More Information

Here's what we know about baby Kate from our referral:

She's a deep sleeper.

She holds her head up while lying on her stomach, rolls from supline to prone position by herself, sits alone quite steadily, and tears paper.

She locates the direction of a sound or voice, visually follows moving toys, holds blocks in each hand at the same time, looks for a dropped toy, reaches and grasps for a toy, and bangs two blocks together.

She follows you by moving her head from one side to the other, laughs aloud, distinguishes between acquaintances and strangers, directs sounds at someone or something, eats biscuits without help, know her name, turns when she is called, and responds to the facial expressions of adults.

She's active, restless, fond of listening to music, fond of playng with toys, has a ready smile, is quick in reaction, and is closest to her caretaker.

Everything else we have is in Chinese, and will be translated for us in a couple of weeks.

We also have pictures of the stork arriving:



That's us with our stork, JD.



And here's Eddie scanning in the photos for the blog.

The Photos Are Here

We Got The Call!

Today was a very big day. At 2:31 PM we received the call at work from Amanda at Children's Hope and found out who our Kate actually is.



We went straight to the agency, since they had the only picture we could see before Monday. There we met with Amanda ...



... and she gave us all the info she had ...



... including this faxed picture of a beautiful little girl.



Nan Xian Liang. Xian means "virtuous." And Liang means "bright." Born November 16, 2005. Currently living at the Maonan Social Welfare Institute in Maoming City in the Guangdong Province of China. As of June 23rd, 15 pounds, 25 inches long, and beautifully bald and toothless.

We'll be getting more info and a better picture on Monday, but today we've finally seen our long awaited daughter.

Kate's Quilt - Production

This past Saturday, my Mom Faye, Christi's Mom Sue, Christi and I travelled back to Quilter's Attic to see the work our friend Cathy had done on the quilt. All the pieces except for Sunbonnet Sue have been pieced together with the front borders, and it is looking incredible.

Kate's Quilt Pre-Production

Christi and I had an incredible day yesterday. We traveled to Goodlettsville, Tennessee to Quilter's Attic, one of the coolest places on the planet, where our friend Kathy Stuard is helping us put Kate's quilt together.




There they have a "design wall" covered with batting. Cloth sticks to the batting like a post-it note, allowing you to arrange and rearrange the elements of your quilt.



We placed the pieces totally at random. I literally closed my eyes and picked up pieces blind for Christi to place. Then we went back and slightly revised based on color and pattern.




So we now have a pattern for the quilt. The blank spaces in the bottom right corner are for Jane Oakley's Sunbonnet Sue. Kathy will stitch the pieces together, get the borders and the backing Christi picked ready, and get it to the quilter.

It's been a long time since we sent out the first quilt letter ...



But by the end of this month we should know who our Kate is, and have the quilt finished for her.