Today, we have been home with our precious little one for one week. We have been having so much fun with her! She has so much personality as you can see in the pictures that follow.
She is having trouble sleeping through the night. She sleeps in her own bed and does great until 2am. The first few nights when she woke up in the middle of the night, she would just come into our room and we would put her in our bed for a while then put her back in her bed where she would sleep the rest of the night. Now for the past 2 nights she has woke up at 2am crying. When we first got home, we all woke up at 2am. We went downstairs and watched TV until we got sleepy then went back to bed--BIG MISTAKE because now that is what she wants to do every night. Obviously she has to learn that we can't do that, so I take her to the potty and put her into our bed. Two nights ago, she cried for a solid hour wanting to get up. We just talked softly to her and rubbed her back to reassure her that we were both there, until she finally fell asleep at the foot of our bed, where she stayed the rest of the night. Last night, up at 2:30am again -- crying. Wayne went and got her and put her into our bed. As before, she wanted to go downstairs. She cried for 15-20 minutes before again falling asleep at the foot of our bed. She always wakes up happy and ready to go. Crazy! I guess it will just take time for her to settle into a routine. We have to try and remain consistent and remember that her whole world has changed! Nothing at all is the same for her as it has been the last 2 1/2 years.

Crisco!!!

Her skin is so dry, in fact most of the children adopted there also had very dry skin. She also had itchy bumps all over her legs. Dr. Allen said it was probably the dry skin causing that. He said to use Crisco lard all over her body - that it was the best thing he had seen to work well. So, for the last several nights we have been greasing her up. Have you ever tried to grease up a 2 1/2 year old? Well, she is all over the place--I end up with about as much on me as she does. She loves to dig her hands deep into the Crisco tub and help! It takes both Wayne and me to get this done. He has to try and dress her for bed afterwards!

Playing dress up

She loves dressing up! She was so cute. The last pic is at dinner time--no one told me how hard it would be to get those clothes off of her! I thought she was going to sleep in them!!

Cake!

Kinsley enjoying the top of the cake saved from one of her showers!

Sitting with Ba-Ba in the mornings!

Helping Ma-Ma

She loves helping rinse the dished. She has gotten pretty good at getting all of the soap off!

Frozen Yogurt

She loves frozen Go-Gurt!

Wagon Ride!

Waiting patiently until Ba-Ba gets the wagon put together! At last-- time for a ride!

Rocky Horse

She loves riding this rocky horse her cousins gave her!

Visit from Yeah Yeah, Low Low, and Cousin Hannah

Yeah Yeah = Chinese pronunciation for grandfather
Low Low = Chinese pronunciation for grand mother

Report from the doctor!

From our trip to the doctor, we found out that she will have to have her MMR and her Diphtheria shots repeated :-( The one's she had in China were no longer effective. Her lead level was good, something I was concerned about, and all of her other blood work turned out to be normal Yea! Yea!

Time to go to the Doctor!!

Today, Monday Oct 25th, she had her first check-up from an American Doctor! Dr. Allen was so good with her and she loved him too! She had to have 3 shots, a urine test, and blood-work to check and see if her Chinese Vaccines were good. We will find out by Friday if she needs to have any of those Chinese vaccinations repeated.

Time for bed!

She is sleeping in her own bed. She does great! I have a moniter near by - just in case. When she woke up, she did not cry, she just came in our room. Such a big girl!!

So cute!

She is so funny. She puts the baby doll on the potty and is ready - with tissue in hand! It is after 1AM and we are both getting tired again.

Midnight

Just before midnight, We all went to the grocery store. When we came home Wayne went to bed and Kinsley and I stayed up to take a bath and play.

After we played some, she and I took a nap. Wayne watched the Alabama game. We both woke up at around 8pm.

Kinsley seeing her room for the first time!

When she first saw her room she immediately started gathering all of her dolls up! She was so excited!! She lined them all up and then she started playing with everything else! It was so sweet to see her reaction to everything. Even though she was so tired, she still wanted to play!

We arrived home with a big bow (From Charles and Lila, Andrew & Adam McCombes) and balloons on the mailbox and signs posted for us by Wayne's brother Lewis and Rhonda along with food for us to eat!

Ride home from Huntsville

Low Low (maw maw) had brought her some chocolate chip cookies. You can see what is left of them on her mouth. We had wondered how she would do with her first time in a car seat. They don't use car seats in China (we had an awful time with her wearing the seat belt on the plane rides). She cried hard at first then she did OK. She fell asleep on the way home - so exhausted.

Meeting family

Meeting her "yeah yeah & Low Low" Chinese pronunciation for paw paw and maw maw. She loved them!

Arrival in Huntsville!!!

We had several people to greet us there! Wayne's Brother-James and Anna Hairell, His Cousin Doris Jean, My parents and also my neice Hannah. We were so excited to be home - she even had gifts!! She loves this "American Girl Bitty Baby" doll from her cousins Doris Jean & Larry Morphew, Jennifer and Beth!! And her Low Low (maw maw) brought her one of her favorites~A banana!!

Atlanta Airport

Another lay-over in Atlanta. She really did better than we both expected on this trip. She watched some of "lady and the tramp" on our laptop while we waited.

Plane ride to Atlanta

The 4 hour plane ride to Atlanta we let her watch Dora on my ipod. She loved it!! Later, she slept a little.

In LA airport

In LA we found our gate number and had several hours to wait. She played for a while, we were all so exhausted and took a short nap.

From China to LA

The long plane ride from China to LA (about 12 hours). We just did our best to keep her occupied. She had her ups and downs. She wanted me to stand and hold her or walk the isles with her but I can't obviously do it for 12 hours so she cried and cried when we sat down. Everyone else on the plane probably wished I would stand and hold her too, because they were all staring. I kept asking Wayne "so how much longer do we have?" We finally made it but it was rough!!

Backing up to the day we left China!

Our last breakfast at the Swan Hotel! We will be leaving later tonight!

We made it home safely!!

It was a long long 26 hours!!! From the time we left until the time we arrived in Huntsville AL was about 26 hours. Then an hour's drive home from there. We were all exhausted! None of us got very much sleep (I only got about 2 hours of broken sleep). One of our luggage bags did not make it to Huntsville. It was sent to Columbus GA. That is the bag that has all of my chargers and cords in it - to my camera, ipod, phone, etc. So I can't post pictures until we get it back. We should get it back sometime today (I hope). They are going to deliver it to our front door! We are so glad we don't have to make a trip back to the airport to get it.