Tomorrow marks our first month home with Chloe! I cannot believe we have been home for a month. It seems like yesterday we were leaving to go to Guatemala. She has been such a sweet, happy girl the past month. It seems like she just knows she is at home. She LOVES bath time and asks a million times a day can we get in the Wa Wa.. which is what she calls the bath water. Even though the past month has been so incredible, we have had a few bumps in the road. The first week we had an adjustment as far as being happy that daddy had to go to work every day. She would cry when the word daddy was mentioned. We quickly got over that hurdle and last week I found head lice in her hair! I think I cried every day last week from just being so overwhelmed. I just cannot believe we had to deal with something like this our first month home! I never had them growing up and did not even know what they looked like until spotting them in her hair one day while she was going to sleep in my arms. I totally freaked out! I honestly panicked. My living angel on this earth.. my friend Cheryl went to Walgreens and bought me the kit to get rid of Lice. We immediately washed her hair and mine and Greg's too in the shampoo. I then started washing clothes and I think I ended up washing 12 loads the first day. Then I had to take all of her 2000 new stuffed animals and dolls and place them in a big plastic bag for two weeks to kill anything that could be on them. We have NO idea where she got them unless she had the eggs when we picked her up and we had no way of knowing. It seems like an endless task of pulling the hundreds of nits off individually of an active 19 month old but I think we are finally nit free! Praise the Lord! We had to cut her hair two more inches in the back to help get rid of all of the lice. It made me sick to cut it, but it was worth it, to get rid of this stuff! I do not wish this upon anyone!!!!! We basically were on house arrest for a whole week and both of us were stir crazy.  After reading tons of information online, we decided to contiue treating with natural substances for the next month on all of our hair and the all throughout the house just to make sure. We went to the health food store and bought Tea Tree Oil as well as some Shampoo that has Coconut Oil in it. I only found great things about both of these natural alternatives. Greg says I am obsessed with the Tea Tree Oil, because I put a couple of drops in a spray bottle with water and CONSTANTLY spray the house. I personally like the way it smells. It smells clean and natural to me.

She went for her first doctor visit on Friday and the doctor assured me that I was doing a great job with getting rid of the lice. We LOVED our new doctor! She was great. She also did a series of tests on Chloe since she came from overseas and all of the tests came back perfect. She thought she was doing very well and very healthy! We are sooo thankful for that.

We also went to Alabama and had her welcome home/shower party down there. We were soooo blessed with lots of nice things. We were overwhelmed by God's goodness and the support of His people!

Sorry it has been so long since I have written but as you can see I have been VERY busy!

Look for more pictures. I am posting them as I can...

Love you all!

April, Greg and Chloe

Hi Everyone! We have been soooo busy since we got home! We have had tons of friends and family visiting everyday. I have wanted update ever since we got home but it has taken me until today to do so. Chloe is doing so well adjusting. It is just like she knows that she is finally home! She loves her room and loves to just sit in the floor and play with all her toys. I am trying to add some pictures as I can. I wish I had my camera on me 24/7 because she is sooo funny. I wish I could capture every look, face and word she says. Here are a few more things we have observed about Chloe bug since she has been home.

1. She is facinated with ceiling fans.

2. She still loves sausage and wants it everyday for breakfast.

3. She loves grapes and oranges. She does not like bananas or pineapples.

4. When you call her and say Chloe where are you.. she says "huh." It is sooo funny. You can even hear her in the other room if you call her.

5. She loves going and starring out the windows in the back of the house and on the side.

6. She loves to stand on her head and do back bends. Greg is hoping for a gymnast.

7. She loves when you sing to her. (But she told her dad no-no when he tried to sing to her! lol)

8. Before I knew it she had grabbed up one of my hot fries off my plate and put it in her mouth. She loved them and grabbed several more. We thought she would scream because they were too hot but not for her!

9. She has decided to take her bottle now, but still prefers cola.. thanks PAPA!

10. We think she is left handed and right handed because she throws the ball with both hands.

11. She has slept through the night three nights in a row!!!!

12. She did love banana bread.

13. I pull the clothes out of the dryer in the floor and she loves to roll around on them while I fold them.

14. She loves to help mommy put the clothes in the dryer.

15. She loves to open and shut drawers, doors  etc.

16. She has now successfully pee pee on Mommy, Daddy and Nona.

17. We took her in the nursery to change her this Sunday and she ended up staying the rest of church and loved it!!!! She played with her friend Anna Grace!

18. Sunday we ate Mexican food and I thought her little belly would explode. She had a saucer full of beans, rice and cheese along with some chips, chicken and oranges for dessert. She ate as much as I did!

19. She wants to explore everything! She cannot be still for 2 seconds.

20. She loved Ms Jill's homemade Chicken Pot Pie!

I will post more as soon as I can!

Love you all! We are so grateful to FINALLY be a family!

April, Greg and Chloe Bug

Hi! We were so busy yesterday all day and I did not have a chance to write. I tried to download pictures last night three times and the internet service was not working. I will post many more pictures this weekend when we get home. Just wanted to write you a quick note and let you know that we are ok and that we will be coming home today! It is 5:45am and we are getting ready to go eat breakfast and then on to the airport. Please pray for us that we will have safe flights. Love you all and cannot wait to see you!

Our plane lands at 8:33pm tonight.

Love, April, Greg, Chloe and Papa

Hi Everyone! We are having a great time spending time in Guatemala with Chloe. She is soooooooo funny and really starting to get attached to us. We went downstairs this morning for breakfast and then Hector (Victor's brother in law) took us to the zoo this morning. We saw lots and lots of animals and had lots of fun. We stopped at the snack bar and had a Pepsi in a glass bottle! It was soooooo much better than plastic! Chloe loved the animals, especially the cows, chickens and turkeys. We then went to the supermarket which is basically like our WalMart. Hector took us. We got some bottled water, more pepsi cola for Chloe (remember that is her new fav) and some snacks. We are planning on going to McDonald's tonight for dinner. Greg had a headache so he and Chloe stayed in the room and took a nap while dad and I went with our facilitator back to the US Embassy to pickup Chloe's passport and VISA. It was so cool because now we are done! Honestly we are soooooooooo ready to come home. We miss you all! Can't wait to see you. Victor is taking us to Antigua tomorrow sightseeing. I have taken some video on my camera, so I am going to try and get some of that posted later on tonight.

My daily random list of things we are learning about Chloe:

1. She loves men! She prefers Greg to hold her over me or dad but she even went to Hector today at the zoo.

2. She now has a new favorite snack.. BAKED LAYS POTATO CHIPS!

3. We have been saying CHEESE when snapping her picture, so today she started saying CHEESE and smiling whenever I got the camera out.

4. She loves sausage links!!! WHO KNEW?

5. She also loves cookies with the cream in the middle. She has been taking them apart and eating the cream in the middle!

6. We were told she LOVED baths but not so much. She would NOT sit down in the tub at all.

7. She definately knows what she wants.. and if she does NOT want something she tells you. She says No No...

8. She unlike most children, does not like candy. She does like French fries and chicken.

9. She does not like us to fix her hair.. Daddy has tried to fix her hair but it is so fine that is kept slipping through his hands.. so mama finally had to come to the rescue. Mama and Chloe both had piggy tails to the zoo.

10. She already LOVES shoes. She kept looking down at them today while she was walking.

11. She watches Kids Discovery 24/7. We cannot watch any grown up shows. She wants to keep it on while we go to sleep too! haha

Love,

April,Greg, Chloe and Papa

Well let me start by saying... there really are no words to describe the moment that we first set eyes on Chloe.. We were still trying to checkin at the hotel when the whole foster family showed up in the lobby. I thought I would have time to check in and freshup, but not the case which is ok. We just wanted to get her as soon as possible! It was very emotional watching the foster family. They have never fostered before so this was very hard for them to have her for a year and a half and then have to give her up. She never cried when they left. She did awesome until bedtime and then she did not want to go to bed. She finally fell alseep around midnight but kept waking back up off and on during the night and looking at us like who are you and why am I here? We felt so bad for her. She was not with the only family she had known for 1 1/2 years. She really does love Greg the best so far... she wants him all the time which is hard but I am trying to be patient. Papa is her next choice.. For some reason she must feel more safe with them. We had to leave at 6:20am this morning so needless to say we had another sleepless night. (we only had one hour sleep the day we flew out of Nashville!)

We had our Embassy Appointment today and everything went great! We were so blessed. It really went pretty quick too. Of course I cried and cried when we did the oath and had to raise our right hands. So many times I thought this day might not ever come. We were back home by 10am! So she is OFFICIALLY our child now! We go back to get her passport tomorrow afternoon. Today we are just chillin out and resting in the room. we might venture out to the mall and to eat a little later on. I just uploaded some pictures of last night and today so far. I am going to end this post by listing some cute things we learned about her so far. She is the most adorable and sweetest thing in the world. I cannot wait for you to meet her...

Random things about Chloe Bug...

1. She HATES getting her diaper changed and she hates having any clothes taken off of her. SHE SCREAMS!

2. She loves water and Diet Coke.

3. She WILL NOT take her bottle with milk at all since we have been here. We tried many times. She wants her princess cups that Aunt Kim Bush bought her.

4. She loves any kind of music (especially Latino) and she loves to dance around.

5. She loves her DORA doll and says Dora all the time! lol

6. She is very very loving and just lets me kiss and hug all over her.

7. Loves Winnie the Pooh and can say it too! It comes out more like innie the po

8. She loves her Elmo crackers that Joshua Gross got her. (Her possible future Guatemalan prince! haha)

9. She loves to smile and clap!

10. She loves to watch Discovery Kids. It is just like ours except everything is in Spanish.

11. She loves to say dada, mama and papa. We are teaching her nana too. She is picking up English very quick.

12. We are already calling her Chloe and she is recognizing it as her name.