David is Home & Emily's 1st Birthday

David was back home on Halloween. He was a little disappointed that it took a few seconds for Emily to recognize him. But after that Emily warmed up quickly. You can tell from this picture how happy she was:

"Welcome Back"

Halloween night we had about 30 kids coming by, not as many as we expected. Emily and David had a wonderful time handing out the candies. We still have lots of leftovers after the Trick or Treat.

Last Sunday our little Princess Emily turned one! Happy Birthday Sweetie!!! I took Friday off so that we could take Emily to the Dallas Arboretum since Emily loves flowers, plants and leaves. The weather was so beautiful. Emily had great time patting the pumpkins, picking up the leaves, pointing to the flowers, and walking on the wet grass! Here are a few pictures we took that day:

Sunday after church we had a birthday lunch at home. Fang and Fred, Gayla and David, with their kids came over. I made Emily a sugar free banana cake with sugar free frosting because she hasn't really been exposed to too much sugar yet. David made the chocolate cake for everyone else. We had lunch first; then we played a Chinese game called "Zhua Zhou" (which means "pick at one year old"; people play it when the baby turns one year old). Basically we put all the props of different professions around Emily and let her to pick one to predict her future profession: stethescope for doctor; measuring tape for seamstress/tailor; mini soccer ball for athlete; calculator and mouse for engineer; cash for banker; crayon for artist; mini piano model for musician; microphone for entertainer/singer; pen for journalist; spatula for chef; etc. Emily looked around and went for the soccer ball at the first shot! Then she went for the mini piano. But the soccer ball was absolutely her favorite since she held it for a long time. Ha! We'll see whether she'll keep her interest in soccer ...

After the game, Emily opened the gifts and read the cards. She loved every single gift she received. After opening the gifts, she thanked everyone by her smiles to all:

Openning the gifts

Reading the cards

Thanking everyone for the gifts

Cake time was absolutely the highlight of the lunch! Here are some pictures of her:






We were so glad that Emily had a wonderful birthday and enjoyed everything. She is looking forward to having a birthday follow-up with grandpa, auntie and uncle, Chloe and Sophia during Thanksgiving!

Monday Emily got A+ from her doctor again. She weighed 20lb (50%); her height is still off the chart 32 in. We were so proud of her that she really hasn't had any sickness during her first year. God definitely blessed her with an excellent immune system. We pray for His continued protection over her. Emily's new development includes pointing at things and sharing her food with David and me. She has eight teeth now so she's more efficient at chewing different food. Her vocabulary expanded to some Chinese words like "Ah Ya" "Nai nai", etc. But she really hasn't purposefully repeated what we say yet. Her favorite song right now is "I've got Joy Down in My Heart"; her favorite toys are ball, block, and stuffed animals; her favorite bedtime book is "Runaway Bunny"; her favorite snack is yogurt nipplet; her favorite words are "Dada Dada"; her favorite activity is walking; her favorite decoration is flower or plant or jewelry ... she is a typical girl!

Emily's birthday put new meaning on my understanding of my birthday. Starting last week, when I planned for Emily's birthday, I began to think "last year at this time I went to the hospital" "last year at this time we cried when the doctor told us we were having the baby today" "last year at this time we saw our princess face to face the first time" ... Birthday is not just about party, cake, gifts, friends any more. It's about the creation of our God, about our mothers who suffered for us, about the rush of love that the parents and the children have toward each other ... Emily's birth changed our life forever and we are so thankful that God blessed us with such a precious child. Thank you Emily for bringing joy to your mommy and daddy each day! We love you more than you ever know!

Here is a video of Emily sharing/feeding David her food (before I grabbed the camera, she's already fed David several puffs, grapes, etc. Sometimes she fed us with both hands):

Here is a video of Emily's favorite song "I've Got Joy Joy Joy Joy":

Enjoy the cake!

Here and There

Last week I took Emily to the Russel Creek Park to play. After spending a few minutes on the swing, we walked over to the pond and picnic area. As soon as Emily saw the ducks, she began to leap and bounce, wishing she could jump into the pond with the ducks! A few minutes later, two Chinese moms and three of their kids came over. They were prepared with the bread to feed the ducks. Emily was anxious that the ducks left her to pursue the bread. Two of the little girls were so sweet that they gave Emily two pieces of bread and one blue berry muffin (they smelled so good!) after they saw Emily screaming at the running ducks. Emily's first reaction was to eat the bread and muffin herself. After a few minutes' show and tell, she managed to feed the ducks a few pieces of bread. She had a great time!

The little girl who shared her bread with us

In this picture, I had to block Emily with one arm to prevent her following the ducks into the pond



We also had a couple of playing dates. One with Kyri, Charlie, Dawn, and Austin. The other with Kathy and Mike. Emily did great. She enjoyed eating at someone else's house and looking around at different things. Charlie was so sweet to share her toys with Emily. I was impressed by how many words she could already say. I'm also amazed at how easy Austin was. He slept on Dawn's lap while we were talking and eating (by the way, the wraps that Kyri prepared were so good that I wanted to steal the recipe some day!). Mike grew a lot since I saw him last time. I just wish I could spend more time with these precious babies and their parents.


Jerry and his mom came over Tuesday night and brought us lots of food. His mom also helped me to wash Emily's hair before they left. Dawn made a big container of delicious soup. I have been enjoying it every day. Fang and Fred invited me over for dinner Thursday night. Both Emily and I enjoyed the visit very much. Many family members and friends called to check on us. All of these help and caring thoughts made our week so much easier!


David continues doing great in Beijing. He met so many interesting people every day. (To read more about their happenings, visit http://pcchina2009.blogspot.com/) The one that he talked the most was the girl from a peanut farm in southern China. She failed the college entrance exam (in China, only 1 out of 10 people in average can go to the college) and felt lost in this world. But she didn't want to spend her life on the farm. So she came to Beijing sitting in the back row of the college classrooms, just to learn what a college students can learn, hoping that someday she can pass an English level test and have some luck finding a job. She certainly didn't have money so no one knows where she stayed at night. Her story just made David tear up. David told her about me, that I was from a poor farm in the Northwest part of China; that I had to choose between buying food and buying books every day at school; that I lived in a rental room at the construction site to prepare for my future (and the room was burglarized while I was at work on my first job); that now I have a passion to sponsor the poor village kids in China to go to school because I didn't want them to experience what I experienced as a kid ... I was a lucky one among millions of Chinese village kids. Now I have millions of more things that I never dreamed as a young kid. So when people asked me:" What are your struggles now?" I always answered without any hezitation "Nothing". To others, I may be superficial, insensitive, and private. But that was a true answer for me. Nothing today can be called "struggle" compared to what a village kid experienced 20 years ago. I've been blessed with the most wonderful family and friends, a great job and a loving church. Even without these, I still have an almighty God and an eternal life - think about that! What value does the "struggle" have when you already have the most precious thing that anyone can have in this world "the eternal life"?! This girl that David read with just brought back so much of my early memory, not a sad or bitter memory in any sense, but a memory of advance from nothing, a memory of persistant hope, plain joy, and steady growth. Someday when I had chance to dig out the old photos, I will have a post on that. I'm sure Emily will want to read it in the future. A side note about this girl was that she told David that she doesn't believe God. But a Christian lady reached out to her on the bus one day and she went to the local church with her afterwards. Apparently God is sending people to work in her life. I just pray that no matter what struggle she is having now, she will find the most precious thing that she can have in this world - the ultimate thing that makes her struggle in this world worthless ...

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday was a beautiful day! Emily got up at 7:00am. After breakfast, she began to shuffle things around the house: transferring the DVD case from the living room to the office; moving my shoes from hallway to her bedroom; ... David called when I tried to put the 18 months pumpkin outfit on her. Unfortunately it was too small. I couldn't get her both arms in. She cried. So I had to call David back after putting Emily on her playing mat.

I can't believe David already had lots of things done. As soon as he got off the plane at 2:30pm and checked in the hotel, Jaime and he went to the English Corner to recruit readers. He found out most people were interested in reading during the weekend since they were young professionals. They may have to recruit some College students to read during the week. After Leslie and Johnny arrived, they did some logistic things, set up the internet, had dinner and a prayer meeting. David was exhausted since he didn't sleep much on the plane. Hopefully he will catch up at night!

Hanging up the phone, Emily and I headed out to the pumpkin patch. Since she is still too little and we didn't want to go far, we dropped by the one off Custer and Legacy. Emily had a wonderful time there. She tried to pick up every pumpkin that she deemed suitable, touching this one and pushing that one. She even had fun playing with the straws underneath the pumpkins. Finally she picked a small pumpkin and I picked a big one to take home. Her eyes were still on those pumpkins through the car window when we drove off the pumpkin land. I already know next year she will have more fun doing this. Below are a few pictures we took.

First Day with Emily

Today is the first day Emily and I spent after David left. Yesterday I worried about how Emily would do without daddy and how I could make the temporary transation easier for her. Now I can tell you that she is just the easiest baby that we can have! David and I got up at 4:30am this morning to get ready. After double-checked everything, loaded the three suitcases and one camera bag, David went in to get Emily. He was surprised that Emily opened her eyes right away when he picked her up. She wrapped the blankets tightly around her body so David didn't even have to get one. On the way to the airport, Emily was greeting the stars with delight and watching the street lights all the way. David checked in the luggage and came out to say good-bye again. After he talked to Emily in her car seat, he told me, "Well, she doesn't care!" :-)

I was surprised that Emily kept singing and talking all the way home without falling back to sleep. We had an early-than-usual breakfast and played with her toys after that. She took a nap at 9:00am. It was the golden time for me to work a little. Before David left, he cleaned the whole house, cooked a week's worth of food, did the yard work and grocery shopping so that I didn't have to do any of these! The clean house and the full refrigerator just made me miss him even more! What a wonderful husband God has blessed me with! Emily woke up at 10:45am. We played a little and then had lunch together. She ate all the fruit, vegetable, chicken and yogurt I gave her. Then we walked and played in the backyard. She took another nap at 1:30PM. After she woke up, we took a stroller ride in the neighborhood. Emily enjoyed watching a neighbor's boy practicing soccer with his dad. So when we finished walking, I sat her at the garage door and played the basketball for her in our drive way. She giggled when I hit the goal and she giggled even harder when I missed the goal... Don't you love to have this type of audient all the time? We spent some time walking the stairs in the front yard. Again she laughed hard when I occassionally lost my slippers. I wished I could record those laughters for David. Later in the afternoon she kept wanting to go out. So we spent half time in and half time out. Until 5:30pm, she had bread, vegetable, egg yolk, grapes, and some puffs for dinner and then went to bed at 7:00pm after walking, bath, and some milk.

I have been reluctant to think about these two weeks without David. But Emily made it so much easier for me to get by than I anticipated. David will arrive in Beijing in a few hours. On one hand, my heart longs to be there with him; but on the other hand, I know our day would be so much different and could be more difficult too (especially for Emily). I pray that David will have a great meeting with the Hills and have a good rest afterwards. Thank you, all our family and friends, for praying for and with us!

Lamentations 3:22-23 (New Living Translation) "The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning."

(Sorry that we don't have pictures these couple of posts! We forgot to download the pictures before David packed the cameras. We'll make up later.)

News not new

News went out when church bulletin announced David's China trip while Emily's and my names were left out - yes, we got news: just two days after we booked the tickets and finalized all the travel arrangement, we found out we are expecting our second baby! After lots of considerations, we decided to keep David's travel plan. Emily and I dropped out of the trip at last minute. It was hard to bail out, not only because all the tickets were non-refundable, and we've planned for the trip for so long; but also because of the disappointment and sadness we and our family and friends felt that we won't be able see each other this time. We've done the training and planned for the activities that we were going to do with the LST readers; We've dreamed to develop brotherly relationships with the local Christians; We've anticipated to give and receive encouragement from our missionary friends ... But God had a different plan for us. Fatigue and indigestion came in right off when we found out the pregnancy. Traveling with a baby and doing LST is just not feasible for me. But we are happy that David is able to go. He will carry all our dreams and anticipations to Beijing! We set up a blog for the China trip: http://pcchina2009.blogspot.com Johnny and Leslie will be David's teammates. Please join us pray for a safe trip and health for them, and receiving hearts for the people they contact with.

It's amazing how similar the two pregnancies are: both pregnancies happened right after we planned for the LST trips for China; We had hard time to book the tickets both times; We had to cancel the non-refundable tickets at last minute both times; We bought new cars at the same pregnancy week (week6); We sold old cars at week 8 both times; Jerry's parents invited us to their house for a feast at week 7 the first pregnancy and they brought us lots of food they cooked at week 7 this time ... Just going back to read the old blogs in April last year made my jaw drop! Our Emily doesn't feel anything different yet. But her gentleness and sweet demeanor toward all her stuffed toys tell us that she will be a very loving big sister. One thing different for me is that I don't think about the new baby as much as I thought about Emily when she was in my tummy. That may be common but I want to give them the same amount of attentions. Someone said that when you have more than one baby, you learn to expand your love rather than divide it. I pray for that expanded love, attention and energy to come!

David is packing up now. He has two big suitcases and one carry-on. The biggest suitcases are full of the things people asked him to take over. We had to take some of them out to put in the second suitcase so that it won't be over-weight (We bought a scale just to weigh the suitcases). He took out some of his clothes to put other people's stuff in. He is leaving early Friday morning here and arrives saturday afternoon in Beijing time. He will be the team's official scribe for the blog. I can't wait to read what he puts on it!

Week in a nutshell

There are not many pictures for this week - I brought the camera with me but it was out of battery. Our week wasn't too eventful. David's reader Hongyu wanted to buy David's car. So they spent Thursday night at Sam's parking lot practicing driving the manual car. Friday night we stopped by Michelle and Tim's clarinet/piano recital for a little while. We loved the music they played. Unfortunately we couldn't stay since Emily's bedtime was approaching. As the result, we missed our community pool party too. Saturday we inspected our car and had the church directory picture taken. Sunday David's reader Joey invited us and Johnny to his apartment for lunch. Joey bought his dining table and chairs the day before in order for us to sit and eat. Emily loved the stairs to Joey's apartment. She giggled all the way down the stairs. Sunday's sermon was full of good tips on personal evangelism. Three persons were baptized during the early service. Paul baptized an old man who was supposed to get married on Sunday afternoon. Sadly his bride-to-be (who had led him to baptism) passed away just three days ago unexpectedly. So the baptism brought lots of tears to many people. This old man came to FriendSpeak Sunday afternoon.

This week is the China's Independance holiday (October 1st). Everyone in China has 10 days off (including the weekend). It's also the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (the equivalent of Thanksgiving for American). So there were many Chinese celebrations around the Chinese community here. Jerry and his mom came to visit us on Wednesday and brought some food. We also had the Mooncakes that Joey bought us. Yummy!

This is the only photo I got for this week: having lunch at Joey's apartment (We used the self-timer. Wished my chair didn't block Emily from the camera)

First Bruise and New Car

Emily is pretty good at one-hand walking. She likes holding our hand with her left hand and use her right hand to pick up things from the floor or touch the things along her way. Sometimes she can stand on her own for a few seconds. She can also bend down to pick up things on her own. Her favorite stop in the whole house is the air purifier where she can step on top of it and then step down. We fastened some of the cabinets with the rubber bands so she didn't play with them as much as before. Her new development this week is to hold bottles on her own. She put the bottle in her mouth a couple of times to feed herself. David said she also said Hi for the first time although she's been waving for a while. One thing that I wanted to jot down is when I came home from work, Emily always ran to my arms from where she was with big exciting screams - nothing is better than that!


Everything I read told me that babies are natural picky eaters. But Emily is an exception. She loves everything: from brocolli to tofu, from noodles to bread, from carrots to celery, from fish to chicken, from kiwi to catelope, from eggs to yogurt ... no matter what we put into her mouth, she took them all with gladness and she wouldn't stop until she was full! We are so glad at that. Hope she will keep up in the future!


Emily had her first bruise this week - she fell on the triangle block. It left a dark deep bruise on her left face. After that, she kept falling on the floor when she was walking or cruising around. But she only cried three times among those dozens of falls. She is a little explorer!

David went to the LST Harvest Call in NRHCOC Saturday. He had a great time. Prestoncrest announced to be a centurion church during the dinner. Friday night we stopped by Amy W's house to drop off Lori's baby gifts. We ended up staying there and had a piece of yummy pie. Rachel loved Emily. She took such good care of Emily the whole time while we were there.


We've been looking for a car to replace David's car for a while. Finally we bought a white 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid today. We loved it!

The bruise on Emily's left face and the guilty blue block

Stand up from where she falls and move on ...

Step on the air purifier

Such a good eater!

Love this picture

Bath is fun

First Sunday Class

We took Emily to the Sunday class this past weekend. It was her first class ever. During church, we took her to the nursery. There was only one boy of her age in that room. Emily started playing on her own. Melissa who worked there urged me to leave:" She did so well, you can go back to the service." I had planned to stay in case she cried. But after Melissa said several times that I could leave. I felt like I should leave. So I went back to the auditorium. After the service, David and I went to the nursery to check on Emily. She was doing fine until in the middle of the Bible class, she began to cry. Miranda told us it was because she saw us there. Emily didn't sit through the class. She was hungry and sleepy toward the end. She fell asleep not long after we left church. It was one hour after her regular nap time.

Emily figured out how to open and close the cabinets and doors this week. She practiced it whenever she had chances. She also knew that she could tear the paper into pieces.

David went to the EEM dinner Thursday. It had a great turnout. Saturday we had the last LST training session at our house. Sunday afternoon David's reader Victor wanted to go to church with David after FriendSpeak. But David had to give a ride to another reader back home. Victor has attended evening services with us for a couple of times. He apparently liked it. Hopefully he will come with us next Sunday.

These two pictures are taken when Emily played in the nursery

This is when Emily was in the Bible class. We missed the picture of her crying because we could not find the camera then.

This picture was taken when Emily ate banana while holding the paper she tore apart

In this picture, Emily was watching the Potty Power DVD
We moved Emily's sitting play area to the office so she has two places to play now

The previous sitting play area became a cruising/entertainment area

See what I mean by "cruising"

Ah, ah! Don't look at the diaper on the floor ...

Autumn After the Rain

In Chinese we have a saying:"Autumn comes after the rain". It's certainly true for the past week. I was digging through Emily's fall clothes everyday. Emily is more and more independent each day. She can stand and play for a little while; She started to wave; and she can walk with a pushing toy now! We are so proud of her! Little girl is growing up so fast!


Since Emily's birthday will fall on the weekend after we come back from China, we will not have time to take her birthday pictures before then. We took her 10 months old pictures instead. We had her pictures taken during my lunch hour last Wednesday. So we didn't have much time. But Emily did great. The photographer said most babies don't make it through the whole session. Here is one autume themed picture of her:





Here is Emily walking with Daddy. She loves to walk and stop occasionally to look up at us with a sweet smile. Wish I could capture that:


Here's Emily enjoying her food:

Here's Emily doing forehead kissing with Daddy:

Here's Emily shopping with Mommy:

"What's for dinner?"

First steps with the pushing toy:



Waving Hi:

Labor Day and Birthday

Our weekend was full of good food and wonderful time with family and friends. Hope yours was too! David had a nice birthday week - he had gone out for lunches with his friends almost everyday. The weather was so nice that it made us believe the beautiful fall was already here. Friday after lunch, we headed off to Tulsa for the Labor Day weekend. Here is a picture of David and Emily on the way to Tulsa:


After we arrived, Amy and Kendall were already there. Leedy Kay dropped by for a short visit. It was great to see everyone. As always, we had Mexican food for dinner Friday and had BBQ ribs for lunch Saturday. Saturday night we had dinner at Linda's house. We were stuffed with good food. Sunday we had lunch at Incredible Pizza's where we bumped into Rae B. She was visiting her brother there. Amy made peach cobbler for David's birthday. Both David and I liked it. David got to open his gifts Saturday afternoon. On the way back from the BBQ place, we also visited the house David and Amy grew up. We even found their hand prints when they were little. Monday night Terry, the new Chinese SMU student, invited us for dinner at his apartment. He cooked delicious food. When we asked how he learned cooking, he said he called his mom so she instructed him step by step ... We still remember the first night when Terry arrived at America, he asked David "What is Industrial Engineering" (his major at SMU is Industrial Engineering).

A snapshot with Leedy Kay

David's and Amy's hand prints from the old house

Opening Birthday Gifts

Emily also had a great time! First of all, she tried a lot of new food and she liked them all: the ribs, mashed potato, spaghetti, rice, guacamoli, refried beans ... I was concerned that she might have taken too much salt and spice by these adult version food. Hopefully these occasional dose won't hurt her much. From now on, no more salt and pepper for her! She also had lots of fun playing with Chloe and Presley; hanging out with Grandpa; and walking laps around the house. Despite of all the activities, she still kept her normal schedule for eating and sleeping. We were so happy about that. Hope she'll do great in China too!

Playing with Grandpa

Playing with Chloe

Reaching for snacks

Admiring Grandpa

Girls, look at camera

Walk! Walk! Walk!

Biting off the banana

David always joked that he lost his wife ever since Emily was born because I always sat in the backseat with Emily to attend her. On the way back home, I sat in the front seat this time. Emily was by herself in the backseat. We gave her a water bottle to play with during the second half of the trip. After a while, she began to be fussy. We thought she must be tired of the car ride. Ten minutes later we stopped at Sonic to grab a cup of drink. I went back to check on Emily. I was surprised to find that she was soaked in water. All her clothes and the car seat cover was wet. The water bottle that we gave her was empty! We had no idea that she could unscrew the bottle cap. No wonder she was fussy! After we changed the clothes and dried the car seat cover with towels and bibs, she was calm for the rest of the trip - of course, I was back to the backseat. We felt terrible. Here is a picture of David apologizing to Emily for what happened:


Emily has five teeth now. More are coming. Her drooling was really bad. She officially graduated from the immobile state. She wouldn't sit for 5 minutes. That's probably one of the reasons that David strained his back muscle earlier this week. He had to hold her hands and run all over the house! It was time to put away David's grandma's old quilt - we've made good use of it: when I was pregnant, I used it as stepstool to climb onto the bed; after Emily was born, we used it as playground for her; now that Emily doesn't sit down to play that much, the old quilt finally got off duty. Thank you Grandma for the quilt! Here is a picture sitting on the quilt the last time.

Here are a couple of bonus pictures:

With the temperature going down, we put socks on Emily so she won't feel cold on the tiles. But these blue socks are the only ones that are big enough for her feet. Need to go shopping now!

My co-worker gave us some toys. Emily was so happy to ride on this toy:

Emily loves to walk holding our hands. But she refuses to move by holding on other stuff. See how nervous she is when she doesn't have our hands.

Here's a short video of Emily and Grandpa:

Here is a video of Emily the little soccer player: