Gotcha!!!

To say that I'm IN LOVE is an UNDERSTATEMENT! This child is beautiful, amazing, wonderful, sweet, funny, kind, adorable, funny, and EATS LIKE AN ITALIAN!!!!!

Yesterday was Got'cha Day, it was pretty wonderful & hectic as well. I found out from our guide that the children were literally taken from their foster mothers THAT VERY MORNING & placed in the arms of STRANGERS for a two & a half hour bus ride into the city to our hotel & then placed into a big stuffy hell hot room & sat on tables to await their fate. They were then handed one by one to the anxious awaiting families and although we all were head over heels in love and so excited, the experience of it was not all love & fuzzy feelings. The babies screamed bloody murder as you can imagine and it took me about 30 minutes to get Ruby calmed down enough to sit with me & interact... and at about 45 minutes I got a smile and a giggle! She was slowly coming around and finally with the help of some childrens benadryl she slept like an angel from 8:30pm until 1:30am when it was time to wake Momma up & I suggested a Bath for our little miss 'spicy' girl (she smelled of something spicy) and she wasn't all that crazy about the bath but didn't scream her head off, was more of a 'you're bothering me' kinda whine... but after it was over and she was all dry & clean & dressed in a new outfit her Nanna bought her & a toasty fresh diaper etc... all was well with the world.

She played in her crib with the toys that I brought her and she's in LOVE WITH HER SOFT TEDDY! She ate some food, I made some instant oatmeal cinnamon & spice and she loved it & ate the whole thing but REFUSED to touch her bottle which made me a little worried but I figured she'd eventually come around, so I told myself that at least she ate & that's better than nothing, right? So we go back to sleep around 3am & slept until nearly 9am. She's a WONDERFUL SLEEPER! THANK YOU GOD IN HEAVEN!!!!!!!!!! When she woke up this morning she had the most adorable bed head sticking straght up to the heavens so I just let it be that way & finished it off with a cute hair bow, everyone thought I 'did that' myself LOL I said " thanks but nope, that's all mother nature & a good toasty bath before bed!" hehehe

I do FINALLY HAVE PICTURES! I am going to upload a few now and I ask again Karen to please post this text as well as the photos to my blog for everyone to see. I am just OVER THE MOON & BACK AGAIN IN LOVE WITH THIS BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRL I AM PROUD TO CALL MY DAUGHTER!

Oh, and by the way, Karen, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ADVICE ABOUT BRINGING A TON OF PEDIALYTE CUZ THAT'S ALL RUBY WILL DRINK! She won't TOUCH formula, chinese or otherwise! I have TONS of the Gerber Liqui Lytes packets and I finally got her to drink HALF AN 8 OZ BOTTLE TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I sobbed tears of joy as I was nervous that she'd be dehydrated if she didn't drink but you all must've been keeping us in your prayers cuz Ruby is drinking now & I couldn't be happier!!!

Today we have an appointment at 2:30 to go to the Notary for something, don't know, don't care, I have a daughter who DRINKS HER BOTTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll just show up where & when I'm told & bring this BEAUTIFUL CHILD WITH ME! =)

I'll hopefully be able to continue to update everyone here & there because of a wonderful woman in our travel group who is completely ok with sharing her laptop with me SHE ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Take care & I'll look forward to posting again real soon!

-Amy & Ruby Cate!