Today Marks One Month With Sophie ! ! ! PTL ! ! !

Wow!! We had a friend who said,"time goes by so slow while we waited for our referral(4+years), then its rush rush rush,then its over and we are home w/ our baby." That is exactly how it went for us. When we got home we had to take a deep breathe and take a dose of reality that we were in our home as a family of 4. We have lived as hermits for the past 2 weeks trying to give our girl some time to adjust to life at home in the U.S.A. We have had a lot of visitors and she has had her moments. She just seems to go in panic mode by the smallest of things. The outpouring of love, support, and prayers by our church family, friends, and family has really overwhelmed us. Thank You All for all that you have done and continue to do each passing day.
Bailee returned to school on Tuesday,and I went back to work that Wednesday. Sophie and mom had their time to bond the rest of the week. She was pretty much on Tammy's hip all the first week.
Week #2 We had our first appointment at the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham,Al on Wednesday the 8th. Sophie did not like the 2 hour car ride in her seat , but we made it there fine. They done alot of test on her and took about 5 or 6 viles of blood to check everything out. We came home to do stool samples every other day for 5 days. They will test these for any stomach parasites. We will go back Sept. 29th for results and treatments. Then we go to The Cleft Clinic in Birmingham on October 21st for Cleft visit, dental, ENT and Cosmetic surgeon visits.
The next day is big news. She reached up for me to hold her for the first time. She is getting more and more comfortable each day. We had our first family pictures taken Friday by Amber's Photography. Saturday afternoon we had some rain and it give Sophie the opportunity to play in a little puddle for some photo ops. Yesterday(Wednesday) she and i went outside for about 20 minutes without momma and did fine. Her night terrors have dropped off alot this week, with only a sporadic outburst. We have been to church on two Wednesday nights and one Sunday night so far. She has picked up a few words so far: momma, ba-ba(daddy), guh-guh(brother), not nice, no,night-night, and amen. Paps has had a stay in the hospital in Columbus from Sept. 4th - Sept.14th with dehydration, an inflamed colon and stomach problems, Tammy's brother and sister-in-law had their baby Friday night in Amory. Her name is Ansley Lynn Harris. So we have been busy since coming home.
Please pray for us as we continue this bonding and transitioning phase in our life that in God's Way and Time we will be able to move forward as a family.

We are home at last!!!!!

Well,we are home and very exhausted. We arrived in Columbus about 9:30pm last night,we were met by almost all of our families, alot of our church family, some of Tammy's coworkers, and friends. Sophie slept about 8 hours of the 14 hour flight, all of the Detroit to Memphis flight, and all of the Memphis to Columbus flight. You see a pattern, yep you guessed it, she went to sleep about 3am, woke at 5am back to sleep at 6:30 until noon. She went down for nap @ 4:30pm and we woke her up @ 7, and we are gonna try to keep her up till 10 so maybe she will sleep tonight. She is in shock of the size of our house, compared to the hotel room. She smiled and grinned real big when we took her to her room and play room. She is a little explorer into everything. She still has a good appetite so we are praying after tonight she will be on a normal schedule. Some friends from our church put up some decorations, and some family stocked our refrigerator and prepared a couple of meals, that included her favorite corn on the cob (hehe), and banana pudding!! Thanks to everyone that prayed for our safe journey, and stopped by our blog. We hope that you continue to pray for us as we all adjust to each other and bond as a family. We are keeping the blog going, so stop by often to check our progress.

May God Bless You All
The Aldridges

Last Post From Mainland China

This wil be our last post from Mainland China. As we anxiously leave Guangdong Province I am so grateful to this country for allowing international adoption b/c without that allowance we would not be here! We are also so thankful for Sophie's birthmother who cared enough to place her safely in a public place to be found. I pray that she has peace with her decision and knows that Sophie is loved and cared for.
Our travel intenerary is:
delta flight 26 from Hong Kong @ 9:15am local time(8:15pm friday night)cst. to Detroit arrive @12:10pm
Delta flight 1556 from Detroit @ 5:30pm to Memphis arrive @ 6:31pm
Delta flight 4973 from Memphis @ 7:50pm to Columbus arrive @ 9:06pm

Another post from Aug 26th

I will post this from a different standpoint than usual as we are getting ready to travel. To rapup my side i say this says it all for me. I looked at these 2 pictures and can truly say that I hope she never has to feel the sadness, the oppression, or the unfruitfulness of serving someone that will never bring her happiness. But then i look at the picture below and hope and pray she understands one day, that God was looking upon her and blessed her mightly. I can say that God has blessed her in a way that many will never take the time to realize that God has blessed us so richly, and to not give Him the glory for all we have at home is shameful. I wish each person that reads this could experience life in another country to realize our blessings. I beleive we would all praise Him more for where we live.

Aug. 26th

Well today I turned 40. I had friends here and on facebook that wished me HB in China time, and some wished me HB in U.S time, I had like a 48 hour birthday so it was Great!!! We didn't do anything special just same routine for most part. Our friends Dan and Michele suprised me with a bithday cake after breakfast and that ws so special and thoughtful of them. I then had to go to a meeting w/ the other parents(one from each family)and CCAI reps. She opened the meeting singing hb to me. Then after meeting they had room service deliver a cake w/some trimmings. We had a day to walk around and burn, basically we are just ready to come home. Some people want to know flights and itinerary so we will post that after breakfast. I hope we haven't bored anyone with the blog but we thank each one that has stopped by to check our progress or to get your fill of Sophiemania. What ever the case i hope you realize this journey is not because of us, but because of Him.Thanks again for the friendships, prayers, and standing beside us when we thought we were alone. This has been an amazing journey for our family of 4.

We Love You All
Rodney

Wednesday, August 25th with Sophie

Well we did the whole US Consulate thing and it went very easily! They did not even ask us a single question. As we stood there with 40 plus families all with our right hands raised taking the oath for our babies I couldn't help but tear up thinking of how blessed and happy I am to have this baby girl in my arms finally. Now all she has to do is touch soil in the US of A and she is an American Citizen!!! Praise God! She can live in a country where she can learn about God freely and choose to serve Him in an awesome way! The rest of our day was typical around here. We walked through the courtyard and island blocks looking at shops just to get out of the hotel room for a bit. Staying in the room will drive you crazy especially with an 18 mth old who is sick of these 4 walls!!! On the way back from the Consulate we got stuck in a traffic jam and the 30 minute ride took way longer! Sophie worked herself up into a tizzy and finally just fell asleep. When we got back to the island we had pizza delivered for supper. Bailee walked down to the cafe and got his lil sis pasta. He is already being a great big brother or ge-ge as it is in chinese (pron. guh-guh). She is totally in awe of him too! Altogether a pretty uneventful day but a great day of family time for all of us! Enjoy the pics of the day!
Love,
Tammy

PS: Look-out Columbus and all surrounding ares b/c my hubby who hates to hop has the bargaining fever!!! Here in mainland China you do NOT pay the asking price for anything so Rodney is loving going into the shops and giving the workers grief trying to get lower prices. One poor girl whom he keeps revisiting about hides when she sees him coming b/c he has practically walked away with her store :-)
No he picks up things he doesn't even care if he gets just to jew them down! So, we may never pay asking price for anything ever again...Yeah!!! As I said look-out USA cause he has the fever!!!