Gotcha Day for Chloe

Well, after 3+ years of waiting, dreaming, hoping, paperwork, and more waiting we were finally blessed with Chloe Xue Shan (pronounced Sway Sun much to our surprise), who arrived a little late at the government office, but aparently fully briefed about what was about to happen as she was very sad and scared and didn't no what to make of the situation. We had the opportunity to spend probably 30 minutes with her at the government office (adoption service in the afternoon, foreign marriages in the morning), where she sat quietly but cried most of the time, and was also battling a runny nose (wiping a 2 year olds nose constantly is no way to make friends with said two year old). We asked the foster representatives a little about her likes, dislikes, etc. and found out her schedule (still naps, good sleeper), likes rice and pork, a little about her history (she was with the foster family for nearly 2 years which is why this is so hard on her), she is a big fan of TV so she and I will get along fine...Avery has also been super about her new baby sister, and immediately handed Chloe her dog-the first sign of life we had from Chloe was playing with her puppy with Avery. We then took her to McDonald's to try and get her a treat and she was a big fan of the ice cream we had (and if you thought we drew stares with one Chinese daughter, you should see the stares with two and one scared out of her wits).

She arrived at the office wearing the pajamas we had sent her, a sweater and flannel pants and a ski jacket...and it was 60 degrees out today (this is apparently commonm with the chinese and their children)-what is even funnier is when we got her back to the hotel room and started to take off the jacket, sweater, pants and shoes, she kept fidgeting with her pajamas until she finally told our interpreter she was cold, and proceeded to put everything back one by one and then announce to us that she would like to go outside (probably the best way in her mond to find her foster family...all pipes lead to the ocean). She also staryed to cry and finally told our guide that she had to go potty and no one was doing anything about it. Our guide could not have been more helpful (this being roughly her 400th adoption or so) and took us to some chinese fast food and proceeded to mix rice, eggs, pork ad corn much to Chloe's liking-fantastic eater (Avery made me run down the street to get her fried chicken for dinner, and is still waiting for our first trip to subway in the Chongqing province). After dinner we came back and tried to get everyone ready for bed, but Chloe had other ideas-she didn't want to remove any of her clothes, but did an excellent job of brushing her teeth (Avery showed her like a good big sister) and she took to it very well (excellent spitter, if that is something you can compliment a 2 year old on). As we tried to focus her attention on bed, she would get as close as putting her head on the bed while standing beside it, but would not climb in-she finally passed out in Kendall's arms (with everything on) and we were finally able to get her down to her PJs and sweater (don't want to freak her out too much). I'm attaching photos so hopefully they will show some of the good and bad...my mom was excellent about getting all sorts of the camera work done today.