Charlotte Rose Venhaus

Welcome to our little corner of the World Wide Web devoted to our daughter, Charlotte Rose Venhaus.
Below you will find photos and information about our daughter, and our journey to adopt her.
The buttons to the right of her photo take you to the different sections of the site, and below her photo is the latest information we have about her and our upcoming trip to China. Take a look around, and drop us a line if you have time. -- Laura and James Venhaus

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Charlotte's "Growth and Development Repot" arrived in our mail box Friday afternoon. The information in this report is dated 2/26/2003 so while it's not exactly current, it does give us a idea of her temperament, her background and an idea of her day to day life in Chaohu. According to the report Charlotte "loves to play with toys and tear books and paper. (!) She is sensitive to the surrounding objects and she likes to watch busy and noisy places." Her primary diet is a combination of milk and rice based formula and she has supplementary foods like "candy (!!), fruit juice, mashed fruit, eggs, fish or meat soup, rice porridge crackers, etc."

The report also explained a little more about her name. Wu - chosen from the book of "Hundred Family Surnames" - was given to all the children who entered the orphanage in 2002. Chao symbolizes that she is from Chaohu. Qiu (pronounced Chee-o) is her given name and it symbolizes the happiness of the harvest. This name was chosen for her by her caretakers because it was the golden season of autumn when she came to live at the orphanage. Isn't that lovely? I'm so glad that we have a fall baby because that's always been my favorite time of year.

Charlotte's personality is described as "open and lively". It says that she loves music and she loves to imitate (that's the actor coming out in her!), she likes to be held and touched by adults, she can shout "in a loud voice" (!!!), she shows excitement at food (she is my child, after all...), she is active, restless, talkative, has a ready smile, is energetic and obstinate sometimes. We're about to have our hands full!! It also says that she is most close to one of her caretakers. We hope that we can find out this woman's name and that we can keep in touch with her as Charlotte grows.

We're still waiting for our consulate dates and we're going a little nuts. Hopefully we'll hear something early this coming week. Thanks for checking in!

One of the families that traveled to the ChaoHu Orphanage in March posted a small video clip of their orphanage tour. As luck would have it, our little Charlotte is in the video! She is wearing a green outfit and walking around in her walker. You can only see her for a few seconds at the beginning of the clip, and again at the VERY end of the clip. The funny part is that at the end of the video, Charlotte, is scuttling in her walker out of the room, and you can see and hear the care giver call her name to tell her to come back! You can download the clip by clicking the button below:

Hi Everyone - on Monday, July 21st we got updated physical information for Charlotte and two new photos. (yippee!) On June 30th Charlotte weighed 9 kg (19.8 pounds) and was 69 cm tall (27"). She has seven lovely little teeth and is apparently able to sit by herself. Late this week or early next we should be getting another packet of information that will tell us things like what she likes to eat, who her special friends are, what personality traits have been observed and what, if anything, is known of her pre-orphanage days.

We should also be getting our US consulate appointment any day now. Once we get that our travel dates can be set and we'll be off to pick up Charlotte in no time flat.

New photos are here! We received our FedEx package from CCAI at 10:45 this morning. In it were 2 more photos and a big "to do" list of things for Laura and I to do before we travel. The first thing we will do is get a "care package" together to send to the orphanage. We will send toys and blankets for Charlotte to play with and a disposable camera for her caregivers to take pictures of her while she is waiting. When she is older, these photos (plus the ones we already have) will be the only record of her life before we adopted her. Click on the photos page to see the pictures

Families adopting from CCAI who live in Colorado were able to go to the CCAI offices yesterday and pick up their files and see photos of their babies. A local news station has video from this event on their website. To see the video, click on the link below and then click the “watch the video” link. What you see these families do in person is what Laura and I did via phone, e-mail and FedEx yesterday and today. Be warned. Do not watch this video without a box of Kleenex at hand.

We got the call today from CCAI, and we have officially been “matched” with a child. Our estimated travel date is 5 to 8 weeks from today. Our baby was given the name Wu Chao Qiu by her caregivers (pronounced Woo Chow Chee-Oh). We will name her Charlotte Rose Qiu Venhaus. She was born on September 8th, 2002. On February 25, 2003 she received a full medical examination, and she passed with flying colors. At the time of her exam she weighed 17.6 pounds and was 26.37” tall. She is now at the Chao Hu orphanage in the Anhui province of China until we can pick her up in August.

Today we have received a photo of her from the adoption agency. The Chinese believe that their babies should be bundled up well, and they often put multiple layers of clothing on their infants. So in the photo above she looks like she is wearing a set of football shoulder pads and a pink football jersey. Laura says she looks like me in the face. You be the judge.

She is currently in the care of the ChaoHu Children's Welfare Institute in ChaoHu City in the Anhui province of China. We have some photos and other basic information about her current home here.