhausted and are sound to sleep in HIS room! Hopefully I'll get more than 4 hours of sleep tonight.

It's been an awesome, incredible day. God is so amazing in his blessings. We can't even begin to describe how blessed we feel to have another amazing child to raise and love.

Hopefully we'll have more tomorrow! I'm going to try to post some more photos from previous days, but Megan is begging to get on the computer.

Thank you all for all your prayers.

Goodnight from China!