Day 4: Gotcha Day

We had a great night of sleep last night - the best we've had in China so far!  We woke up excited, happy, and with a little bit of nerves.  We enjoyed our Chinese/American breakfast but with a much spicier flare than our Beijing breakfast.  Chongqing is known for spicy food.  We met our guide, Michael, at 10am to do some adoption paperwork.

Then Michael showed us around the mall near our hotel and we at Chinese lunch with the sweet couple that is here with us.  Sarah and Gregg are adopting a 4 year old girl and naming her Leah.  Loved our time getting to know them!

Then it was time to go to the Civil Affairs office to get Jack.  Chongqing is huge, hilly (mountains everywhere), and bustling.  Driving around blew our minds. This is so different than anything we've seen before.  It's like NYC times a hundred.  Chongqing has 32 million people and 8 million of them are in the city center!  We are loving learning things about this amazing city.

Once we got to the Civil Affairs office, we went inside and were waiting in some chairs.  Sarah & Gregg's daughter, Leah, came first and it was so sweet to see them love on her!

We had about 15 minutes to wait after that for our Jack.  The girls wrote and drew pictures in their China journals.

then....

 This is the book of pictures that we sent him as a care package a while back.  He had loved on that book - it was well used!  

 Our guide, Michael, on the left was asking questions and translating everything from the orphanage director on the right.  Michael was amazing!  And the orphanage director was so so sweet.  Loved her!

He could not be any sweeter, y'all!  He has been snuggling us non-stop and he is even calling us Mama and Baba (Chinese for dada).  He is truly amazing and this day went far better than we could have ever imagined.  We love this boy!

Gregg, Sarah, & Leah with us in our hotel lobby

Once we got back to the hotel, we snuggled and played with trucks.  Jack loves anything with wheels, which reminds us so much of another little boy dear to our hearts.  Can't wait to introduce Jack to his brother!

 My boy came to us today in pink shoes, very thick fleece orange pants, a long sleeve shirt, a thick sweater, and thick jacket.  Wow.  But, really could he get any cuter?

Love this one so much.  This is our hotel window he is looking out.

Tonight Jack stuffed every bit of food he could in his mouth. An entire oreo. The entire crust of a piece of pizza.  Food will be an issue for a while, I think.  He has to learn that we will always feed him. He will not go hungry.  The other issue we had tonight was taking his clothes off.  He cried and cried and the saddest cry as we took off his clothes to put on PJs.  So so sad.  He was scared.  He doesn't know yet that we will always clothe him.  Pray for him to learn to trust us in these areas.

We grabbed some pizza for dinner (Papa Johns!) and ate in our hotel room.  Girls are in their bed now and Jack is asleep in his crib next to me.  He fell asleep in his daddy's arms tonight.  A first of many times he will be able to literally feel how much his daddy loves him.