More pictures of friends...

Another friend developed her pictures from the Baotou SWI and we got a few more sightings of Shiloh's life before us....

Day by Day...

I remember when Dakota was a newborn, I could get most of the chores done and have supper on the table for Chuck and the house stayed pretty much in order. Fast forward...it is a new life with a new two and a half year old... Shiloh is a bundle of energy and everything in this house is something new for her to explore and either tear to shreads or toss it all in a million different directions....so the house has not been in order since I got home from China. I have to admire stay at home moms for the most part as this is not something I could do all the time. Right now of course it is easy, as I know it is temporary. I have always worked so I suppose I do not have the skills needed to run an orderly household unless I am at work. (I have never understood how I get more done when I do work than when I do not.) Of course of love these two girls and right now am trying to spend time with them and not worry about the order of things, so I can make the most of this time off. I think at times Dakota is a little board with not being at daycare with all of her friends and of course Shiloh follows her every step. They play well for the most part, but it has not taken the big sister long to learn how to aggravate and the little sister to learn how to scream....I took Shiloh to the pediatric cardiologist last Friday for an evaluatons and we have truly been blessed. The reports from China said that Shiloh has Tricuspid Regurgitation of her heart with mild Pulmonary Hypertension. (Both diagnosis can be very scary and even life threatening...we knew this when we accepted Shiloh's file but we knew she was our child and made the decision to accept her, regardless of her condition.) So for this visit, the Physician ran and EKG and an Echocardiogram to see what was going on with her heart and lungs. The verdict...she does have a mild amount of Tricuspid regurgitation but not enough to need any further treatment and there was no evidence of the Pulmonary Hypertension...so praise God! We can move on and see what is needed with her cleft palate...we see the Cleft team downtown this Friday. (More on that later.) I will attach some pictures that show what we have been up to...sorry I do not get to blogging more often, but I am quite busy these days. I promise to try and do better!

Cameras Developed

We sent a camera to Shiloh in a care package in December and another camera in a care package in March. The Orphanage director returned these to us and we had them developed and it really is such a treasure to have these photos of Shiloh and her little friends. I do know that some of the kids are already home like her and a few more will be home soon....I still wonder if others will find families, which is so sad to think about. I plan to create a scrapbook for Shiloh of her life before she became a part of our family. (If I ever have time to scrapbook again, now with two kids???) It is important that we save these pictures and all the information about her life before us, so she will have pieces of the puzzle. We plan to be very open with her about her early life so that she will feel free to ask us questions as she begins to understand her past. While life in an orphanage is not ideal...the pictures I have seen and the ones we now have of the BaoTou SWI make me think they did care about these kids. The building and surroundings look nice, considering what we saw of BaoTou from the air. It is mostly nice to see the smiles of the children and that they are playing and seem happy.