Introducing...Our Daughter!

No, she's not home yet!  :(  But I finally can post her picture on line, since we received our LOA!  I know most of you have already seen her picture, but for those of you who live far away...here she is!

 

Claire Wenxia Ann.  My friend Bekah has a friend from China, and she translated her name for us.  Wen-means culture

Xia-means dawn

 

 We think she's beautiful!!!!  In these first two pictures she's 11 months old.

 Here she's 14 months old.

 I just love her beautiful wide smile! 

These are the only pictures we have of her.  |They're up ALL over our house, pretty much anywhere you look, there she is! :)

She's now 18 months old.  I was hoping to have her home by now, but I know she'll be home in only a few more months!  We're getting closer and closer.  We are now waiting our our I800 paperwork to be sent to Washington, and then they'll cable it to China.  Then we have only one or two more steps..then travel approval! 


We sent her a care package through a person in China, and she sent us a photo of what it included.  I have been reading that it's good to send things that the majority of kids can enjoy, so I ordered a few books that they could keep at the orphanage.  Then the candy is for her caregivers.  The camera and film is so HOPEFULLY we get some photos of her, and then the little panda is for her to snuggle.  We also had her give Claire a photo book filled with pictures of us and the boys, and then we ordered a cake to be given to Claire, plus all the other children. 

The main thing I was looking forward to was receiving pictures of her eating her cake, and then we were able to ask 10 questions to include with the care package.  Talk about difficult-try picking just 10 questions to ask about your child!  Unfortunately the CCCWA (China's adoption welfare center) issued a new rule that the orphanages can only give updates to adoption agencies.  So we didn't get any pictures or questions answered. :(   I wish we had known because we would have asked for that a long time ago!  So we just requested it this week from our agency so I'm hoping we get an update with new pictures soon.  The woman we ordered the care package with was told that Claire did get the care package, and they took pictures of her enjoying her cake.  I can't wait to see them!

We then sent another care package this Friday ourselves.  It was so fun picking out stuff to send her! I tried to pick out a bunch of small toys for the orphanage to keep.  Then the two bags of candy are for the caregivers.  I had to label everything in Chinese.  I used Google translate but have no idea if it was right nor not!  It probably says something completely different than what I want it to say! :)

 Here's her lovey.  I have a second one for her that I'm going to bring with us to China.  I'm not sure if she'll even receive any of this stuff, but sometimes I think they receive it and don't bring it with them.  So I wanted to get 2 of everything that way I can bring it with us and hopefully she'll recognize it and it'll make her more comfortable with us.  I can hope anyway!

 This is a recordable book that we all read to her.  I have another one here at home.

 Then we sent a little photo book for her to see her family. 

I really hope she gets this before we travel to China!  I'll make sure to post new pictures once we get them!