We've been in Ft Lauterdale for 6 days now. I am getting over a yucky head and chest cold that I picked up somewhere between here and China!
Emma is doing So well, I can hardly believe that we have only had her for almost 3 weeks. The time out spot at Grandmas has done wonders for her rebellious side. She fully understands when Mommy is telling her "no" and now gets that there are consequences for ignoring that 'no".
Everyday she is getting a little more willing to try foods that don't look Chinese. We have found that she'll eat spaghetti, chicken nuggets, and cereal. (typical!) I am cooking a good bit of stir fry every other day for now so that she gets enough of everything. It's beeen really good for me too. I think I have been eating better than ever!
English is coming along slowly, bit by bit. When she says words she is only picking up the first sylable. So tissue is "tish" and shower is "show". But her understanding is expanding everyday.
I'll have to post pictures next week when Ron and the boys get here, because they have the camera. I am hoping it will be warm enough for the beach and pool. Rightnow it's in the 70's and windy- Which is very pleasant but not warm enought to get wet.
We miss you all!!!

We have arrived safely back in London! It feels so good to be in a familiar place. Emma and I fly out to Miami at 1030 today and should arrive around 430pm today.
Emma did pretty well on the flight last night. She was ready to leave the plane after 2 hours of the 11 hour flight. She kept grabbing her little backpack and saying “go”. Then she would cry when we said no. To be honest, I was ready to get off too!
We are all feeling the time change. Its 2AM and Emma is wide awake. I think that should work out well though, because we should be sleepy for the flight. Ron and the boys are happy to be heading home. They all will have a good bit of catch up school work, but they all are glad that we got to go to China together. The boys had fun learning to haggle prices in the shops. They got a real kick out of the funny things shop owners will tell you to make a sale!
Emma is settling in really well. We are seeing more of her real self now. She’s a real goofball. She should fit right in! Now that we are out of China, there are a few behavioral issues to work on. I don’t think that young children in China receive much discipline. I already have the time out spot planned for when we get to Grandmas house. We had to let things slide over there because we were all getting to know each other and because people really stop and get concerned if your child is crying.
We are really looking forward to her “English immersion”.. She was (of course) very drawn to Chinese speakers. But still she has mastered “Bye-bye” , “baby”, and “no”. Though she isn’t saying much, she does seem to understand a good bit of what we say to her. Body language helps a lot.
Well, we need to rustle up some food. Tummies are starting to rumble. Lots of love to all of you from all of us and thanks again for all of the Prayers and well wishes! XOXOXOXO

We've arrived in Guangzhou safe and sound. Jenny is taking Emma for her medical exam today. Everything is going well. Guangzhou is beautiful. No motorcycles driving down the sidewalks. It's an island and it's alot more peaceful. Very relaxed area. We go to the American Embassy tomorrow, and then fly to Beijing Wednesday night.

Well Emma had another great day. We were able to work on understanding some English words and some behavior. She can say bye-bye. We leave for Guangzhou in the morning(Saturday). We will be there until Thursday. Our blogs will be less frequent unless we can find some free Wi-Fi. Everything is going really well. She is definitely a "Behr" now. XOXOXO

Update for Thursday

Whew! sorry about the short blog yesterday. I was wiped out! A good nights sleep and an easy "baby day" has put some life back into me. We are getting to see more and more of Emmas personality every day. She is VERY sweet (most of the time). You wait and see. There's something about her that just makes you want to snuggle her! Check out the smile at dinner(really good chinese food- you wont find this stuf over there! -England or the US!) That's our first smiling photo of her. The video ron posted today shows her "tough side"(spunky/bossy/with a touch of fire). She has so far really hated when we point the camera at her- she usually cries- today she told Ron to put it away and spit (a habit we are working to correct) You can't help but laugh though. Check out her salute at the podium at the beginning. That still cracks me up!

Up until now she has only allowed me to hold her, comfort her, play, etc. But today she woke up in a great mood and the whole day was fun with lots of smiles. Ron got the first gooodnight kiss tonight and the boys got to hold her hands going up the steps.

We are turning out be very popular in China. We are stared at everywhere we go. At first I though it was our "tallness", then I thought it was our height plus a toddler who looks chinese. But now I know......It's The boys. Yesterday a girl asked to have her picture taken with Ronnie (see attached), Then two gigglie teens were being very shy with Joey, and today at the Museum we saw two girls snapping pictures of them from across the room. LOL!

Tomorrow is the last big day in Hubei province. We get Emma's passport.,then we are finished here. Saturday we fly to Guanzhou to get her Physical and American visa. WOW! We will then head back to London on The 19th. Good night all, and thanks again for all of the good advise and well wishing!

PS. We have got a picture with Ron in it for all you who asked. (sorry its side ways)Now that he can hold the baby, maybe I'll get a chance to hold the camera!

Emma had a great day today. Here's a short video. Jen will write something soon.

Some pictures

Hi everyone! I am so tired today that I am just going to add some pictures and a quick note- I'll do a letter tomorrow. Thank you to all you who have been praying for us and have sent emails and posted comments; they have really encouraged us!

Emma woke up crying again today- we rocked her for a couple of hours until she was ready to go on with the day. As you can see in the pictures, the afternoon was better (We went to a tower this afternoon for a couple of hours). My and leg muscles are so sore- I(Jenny) have been using ones that have been dormant since the boys stopped needing to be carried!

Hugs all around!

Jenny, Ron, Ronnie, and Joey

Emma- 29 hours later...

She still has her ups and downs, but more ups than downs now.

The adoption was finalized today at 1100! Emma Mei Aishan is officially ours.
“ Gotcha” day was yesterday. Our appointment to pick up Emma was moved to 3:00 so we actually first saw her at about 3:15. You can see the back of my head and her face in the pic as she walked out the door.
That was a very exciting moment which very quickly turned into a heart wrenching moment. The nanny who brought her to us had picked her up directly from her foster home. The nanny then told her that she was going to meet her “mama and baba (father)”. When they started telling her that we were the mama and baba, she was very upset and cried and clung to the nanny, asking for her real mama and baba (her foster parents).
When I realized what was going on I asked them (through an interpreter) to stop telling her that and tell her we are mommy and daddy. It was too late, she wanted no part of us or anything we offered- food drink, etc. She cried the whole way home (to the hotel). She was so red and hot. Then we realized that she was wearing 3 layers of shirts, 3 layers of pants, and a long coat on top of it all. But absolutely refused to remove any clothing, including shoes and coat.
In the room we just comforted her with a cool washcloth on her face, tissues to wipe her tears, and lots of soothing hugs and sounds. About 5 hours later she was willing to take some water and a few crackers. As the night went on she was crying less and looking around more. Thank you Mike for the “Signing Time” video idea. She loves them. It has been a great distraction and we know it will help us teach her English.
This morning when we woke up she cried a little, then she was fine! (except that she still refuses to remove any article of clothing!) It was really nice to see her face looking relaxed. I wouldn’t say she was happy, but she wasn’t extremely upset either! We were all worried though because today we had to go back to the building that we had collected her from yesterday. It turned out to be a bit of a set back. She recognized the place and got upset when she saw the nanny who had dropped her off. Crying times are very short today though. Progress.
We are not yet seeing the delay in fine motor skills that they had reported. So far we have seen her pick up many small objects, screw the lid on to a small water bottle, and feed herself with a spoon this morning. She also seems quite bright. She is very observant. She’s always watching everything. Also, she is definitely tall and solid- She reminds me a lot of Kaden.
As Jen was writing this, Emma was napping. When she woke up, we decided to give her a bath. She fussed a little, but now she is clean and happy wearing her clean purple outfit.

More and better pics to follow.

We woke up refreshed at 830 this morning, but after breakfast the jet lag hit hard. We are all in fog today. We have decided to try to stay up until bed time tonight to try and beat the jet lag quickly.
Wuhan’s population is 7 million, so we are in a very busy city. We went wandering around the local area this morning after breakfast. I had forgotten about the buzz of activity in Asia. Mopeds on the side walks weaving in and out of the people, constant sounds of traffic, horns, and chatter. I had also forgotten how tall of a family we are! Everywhere we go, people turn and watch us walking away. Makes you a little self conscious. I was looking at some clothes this morning while we wandered and remembered how hard it is to find my size here- even an extra large is too small in shirts. And forget finding pants (“trousers” for you British folks)!
Tomorrow we get to pick Emma Mei Aishan Behr. We ran into 2 other American families. One is from Wisconsin and is adopting a 6 year old little boy. The other is from south Carolina. They are adopting a 5 year old little girl. We all have our appointments on Monday at 2:30 to pick up our sons and daughters.
It’s really kind of overwhelming. We’ve waited so long, and wondered if it would ever happen. Now here we are, 24 hours away from being parents again. We can’t can’t wait meet this child, we already love her so much.
Good night all! BIG day tomorrow!

We have arrived in China! The flight from London to Beijing was very smooth and uneventful (just the way we like it). The first pic is of a tired bunch in front of a very Chinese dragon looking thing? We had a 4 hour layover in Beijing and thought we would kill some time and get a wake up drink at Starbucks. They didn’t have our usual “Chai Tea Latte”, so Ronnie and I thought we would be brave and have the “Green tea Latte”. It was not what we were expecting, to say the least! Think of Milk and grass on the puree setting! See pictures above. Joey was smart and stuck to the tried and true hot cocoa- He is smiling.

The flight to Wuhan was also smooth but the pilot worried us a bit when he told everyone "to fasten your seat belts because we are experiencing a problem". It turned out to be light turbulence. Phew...one of those lost in translation moments.

Our guide was waiting and has given us lots of info about Emma. She is still with her foster family, which is her second foster family. We will be meeting her at 2:30 on Monday- we are 8 hours ahead of the UK and 13 hours ahead of the U.S.
Our hotel is very nice. We are on the 16th floor and have quite a view of the city. I have also attached a picture at the top. (for some reason they loaded from bottom to top). We are worn out from the trip, but there is a pool, and a McDonalds. So will have to hit those before hitting the hay.

Love from the Behrs

2 Weeks and three days till we leave.

Well, We are all set. Tickets are bought, hotels are reserved, and now we just have to wait two and a half more weeks. Let me know if you have any trouble. getting in or seeing pics (there should be two from my first post). XOXO

Ok, Here we go. This is our first post. We are still in the UK. We have one month to go and still don't have airline tickets. Everthing else seems to be in order though. The boys are excited but Ronnie is not very happy about being in a hotel for two weeks. He says he "just doesn't like hotels". I can't blame him, I am not all that fond of them either. But at least they have a pool!

We have gotten notification that the package and letter that we sent to Mei Ai Shan has been delivered. Now we are hoping to get a reply from her foster family. We are all praying that this family will use our pictures and gifts to prepare Ai Shan to join our family.

Love to you all,
Jenny, Ron, Ronnie, and Joey