Guangzhou!

It's finally done! We've been to Guangzhou where we raised our right hand and swore to love and protect our little Halle and got her visa and got to have a nice warm vacation all at the same time! It was so overwhelming and yet so amazing to meet so many families who were in guangzhou adopting at the same time as us and so very cool to raise our right hand with about 30 other families and take our oath together! Uncle Josh was with us to celebrate Christmas in Guangzhou the first few days and Dave's parents joined us for the entire time. We enjoyed wonderful food like Subway, Starbucks, and Italian restaurants! It was sad to say good bye to Guangzhou but it's also nice to be back home getting back into a routine! So thankful our paperwork is done and Halle is part of our family forever!

The first two weeks!

wow, is it easy to fall behind in posting stuff on your blog when you have 4 kids!!! Well I must say so many times I look at Halle and think "wow, i can't believe we finally have her!" it just blows my mind! Since having Halle we've decorated our Christmas tree which she adored doing!, decorated uncle josh's semi-christmas tree which she also loved doing, she's been introduced at church and likes Sunday School, is finally used to our cats and doesn't cry every time she sees them, and last night she finally slept through the night! (she likes to wake up like 4 times a night to check on dave and i). we're hoping this trend continues and she'll continue to feel nice and secure. We got our Christmas card pictures taken and they came out pretty well. She has this lovely habit of smiling really really big when we say "cheese!" Min Hao has his first loose tooth which he is ecstatic about and shows us all the time, and overall Marissa and DJ are doing a wonderful job transitioning. There are of course difficulties and the occasional "i don't like her anymore!" towards Halle. Thankfully she doesn't understand it yet :) We're all really looking forward to grandma and grandpa coming at Christmas and counting down the days until break! We continue to feel so blessed by adoption. Our little Halle is so sweet, funny, smart, and all we could've asked for. We are blessed beyond measure!