Officially a MacKinnon!

We had our adoption of Evan finalized today so there is officially another MacKinnon son! Because we were the only family there (the rest did theirs yesterday) the whole process went quickly and smoothly. They asked us some questions about why we wanted to adopt, did we know he was "special needs", did we want him even though he is "special needs", did we promise never to abandon him, etc...Then at the end they asked if we were satisfied with the child and did we want to adopt him. We answered "Ummm, can we think about it?" Ha ha ha...of course we answered "YES!". After all this time and all the struggles, we were more than happy to officially make Liu Yang Jun our son, Evan Jun MacKinnon.

When went to the Civil Affairs office to finalize the adoption and a nanny and the Director (one of them) of the Liuzhou SWI was there as well. When Evan walked in he said (in Chinese) "What are you doing here again?" The nanny laughed and said "Don't you want me to come" and Evan shook his head no. It really amazes me how these children come to us so willingly, so full of trust and so brave. How did he just not break down and beg to be taken back to his foster mother? Why does he want to stay with us?

Well, he has been absolutely amazing today. I have to be honest and say Caleb is a BIG reason Evan is having such a great time with us. I would like to say he loves his mommy and daddy and that's why he's so happy but in reality, it's his new biggest brother who plays with him, teases him, chases him and lets Evan do pretty much whatever he wants to him!!

Evan is an expert Kung Fu fighter - he has been demonstrating his moves all day :-) He is also beyond brillant - like, I'm seriously not kidding. You show him something once and he gets it! You don't ever have to show him again. He repeats (and remembers!) all our English words and can already count to 4 in English. We were on the elevator today and he knows what button to push so we were waiting to go to floor 12. The elevator stops at floor 4and he looks at us and holds up 4 fingers and shakes his head "no". He was telling us it wasn't the right floor. When the elevator hit floor 12 he shook his head "yes" and went to the front to wait for the doors to open.

He runs around calling "Caleb" which he says like "Cala". When Chinese people say "Ni Hao" to him he says "Hello" back to them in his British accent! For some reason he says some English words with a british sound.

Caleb is still suffering from jetlag and we have to do everything we can to keep him awake in the afternoon. If he does fall asleep, it's almost impossible to get him awake again. If he sleeps, he wakes up around 3:00 am!!!

We took Evan to the Walmart Superstore today and it was so fun. I wanted to buy some snacks becauase we don't have anything in our room or for when we go out and about on tours. I took Evan to the snack isles and he pointed to all kinds of different things he likes (and make yucky faces if I pointed to things he didn't like). Hopefully when we open all the packages it won't be desserts and cookies! We are told his favorite foods are gum and suckers. That would explain the black stains on some of his teeth :-)

So, all in all, a really great day. He is doing fantastic and we are having a lot of fun getting to know him. We are being stared at everywhere we go...we don't know if people are thinking "oh, how sweet" or "those people are crazy". Evan will be chattering in Chinese and it's very obvious we are not understanding them so the people are probably thinking we don't know what we're in for! (and they're right)

So far there have been no tears at all. He comes to both Chris and I (and Caleb of course) and I have even been able to snuggle him and kiss him and he just smiles and hugs me back.

I could write forever because there are so many funny stories and lots of great things happening but I must go get the boys ready for bed and clean up the hotel room!!!!

Enjoy the pictures from today.

Our family photo just after we finalized the adoption!The orphanage gave us a photo album of Evan. There are lots of pictures of when he was a baby/toddler, before his lip was repaired. It was such a gift! Here we all are looking at the photo album. The people include the nanny from his orphanage, one of the directors, the Civil Affairs person, our agency director and our local guide, Hannah.

Caleb in front of McDonald's and a big shopping center

Evan swimming for the first time. He loved it!!

Dad and Evan...I love this pictures!

Shelly and Allan Butler with their children. They wanted me to let you all know they are doing very well...Little Lily is settling in pretty good and we found out that her and Evan are good friends from the orphanage. Lily is tiny and so very pretty! When they first received Lily, she was quite upset and cried for a long time but yesterday and today she is doing much better. At breakfast yesterday she was laughing and very happy.

Adrienne, Malcolm and their daughter (sorry, I don't know how to spell it). They are doing fantastic and their daughter is amazing! She was happy to go to Adrienne and Malcolm and is happy every time we see them together. She is very beautiful, too!

Tracy J and her son, Sam. Sam is such a sweet little boy! He is doing very well and is happy, cheery and very busy! He is keeping him mom pretty busy, I think! As you can imagine, Tracy is thrilled and they are having a great time together.

Also, I didn't get a chance to get a picture of Tracey and Robert with their children but they are doing well. Their little guy is also very busy but is adjusting well.