Last weekend, Kajsa and I drove to Elgin, stayed at new friends’ home, with Annie, Jeff, Jordan, and Kristina.. (Beaner.. MY Bean!) Great time. Too short. Wish we saw all our families more often. Sigh. The third picture is Kajsa’s funny pout face she suddenly made, out of the blue… then, of course, because we all laughed, she kept it up.
or… “Contents of a Toddler’s Backpack”. I’ve posted this photo on my other blog...(the one I started to post my Photo Challenge pictures I’m attempting to take each day. or most days.)
This is not a fake photo. This is real, folks. This is what I dumped out of Kajsa’s backpack today. Hmmmmm… Shes’ a riot.
In other photos… last week Jim found an old harmonica that he let Kajsa play with. Today when we saw “Zee”, the owl on “Noggin”, (
a preschool TV cable channel) playing the harmonica, she wanted to find her harmonica. We couldn’t locate it, but Jim had another one… and let her play with that. She loved playing it at the same time as Zee, and kept playing it from time to time throughout the evening.
A couple of weeks ago, Jim and I received an award from the Madison Police Department. (for some neighborly watchfulness from last summer.) Jim’s parents were here for the award ceremony, too..
from inside the terrace... Kajsa walking on the window sills.
which was held at the Monona Terrace. Before the ceremony, Kajsa was loving the big “narthex” of the Monona Terrace. And afterwards we walked up to
the roof and took some pictures. I’m playing with the media settings on my blog, and trying to post different sizes.
Kajsa's "reddish carpet" photo at the Monona Terrace
family photo
Grandma and Grandpa E. and Kajsa
"baba"= baby
"ou-dide, ou-dide..." and the tantrum when we go inside...
"O-da-da"... = "Go, Cubs, Go.."
a-wa (more or less) = water
"uh-oh".... which Kajsa thinks is to be said when she does anything intentionally, as well...
"up-uck"= look up, duck! (when we wash her hair, we tell her to "look up" so she won't get soap in her eyes.. then she sometimes washes the rubber duckie's "hair" and tells it to "up-uck".
It must be the jeans. Something about Kajsa today made me feel as though she had grown up into a little girl, instead of the toddler. 
I’m not in denial of the fact that the terrible twos could be just around the corner. It just seemed, today, that Kajsa had grown up a bit more. It could be that she was talking more, listening more (and less, at times), followed commands, actually tried to say “pleeeez” instead of only signing it…
or, it might be the jeans.
Just so you know,
I did not stage the photo of Kajsa reading to Abby. (yes, that’s Abby’s nose under the book Kajsa’s reading.)
Several times today she brought a book out of the toy area, and I asked her if she wanted to read a book.
Each time she pointed to where Abby was.
And she plopped herself down in front of Abby,
and began turning pages. So dang cute.
The book she is reading to Abby is “Hush”, a Thai lullaby book that her cousin Bennett gave her. It has different animals in it, and of course, we make the animal
noises.
The photo of Kajsa with her hand on her nose is her making the elephant noise and motion.
Kajsa loves her moose rocker now.
She used to be a bit afraid of it, and needed help getting up on it. Now she climbs on it by herself, and even gets moving a bit. And she loves posing for the camera–
what a surprise! Actually, she loves posing for the camera–when she feels like it. Sometimes she does not want to smile or pose for the camera! But today was a good camera day.
Back in June, women from church threw a baby shower for me (and Kajsa, in absentia.) It was so fun, meaningful, and Kajsa received some gorgeous gifts. I can’t remember if I blogged about this or not. If not, I should have. The generosity, the gifts, the love and outpouring of support moved me to tears.
Anyhow, one of the gifts Kajsa received was a “Ling Doll”, from Ann-Britt, Phil, Kristina, Anna and Brita. 
It’s a doll who speaks English and Chinese. When you press one of her hands, Ling speaks a phrase in English, then says the same phrase in Chinese. It’s fun. I am learning some phrases.
On Saturday when we had lots of visitors, including some of Kajsa’s cousins, we played with the Ling Doll. It was so funny to watch Kajsa. She didn’t know quite what to think. She was in the middle of laughing, soaking in the attention from everyone… then Kristina (cousin Kristina) squeezed Ling’s hand, and Ling spoke.. Kajsa nearly got whiplash, turning her neck so quickly to stare at the doll to see what she was saying. This repeated for quite some time, making us all–including Kajsa–laugh a ton.
She’s very fun.
Sleep is still not under control. I’d attribute it all to jet lag, time differences, etc… except that before we left China, Kajsa’s sleep patterns were changing–in other words, it’s hard to get her to sleep. Even though she’s exhausted, almost asleep, etc… she fights it. But we have progress.
Food: Kajsa loves to eat. She still loves her lotus buns, noodles, eggs and cheerios.. But now her menu has expanded to include Easy Mac ‘n Cheese, applesauce, pears, mashed potatoes, and instant grits. I haven’t weighed her, but am convinced she’s gaining weight. She’s no longer the teeny little peanut we first held two-and-a-half weeks ago. (Broder, she’s getting chubbier!)
We went to the Shorewood pool with Sandie & family the other day, and Kajsa loved it. She loves swimming. 
She loves people, even though she still hesitates to leave Jim and me. She adores the dogs, and last night when we tried to feed her some cooked diced carrots, she put each bite in her mouth, then let it slip out of her mouth into her hand–and promptly turned around to feed it to the dogs.
I love it. I love her. I love being home, though I miss China, and all the friends we made there. But it’s good to be home.
Ok, so tonight Jim and I were at a mall, in a department store. We were walking by the mens’ cologne counters… and Jim overheard a man ask the salesperson this question: “What’s a good summer cologne for traveling to the Tropics?”
Pretty funny.
On the adoption front, we’re one step further to our baby! This evening we DHL-ed our acceptance packet back to our adoption agency… stating that we want to adopt Wan Yi Ling (yep, still no English name.. still trying out our options). The process of compiling the acceptance paperwork (including more immigration paperwork, an email to the Milwaukee immigration office saying that our third fingerprint expiration date should be at our house within 2 weeks, etc..) was exhausting. But once we had the packet of information handed over to the DHL guy, it felt fantastic! We can’t wait to meet this little girl.
Re: medical report…the other night (Monday) we received the medical report in Chinese. And I called a lady from our church who is from China, and emailed her the report. She called me later to say that Wan Yi appears normal. And on Tuesday we faxed the translated medical report to a pediatrician, who called me to say that everything appears normal as well, based on what little information we have.
Our acceptance packet should be in the office of our agency by noon tomorrow. The packet will be sent back to China by May 14th. And from there, we continue to wait. Only now we wait with many copies of the same three adorable photos. Of our daughter, waiting for us in China.
Kind of…
Jim made these “fans” while I was on my way home from Grand Rapids yesterday, and met me at the airport, holding one up. So cute.
Continued thanks to all your prayers, support, love, comments, emails, love, etc. We are so in love with our little girl–and yes, we’re working on a name, don’t worry!
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