Yearn for Surrender: Three weeks with T!!!

I can't believe that we have been with T for three weeks! Since she is under a year, three weeks a a very significant amount of time in her life. We have seen her blossom like crazy.

She loves her big brother. Even though she might think that his pet name for her is "STOP IT, T" she keeps right on loving him. She wants to do everything he does. Seriously, if he jumps she tries, if he pounds so does she. It is super cute to watch. Today she crawled into his lap. He is sweet to her quite often and calls her "sweet girl" which melts this mama's heart!

She loves to eat. She came to us eating (or drinking really) a rice cereal/formula combo four times a day. Now she is an eating machine. She didn't want to eat anything at first, but I tried a trick I learned with M and have been mixing fruits and veggies with her rice cereal (we bought way too much of it there) and she eats a lot! I started out often telling Brandon, "I think I made enough for two meals" but now I know she will eat all of it in one setting no matter what! Rice puffs have saved the day. She loves having her tray filled with puffed rice. It is purchased at an Asian market and is literally puffed rice (no other ingredients). She chows down on that stuff at every meal. Eating the puffed rice has helped stop the foot eating as well which is a nice added blessing. She drinks 3 bottles of Aunt Adrienne's milk each day and really enjoys that as well.

She loves music. She bounces to music and to books or phrases said in rhyme. So sweet and so much like big brother.

She is a SUPER sleeper. So different than big brother. Her little body clock seems to be adjusting very well to our timezone. We are so thankful to God for this!

She is content almost all the time. She is fine playing on the floor while M needs special cuddles. She is curious about all sorts of toys and it is fun to watch her figure things out or copy what she has seen us do.

She is not interested in strangers. We are cocooning, but we have had a couple of very short visits from people like our social worker. Whenever she meets someone new she wants to stay close to me and has no interest in engaging them. This is a great sign that she is learning more and more that we are her people.

She is a thrill seeker... or at least if feels that way to us. She would dive right off every couch, she would throw herself off the changing table, she would dunk herself in the tub, she would swim through the trash she dumps out of the garbage can etc if we let her. I have been a bit spoiled with Mr. Cautious and now I realize I have to watch her like a hawk. I have mom pockets once again. At the end of the day I empty my fleece jacket pockets and find tiny bits of wood, plastic, food etc that I have snatched out of her hand/mouth or picked off the floor before it can make it to her mouth.

We all had a pretty good day today. We continue to be weary. M has regressed quite a bit in the sleep department, and we would covet your prayers that some day soon he will be able to return to his old sleeping patterns. M has always slept at or below the minimum amount of time suggested for kids his age. He is averaging about 3 hours less a day since we got home than he was getting before we left. This hard transition for him is so much harder because of his lack of sleep. Thanks for your prayers.

We are feeling like our heads are getting above water in a few areas. Only a few nap times left and I will have the important and urgent projects that I didn't get done before travel done... whew! I ventured to Target today for the first time in a long time. I had not driven in over three weeks and not been in a car since riding home from the airport. It felt so good to be out with people again! I also cooked a big meal this evening as Brandon watched both kids. Cooking and Target are both sort of therapy for me. They soothe me, even if cooking yields many dirty dishes and the most fun thing I got at target was diapers.

We have a big week ahead of us with Ch!nese New Year tomorrow, T's first Dr. visit on Tuesday, Valentine's Day on Thursday, our first (not so) small group dinner with T on Friday and then T's first Birthday on Saturday! Many reasons to celebrate! Listing all of these things makes me remember that I wanted to get a "Baby's first Valentine's Day" shirt for T and a Birthday shirt as well. Typically I am not one to splurge on things like this, but in Intl adoption getting to celebrate the actual first of any holiday is a Big Deal! Hopefully all these special clothes will yield some great photo blogging throughout the week!

Now... it is time for the photos :)

The only photo we took of T in her "Grandma's cupcake" shirt so grands and greats enjoy :) Also, before having a daughter I never would have guessed that these pants would be her most practical pair... they match almost everything in her wardrobe!

Such a sweet girl!

She and M both love clothing hats on the changing table.

Check out my puffed rice beard and hand. T is hilarious when she gets these stuck on her upper lip. She keeps licking until she gets it off!

M has been taking lots of photos lately. Here is one that is not blurry and we are both in it!

M took this one as I was trying to convince him to trade me his camera for mine.

We had a big snow here and T is not super thrilled to be getting ready to go outdoors.

Classic baby in a big snowsuit photo. Check out photos from M's first snow adventure Click Here

Not super excited mom!

Heart melting.

Aww, M likes it a lot more now than two years ago!

Such a big guy!

Future Golf Pro?

Beautiful son, beautiful snowy day!

More basement fun!

"Nice to meet you" today at lunch... M loves the hand shake game

Happy girl

Big helper washing T's face

M in "cozy clothes" during T's nap. M wears two piece PJ's to bed at night and "cozy clothes" or footie PJ's during the day when he want to be cozy.

Mommy and M time during nap

T wants to be just like M!

M pretending we are on a boat pulled by a truck/firetruck in the "Fish Parade." He is throwing out candy of course.

Because parades are loud!

I DON'T LIKE SHARING!

T is very sad that M does not like to share.

Eventually he shares... "Hey, I can't get these things on."

Here sweet girl, I will help you!

Thrilled with her protective ear gear!

T crawled into M's lap. This is the best photo we got. Someone (possibly a little man who likes to steal cameras) turned the camera setting to take photos very slowly. That is why she is almost out of the lap by the time this photo was taken and why all the photos above are taken about 5 seconds after the perfect moment... oh well!