Maya's Gotcha Day 2012

Six years ago today Maya was placed in our arms for the first time and our lives haven't been the same since.  Today we celebrate her "Gotcha Day", just as we have every year since that day.  She fits perfectly in our family, just as God planned.

Fall Fun

 

6 Months Old

Well, we've been home for three weeks now and everything is going better than we could have anticipated.  Ciana is a very good baby.  It only took about a week to get her back on schedule and she is sleeping through the night now.  She seems like a very happy and content baby most of the time.  Wednesday she turned 6 months old!  She is not crawling yet, but she scoots herself a little ways on her belly if she wants to get to something bad enough.  She's getting better at sitting up, though she still falls over at times.  She likes to be on her feet.  She is very quick with a smile and she has the cutest giggle!  She chatters sometimes, but she is pretty quiet most of the time.  I'm sure she said her first word last night though.  At least I think it was her first word.  Maya was holding her and she loudly and clearly said "Mom!".  We all heard it and I jokingly told Jeff that I taught it to her that day.  She probably didn't know what she was saying, but I like to think she did. :)

Our Little Gymast

Maya had her first two Level 4 gymnastics meets while we were gone and she did really well. The first week she got 5th on floor, 6th on vault and was 12th all around. She did even better this last weekend and ended up with 3rd on floor, 3rd on vault and 5th all around. It was too bad we had to miss them, but there will be plenty more for us to see, I'm sure. She ended up with a trophy and 6 medals. She has this weekend off and then Chow's, the gym where Gabby Douglas and Shawn Johnson trained, is hosting the next meet so we will get to see her compete then. Can't wait!

Sleeplessness and Spit-Up!

Jeff's sister, Lisa, gave Ciana a jumperoo that she can sit in, so Maya and I put that together last night. Ciana loves to sit in it and bounce while playing with the toys and bouncing. Ciana must still be on Taiwan time, because she was up most of the night again last night. Taiwan is 13 hours ahead, so I'm not sure how we're going to get her on Iowa time. Luckily Maya was able to sleep through it this time, because she has a busy day of school, gymnastics and dance today. Jeff and I were up most of the night however. This morning she was pretty fussy and fell asleep while playing in her jumperoo! Then she had a short nap and woke up fussy again. I had her raised over my head playing with her when a waterfall of spit-up came pouring down on my hair and shirt. All Jeff and I could do was laugh! Jeff said he wished he would have had it on video. It was pretty funny, but gross at the same time! Welcome to being the mother of an infant again, I guess!

Home Sweet Home

Our flight home went pretty well. Jeff was totally stressed about it and didn't eat the night before or most of the day of the flights home. When we brought Maya home from China she didn't sleep at all and Jeff was worried that she was bothering everyone else on the plane. This time both of our flights were shorter than expected, so that was good. The flight from Taipei to Tokyo was 2 1/2 hours instead of 3 1/2 and the flight to Minneapolis was 10 1/2 instead of 11. Ciana was still sleeping when we left the hotel and slept in my arms the entire 40 minute taxi ride to the airport. The rest of the day my arm ached so bad it was killing me! She did great on the flight until we started to descend and then she cried until we had landed. The long flight we were seated all the way at the back of the plane, which was good so we didn't bother that many people. Ciana slept through take off and landing. She was awake in between, of course, and we had to stand with her in the aisle a couple of times, but for the most part she was pretty quiet and did really well. We were able to get a little sleep too, while she was sleeping. When we landed in Minneapolis we went through immigration and Ciana became a US Citizen! Then we put her in her carseat and began our 3+ hour drive home. She slept the whole way and luckily Jeff didn't, since he was driving. When we got home Maya greeted us in the driveway with a big hug. She was anxious to see her little sister. Dad and Cindy were there too. It was great to finally be back home. Maya got to hold Ciana right away. She keeps saying how much she likes her, but I know it is going to be hard for her to not have me all to herself anymore. She was really starving for some mommy time after being away from me for 9 days. Ciana didn't sleep well at all the first night home and she woke Maya up too, so we all had some together time in the middle of the night. After Ciana finally fell back asleep Maya snuggle in bed with us, because she missed us so much. Our first full day home we had more visitors. Dad and Cindy had stayed over the night before and Jeff's parents and two nieces came in the afternoon to meet Ciana.

Last Day in Taipei

Our last day in Taipei was very hot!!!! We went to tour the Sun Yat Sen Memorial and saw the changing of the guard ceremony. Then we went to Hello Kitty Sweets restaurant for lunch. I had heard about this online and had to go see it, but we should have never gone. They didn't speak english at all and the menu wasn't in english either. After waiting forever for someone to wait on us we tried to order and couldn't understand what the waitress was trying to ask us so we finally just gave up and left. Then we saw a McDonalds so we went there. As soon as we sat down Ciana started to throw a fit and a worker came over and shushed us a couple of times! I couldn't believe it and Jeff decided we should leave. So I grabbed my food and ate it in he taxi! We spent most of the rest of the day just hanging out in our hotel room getting ready to leave early the next morning.