Hope For Children

We used the adoption agency, Hope For Children, to adopt our beautiful little girl. We are so grateful to this agency for all of their help and support during this journey. When I first moved to Atlanta 12 years ago, I was introduced to this agency through the church I was attending. Steve and I both volunteered at their annual golf-a-thons (and many of our family members pledged $...thank you), and helped in many other ways. Who would have known, that 12 years later, we would actually be using them to adopt our own child! We are grateful to Dave, the director and founder of HFC for his heart for children and especially adoption. Every time I look at Danielle, I feel blessed. I cannot tell you how well she is doing! Even though she has been with us for a little more than a month, it seems like she has always been a part of us. I am so grateful that God put adoption on our hearts - I can't imagine not having Danielle in our family...she is a perfect addition! It also warms my heart to see children who need families, to find one. I have posted a picture that is very dear to me - it is a picture of Danielle and 3 little girls that were all on the same Waiting Child list. All of these little girls were on "the List" that came out on April 30th, and they all have families now! Praise God! I write this, because I want you to realize how incredible adoption is - it is truly from God! Please, follow this link to our agencies website, http://www.hopeforchildren.org/index.htm and watch the video on the lower left corner of their homepage. Thank you and Happy New Year!

Check out my Slide Show!

Danielle is doing GREAT!

I am sorry that I haven't given any updates sooner...but life is definitely busier having 3 children under the age of 4! Danielle couldn't be doing better! She is such a delight and a wonderful addition to our family. She is sleeping in her own crib in her own room by herself! No more tears at bedtime, and she doesn't cry for her foster family anymore. We still let her look at pictures of her foster family, but instead of crying, she smiles and says, "Mama". I am her mommy, but her foster mom will always be her Mama. Meg (Steve's sister who was with us in China) is going to send a letter from us to Danielle's orphanage with updated pictures of Danielle and a request for pictures of the rest of her foster family. Please pray that we can obtain these photos - they will mean a lot to Danielle when she gets older. Speaking of Meg, she is in the States for a few weeks and we were able to spend a couple of wonderful hours with her and her boyfriend yesterday! It was so good to see her again...I really have missed her! What we didn't expect was Danielle's reaction...as soon as she saw Meg, she burst into tears! Not tired or angry tears, but sad and scared tears! We were totally surprised, but it makes sense...Meg was there when we first received Danielle, and she was the one who tried to comfort her by talking in Chinese. Also, Meg left us a little over 48 hours after we got Danielle, and she was at the peak of her grieving. Poor little Danielle! She was probably afraid that she was going to be taken away again. It was hard to see Danielle cry like that again - it was just like how she cried in Nanning. The good news is, she didn't cry for very long, and after only about 10 minutes, she began warming up to Meg, and by the end of her visit, Meg was holding Danielle and they were both smiling! Praise God!
Besides a wonderful time with Meg, we had a wonderful Christmas! We ejoyed spending lots of time together with family and friends. Danielle has been doing amazing! She is very social but still knows who her parents are and is really attaching well to us all. Last night at Nana's, she was looking at pictures of Stephanie, and was trying to say her name! She is smart as a whip! We have been teaching her signs and she picks them up after showing her only once. We are also seeing more of her personality. She seems to be use to being the little princess of the family, and she is having a little trouble understanding that we have 3 princesses here. She loves to look at pictures of herself and gets into everything imaginable. We thought that our house was childproof, but we are finding out that it is not!
We are so grateful that God has blessed us with such a beautiful little girl! She truly makes our family complete! We love how she fits right in with us - she is a blessing...all of our girls are blessings. We hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas! Our love to you all!

Tanski Family transitioning well!

Danielle is transitioning really well into her forever family. She is holding her own with her 2 older sisters and they are adapting to her. We have had some sharing issues, but what do you expect with a 4, 2 and 1 year old! Lots of toys are going into time out, but other than that, things are going well. Danielle is already sleeping through the night! For the first few nights, she woke up around 11 and wiggled in her bed and played her music box until about 1 am, but she has slept good otherwise. On Saturday, she slept in until 11:30 am until I finally had to wake her up! She still took a nap and went to bed that night - what a good girl. She still cries when we try to put her to sleep, but after a little bit of cuddle, she rolls over into her crib (which is next to our bed) and goes to sleep. She is kind of a light sleeper, but hopefully that will change after living in our loud house! We are truly amazed at the difference a few weeks make! I have often heard how resilient these little kids are, but I had no idea what a joy she would so quickly become! I mean, I have always loved her, but it was hard to see her grieving and I would not have imagined that she would accept us so quickly. I am so grateful, though - God truly answers prayers! We do have to work a little on her shopping skills - she is not too thrilled to sit in carts for a long time. Hopefully when we go to the store without sisters it will be better - on our first trip to Target, Danielle and Liz had it out a bit - Liz is meeting her match!! But Liz is also very sweet to her - I really think that they will all get along well. Oh! Yesterday, Stephanie informed us that she now wants a brother - she wants 4 kids in the family she said. Then, we had TLC on last night and she saw the show "Jon and Kate Plus 8" where a couple, through fertility treatments, had twin girls, and then 3 or 4 years later tried again, and had sextuplets! The show is about their life with twin 6 year olds and 6 3 year-olds!! Stephanie then changed her mind and said she wanted 8 kids!! Good grief!!! Even though things are going well, I am not sure that I could handle that many - right now I am completely content with 3!! I will be even happier when we get our schedule all worked out!! We are surviving, but are grateful that my mom is still here - we will see what happens on Thursday when she goes home!!!

Finally...pictures!

Back in the USA

Praise the Lord! We are back on US soil! When we landed in Detroit on Wed. afternoon, I was sure that someone out of our group (Steve and I and the Miller family) would kiss the ground! We probably would have if we weren't being rushed through customs! We arrived back in Atlanta at 6 pm on Wed, and after stopping off for some Chinese take-out (yes, you heard right), we finally made it to the comfort of our own home and our 2 little ones! Steve and I cried after seeing Steffi and Liz - it felt so good to hold them in our arms! Liz has grown - she is a little girl now! They both welcomed Danielle willingly, and all of them were playing together within minutes - what a sight to see! Oh, I wanted to let you all know how well Danielle did on the flight. We were totally dreading the return trip home, but she was great! She took some good naps and ate well - things couldn't have gone better! We were surely blessed. Danielle is already making her mark in the family - her grieving has all but disappeared and she is laughing, goofing off and running all over the house as if she has lived here forever. Liz is a little selfish with me, which I expected, but they are working things out - Danielle can sure hold her own! Danielle has also done well with the time change - she has only woken up twice each night and goes back to bed after a bottle and a little looking around. She is awake and playing during the day - we are starting to get on schedule...except that she has been sleeping in until 10 am! Can you believe it - that is NOT typical Tanski child behavior - but we love it!! Actually, Liz has been sleeping in until 9 am - grandparents must have worn her out! In fact, my dad and niece left this morning - a whole day early. They said that they wanted to give us space, but I think that they were too tired to keep up! My mom will be staying here until Thurs - and I am grateful for that! We ventured out to Target today - boy, 3 kids sure is interesting! We got everything done, but I can tell you that I will be running errands on days when 1 and 2 are in school!! I am sorry that I haven't posted anything for a while - the last few days in China were very busy, 2 travel days and yesterday I was just exhausted! I also had to be available to 3 little ones who were trying to get use to things! I do want to thank you all for your love, prayer and support - we are all doing well, and hopefully we will be able to introduce our newest member to you all soon!!

I am happy to report that Danielle is doing great! She still cries for her mom and grandmother at bed time and at naps, but she no longer is grieving all the time. We have given her pictures of her foster mom, and when she first saw it, she dropped her head back and screamed in pain. It was so hard to watch. Now when she is grieving, she goes and gets the pictures to show us. We all shed some tears together, and she moves on. I must say that watching a 15 month old grieve is the absolute hardest thing I have ever had to go through - and many of you know some of the hard things that I have had to go through. This is the worst. I am just grateful to God that he is healing her heart - please keep up the prayers. We had a great dinner last night at the White Swan Hotel (another big adoption hotel that is absolutely beautiful). One of the guys who plays softball with Steve has a brother (Richard) who just moved here to Guangzhou with his wife (Tisha) and 2 daughters. Tisha is working at the US Consulate - although not in the adoption department at this time. Anyway, we were able to meet up with them for a wonderful dinner. Their daughters are beautiful - ages 4 & 15 months, so Tao Tao wasn't the only one making a mess at the table. Oh!! She finally drank something! At dinner she drank a liquid yogurt that is very popular here. She also began to show us that she can eat! She loves fruit (especially mandarin oranges and dragon fruit)...in fact, she ate 4 oranges at lunch and 4 at dinner. She wanted more, but we couldn't in good conscience do it - we didn't want her tummy to get upset! She really is doing well. We are glad that she is eating, but now she is boycotting the bottle - go figure. I actually think that the bottle reminds her of her mother, but at least she is getting food now. She is a cutie - very busy and always exploring. For those of you who know our other 2 girls, you know that she will fit right in! Right now, Steve and Tao Tao are out on a tour of a flower pagoda, and I am alone in the hotel room. I went on a shopping expedition with a local - Ann (from redthreadchina.com). She was fabulous! I bought all of the souveniers that I needed/wanted and then some, for a fraction of the price that I can find around our hotel. It's almost embarrassing what I spent on some things! In fact, she just came back to my room with her friend who is a finger painting artist - wait until you see what this young man (age 22) can paint with his fingertips and nails! It is breathtaking! I bought a number of pictures from him for such a steal! But at least he gets all of the money instead of only 40% of the jacked up prices here on Shamian Island (where our hotel is). It is also cool that I was able to meet and talk to him - so now I can honestly say that I met the man who painted our pictures!! I am a little disappointed that I missed out on our tour, but I am so glad that I went shopping! Like I said, I bought all that I could possibly need and we will still be bringing money home. It was worth paying Ann $10 per hour for her help and bargaining skills - I couldn't have done it without her! I just wanted to let you all know that things are really going well now - and now that shopping is done, I am ready to go home. Only 2 more days before we fly home and I am more than ready! I am so grateful for all of your comments, prayers and support. Keep them up - we need them. I know that you all want pictures, and I am sorry that I haven't posted more. Computers here are ridiculously slow and I really haven't had the time to fiddle with it! I promise to post a ton when I get home. I was going to try to post some now, but Steve has the camera. Hold on - only a few more days and you will have pictures - I promise!! Love to you all!