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HAMILTON — On the day that Daniel and Stacey Hall became parents, their babies took their first breaths thousands of miles away. The Halls could not yet hold them, but could only gaze much later at photographs of their new children.

Still, the Halls had absolutely no doubt that Grace and Eva were meant to enter their lives.

Adoption of the girls from China,

through the Children's Hope International agency, was "the single most wonderful thing in my life," said Daniel Hall, who serves as campus dean of the Hamilton branch of Miami

University.

"It is the greatest joy I have had in my life," Stacey Hall echoed.

The moment she received the picture of her oldest daughter, Grace, she fell in love.

"It's hard to put into words ... that was my daughter and I loved her," she said. "It felt so natural ... I feel like they are both meant to be my daughters. God put my babies in China and I was meant to go down that path."

The couple says the adoption process has been nothing but positive — except for the waiting.

"There is four months of paperwork and you have something to do ... you have a mission ... a task working toward a goal," said Stacey Hall. "Then there is nothing to do but wait."

After completing the paperwork, they waited 14 months before they got the news that they had been approved and matched to a child.

In August of 2002, they received word that they could travel to China and "bring their family together" by bringing home Grace Kathryn.

They brought Eva Joan home Jan. 6.

China requires a single visit for adoption, and the Halls stayed in the country two weeks to finish up paperwork.

Both girls have adjusted well — sleeping through the night from the very beginning and adjusting to their new

surroundings.

The couple will tell you repeatedly how blessed they are.

"We were prepared for a long night and a lot of crying but we were blessed ... they both sleep all night ... down at 8, up at 7," Daniel Hall said.

"Every cliche I have heard about parenting I have found to be true. Nothing is more important to me than those two girls. It has been the single most wonderful thing in my life."

As with most siblings, the girls have very different personalities.

Grace is sensitive, articulate, methodical in her actions and her thinking and laid back, Stacey Hall said. "She needs ... explanations and wants to know how everything works and she has an amazing memory. She remembers things from years ago.

"Eva is so curious and into everything," she said. "'No' to her just means, 'oh do it again.' Grace is shyer than Eva ... it takes her a while to know somebody before she is comfortable. Eva is, 'hey, a new friend!' They are both very happy and quick with a smile."

"We feel as though our two girls were truly intended to be with us from the beginning, and we feel in some sort of religious way that we were driven to adopt," Daniel Hall said.

The couple say that their experience with the adoption agency has been so positive, they volunteered to speak on behalf of the organization.

Children's Hope International has placed more than 6,000 children since 1992, and 3,600 of those placements were from China, said outreach coordinator Cory Barron.

China has been one of the top countries for placing children in the United States, Barron said.

"There are thousands and thousands of children, especially girls, that need good homes," he said. "Because of the reliable, predictable, ethical adoption process by the Chinese government, people are confident their dream of having a child will come true."

There are 143,000 million orphans in the world, Barron said.

"And whether a family adopts domestically or internationally, they are giving a child the love that they

desperately need," he said. "A child that grows up in an institution will have an education, a bed and food but they don't have what is most important and that is the unconditional love of a

family."

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2158 or lebbing@coxohio.com.