One week home (and happy birthday Pa!)

We have all been home one week.  Emma Kate has been home for a total of one week.  And what an amazing nine days (now) it has been .  She has settled in beautifully.  This transition has been so perfect, it is hard to believe.  I honestly want to keep pinching myself to make sure it is really all happening.

It is also my Dad's birthday today!  Happy birthday, Pa!  We love you so much, and miss you already.  We are so glad you are enjoying this day in your winter home, and are also grateful we will see you again for Thanksgiving!  God bless and keep you, God make His face to shine upon you and give you His peace.  We are blessed by you, and we love you immensely.

Our EK is just a gem of a little girl.  Her willingness to embrace this very new life and all the people in her new family amazes us.  She is sweet, kind, funny (very, very funny!), gentle, willing, thoughtful, curious, smart, engaged, trusting and best of all, she is ours.  It takes my breath away.  She is home.  She is ours.  We are hers.

Here are a few highlights and accomplishments of a mere one week at home:

• Likes the dog!  
• Kisses the dog
• Brushes the dog and is as wowed as her mother by the volume of hair said dog sheds.
• Enjoys sitting quietly in church...and doing stickers non-stop for an hour.  (she thought the wagon demo of "yoking" was ingenious, however, Jeff!  And the communion bread was a huge hit...she wanted to double dip.  Mercy.)
• got used to Jim coming and going to work
• figured out Mama is actually fun to play with
• sleeps in her bed in her bedroom with Anna.  Happily.
• ate fruit!
• ate broccoli!
• ate cooked carrots (thanks, Nancy!)
• loves tortilla pie (thanks, Kari and Bob!)
• thinks "Time for Bed" is the best book ever...and likes Baba to read it every night
• learned how to unbuckle the seat belt in the car
• learned all about raking leaves...and jumping in the leaf pile!
• says many new words, "thank you, please, help me, more, all done, water, love you, Swede (our dog's name), all her siblings names, amen"
• grabs our hands upon sitting down at the table for grace.  Sometimes wants to hold hands again multiple times during the meal.  We are saying a lot of grace.  It is a beautiful thing!

It is Monday now, and a new week.  Week Two.  

Time is really flying by.  The kids begin a new quarter of school, even as the boys work hard to complete all the work they missed while gone for three weeks in China.  Their teachers have all been so gracious and supportive.  We are blessed.  And grateful.  So very grateful.

Today we go to our pediatrician.  I am praying the innoculations EK received in China are sufficient, so we don't have to re-immunize her after her re-immunizations in Guangzhou.  I'm also so excited for Dr. Inman to meet our littlest girl!  He has been our pediatrician for 14 years and now five children.  We really, really like him, and he has been so supportive of our family over all these years.  It will be a treat to introduce him to our Emma Kate.  

Good morning from Minnesota, where November looks beautiful.  And where seven of us are all here together, just how it should be.