It's 6:10am on March 10 here in China (4:10pm on March 9 in Houston).

I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you what we know about Ava thus far......

1. She was born in mid September 2010, which makes her about 18 months old.

2. She was born with a cleft lip and cleft palette. The lip has already been repaired and looks really good. The palette will need to be repaired after we get home. It will probably take several surgeries, but I'm not a doctor, so I'm not totally sure about that. We have looked in her mouth while she is laughing and it basically looks like a big hole in the roof of her mouth.

3. We were told she only eats liquids from a bottle. So we started with that. Then we gave her some puffs that dissolve in her mouth and are basically impossible to choke on. She loved them! So then we tried some yogurt at breakfast, loved that! Now she has had bananas too, as well as a few tastes of other fruit. Yesterday, we bought some baby food, she ate it like a crazy person. She also enjoye a teething biscuit and a few rice krispies yesterday.

4. She doesn't poop much. Twice in 5 days. It is pretty funny to watch her face when she does though.

5.She likes to laugh, and to make other people laugh. If you laugh at someting she does, she will definitely repeat it. This is important for our family :)

6. She likes to play the repeat game. If Zoe or Alex does something, tapping, beating on the bed, whateve, she will copy it.

7. She is extremely curious, and very tactile. She wants to toouch and scratch everything!

8. She rolls around in her sleep....a lot.

9. She cries, loudly. When she doesn't get what she wants, she lets loose, and when she does, she goes all out. Screaming, sweating, looking desperate. It's clearly a mechanism for communicating, because she can turn it on and off at will. It's actually impressive.

10. Overall she is very happy and only cries when she specifically wants something. We think it's been a pretty smooth transition so far, and we are insanely thankful for that. Thanks for praying!