Christmas Update

Hope you all had a great Christmas! Ours started on Tuesday when Amy and Kendall arrived with Chloe and Sophia. Emily was so excited to see Presley. Wednesday our missionary friends from Chili, Penny and Jeff came over for a visit along with their two boys Caleb and Aaron. Liesl joined us too. We had a wonderful time eating and catching up with each other. Dad came in on Thursday. It snowed in the afternoon! The kids loved the snow. After dinner, we watched "The Very First Noel" together. David then read the book "T'was the night before Christmas". We put the cookies and carots out for Santa and Reindeers, changed the kids in their pajamas, and went to bed. The kids were still too little to understand what was going on. But it was a good practice for next Christmas.

We were surprised to see the remaining snow on Christmas day. This was the first time for me to see a white Christmas in Dallas. We were not used to such a cold Christmas ... We opened the gifts in the morning and cooked in the afternoon. We had planned to see the Christmas lights in Deer Field neighborhood since it's just around the block. But both Emily and I were sick later on Christmas Day. It was Emily's first ever sickness and it was my first after pregnant. I guess the flu shots really didn't protect us. David didn't feel well either. But his symptoms were the lightest. David's aunt Joyce and cousin Gregg's family came to visit the day after Christmas. We had a good visit with them.

David and I didn't do much gift exchange for Christmas. The main gifts we gave to each other were to sponsor four kids in China to go to school for one year, as we did in the past. We started "shopping for the kids" right after Thanksgiving (we used ocef.org to do this). But it was so hard to pick out four kids from the thousands that are in the database. Every one of them needs sponsorship desperately. Almost all of them had parents who lost their ability to provide for the kids. About half of them are orphans who live with their aged grandparents or other relatives on the farm. In the end we just randomly picked four, knowing that to all the needing kids, we couldn't do much; but to the four we picked, it means a whole world ...

Emily wasn't into the gift business yet. When we all opened the gifts in excitement, she'd rather run around the house and play. Since she was having some running nose for the first time, it took a while for her to get used to us wiping her nose. Her new words are "Putao" (means Grapes in Chinese) and "Xiezi" (means Shoes in Chinese). One big achievement we had was that three quarter of her nails got trimmed! Kendall was able to trim her nails when they were here. Go Kendall!

Below are some of the pictures that captured our Christmas this year:

Emily gave "Merry Christmas" kisses to her stuffed animals one by one on Christmas morning in her pajamas:

Uncle Kendall gave it a try on trimming Emily's finger nails:

Succeed! We got to hurry ...
It took a village to trim the nails for both hands and one foot

A white Christmas

Emily was watching the snow on Christmas day (Thank you Amy Wilson for loaning us this red coat. We loved it!)

Chloe and Emily were both fascinated with the snow:

Group family picture with Joyce, Gregg, Shannon, Lexie and Ryan

Lexie was so good with babies. See how attached Chloe was with her:

The Hatcher family:
After our guests had left after Christmas, we started cleaning the house. Monday after lunch, David went out to meet Tony for lunch and see Sue in the hospital. I was washing the dishes while Emily was minding her business. Suddenly I saw Emily was scrubing the floor with the towels that she found from the utility room. Once I realized that she was helping me to clean the kitch tiles, I couldn't help laughing. She has seen David doing that so many times so she was imitating David (using one foot to scrub the floor)... She worked the whole area in the kitchen. I had to give her a hug and kisses!

Our cleaning crew finished the tile area ... Wasn't it worth an applause?

Here is a video of Emily playing "Where is Emily" game with David:




Again, in the middle of hard-working... Emily has excellent coordination. She can kick the small balls around the house without any problem:

Growing with Emily: Year at a Glance 2009

Merry Christmas

This past two weeks has been so busy, as most of you are. At work, I went through a week-long condensed training and took a job-related world-wide certificate exam. That consumed almost all of my energy: 8 hours training plus two or three hours homework every day. I'm so glad that it was behind of us! Besides that we shopped and wrapped all the gifts, participated several Christmas parties and attended a friend's graduation ceremony at UTD. Emily did so well in parties that she was bragged by my co-workers and friends all the time. We were sorry that we couldn't attend all the Christmas parties and see all the friends that we'd love to. Wish they could spread out more during the year! David's college friend Terry and his wife Hong and daughter Elizabeth from Houston came to spend the night with us Saturday night. It was an added joy to this time of the year. I know we won't see many of you before Christmas and New Year. Please let us know how you spend the holiday afterwards. We wish you a wonderfully blessed time with your family, friends, or yourself! Peace, hope, joy, love to you!!!

Last Monday night I went to the Apple of Gold Christmas reunion and saw many friends that I don't see very often. It was really a treat for us (relatively) young ladies to be served by the mature and respected Church ladies.

Emily is more and more fun each day. She is still a good eater and great sleeper. The only thing is that she eats so slow. Be careful if she sneezes 20 minutes after she finishes eating. Chances are all the food she stores in her mouth would spray out in front of her. David joked that every time she sneezes, it costs us 99 cents dry clean fee. Ha! Our guests were often amazed what a good girl she was. She was always happy, content and easy. That's our precious girl!


Another new thing about Emily was that she'd rather see us off every time we put her down to sleep. As soon as we put her down, she would rollover and stand up right away. As we waved bye-bye and closed the door, she stood in her crib holding onto the bedrail quietly. She wouldn't cry or make any sound. Five or ten minutes later, we went in to check on her. Sometimes she was still sitting in the crib silently touching her bears or holding her blankets. We never heard her crying or objecting/complaining after we put her down for naps or night sleeps. She is just amazing and easiest baby we can have! Guess her nap schedule is changing soon. Here was what we saw after she fell asleep afterwards:

The third change about Emily was she didn't like to be out of our sight. She likes to be around us. When she wanders away, she always turns right back to us. When we leaves her, she would follow us wherever we go.

Emily normally doesn't like anything on her head: hair pins and sunhats. But she surprisingly liked this winter hat. She put it on all day when it was cold last week. Combined with the puffy Chinese coat, does she look like a China doll?

This is the second Christmas dress that Emily had. Our friend Mary Biggers from FriendSpeak bought it for her. She got so many compliments.

Emily loves all her stuffed animals. She kisses each of them whenever she sees them. But she was scared of this moose who sings Christmas carols for some reason. Before long, she developed close friendship with it too! She huggs it, kisses it, and most of time, dances with it ... Emily loves dancing with music. She swings from side to side or bounces up and down. Sometimes she just waves her arms. It was amusing that whenever we do the laundary, she would run right up to the washing machine, face it, and dance according to the rhythms of the washing sound (which sounds like a music to her). She has an excellent rhythm!

(Note that she was holding a blood pressure gauge when she kissed the moose ...:-)

Once again: Merry Christmas!!!

Advent: Waiting on Christmas

After Thanksgiving, we entered into the pre-Christmas period. I look forward to this three-four weeks of preparation for Christmas each year – when peace and joy scatter in the air wherever we go. The pretty lights are hung up in the neighborhood. The Christmas wreaths and candy cane decorations are displayed around the houses. Even the radio stations started playing the non-stop Christmas carols a couple weeks back. David and I set up our Christmas tree last weekend. As we decorated the tree, we couldn’t help thinking about how people before Christ got ready for Jesus’ coming: what were Mary and Joseph thinking; what were the shepherds, wise men, and Angels doing; and how John the Baptist reacted … Instead of rushing through the beautiful, reflective season of Advent as we shopped for the gifts and wrapped them, we wanted to prepare our hearts to be ready too. Maybe from next year we can use Advent traditions, like Advent wreaths, Advent calendars, or Jesse tree, paired with Scripture verses, to instill joyful anticipation in our home for the month of December.



As we put up the Christmas decorations, we took down the Thanksgiving, even the Halloween decorations. I hate to waste the beautiful pumpkin. So here is what we did to it: we used it as a bowl to make the marinated rib pumpkin soup (ingredients: marinated ribs, chestnuts, onions, carrots and dates). The soup was a little too spicy for a pregnant woman (since I used the wrong pepper sauce). But David liked it. For the seeds, we toasted half of them and they were addictive to eat!

David and I continue to be amazed by Emily every day. We are amazed at what a great sleeper she is and how easy and calm she is with everything. Every time when we tried to tell her that there is a baby in my tommy, she would touch and kiss my belly - even she doesn't know what it is yet. She started brushing teeth every night. She always does so with a smile and eagerness. The only things that take a little work now are cutting her finger nails (normally we can only trim one or two finger nails at a time) and weaning the bottle for milk (she would only take sippy cup or glass for water, but not milk, unless she is very thirsty). She tells us that she has her own will too. Since Emily started walking and our house was not completely baby-proofed, plus the slippery tiles in the kitchen area, we set up a fence for her to move around in the living area. Now she might have regretted taking that first step during Thanksgiving.

Emily was fascinated with the Christmas lights. The day when we set up the tree, David picked her up from the crib, as soon as she saw the tree and the lights, she bypassed me and pointed to the tree “Ah, Ah, Da, Da, …” , even when David asked her:” Where is mommy?” She was glued in front of the Christmas tree for half an hour. David said her next word may turn out to be “tree”.

Emily wanted to try and smell everything we ate. Every time we had chocolates or toasted nuts, she would come close to our mouths trying to catch our breath or lick some leftover off our lips. It was so cute! I was craving about dumplings after I saw a picture on the website. So Saturday afternoon I decided to make some dumplings. Emily had her first dumpling and she loved it. I made eight dumplings just for her with wheat flour, egg, milk, ground pork, shredded carrots and zuccinni, chopped green onion, spinach, and ground ginger. She eats one every day.

Emily watching football with Daddy (Actually Emily was watching the football; David looked at the camera when I took the picture)

Emily reading with Daddy

Emily's favorite toy nowadays - camera; She carries it everywhere

We had a snow last Wednesday morning. Emily slept in until the snow slowed down. We kept her in the house to prevent getting cold. So all of us watched the snow in our pajamas. Below is a short video of the snow David recorded.

Thanksgiving Update

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We enjoyed ours. Dad came down from Tulsa. Amy, Kendall, Chloe and Sophia came up from Austin. Our house suddenly was full of life! Emily fixed her eyes on Presley all the time. She wished she could bind Presley on her waist! Chloe was so excited to have a playmate to play with. Sophia was such an independant player that she could play for a long time with her toys on the floor. All the adults were busy with taking care of the kids or playing with them.

We had the Mexican dinner at home on Wednesday. Then we started cooking until late night. For Thanksgiving lunch, we invited some of David's FriendSpeak readers to join us. It was the first time for them to go to someone's house for a Thanksgiving meal. They really loved it. Our lunch lasted from noon to 3:30pm. By the end of the lunch, David asked us to come to the living room - Emily walked independantly for the first time! She walked back and forth for a few laps. We all cheered and applauded for her. She was so proud of herself!

The rest of the holiday weekend just flew by without any trail left. The only things I remember were eating with family, playing with the kids, and relaxing. That's what I love about Thanksgiving. The kids are still too little this year to start the family traditions. I look forward to starting the holiday traditions next year.

Here are a few pictures that reflect the good time we had during the holiday:

(Group picture for the kids)(Emily played with Grandpa)

(Emily played with Daddy)

(FriendSpeak readers looked at the China albums)

(Thanksgiving lunch)

(Chloe loved holding Emily's hand to walk)

(Emily loved the birthday gift from Amy and Kendall; Chloe showed Emily how to play)

(Emily loved the new toy from Sandy and Hongyu)

(Emily leaned on Mommy's arm for the picture at Cheesecake Factory)

(Emily and Auntie Amy)

(Video of Emily's very first steps on Thanksgiving Day)

(Video of Emily practicing walking the day after Thanksgiving)

Happy Thanksgiving

We had some good visits with friends recently. Nathan and Amy came over to visit us about 10 days ago. We had great evening catching up with each other. The next day, Ray and Olivia came over with their 6 months old son Steven. Emily didn't feel well after the vaccination shots. So she really didn't play with Steven before she went to bed. The next Monday, Jerry's parents invited us to their house for dinner. We had a feast again! Emily enjoyed eating with us and playing with Jerry's dad afterwards. Their new apartment looked great after the reconstruction because of the fire back in April. They still need a few furniture items to fill up each room. Friday night we met with Darren and Leslie for dinner. We haven't seen Darren ever since David and I got married. Although we talked regularly over the phone, nothing can beat the joy of seeing an old friend face to face! Leslie brought us some China pictures that were lost in our SD card. It was nice to spend some time with both of them. We wish we could see them more often and we could visit longer. We left our camera at home. Luckily Leslie brought his, so we may get the group picture from him later. Sunday we met with Mary and Ted for lunch after church service. They updated us on the ministry that they are involved in recently. We told them about the China trip in return.

Saturday we had the 4th annual International (FriendSpeak) Thanksgiving dinner at church. We made a big pan of corn casserole. David helped with the setup in the afternoon. Emily and I went there right on time for the dinner. David and I dressed up in the Pilgrim's costumes. It was a lot of fun! Emily was the one that had the most fun: she was passed from people to people except the movie time when she sat down to enjoy the Thanksgiving food. She also got to run around in the big room with Ray and play with Steven on the table. We were surprised that she was still awake after we got home! Around 165 people attended the dinner this year. All of David's readers came. They sat with us at a big round table. Here are a couple of pictures we took:

Emily makes us laugh all the time. She knows to put smaller bucket inside the bigger one so that she can carry both with one hand - she loves the challenge of grabbing two favorite items with one small hand. She is very persistent and cautious. She learned how to drink out of the glass or a straw. Darren asked Friday night how Emily changed my relationship with God. That was such a thought-provoking question. I can tell you so many things that I learned from her. But the things that are on top of my mind are these: One: Emily brought so much pure joy and amazement to my life everyday and I'm so delighted in it. Thinking that I am God's daughter. ain't I supposed to bring joy to God each day like Emily did; Two: Emily has total trust in me. She is so dependent on me (even my little finger). She looks to me for reassurance all the time when she is in doubt about something or some situation. If I say "No" and give her a serious face, she will stop what she does right away. When she falls, if I was nervous, she would cry. But if I pretended it was not a big deal, she would usually brush it off too. I know I'm not perfect or powerful at all. If Emily has that attitude toward me and trusts that I will behave in her best interest, how much shall I trust and depend on our Almighty Heavenly Father? Three: No matter how much I love other people's kids, I just can't love them as much as I love my own child. It takes time to deepen that relationship. It helped me to understand God's feeling toward His own children and the importance of spending time with Him. "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3) There are certainly a lot lessons that we can learn from Emily (Want more evidence that children are better than adults? Here is a most recent one Adults Fooled by Visual Illusions, but Not Kids). Below is a picture of Emily with Joey on a purple day:


Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming around the corner. As we plan for our time with family and friends, it is also a time to plan for our giving. Giving thanks to God; giving time and love to family and friends and others; giving financial gifts to the less previleged ... Yesterday we saw the 2 year old girl in front of us giving her 25 cents contribution during the church communion. We told her parents that we couldn't wait for Emily to be old enough to do that!

If we don't have chance to see or talk to you before the holiday, here's our wish for you: A Very Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!!!