Name Selection: check!

We wanted to drop a note to everyone to formally announce our dear daughter...we are absolutely honored to be able to parent her and so excited to bring her home!!

Emma Jean Chunxiao Lillie

• Emma – two meaningful inputs...
• Emma comes from the name "emmanual", meaning "God is with us".
• Emma means "strong", which we know she is, she is a fighter!!
• Jean – two meaningful inputs....
• Jean is a family name on both of our sides. She is named after Grandma Lorna Jean Scheid, Grandma Glena Jean Lilley, Aunt Catherine Jean Weber (aka Lilley), Great Grandma Norma Jean Clough, and Great Grandma Linda Jean Ballantyne.
• Jean also means "God is Gracious", which he is! We gave Lexie the middle name Grace for this same reason. We feel so lucky we will be able to parent both of these girls! :-)
• Chunxiao - means "Early Spring".  As I mentioned in my last post.. Chun means "spring" and Xiao (pronouned like "shower" minus the "er") means "early morning".  Since she was born in the city of perpetual spring and was born early, we think this makes perfect sense!
• Lillie - of course!

We are absolutely excited to share her picture with everyone...its just not going to happen today. The CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) wants some more information from us before providing us with Provisional Approval (PA).  Our agency has assured us its nothing to worry about and that this is common.  We still *hope* the pre-approval comes in the next week or so but it could be a while longer so we thought we would share the name now!

On the positive side, we got an update on Friday morning from Emma's orhpanage! At 8 mos she has continued her phenomenal growth and is actually getting herself onto the American growth charts, even without adjusting for her prematurity! I didn't initially realize it but apparently the American growth charts are always larger than the international ones, b/c Americans are "large", ha!. :-)   Also, we were told that at 8 mos she could roll over & sit up unassisted!  This is great news for any baby in an orphanage but even more phenomenal given that she was born so small.

In closing, I've included a few crazy pictures. We tried to take a family photo over July 4th but Lexie was not having any part of it! I attribute it to the fact that we did it at the end of the holiday weekend and she was exhausted from playing with her cousin Wesley. In any case, here are a few of the shots (with Emmy's face removed b/c we don't have PA yet!).

Welcome Emmy to the Lillie and Lilley clans, you are in for a wild ride!! :-)