A huge THANK YOU to....

.....my good friend and DTC buddy for both adoptions, Marla! I got an envelope addressed to The Proctor Cuties the other day with her return address. Wondering what could be inside I riped it open on the way back from the mail box. Inside was a little note and barrettes for both girls with their names on them. This is not the first time we've gotten a little unexpected gift from Marla. I have been wanting to send something for some time to her brood and I have just the thing for her girls but I need to think of something for her boys to send. So, thank you my friend. I look forward to watching your children grow up even from here in Kentucky. I Love Ya, girl!!!!! I will post some pics tonight.

Speech and hearing update

Hearing - Today I took Sophia for a hearing test. Yes, I know she had one in China (LOL) but with her speech delays they wanted to check and make sure she is hearing okay. She passed with flying colors. So I asked the doctor when I clap my hands behind her head and she does nothing that means she is just ignoring me, right? And his answer was YES! Oh boy am I in for it.

Speech - We met with Sophia's therapist last week and we discussed our plan for getting her to talk and her therapy sessions. We are going to start therapy on October 3rd and continue with it once a week until our (the therapist and our) goals for Sophia are met. The first 3 weeks are going to be hard because Olivia is taking Chinese class and they start at 6:30 with therapy being over at 5:00.

Then and now photos

Last night I played around and created a then and now photo of Olivia and Sophia. Olivia's then picture was taken in China when she was 11 months old. Her now photo was taken at the state fair last month at almost 3.5. She has changed so much.

Here is Olivia in China and now.

Sophia's was taken on her adoption day about 5 minutes after we met. She was in her daddy's arms - no tears unlike Olivia who wanted nothing to do with him for 3 days. She was 10.5 months old in the photo. In the now photo, she was 20 months old

Sophia then and now

They are.......

......their father's daughters!!! David is one that has to clean every crumb up as soon as dinner is finished - well sometimes before but that is a whole other story. I made supper one night and we had very messy cornbread. I went and got the broom and dust pan and set it on the chair. I turned around to do something else real fast and Sophia decided to clean up her own mess.

Sophia sweeping up the cornbread - look how messy it is under her seat!

A quick smile for the camera!!

Not to be outdone by her baby sister Olivia gets into the act. Now if I could just get her to clean up her toys!

One year ago today......

.......we found out about our youngest daughter. I was at home with the laptop on chatting with some friends and at 10:35 am I got a call from our family coordinator, Ebbie. As I was talking to him I posted to my Feb DTC group that I was on the call hoping to be first but one of my travel mates actually had the honors. He said I am looking at the pictures of your daughter. He said her name is Yue Yu Xi and she was from the Yugan SWI in the Jiangxi Province - the same as Olivia. He said her birthday was 12-11-04 and that he was waiting on the translation to tell me the other things. I asked about our other friends babies and how many referrals our agency got - we were DTC and LID at the same time with 2 other families we traveled with the last time. He said there were 4 babies from Yugan and one from Fuzhou also in the Jiangxi Province. I called my (then) best friend to tell her to come to the house so we could drive to Lexington but did not tell her anything about Sophia. I then called my hubby and told him about our new daughter. While I waited for my friend to get to my house, I called my dear friend Susan and she e-mailed me the pics of her daughter Lainey. I was so blessed to be able to share this day with her as well as the call that came nearly 2 years before. Once I got to the agency, I found out that Sophia was in foster care. She weighed 14 lbs and was 29 inches tall. She had hair! It was amazing to be staring at her pictures. After we left our agency, we went to our dear friend Teri's house. She was so excited that I was able to share with her our happy news. We then went and made copies of the pictures. Olivia had gymnastics so thankfully Daddy was able to meet us there so he could finally see the pictures. My mom was at gymnastics but I refrained from telling her anything until I could tell her and dh's parents together. They met us at Dairy Queen where they found out about their newest granddaughter together. We had an enjoyable day and it is one I will never forget.

Olivia and my first look at Sophia

Don't we look proud!

Sophia holding her referral picture one year later - My has she changed!

Look at that cute little smirk.......