**Three years ago today, February 5, 2012, our whole family met our Li’l Bit in Guizhou, China. I can’t believe it has been 3 YEARS! Here is another post I had on my original blog. Too many precious pictures to not post this one too. If you missed part 1 recap, it is HERE.**

OH.MY.WORD.

God is so great!!!

I was admittedly worried this little girl would be so overwhelmed with all of us. I mean we are quite the crew here.

But no. She marched around confidently taking us all in, and she just kept going back and forth.

I have to say Mo was the one who really got her to open up to us. He kept playing with her and pretending to talk to her on her little cell phone.

She even laughed before we ever left the govt. offices. She was rared back on one of the couches and the Prez started making those noises when you stick your tongue out you know? I hope y’all get what I’m saying. I told him though it might not be so cute eventually, but she was copying him and all the other children were doing it … and she was laughing big belly laughs! It was hilarious!

Li’l Miss is beside herself with her big sisterness. She is doing SO WELL. Thank you for the prayers for her! Sallie seems to be very curious about her so that is great.

As I type, our Li’l Bit is still sleeping. I was so sad for her as she was crying last night. Um … forget the crib, she wants to co-sleep. Fine with us. Of course you know what that meant? Yeah, a certain Li’l Miss was in our bed too. 🙂 Grammy was right on that one. We have two adjoining rooms and the boys are all in the other room with a roll-away as well as two beds. They take turns sharing with Li’l Dude. He does roll around a lot!

I didn’t get any sleeping pics as we all literally fell into bed and didn’t wake up until this morning.

The Prez had the bright idea to push our two beds together and it works perfectly because we don’t have to worry about her rolling off. And Li’l Miss and Li’l Bit were cuddled up most of the night. It was very sweet indeed!

I just cannot even convey how well she has done. She has clearly been loved. Oh my goodness. THANK YOU Love Without Boundaries and your sponsors!!! Our Sallie received foster care and heart surgery through your generous support!!! It just means the world to us and truly made a life-changing difference in this little girl’s life.

After we finally got back to the room, I began the task of taking off all of the layers. I know it best to leave them in their clothes for a while and would have tried that, but she was soaking wet. Soon after we met her, the guide asked if we had any diapers and change of clothing. I felt like a terrible Mom, but we had misunderstood the guide to say we would be there only a short time to get the children and go back tomorrow (which is now today) and do the paperwork and fees. Instead we did all of the paperwork including the adoption yesterday. All of the families seemed surprised by it. I wished I had come more prepared with a change of clothes but she at least didn’t seem bothered by it. She had on a lot of layers. She has not shown any interest in the potty including a squatty potty so we are using diapers. She is not quite 2 and it will be good for bonding and much easier in the hospital if she is not potty-trained. I guess she was in the process of training because she was wearing split pants.

I had been following some other families in this province and I somehow missed the details on the long process at adoption day. As I said yesterday, we were there nearly 4 hours and it was late in the day, so it was 8 p.m. before we got back to our room. I don’t know if the holiday (it is still Chinese New Year which ends with the Lantern Festival on Feb. 6–today) has anything to do with it? I got in a bit of trouble with our guide for asking how much longer and questioning why we had to post date some forms. We have never done that with the other adoptions and I still find it a bit odd but we didn’t need time to decide if we wanted her. Still a bit odd. Oh well. I will apologize this morning to her. It is easy to offend here and that was certainly not my intent.

Well, I am going to have to get ready soon and help with our girls. So amazing to type that!!! Oh, they wore matching jammies and both of them thought it was so fun!

About Sallie’s health, she has a bit of a cold but not bad at all. I have tried unsuccessfully to get a good reading on her oxygenation. Her fingers are clubbed but not bad at all. She has a bluish color to her lips but nothing like our Li’l Miss had. They told us she has not needed to go to the hospital or be on oxygen. She does not seem to lack for energy so that is a great sign! She is B-U-S-Y!!!

After our room service got here, she marched right over to the plate of fried rice and pointed to it. She is NOT shy, which is so great since she is the little caboose in a family with 6 children! She is not going to have any trouble making her place in the family I don’t think. She is just so confident and I know the support of a loving foster family and excellent nutrition and so much more has helped her get to this place already even without a forever family until now!

WE feel INCREDIBLY blessed God has given us this precious gift of a second daughter from China! I don’t think I’ve ever shared here that our Sallie is named after my Granny, who is one of the most special people in my life. She would have loved all of these great-grandchildren so much and would be so humbled that we named our daughter after her. If you wonder about the IE spelling on the end, that was the way my Granny’s name was spelled and we really like it since my name ends in IE too. We kept her first and second Chinese names as her middle name.

They called her Shan Shan and we are using that and Sallie as well. Oh my goodness. She is a little parrot. Mo has been teaching her names of all of her grandparents and she says them all!!! It is hilarious! She laughs when she is saying all of this. She is also saying all of the boys’ names. She will repeat him and still says, “Say J____.” It is just hilarious. She also can say Sallie and will point to herself!

SHE HAS DADDY TOTALLY WRAPPED ALREADY!!!

Someone asked if Larry is speaking to her in Mandarin and he is!!! He loves her too and he quickly did that on his own and I think it definitely helped her to open up to us. (He has been helping us with Mandarin too. I think meeting with China Mommy again just led him to a place where he had to process his feelings. I am glad he knows he can say whatever he is feeling at the moment and we will still love him unconditionally.) We are so proud of all of our other children. They have done so well today and on the trip! Yes there have been many moments and as I type, Daddy has walked down to the market to buy some bread and Li’l Miss is riding in the carrier (she also used the baby bath tub) … but we expected her to regress some. On that note, we didn’t expect Li’l Dude to regress because he is just so laid back, but he has needed some extra attention too. He is still our “baby boy” and he likes hearing this often! 🙂

What more can I say? We are hopelessly in love with our baby girl! She seems like a perfect fit and we are just overjoyed at how healthy she seems to be right now and are so hopeful our Lord will completely heal her heart. We have confirmed her heart is definitely dextrocardia (meaning on the wrong side) as her file stated. This does complicate surgery, but she has had one successful surgery (thanks to LWB!) and we are confident in the Lord’s ability to orchestrate another or to bring about healing supernaturally. It can happen!

I will go back and add in some more photos (excuse the randomness; they are all out of order). I had two videographers as well (Larry and Curly), but the internet is hard to get video downloaded. I will try again later. We have to be downstairs in a little over two hours and we are a long way from ready, so I better add in some photos and get going or the Prez might take away my MAC!