Happy Birthday to my not so "little princess"!

11!!!
Wow!
How did that happen so quickly?
Our precious "little princess" (the name my daddy gave her the day she was born)....

She is growing into a beautiful,

Brilliant,

 Creative,

 Superstar.

 She can do anything she puts her mind to (her first catch here),

 She can find humor even in less than desirable circumstances..

 She is a superhero!

She continues to grow and change.
Thankful for the Father's love in her life and the light she shines.

We celebrated her birthday with presents from Grandma.
Ummm pretty sure this is for the doll, but she sure is a cutie. :)

For those who might wonder if we are still raising her right?
No DOUBT!
Go CATS! :)

Perfectly timed!
Today we got two packages!
Another great package from Grandma. :)

And one from a precious friend and her church body. ;)

Can't explain how much these packages help our kiddos.  

It means so much to know that others think of them.

To Love on them by sending them things they miss. 

Certainly doesn't replace you guys, BUT it helps. 

Thank you!

Thank you for blessing us!

To end our eve Aili asked for one of her favorite meals, "Fiery angel hair pasta." 

By the way, Brian makes both of her favorites but we haven't had them here. 

She says, "It is brilliant!" 

Also said, "I didn't know I could have this here.  I thought I'd never have it again when we left."

Oh my heart ached a little at the realization of what our kids have thought but haven't spoken. 

Even more thankful for God's provision today. ;) 

Every. day.

We had her birthday party on Friday.
Y'all can I just say how Awesome our God is?!
He is faithful!!

We prayed earnestly for Aili to have good friends here.
We knew it would be tough for her being older and because she has some very deep, special friendships in the states.
He is so good to provide sweet friends for her here while providing technology to maintain those precious relationships in the states.

Aili wanted to have a DIY party.
Usually I'm not a pinterest fan, but am I ever grateful for creative women in this world who share their abilities with those of us lacking that gift. :)

We started with make your own pizza.

Then decorate your own cupcake. 

I found a box of funfetti birthday cake mix (won't tell how much I spent on it), but yay for the find!

 Mei was super excited about all the sugar!

 Aili's lovely cupcakes.

One happy girl. :)
Praising Him from whom all blessings flow. :)

They decorated their own bucket then we added bath salts.
Fun to have a first with some of the girls.
Also great for mopping up - lol.
One bucket got completely spilled, made cleanup easy. ;)

Flip  twister spinner over and voila!
A new, fun paint your nails game.
If I tried this again I would remove the "lose a turn" and replace with painting 1 nail, or 4 nails or whatever... Having 6 girls the game lasted a while (done when all toes painted). :)

The beautiful finished project. :)
Admittedly as I snapped this picture I was thinking of Paul's letter when he said, "How beautiful are the feet..." I can't wait to see and hear how He uses each of these beautiful girls. :)

 The girls had so much fun in the photo booth (as did I). ;)

Lastly, a popcorn bar. ;)
Although, maybe all that chocolate wasn't such a good idea...
At 1am I told them they needed to stop doing gymnastics so the folks under us could sleep. lol
The girls told me the next morn it was 3am before they finally dozed off.

She is no longer the tiny baby I once held in my arms.

A part of me is sad, but thankful for the memories past, the beauty of the present and the hope of the future.  

Happy Birthday my not so "little princess"! :)  

I love you!

Is love at first sight possible?

Is love at first sight possible?
Absolutely!
I loved all three of my children at first sight.

Funny that my first sight of each of them was this week in August spaced about every three years. :)
God's design is pretty cool. ;)

Aili 8/24
3 years later..
Ian 8/28...
3 years (almost 4) later..
Meisi 8/22

Three years ago today our third child, our precious daughter was born... in our hearts.
Yes, different than being born from my belly, but the SAME love. 
How is it possible?
My answer probably won't satisfy most,
but the truth is, for us.. it is God.
God given, God born.

I realize every person's story is different in relation to how they feel when they first see their children - whether it is from birth or from a picture on a screen.

Our story...
3 years ago today our hearts and minds were filled with love for our baby girl.
This day 3 years ago, she was born in our hearts. :)
As this is the day we first saw her face. :)
These were our first pictures of our precious baby girl.
Probably biased, but isn't she adorable??
Oh my heart!

If you'd like to read (or reread) the emotions and more details of that day, you can check out our adoption blog.

So thankful how God knitted together our family.
We are blessed beyond measure!

Mommy guilt: Summer is Gone

Summer has gone WAY too fast!

As we started the summer I had all these ideas of how we'd "get it all done" AND have time for our kids...

I realize THAT is where I went wrong...

The order, MY priorities, wrong order.

Martha? Yes, most days I am definitely a "Martha."

Get it done then rest and enjoy the blessings He has given me.

But when does it ever REALLY "get done."

When oh when is the laundry ever really "done"?

The dishes "done"?

The picking up (much less the cleaning)...when is it "done"?
Language study - pretty sure that will never be "done" either...

Two weeks before the kids' school started that guilt was overwhelming.

The guilt of having not spent enough time with my precious children.
That punch you in the gut, dagger through your heart kind of guilt...

We took a couple days off those last two weeks to focus on them.

However, the rest seemed lost..

As I looked back at pictures though, I could see how my sinful flesh was using my desire to be supermom to pull me down.
How even my kids can sometimes know what buttons to push to make me feel this way.
Now don't get me wrong, some of their words and some of those thoughts are justified.
I certainly can't win the "mom of the year" award and have certainly not been 100% glorifying to the Lord in my thoughts, attitudes or tones in which I have addressed my kids.
Does my grace seem to run out? - YES!
Does my mercy sometimes vanish - YES!

Allowing it to weigh me down into self pity - that is the part which is not ok.
Getting to the point where I feel I've failed.
Not OK.
(Another part of the problem - thinking I can do it, I can do it all).
The father of lies hard at work folks.
He is prowling around looking for someone to devour and for a few weeks, he could see my weaknesses and was holding me down under them.

BUT my God is bigger, my God is stronger, my God is Higher than ANY other.
My God is my shelter, my refuge.
From Him ALONE do I have strength.
Through Him ALONE is parenting, living, breathing, serving, learning - through Him AlONE is it possible.

While sometimes I think technology can be the root of evil in our home, today I am thankful for the technology of photography.
Pictures revealed - we have had some fun moments this summer.
We have taken time (always could shut the computers and give them more time, but definitely hadn't failed as my heart and mind were feeling).

Some fun times we've had...
We visited a cool street "Wide and Narrow" where we saw a cheap version of the Sichuan opera. Also took some cool 3D pics.
Aili is trying to play the part in each of these - my little drama queen. :)

One night the kids got a great surprise from Daddy - roasting marshmallows!  Yummy!

 Fort building - they each had their own "bedrooms" in there. :)

A bake sale with friends (thankful for a sweet friend who helped the girls with the baking).
Every child needs to do them right?
Even if it is totally strange for kids to do such things here.
Of course, being foreigners and selling sweet cakes and kool-aid on a playground is great marketing, however weird it might have been for the nationals. :)

 More fort building.

 Learning to make our own tortillas - fun, easy and tasty.  Although there must certainly be some other way to make them pretty and round. :)

 Mei had fun rolling the dough for them.  I haven't been able to find a small rolling pin here - only seen the giant wooden ones, so yes, she is using a glass. :)

 Dress up and play time in boxes. Boxes, by the way,  are the best toys EVER!

After cooking homemade playdough on the stovetop then adding food coloring, Meisi asked, "Can we eat it now?"  ;)  I can completely see how that is confusing. :)

Aili growing her baking skills - red velvet cake - from scratch! Delish!

Praising the Lord for photos to prove to my eyes the lies my flesh and my enemy were telling me. 

 "Get behind me satan!" 

All is not lost. 

We've had a good summer.  

Was I as attuned as I should've been to my kids (not to mention my hubby)?

No. No, I wasn't.  

Thankfully, the Lord has more mercy and grace than I could fathom.  

Thankfully He isn't done with me yet.

I am a work in progress and because of His unending love He keeps working on me, refining me, loving me. 

Have you ever felt like "Martha?" 

"Martha Martha," the Lord said, "You are worried, anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42

Father, thank you for your love, your precious unending, unconditional love.  Thank you for your grace by which I am saved and your mercy that you pour out to me every day.  Please help me to daily chose the good portion, soaking in your words, laying my anxieties, troubles and busy schedule at your feet, seeking you first in all things. Please help me look to you alone for my joy and let it be poured out onto my family continually.  Please forgive me for not living this out daily already.  Thank you Father for your love, your never stopping, never giving up, never ending love.  In Jesus's perfect name I pray, Amen.

Happy Valley. A Day in an Amusement Park...

When you think of a day in an amusement park - what comes to mind?
I imagine a fairly relaxed day, laughing out loud, navigating the park with relative ease utilizing a handy dandy map explaining rides and height restrictions....

But this day was a little different.
We absolutely did have some smiles and giggles, there were some moments of relaxation, and we enjoyed some of the surroundings.

What this day really gave me was a greater understanding of how I was spoiled.
Florida's amusement parks spoiled us (the maps, the ability to plan...).
And I realized the lack of empathy I have had in the past for those who don't speak English at amusement parks in the states; new perspective and much empathy was born inside me this day.
I also clearly realized we still need to learn a vast amount of language for basic survival here. :)

We went to a park translated to, "Happy Valley."

This is the map.  Since there were none to carry along with us, we took a close up. 

Unfortunately, our hanzi (Chinese character) reading isn't that good yet. :)  

Each map had a wonderful English translation of,... just the heading. Nothing else had an English translation. There were many rides inside buildings.  I'm pretty certain if we were literate in Chinese we could've figured out what they were, but not being so, we didn't venture onto any indoor rides.

The Lord blessed us with stunning blue sky on this incredibly warm day.
One of our kids favorite places was the "Naughy Castle."  haha
Pretty sure they meant "Naughty." :)  It was an indoor playground with a/c. Woohoo!!

Inside the park we saw the coolest KFC we've seen so far. :)
We didn't eat there but thought it was neat (we had McDonalds instead). ;)

After lunch we went to the water park.

Did I mention it was a super hot day? 

Cold water felt fantastic!

Ian was pretty disappointed that he was too small for most of the slides.  

Although, he did really enjoy the wave pool. :) 

The kids have to be 1.4 meters tall to ride most of the slides (even on the kiddie slide area). 

  

Funny story... The lifeguard told me I couldn't go into the wave pool because I wasn't wearing a swimsuit.  I was.  It is just a very modest swimsuit (rash guard with board/swim shorts).  I told him I was wearing my swim suit.  He said, "Really?"  I found this funny as many kids were in the pool with no swimsuit (yes, just their birthday suit). haha!  

We were surprised how the kiddie slide area looked almost exactly like the one at Legoland Florida.

Cool hair on our toothless little man. :)
I  have no idea how he can do that and not drink the water (which is truly unwise with all the naked kids in this place). lol

What better snack after a hard day of play?

Cotton candy!  We asked if they'd like some - "of course we would!"  

How may? Well 3 of course!

Wow!! Who knew they were going to be so big and beautiful! :)

No complaints from these kiddos though (other than it is hot outside). :) 

 Sugar, plus sweat = a mess. :)
A cute mess, but a mess nonetheless. :)

 There were some impressive rides here but our kids were too small to ride most.

However, learning to shoot machine guns - absolutely big enough to do. :) 

Letting 4 year olds shoot cannons - SURE! :)
She is saying, "YES!"  as she hit the target.

The end of the day I saw this 4D theater that said, "Ant Theater, 4D,"  with a cute little Bug's Life like cartoon ant on the sign.

I thought, "GREAT!  It will probably be like the ant 4D show at Animal Kingdom!"

Haha....truly an illiterate-in-Chinese parent fail.

Again, being literate in the language of your host country is important!!!

It was a 4D movie but not about animated ants.

Nope.

Full on science fiction.  

Kind of a Transformers meets Godzilla movie, with monster blood squirting...

My kids were not happy. :(  

So, as we tried to end on a positive note, they got to drive their own transformer.  It was great fun! You can find fun things like these a lot of places here.

We were thankful for our day off language to spend with the kids.  Much needed amidst the mommy guilt I have had this summer for studying too much and enjoying them too little. 

For my friends who are local or visiting...

Would I recommend Happy Valley?

Sure!  

Just prepare yourself for the locker room to the water park (no changing stalls, just dress and undress wherever there is space). Males and females were separated, but a different experience nonetheless (especially as people had their phones out). 

Likewise, prepare your kids for the height restrictions and take a national friend along to tell you what all those rides were inside buildings.  Pretty sure we might've missed some cool stuff. That just gives us something to do next time though right?