An evening of laughter! (Friday, September 10 continued)

Despite the long, hot morning with the medical appointments, by Friday evening Micaelyn really started showing us her true personality. After nearly a week of crying she burst open with laughter and excitement. During the days of crying when she had been content to simply let me hold her while the other kids played we thought perhaps she was a quiet little girl. Boy, were we ever wrong! Once she started opening up and letting us see her true personality we learned she was a very spunky little girl! It became clear she would have no problem keeping up with her older brothers. She smiled, she laughed, she played, she danced, she hugged, she kissed, she was full of energy, full of excitement, full of joy, and full of love for us. It was simply amazing to see how truly happy she was considering it had not even been a week since she had left her foster family. We knew she would still grieve for awhile, but it was wonderful to see her so full of happiness and excitement for her new life with us.

Our 2 new blessings.  Micaelyn watching Joshua gave me a good excuse to get a picture of him, although even with me pretending to be taking pictures of Micaelyn it made him noticeably uncomfortable.  It is still hard to believe how hard we had to fight our agency to adopt him (because they had never before allowed a family to adopt 2 unrelated kids at the same time), so hard to believe he almost "aged-out."  Every child deserves to have a family, every child deserves to be loved.  He may have turned 14 just after we adopted him, but he is surely still a child in need of love... and he is a blessing to our family!

She has such a cute profile!

Not surprisingly, it was Caleb who finally got her to play, who first made her laugh.  We took Caleb and Malachi with us on the trip because we knew it would be too hard on them to be away from us for so long (they have never been away from me for more than a few hours, never overnight), but we also knew they would be extremely helpful during Micaelyn's transition to life with us.

I had a pile of semi-dirty clothes (i.e. they had been worn but could be worn again if we started running out of clothing) in the corner.  She decided to fold them all.

I could tell by how much fun she was having folding clothes she would have fun "playing house" with the boys.  Notice Malachi sleeping on the couch behind her in the photo.  She was trying to take care of him like a baby (there had been a baby in her foster family).

It was amazing to see her so incredibly happy considering how terribly sad she had been just a few days before.

Such a beautiful little girl!

Full of happiness, and very spunky!

She was so happy she started dancing and singing a Chinese song.  The foster family told us she liked to sing and dance, and it was obvious she was doing a real routine, not just something she had made up.

"Mommy's pretty girl"  - This was one of the first English phrases she learned because I would say it to her so often (and I still do).

No more crying in the bathtub!

After an evening of running, playing, and laughing she passed out from exhaustion.  It was a bit funny to see how she was sleeping on a king size bed (Caleb, Micaelyn, and I were sharing the bed with Malachi on the couch.  Ernie and Joshua were in the 2 double beds in the connecting room).