We have our own place....

After 2 months of living with family (which was wonderful by the way!) we're back to having our own place and it's so great!! We arrived in North Carolina this last week and we've been unpacking, decluttering, shopping for supplies, groceries, you name it, since we got here and it's been a pretty crazy week. BUT we're so happy to have finally moved into our new home and unpack all of the stuff we packed up two years ago.
so...this is a short, lifeless, I-don't-have-time-to-write-anything-else-interesting blog to say that we're in NC. Brandon is enrolled at SEBTS and job hunting (...insert prayer request here). Eden is adjusting to sleeping in a real crib again instead of a pack-n-play. And I'm enjoying having my own kitchen. There are boxes still sitting in each room of the house and lots of just stuff that needs putting away. But we're here and will hopefully have pictures, stories, updates, etc to share with you all in a few days, weeks, (hopefully not) months...or however long it takes us to get settled in!

9 Months!

Has it really been nine months since Eden's birth?! holy crapola it's gone by fast!

But yes, today marks nine months since her birthday and it's about time to update you all on her many acquired skills. You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... errrrrrr wait, wrong movie.

Anyways, after Eden's many months of saying "Dada" quite perfectly, she finally got around to saying "mama" in the last few weeks. Of course, she only says it when she's whiney or hungry, but it's a very clear "mama" in Edenese.
On the same language note, she can now sign "more" when she wants more puffs. AND! she claps her hands when we say, "Pai pai shou" (clap your hands in chinese). She also claps when we say it in english, but for some reason it's just more fun when she responds to the Chinese.

She's become an expert at Peek-A-Boo and Hide and Go Seek. well, more like Seek...she doesn't really understand the Hide part yet.

She may turn into a professional swimmer someday...or maybe firefighter or mermaid. I don't know. but she LOVES water. When we've gone to the swimming pool the last few weeks, more times than once she's tried to dive head first into the water. The girl's a dare devil. :)

She's comfortable with most of our family now too!
(my dad)

(brandon's aunt patty)
(cousin Audrey)
(cousin Avery, who is 1 month younger)

(and Brandon's cousins Amber and Camille)

She eats just about anything I give her. Among her new favorites are cheerios and tofu. She LOVES finger foods.

I know I already posted one piano picture, but it's her new favorite activity...so here she is being little Beethoven.

We recently purchased a new camcorder to record her first steps. We expect that to happen within the next month. She's getting so close to walking! Which technically labels her as a toddler! (insert another crapola here for having a toddler!)

And she heard her 8th language this past month. Spanish. That one was inevitable since we live in Tejas.

As if the month hasn't been busy enough...she also experienced her first camping trip!

(no we didn't make her sleep outside!)

It's been a whirlwind month for her. Staying the night in 5 different places. Church nurseries. The dry Texas climate. Carseat. Switching grandparent's houses every week.
She's had to adjust to a lot. But she's handled it like a pro.

All things Wedding-ish

My sister got married a week and a half ago to Brandon's best friend. and we got to be in the wedding! I was Matron of Honor (and the bride's hair-doer...let me interject that that is too stressful of a job!) and Brandon was the Best Man (insert Seinfeld's best man joke here). It was a beautiful wedding and we had so much fun with both of them!

The week before the wedding, Bekah was brave enough to let me shoot her bridal portraits. Apparently owning a fancy camera makes people think you are good at that sort of thing. I agreed and it was a piece of cake because Bek's so photogenic. Seriously, out of 300 some odd shots, not one with her eyes closed. She can smile & pose with the best of em. :)
Here's a few...

yeah. She's gorgeous. Thought you'd agree.

and for good measure, here's a few more wedding-ish pics:

us at the rehearsal

At the rehearal...my brother (a groomsman) standing in for the minister who at the time was in Taiwan, and Bekah and Kevin practicing their stance. Eden couldn't handle the excitement of the steps of the stage and had to chill in Brandon's arms throughout the rehearsal.

Bek & Kev at the rehearsal dinner

Kevin making sure his shoes fit before the wedding

and just because she's cute, here's some recent ones of Eden...
waving stylishly in her new diaper

and discovering the piano

Happy Dada's Day

I'm sooooooo behind on blogging. and seriously, I do apologize. But I've got some fairly good excuses: spending time with family, catching up with friends, one week with with my folks...the next with Brandon's folks, a wedding (a post to come soon on that), and well, just sheer laziness.

But amidst all the craziness of the last few weeks, Brandon celebrated his first Father's Day. And what a wonderful father to Eden he is!! For his first father's day Eden and I put together a little picture frame thingy for him to hang up in our new home in North Carolina. (no we still haven't moved out there...that's coming mid-July)
We were pretty proud of ourselves, though I'll give the nice lady in Parent's magazine some credit for giving us the idea. Anyhow, we bought a frame, some cardboard, and waited for a nice sunny day before taking these pics:

The idea was to find a frame that would hold 4 pictures so that is could spell "Dada", what Eden actually calls Brandon, but there's not one in ALL of Amarillo. So we had to go with DAD. :)
Happy first Father's Day Brandon!!

We're BAAAAACK!!

They let us board the airplane first from Tokyo, Japan to Dallas, Texas. And as soon as we step foot on the plane a sweet southern stewardess looked at Eden and with a thick southern drawl said, "Well, hello Darlin'!" And that's when it became real...we were headed home.


So the flights went smoothly. In fact, so smoothly that we ended up catching an earlier flight on our last leg home and got in about 4 hours earlier than expected. Which only made our total time in travel 42 hours instead of 46! phew!! Eden played her little heart out in the Tokyo airport's baby lounge so she did GREAT on the long 12 hour flight, sleeping for most of it. I mean, would you expect any less from her for her 10th flight?
We're handling our "American transition" pretty well too. We're almost all over jet lag I think. It's taken Eden a little longer than we'd hoped (just a week) but she's finally back to sleeping through the night...as opposed to waking for 5 hours at a time in the middle of the night our first 2 nights back.
We've indulged a lot. Shopping indulgences. Food indulgences. Napping indulgences. and it's been wonderful being surrounded by family again.
We've had our American culture shock moments too. I was so overwhelmed with Hobby Lobby that I ended up not buying anything because it was just too much STUFF to handle. And we came away from Target with only one purchase too...a bottle brush. And we still can't get used to brushing our teeth with sink water. We forgot how convenient that is!!

In other news...Brandon turns 24 today! Happy birthday Brandon!! He has two requests for his birthday. A nice juicy steak for dinner. And a big piece of cake from the bakery that made our wedding cake. :) He's pretty easy to please. This is his first birthday in 5 years to spend in America!

And Eden is officially 8 months old tomorrow. She had a check-up on Monday and the doc said she's developmentally on track as an eleven month old. :) That's my girl. And on our big trip overseas she had yet another language spoken to her: Japanese.
That makes 6...
(in order that they were spoken to her)
1. Thai (birth country)
2. English (duh)
3. Cantonese (hong kong)
4. Chinese (first home)
5. Pakistani (university classmates)
6. Japanese (mamas in Tokyo's airport lounge)
and any day now she's bound to meet a native spanish speaker. :)

So we've had an eventful week!

Looking Back Pt. 2

We had a little going away party the other day with a few friends.
Adding to the list of things we're going to miss, three close friends:


And here's just a cute picture of Eden helping us pack...

Looking Forward Pt. 1

What I had promised would be a series of "going home" posts might be a little disappointing! After lots of packing, 10 bags later, our time here is quickly drawing to a close...leaving little time for blogger land. But alas, I promised...so here's a look forward in to all things American that we're about to dive into head first.
Things we're looking forward to: (in no particular order :)

- family. well ok, this one is obviously first and foremost. can't wait to see everyone!!

- a dishwasher! I mean, we've had a many great life-altering decisions as we're washing and drying dishes, but seriously...good ole whirlpool never looked so good.

- food. food. and more food. I could write an entire blog of just restaurants or homemade dishes that our bellies are craving, but that would take entirely too much time. This is one of the many things we discuss when we're washing dishes..."Which restaurant will we go to first?" we like that game. At the top of the list: Arby's. Abuelo's. Cattle Exchange. can you hear my stomach growling?!

- shopping malls that carry bigger than stick figured sized clothing. We're not huge people, but I never would have thought that buying a shirt could be so complicated...and shoes for that matter. I've not had a new pair of shoes in 2 years because there are none here in my size. NONE. granted even in America it's a little difficult to find shoes that fit my gargantuan feet...much less in Asia-land....which brings us to another point (maybe a little this-post-unrelated) We're going to totally be out of style. We've been wearing the same clothes for 2 years. Which is normal for Asia-land...but not america. There's some sort of un-written American rule about having to shop for new clothes every so often. May I just interject at this point that we're not looking forward to that little piece of America that makes you feel like you have to keep up with the Jones'sss. So if you see us wearing the same shirt 4 days in a row, just know that that is Chiner rubbing off on us. :)

- Bek & Kev's wedding. We're sooooo excited for them!! But honestly, we feel like we're getting a pretty good deal out of it too!! My sister is marrying Brandon's best friend. Really, it's soooo convenient for us!! :) But...we know it's not about us.

-sandwich meats. no need to say more.

- our own car. absolutely. can't. wait. The freedom that you get from having your own car to take you places...nothing can replace that. We're sick of having to depend on someone else to take us places. We're ready to get behind the wheel and just drive ourselves. We're ready to have a big truck bed to put stuff in. Neither one of us has driven a car in 2 years, with the exception of Brandon's occasional go-cart race. That being said...Eden is soooooo probably not ready for a car seat. I'm afraid she may scream when she discovers she can't sit in my lap during a sunday drive.

- Labor. and not the labor and delivery kind. but the kind of manual, physical, outdoor, manly, grunt labor. (can you tell this one is for Brandon.) There's some sort of male energy drawn from laying fence posts. mowing. moving something big. building a large something. shoot...Brandon might just dig a hole in the backyard just because he can. It's so therapeutic.

- yards. backyards. There's not much grass in Chiner...especially around homes. One of our friends here was looking at our pictures and she said, "oh! !hat is your own lawn?!?!" So yes. We've been without a good patch of grass for quite some time now.

- we're a little torn on this last one. Occasionally we miss our clothes dryer. The fluffiness that is our clothes when we take them out. We miss that. However, we don't miss the extra electricity it costs us to run it. Our clothes dryer here is free. but the drawback is, it makes our jeans all crunchy. We shouldn't have to hear ourselves putting on jeans. So...maybe some days we're looking forward to it. Maybe some days we aren't.

ok...I guess that's about all we can come up with for now. we could go on and on if we thought about it longer. But our 10th bag still needs some attention. maybe in the next post it won't be "what we're looking forward to..." but "what we're enjoying!!"