Update on our China doll

After you receive your LOA (letter of acceptance), our agency can request an update. They tell us to not expect it for at least 3-5 weeks and sometimes people never get one. I didnt believe them and thought it would come sooner! I checked my email starting a week later, ALL.THE.TIME. Then after about 3 weeks...I sadly quit. I felt like I was never going to see a new picture of her before we went to get her.
One afternoon about 5 weeks after our request, we finally saw her face again! She had changed so much! The last pictures of her, all her hair was pulled back and she looked so different with her "bowl cut"! :)
They told us she is walking and she understands what is being said to her. She can say a few simple words and she can take her shoes and socks off! I wonder if she will be just like her brother Kullen and take them off in the car!! ;) They also said she is active and outgoing! They call her Mei Wei. Calling her Mayleigh wont be too different for her! The name resemblance still amazes me!!
They also gave us her size. She is 22 lbs and is 30 inches tall. When we compared those stats to Kullen when he was 18 months...they were actually very similar. Kullen also was 22 lbs at 18 months. They are both little. That only put him in the 5-10 percentage on the growth charts! Kullen was a little taller than Mayleigh at 32 inches. It says she has a tiny foot....between a size 4 and a 5. But that works perfect. All (and it's a lot) the shoes I have bought have been 5's! The shoes and boots are hard to pass up!! They are all soo stinkin' cute! :)

We can't wait to get to her and find out all about her ourselves!!!!! Enjoy the pictures!!

What's in a name??

Well if any of you know me well, you know I have a VERY hard time making decisions! :) So just like anything else, I (we) couldnt make a decision on our sweet little girls name! Jeff kind of wanted to wait until we saw her picture. I on the other hand, did not! I liked having a name pretty early in the pregnancy with all my boys and I wanted the same with this adoption. I really like to be able to think about my unborn (or adopted) children by their name.
So we had it narrowed down to 2 names. Mia or Annakate. We were going to use her chinese name as her middle name for sure. We wanted to keep a part of her name with her! We had loved each of these 2 names and for about 8 months or so went back and forth weekly on which name we liked better. This time, we let friends and family in on our two names and we got lots of comments from the peanut gallery! :) In fact some of my friends just called her Annakate. (that is the one I was always leaning toward)
Then one day I was reading a blog from anther family who had adopted from China and they named their little girl Meili. I thought it was really cute and sent an email to Jeff that I really liked it. As I thought about if for a few hours and realized the meaning behind the name...I just KNEW that was it. It felt so right and I was completely at peace with it. Unlike the other two names. In mandarin, the word mei mei means sister. How perfect! She is the only sister in the Lloyd family! Also I later found out that just one Mei means beautiful! :) And that she is!  I loved that the leigh part of the name (or Li for the way the other family spelled it) was my middle name.  Her name was different and had so much meaning! So Mayleigh it is! :)
The spelling was hard to decide. I wanted to do the mandarin spelling of Mei but we got some feedback that it would be hard for people to figure out how to pronounce that spelling so we decided on May and  spelling Leigh like I spelled my middle name. We thought this was the easiest, most straight forward spelling for people to pronounce it right, but of course people still have had trouble! ;) The easiest way to describe it is like Bailey with an M. Maybe we should have spelled it Mailey! :)
So a few months later we get her referral and were so excited (and shocked) to see that her name is Mei Wei. And there was the peace that I had when we chose her name a few months before! Pretty amazing stuff! God really has his hand on this adoption!
Mayleigh Wei it is! Perfect! :)

The Call...

At the beginning of the summer we were officially done with our paperwork and officially logged in with China's adoption system. We then started our wait...the long dreaded wait to get that important call from our agency saying they have our daughter. So the boys and I kept busy swimming and playing outside all summer long! And I tried not to obsess over waiting for that call! That was tough! August 1 was just another summer day...or so I thought. We had spent the morning at a friends house for her boys birthday party. The kids bounced in the bounce house she had rented all morning. We had a picnic lunch out in the yard and had a great time. Just a normal Thursday... so I thought!! We got home and I got all the boys in their beds for a nap and I sat down and opened my computer ready to just relax. My cell phone rang. I assumed it was Best Buy. We were having a new refrigerator delivered that afternoon so I assumed they were calling to tell me they were on their way. I about died as I grabbed my phone and saw that it said Colorado. Our agency is based in Colorado. My heart skipped a beat. I listened carefully as she told us she had a file for us to look at. She said she was a beautiful little girl who was 14 months old that had the cutest little smile! My heart melted. I couldn't wait to get off the phone and call Jeff. After she gave me more info she emailed me the file. AHHHH!! I had to wait for Jeff to get home from work in order to open it. In the meantime, Best Buy had come and I was a frazzled mess. I hadnt moved all the food out of our old fridge and I couldn't even focus. At that point, I shared with Brennan the good news that we were going to see a picture of his sister! Finally Jeff came home and we opened the email to see her beautiful face!!! 

These were the referral pictures that came in her file. They gave us lots of info, which was honestly hard to focus on after seeing her face! We were completely in love!!!  

I'm going to try this blogging thing again

Well, I started a blog about a year ago... wait, 2 years ago, thinking it would be nice for family and friends to keep up with exciting and fun things the Lloyds are doing. BUT... then I realized I could barely keep up with what the Lloyd family was doing, let alone post it on a blog!!! Life is busy as ever but I am going to do my best to keep up with this blog as we journey across the world to get our sweet daughter.
Let  me back track a little. I have always wanted to adopt, even before Jeff and I started having kids. I am so excited that this dream is becoming a reality! After 3 beautiful boys we knew there was a perfect little girl waiting in China for us. So about 16 months ago we started the LONG paperwork chase to get her. I knew I was drawn to China but was nervous to tell Jeff that we would have to adopt a child with a special need. Luckily, Jeff responded with, "If we are going to adopt a child, I think that is the best way to go. Let's help a child who may never have gotten it." I knew at that moment we were on the same page!