Only 4 more WAKE-UPS!

Jaida acting silly at Charlie's restaurant at the Holiday Inn in Hefei. The manager from the Phillipines was singing and the playing the guitar for us and all of the kids were having a bawl dancing on the stage and goofing around! She is quite the little ham!

Jaida playing get away from her Daddy!

Easter Sunday-We went to a non-denominational English/Chinese church service on Easter morning. This church is located just a block from our hotel. There are only a limited number of Christian churches in China and they have to be registered with the government. It was nice to be able to go to church on Easter Sunday and worship God.

Jaida at her medical examination at the Shamian Island Clinic.

The island has many of these little courtyards with flowers and trees. Many grooms and brides were out today having pictures taken. In China, the bride rents her gown. It was funny to see many of the brides wearing sweat pants and tennis shoes on under their dresses for comfort and the backs of their dresses were cinched in with safety pins to size it to the bride.

As you can see from the title, this is how we wake up each day...counting down the days by how many "wake-ups" we have left! Sad, very sad indeed, but we have experienced China and we are ready to come home. We arrived in Guangzhou on Saturday and are staying at a very nice hotel, the White Swan, on Shamian Island. It isn't necessarily an island, but it is surrounded by the Pearl River on one side and a canal on the other. The island is somewhat pretty because it is tropical in the low 70's with palm trees and brick sidewalks. It is very easy to walk the entire island in a very short period of time. We have seen many brides and grooms taking their wedding pictures on the island, it is a pretty place for that.

Well, I thought I would take the chance to write to you all while Shon is having "Cry therapy" with Jaidalyn! As many of you have seen from the pictures, Jaida is having a difficult time warming up to her Daddy which is oh so difficult on him but he is being a champ! So, everyday we have our little cry session when Daddy holds Jaida and she just cries and cries her little eyes out. We know she is doing this to have some control over a part of her life, but we will keep trying until she gives in to her Dad. This is highly common in toddlers that are adopted and may come slowly, but it will come.

Well, it has been one week with our little Jaida and she is just a gem! Jaida is an amazing little girl. She is so smart. You can really tell that her foster family and the nannies in her classroom have really worked with these children on many things. She is potty trained, cleans up after herself, and very smart in trying to test the boundaries with Mama and Baba! Her paperwork said she is an introvert…Ha! She may be slow to warm up to people, but she is definitely an extrovert. She is hilarious and so much fun to be around!

We had her medical exam today and she weighed 28 pounds and is 35 inches tall. She is very tall. Her cleft palate does not affect her ability to eat at all! She can shovel the food in like the rest of them! In fact, on our orphanage visit we were handing out candy to all the children and at one time she probably had a least 5 gummy lifesavers in her mouth at one time! She stuffs her mouth and then slowly works to get it all down. If she gets crackers, she doesn't eat one at a time she stuffs them all in her mouth at once and she has never ever choked!

We can't wait to see you all and we just can't thank you enough for all of the wonderful comments you have sent us. It really helps us feel closer to home and the prayers you have lifted up for us have been answered daily and have lifted our spirits! Thank you so much! Enjoy some new pictures of Jaida and Shamian Island.