How did this past year speed by so quickly when the two years to get to a year ago took so long? I hope you followed that! :) People talk about the pain of labor fading after you have the child. I was reassured the pain of our much longer than expected wait would also fade. It did, but not completely. There are days when it seems so fresh, especially as we start the process again. The bureacracy and jumping through hoops and endless forms bring back strong memories. The reason the old feelings had faded before was because we had our beautiful little girl to focus on and that helped immensely. As excited as we are to have a second child, I was surprised at how those feelings came back. Then I look at Libby and I realize we can do it and it is worth it. It has become my mantra.

One year ago we had landed in Guanzhou after a wonderful 5 days in Beijing. We were so nervous. The feeling of actually meeting this little person whose picture we had stared at for six weeks was just overwhelming. Hearing our names being called and walking up to the orphanage director who placed her in our arms was a blur the moment it happened. Honestly, I can barely remember it except that I was holding this little girl in my arms. I could barely breathe. I saw from the look on Eric's face that he was also barely breathing. We held her together, we took turns holding her. I am sure we frightened her by how intensely we stared at her. "Who the heck are these people and why are they looking at me like that with tears in their eyes"?

The past year has been amazing. It has had ups and downs. Laughter and tears. Joys and sadness. Triumphs and no real failures! I just checked on Libby and said "I love you" and she replied "I love you, too". I think that about sums it up.

We had a nice family dinner last night to celebrate family day. Libby was given the Melissa and Doug cookie set she has been playing with at other houses. Eric and I have been eating a lot of cookies since last night-she loves it. To cap off the evening we had the traditional Roller ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. Libby was too "tuffed" to eat, so unfortunately, Mama and Dada took up the slack on that-yummmm. Lovely day with our beautiful daughter.