Lizzie makes 5

2010-12-07T01:03:00.003-07:00

hey all... new video of Lizzie helping me start of christmas right by setting up my favorite manger scene. christmas is officially here!

Our first Gotcha Anniversary!

2009-08-31T22:18:00.004-06:00

Happy Gotcha Day!

It is hard to believe that a year ago at this time we were in China, anxiously awaiting September 1^st to come so we could finally meet our daughter. We have been such pathetic bloggers, but all the emotion of our one year anniversary has inspired me to summarize the incredible journey we have been on since Lizzie joined our family.

This year has been quite a roller coaster ride with lots of ups and downs. So much joy and laughter but also lots of screaming (on Lizzie’s part) and frustration (my part). We realized early on that Lizzie was every bit as strong willed as the rest of us and that parenting her wasn’t going to be easy but a blessing none the less. I have stopped to thank God for our life more times in this past year than I think I ever have before. I feel so honored that we were picked to be Lizzie’s parents. I marvel at how God put things together.

At the same time that I marvel at the beauty of adoption and the honor that I feel being Lizzie’s mommy, I ache for her birth parents and grieve all that they lost when they gave her up. I wasn’t prepared for how tied to them I would feel. I think of them often and wonder if they let themselves think or dream about their daughter. I wish somehow I could let them know what a fantastic little girl she is and that she is well loved.

So after a year of being a Kedl, I would say that Lizzie fits right into our family and is doing GREAT. She is full of life, energy, and enthusiasm. She loves to laugh, read books, do puzzles, jump on the trampoline, chase her brothers, and boss us all around. The boys are incredible big brothers to her. They are very patient with her and still delight in all her antics. Of course we all think that she is so ridiculously cute and “off the charts” beautiful. We often wonder what we did without her. I guess we must have been pretty boring before she entered our lives.

The big challenge for Lizzie is language. She is working really hard at learning to talk. She hasn’t figured out how to control her palate yet and struggles with forming words but she certainly understands everything and is determined to talk to all of us. I know it will come eventually. We are doing speech therapy twice a week and hoping that the words come soon because she is really eager to communicate better.

I guess the way I would sum up the last year has been BEAUTIFUL. It is amazing that this little girl who was born so far away and was such a mystery to us a year ago could come and fill our lives with so much hope, joy, promise, and anticipation for all God has in store us. My heart is so full and I am truly thankful.

And so the journey continues…

2008-11-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Lizzie's surgery went very well on Friday. The surgeon said Lizzie had plenty of tissue to work with and he thought things went as well as they could go. She got out of surgery around 5:00. Ross and I stayed with her in recovery for about an hour and then we were moved to her hospital room. Right off the bat she was drinking out of a syringe and taking her medicine without any problems. This was shocking because her tongue and lips were so swollen and it looked like a bomb had exploded inside her mouth. The nurses called her a little "rock star" because she was handling everything so well. We expected lots of crying on Friday night but she just whined a little off and on. By Saturday morning, she had filled a couple of diapers and she was looking good, so the doctor sent us home. She pitched a big fit when we got home. I think she thought that once she was home things should be back to normal and since they weren't, she got really mad. She also started getting a lot more picky about drinking. She had some fluids at home but not much. Today she has barely had anything to drink and it is starting to get a little stressful for us. She needs to have food in her system in order to take her pain medications, but in order for her to want to drink anything, she needs to have her pain medications in her system. Please keep us in your prayers over the coming days, as I think this eating thing is going to continue to be an issue.

Lizzie has to wear splints from her wrists to her shoulders to keep her from putting anything in her mouth. We thought she was going to really hate this but she doesn't seem to mind much right now. When she starts to feel more like herself again, I am sure she will be pretty frustrated with them, but for now she seems to be a little fascinated by them. She still manages to play with toys and clap her hands with them on.

Overall, I have to praise God for getting her through this so successfully. We have felt all your prayers with her and with us. I (Anne) have somehow managed to stay pretty calm through the whole thing and am so thankful to have the worst part over. Hopefully, the recovery ahead will go as well as the surgery did. I wish Lizzie could understand all the support and love she is surrounded by. Thanks for all your prayers, thoughtful words, and support that you have offered our family.

belated update

2008-11-01T13:33:00.000-06:00

Hey all... sorry for not keeping all up to date on the ongoing saga of the Kedl Five. I thought i would post a few pictures and a movie or two. overall Lizzie continues to do remarkably well and has adjusted to the Kedl family far better that any of us could have hoped. The other day Justin said that he knows we have only had Lizzie for 2 months, but it was getting hard to remember what the family was like without her. we all agreed with that assessment.

we have had a few conversations with a couple of surgeons and Lizzie's cleft palate surgery is no scheduled for november 14th. the whole operation sounds pretty brutal and has a somewhat long recovery time for it... 3 weeks at least, during which a good part of the time she has to have splints put on her arms to make sure she does not put anything into her mouth and ruin the surgery. we told the boys we were going to get them splints to wear too so she does not feel so left out.... that or a big cone to go around their necks... they they said they preferred the splints ;-). anyway, we figured we'd get it out of the way well before christmas so we were not having to worry about it back in Minnesota (for all those back in Minnesota, we will be there from christmas day to new years day). there are many opinions on when is the best time to do this kind of surgery in an international adoption, but one train of thought is that, assuming a good degree of bonding and attachment with the family, it is best to do the surgery as soon as possible in order for the whole speech process to not get too far behind. Lizzie is already quite a communicator, making lots of word-like noises and sounds in an effort to communicate, so we think she will likely be a big talker... just as soon as she can learn to talk which brings us back to the timing of the surgery. we will try and keep everyone posted on how she is doing when she has the surgery.

otherwise, life as a family of five is a very good thing. most of the pictures are self explanatory, some i'll mention here. one is Ben just after one of his cross country races (he got 4th) and i love how far down he has to bend in order to put his head on Anne's shoulder. others are with Lizzie and her ubiquitous Ritz crackers. she also got a little chair just her size and she positively revels in it as you can see. there are some of halloween as well with Lizzie in her bumble bee outfit, me as Jimi Hendrix, and Justin as a Haz-Mat worker. he got a glow stick and some green Jello to put in his biohazard bucket which managed to make it glow in an unholy sort of way while trick or treating... it turned out very well indeed.

We love and miss you all very much and are looking forward to seeing as many as we can over christmas.

Love,

the Kedl 5

belated update

2008-09-28T08:06:00.000-06:00

it is 8:00 in the morning after a good nights sleep... Lizzie slept all the way to 6:30 this morning! this is unusual. the typical night has her waking up a number of times starting around 11:00 PM. it was good for both Anne and I to be able to catch up on some much needed sleep. other than sleep, or the lack thereof, life with Lizzie continues to go along remarkably well. she has met all her admirers in the neighborhood and at church. the first day back at church was something of a red carpet affair... everyone was lined up to meet her. the same for the first day out in the culdesac. the girls across the street from us are quite taken with Lizzie and have decided to wrap up many of their toys they had when they were Lizzie's age and bring them over as presents. we have come home many days to find a wrapped gift waiting for us on the door step.

the first days back into our normal routine went very well. with the boys back at school and me back at work, i wondered if Lizzie would pine away for her adoring entourage. however, she has her favorite person in the world by her side, mommy, so what more is there to look around for. we are still learning much about her, but are starting to get familiar with her little personality quirks. she does NOT like to go down to sleep, either for a nap or bedtime, 2-5PM is her whiny time of day, she loves to run laps in the house from about 6-9PM, and when she wakes up in the morning she has this wonderful half an hour or so where she is just calm and contemplative and likes to roll around in bed and snuggle. she also likes to pinch and pull hair. gotta work on that one somehow.

we have also gone to see a surgeon, Stacey Folk, about her palate and whatever other surgeries we will have to think about. She (the surgeon) said that Lizzie's lip repair that she had in china looked really good and she did not think we would have to do any more with that. Lizzie's scar is pretty noticeable right now, but the surgeon said that that a scar is always the biggest about 3 months after a surgery, which is where we are now. we have some scar treatment stuff to put on it and when Lizzie is out for her palate surgery, they will probably inject a bit of steroid into it to make it do down faster. the surgeon also said that Lizzie's nose looked really good for now as well. apparently as Lizzie grows, her nose will do some of its own straightening and they only look to do any surgeries when she is around 5, just as she is entering kindergarten and she starts paying attention to how she and others look, and around 13-14 when she is really concerned about her appearance. apparently, the asian nose is notoriously flexible compared to the stiff nose of your average caucasian, and usually their noses end up looking great. it was good to know that for both her lip and her nose, Lizzie is in a good place for now.

as to her palate surgery(ies), she will probably have it in the next couple of months, early november most likely. the recovery from it takes a few weeks so hopefully we will have her back in comfortable, good eating condition for the holidays. she will have to have splints on her arms for some time after the surgery so she does not put the wrong thing into her mouth, and we all just can't WAIT to see how she likes that! the surgeon we talked to came very highly recommended and we will definitely have her do any cosmetic surgeries we need in the future, but it turns out our insurance does not cover using this surgeon for now. however, she recommended a good ENT doc at Childrens and the University who is covered by our insurance and with whom we are in communication. we will keep you all posted as we find out more.

some of the pictures i have here are from last weekend when we went on a family picnic at a lake (or reservoir as they call them out here) not too far from our house. it has been beautiful weather since we came back and a welcome relief to the tropical heat and humidity we had down in Guangzhou. we did a brief hike down a trail with Ben starting out carrying her in the backpack carrier. Lizzie was happy with that but then, as much as she likes me (Ross) now and even reaches for me often, we tried to switch the back pack carrier to me and she threw a fit until we put it back onto Ben. i think she must have had a bit of PTSD and a flashback to what we now refer to as the "great wall of china incident". if you have not heard that one, let me know and i'll tell you sometime.

i put in the video too because it shows you how much she likes nodding for things. she also has this double fist pump she does when she wants more of something... not sure when she got a chance to see Arsenio Hall while in china, but it is pretty funny.

all for now. sorry to have been so delinquent in getting things on the blog site, but home life leaves me with much less time for this than traveling in china. more as it comes.

Ross.

Home Sweet Home!

2008-09-13T14:43:00.000-06:00

Home sweet home!! It is wonderful to be back in America and not living in a hotel room! Lizzie did really well on the long journey back here. The first flight we were on was 4 plus hours long. There were 12 newly adopted children on that flight. Much of the flight there was a chorus of cries going. Lizzie threw a couple of fits but they didn't last long. The 12 hour flight from Tokyo to Minneapolis went surprisingly well. We got to see some family in Minneapolis which was wonderful. Lizzie met 2 Grandmas, one Grandpa, 2 aunties, one uncle, and 3 cousins. She is already so well loved and welcomed. Given how happy she seems, I think she knows it!

Introducing Lizzie to her new home was lots of fun. Our wonderful neighbors decorated the front of the house in anticipation of our homecoming, complete with a lantern in honor of the upcoming chinese Moon Festival (you knew that, right guys?). Lizzie explored around the house and once we got to her room, she clapped and smiled. She seems really comfortable here but is very busy and into everything. We spent the day baby proofing things.

She truly is such a blessing to us. This whole experience has blown us away. There were many other adopting families with us in Guangzhou and watching all of them love and embrace their new children was so beautiful. Most of the kids we saw had some type of "special need." It is hard not to feel sad realizing that often these kids were abandoned because of medical needs with which their birth parents could not cope financially or emotionally, but what a blessing it is to know that they will get the care they need now and that their future is full of possibilities. It gave me a picture of how beautiful it is to be adopted into God's family. I often take this concept for granted but have been given a renewed sense of the privilege that it is. We are all so truly loved even with all our unique flaws and "special needs."

My neighbor told me that Lizzie looked like she belonged in our family. I am not one to believe in fate or predestination, but I really do believe that God hand picked this little girl for us and that she truly was meant to be our daughter from the very beginning. Life is still hard and the world is fallen, but God is good and we are so thankful for all He has done!

So the saga of Lizzie's life continues. We, again, thank you all for participating in this journey with us. we cannot tell you how much it has meant to us. While we know little of the twists and turns ahead, we know this for sure... Lizzie is now, and will always be, a Kedl.

Last post from China

2008-09-10T15:11:00.000-06:00

internet was down last night so i could not get on to write any significant last words. we leave this morning to the airport to head to tokyo, then Minneapolis, then back home to Denver. we went to the consulate to "swear the oath" yesterday, which means that 30 adoptive families all gathered together in one big room with their new kids to raise their right hands and swear that all the information they had given was true. that was it. we all said, "yes" and then it was over. kind of anticlimatic for all the work it has been. very cool though to be in that room with all those families and kids. kind of like a picture of redemption. since coming to Guangzhou, we have gotten to meet many adoptive families here and have learned we have even more to be thankful for than we realized. some families got their kids from orphanages that were in pretty tough conditions, so just because ours was in pretty good shape, does not mean the whole system is doing fine just yet... it is better, but not all what it needs to be. we are so thankful for Lizzie and all that has prepared her for being part of our family (or may i should say the center of our family just now).

There is much more than can be said about our last 2 days here, and we will hopefully have time to do so soon. We know our journey is just beginning, but we are grateful that this first phase is over and we are coming home. thank you all again for all your prayers and support. We are so looking forward to introducing Lizzie to all of you in person. see you soon.

The Kedls

2008-09-08T08:28:00.000-06:00

Too tired to write much tonight. mostly just pictures and will write more tomorrow. Did some more paper work, medical exam, etc. today and will send in all our paperwork to the consulate tomorrow to get Lizzie's visa. just a couple more days before we head home and we are all ready for it. China's great and all, but we are all kind of done living out of a suitcase and eating out every night. we are really missing everyone and are looking forward to the simple pleasures of home.

among the pictures i had to include the video on bath time... was just too precious. oh, and i had to include just one of the many signs we have seen here that fall under the heading of "lost in translation".

Love to all.

Ross.

2008-09-07T08:05:00.000-06:00

I (anne) am very happy to be in Guangzhou. We are staying on an island right by the American consulate. There are many other adoptive families here. It is fun to watch everyone as they get to know their new family member. It is also nice not to be such an anomaly to the locals. We were constantly being stared at and commented about in Tianjin. We felt like we were in a fish bowl and although we were told this was the way things would go, we never got comfortable with it. Although Guangzou is a city of 14 million, the area we are staying in feels like a small town which is much more my speed.

We had a great time with Kent, Ann, and the girls. Family is such a comfort, especially when you are half way around the world. Lizzie warmed up to Jesse but was pretty hesitant with everyone else. She did seem to enjoy kent talking to her in chinese. Sometimes I forget that she can't understand us yet and this was a good reminder that our language sounds just as confusing to her as her language sounds to us.

The next three days we have a variety of official paper work type things to do and will hang out at the pool (see the shamu impression by Kent and Justin) and Starbucks in between. It is extremely hot here and very humid so doing anything outside is a challenge. We are having a great time. Everything has far exceeded our expectations, but we are all ready to come home. We have been gone 12 days and we miss comforts, conveniences, friends, and family that are back home.

Lizzie continues to do really well. She laughs a little more each day and we are starting to see that she has quite a sense of humor. She also has a very strong will. She can throw quite a temper tantrum already and she is only 15 months old. Fortunately, the tantrums don't tend to last very long but they are quite loud. Ross and I find the tantrums pretty funny to watch but the boys get a little stressed by them.

Thats all for now. Hope you are all doing well!

back to Daddy

2008-09-06T07:59:00.000-06:00

back to Ross again. we are turning many corners with Lizzie these last 2 days. she has gone from only being happy when she is in direct contact with anne and no one else, to walking and crawling around the hotel room and playing with the boys as long as anne is in it, to now being carried around by either Anne or Ross and loving to walk all over creation with the boys. It has been quite a transformation to watch. to have admired and loved her the last few days and to now be allowed to pick her up and snuggle a bit is almost more than any man can take. she is so full of personality and she is really starting to let it all show... even a few tantrums which for now are just funny to mom and dad, though a little concerning to her older brothers who have not had the benefit of really knowing what throwing a fit looks like. you'd think they would know from watching the video of themselves as toddlers! as you can see from the photos, she comes more and more alive every day. one of the incredible things we got from her orphanage was a journal that the ladies in the orphanage started for her from the time she came into the orphanage to the time she left for foster care. her foster mother the continued the journal during the 3 months she was there, having entries every week with her foster mother describing what Lizzie was like, how she was growing, her operation for her cleft lip and how, after the operation, her foster mother held her until 2:30 in the morning when lizzie finally stopped crying and fell asleep, even, though they knew it was the best thing for her, how sad they were that she had to leave them to come to us. our translator, Helen (see photo), helped me translate it from Mandarin into english and it was quite emotional for both of us as we learned just how well Lizzie was loved and cared for by her foster parents. Helen said she had never seen such a diary of an orphan's life kept so well. we are so grateful for all the ways Lizzie was watched over before we got her into our lives.

we flew down to Guangzhou today which is where we will be getting her visa to fly back to the USA. this was Lizzie's first plane ride and she did very well... it gives us hope for the longer plane ride we will have to take in a few days from tokyo to minneapolis. we were fortunate enough to once again have my brother Kent and his family, Ann, Jessa and Emma, come down from Shanghai to meet Lizzie and spend today and tomorrow with us before they have to fly back on sunday night. it was great to see them again and to have them be the first of the family to meet lizzie. Lizzie is really starting to show her true colors as an obligate extrovert, and she has been having a good time meeting her larger family. you can tell just by how exhausted she is at the end of the day. we are looking forward to having her meet much of the rest of the family, if only for a few hours, when we go through minnesota on the way back home to colorado.

thanks again to everyone for participating with us on this journey. our love to all. more to come when it happens.

The Kedls.

ben and justin speaking

2008-09-05T04:13:00.000-06:00

This is Justin. Being a big brother is fun! I'm not sure if Lizzie regards me as her brother or as her squeeze toy. She likes taking my nose and pulling it. And with the size of her fingernails, it HURTS!!!! But, thankfully, she doesn't do that all the time. It's really cool being a big brother!

China is a really cool place. It's fun, depending on where you are. I really don't like crossing the street. It's crazy! But seeing all the buildings and unique architecture is cool. I tried to draw some of the buildings, but it didn't turn out so well. Seeing the Great Wall was really cool! (-:

hey, this is ben. yeah, i'm really liking china and all, but i like my little sister better!!!!!! she is the cutest thing ever and she really likes me and justin. But, it's also fun to see the sights and the great wall. but i can't wait to get to minnesota and visit family!!!!!!!!! to my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, you will absolutely love this little girl!!! she is the highlight of my "vacation" and i love china!!! as your reading this i am probably asleep but i wish you well and miss all of you. bye bye!!!!!(-:

2008-09-05T03:38:00.000-06:00

a few new videos for you all to get caught up on Lizzie's progress. she has warmed up quite a bit to all of us now. me included, to the point where mommy does not have to be holding her all the time. not that i can really hold her yet, but we are getting there. the attached videos are a small selection of the hour and a half of video i have so far.

anyway, the videos are from our hotel when we learned that Lizzie liked cheerios, from the great wall with us starting to climb, and a serious session of what we call "run-n-hug".

more later form the boys on their impressions of china and having a little sister.

Ross.

2008-09-04T07:43:00.000-06:00

Well much to report on the fourth day as a family of five. i have included a number of photos and will attempt to discuss them in order. if i miss something, then just enjoy the chinese scenery without the commentary.

yesterday morning i made the final trek to the orphanage to give a donation as a "child rearing fee". because we did not want to confuse Lizzie by bringing her back to the orphanage so soon, anne and the boys and Lizzie stayed back at the hotel and i went with our guide/translator. I can honestly say that previous to this excursion i considered this payment to be little more than some kickback to a government official for my being allowed to adopt a child. my visit was simultaneously illuminating and humbling. before we arrived there i had asked our guide and translator if it was possible for me to see some of the orphanage. she thought so and we stopped at a local store to get some candy and treats for the kids there in case we got in to see any of them. after arriving, the orphange director, Ms. Zhong (not sure of the spelling on that one, but she was not the kind of director you might have imagined... a fashionable woman in her mid 20s) said that i could see some of the orphanage and even take some pictures as long as the kids were not there. I was allowed into the part of the orphanage where the foster care kids come in every day for what amounts to daycare/kindergarted/grade school depending on their ages. the pictures you see are from the outside of the orphanage and one of the rooms i was in. after i saw the rooms, the kids came in for the day and we got to hand out the goodies we had bought and my heart just broke for these kids... but not just in the way you might think. obviously my heart ached to see these kids there because most of them woudl probably not be getting adopted any day son due to their age (all over the age of 3) and their medical/physical issues. But the orphanage was so clean and obviously run well, the helpers i saw with the kids (3-4 per 8-10 kids) were obviously in love with these kids, and the kids themselves were bright eyed, engaging (especially the little cross-eyed downs syndrome girl... man was she a cutie) and clearly happy to be there for the day. i had been all set to do some heavy duty judging on these people for the kind of people they were and the society they were a part of, and instead I found myself incredibly glad that Lizzie had been fortunate enough to have been raised by them up till now. i never did much like arrogance, but i like it even less in myself. I was honestly glad to pay the donation, seeing what good they were trying to do with it. as a kicker, i did not have exact change and asked if they woudl just keep the extra for the kids, to which they replied that they were not allowed to do that to make sure there was no appearance of corruption... so much for kickbacks. as i paid the donation fee to the director, i told her, in chinese (carefully rehersed), "thank you for caring for my daughter. we will take very good care of her."

today was a big tourist day... we took the Maglev train into Beijing. the train itself was pretty cool. it tops out at 330km/hour (a little over 200mph) and is an incredibly smooth ride. from the train station we took a van out to the great wall and hiked around on it for a couple hours. i say hiked because it is steep! picture a ladder with uneven steps going up for about 800 meters. needless to say we did not climb the whole way up, but we did get up quite a ways. one of the more memorable parts of the trip was the chinese woman in the parking lot who wanted to take a picture with Anne... just to get a picture with a blond haired westerner, with an adopted child to boot. see the attached picture of anne and the unknown photographic assailant. we had heard of this happening before to others but this was the first time it happened to us. even more comical, further up on the wall Justin had 5 people ask to take pictures with him... he said he felt like something between a cardboard cutout and a panda at the local zoo. actually, justin was not the only target for sightseers... next to him was a guy from africa in full african garb, so people were moving down the line from Justin on to the african guy. they should have gotten together and charged admission.

after the wall we went as close as we could get to the birdsnest stadium that we all saw so much of over the olympics. unfortunately, we could not get all that close because the para-olympics were happening at the time and security was so tight, you coudl not just wander past the stadium unless you had a ticket to something. we at least got to see it and the water cube. from there we went on a rickshaw tour of on old part of Beijing called the Houton (again, spelling??). kind of cool old streets and the kind of "old walls" my mom loves to look at. these happened to be about 500 years old in places, so all in all we felt like we got to see both the ancient and the new in Beijing.

of course, the reason we are this outgoing with our new baby girl is that we have quickly learned that she is an obligate extrovert! the only time she is ever really ornery is when we are stuck at the hotel and any time we go out she is happy as a clam... or oyster... or whatever the chinese equivalent. up until today she has continued to prefer anne heavily over any of us (see the photo where she has consented to ride in the stroller but only if she is can hang on to annes finger), to the point of screaming if anne was not holding her or touching her at all times. needless to say this makes things a bit exhausting for anne. however, beginning last night, through today, and especially tonight, she has loosened up on this restriction, at least where the boys are concerned. she has started wandering forth from Anne's grasp and found that she really likes the rapt attention she gets from her big brothers, both of whom are ridiculously attentive at all times and willing to bend over backward if she so much as smiles in their direction. they really are great big brothers. alas, Lizzie has not warmed up as much to me as of yet... my picking her up seems to mean that she does not get to be with anne. i did carry her in the backpack up and down the Great Wall a bit, but that was an event that was as much theater of the absurd as anything else. she does not mind the back pack if anne is wearing it, but we put her in it and then it on me just before we descended the wall, and she threw quite a temper tantrum that had all the locals practically throwing money... how many westerners does it take to wrestle a chinese native into a backpack? at least 4, assuming 25 people are all standing around pointing, laughing, and offering unintelligible suggestions in Manderin. she did eventually calm down and let me carry her for a bit without whining, but i have been a bit suspect ever since. i have hopes however that she will let me back into her good graces soon... at least before she goes to college.

that notwithstanding, she is eating well, she is sleeping well, she is even pooping well (never underestimate the benefits of that in a 15 month old). more than anything, we are each hoplessly in love with this little girl and she shows every sign of becoming a fabulous card-carrying Kedl for the remainder of her blessed life.

in future posts i will write less and show more. i am working on getting another video online, but we have taken a lot of video by now so it is taking me a while to get it all loaded on my computer. will hopefully upload it tomorrow.

We love all the comments and messages so many of you have left on the blog site. if it does indeed take a village (which i am sure it does), then we are more than covered. thanks so much for all the prayers and support. they are truly tangible. Love to all.

Ross.

2008-09-02T00:08:00.000-06:00

Well, it is day two with our sweet little girl and "mama" is finally getting a chance to sit down and write. Lizzie is absolutely amazing. It has been a long 36 hours for her and she is handling things better than expected. We were able to go to her orphanage to pick her up yesterday. The orphanage was really bright, clean and seemed well organized. There were nice flower pots in the court yard and fresh paint on the walls. It encouraged me to know that the first few months of her life were not as bleak as I had feared. When the orphanage director handed Lizzie to me, she screamed with desperation. She pretty much cried for the first hour and a half we had her. Then she fell asleep and was clearly stressed most of her nap. She kept opening her eyes during the nap but when she saw me she would close them and go back to sleep. When she finally did get up, she attached herself to me and has decided that I need to be holding her most of the time. She is very interested in her brothers and Daddy but would rather that I hold her while she gets to know them.

She seems to be really healthy. The hole in her palate is really large but somehow she manages to keep most of her food down. The orphanage sent pictures of her before she had her surgery. The gap in her lip had gotten really large and had affected her nose. The surgery seems to have been done pretty well but her nose is crooked. Apparently this can be fixed in the future. She will end up having multiple surgeries it sounds like.

Before we met her, I was worried about whether or not we had chosen the right name for her but we all agree that Lizzie suits her. Her personality is still revealing itself but so far we would all describe her as spunky. She has a twinkle in her eye and really seems to know what she wants. She likes to be where the action is and hates hanging out in the hotel room. She much prefers to be out in the hotel lobby or outside where there are lots of people.

We are all head over heels in love with this little girl. The boys have been great through this whole process. They have been so patient with her as well as with all the waiting we have had to do to fill our paper work. China is such a different world than they are used to. The crowds, the traffic, the crazy driving, and the many different odors can be overwhelming for all of us, but the boys are taking it all in stride and enjoying the journey. What a blessing.

God's peace has been with all of us through this time in China. We feel so blessed to have this opportunity. It has been really fascinating being in here. China is really beautiful (at least the parts we've seen so far). It is much greener than I expected it to be. There are lots of trees, nicely landscaped parks and boulevards and fascinating architecture. We hope to go to Beijing on Thursday and will see the great wall and the bird's nest, ice cube, etc. Should be fun and we are going to take a train there that goes 300 kilometers an hour.

Can't wait to get home and introduce Lizzie to you all!

2008-09-01T02:51:00.000-06:00

Lizzie Makes 5!

we will write more later tonight and give you all the details, but it occurred to me that many of you will be getting up in a few hours and will want to see some pictures. i have attached a few as well as a movie of our car ride back from the orphanage... at least the few moments when she was not crying.

she is doing very well and is adjusting to our family remarkably fast... we have even gotten a few smiles and laughs out of her. enjoy the pictures and check back for more soon.

An ecstatic Kedl family of five.

2008-08-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

the word for the day is... shopping.... militant shopping. we were accosted by a number of shopkeepers in the underground stalls by the subway... very pushy and aggressive. Totally violated my Minnesota upbringing to just as aggressively ignore them back, but somehow we managed it. with the help of Starbucks of course. got some good deals in the process as well. also got to do one of my favorite things in any new place i visit... ride the subway. always makes you feel closer to the people.

tomorrow we leave for Tianjin. more when there is more to show.

2008-08-29T07:07:00.000-06:00

Hey all! Greetings from your tomorrow! after 24 hours of travel time, we made it here all good and well last night and are staying with my brother and his family in Shanghai for the next few nights. Just wanted to let everyone know we are here and well, though tired. we ran around Shanghai for the day, plan to do the same tomorrow, and will fly up to Tianjin on sunday in anticipation of picking up Lizzie on monday morning. tune back in monday morning for pictures of Lizzie.

Love to all,

The Kedls.

2008-08-12T16:08:00.000-06:00

Hello all!

Welcome to our

blog site on our trip to

china to bring home our new daughter/sister, Elizabeth An Ying Kedl. We are not big bloggers, but thought this might be an easy way to keep all those interested up to speed on our adoption process. We fly to china on Aug 27th, pick up Lizzie on Sept 1 and fly back to CO on Sept 11. We plan on posting mostly pictures (and some commentary) from our upcoming trip to pick up Lizzie.

The pictures we have are from Lizzie (Her Chinese name is Wei An Ying) when she was 4 months old. She was born on May 23, 2007, so she is now 14 months old and will be 15 months when we finally get to meet her. We know that she had her cleft lip repaired in June and since then has been in foster care. The reports of her are that she is crawling around, walking if she holds on to something, and is very curious and active.

That is about all we know for now. As we get info and pictures, we will post them for all to see. don't expect much until we leave for China on the 27th. Thanks to everyone for all your prayers, encouragement and support.