Fall 2010 and 6 Months Home With Karine!

It is hard to believe that we have been home for 6 months with Karine! Time has just flown by! She is doing amazing and we're in awe at how fast she is learning her new language. She understands everything we say to her and is now beginning to say words. We know that she will need some speech therapy as her speech is not very clear. We will soon be looking for a private speech pathologist. She's grown 5 centimetres since May. I realized how much she had grown when I saw her looking through the front window. Before, you could only see the top of her head.

She had so much fun on Halloween! The week before, I explained to her what she was going to do on Halloween night. Well, the girl didn't want to wait for Halloween. She was ready to go door to door. All week, she would show me how she would ring the door bells and would act out how the people would "throw" her the candy in her bucket.

She's been adjusting really well to her brothers and them to her. When we're at the bus stop and she hears the bus coming, she gets so excited. She jumps up and down. When the boys get off the bus, she goes off running to them with her arms open. It is so cute to watch. She loves to imitate others. When her brothers sit down to do their homework, she goes and gets her "homework" book too. It's a little activity book that she loves to scribble in as if she's doing her homework like them. We had our first snowfall the day before Halloween. She had lots of fun playing in it that she didn't want to come in. The snow only lasted a couple of days but I'm sure we'll be getting more soon as the weather is getting colder. At first, she wasn't too happy wearing boots but when she realized that they lit up, well, she changed her mind.

This past Sunday, we had her Baptism. She looked beautiful in her chinese dress that we got her in China. She thought so too! ;-) She had to go to every mirror in the house and have a look at herself. She loves girly things and anything to do with princesses. She was very happy when I told her that she looked like a princess. :-) As we're getting closer to Christmas, we're seeing a lot of Christmas decorations when we're out doing errands. She LOVES to look at decorated Christmas trees. It's going to be such a wonderful Christmas this year! What a gift she is to us!

I've been keeping her and I busy while the boys are at school. We go swimming every week, museums, the farm, the park. She really enjoys going to the children's museum as it's hands on play but her favourite as to be the farm. Every day she'll "talk" about the animals she sees at the farm. She loves the outdoors. We'll often go for walks. We took her a few times to the dog park and was excited to see all the dogs running. I wouldn't have brought her there when we first arrived from China as she was terrified of our little 15 pounds dog.

We feel so bless to have her part of our family. It is so much fun to watch her explore her new surroundings. I'm enjoying every moment that I spend with her at home. We are looking forward to seeing what the next 6 months will bring!

Summer 2010

Karine has been doing great! It's hard to believe that we have been home with her for 3 months today. She brings so much joy to our family. We couldn't imagine our lives without her. She has already grown over 2 centimeters since we've been home! I recently got her a plush horse which she absolutely adores. We've come to learn that she LOVES animals! Especially horses and cows. She also loves her little dog (now). She wants to touch any dog coming her way. It is so much fun to see her explore her new surroundings. She is SO expressive when she gets excited to see something new. She is now starting to say a few words. We've had an appointment for speech but they say to wait and see how she does on her own before starting therapy. We're going to see her again in November. We've had quite a few doctor's appointments already since we've been home. Karine doesn't like them one bit but it's getting better. We've quickly noticed that she doesn't like to be told no as she'll stomp her feet but we can distract her quite easily so no big meltdowns. We haven't had to say no very often as she listens well, so far ;-) I've added some pictures from this summer.

More pictures from the children's museum....

Le Musée des enfants/The Children's Museum

Today we went to the children's museum. Karine LOVED it there! There's so much to play with. It's really interactive so I knew she would really enjoy herself. The boys loved showing her around as they've been there many times. I've noticed today that Kaine points a finger when I ask her to look at the camera. I didn't realize how often she did this until I looked through my pictures from today! :-)

More pictures from the Experimental Farm....

Visit to the Experimental Farm

When went to visit the Experimental Farm today with Karine. She loves animals so we knew she would enjoy the visit. She's very serious on the pictures. She understands a lot of what we say to her but hasn't grasp the meaning of "cheese!" for the camera... ;-)

More pictures...

The picture with them in their pyjamas is the first morning Alexandre and Olivier met their new sister. They sat in her room and played with her.

More pictures

We're Home!

We've been home since last Thursday night. The flight went well. She slept about 8 hours and the rest of the time she played. She only cried once for about 20 minutes so overall she did great! It feels great to be back and to get back into a routine. Karine has been doing great! She is adjusting so well you would think she's been here for much longer. She's understanding a lot more when we speak to her. She got over the jet lag a lot quicker than Martin and I! She doesn't want to take a nap in the afternoon but she's doing well without it. Around 6:00pm, she starts to fuss a little so we know she's getting tired. She sleeps really well at night. She's sleeping about 12 hours straight each night. The boys are doing well with her. Alexandre is showing a little jealousy but we knew it would take a little longer for him to adjust. For the long weekend, there was a Midway Fair so we went for a little while. We then went over to my sister's for some fun in the kid's pool. She really enjoyed the water!

May 18th and 19th‏

On Tuesday, we went to the silk factory. I bought 2 silk dresses for Karine. We then went shopping at the pearl market. They sell pretty much everything. It was really busy and it's not very relaxing to shop as the vendors are always in your face. You can bargain for a price but after a while, it gets really exhausting. After shopping, we came back to the hotel for a little rest before heading back out for the acrobatic show. It was a very long day. Karine did great considering we started our day at 9:00am and got back to the hotel at 9:30pm. She LOVED the acrobatic show! Her eyes were fixed on the stage the whole entire show. She barely blinked.
Today we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. I have never seen such a big crowd! It was really beautiful. Karine was not as happy as yesterday. She fussed quite a bit today but I know she's probably tired from yesterday. Tonight, they're having a going away party for all the families. We'll be receiving our children's paperwork tonight as well. We need them for tomorrow. Our flight is leaving at 6:00pm on Thursday. If everything goes well at immigration in Toronto, we should be arriving in Ottawa at 10:00pm. All the other families are soooo ready to come home! I just pray that she'll sleep on the flight. I'll post one more time when we get home.

May 17th - Summer Palace‏

Today we went to the Summer Palace. It was beautiful but so busy with people. Our bus was still parking and we were already swarmed by local vendors. We were told by our guide not to by from them as other vendors would surround us and they sometimes gave fake money for change or different currency. Karine had another great day. Each day we're learning more and more about her personality. One thing we learned quickly is that she likes to act silly. She'll fit right in with her younger brother! She loves to laugh and make you laugh. We have to watch her because she thinks that running away from us and us chasing her is hilarious. We got her 2 pairs of shoes today. At least now we have shoes that fit her better as she was loosing the pair I had brought from home. Tonight for dinner was to each is own so Martin and I decided to go to the same chinese place we had gone with the group a few days earlier. We ask the guide to write down in chinese some of the food we liked. The food was great and really inexpensive. We had 4 different dish plus beer for about $18. Tomorrow is a shopping day. They're taking us to the silk factory, pearl market and indoor market. Hopefully I'll be able to find some good buys. Thank you everyone for your comments! They mean a lot to us. I'm sorry that I can't respond to them as I'm sending my posts and pictures by email to my sister.