We're Back. . . with Photos!

Okay, we're finally home. Wow, a long and happy day. Our daughter is beautiful! (You knew we'd think that didn't you?) But really, she is. Jeff says she's adorable. Yep, that too! Her name is Lian Ai Ling, she is in the Lianjiang City Welfare Institute in Guangdong Province and her birthday is August 29, 2006, 15 months old. On October 18 she weighed almost 19 pounds and was 28 inches tall. We will still name her Ilah though we are considering a change in spelling and haven't decided for sure on her middle name yet. I'll get back to you on that. But I know that you are really just here to see her pictures so here they are! See, I told you she is beautiful!





Looking a little irritated with the world. Well, wouldn't you be if they dressed you in a Star Trek uniform?

We finally all managed to get to the CCAI office about 1:15 p.m. Friday. It takes awhile to organize 4 adults in 3 different cities and get them all to the same place at the same time. After checking out all the info we HAD to go shopping, now that we finally know how big she is! (We don't need a lot, she is very close to Mara's age and size on her Gotcha Day.) Then we celebrated with dinner at The Spaghetti Factory--one of our favorite haunts when we want to celebrate. The "balloon guy" made fun balloon creations for each of us which thrilled Mara to no end. (A good thing since she wasn't very happy to not be the center of attention for the first time since she joined our family.) With the snowy, messy roads it was a long trip home and we finally walked in at 11:30 p.m. Whew! Worth every minute but now that I've kept my promise to post her picture before bed I'm going to go get some sleep.

Here are a few more pictures of the day:

Kathi says big sisters get the first peek.

Even Josh couldn't get Mara to smile. She just isn't sure we need this new kid around here.