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She's Walking! She's Walking!!

Adriana surprised both of us last night by letting go of the back of Dan's recliner and took a couple of steps all on her own.  I was on the couch and couldn't see her and Dan was watching to see what she as up to when I heard his voice raise on octave or two and shouted "she's walking!"  By the time I turned around, she had fallen.  We took her into our bedroom where it's carpeted and sat about 6 feet away from one another.  She was taking about 3-5 steps each time before we'd catch her.  This is the first time she has done this without our help or trying to provoke her to walk.  Big, big milestone!  We are so happy.

 Her next doctor appointment is November 8th and I'll be excited to tell the doctor she is walking.  Also, we have a 6 month post placement visit by our social worker scheduled for Saturday, October 29th.  We'll be thrilled to tell her she is walking.  For those who don't know, China requires a 6 and 12 month post placement visit by a licensed social worker.  Other countries have stricter policies and some require visits until the children are 18 years old.  When we started the process almost 6 years ago, we signed a contract to comply with the post placement visits.  Most agencies have you sign a contract because they don't want to lose their standing with China and apparently China takes these reports very seriously.

Also, we are re-adopting Adriana in the U.S.  The adoption was finalized in China on May 16th, however it is strongly recommended to re-adopt in the U.S. as to lessen future problems with registering her in school, getting her driver's license, etc.  We found out that a home study has to be done within 2 months of the court date so we can use our post placement report.  We got a court date of November 21st for Adriana's re-adoption.  The court fees were nominal and we'll end up with an adoption decree and a WI birth certificate.  We can't wait for the 6 and 12 month post placements visits to be over with......then we'll be DONE!!!!

We'll try and take some pictures of her walking this weekend.  In the meantime, here are some pictures we took a couple of weeks ago before a Packer game.

Too big for the room?

Do you think the chair is too big for our living room?

Days of smiles.

Everything is progessing fine.  Adriana is walking around furniture and crawling everywhere.  She is fast.  You might as well not sit down because she can make it to another room in the house in 2 seconds flat!.  She is eating well and still sleeping through the night.  Her naps are more sporadic.  She mostly has two naps a day but sometimes only one. 

Adriana loves Kozmo.  She follows him around giving kisses and hugs.  Everything is good until she starts pulling his hair.  Sometimes I think Kozmo just wants to get away so he can have an undisturbed nap.

She loves bananas!  This morning she will have her rice cereal with bananas.  She only gets a bottle twice a day and uses her sippy cup for drinking throughout the day.

Yesterday she was dressed in her game day packer outfit. 

We see her progressing every day.  She is a happy baby and her day is full of smiles.

Getting ready for our walk in my Giraffe Coat!

Thanks Aunt Marn!

Summer's Over? I've just started!

One week from playing the Bears.  We are ready!

Supporting our Wisconsin Badger Team

Adriana

Below you can see her first try at bannana cream pudding.  I think she liked it!

ADRIANA AND HER FURRY FRIEND

Another First

Just happened.......I'm on the couch and Adriana is crawling around on the floor beneath me. I start seeing her head peek up and the next thing I know is she pulled herself up and is standing in front of me.  In fact, she is still standing up, hanging onto the couch.  Dan missed it even though he is four feet away from us.  Yeah!!!!!!!!!!

Here Comes Adriana

Adriana LOVES dogs.  We take her and Kozmo for two walks a day and when she sees another dog on our walk, she gets all excited and shouts "Ehhhhhhhhhh, Ehhhhhhhh, Ehhhhhhhhh!"  Then her arms start waving at the dog.  She startled an older gentleman that was outside weeding and shouted at him.   He just started laughing.  One house has a fake deer in it's front yard and she shouts at the deer.   We took her to the Racine County Zoo and she shouted at the penguins and mountain goats.  She absolutely adores Kozmo and always smiles and waves at him when she wakes up from her nap.  She was pretty loud in grocery store the other day, shouting at about a dozen people.  Everyone that I saw took her shouting well and most said to her, "Oh yeah?'  Then they say how cute she is. 

She is now crawling around and even trying to stand up on her own from a sitting position.  She's a ways a way from walking on her own but still enjoys when we walk with her.  She's really fast with her army crawl across the floors and when she heads for an object we don't want her near, we say no, she turns and looks at us, and then crawls faster towards it.  It kind of funny to see her character shine through.

When she had her shots last week, the nurse said she could develop a fever in 7-10 days from one of the shots.  Well, she's been crying since 2:30 am and has a fever so she is very fussy today.  She is crying on and off but still eating pretty good.  She only slept for 35 minutes this morning and woke up crying.  I brought her over to Kozmo, she stopped crying and just wanted to pet him.  She's an animal lover just like her momma.

12 Month Doctor Visit

Adriana went to the doctor yesterday and did great.  She got two shots and cried for about a minute and then stopped but had big tears rolling down her face.  I felt so bad for her because she did so good at the appointment and then those dreaded shots at the end to ruin her good experience.  Anyways, the doctor is happy with her progress.  Adriana should be saying about five words by now and trying to crawl up onto furniture.  We have some things to work on and we are continuously walking with her several times a day.  She actually is happiest when we walk together.  She gets all excited and her feet bounce up and down when it's time to walk.  She is 19 pounds, only up .9 pounds since her last appointment.  This puts in her in the 15% for weight (American charts).  This means 85% of kids her age weigh more.  Her length is 29".  She is in the 43% so 57% of kids are taller than her.  So height is close to average but she is low in weight.  Her head size is average.  Everything is good and the doctor is great, a really down to earth lady.  I can't tell you how important it is to have a nice, easy going doctor, who takes their time and listens.  Next appointment is in three months.

 As you can see above, "I love chocolate chip cookies!"

Happy 1st Birthday!

I need to run out to the store.  Can't believe all of the AA batteries we need for toys.  At least there was no major assembly required on anything.

Another tooth!

Adriana was a little cranky yesterday so we did a tooth check and sure enough she has another tooth coming in on top.  That will make it 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom.

Adriana still loves to roll around on the floor.  She aims her rolls to get where she wants to go.  We have tried putting her in the crawling position but she wants nothing to do with it and simply rolls over.

Adriana is still eating good.  We can't wait till her next doctor appointment and we get the ok to stop giving her formula.  We haven't introduced allot of different foods but I think her favorite is asparagus.  I think she might also be getting tired of cheerios.  She doesn't eat them with as much enthusiasm as she once did.

Happy 4th!

Peanut Butter! mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Well a new study from Europe came out recommending that you give your baby's food like peanuts, milk...  It used to be that you don't give your child some of these things until they are 2 years old due to allergies.  Now they say that if you wait until two they might develope more allergies.  Of course after you give them something like this you need to moniter them for any signs of a reaction.

Yes the first thing we had Adriana try was peanut butter.  And what better thing to put peanut butter on you ask?  Yes a cheerio.  You could see the initial look on her face trying to figure out what it was and if she liked it.  After she ate it she just said mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm and looked wide eyed for another.   No allergic reaction. 

It's Officially Official

Adriana just received her Certificate of Citizenship from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.  It was official when we landed in Chicago on 5/27/11 but now we have the certificate and can apply for a social security card and can start re-adoption proceedings in the State of Wisconsin which is highly recommended.  If we don't re-adopt, it could cause problems later on down the line as far as school registration and such.  It's a very nice certificate with a gold seal.  Her photo is somewhat like a mug shot, still cute though.

Seems like a long time ago

Funny how it seems like being in China was such a long time ago.  Here is a picture while in line for the medical examination.

If you double click on this picture you can see it better.  This is an entrance to a restaurant where you pick your dinner out of a tank and then they cook it.  They had eels and all kinds of squirmy things.  We just walked past this one and went to a French restaurant.