New Birthday Pics of Minsy!

Minsy holding her birthday panda and wearing her birthday dress.
I just love this picture of her.  We call it Sassy Minsy.

I woke up this morning at 4 am.  It felt like my left arm had been hit by a truck.  Holy Cow!  I thought I must have had some sort of crazy walking dream and gotten in some sort of accident or bar fight or something.  Then I remembered.  Yesterday I went to Dr. Karls and got a booster shot -- my first one since I was a freshman in high school.  I thought I better be up to date before we head to China.  I do not remember immunizations hurting like crazy though.  Yikes!  My good friend Amanda gave me the shot, and she did marvelous.  She is a pro at it, and when she finished I thought, "Well, that wasn't bad at all."  Then I got the after kick, and it was a doozy.  Yesterday it felt like a bad bruise, but early this morning I thought I had been shot.  ((tears)).  I wonder if this is how all my kids have felt after immunization shots or if this is just another one of those bonus features of turning 40 -- extreme pain after shots.  Or maybe I've just become a big baby about shots. 

I hope that my arm can function today because Herman and I obviously are in need of some good procrastination projects, so we decided to tear up our nasty basement carpet today.  We'll just leave it as a cement floor until we get back from China.  Then we will probably tile the main area and put new carpet in the two bedrooms downstairs.  We just aren't a carpet in the basement kind of family, I'm afraid.  I'm too laid back about rules that would allow us to keep a pristine looking carpet anywhere in the house, and I'm not willing to change.  So, we'll compromise with tile and an area rug in the family room.  I think that we'll be happier that way.  We'll see.  For now we get to rip stuff up, and that's always fun!

But the best news I got today was that Ann from RedThreadChina, sent me some pictures of Minsy's birthday party from the 1st.  They are wonderful!  Ann apologized because Minsy's foster family did not have a digital camera, so they used their phone to take pictures, so the quality is not that great.  But I don't care at all.  The pictures are absolutely darling!  I can see a bit of Minsy's personality come through in them. 

We also got some more information about Minsy.  I sent some questions along with my pictures.  I found out that Minsy's best friend is Wu Teng Feng.  I hope that we will be able to have some pictures of Teng Feng to bring home with us so that Minsy can remember her.  Minsy loves sweet food best.  That's no surprise.  She loves to play with her friends and be outside.  Her foster mom asked that I give her lots of hugs and kisses.  I can promise her that.  She also said that Minsy is a very kind and caring child.  Yea!  She is not in school right now, so she must spend lots of time with her foster family.  From the answers to my questions I can tell that they truly love her.  I love them for that!  I just want this travel approval here now.  I'm ready to travel and bring her home.



Minsy giving her Peace Out sign.  Look at that cake we sent her!
I hope she loved it.  That will probably be the nicest cake she ever has for a birthday.  Birthday kids at the Blau house have to settle for a homemade Mom cake, and my decorating skills do not match this one.  It looks yummy!
I wonder who her buddy is with the matching outfit.

Herman loves this picture of Minsy. She looks so sweet!
Notice how big her birthday dress is. I debated about what size to get for her.  They had sizes 3-4 and 4-5. Since she was turning 4 I went with 3-4, but I was worried that I had chosen something way too small. Obviously not! It looks like this dress is huge for her. They've had to roll up the sleeves and in other pics I can see that the neck hole is gigantic compared to her head. Oh well!  She can wear it when she gets home. Herman thinks at her size she will probably be able to wear it when she gets to third grade.

Here's another birthday cake picture.  I wonder who the lady on the right is.
Is this Minsy's foster mother or just a worker at the orphanage?
Who are the children?  Are they from the orphanage, or are these
friends from the neighborhood?  I wish I knew these things.
Maybe when Minsy gets here I can find someone who knows
Mandarin Chinese and ask her to identify everyone.
Or maybe I'll try using Google Translate.
So far all I am good at saying in Chinese is "I love you,"
and "I am your mama,"  but I'll keep working on it.