Tulsa Trip and others

May has been the busiest month for us. It started off with a week long business trip for David. Then we headed off to Tulsa to celebrate Dad's birthday. It's been one and half years since we last went there. Emily was so excited to spend some time with Grandpa and her cousins. Dad invited some of his church friends over for hamburgers. Emily had a wonderful time with all the kids (Actually I never saw her having so much fun!). Of course, Andy and the rest of us had a great time too! Here are some pictures:


The kids did great on the way to Tulsa. On the way back, Andy got tired at the Texas border because I took the wrong turn when David was resting so it took us over one hour to get back to the right road. We stopped at the roadside for the kids to stretch a bit.


For the rest of May, David was busy with his friend Tom's wedding: bachelor's party, rehearsal, wedding, etc. At the same time, our widow friend Sue was very sick in the hospital. David was busy with her also. I was busy with our two active waddlers. One wants to dance all the time; the other wants to hold hands and walk all the time. Our days were full of giggles and bumps. At the same time, my legs grew so heavy at the end of each day. Andy has mastered crawling, which slowed down his walking progress. He can walk for a dozen steps at a time now. But he still prefers holding our hands to walk. Just like his sister, Andy is quite a dancer too! He dances whenever there is a music or rhythm. Both kids love to dance "Ring Around the Rosie" until they fall down. Emily is completely toilet trained! She wears her underwears 24/7. It started when we were in Tulsa and we forgot to put diapers on her at night (although she had had dry diapers for a long time, I still was afraid she might wet her bed). Three weeks passed by, she never had an accident. She even woke up in the middle of one night saying "I want to go pee pee" so David got up and took her to the restroom. Another improvement is Emily started helping me to clean up the room before her bath. I know she should have started earlier. But it was not on my schedule for her until recently. She did it right away, willingly! I think it made her feel good to help me and she treated it as a game when we sang the cleanup song together. Andy and Emily enjoy more and more playing together. They giggled and squealed all the time when they rode the wagon together; when they were in the car together; when they played together; when they danced together ... Their laughters were so contagious that they made me and David laugh too. Emily loves to bring toys to Andy to make him happy. The picture below shows that Emily piled all kinds of toys in front of Andy when I was cooking in the kitchen. Andy's face turned from distressed to joy instantly. Emily's first words upon waking up often were:" Where did Andy go?" She always reminds David to lower his voice during the story time when Andy is sleeping in the next room. Every time when she heard Andy crying, she would tell me:" Mommy, Andy is sad right now!" She was generous with her kisses and hugs toward Andy. Andy was loving and gentle to Emily too. It was so cute to hear Emily saying "Thank you Andy!" all the time and I had to fill in "You are welcome, sister!" for Andy. Of course, Daddy still is Emily's number one person. Every time when David came home, Emily ran to him waving:" Hi Daddy! Hi Daddy! I'm so glad you came home!!!"



For Mother's Day, David cooked the delicious meals and Emily danced and sang for me at the table. As soon as she came home from church, she ran to me and said, "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy!!"


For Memorial weekend, we took the kids to the Children's Aquarium. We had a great time. Andy actually enjoyed it more than Emily since he reached out to every fish he saw. Emily talked about the seahorse and the jelly fish all the way home. If Andy could talk, I guess he would have talked about the stingray all the way home too! I was disappointed that our camera battery died right from the beginning so we didn't have one single picture of it.

Below are some pictures that I took to send to David when he was on business trip. The kids wanted to say Hi to Daddyevery day in pictures.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3


Day 4



Here is a fake smile from Emily when I asked her to smile at the camera

Now it is challenging to take good pictures of the kids because my hands seem to be occupied all the time. When I finally freed my hands to take the pictures, the photo opportunities were gone. And there was no replaying granted ever. Here are a few that were managed to be in the camera along with a couple from the photographer.

May 26th was the National Day of Prayer. As I was reading about it, I was so fascinated by the story behind it. It was described in a book by John Lukacs "Five Days in London" how God intervenend at an incredibly difficult time to accomplish His purpose. It occurred exactly 71 years ago this month when Hitler inexplicably ordered his armies to halt just 24 hours after the call for National Day of Prayer from the Britain churches in desperation. The British leaders were jubilant and astounded. The prayers of the righteous men are effective! On this National Day of Prayer and Mother's Day month, I pray for all the mothers to have all the wisdom, patience, grace, and perseverance from God to bring up their Godly kids.

"The Shepherd leads those with young not to be Hallmark versions of perfection, but rather persevering versions of humility. Grace stands in the gaps. Motherhood does not require perfection. It simply requires commitment and humility." (Ann Voskamp)

Easter, park, birthday and others

There are so many pictures and too many things to update for last month. I had to upload part of the pictures in small size and delete a few too. Here are the show-and-tells:

Happy Easter!!! - We had a fun Easter celebration mainly because Emily really enjoyed doing some activities. I'm sure next year it will be even better since Andy will enjoy it too. Sunday normally was the busiest day of the week. So we celebrated Easter on Saturday with our family. Emily read about the true meaning of Easter for that whole week. Saturday morning, she woke up to a trail of the white bunny tails that led up to her and Andy's Easter baskets.



Then she had her bunny themed breakfast.




When Andy was taking the morning nap, we had an Egg Hunt just for Emily:





















I probably told you that most of these eggs were from a stranger that Emily bumped into last year when she was playing in the front yard. All of these were sealed and every one of them had a toy in it. I added three eggs in with some Easter symbols and Hershey kisses (representing the sweet life that Jesus brought to us) and the characters of Jesus (loving, kind, patient, etc.). Ever since Emily found out that one egg had a Hershey kiss in it, she wanted to open every egg to find chocolate even I told her only three eggs had candies.





Then we made some Easter egg crafts and colored eggs.






Emily even threw a tea party for the Spring animals so they didn't feel left out.



Sunday we had lunch with Gayla's family and the Stolte's. We had a good time there.





A Day At Park: For Andy's first birthday, we wanted to take some pictures in the park by a photographer. But we've never been to the park that we picked out. So we decided to go there before the photo session. We totally enjoyed it. Here are a few pictures from the outing:























After we came back from the park, the kids still wanted to play. So we hang out in the backyard for a little while.

Andy's First Birthday: We can't believe our baby boy is one year old! Wow! How time flies! For Andy's birthday, we decided to celebrate it on Sunday afternoon. David made buck wheat banana cupcakes. Andy didn't really eat it, maybe he didn't know what to think about the big dark cake, or maybe he wasn't hungry since it was right after lunch, or maybe the recipe that I picked out for him was not to his taste, ... But we all had fun!

Balloons were absolutely the favorite thing for both kids. If you noticed the red lump on Andy's forehead, that was because he bumped into the corner of the wall chasing the balloons right before he ate the cake. After the cake, we had a "Chinese Zhua Zhou" (a fun Chinese traditional game to "predict the future profession"). Andy grabbed the measuring spoons first, then a book, at last he took hold of the stethescope. Maybe his interest will start with cooking, then learning, then being a doctor?? Ha! I was surprised that he didn't get a vehicle first.

Now Andy really likes his car seat facing forward.

The picture we put on Andy's birthday table was taken by Babiesrus for free. One week before Andy's birthday, Andy and I were shopping at Babiesrus, a lady strolled by. She started to talk to Andy. Then she came back to us and asked us whether she could take a couple of pictures for Andy. She would give us one for free. We were not prepared for pictures. I didn't know whether Andy was in the mood or not. But it was free and Andy's birthday was coming up, so we did it. Andy did great. Unfortunately the controller of her camera was jammed when Andy had the brightest smiles for the longest time. She showed me all the pictures. But she would only give us this one for free. All other better ones were made into photo collages and they were pretty expensive. So we just got this free one.

Before we had the birthday photo session on Saturday, we wanted to take Andy to have his first hair cut. He was doing fine until the boy sitting next to him started crying. Then it turned into a terrifying experience. Poor boy! We may try to trim his hair at home in the future.

Below are other random pictures:

When I wasn't noticing, Emily fed Andy milk and she was so proud of herself.

At another occasion, Emily poured the toy teapot in Andy's mouth. I bet Andy had no idea it was a pretending play. He was so trusting.

Emily and her baby doll Sarah watching video together

Prestoncrest lady's retreat - a reminder to bring home

Emily loves to wear my shoes. Every time she wore them, Andy would follow her footsteps and try to put his feet in the shoes also. As an attempt to get away from Andy, Emily told him "Mommy's shoes are dirty! Andy. These are mommy's dirty shoes. Don't touch them. OK? " She often commented on my clothes or gave me suggestions on what to wear. Sometimes I did wish I had followed her suggestions (you know the Texas weather!). She would say "Mommy, your dress is so pretty! You look very beautiful!" or "You did a great job!" or "How about that one ... the red one?" ... It warms my heart to see my little girl grows up so fast!

David, Emily and Andy watching the Chinese program on the laptop to learn Chinese together after dinner

Emily's new bedding. It matches the wall border and other decorations in her room perfectly. She loves her bed!!!

Different usage of the baby doll stroller

Here are some pictures of Emily playing in the backyard. She loves being outside and she loves to sing. Her favorite songs right now are: "I'm in the Lord's army" "God is so good" "Holy holy holy". I didn't know that she listened to the lyrics but apparently she did. She knew more lyrics of these songs than I did!

Emily and Daddy

Yogurt is the favorite snack for both kids - All gone!

We didn't plan to take the bluebonnet pictures that day. But since we dropped by and we had the camera. We took a couple of pictures. It was so hot and windy.

Last but not the least, in honor of our birthday boy, I'm posting some of his pictures here. You can tell what a joy he is to our family, just like his sister! We are so blessed! At one year old, Andy has 8+ teeth. He skipped crawling just like what his sister did. He is walking by holding one hand - non-stop! He is pleasant, happy, focused, friendly, smart, cuddly and sweet. He loves his naps. His favorite food are puff, apple, cheerio, cracker, peanut butter sandwich, yogurt, mango and fried rice. He doesn't like to have a bib on. He doesn't like his face or hands to be wiped either. So it's not unusual to see the food stains on his shirt. His favorite toys: vehicles, balloons, balls. He dances with music all the time. Emily often tells me, "look Mommy, Andy is dancing" when I play some kids music. We love you Andy! You are absolutely precious to Mommy and Daddy! We look forward to celebrating many many more birthdays with you!