Uncle Joe!

Magnolia got her first visit from a relative today! Her Uncle Joe is in town on business, what luck! He stopped by our hotel this morning. Magnolia gave him a big smile. She's feeling much better and was in a good mood having just had a nap. She even let him hold her while I got to make some phone calls. He bought her a beautiful globe of the four Chinese beauties with her name hand painted on the inside with her birth date, it's beautiful. He also bought her about a 100 DVDs of cartoons and animated movies, you name it, she has it. Only in China!

We decided to walk around the 5th largest mall in the world. It was huge with an ice skating rink on the top floor. We ended up having lunch at McDonalds, it hit the spot! Joe shared a couple bites of his ice cream with Magnolia, he knows best, she LOVED it! We didn't buy much but it was nice to walk around.

We are so happy and relieved that Magnolia is feeling much better. She's back to herself and then some. We saw quite a bit of spunk this afternoon. She's very strong and seems to get into everything. She's crawling and walking along furniture! They were right...active baby! She also likes to come and pounce on me, like she wants to wrestle, I love it. We still haven't figured out how to get a belly laugh out of her yet. We did have another discovery though. I was reading the milestones of a 9 month old and one of just two things she couldn't do (otherwise, she's right on track) was wave and say hello. Well, maybe we should have tried it in her language! When you say Ni-Hao, she waves her little arm hello! It's the cutest thing! So far her sense of humor seems to be dry, she averts her eyes when she's doing something funny, like she knows she's being funny. She's such a cuddler and loves to be held. We've been rocking her to sleep and holding her while she sleeps, just loving her like crazy. We are all making up on so much lost time together.

George went out and bought a stroller because we felt by carrying her it was just too hot for her. Since the rains started, it's cooled off considerably so I don't know how much we'll use it. It's much easier to get around by carrying her than always pulling out a stroller and trying to get down crowded streets and shops. We did use it last night, we took her out for a night time stroll through the park. She liked it for a while but then she looked back and saw me and cried for me. We stopped in the lobby and there was someone playing a string instrument and she "bopped" to the music.

She's sleeping now, down at 6:30pm and we're starting to think she's out for the night. Room service again...loving it!

I can't post pics in the evenings here. Check back soon though, I'm going to send pics to Emily and she if she can post them.

More later! xoxoxoxoxo