First Words!

Aslan. Our cat.  They have become best buddies and she clearly said, "Aslan" today and pointed at him (it sounded more like "aswan"). She repeated it a few times.

We are still upside down on our sleep. Teagan wakes up every day at 2 am. Today, I made some progress and got her back to sleep from 6-10 am. We will skip the pm nap and hopefully have a longer sleep tonight.  It does not matter if you put her to sleep at 10 pm, or 7 pm. She wakes up at 2 am, wide awake. It's been a rough week.


We are trying to get her in the sun as much as possible which can help reset your body's clock. Took a walk to Lake Harriet today.

Had a snack at the LH Bandshell - strawberry ice cream (Teagan) and "Tacos in a Bag" (Catherine). This is the last day Catherine will be 6. Tomorrow is the big 7!

Then looked at the ducks.

We're Home!

We are home!!!  And, what a great homecoming we had!

First, we were greeted at the airport by Betsy and family. Dahlia and Catherine fell on the ground hugging each other, and we even got hugs from Camille!


We came home and the first thing we saw was this great sign on our house, and balloons welcoming us home.There was a cake, flowers and a gift for big sister Catherine from our next door neighbors, dinner, wine, and groceries. 

Are we lucky or what for these great people in our lives?


These are the neighborhood girls who worked on the sign and decorations and even our yard!!!  THANK YOU GIRLS!!!!

 Here we are getting out of the car seeing our friends. Love the group hug for the girls.

 And the looking into the car at Teagan!

I'll post some more photos of Teagan in all this later:) She did pretty well after she got used to all the attention and love.  She even cracked a smile and laughed. We are all pretty jet lagged. We all crashed at 8:30 pm. But, Teagan was up from 1230 am to 3:00 am. At one point, Aslan who has missed me a lot wanted to be in the bed with me, Teagan wanted to be in the bed, and neither wanted to be in the bed with the other. There was a lot of screaming and meowing. Good times.


Took a walk to the lake today - girls in the stroller. Teagan fed Catherine and both of us Cheerios from her cup the whole time. Until she fell asleep on Catherine's shoulder.


Here is our family of 4 hand sign:)

Last Step the Oath and The Red Couch

 

Today was a BIG day. We did the red couch and took the oath. Not sure which is bigger. LOL!

The Red Couch is Famous at the White Swan! Above are  Natalie and Catherine getting ready in our room for the photo shoot! Catherine is going to miss Natalie, a lot. She cried today when some of our group left and mentioned Natalie.

Big Sisters - Catherine, Bailey, Erin and Natalie waiting for the red couch.

In front of the favorite Birds' Cage

 

Bailey and Cat in front of the bird cage. Bailey gave Cat a going away gift today - a good luck coin with a ladybug. We will truly miss this family.

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Family of Four!

Babies getting on the couch. Teagan is in-between  her good friends Keenan (edge of couch) and Noah and under Angel's Home friends - Suhn and Grace.

Notice here the movement of Keenan on the left of the couch to a standing and Teagan turning to see why Noah is crying.

Last, we have Group 1591's photo. A HUGE Group! We took the oath together at the US Consulate later in the aftenoon. You take the oath on your child's behalf. Teagan will be an official US citizen when we land in the US on Sunday. The US Consulate is in a different place than it was for Cat's oath. It was a much nicer space.

We leave Guangzhou tomorrow morning and off to Hong Kong. We will say good bye to the rest of our group tomorrow morning. It's going to be hard to say good bye again.When we land on Sunday, we will have been in China 3.5 weeks.  We are ready to come home!

Four more days!

A little yesterday with some clouds (photo courtesy of Catherine).

Had a slow day yesterday. Teagan still seems to be sleepy and fussy a lot more since the vaccinations. A lot of parents whose children had to get them are saying this. Not all children are under the Hague process, so some children did not get any vaccinations. We took her to the clinic because she continued to pull on her ear. They said she was fine - just wax.

We got our VISA for Teagan!!!! One more step - the oath today, and we are done with paperwork in China. There is a 6 month follow-up at home. We had to wait in the room until 1130 to be notified that our visa was approved. At which point, Teagan fell asleep.  And slept for 4 hours.

 Yes, we took photos at the pool! After witnessing a very large man from another adoption group boldly take photos with a large camera and video set, we were emboldened. It seems like others were as well, as I saw no less than 5 people out with cameras yesterday.

Teagan started with her stacking cups - which are like socks by the way. Where do they go? How do you lose one at a time?

Catherine dived and swam around in the larger pool that is connected to the kiddy pool. in fact you can swim under a bridge to the two of them.

After stacking cups, Tegan wanted to float on her back.

 Then it was off to climb the same two steps. 150 times.

Teagan took a rest with Jason, while Catherine and I took a trip to the waterfall.

We had a dinner cruise on the Pearl River last night. Here is the trip there.

And inside the boat.

And later outside on the deck.

Watching the birds

Message from Michelle:

This is teagan and catherine in th hotel lobby and watching the birds. Teagan likes to scream everytime the birds sing....happy screaming.

Five minutes or so. Mostly of her back unfortunately as I was following the girls around.

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