Six Months with Olivia

If you click on the title of this post, it will take you to the post about they day we met Olivia!

Six months ago, in a small conference room at the Lakeside Hotel in Fuzhou, Fujian, Olivia was carried into the room with two nannies from the orphanage and the director. She was taken to the end of the room, her picture taken for her passport, then handed to me after we sat down for our “family” picture to be taken.

I watched the video of this awesome even for the first time a few weeks ago. It is simply surreal to see the most remarkable, life changing moment of my life played out so simply and calmly. I feel like I should have been shouting for joy or crying my eyes out. Instead, Michael and I just held her, talked to her, and looked at her. Even with the sound of either Zoie or Lily crying in the background, it was so serene.

But enough about us – Olivia is amazing. There are lots of stories like the cat food below. She climbs on anything, runs all around, loves to be outside walking around, especially in the grass. Before the last week or so, when asked “is she into everything?” we would respond “oh, not too bad, really”. Now the answer is “YES”. She has discovered that she is just tall enough to blindly reach on top of tables, cabinets and counters and grab things. And does without missing a beat. Same with opening drawers. We find all sorts of things all over the house. Even things we are sure we have put up good. Of course, she has accomplices as well. Our cats both have an annoying habit of enjoying pushing things off tables, dressers or whatever. They push it off, Olivia picks it up and is off to the races.

The first picture is from yesterday, we were trying on the blue dress and just hanging out. The Halloween jammie picture is from about three months home and the last picture is from while we were in China, a few days after we met Olivia.