The Faces of Amelia Mei

“A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words”

For us, there’s no picture greater than that of our Amelia Mei that can speak a thousand words!  We are captivated by all of her expressions--from her signature “all face” smile, to her look of excitement and surprise, to the serious deep-eyed stare that we fell in love with from the very first picture we saw of her…each speaking much more than words can ever say!

Her oh so sweet, signature, all-face smile, is so contagious, with her giggle being music to our ears…

Her closed-mouth smile is also one we love!

Her face of excitement and surprise we have enjoyed so much.  Whether looking at fish in the pond or shoes at the shopping mall…this face is one we love to see!

Her face of tears is one that we have seen a little too often lately.  Our sweet Amelia Mei can be quite the little stubborn girl!  She especially cries when she wants food…which to our misfortune, seems to be ALL THE TIME lately.  As soon as food is within her sight, she will cry until her “buddha belly” is fed. :)

This last week we saw a new face of Amelia that she tends to make when she is happy and being silly.

There’s her sleepy face…

Her sleeping like an angel face…

Her face that says, “Mama, why do you keep putting these things in my hair”…

Her face of curiosity…

Her rare face that says, “Now I’m a little scared”—which we don’t see too often coming from our little dare-devil herself…

Her bath time face...

Her calm, content, sweet-cheeked face that we so love to kiss…

Then there’s her face that says, “I love you Dada”…

And her face that says, “I love you Mama”…

Her kissey faces (which we just started to receive)...

And her face that says, “I think I’m going to look up to this big brother Liam of mine”…

And her face that says, “I’m going to love growing up with the love and protection of my big brother Liam”…

The rest of our stay in Shenzhen has been pretty uneventful besides our day out at the zoo.  Unfortunately, Ben, Liam and I all caught a stomach bug – luckily it was short-lived and we’re all feeling better now.  So we used the rest of our week to rest and to get better, with walks to the park, visits to the pool (and bathroom-ha), and window shopping trips to the nearby shopping mall being our excursions of the day.  We have really enjoyed our stay in Shenzhen, despite getting sick, as we are surrounded by so much natural beauty, the hotel has made for a very comfortable, wonderful stay, and the weather and people have been nice.  Here are some more pics from the rest of our stay in Shenzhen…

We are now packing up, for 5^th time on this trip, to travel to our last and final China destination…Guangzhou!  We will spend 1 week in Guangzhou where we will take Amelia to her mandatory doctor’s visit at the SOS clinic, where we will have our official appointment at the US Consulate, and where we will be issued Amelia’s US VISA, giving us permission to take her HOME!

Along this journey, we fall deeper and deeper in love with our daughter and we continue to face moments of joy, moments of exhaustion, and moments of learning, growing, and loving as a family of four.  But through it all, it is The Faces of Amelia Mei and the moments with big brother Liam that have taken our breath away.  Among all her faces, it is her priceless, sweet, deep-eyed stare, the one we fell in love with from the very first picture we saw of her, that truly speaks much more than words can say.  It is THE face of Amelia Mei that speaks a thousand words…straight to our hearts!