First days with Maria Li (LiLi)

These first few days with Maria have been great.  She is very shy and quiet.  Totally opposite of what we're used to.  We haven't had any quiet babies.  The first night she slept in her crib right next to our bed.  We just laid her down and she went right to sleep.  Tuesday when Kraig tried to put her down for a nap, she arched her back and didn't want to go in her crib, so Kraig laid down with her in our bed.  She did it again for bedtime so, we've just decided to let her sleep with us.  She's a great sleeper.  She doesn't move around very much at all.  

She's getting pretty attached to Kraig and me.  She loves watching the boys play, but she doesn't really want them to hold her.  I think they're a little hurt by it, but they can sit by her and play and in time she'll come around. They are great big brothers.  They love handing her toys, and hugging and kissing her. I think sometimes it's too much for her; they come on a little too strong sometimes.  We know that they will always look out for her and take care of her.

On Tuesday we went back to the adoption center for our final paperwork and our ceremony to officially confirm that Maria Li is a Krause now! Talk about needing prayer ... whew!

On Wednesday we did some sightseeing in the morning. We went to an old temple that had some pretty cool architecture and artifacts.  Then in the afternoon our friend Karin came down from Chengdu.  We met her at Christ Community over 10 years ago and then about 8 years ago she moved to China to teach English.  It was really good to see her.  We went across the street to eat at a Hot Pot restaurant.  It's a place where they give you choice of food and then put a 'hot pot' of oil in the middle of your table and you cook it.  The oil was divided into 2 parts.  One was had very hot peppers in it.  We're in the Sichuan province and they love spicy here.  There were some really interesting things on the menu like:  pig brain, ox head and neck, chicken feet some intestines, seaweed.  The only weird thing we tried was the seaweed.

Today we hired a driver and Karin and one of her friends took us to a local shopping area and we were able to walk around and get some pretty neat souvenirs from China.  We also took a drive up a mountain, but because of the rain, we couldn't really see much. It has been overcast all week, but this is the first day of rain that we have had.

We are now back in our room.  LiLi is still pretty quiet although, we have got her to laugh a few times.  She's just the sweetest little girl.