Happy at home

Aside for a bit of jet lag, we're all doing really well and adjusting smoothly to being a family of four. We expected Olivia to feel overwhelmed and overstimulated, but she appears to be taking everything in stride and is such a joyful little girl. It helps having a big sister to show her the ropes and make her feel comfortable. She'd apparently never been in a swing before and resisted with some tears until Emily demonstrated and then she wasn't so scared and quickly learned to love it, as the pictures show. You can also see that she's interacting more and more with Daddy and initiating it herself :)

Olivia Tan Tan is very good at communicating with words and motions and is picking up English quickly. She's a little parrot and is learning new words every day. Some words are harder than others and it's so cute to hear her practice saying them, trying to get them just right. Like "school." When we dropped Emily off at school, she tried over and over to get the "L" ending and watched how I used my tongue and eventually got it! For "whoops," it still sounds like "whoosh," but we know what she's saying! Other words she's mastered are:

Hi, hello, bye-bye, Emily, Chelsea, come, come on, milk, juice, thank you, whoa, yeah, good girl, shoes, no, go potty, all done, wash hands, dry, hot, all gone, night-night, shhh...

Emily also agrees that it's fun to have a sister and someone to share a room with. This morning she asked Andy why it took so long to adopt and why there was so much paperwork. Good questions, Emily! But we all agree she was well worth the wait!