The Next Journey

It has been a long time since I posted - life has been so amazing and busy with Linh. I finally decided to revisit the blog so that I can record this new chapter in our lives.  I just checked Holt's website, and its official. Our dossier was officially logged into China on 10/11/2012. Yes, that's right, we are adopting a child from China. We are very excited. Linh is looking forward to being a big sister.  We applied a year ago to the China Child of Promise program with Holt. It took a while to compile our paperwork for homestudy. Mostly because the holidays were right after we applied. Then the dossier was a bit more involved. We had one document rejected by the Chinese consulate, which meant that we had to go back to my doctor for a new notarized letter, have it state certified and then sent again to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. And we had to hire a courier to bring two documents to the Chinese Embassy in New York. Those were John's birth certificate and my employment letter. My employment letter also needed county certification after the notarization and before state certification. I am so relieved to have the dossier completed.  

I do know that every step was so worth it. A year from now, I will probably have forgotten how frustrated I was when I received the call that our document was rejected. Maybe. Maybe not. But a year from now, maybe we will be preparing to travel to bring Linh's little sister home.   Or maybe Linh's little sister will already be home.

It was March 9, 2009

Six months ago today we met this tiny little angel for the first time.

She has brought us so much joy- more than John and I ever even imagined. Linh is such a sweet and happy girl. She is the best gift in the world.

Look at her today. Our sweet little baby is now an adorable toddler.

So soon?

I know its amazing. A second post in 2 days. I was looking through some more pictures of Linh to bring to work and found some more cute ones to share. Ok, who am I kidding? They are all cute. However, it would take a lot of computer time to upload all 663 pics to the blog, so since I'm filtering through, I picked some particularly adorable pics. I'm also working on uploading a cute video, but so far I'm having technical difficulties. Be warned, I may have ANOTHER post later in the week if we are able to work through the technical problems.

Until then, enjoy-

Isn't she the cutest duck you've ever seen?

The best sound - her laughing

Sweet Linh

Linh and Rudi

Good friends - Linh kissing Rudi

End of July already

Wow! Time flies. Linh is doing wonderful. I feel like I say it all the time- but she really is so much fun!

Here are some pics from the 4th of July weekend.

Playing at the park with Daddy-

Hanging out at the CityFest -














So this is a Slip N Slide-

Has it really been 3 months?

It seems like yesterday that we stepped thru the doors at Metro airport carrying our very exhausted little girl. Yet Thursday marked 3 months home. During this time Linh has become very comfortable in her home and even more comfortable with us. It seems as though she has always been here. She is such a happy and fun little girl.

In the past 3 months- she has become much steadier on her feet. She has settled into a good sleep routine. She is comfortable with Rudi and Chico- she even gives them kisses and helps to put the food in their bowls. She has grown taller and at 20 months old, her size 12 month pants are finally starting to look a bit short. Sometimes she will let us know if she doesn't want to wear a particular shirt. Who knew it would start so young? She also likes to try on my shoes and walk around the house. Her bangs are growing and she is finally willing to allow me to put her hair back in tiny pony tails. She is comfortable taking baths, however washing her hair is still not a favorite of hers. She went swimming for the first time on Father's Day in her kiddie pool and really seemed to enjoy it. She likes to brush her teeth. Whenever she sees us brush- she wants to brush too. She is now going to school 3 days a week and brings home art projects everyday. Painting is a favorite. She is "talking" all the time. She understands a good amount of what we say and she says many words that are understandable- mama, dada, ball, cup, cat, car, bowl, bubbles, go, gogurt, cookie, cheers, hi, bye bye, Emma, and no. Some of the words are pronounced clearer than others but we can recognize them all. A couple of weeks ago "no" was her favorite word all weekend. Thankfully, I think Emma is her favorite word now. Emma is her cousin that she saw the last two weekends. She generally drinks out of a sippy cup now except for her bedtime bottles. She uses spoons and forks- sometimes it means putting the food on her spoon/fork with her fingers and then putting in her mouth. That is amusing to watch. She made it through her first long car ride- a 3 hour (each way)trip to see my sister. Hopefully next time there will be less construction. Thank goodness Grammie was with us to help Linh get through the last 2 hours home. She hugs with and without us asking. She gives John and I kisses with or without us asking. She laughs a lot and it is the sweetest sound! Six teeth have popped through since we have been home and she got through it like a champ.

Certificate of Citizenship

Today we received Linh's certificate of citizenship. This is the legal document which states that Linh became a citizen of the United States the day we landed in the U.S.A. Yay!

Linh is doing well after being home for 4 1/2 weeks. She has been sleeping thru the night the last couple of weeks. It took some time for her to get over the jet lag and then adjusting to her new environment. She takes 2 hour naps without any problem. She eats most foods but she does not seem to care for the American child standard mac & cheese, or cupcakes. We are not disappointed that those are foods she dislikes- I would rather her continue to like her fruits and vegetables. She has gained 1 1/2 pounds since she has been home, so we're definitely feeding her enough. She is perfectly comfortable at our house. She says mama (not always, but I hear it), dada, wow, ow, and yum. She understands quite a bit of what we are saying and she babbles a lot. We play music in the house a lot of the day- she loves to dance to it. Her attention span has grown a bit and I am usually able to read a very, very short book to her without her flipping thru to look at the pictures. She has started to scribble with crayons. She is trying very hard to use a spoon and fork. About 90% of the time, she manages to bring the fork/spoon to her mouth with the food still on it. The other 10% lands somewhere else :) This is a huge improvement since we have been home. We still need to work on scooping up the food with the utensil. Some foods are obviously easier (yogurt and applesauce) but she'll get there eventually. I'm not in a hurry, but she gets upset if she doesn't get to feed herself some of the meal.
Overall, I think she is doing fantastic. We are so happy! Her hugs and now sometimes her kisses (only to mommy) are so sweet. She has such an easy going personality.

Here are some pics-
Easter Sunday- she was so anxious to get at the basket of eggs at Grammie's















At home Easter Saturday -















Not sure why but kids love to swiffer- so I
tried it with Linh and she swiffered the entire
house.















Playing inside one cold Michigan day in April-















Practicing eating breakfast on her own-

We are home!

We arrived home Wednesday afternoon after nearly 28 hours of travel. We left our hotel at 8:30pm Tuesday (Hanoi time) for one last taxi ride to the airport. Our first flight was 4 hours (from Hanoi to Seoul). Linh cried almost the entire first hour of the flight. Thankfully flight was not full and we were able to spread out in to a couple of row. We were finally able to get Linh to sleep and placed her on a couple of seats. She was still sleeping when the plane landed. During our 5 hour layover in Korea, Linh slept another 2 1/2 hours at the gate. John and I tried to rest because we knew we were in for a 12 1/2 hour flight with a sleepy 17 month old. Overall she did good on the flight. We sat in the bulkhead seats with a bassinet. We did not have a seat for Linh - after a lot of debating we decided against the extra seat. Since she was under 2 we were not required to buy a seat for her. As it turned out, the bassinet was a better way to go for us. The first flight Linh was sprawled out over 2 seats, so even if we had purchased one for the long flight she would have been squished. She was able to stretch out somewhat in the bassinet and sleep. Only her little feet were hanging over the sides. It was adorable. She was awake the first 3 hours and played and ate a lot of Cheerios. Then she fell asleep and we placed her into bassinet. John and I quietly clapped our hands. The sweet woman across the aisle also clapped her hands. Linh slept 3 hours during which time we tried to sleep. Then she was up another 3 hours, then she slept the last 3 1/2 hours of the flight. She barely cried- we worked to keep her occupied with toys, bottles, walking around, books, crayons - anything we could think of for her. We were so relieved to hear the captain announce we were preparing to land in Chicago. Once in Chicago, we went thru the immigration process. We submitted the paperwork that we had guarded since receiving at the US Embassy in Vietnam. The immigration officer looked it over then congratulated us and indicated that Linh's Certificate of Citizenship would arrive in the mail. She is now a U.S. citizen. We then picked up our luggage and went thru customs. We rechecked luggage and then went to gate to wait for the 45 minute flight to Detroit. We met a couple at the gate that had been on our flight from Korea. They told us that Linh did very good on the long flight. It was nice to hear that other passengers noticed. We finally boarded our final flight. Linh was immediately taken by the man next to me. He was very friendly and entertained Linh. He has 3 young grandchildren and was perfectly happy to sit next to a squirmy child. He was full of questions about Linh and Vietnam in 2009. He served in the airforce during the Vietnam War and was stationed for 7 months in Saigon (nka Ho Chi Minh). He helped to get her to sleep the last 20 minutes of flight. Thank you kind man!


After 28 hours of travel, then sitting in a car seat for the first time in her life during rush hour traffic through downtown Detroit, touring her new home, being greeted with hugs and kisses by family, what else could a 17 month little girl do but fall asleep on mommy's lap while sitting at the table?