I wanted to give everyone an update about how things are going now that we’re adjusting to live as a family of five. Truthfully, there are good days and hard days, but I know things will keep getting better.
 
Selah is sleeping better (she even slept through the night once), but most of the time she still wakes up scared a few times during the night and we have to walk her to get her back to sleep. So, we’re still pretty tired most of the time. Selah had her doctor’s appointment at the Akron Children’s adoption clinic to see the international adoption specialist and the developmental specialist. So far, things are looking good! Selah was nervous at the appointment, but she was very brave when they took blood to test for lots of different things. Hopefully we’ll have the results soon. Both the doctor and developmental specialist were impressed with her language so far. We need to work on her gaining weight, however, because our little peanut’s weight isn’t even on the charts (she’s below the 1st percentile). This is hard because she’s VERY picky in what she will eat. Right now, she’ll eat Cheerios, goldfish, some Chinese snacks we brought home, and crackers. Recently, she at two bites of lasagna and some mac and cheese, though, so we’re hoping that’s progress! In the next few weeks, we need to take Selah to a pediatric cardiologist to get checked out and an allergist due to some food allergies we're a little concerned about.
 
Selah LOVES Levi, and she smiles huge when he walks into a room. Selah and Ezra (who are just 11 months apart) have some bonding to do, though. Ezra isn’t quite ready to give up his baby of the family status, and Selah sees him as someone trying to take her toys. Yesterday, Ezra started “digging a hole to China so we can take Selah back” in the backyard. Thankfully, today he’s changed his mind.
 
Selah went from never stepping on grass before and being scared to walk on it less than a week ago to LOVING to be outside. She’s a huge fan of the water table and sandbox. She's also saying a few English words already, like Mommy, Daddy, Levi, Ezra, milk, Cheerios, coffee, bye-bye, thank you, and pretty.  She is already a bit of a girly-girl; she shows everyone her painted toe nails and says "pretty".
 
For this whole week, we’ve had people from church bring us meals. This has been such a blessing, because we’re tired and are adjusting to taking care of a 2, 3, and 4 year old, but also because God has used this to remind us that we are not alone in this. Every time we start getting discouraged or overwhelmed, God has sent someone to us with a meal, or gifts, or one of our parents will call, or we get a message that someone is praying for us. From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU. It truly means the world to us.  
 
So, in short, we’re tired, our house is a mess, and laundry is piled up, but we’re doing good! Thank you, Jesus!

I know a lot of people were waiting for an update post when we got home, but we were so exhausted that I wasn’t able to update. I’m just warning you, there may be errors here since I’m still so tired and my brain isn’t quite working right.
 
Since we were able to update our flights, we woke up early on Friday morning (China time) in Hong Kong, packed up, and walked over to the airport. We went through TSA, had breakfast at Starbucks in the airport, and walked to our gate after getting a little lost in the maze of an airport. We only spent about 12 hours in Hong Kong, but the scenery we saw was beautiful!
 
We boarded our 15 hour flight and it took off on time. Selah did much better than I could have expected on the flight. We had upgraded to economy plus, which was amazing. Selah had a little space to even play on the floor in front of her seat. It made a huge difference. We had lots of different toys ready to pull out like Play Dough, magnets, stacking cups, and a DVD player with Kai Lan and a few Disney movies. There were a few times she cried, and I walked up and down the plane a little with her, but overall she did great! She slept for about four hours near the end of her flight. To her little body, we landed at 1:30 am in Newark, which was actually 1:30 pm.  We figured we would be forever at customs and immigration there, but it only took about 30 minutes. We gave them all of Selah’s citizenship paperwork, and Selah was officially a US citizen as soon as we landed. I have never been more appreciative of the freedoms and opportunities we have as Americans as after this trip.
 
Since our new flights had us connecting in Newark, Dan’s dad, stepmom, and two brothers were able to meet us at the airport. Dan’s brothers even left school early to meet us there! Selah loved meeting her family, and it was so great to see them all.
 
After visiting for awhile, we rechecked our bags, went through the LAST round of TSA, and ate in the United lounge because of our United credit card. At that point we were pretty exhausted and cranky after being up for 24 hours, but we made it to our next flight from Newark to Cleveland. Selah and I slept during the hour and a half flight, and we walked from our gate to baggage claim.  We spotted Levi and Ezra first, and they started sprinting towards us. It was the moment we had been waiting over two weeks for, and the four of us were tearing up as we hugged. Then we looked up and saw our friends and family in our adoption t-shirts with amazing signs waiting for us and welcoming Selah home. It was truly one of the most beautiful sights we’ve ever seen. We are so thankful that Kate Oren was able to document this moment with her photos! We hugged everyone and introduced them to Selah. She was a little shy but warmed up quickly and started smiling at everyone. As exhausted as we were, it was one of the best moments of our lives. To see the people we love after what felt like such a long trip away was amazing, but what was even better was what this meant for Selah.  Just a very short time ago, this precious little girl was without a family at all. Now, she is a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, a niece, and a friend. She is loved and cherished, and the display at the airport represented this drastic change in her life.
 
We all drove home and Selah used a car seat for the first time in her life. In China, they do not use car seats, so while we were there, she sat on my lap in the vans we used. She was fine in the car seat at first, but about halfway home she was pretty over it. She screamed and cried for a while until we got home. When we got home, Levi and Ezra eagerly showed her around the house, and she ADORES them. They make her laugh and she was so comfortable playing with them. It was absolutely amazing to see them interact. Selah even tried to imitate some of the words Levi said to her. She is going to learn English so quickly!
 
We took Selah outside, and she obviously had never walked in grass before. It was hilarious to see her discover it. She was so tentative and lifted her knees high when she was walking, and then she wanted to be picked up. The boys started picking flowers for her and giving them to her, and she was thrilled. Levi and Ezra are both amazing big brothers. They brought Selah toys and stuffed animals to play with, read books with her, brought her a juice box and snacks, and were so attentive.
 
Bedtime was pretty difficult, especially since Selah is used to sleeping on a different schedule. We finally were able to put her to sleep after a lot of tears at 11. Unfortunately, she was back up at 1:30, and I walked her to sleep for an hour. Then she was back up at 4:00, and Dan took a turn and then we switched around 6 when I got up with her for the day. We are so exhausted; we’re hoping to be able to have a normal sleeping schedule soon!

We’ve been in China for exactly two weeks. We are really getting close to the end! We leave in three days, and we can’t wait to see our boys.
 
This morning we woke up early for our 8:30 consulate appointment. We were very fortunate not to have to wait in the very large crowd in front of the consulate; there was a special, short line for American citizens. The amount of people attempting to obtain a visa to America was insane. There were huge crowds of people who want to come to America. We are so blessed in ways I never understood before.
 
Thankfully, we were second in line for our consulate appointment. We filed some paperwork, Selah threw a couple of fits, they asked us a few questions, and we took an oath that we will always care for Selah. There were no photos allowed in the consulate, so we don’t have any pictures to post from that part of our day. The individual at the consulate then informed us that there was a computer problem in Washington and that they couldn’t issue any visas, but that they were working around the clock to fix it. It freaked us out a lot. We asked our guide about possible delays, and she said the longest she had heard of was an extra week. That was pretty scary for us to hear!
 
We talked with the other people in our group, and everyone started requesting prayer. We joked that this computer doesn’t stand a chance with all of the people praying for us all. At about 5:00, we heard that the computer was fixed, so hopefully tomorrow afternoon our visa will be issued and we can head over to Hong Kong where our flight leaves on Saturday. If there are any delays, we did build in some extra time before our flight just in case.
 
We spent some more time in the pool this afternoon where Selah finally let us take her in for a few minutes. She’s getting braver and braver by the day! With a few other couples from our group, we went on a river cruise along the Pearl River tonight. We ordered pizza from Papa Johns (third night in a row) and had it delivered to the pier and took it on the boat. It was a beautiful little tour and we got to see the sunset and all of the downtown buildings lit up.
 
Tomorrow we check out of our hotel, pick up Selah’s visa (hopefully) and then head to the train station for Hong Kong.  We are so excited to be so close to the home stretch, but we are going to really miss the other couples in our group! They are amazing people with amazing kids who have been an incredible encouragement to us throughout our time here.
 
Thank you all for your continued prayers! We’ve really been feeling them these last few days! Selah has slowly had better evenings and has been trusting us more and more. It’s hard to believe she has only been with us a little over a week. We’ve been telling her “wo ai ne” (I love you in Chinese) and today she said it back to us with a smile. There are so many hard moments, but ones like that really pull you through the rough stuff to remember the forever with our little girl.