Katie's Chinese New Year Care Package and Photos

This is the Chinese New Year package that Ann of Red Thread put together for Katie for us. The stuffed animal is Pleasant Goat, a very popular children's cartoon character in China.   It is traditional for children to get a new outfit for Lunar New Year.  The package on the bottom left looks to be candies, and the little purse is adorable!  There's also a flash drive, so if we're lucky, they'll download baby pictures of her onto it and return it to us when we meet her.

Times are changing!  When we adopted Hannah, it was popular to include a disposable camera in the care package, to be returned at Gotcha Day.  Now we have the flash drive option.  Ann has been doing this a long time, and has a pretty good idea which orphanages are able to use flash drives and which would be better with the camera.  For Katie's orphanage, she recommends the flash drive.  When we adopted Hannah, we did get back the two cameras we'd sent, but the pictures were not great.  All of the baby pictures we have of Hannah have come from internet searches and other families who've adopted from her orphanage sharing their photos with a yahoo group for parents with children from there.  There's a yahoo group for Katie's orphanage families, too, but I haven't been approved to join the two times I've tried.

I ordered the package on Thursday, and got the return pictures Sunday night.  Really fast!

You know what I love about this?  Someone took the time to edit these photos.  I noticed it first because the one on the right was stretched out, but after looking at it some more, I realized the bottom left picture was flipped to make the collage flow better.  Somebody loves her and wants her pictures to look good.

And she has HAIR!  I hope they let her keep it.  It's traditional to get a hair cut for Lunar New Year.  But I've seen other little ones from her facility come home with hair, so I'm crossing my fingers that they won't shave her head right before we get her, like Hannah's orphanage did.

In addition to this collage of 3 pictures, we received 3 other single photos, which I will share in upcoming weeks.  We also got updated measurements.  I'm surprised at how big she is!  Her last height and weight put her well below the 50th percentile on the charts, and her updated height and weight put her above it.  She actually already weighs more than I was anticipating her weighing when we travel.  --That could be due to the fact that it's winter, and the nannies weigh the kids fully clothed, and it's typical for kids to wear several layers, of course, BUT she's sprung up in height, too.  I'm concerned the clothes I'm gathering and making might end up being too small for her!  For right now, it looks like she's solidly in a size 2T.  But we still have roughly 4 months to go.

I just keep smiling at her pictures.  She's beautiful.  I can't wait to get my hands on her!  I love that she's looking at a book.  Hannah came to us not knowing her colors in Mandarin, and seeing this book makes me wonder if Katie will have some exposure to that concept.

My sweet girl!  Oh, I'm so excited to meet her!




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