Rain, rain go away

It rained all day today. David said there is a tropical depression somewhere around here. Kind of made for a blah day which may make for a blah post. Tomorrow we are going to suck it up and go to the Seven Banyan Temple even if there is a hurricane. The non-Guangdong families are all leaving tomorrow, the luckies. I think most of us are ready to come home. This trip has been absolutely amazing but I am ready to be at home.

The photo shoot this morning was pretty funny. The babies all looked so cute! First, I shall show you some pictures of me preparing Maggie. She was not cooperating but then she finally did!



I do not understand why Blogger will not download photos in the order in which I select them. That is why it always takes to freaking long to do these posts. Anyway. It was sort of chaotic down in the lobby. First we had the Guangdong families take a group picture. I love our group. They are great and so much fun!
A couple of the families have brought their other children with them and I need to email their moms because I have been SO impressed with their kids. They are so mature and well-behaved. I saw one of the daughters commandeering the stroller, diaper bag, blanket, bottle and something else to help her mom out today. The two older kids are both in 8th grade. I hope Maggie turns out as nice as these 2 girls.
After that group picture, we stuck all the babies on a couch. My pictures are not very good because I could not get in front of the sofas to get the right angle so I'm not even going to bother posting them. Then we took a picture of all the Lianjiang babies. I will post that one so you can see how cute they all are. As soon as we put them on the couch, Maggie ripped a toy right out of Kylie's hand. Luckily, Kylie seems pretty laid back so no screaming occurred. Maggie seems to possibly have been the orphanage bully. She's the smallest but that does not seem to bother her. She's also the 2nd oldest so I don't know what her deal is!
The babies from left to right are : Jenna, Chloe, Emma, Maggie, Kylie, Karli and Audrey. Poor Audrey is sick. She had to go to the hospital today because she won't eat or drink anything. They gave her an IV to rehydrate her and diagnosed her with bronchitis. Please keep her in your prayers. Her mom, Liz, is here by herself because her husband had to go home on Saturday. Liz's aunt and daughter are here with her but I know she wishes her husband was still here.
Here you see that Maggie stuck the finger in and didn't seem to be too bothered by hollering babies.
After the pictures, we changed the babies into normal clothes, well, except I had made a mistake when I bought Maggie some long pants here in China the other day. They are about a mile too long so I had them jacked up around her ribs like she was Urkel. It was hilarious. I finally rolled them up and we were good to go. To anyone who is coming to China to adopt, even in the dead of summer, bring some long pants and a sweater for your baby. I WISH we had brought less sleeveless stuff and more long sleeved stuff. Then we headed off to a teahouse. It was kind of interesting, of course. It started absolutely pouring while we were there and I kind of got in a bad mood. They showed us these special teapots that were very pretty but we did not purchase one. We didn't feel like tasting tea because we felt crabby so we fed Maggie a bottle and looked around. Then when we were sitting on the bus waiting for everyone, I noticed this absolutely HUGE umbrella they were using to escort people to their cars. I commented to David and he told me it was an umbrella from a table. BWA! I about died laughing. I told David on the way back that I wanted McDonald's for lunch. He said he would go get it while I stayed with Maggie. Maggie loves to sit in the hallway in front of the mirrored closet doors but on my lap so I sat there with her for a long time. I got stern with her once because she was clanging the ironing board around and I didn't want it to fall on her so I said, "NO" and she started crying. I picked her and gave her kisses and all was well.
When David got back, I sat on the bed nearest the hallway and David sat on the loveseat across the room. David had brought me an ice cream cone, so I ate that first. I gave Maggie a little taste and then she stood at the bottom of the bed acting like she was chewing and licking her lips. It was so funny. I gave her a little bit of my hamburger bun too but that was all. No fries for this baby. Yet. She and I took a nap together and then she woke up crying again. I think she was hungry but I don't remember because David took her and I fell back asleep. I was SO tired. I owe David big tomorrow. Later on, Brooke came over to see if Maggie wanted to play so we went out in the hall with some toys and played for a LONG time. It was really fun. Emma can blow raspberries and it is so cute! Maggie hasn't figured that one out yet, possibly because she was too busy trying to steal Emma's toys and eat her food.
This is not a great picture but the girls would not look at me at the same time!
Brooke gave Emma some baby food corn while we were out there and Emma was not a fan. I got a spoon and let Maggie try it. She seemed pretty game to eat the rest of the jar, had I allowed her to.

Then our room service arrived and we decided to test Maggie on the Benadryl tonight to see how she did. She is currently sleeping but putting her to bed was not without a struggle. She hollered BIG TIME the first 2 times we put her in the crib. But then I rocked her and rocked her and peace was restored throughout the land.

Some things that I have noticed about my writing is that I use the word "then" WAY too much and I also have a problem with making my verb tenses agree in sentences. I guess if I would be willing to proofread, that would be remedied. But I usually don't feel like it and Blogger is a pain to edit. Tomorrow Amy and Lineker are taking all of our paperwork over to the US Consulate. We have to be in our rooms from 9:30-10:30 in case they call with any questions. Then we have the rest of the day free. Friday is our appointment at the consulate for our swearing in or oath or something. I've heard it's not that impressive. We shall see. Then Saturday we are off to Hong Kong! David planned our trip while I was in the hallway today. I don't even know what we're going to do while we're there. Shop, I guess. Thank goodness we bought that rinky dink stroller.

We discovered a channel tonight that was playing last season's episodes of "The Amazing Race"! I wish they had played "Big Brother" so I could have seen the end. And, ugh, I know that stupid Mike Boogie won. Anyone who includes Boogie as part of their name should not win anything. Well, on that note, I think I shall close. Pray that this rain goes away because we are getting a little bit of cabin fever in our hotel.