China Day 7 - More smiles!

Here we are on Day 7 -  nearly halfway there! We had a mountain of official paperwork to get through this morning which was relatively painless and after wards we spent more time getting to know our sweet girl. We continue to get more smiles - she is recognizing us more and more when we walk into a room and is making a lot of eye contact with us, which is a very good thing! She is also starting to recognize her own name - we can see it a little more all the time. She seems to be continuing to eat better and actually let us change her diaper each time today without screaming! All answered prayers. She is still pretty shy when we are out with the group (we see this with several of the girls) but at least we are seeing her personality emerge more and more - especially when we are together in the room. We are discovering that she LOVES music too. We were fortunate enough to be able to live stream KLOVE when the internet is working (KLOVE is one of our favorite radio stations) - so theres' a lot of singing going on and she loves it! I think she even hums sometimes. :) If You're Happy and You Know lt is also one of her favorites (just like Jackson!) She continues to amaze us with her flexibility and rolling, and is starting to love to snuggle with us when we play. She still has the sniffles and we suspect she has had a slight fever but that seems to be getting better. She also had ice cream today (compliments of her Daddy who hit the jackpot at the corner market with a chocolate coated vanilla ice cream bar) and she loved it! What 10 month old doesn't. :) (That is one of the pics I'll attempt to post). She is definitely learning what kisses are as she is getting a ton - and she even tries to kiss Jackson's picture in her photo book! Of course that melts my heart each time she does it!    The only other exciting thing today is that some of the ladies in our group got "foot massages". It lasted over an hour and actually included a partial neck massage. We all enjoyed it immensely. Probably one of the best things about it is that it only cost 60 yuan, which is $10USD. Can't beat that anywhere.   Tonight we are going out for more local food which continues to be amazing, although a big salad would also be nice. We can't get salads here so that will be one of the first things I get when we get back!    Tomorrow we are going out to the countryside to see more of "real" China in one of the villages. We are actually pretty excited about that. Even though Changsha is "real" China, it is still a big city so to see the countryside in Hunan will be more similar to the area where Lia was born. I hope to get some good pictures while we are out. Saturday we leave for Guangzhou, where we will be for the remainder of our trip.   We are at/almost over the half way point in this trip and the countdown is on! Next Friday we will be on our way back. *Skype* has been a wonderful way to see Jackson each day - thank God for it. He is growing so much and we can't wait to get to him - but we know he is being loved so much and is probably getting spoiled rotten and right now and even that is ok. Can't believe I just said that! :)  Until tomorrow ....