Two posts in one day

Surprise!

It hits you the first day you hold your child how grateful you are to have this precious new little person to love. I still can't believe this beautiful little girl is ours. I cried so hard the first time I held her. I still remember kissing her and telling Carl how beautiful and perfect she is. I wish I could give her biological parents peace of mind and tell them how grateful we are to them for this perfect little angel they gave us. I wish we could tell them how very much we all love her. I know they must wonder about her. For us we wonder about them also. We hope and pray that they know how very loved she is and how grateful we are to have her. She has made our lives complete.

We can't wait to take Saige on her first annual Olinger family tree hunt this year. We can't wait to see her beautiful face as she opens up her gifts.
As I type this Stephen is holding Saige and she is saying ma ma ma for the first time.
I feel like the luckiest person alive.

Aweful blogger

I'm moved up to aweful blogger status. I didn't even have time to do a Thanksgiving post. I used to be such a good little multitasker!

Ok, so Saige has been doing awesome. She sleeps thru the night from 8-8 and sometimes longer and naps from 1-3 or so. She has moved down from a Stage 3 clinger to a Stage 2 clinger..YAY!!! She LOVES our cat Buddy. Her first English words have been "here kitty kitty". No boring ole ma ma or da da for our little girl's first words ut uh!! lol. My mommy brag is that this little girl is brilliant. She picks up on things SO fast. We are amazed at how quick she learns new things.
She absolutely adores her daddy. Carl had daddy duty on Black Friday and he took her and the kids for a long walk to see the cows. She LOVES to go for walks outside. She loved it in VN but it was so much warmer there that I wasn't sure she would like it in the NJ cold but she does.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I'm sure all the other AP's (I LOVE that I don't have to say PAP's anymore!) did too. So much to be thankful for this year. We have a wonderful, happy, healthy family. Life is good!
I WILL post pics soon I promise!

Bad Blogger!

I know I've been a bad blogger. I have so many pics and video's to upload but no time to do it. Our latest video is one of Saige in her Horse Jumparoo bouncing up and down, smiling while watching Curious Buddies. Saige LOVES Curious Buddies. I'm all for anything that is void of a certain irritating purple dinasaur who will remain nameless. I promise to make time to post it soon.

Saige has been doing VERY well. We love her very much and so do the kids. She goes thru her clingy phases but that is to be expected. Fortunately, she loves her car seat and falls asleep during long car rides. This works out well for me because I practically live in my car with all the running around I have to do. Best of all our little princess can burp like no other. Coming from a mom who can burp the alphabet I am SO very proud of my girl! God blessed us with the most perfect little girl. I can't imagine a better fit for our family! She already knows so many words. She knows ma ma, da da, ba ba, bye bye, light, no ( of course) and many more. We are amazed at how fast she picks things up.

Today we got a call from her pediatrician that her tests came back positive for giardia. I wasn't surprised in the least. Giardia is an intestinal parasite that many of the children have. No big deal just a round of antibiotics for five days. She also had high calcium levels. It could have something to do with the VN formula she was on so we are going to retest her next month. Other than that she is perfectly healthy.

I just have to say how blessed we are to have such wonderful friends and family. The night we arrived home the kids gave us books that every kid in their class helped to make for Saige. Stephen and Michael's class made a counting book for Saige and Julie's class made a picture book. I thought this was the sweetest thing ever! Saige LOVES to look thru the books and point to the pictures. Thank you so much Mrs. VanderGroef and Mrs. Ward!

I have to give a shout out to my fellow AP's. Shannon and Jason Devine's little girl Halle Grace turned one recently as did Mer and Tim's little girl Lulu Belle. Happy 1st Birthday!
Fellow hen Melissa is in VN right now adopting Abby. Congratulations Melissa!!!!
So much good news finally!


I have one more friend that is due for some good news soon on her China adoption. She has been waiting longer than we have for her little baby girl . I think about her all the time and just know that her day will come SOON.

Again, thanks to all for following along.

Last post from VN

We had a great time in our little girl's birth country but it's time to go home! We miss our three toads at home like crazy!

Carl went to Ha Long Bay on Monday while Saige and I stayed here. He had a great time and took lots of beautiful pictures.

Today we ate lunch with Carol at the Green Tangerine and did one last shopping spree around the Old Quarter. Did I mention we loved it here? lol. To give you an example of how sweet the people are..
We met a waitress at Jaspas and she always held Saige for us while we ate and made her laugh by giving her balloons. We got back from shopping today and she was in the lobby waiting for us. She gave us two cd's of children's vietnamese lullaby's. I was touched. I will truly miss it here. Tomorrow will definately be bittersweet.

See you soon!!!! Stephen, Michael and Julie....mommy, daddy and your little sister are coming home!!! Woo Hoo!! We love you. xxxooo

Lime

Saige loves lime. Go figure. The third pic down is of her putting the lime in her mouth and the next one is her reaction to it. She is also a VERY messy eater as you can see from the pics . Stephen is still my one and only neat eater. Carl, Michael and Julie now have stiff competition for the Olinger family messiest eater award.

We are still on schedule to come home Wednesday. I've decided to let the kids stay home from school Thursday and Friday so that we can veg out and bond as a family for a few days. I know...bad mommy! But to the kids I'm cool mommy so it's all good!
VN has the cutest hats ever. I've bought tons of them. Saige gets the biggest kick out of me trying them on her.

This n that

Ok so Saige has new game she plays. She hides behind the curtains and waits for us to call "Saige, where's Saige?". Then she opens up the curtains and smiles and laughs. I tell you it's priceless and I have to get a video of it!

Today we got a call from Carol and Steve that we were invited to lunch with Allie (our adoption coodinator) and some other families at the Green Tangerine. We had a great time and the food was the best we've had so far. We both had a New Zealand steak, potatoes and a delicious chocolate mousse dessert. After lunch we did some more shopping. I picked the boys up something really awesome but can't say what because they read this blog. Julie and Saige have some wonderful gifts also.

Tonight we are going to meet Carol and Steve for some take out from an Indian restaurant.

Looks like we will be flying home on Wednesday. We will leave here Wednesday morning (VN time) and catch a 12:35 flight to Taipei. From Taipei we fly straight to Newark (I think) and arrive in Newark Wednesday night 8:35 NJ time. I can't wait to see the kids. We have been having an awesome time in VN but miss the kids very much. Michael and Julie have colds so I hope they are feeling better soon. I am very impressed that my mom has everything under control at home. Poor woman raised ONE kid and here she is with our THREE for THREE weeks.

Thank you again to all our friends and family who have helped while we have been gone. We appreciate it very much. Thank you to everyone following along on our journey.

More pics

Ok here's some closeups of our little peanut. Little peanut she is too. She is a mere 17lbs and her 9 mo Carter's clothes are too big. We had a Gap size 6-12 dress on her yesterday and it was definately too big. All this time I worried that the clothes I was bringing were too small..lol.

Today we shopped around some more but not much. The sun actually made an appearance today and it was wicked hot.

We have her visa!!

Woo Hoo! I can't tell you how good it feels to have that over and done with. This means that we can bring our little girl to the US and as soon as her little feet hit the ground when we get off the plane she is a officially a US citizen.

As of early this morning we were still waitlisted for a flight out on Saturday. We were told we could get out Satuday if we fly economy but we are cheap and we paid for Deluxe so that's what we want. Besides that we saw the economy seats and they are very cramped and unformfortable looking. Not the way I want to fly with a baby in tow for 20 some hours.

Yesterday our friends Carol and Steve were kind enough to take us shopping with them around the Old Quarter. We had a great time as always! Steve is quite the negotiator. He would get a price for something, tell them no, rip out his calculator, show them the price he wanted to pay and let them either take it or leave it. Too funny!

I still have more shopping to do but I don't know if I'll get Carl out again. He was tired. Normally when we go shopping at home he is the mall benchwarmer but there was NO where to sit and wait here. Poor guy had to just buck up. In his defense it was hot. The sun doesn't come out in VN very often but when it does...oh boy is it toasty.

Tonight we are supposed to have another storm. We were told by the very nice woman who interviewed us for Saige's visa that we should stock up on some food. *yikes* I look out the window now and I can see for miles so I'm hoping that it'll pass us. I'll post some close ups of Saige later.

Another step closer

This morning we went and got Saige's passport and medical clearance. We will hear back from Tau later today as to when our visa interview is. If it's tomorrow we will try for a Saturday flight home. Fingers crossed! I love Vietnam but I miss my kiddo's and my mom like crazy. I KNOW my mom misses me...lol!
Saige is amazing. With each day that goes by we see more and more of her personality. She's a very smart baby...too smart sometimes! She LOVES to walk around with daddy. She also loves to see Stephen, Michael and Julie on the computer. She waves to them and smiles when she sees them. We love our girl and can't wait until we are back home and together as a family.

Passport

Tomorrow morning we go pick up Saige's passport and then it's off to the SOS clinic for her medical clearance. We will find out tomorrow when our appointment will be for her visa interview. Once we have the interview, we go back later that afternoon for her visa and then we are free to leave. We are scheduled to fly out on the 12th. If we can get a flight out earlier we will take it so long as Steve and Carol get a flight out also and we don't have to give up our bulkhead seating. We have really enjoyed hanging out with Steve and Carol. Carl and Steve are like two peas in a pod. The two of them are hysterical! A couple of the families have not been feeling too well. I had some issues today myself, nothing major but I did start taking the Cipro I was prescribed.

Puppet Show

We had a great day today. As soon as we saw sunlight (after days of rain) we decided to quick get dressed and roam around. We walked thru the Hanoi Hilton. We saw some amazing things there. This is where John McCain (hopefully NOT the next president) was held.

Later, we met up with Steve and Carol in the lobby and Carol was kind enough to go with us to get tickets to the water puppet show. We had a great time. Saige LOVED the show and so did we. After the show we went with Carol and Steve to get ice cream then we took the kids to the hotel playroom. Saige and Samantha were adorable together. These two were talking and playing so nicely. We wished we knew what they were saying. We also went out to eat with Carol and Steve at a Vietnamese restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. The food was great. We learned that Saige is one spoiled little girl. Just like Julie she has her daddy wrapped right around her pinky finger. Siage has learned in a matter of days that if she acts up in the restaurant she can get daddy to take her outside for a walk around. lol. Smart kid!

I know I've said it before but we love it here. Ok, so it's not the cleanest place on earth but that's the beauty of it. (did that make ANY sense?)
It's going to be sad to leave. We know how much our daughter loves it here so it's going to be sad to take her away. Time seems to be flying. We can't believe we have been here over a week already.
I have LOTS of pics from today and I'll try to post them tomorrow. Thank you everyone for following along! We are missing our friends and family. Can't wait for everyone to meet our little girl!