6 months with Claire

 This week marked a very special milestone for our family, it was our 6 month anniversary of adopting Claire!!!

The time has flown by- sometimes it feels like we were just in China (or at least just a few months ago, definitely not 6!), but other times it feels like Claire has been in our family forever!  Just the way it should be.

 She is such a silly goose-she has so much personality!  She has come so far from when we first met her.  She was so timid and scared to try new things.  Now she loves to do pretty much everything and is getting much better with meeting new people!  Hardly any timidity left (is that a word??)  Sometimes is unsure around new people (which is a great thing, that means she is attaching well to us) but is usually so friendly with everyone.

 She loves to play with her brothers and can totally keep up with them, and loves to color, play with her Mickey and Minnie toys, her baby dolls and her toy kitchen.  She is starting to enjoy reading more.  When she first came home she wouldn't sit for even a second and look at a book.   Now she'll sit and read a few at a time!  Her favorite thing to do is watch Mickey Mouse.  Which is so funny because she didn't have any interest in TV at all when she first came home!

 She is learning so many new things-she understands pretty much anything you say and can follow directions well.  She says quite a few words but her articulation is pretty poor due to her cleft lip-she just didn't get to use those upper lip muscles for almost 2 years of her life!  So now she's in speech and we're working on her articulation.  She tries so hard and is making progress! 

 She loves her family, loves to give hugs and kisses, and loves to do anything her brothers are doing.  We are so blessed to have her in our lives! We love you Claire Bear!!!

Claire's Baptism!

 

The day after Claire's birthday was another wonderful day...we had Claire baptized!  I tried to get a photo of her outside our beautiful church but it was so bright, this was the best we could get. :)  She is wearing the baptism dress that we bought her in China.

 Waiting for church to start.  Look at that little smile.

 Some of our family waiting for church to begin!

 My parents took a few photos of the actual ceremony.

 I love this, my sister Laura wanted to hold Claire and she agreed!  She loves her auntie!

 Our family with the Pastor.

 After the ceremony we of course had to take a bunch of photos!

Claire with her Godparents.

 All of the cousins.

 Our beautiful Claire Bear.

 Claire and her Grandparents.

 Our family.   It was so special to have her baptized-we love her so much!

How She's Doing

We are now almost three weeks post surgery-it's gone so fast! 

 

Here she is the day after her surgery.

 

 Then a few days later ( on mine and my sisters' birthday dinner at Cheesecake factory! :))

 Then a day later...

 a few days after that...

 and this was taken 2 weeks and a day post surgery.  (LOVE her smile in this one! )

 She has progressively gotten less swollen, although her upper lip is still a bit swollen.

 The scar is barely noticeable!!!  It is just amazing what her surgeon did.  We loved him!

 She didn't smile for a few days, and then after that it was just a little smile with mostly her bottom lip.  I'm sure her lip felt so weird to her at first!

 Now she's giving us much bigger smiles, I think she's getting used to her new lip!

 We had a few nights that she woke up quite a few times-Ryan and I took turns sleeping in her room for about a week post surgery.  But she gradually got back to normal.  Her hardest part I think was the recovery from her nose-it got very clogged and it was our job to try to keep it clean.  But she had just had surgery on it so I didn't want to be rough or anything!  Stressful! Luckily now it's pretty close to normal, still a bit more healing to do but it's MUCH better than where we were almost 3 weeks ago.

 She has just recently started giving kisses with her new lips again!  She loved to give kisses before her surgery but post surgery she'd give us her cheek when we'd ask for a kiss.  I'm so glad she's feeling more comfortable using these cute little lips!

Her surgery went so smoothly, it was truly an answer to all of our prayers.    Her next surgery won't have to be until she's around 8-to correct her gum line, thank goodness!!!We are so grateful and can't wait to just get into a normal routine with our girl!!

Claire's Surgery

I can't believe it's already been 2 weeks since Claire's surgery!  I wanted th o finally post pictures from it because she already looks so different from these photos.

 

Oh it makes my heart hurt seeing this smile, I miss this smile! 

 

She has a beautiful smile now too, but I will always love this smile.

We got to the hospital with plenty of time to spare, so we spent some time playing before the surgery.

We were trying to keep her mind off the fact that she couldn't have anything to eat or drink!

Look at this precious face!

Oops, these are out of order.  We went to play in the play area before she had to get her gown on. 

She was so brave, had no problems  with any of the pre-surgery procedures!  She is just so brave.

Ok so here she is post surgery!  It was AMAZING how good she did.  The surgeon was just wonderful, we just loved him.  He (and the nurses of course!) took such good care of her.  When he came to get us in the waiting room he told us that the second they took the mask off of her, her eyes popped open!  So he said the anesthesiologist (who is a mom of four boys) carried her to the recovery room and was enjoying rocking her :).  I have to say, for a minute right when I saw her in recovery, I didn't even recognize her!  It was unbelievable how different she looked. 

 She is normally SO active and doesn't really enjoy being rocked or just sitting and relaxing, so it was a little piece of heaven for me to hold her in recovery.  She slept on me for close to 3 hours!!  We just rocked and rocked.  When she woke up she didn't have any problems-never cried or anything.  Just was thirsty and hungry!  The primary reason we had to stay at the hospital all day is that the surgeon likes to have his patients hooked up to IVs all day long because lots of times they won't drink anything the day after surgery.  Well, the second she was fully awake she gulped down an entire sippy cup, then wanted more!  She also went through all the baby food and snacks and brought, and we had to order her something from the cafeteria.  Like I said, she's a rock star!

 We had a few hours once she woke up of just waiting around to be cleared to go home, so we took her on a few walks around the hospital floor. 

 The photos are a little graphic, sorry if it's a little too much to see-she looked a lot better than I thought she would actually!  I was preparing myself for a lot more blood.

 A close up of our girl!

 

 

One last look at her beautiful smile.  Good thing we think her new smile is beautiful too! :)

She's a ROCK STAR!!!

Look at our little miss!  She is the bravest kid I know!  Yesterday went amazingly well.  I'll do a more detailed post later but I wanted to post these pics and tell you all thank you SO much for your prayers!  They definitely worked.  Today she was running around acting pretty much like normal, just so amazing.  You can tell her whole body's a little swollen and her upper lip is really swollen, and that will go away I think pretty soon.  Doesn't she look wonderful? 

 

We are so thankful for this little miracle! 

Tomorrow...

this little girl is going to have her life changed.  She is having her cleft lip repaired! 

 

It is very bitter-sweet for Ryan and me.  We know that this is a great opportunity for her and is something that she needs to help her communication (and socially when she's older I'm sure!)  But we love love LOVE her smile and are SO sad that it is going to change so much tomorrow.  Honestly it's hard to wrap our brains around it.  When I actually think about it my heart sinks, so I'm trying not to think about it. 

 We're just praying that everything goes smoothly tomorrow, and in the meantime we'll try to get every last smile we can out of this girl!  We love her so much!!!

 

Prayers would be very much appreciated tomorrow-her surgery is scheduled to start at 9:30a.m.  Thank you!!!

I Don't Stand a Chance!

 This picture doesn't have anything to do with this post but look at this cutie!! :)

So I had no idea what Claire's personality would be like but we are learning more and more about her every day.

One thing is for certain, she is a dare-devil!

 She's not scared of anything!

 We are teaching her safe boundaries every day.

 Can you tell?? :)  (unfortunately her brothers are teaching her all kinds of other things!)

 One thing is for certain...

 I don't stand a chance against these three crazies!

 And I just had to add this-we received this paperwork in the mail just a few weeks ago, and Claire happened to be wearing the same dress.  This photo was taken the day we officially adopted her, the second day we met her.

 What a difference 2 months makes!!!  She looks so much older already (and happier of course! :))