Ok, due to popular demand, I am posting some pictures!  Here you all go!!

Sleeping Li Li!  I will do a longer post later when the girls  are asleep!

OK, so where to start?  We met You Li yesterday at the civil affairs building in Guangzhou.  She came with her nanny, another little girl, and the paperwork director for her orphanage.  When I saw her I knew it was her immediately.  She came to me with not a single backwards glance and we have not seen a single tear yet.  You Li is VERY tiny.  Like, get this girl some groceries, tiny.  I don't think that she had ever had her teeth brushed until yesterday, however she let me both brush and floss them.  Dr. Fleshman, our dentist, will be seeing a lot of us soon.
We learned that she has been attending a preschool that was just set up at her orphanage.  We were really pleased to hear that!

Today we finalized her adoption at the same civil affairs office.  Apparently, when you do paperwork in China you do it in triplicate!   So today Emmeline You Li Rolf is offically a Rolf! 

Some things we have learned about our girl:
She will eat anything
She loves to dance and act crazy and get quite overstimulated
She loves hair doodads, bows and clippies (yay)
She loves to look at herself in the mirror (especially in her new clothes)
She likes stickers
She whispers to herself when she falls asleep
She is VERY young for her age.  I would put her development somewhere in the 2 year old range.

She is just a doll and we think she is perfect!

Good night from Guangzhou!

We made it to LA today! Our flight to Guangzhou, China takes off tomorrow at 1:50 Texas time. I just cannot believe that we are finally on this trip! In just a few days You Li will be with us! It is surreal! We went to Manhattan Beach today fun but kind of cold! I am not sure how to add pictures from my phone so that will have to wait!


Julie, Alexander and Arden

We Leave Tomorrow!!

AND HOLY COW THE CAT PEED IN THE SUITCASE so we had to buy a new one!!  Hopefully this is not a taste of things to come!  Happy thoughts!!

Julie

I am a Horrible Blogger or I am Finally Updating the Blog

Since our Article 5 was picked up on November 11th, we are officially awaiting our travel arrangement notice from China.  For those of you that do not speak China adoption, this means that we are sooo close to traveling to China!  In other news, we DID finally decide on a name, she will be Emmeline You Li Rolf! We love the name Clara, but ultimately decided that she just looks more like an Emmeline.  We will, of course, ask her which name she wishes to be called when we meet her in Guangzhou!  We are hoping to travel in mid December.

Happy Birthday!

We sent a cake and presents for our girl's birthday last Thursday through Ann at Red Thread.  I was completely surprised to get these pictures on Wednesday morning!  I have entitled the first picture "Death Grip" and the second picture "Cake Face".  Goodness she is just beautiful!  That was one awesome wake up call!

I-800 Approval!!

This morning, right after our faculty meeting my phone rang..very strange.  No one ever calls me during school hours so I assumed that someone was sick.  No, it was Alex telling me that he had just heard  from our officer and that our petition was approved!  This means that Li Li is one step closer to coming home! So, one day before our little one's birthday we got our I-800 approval!  Too cool!

We have new pictures!!

Doesn't she have the cutest smile?

Package for our girl

In January we sent our darlin' girl a package full of candy for the nannies, a photo book full of pictures of our family and home, Pjs from Nana, a bear and a silkie blanket. We also included a camera for the nannies to use and a letter for our sweet girl. I wanted to include the picture here partly to keep family and friends in the loop but also so that when she gets older she will be able to see how much she was wanted and needed in our family.
In other news, we are still considering names so she may not be Clara after all. We are considering simply keeping her given name because we really like it! In that case, we would need a good middle name! Any suggestions?

We mailed our I-800 paperwork!

Here is Arden with all of our I-800A Paperwork! One more thing done!