Week 16

We've been talking about the sleep training for a couple of weeks now. This week we really started implementing it. Emily has set up kind of her schedule: gets up at 7:00am; naps at 9:00am, 1:00pm, and 4pm; sleeps at 8:00pm. Since we moved her to her crib this week, she slept a lot better. Her naps were at least 1 hour long and she sleeps better at night too. But we are still practicing to let her fall asleep on her own. She would wail most of the time when we put her down awake. We can tell that she is learning to pacify herself. Her eyes were half open; her mouth made the "Yi-Ah" sound; a couple of her right-hand fingers were in her mouth; and her left hand fingers were swirling her hair or left ear. This definitely is a sign that she was trying to sooth herself to sleep. It was so hard to see her struggling to sleep and not to pick her up every time. But we've got to give her chance to practice that skill until she gets it. Of course, we picked her up several times before she got too stressed. Falling asleep is the hardest part for Emily so far. We'll have to celebrate it when she can fall asleep on her own 100%!


We are so grateful that at least her schedule is predictable now. David can have Friendspeak readers in our house when she is sleeping. (By the way, David got a year of Leave of Absence from his company to take care of Emily. We are so thankful that God blessed us with this opportunity for both Emily and David to stay at home this year.) Joey (from Taiwan) has come to our house for Friendspeak every morning this week. He seems to enjoy the study very much.


Emily uses her hands more and more. She attempted to flip the pages of her book when we were reading. She is also more aware of the people and objects around her. When she was sitting in the swing by our table when we were having dinners, she would stop playing with the doggie to watch us eating. She began to notice the cows and birds on her lamp shade. When she detected with the corner of her eye that I was taking a picture of her, she immediately stopped what she was doing and stared at the camera. David joked that "she is the typical girl! I bet her first word would be 'delete' instead of mama or dada ..."



Here is a picture of Emily when she was sleepy:

Week 15

We caught Emily's belly laughing when Dad was here on Wednesday. She had laughed several times before. But because they were so short, we couldn't record them. This time Grandpa really got her. Below is a video clip of it.

Chloe's Birthday was this Friday. We ended up celebrating her birthday at Waco. She is bigger and prettier each time we see her. Amy got many cute birthday stuff for her. Can't believe Chloe is one year old already! We said Happy Birthday to Kendall too. His birthday was just a couple of days away.

We are still working on Emily's sleep. She doesn't take long naps. Most naps were half-hour naps. We thought maybe the PackNPlay was not the perfect place for sleeping. It's like a hammock. We need to put her into her crib now ... but we've got to find the baby monitor first. Emily is so pleasant and precious. David already began to pray for her future husband now.

One thing I remembered from this week's sermon was the analogy of Christian being the salt of the world. All the things I knew about that analogy before were that: salt adds flavors; salt preserves; salt is normal but important; ... Gordon added one that I never thought of: salt gives glory to God, not itself. He said when we like a casserole, we never say "I really like the salt in it. Which brand is it?" It just made me laugh.

Week 14

This week Emily started to follow a schedule, especially the bedtime routine (bath at 7ish; milk afterwards with soft lullaby; then nigh-nigh), so that she knows when to fall asleep. She is such a sweet and precious baby. Her beautiful eyes can instantly capture your heart. Her hands can do more and more things: swatting, grabbing, and bringing toys into her mouth. She is so cute when she plays with or swirls her hair with her fingers.She has very good eye sight and acute hearing. When she is full, she learned to arch her back backward to get away from the bottle. Emily's "talk" began to have rhythm. When she is hungry or sleepy, she really tries hard to communicate with her babbles and eyes. When she is anxious, she began to put her fingers into her mouth. She blows milk bubbles all the time. Emily indeed is the champion of the tummy time. She can do that for such a long time that David has to pick her up thinking that it might cause injury to her neck! You can tell that she is enjoying her tummy time by the picture we posted last week. She is a slow-eater because it often takes her several times to finish eating the 4 oz milk.

For Valentine's day, we had lunch at OnTheBorders. We love the Brisket basket there. David made a wonderful dinner: fish, chicken, and vegetable pancakes! Emily went to bed early so that we could enjoy the dinner. But before we finished reading the family Bible, she woke up again ...

Here are a few pictures we took this week:

Week 13

Jerry and his mom came to see Emily on Monday. They brought us so much Chinese food that I ate them for four days in a row.

Emily is 3 months old this Sunday. She certainly came a long way in these 13 weeks. During the past week, she can hold her head up pretty well. We were amazed at how long she could stand for the tummy time. Below is a picture of it. Emily also ate more every day. We changed the nipple to the level 3 flow. We are thinking to increase her bottle to 5 or 6 oz now since she finishes every drop of the milk in the 4 oz bottle. Emily also likes to blow milk bubbles. We'll have to carry a cloth with us all the time to catch the bubbles. She is so into her hands that 8 out of 10 pictures we took were the ones of her gazing at her hands ...

Starting from Feb. 1st, we have a new preacher at church. We really like his preaching. The verse Godan challenged us to remember was Phil 3:16 "Only let us live up to what we have already attained." We are given the gift of righteousness and the fruit of the Spirit. We as Christians ("Christ-like") have a high call to grow into the clothes that Jesus put on us. He made an illustration that he gave his son an adult razon as gift. But his son has to grow to be able to use it. I liked his interpretation of the "hands up" worship - you put your hands up when someone point the gun toward you - that's a total surrender!

Godan also answered the question someone asked:" Why did Jesus have to die? Is there another way that we can reconcile with God?" The answer was: Yes - if we are perfect (sinless).

Why do we need to put on the Lord; why do we need to be clothed in Christ? Because it is the only way we can be made right with God. All of our good will and actions falls short. We need Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can clothe us with the robe of salvation (Isaiah 61:10) in a new covenant. He himself is the robe of righteousness, the garment of salvation, that we need to put on each and every day. This robe of salvation that we clothe ourselves in is both a free gift from God and a call to action that we face each day. He knows we cannot make right choices by the virtue of our strength alone. That’s why his only Son shed his blood as a ransom from sin and the pledge of a new covenant. Jesus has given us everything we need to live a holy life. He now asks us to embrace this free gift and put on his robe of salvation each and every day.

Here are three more verses that I found related to the message above:

"I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul. For he has clothed me with a robe of salvation, and wrapped me in a mantle of justice" (Isaiah 61:10).

"Let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh" (Romans 13:13-14).

"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:26-27).

Week 12

We've had a busy weekend. Mike, Grace and Grace's mother came over for lunch Saturday. It was the first time for Grace's mom to visit an "American home". We had a great time. Saturday night Wes, Amy, and Rachel came for dinner. Amy was so kind and generous to loan her maternity clothes to me. I just had time to wash them and return them to her. It was sad to leave those clothes. Thank you Amy for being a wonderful friend!

Look at what Emily is up to: she began to reach out, touch, hold, talk and play with the doll ...