Memorial Weekend

We had an early start of the Memorial weekend as my company let us go at 1:00pm Friday afternoon. My co-workers had asked us to bring Emily to the office many times. So David took Emily to the office right before lunch. Then we went to Genghis Grill for lunch with my group. After we came home, David played with Emily while I tried a new recipe for the bread pudding.

I planned to clean the house and do some baby-proofing on Saturday. But I ended up doing nothing. We met Eric and Jenny for lunch. After that, David worked on the plumbing problem since we heard the running water constantly in the house. He ended up replacing the washer outside the house.


Memorial day we went to a cookout at Nathan and Amy's house. Emily was a little suspicious toward strangers at first. She warmed up later and had a great time. Here is Lori holding Emily. Lori was so kind to let Emily play with her hair for a long time.

When we were all ready to have a piece of desert, Emily was so tired that she curled up for a nap at Amy and Nathan's guest bedroom.

Emily loves playing Peek-A-Boo in her crib, Skinning The Rabbit before the bath time, watching falling blocks and clapping hands ... She reached out both her arms if she wanted us to pick her up (or as soon as she saw us approaching her). Her hands can reach more and more stuff. Below are other random pictures from this week:

(Emily can't stand the food on her chin. After each bite, she would wipe her mouth with her sleeves. She did this so quickly and so firmly that I couldn't stop her. Here she did it again! )

(Here's Emily watching the bunny in our backyard )
(Emily loves watching the sign language video. Here is a picture of her learning how to sign "Eat". From the picture, you can see that she lost bunch of hair in the back due to the rubbing against the bed.)

(Daddy has to learn the sign language too so that they can communicate with each other)

(Here is a picture of Emily kissing the bee (we also have her pictures of kissing the baby doll, the sunflower doll, the whale, the books, etc.) Isn't she adorable?!):

I’m Not Ready For This

This week Emily started on her baby food: sweet peas. She liked it as much as her mommy and daddy did. On the first bite, she was kind of avoiding the spoon- not sure what’s in it; on the second bite, she leaned forward; on the third bite, she reached out for the bowl! By the end of the feeding, she opened her mouth wide and swallowed the peas like a pro! Here is a picture of her third bite ...

She also started to splash the water in the bath tub so we moved her from the kitchen sink to the big bath tub.


Emily licks on everything. In the restaurant, she licks on the menu (Yuck!); at home, she licks on the toys; if there's nothing else, she licks on her feet. She is so fascinated by any hanging strings (including my hair). She tries to catch them with both hands whenever she sees them.

We went to two birthday parties this week. One in Papadaux for Jeff Nolan and one in Papasido for Nikki. It was the first time for some of our friends at Jeff’s party to meet Emily. Lea cried when she first saw Emily. At Nikki’s party, Emily got to spend some time with Charlie, Ethan and Cole. We had great time at both places.

Dad stopped by Friday night on his way back home from Amy’s place. We had birthday cake for him and enjoyed breakfast with him Saturday morning. After that we met with Leslie and Johnny for lunch talking about the possibility of doing Let’s Start Talking in China this October. We’ve been planning it since early last year. Although it may still be difficult to do that with Emily. But we will not be able to find a convenient time in the near future. David is really motivated to study Chinese now. In his own words, he’s got 150 days to polish up his Chinese! We didn't have any plan for Saturday afternoon. So I tried a new recipe for making the sweet and sour pork ribs. After much boiling, frying, coating, the dish was ready by the dinner time. I couldn't wait to dig my chopsticks in the ribs. But for the first bite, I almost spit it out - it was way too salty! The recipe didn't call any salt. I remembered putting four table spoons of sugar in it though. Where did the salty flavor come from? "Did you put the salt in instead of the sugar?" David asked. Guess what? That must be what happened. I was trying to put Emily to bed in the middle of cooking. My brain was not working! Here is a picture of me washing off the salty coating and trying to modify it to another dish ...

Sunday Gayla invited us to her house for lunch. Emily found a baby that she loves there. Gayla was so kind to let her to take the baby home. Here is her first baby...

Sunday afternoon, I was busy in the kitchen. David came over and said, “Our Emily is a little girl now … Look at her, she is sitting there playing on her own – I’m not ready for this!” Yep, she’s growing up! I was in the mourning mood when I put away the onesies, dresses, hats that are too small for her. I was sad every time when I saw the bassinet and the bouncer at Babyrus - we sold them a couple of months ago. Six months flew by and she gains more and more independency each day. We are NOT ready for this!

Below is a past video of her rolling over from tummy to the back

Happy Mother's Day

Daughter Of Mine - by Cari Vick

"My beautiful daughter, love of my heart,
I hope that you know you're wonderful and smart.
I cherish you dearly for the person you are;
you have passion and caring that will carry you far...
You have my love forever;
I adored you from the start;
It's a privilege to be your mother,
Dear daughter of my heart."

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers! Happy Mother's Day to my mom! And happy Mother's Day to me! Last year on Mother's Day, our church asked all the mothers to stand up so they could receive a rose by the kiddos. David whispered to me:"You should stand up!" But I was still in the first trimester. Eyeing those beautiful roses passing by, I remained in my seat. This year, I had my first Mother's Day with Emily. David made banana pancakes and fresh blackberry syrup for breakfast. We had my favorite Chinese food for lunch. Joy filled my heart when people said "Happy Mother's Day!" to me all day long. How blessed I am to be a mother to our sweet Emily!

Emily had her 6 month checkup on Friday. Her report was the best Mother's Day gift. She got an A+ again. Her height is 27.5 in. (off the chart this time. Her doctor said that's the average 10 months old baby length) and her weight is 16.8 lb (still 75%). For some reason, the doctor added her 9 month shot to 6 month shots. She was fine for several hours. Then she began to have fever when we were having dinner with friends at the restaurant. She was up every other hour Friday night and three times on Saturday night. I was frustrated that the doctor gave her more shots without asking our permission. Luckily the fever was gone by Sunday. David and I learned a lesson to take a proactive role during her doctor's visits in the future.

Emily just started rolling from the stomach to the back, although she conquered the more difficult part (rolling from the back to the stomach) long time ago. She can sit up on her own for about ten minutes at a time. She is eager to adventure out to the solid food now. When the feeding spoon is near her mouth, she would open her mouth wide and reach out for the spoon. What amazed me and David the most was her ability to work the blanket. Every night we put her in bed and cover her lower body with a loose blanket. But when we check on her or pick her up the next morning, the blanket is always tightly wrapped around her body - better than what David or I ever can do! David said he wished he could see a video on how she did it. Emily also began to experiment the sounds with her lips and tongue. Even when she was drinking milk, she couldn't help practicing blowing rasberries.

One of our FriendSpeak readers Yao was baptized on Wednesday. Yao is a UTD professor/PhD/faculty. We've been praying for him for years since his wife (FriendSpeak reader also) was baptized two years ago. Many Friendspeak workers (especially Louella and DG Wilks) have reached out to his family. He finally joined our big family. Below is a picture of him. More pictures at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Prestoncrest-FriendSpeak/171452815022

Mother's Day Sunday is always different. Many friends are gone to be with their mothers and many new faces are here. In case you were away this Sunday, here is the insertion in the church bulletin that I'd like to pass to you:

BEFORE I WAS A MOM by anonymous

BEFORE I WAS A MOM, I never tripped over toys or forgot words to a lullaby. I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous. I never thought about immunications.

Before I was a Mom, I had never been puked on, pooped on, chewed on, or peed on. I had complete control of my mind and my thoughts. I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom, I never held down a screaming child so doctors could do tests. Or give shots. I never looked into teary eyes and cried. I never got gloriously happy over s simple grin. I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom, I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put her down. I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn't stop the hurt. I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much. I never knew that I could love someone so much. I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom, I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body. I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby. I didn't know that bond between a mother and her child. I didn't know that something so small could make me feel so important and happy.

Before I was a Mom, I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay. I had never known the warmth, the joy, the love, the heartache, the wonderment or the satisfaction of being a Mom. I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much, before I was a Mom.

Kudos to all the mothers!!!

Blowing Rasberries

Chewing teethers

Yao's baptism

Backyard fun

Toes, Anxieties, and Swine Flu

Emily’s new trick this week was chewing her toes! Have you seen those baby gift bags with a classic painting of a little precious baby grabbing both feet or chewing on the toes? I had one on the counter (it was Gail’s gift for Dawn) and couldn’t help saying:” That’s Emily!” Isn’t it amazing that all the babies do the same things?? It is difficult to take a good picture of her doing that because she stops as soon as she detects the camera. But I did manage to take one:



Emily loves kicking, standing, stepping, and swaying – anything but lying down! We bought a used Jumperoo for her two days ago. David calls it "Rockeroo" since all she did in it so far was to rock back and forth. She liked it. Below is a video of her standing in it for the first time. (Don't know how to rotate the video. Sorry!)

Emily began to recognize faces (Many books call it Stranger Anxiety and Separation Anxiety). She cried a couple of times this week when strangers picked her up from anywhere that she couldn’t see us. The book I read told me not to be embarrassed on that; comfort her as soon as I can instead. It also advised other people to approach babies of this age with slow warm-ups. She was very happy if someone picked her up from my arms though. Diane, Dawn, and Gail held her for a long time on Sunday without any problem. She was also scared at the loud toilet flushing sound. Last Sunday, I put her down on the church changing station to change her diaper, a group of ladies came in and the toilet sounded on and off for five minutes. Emily cried the whole time. Two other ladies were waiting in line to use the changing station. So I didn’t have time to comfort her until we finished diapering. Bless her little heart! Ever since then, Emily was afraid when I put her down on the changing station.

The biggest news going around last week was the Swine Flu. I had sore throat and fever last Sunday. So I stayed at home on Monday. When I returned work on Tuesday, many co-workers walked to my cube and asked how I was doing. It was strange to be cared by so many people at work just because of a cold! Soon after that I saw the company email on Monday about the Swine Flu. Anyone who has a flu symptom was advised to stay at home. One co-worker suggested me to see the doctor since the school in his area was closed because of the flu. I made an appointment on Wednesday. After two swab tests, my doctor congratulated me with a hand-shake:” It’s not a flu, definitely not Swine Flu; It’s not the strep throat either. So just rest and drink lots of water or orange juice!” My heart settled.

I went to Dawn’s baby shower on Saturday morning. It was a big turnout. I was so happy for Dawn. She certainly deserves everything. During the shower, two people complimented my haircut. They were amazed that David cut my hair! When I came home at around 2 o’clock, David told me that he talked to my brother-in-law and my sister via Skype to practice his Chinese! I was so proud of him. We went to the World Wide Youth Camp benefit dinner at 6 o’clock. David got to visit with many of his old friends who used to do WWYC together in Russia and Ukraine. We were surprised to see Ashley, Nic and Juliana there. Ashley’s mother invited them to the dinner. Saturday was Amy's birthday too! Happy Birthday Amy! Wished we could celebrate your birthday with you. Sunday we went to Robert’s birthday dinner after church. Robert’s actual birthday was Wednesday. Gail bought him a new computer. David set it up for them Thursday night. We were glad to see Richard, Cathy, and Annabelle at the dinner too. They were so busy that we didn’t get to see them very often. Annabelle enjoyed making Emily laugh by her drum beats on the cake container. Emily didn’t take any good nap on Sunday. She went to sleep as soon as we got home and slept until 9:30am this morning!! She was so tired.

Here are some random pictures this week:

Trim finger nails

Saturday afternoon hails

Let's go to the WWYC dinner

Sunday

Father-daughter play:

First Road Trip and Baby Blessing

Emily is funny. She likes playing for a while in her crib after she wakes up. We have to listen very carefully to know that she is awake. Most of time we won't know until we walk in. She covers her face with the blanket as soon as she sees us. When we asked:" Where is Emily?" and took off the blanket "There she is!", she would break into a big giggle. She loves Peek and Boo and "Ten Little Indians". Of course, a smiling face never fails to win her smiles or laughters. She enjoys using her hands - grabbing, sweeping, touching everything. My favorite thing is when we change her diaper. If we ask, "Emily, could you please hold your legs for me?" She would grab both of her legs and help out as long as she could ... Isn't she precious?!!!

This past week was a busy week. Our missionary friend Eileen is in town. She stayed with us on Tuesday. Dad was on the way to Austin and stopped by too. On Wednesday, Jerry and his mom came to visit. David worked with Eileen and helped Jerry with his homework. He was exhausted by the end of the day. Thursday we packed up and went to Houston to apply for my passport (it's going to expire in July). We stayed with David's good friend Terry and his family. Hong made delicious Vietnamese dinner. Terry and Elizabeth played violin and piano for us. Emily was so tired that she fell asleep on her own in the PackNPlay when the rest of the crowd were visiting.

Friday we applied the passport in the morning and headed to Austin in the afternoon. We went to the hospital to see Amy and Sophia - our new niece who was born on April 22. Both of them looked great. When we went home in the evening, Emily was tired and fell asleep on her own in Chloe's crib again. We were amazed at how well she did in a strange environment! Chloe kept us entertained till everyone was ready for bed. Saturday we helped Amy to check out from the hospital. Amy did so well that we even stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch on our way home. I couldn't imagine to have that strength and energy on the third day after childbirth! David made a chocolate cake and baked sweet potato for Amy's birthday since we won't be there next Saturday. After the cake, we headed back to Dallas. Poor Emily - she was confined in the car seat for at least four hours for three days in a row! We really felt for her small body. But she did amazingly well. She went to bed as soon as we got home.


This Sunday was the baby blessing Sunday. We got up early for the early service. Then we stayed for the first ten minutes during the second service. Gordon prayed for all the new babies including Emily and asked each parent and every church member to make commitment to bring up these babies in Christ. After church we had a brunch with other babies and their parents. Emily was a little cranky in the end. We went home and found out she was having constipation. She's been through a lot this week!

Helping out during diaper changes

Stretching a little bit on the way to Houston

Terry and Elizabeth played violin and piano for us

Meeting the new cousin - Sophie in the hospital. Two sisters were making agreement - Be Gentle ...



Seeing Sophie close up
At Baby Blessing brunch




The baby blessing video can be watched here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPlUwZJbmnI

Teething and Such

Our little princess started teething this week. For the first couple of days, she was constantly moaning with her fingers in the mouth. We used her teething toys and our clean fingers to rub her gum. That seemed to comfort her a little bit. Two days later, she suddenly stopped moaning and went back to the normal happy Gerber Baby (that's the name that my co-workers gave her. They call Emily their Gerber niece). Emily began to enjoy the rice cereal more and more each day. She sleeps from 7 or 8 o’clock to 4 o’clock in the morning. Only four or five times in the past couple of months, she slept to 6 o’clock. But since she goes back to sleep very quickly, we aren’t stressed about her night wakening at all. We rejoiced several times when she fell asleep on her own. Emily is growing into a fast grabber. Last Wednesday when David was having Friendspeak with Jerry, they put her in the bumbo seat on the dining table. Within minutes, Emily grabbed the spoon from the blackberry sauce bowl and swirled in the air. It took David a good effort to clean the red dots all over the place.

It’s a challenge to keep up with Emily's growth. Last month I was very proud of myself buying some pretty 6-9 month summer dresses at a local consignment store, thinking that they should get Emily over the whole summer. Last Sunday we found out we ran out of clothes again since she outgrows 6-9 month clothes already – summer even hasn’t started!! I wasn’t satisfied by putting away those pretty dresses that were never worn. So I tried to put them on Emily - at least once. One morning when I took Emily to see David after I dressed her, David hesitated for a while and said, “Do you think the hat is a little bit too small? It looks like a shower cap on her …” Well, I knew it was too small. But I just didn’t want to admit it. Too bad that Daddy thought that way too!!!

David put out the Exersaucer that Fang and Fred gave us. Emily loved it! She would bounce on her feet and check out every Nic-Nac’s. We were so happy that she had a new place to play!

David has been helping Jerry’s parents on the Insurance. He met with the insurance guys and other restoration service guys during the week to put Jerry’s mind at ease. Friday night he went to the Mission Resource Network benefit dinner and had a wonderful time. Saturday was Prestoncrest Lady’s conference day. But considering that we will have a very busy week ahead; our refrigerator was completely empty; and most importantly, David was bound home for a whole week, I decided to give up on it this year. Next year it will be a lot easier!

Heidi came with us to church on Sunday. We had invited her to come on Easter. But she didn’t make it. We were glad that she made it this time. The message wasn’t really for a person who comes to the church for the first time, but we prayed that Heidi benefited from what she heard and experienced at some level. If not, at least she knows that we enjoyed having her very much.

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter to everyone and to our friends who had their first Easter with their babies!!! Hope you all had a wonderful Easter! We surely enjoyed ours.

Emily had several “firsts” last week: she started to spin her bottles with her fingers and scratch everything else she touched. She had her first hair-cut on Friday. It was not easy. We sat her in the bumbo seat but it was difficult for her to sit still when I pulled her hair. So we didn’t cut much - only her front hair. We saved them in her “first curls” keepsake box. Talking about her hair, when we first took her out to church four months ago, a guy came to me and asked, "Did you put a wig on her?"

Another first was that she broke the angel’s head that we put on the picnic table in the back yard. It happened when we tried to take some Easter pictures of her on that table – I just can’t take enough pictures of her (Is that a new mom’s addiction or what?!). It was the first thing that she ever broke. One thing that worth noting but I didn't blog in the previous blogs was that Emily could turn on the music on her swing, car seat toy bar, etc. She started doing that several weeks ago. We even didn't know that her car seat toy bar has music until she turned it on by pulling it.

David and I had a new toy this week – it was a digital SLR camera! We started looking for a good camera ever since my canon camera stopped working. Finally we bought a 3-month-old Nikon on Amazon. We took some pictures with it. But none of us had a SLR camera before. So there’s a lot to learn before we can take really good shots in different situations.

Grandpa Jack visited us both on Wednesday and Saturday. Emily always enjoyed being with Grandpa. She got her first Easter bunny from Grandpa too. Sunday we were invited to the Hargroves and the Norths for lunch. But we turned them down because Joey was coming to church with us. It was his first time to church. We prayed that the message he heard would touch his heart. Gordon did a great job again. Several people were baptized during the service. Joey really liked everything he experienced. He had many questions about Easter. We had planned to take him out for lunch after church. But he had to go home to prepare for his exams. So we grabbed our lunch on the way home. During Friendspeak, we heard that one reader that we know was baptized too!

Last year David and I helped organize an Egg hunt and Easter egg decoration event at church for Friendspeak. This year we were too busy to do that. I really missed it. Maybe next year Emily will have her first Egg hunt. It rained on Sunday morning. When the sky cleared up in the afternoon, several kids in our neighborhood started playing egg hiding and hunting games. They had so much fun!

Emily is too young to understand what Easter means. All she knew was that she liked the two more Easter bunnies she got from Gayla and Judy during FriendSpeak. She was spoiled!

Sitting in the high chair (Grandma from China hand-made the padding for the high chair)

Taking pics in the backyard


You can take pictures now. But be quick ...

How do I look in my Easter dress?




A couple of pictures under the sun ...



Broken angel










Try out the new camera

Here is how you know your picture session is over ... Enough is enough ...

(More Easter pictures at: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=qu0dq1t.2r178tv5&x=0&y=-lnwevz&localeid=en_US )

Baptism and House Burnt Down

(I've been lazy not to come up the titles for the posts - that task alone kills millions of my brain cells. Now that I added a ticker to the blog. No excuse to name the post according to Emily's age any more. I'm sure you will applaud my effort for that!)

Emily began to grab her feet with her hands now. Her belly laughter can be easily triggered by gently tickling her tummy or chest. She is so easy to please. A rattle, a book, a prayer lamb, a happy face, or a strange sound will definitely bring smiles to her face. Nathan and Amy came over to see Emily on Monday night. We had roast and played a couple of games after Emily went to bed. It was fun!

We had a busy weekend as usual. Friday morning we got a call from Jerry that his parents’ house/apartment was burnt down. After many calls, David and I took some clothes and went to see them. The roof was gone. The house was full of smoke and ashes. They didn’t sleep at all on Thursday night. David's clothes smelled smoky after he came out of the house. I stayed in the parking lot talking to Jerry’s mom Yunny. For the next two nights, Jerry and his parents stayed with us. They don’t speak much English and they don’t have many friends. So David and I are on call to help them in every way we can. We helped them to come up the property list for the insurance company. Luckily Jerry’s dad had just bought the insurance policy last November. He thanked God for His protection. Jerry’s dad was baptized five years ago when he came to America. But Jerry and Yunny are still searching. Yunny told me later that when she looked at the wild fire eating off everything they had, she cried and prayed to God the first time.

Saturday morning we went to FriendSpeak reader Amanda’s Baptism. Amanda studied with Gail for a while and got closer and closer to God. Finally she decided to be baptized before she goes back to Taiwan in two weeks. After the baptism, we had lunch with the Hargroves, the Millers, and Amanda at Jerry’s parents restaurant across street from church. Saturday night, we had a great time at Kyri and Jeff’s house. We had the Hamburgs and cheesecakes at their backyard. The weather was perfect. Charlie and Emily were so accommodating that their parents enjoyed the conversation very much.

I liked the Sunday sermon a lot (Thanks to David for taking care of Emily so that I could listen to the sermon uninterrupted!) Gordon talked about the “Love Dare” (Philippians 2:5 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” Matthew 5:48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”) as he preached on Mat. 5:37-48. The video on forgiveness brought tears into my eyes. The lady in the video said, facing the young murder who killed her 26-year-old son, she saw God standing behind the young man and pleading to her "Will you forgive him?" She made a statement to forgive him. As a mom myself, I couldn't imagine how difficult to do that. But her action and statement changed the young man and changed many people's lives after. After his sermons, two people were baptized that morning (one for each service). Now I got a glimpse of the reason why his church multiplied so fast in Brazil. I wished our Friendspeak readers can hear his messages! Maybe it’s time again for a “come and see” ?!