Family from New Jersey Visits Natalie

Natalie got to meet her cousins (Bekah and Hannah), her Aunts (Priya and Roshni), her Uncle (Sunil) and Great Aunt (Shanthi) from New Jersey this week. It was a time of fun and adventure for all.

Natalie's Baptism - May 24, 2009

Natalie was baptized on May 24th at St Andrew's Church in Plano, TX. Our family and friends joined us for this special occasion.

Play Room Time with Dadaji and Aunty Nancy

In addition to developing Natalie's ball playing and stair climbing skills, Dadaji and Aunty Nancy also spent a lot of time with her in her play room, working on counting, art and building with blocks.

Natalie watching Natalie

To document our life and times with Natalie so far, Mom made a brief video of Natalie's highlights over the past 3 months. While Mom was making her final adjustments, Natalie enjoyed one of her favorite pastimes - watching herself. She loves to watch images of herself over and over again, especially when they are set to music.

Play Date with Madison - Natalie's classmate and friend

One of the extra benefits of attending our local Montessori school is that Natalie got to meet her friend and classmate Madison. Madison recently visited for a play date. Madison is very good at stacking blocks. Natalie was very good at sharing her toys with her friend.

Meeting new friends in the play area at Willow Bend Mall

Now that Natalie is walking, she is taking full advantage of all the great play areas that our local malls have to offer. Here she is having fun and making new friends at the Willow Bend mall.

Dr. MacMillian Visits from ORU

One of the benefits of having Mom home with Natalie is that she got reconnected with one of her favorite college professors on facebook. Fortunately, Dr. MacMillian and his wife were scheduled to travel down to Austin from Tulsa, so they stayed over at our home on their journey. Although their stay was brief, it was very memorable.

Playing Ball with Dadaji

Natalie has become quite athletic since she started to walk. In a relatively short time, she's gone from just starting to walk to starting to run. Natalie has also gotten a lot more coordinated when playing ball thanks to Dadaji, who played with her for countless hours.

Learning to climb stairs with Dadaji

Towards the end of Dadaji's visit, he helped Natalie learn how to climb up the stairs. Natalie went most of the way up, took a break to hangout and talk with Dadaji, and then finished her climb. She and Dadaji later explored the upstairs for the first time together.

Natalie takes a dip in the pool

On Saturday, May 23rd, Natalie took her first dip in the pool. It started a bit by accident - she wanted to splash a little in the spa and ended up getting so wet that we decided to just have her go into the water completely.

Because bath-time is now one of Natalie's favorites, we anticipated that she would also like the pool, and she did. The only thing that gave us pause was how fearless Natalie was in the water. Swimming lessons are definitely in her near future.

Adoption recognition on May 19, 2009

May 19th was another important day for Natalie. This is the day that her adoption in China was officially recognized in the USA, specifically by the State of Texas. This is one of the final steps (along with passport and social security card) in the paperwork process. The main benefit of going through this step is that Natalie will ultimately have a US birth certificate in addition to her Chinese one.

Overall, this is a lot like some of the other adoption related processes - a significant amount of paperwork before and after a relatively brief ceremony. This particular process was a little strange because it takes place in Dallas Juvenile Court, where they handle all sorts of cases involving children. We happened to be there on an especially busy day. Fortunately, the Judge was very kind to us and took us first. Our case was short and simple - we were probably in Court less than 2 minutes - we just answered a few simple questions and had our photo taken.