God is GOOD!!

Wow. I don't even know where to start. I want to go back and blog about the crazy week that lead up to her homecoming but I will get now to what everyone wants to know- how has it been since she has been home. Things have been great. It is still completely surreal and I still can't believe it when I see her walking around our house! We left the airport and came home for a few minutes for Andy to pick up something. She got to see her room for the first time. She was so excited and laughed about Chester the girls big horse in Taylor's room and quickly got on it to ride it. She made her way through some of the different rooms and met Sammy our cat. It is funny that she really doesn't know how to pet him. Animals in Haiti are looked at very different than they are here and they probably think it is crazy that we have animals living in our house and that we pet them and pay attention to them.

We then headed to Chick-fil-a for her first play place experience. She is 10 years old and has never been on a slide (unless you count sliding down the inclines on the roof at Camatin). Then we sat down for chicken and fries and a coke. She loved it all but you could tell she was tired because she didn't want to go back and play. We then took her first trip to Target to get her some shoes to wear to church. She was amazed by the huge store & we just enjoyed watching her face as she looked through clothes (well if you count doing the ugly cry in the middle of Target enjoying). She asked for a couple of things and we told her we would wait until later and she immediately put them back. We let her pick out a pair of shoes and then to her to the hair aisle to pick out hair accessories and combs, and then let her pick out some lotion. As we were paying I reached in my pocket to get my credit card and instead pulled out a Target card. On one of the packages she received at the airport had a gift card on it and it was falling off so I stuck it in my pocket and had forgotten about it. I am not even sure who it was from but if you are reading this- thank you!! That was a big happy last night!!

We headed back home and let her open a few of her Christmas presents, she explored the house some more. Then she took her first warm bubble bath (she loved it- she put bubbles all over her face and made a big mess in the bathroom splashing). Before their bath the girls were all upstairs laughing and when I asked why Taylor said she was laughing because they took off their panties to get ready for their bath. She came down the steps in her towel still giggling. In the orphanage they take a bath in their panties and when they finish they hand-wash their panties and hang them up to dry. Taylor then spent an hour braiding her hair & then they went to sleep. What a precious moment it was to walk in the girls rooms and kiss 4 girls goodnight and go to bed with such a peace knowing all of our family was under one roof safe and cuddled in their beds.

Andy said this morning when he came down from his shower that Odette and Taylor were up and Odette was in Abby & Molly's room hitting their bed with a scarf and trying to wake them up so he had to stop her. She spent the morning just going from one thing to another in our house. I think there is too much to do and she can't decide what to do first. So far her favorite thing is her balloons she got at the airport.

Watching her she is so much like a toddler exploring their environment. Little things that we didn't think about amaze us: the girls had to teach her at Chick-fil-a how to open her straw, I had to teach her at church how to tear the paper towels off the paper towel dispenser, that hot water comes out of the faucet, and the list I'm sure will continue to grow.

She took the hair down that Taylor fixed and she fixed her own hair this morning in pigtails. They have never really had the freedom to fix their hair themselves so this will be a learning process for us all.

Andy came and picked us up for church and we got to ride together as a family. She seemed to enjoy church and mostly enjoyed getting to talk to the other adoptive girls. I love watching them talk to each other and loving on each other. So far today Odette has asked to call Valancia and go to her house and she has gotten a call from Islande and Benita too. Before bed she told me tomorrow she wants to go to Benita's house. God knew that these girls were going to need each other so much that he brought them here at the same time so the could be together.

She asked for pork for lunch (that is the only word that I have not understood yet but luckily Brian was close so he was able to help out). We went to Mandarin House because she wanted rice too and we thought they had some pork dishes. They really didn't but she liked most things that she tried and was completely fascinated by the fish tanks. She kept leaving the table just to go look.

She spent the afternoon playing and changing clothes. I think she had on at least two outfits and redid her hair again. She starting washing the dishes in our sink so Taylor showed how how to load them in the dishwasher.

For dinner she wanted fish so we got Long John Silvers (I promise that I can cook but I doubt she knows that other than the cinnamon rolls that I made for breakfast). She had fun playing at Valancia's but then she came and said in English "Let's go home." Which is now my favorite words that she says. It took us a little while to convince her to go to bed but she finally did. She was talking about school tomorrow and I had to tell her that Abby, Molly & Taylor are going to school but she was going to stay with me. She seemed fine with that and that is when she told me that we could go to Benita's tomorrow.

Well this ended up longer than I thought but I am sure there are other details I left out but I will update as I remember them. Thanks again for everyone's support and prayers through this entire journey to bring our little girl home where she belongs!!