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)