Febrary is for LOVE

It seems like we can't summerize Febrary without talking about Valentine's Day. This year the kids and I did some new crafts that I got from Pinterest. I have to admit that I'm not a good participant or contributor for either Facebook or Pinterest. I visit them probably once a week if not less often and most of time I just glance through other people's input. But every time I visited Pinterest, I got lots of great ideas. As you can see below.

The kids and I started off with this cute heart shaped apple pie pops the weekend before Valentine's Day. I budgeted for a dozen thinking they were more than enough. Only if I knew better!!! Those apple pie cuties tasted so good! David said he could eat all of them without stopping. And the final result? I ate seven out of twelve because David showed his love for me! We will definitely make these again later.

The day before Valentine's Day, the kids and I made our cards for David and the gifts for Emily's classmates.

These are Emily and Andy's handprints

On Valentine's Day, David made a super delicious breakfast - Mexican cheesecake. It was the best cheesecake I've had and it didn't take long to make it. I already requested to have it every Valentine's Day :-) I made a peach cobbler after Valentine's Day.

This is the french toast for kids

Mexican cheesecake

Peach cobbler

Emily's class had a Valentine's party. I made a mistake by packing her lunch light thinking she would eat more at the party. Then she ate all the sweet on her plate and was packed with sugar. She was so excited to find more sweet in her goodie bag.

I asked Emily and Andy to stand together so I can take a picture of them. But as soon as I lifted my camera, Emily's classmate Isabelle jumped right in and stayed between Emily and Andy until I put down my camera. So I got pictures of three of them.

This first one was right after Isabelle jumped in. Andy looked at her: "Who are you? Why do you stand between my sister and I?"

The second one was after a few seconds, Isabelle didn't have any indication of leaving, Andy looked at me:" Mama, what shall we do?"

The last one: finally Andy realized we were going to take a picture any way. OK, smile!

Gayla and Mary Ellen dropped by in the afternoon to give Andy and Emily Valentine's gifts. Emily and Andy loved the balloons they got. They played with the balloons until they were completely out of air. They also had lots of fun with the stickers from Austin and Dillon. Thank you friends for the thoughtful gifts!

Febrary usually is the coldest month in Dallas. But we had some pretty weather, especially near the end of the month. We went to the library for the puppet shows and went to the nearby park to feed the ducks and play. We also bought some seeds to plant for the garden. Welcome to Spring!

This bubble toy generates the biggiest bubbles. On a windy day, the bubble can stretch from one side of the yard to the other side. Best of all, you mix your own solution with baking soda and the dish detergent.

Plano library state of art puppet show

Feeding the ducks and birds

Playing at the playground

Sitting together on the hill to enjoy the breeze

Lying on the grass

Normally I took more pictures of Emily. But this month as I looked through the camera, I found more pictures of Andy instead. He has such animated expressions that can steal anybody's heart. Here are a few examples:

But seriously, "I love milk!"

And Gummy Bears

As we center Febrary on the human love, we can't let one day go without fathom on how much God lavishes His love to His people 365 days a year. In Febrary we had so many blessings from God in a tangible form, from our new house, to our new TV, to our car, ... that's another post for later, to record places, people or things that trigger memories just as the memorial stones in Gilgal. (Joshua 4:6-7 (NIV) to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the children of Israel forever.” )

Now three of us sitting on one of the "stones" ...

New Year 2012

We rang in the New Year with an interview for Emily since she is very verbal now. It went really good. We plan to do this every New Years Eve and put all the clips together in one DVD every five years. This first one wasn't very long. We asked her "What's your name? How old are you? Who is your best friend? What do your mommy and daddy do during the day? What's your favorite toy? What's your favorite video? What's your favorite song? What's your favorite food? ... " All the basic getting to know you questions. She answered all of them with ease. When asked who was her best friend, she answered "Andy!" When asked what was her favorite food, she answered "Chocolate!" When asked "Do you like Andy better or Chocolate better?", she answered without hesitation "I like Andy better!" She spoke from her heart and we know how she loves her brother. She always asked about Andy if he was not in her sight. They play together all the time and she always keeps a watchful eye on him. Yesterday she came to me and said quietly, "Mama, I didn't flush the toilet because I'm afraid it's too loud and it'll wake Andy up from his nap." When they played outside while I was cooking, I often overheard Emily saying "You did it Andy! Great job!" Or she would run to me, "Mama, look! Andy is doing it! He is doing such a great job!" That happened when Andy climbed on the slide and slid down without her help. When Andy was frustrated today, Emily walked to him, "What's the matter, sweetheart? (it always made me smile when she called him sweetheart :-)) Let me give you a hug!" Whenever Emily heard Andy crying, she would request "Mommy, can you go hold Andy please?" if I was in the middle of somthing. If I give her something, she always asks me to give Andy some also. She is just such a wonderful sister to Andy. Of course, Andy loves Emily too! When David's uncle passed away two weeks ago, David and Emily drove to Tulsa while Andy and I stayed at home because Andy was sick. When Andy saw Emily after they came home, he ran to Emily and gave her a big bear hug! I was not at the right position to take this picture. But I was glad I was fast enough to grab the camera and took the picture.

It made me happy when they see each other as best friends; when they practice kindness toward each other; and when they make each other laugh and giggle. They always respond when one of them wants to play together. Here are some random pictures when they played together:

This picture was over exposed. I wish it wasn't because both kids just giggled and laughed off their heads. Andy laughed so hard that he put his head on Emily's shoulder.

After the New Year's Eve Interview, we asked Emily, "What is the one thing that you want to do in the new year?" she said painting. On New Year's Day (Sunday), she was so excited after the Bible class, "Mommy, look! I painted!" She couldn't believe her wish became true so quickly! She showed her paining to everyone she met at church. Look what she painted:

Then we knew how much she really wanted to paint. So next day we took out the paint materials for her and Andy to paint. Since then they had several painting sessions at home. We had fun at every one of them.

Emily is a very good communicator. She talks like an adult and she is very sensitive to others. She also began to ask many questions like "Where is God, Mama?" She was afraid of the storm and heavy rains. One night she got scared when the rain knocked on the skylight while she was taking a bath. She told me that she was scared. I asked, "What do you do when you are scared?" She said, "I just told God that I was scared. God took care of me. He slept next to me until I fell asleep and said 'You are welcome!' to me." Another day, Emily asked Andy what he thought about God. Andy didn't answer. She asked me the same question. I said "I think He is great! What do you think?" She said "I think God is beautiful! He made everything about us and He loves everything about us!" The Sunday school teachers definitely did a great job! Emily started requesting to say our dinner prayer recently. She used to do that at bed time. Now she is just brave enough to say it in front of everyone. Andy normally is the one who initiates to pray. He just stretches both his hands and says "Pray! Pray!" One night Emily threw up after she ate some grapefruit and Macaroni cheese. David took her to change her clothes. She told David:" Daddy, my tummy was sad. My tummy said, 'Oh no! I lost all my yummy food!'" I started collecting all her words that made me smile into a 2012 Jar to read on the New Year's Eve as a tradition as well.

Andy is growing very quickly also. On his 18th months checkup, we calculated that he could say over 120 words and several two words sentences/phrases. Now he can count to 10 in English and Chinese. He knows most of the alphabet, colors and shapes. He likes to play puzzles, blocks, and balls. He is a social guy who loves to interact with others. He loves to sing along with others and dance to every beat and music. He loves his Bible class. Every time when I stopped at the foyer talking to other people, he would turn my face toward him and look into my eyes, "Class, class!" He was promoted to the 2-to-be class last Sunday. His teacher said he did really great! Andy is very into phonics and letters recently. When we drove, he would point out the letters he saw on the signs. When we read bedtime stories, he would notice the letters instead of focusing on the pictures as he used to. He has some things that he hates: wiping/cleaning his face, eating vegetable and brushing his teeth. More often than not, some food stains still hang onto his face when I drop off Emily at school. Well, I tried.

We had a Chinese New Year's party at Friendspeak. Emily and Andy had a good time there.

Both Emily and Andy love singing. Both kids love reading the books too.

I often found Emily reading in her room during the day

A while back Dawn recommended a place to us called Safari Indoor party. We used the coupon this past weekend and happily found out it was very close to our house. The kids enjoyed it very much. Emily still talks about going back.

We haven't really talked about it with many of our friends. We are building a new home in McKinney (Off Hardin and Virginia). It will be very close to David's work. We had looked at that community for half a year before we signed the contract after Thanksgiving. It started building on January 9th.

Picture on January 10th

Picture on January 17th

Picture on January 29th

Side view picture on January 31st

David said they put the angle frames on today. So everything moves rapidly. We pray that there will not be problems during the construction and we will be a positive influence for the community.

Since our oven broke during Christmas, I made up for some cooking after it was fixed. Here are a few new things I made from the scratch:

Home made cinnamon rolls from the scratch

Creamy chicken pot pie cups

Whole wheat cinnamon pancakes

Whole wheat butter horn rolls:

January this year had some pretty weather. We were able to play outside several times. We had a couple of play dates with our friends Lori and Dawn. The kids enjoyed them and I enjoyed them more. Thank you Lori and Dawn for inviting us to spend time together!