Three months ago tonight we boarded the plane to return from China. Alexa has changed so much in that time. Tonight she ate waffles and yogurt and a banana for supper. And she drank her milk out of a sippy cup. During that long flight from China all she had was formula with rice cereal in her bottle.

During the flight she stood still while I changed her diaper while she was standing up in the tiny restroom on the plane and once I changed her on my lap during the flight. She was so good she didn't squirm or anything. She made it so easy. Tonight after her bath I wanted to put a diaper on her and she ran around the whole upstairs naked. It is now quite a game to get a diaper back on her. We have used the potty chair successfully a few times too.

Alexa is starting to say a few words. Her day care provider told me Alexa said "thank you" when she gave her a sippy cup this afternoon. We are doing some signing along with the words and I think that helps. She can sign "sit" and say it. I realized tonight when she was signing and saying "sit" over and over again that when she says "sit" it comes out like a command. Her tone is completely different. Chinese is a tonal language. The same word pronounced with a different tone will mean something completely different. When I am telling her to sit I am probably using a lower voice - because she is jumping on the couch or bed. So she uses a lower voice when she says sit.

She has shown no interest in her dolls -in fact a couple times I have thought she might be afraid of them. But tonight she grabbed a doll and brought it over to me and started pointing to the eyes. I said "eye" and pointed to the doll's eyes. She put her finger up to her own face and pointed to her eye and said "eye". She is starting to get it. I think she will gain more words quickly now.

Tonight we met another single mother with a daughter from China when we were at the store. This little girl is just a couple months younger than Alexa and was adopted in January. She is from Guangdong province also. We exchanged names and phone numbers and hopefully we will get together. It is so nice to run in to others who have had similar experiences.

I will try to get some more pictures this weekend and post them. I am pretty proud of my girl.

It is time for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in China. Tonight before I took Alexa upstairs for her bath I saw the bright moon and I took her outside to see it. I told her that her birth mother and father in China could see the same moon. I explained that in China the women and girls would bow to the moon on the night of the Moon Festival. Then I bowed to the moon. She laughed then started blowing kisses to the moon. I blew kisses to the moon too. I said we could blow kisses to the people in China. I told her I hoped her birth parents knew she was very loved.

No new pictures to share right now but I had a couple things I had to share.

Last night I decided to try scrambled eggs again. Alexa didn't touch them last time but at some point I know she will love them. I didn't have any success until I put some on her fork then put some banana on too so she thought it was banana. It worked. She ate a little. I just cheated. After the first bite she did look at the banana kind of strange. Weird tasting banana!

This morning I decided to take Alexa to Sunday School instead of having her sit in church with me. She has been very good in church but she likes the music a lot better than the sermon - and the sermons are pretty good. They are just kind of hard to set through when you don't understand and I don't get as much out of them when I am trying to keep her entertained and quiet. So we tried Sunday School. Our church has a class for kids 20 months to 2 1/2 years old. It is basically a nursery with a story time. She saw the toys and I don't think she even noticed I left. I think it was harder for me to leave her at Sunday School than at daycare but they gave me a beeper so if Alexa needed me they could page me. They said she did really well - she just didn't understand cherrios in a cup (treat time). We will have to work on that. At home she dumps the cherrios out of a bowl or cup if I put them in anything. After naptime today we will try eating our treat out of a cup.

After church we went to Kohl's and Target. A couple stopped me and asked if I had adopted Alexa. They are very proud parents of a little baby girl who they adopted domestically. We talked for a few minutes on how special it is to be parents through adoption. She said our children are very special gifts from the Lord. I couldn't agree more. I almost cried again right there in Target. What a lucky mother I am to have such a wonderful little daughter.

This morning I took Alexa back to have her blood drawn again. It actually went much better than I thought it might. Of course she cried but less than the first time - maybe because instead of being on the exam table I held her on my lap. After the bandage was on I gave her a couple M&M's and the lab tech gave her a little toy and we were on our way. We went to McDonalds for lunch where I bought her a happy meal - the first I have bought her and she happily ate her fries.

I was told by her daycare provider that she will eat a few bites of chicken nugget when it is in pieces. She wouldn't touch the pieces but she took a couple bites out of the whole nuggets. One bite was very big - and it all stayed in her mouth! All the chicken stayed in her mouth. I had to take pictures of course. I was the only parent at McDonalds taking pictures of their child eating but I don't care.

Then we were off to the zoo. Our first time there. It was a beautiful day for it. I decided not to let her feed the animals this time. I will wait until I have some help with me. She had a good time looking at the animals and the people.

Now I am hoping she will fall asleep for a little nap and then we can head to the park. It is a great day to be outside!

I was reminded the other day that I have not updated this for a while. So here is an update.

I took Alexa to the doctor on Thursday for some lab work and yesterday I got a call that they spilled her blood and we have to go back. Oh, I was mad. Her poor little arm is still black and blue from Thursday. I don't want to take her back but I know I must. The good news is that she has gained almost two pounds! Her twelve month clothes are still plenty big on her but they are no longer falling off.

This was my rocking chair when I was small and Alexa has just discovered it in her room. She loves climbing into it and rocking. She was just so cute I had to take some pictures!

Today is our three month anniversary. I was off work so we started the day with a trip to the park. Alexa still loves the swing. After about a half hour Mama gets a little tired of the swing and we try the slide then of course she wants back on the swing. I finally had to take her kicking and screaming from the park. Once I was headed to the car she was fine.

Last night I gave her half a banana with the peeling to see if she would eat it that way. It disappeared. She liked it better than in the chunks I usually cut it in. Today at noon she ate a whole banana! I gave her the first half and she ate it right down. So I gave her the other half. I had given her a toddler fork with lunch also to see if she would use it to eat any green beans - no luck there - but she decided to use the fork on the banana. It is the first time I have seen someone eat a banana in the peeling with a fork!

I am trying to get Alexa to say more. I think she has tried to say "dog", "upstairs", "quack" and "duck". I have a speech therapist coming next week to see if she can give me any pointers.

This evening it started raining so I let her run around in the driveway in the rain. She loves the rain. She ran around and stomped around in the water and put her hands down in it then held her hands up to the sky and looked up and laughed and laughed. It was so cute. I ran around with her for a while too. The neighbors will think we are nuts!

Time is flying by - and over night it feels like the seasons changed. Yesterday and today have been a lot cooler. I got out a long sleeved shirt for Alexa yesterday and long pants. I wish had had a video of it. I was helping her on with her top and when the sleeve kept going and going she had this quizical look on her face. Then when she was dressed she started picking on the sleeves. "Where are my arms?" her look said. Tonight I was going to take her out on a walk so I decided we needed our jackets. She did not want her jacket put on! I finally put mine on and then she decided it was ok and allowed me to put it on her. Then we went for our walk.

Alexa's birthday was a couple weeks ago. Here she is eating some birthday cupcake. She loved it. We had several nice celebrations. She is a very lucky girl to have so many people care about her.

She is eating more and more. She will eat a couple bites of chicken nuggets now. That is the only meat I have seen her eat. She loves tater tots. They have to be whole and perfect for her to eat them though. And she stuffs the whole thing in her mouth in one bite. So I found the perfect solution to that problem (one tater tot is a lot for her little mouth). They now make mini tater tots. Great! That will work! Only now since they are smaller she can stuff two in at one time!

She has learned to use a straw. Yes she figured that out with my mocha frappacino. She liked it. She was not supposed to like it. I will never have a frappacino to myself now. But since she figured out the straw I got out a juice box and she will drink apple juice. She wouldn't drink it out of a sippy cup. I guess it is better with a straw!