Celebrating our 1 year GOTCHA DAY!!

First of all, sorry for the huge delay in getting anything posted on here since July! Until very recently for some reason I was not able to create a new post. I tried to change settings but nothing worked...until one day it started working again! So now I finally have a few moments to get a new post. Yep...it was 1 year ago today that we met in person for the very first time in Guangzhou, China our sweet Chun Le. Here are a few pictures taken within a few minutes of meeting her.

It has been a wonderful adventure over the past year getting to know our amazing daughter and watching her literally blossom before our eyes! She has grown from wearing a size 18 months to 3T, her hair is long now (still very fine, but we even put teeny ponytails in it the other day!), she has a repaired cleft lip and palate (will update on that palate surgery in a bit), she is slowly but surely progressing with her speech, and is a very independent and bright little girl who we have fallen head over heels in love with. Here are a couple of pics taken of her in the past week or so:

A quick update since the last blog that let you know that she was being released from the hospital after her palate surgery on June 26th. It was definitely a tougher recovery than the lip revision surgery, but, but God's grace and goodness it was better than we had expected. Chun Le is one tough little girl! At her post op visits it was confirmed that she had developed a tiny fistula in the hard palate (near the backmost part of the roof of her mouth). A fistula is a hole that develops in the palate after it has been surgically closed together...pretty common when trying to close a palate that was as wide as hers was. We have not been back to see the surgeon since about one month post op (at that time the fistula was about the size of a peppercorn), but it sure does look to us like it closed up and healed on its own! We have another visit with Dr. Daw in January and hopefully he will confirm that indeed that fistula is now closed and she does not need a second palate surgery this coming summer. It is exciting to see this healing take place and are so thankful to God for answering our prayers!!! Here is a picture of her palate pre-op and post-op:

An evidence that we think her fistula has completely closed was when for the first time a few weeks ago she was able to drink out of a straw. We had brought home some McDonald's for a fundraiser at Rachel's school one night and Chun Le was VERY PROUD of the fact that when she tried to use the straw to drink her chocolate milk it actually worked this time! We were so happy for her too...what a cool accomplishment!

All three kids had a fun time trick or treating this year and teaching Chun Le how to be a part of this holiday. She was soooo excited to be able to go door to door and collect candy. What a novel idea. :) Here they all are posing on the stairs before heading out on what was a very chilly Oct 31st.

I need to end this blog and head to bed, but will post a picture taken just tonight as we were leaving the Chinese restaurant that we went to in order to celebrate Gotcha Day. The kids are wearing their Chinese Big sis, Big bro, and Little sis T-shirts that we ordered for them as a surprise gift they got this morning. Also, I am including a family photo taken about two weeks ago at JC penney as part of our Christmas card photo shoot. Thanks for the many little and big ways that you, our family and friends, have supported us over this past year of transition and surgeries and celebrations of the goodness of God in placing Chun Le in our family.