Edenisms

Yesterday evening Eden was sitting beside me as I was messing around on the computer.
She was sitting pretty still, thinking to herself I guess, which is very rare.

"Mommy. I don't want these."
Me, in my computer daze didn't really acknowledge her, "Ok. That's fine."
"MOMMY! I don't WANT these!"
I snapped out of it. "Ok. You don't want what?!"
"I don't want THESE!!" And she was holding on to her big toes.
"Ummmm...You don't want your big toes?!"
"Yeah, I don't want my big toes."

These are the thoughts that get her to sit still these days.

Professional 'B' Teamer

After braving this post, we've had lots of people say stuff like this to us:
"You're so brave. I don't think I could live in Asia."
             or
"What you're doing is amazing."
             or
"I'm so proud of what you guys are doing."
                etc.....etc.......etc.........

So I thought I'd go ahead and clear things up for you.

In reality, I'm a professional B teamer.  I was the kid in 8th grade math class that took the opportunity to be paired with the dorky smart kid so that I wouldn't have to work as hard.  I once literally jumped the gun in a 300 meter hurdle race so that I wouldn't actually have to run the race. (between you and me though, who really wants to run that race?!)
That's me, the one that would rather get out of doing the hard stuff.  Me and the-easy-way-out are best friends.

And so when I was in 5th grade or so and my younger sister informed my family one Sunday evening that she felt "called" to move overseas, it was just like me to say, "You're nuts. ugh....Good luck with that."   That was my 'B' teamer showing right on through.

Ironically though, God has a history of calling the disobedient and selfish 'B' teamers to do some hard stuff. And hard stuff for me includes leaving my parents and siblings. Saying goodbye to a "Target" lifestyle and drive thru windows. And embracing a new language, culture, people group, and country.

I wish I could say that I felt a specific call to move overseas. I wish I could say that I saw "China" spelled out in mustard on my cheeseburger several years ago. That would have been so cool.

But for me it's never been about a certain call or a huge answer to a specific prayer. It's always just been more of a "why not?" for me. And for the first time in my life as a professional 'B' teamer, I couldn't come up with any excuses.  I mean, I can come up with excuses, just not any that are good enough to say to God who has commanded us to go to the nations, to help the oppressed, to take care of the orphans.

No, it's not me that's brave.
I'm the one afraid of being gawked at in a different culture.
of fumbling through Chinese.
of Chinese doctors not being able to adequately care for my children.
of unbearably missing my family.
of homeschooling, chinese food, and not being able to buy shoes in my size. (yes, I'm a weirdo.)

I'm the one with these fears.

Fortunately, God does not give me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. And while every ounce of my 'B' teamness wants to shine through and say, "No thanks God. I'm perfectly content sittin' on the bench for this one,"  He continues to be my strength when I'm weak and help me to say "Yes!" every step of the way.

It's not me that is brave. I'm quite the opposite.
It's not me doing something amazing.
It's not me you should be proud of.    For real.

It's God who is amazing. It's God doing something awesome. And it's God whose grace is sufficient and whose power is made perfect in my 'B' teamer weakness.

Birthday Festivities!

After feeling like I sort of low-balled things for Eden's first birthday, I decided I had to step it up a notch for Salem's first birthday. With Brandon being out of the country and time to kill in the evenings, my creative gene finally kicked in.
Project #1: Birthday Banner


 Armed with scissors and a glue gun, it was really pretty easy. I enrolled Gigi (my grandmother) because she's a Jedi Seamstress to finish it off...and wah-lah...a banner we can use for years to come. My vision is that someday when I'm dead my children will be arguing over who gets to keep it because we'll use it every year. (is that weird? hoping my children argue?) meh, anyway.

Project #2: Dino Cake
I was inspired a few months back when a friend made her daughter a pink dino, saying it was easy peasy and you-tube-tastic. Sure nuff, you can find ANYTHING on there, including a step-by-step on making a dinosaur cake.


I wanted different size dots so I melted chocolate and made my own. That was really the most difficult part. And when your husband is out of town, do you really have anything better to do that to cook with chocolate? :)
















On Salem's actual birthday we had dinner with Gigi who was insistent on presenting him his very first ice cream cone.


His cousin Audrey, who you can tell he totally adores and thinks she's the greatest thing since pureed sweet potatoes, gave him some lessons on the art of licking.


Each cousin equipped with their very own...


Then a few days later we had the actual party. Despite running a low fever all day (which later turned into a 105 degree fever and developed into the Satan-disease Roseola) he really enjoyed it all!




He showed absolutely no hesitation when presented with his very own slice of cake. He gets that from his mommy.


And even had a little cheering section while he shoveled it in.

I think Eden and Judah had the idea that they too were going to be allowed to eat their cake via their hands. Can't you see the excitement on Eden's face as she claps her hands and cheers him on?!

Next came presents. You can tell he's absolutely not spoiled at all by his grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.


Then after a water-turned-green-by-all-the-icing bath, he tuckered out on daddy while swinging on the back porch...glad to have his daddy home and a belly full of cake.

*note* as you can tell, I'm having issues with posting pictures. I'm going to have serious words about the new way blogger is posting pictures. if anyone can figure out how to manually manipulate pictures with this new template PLEASE enlighten me.

Happy First Birthday Salem!

Hard to believe it's been a year since this...


Happy 1st Birthday to our sweet Salem!! Little, mischievous, peaceful, adorable Salem.


More to come on his big day, party on Saturday, 1 year photos, 1 year slideshow, etc...
All when his daddy returns and the world is all as it should be again.

There's no place like Home

24 hours of driving.

5 states.

2 Trucks. 2 Trailers.

6 Veggie Tales. 1 Toy Story. 1 Nemo. 

2 exhausted parents and 2 screaming children.

1 Traumatized little girl who desperately misses NC. (but she's quickly making improvement!)

and we're back in the plains of Texas. We're unpacking our stuff in a newly renovated guest house of a local church. We're TRULY loving the space of the house, having a backyard, and being so close to lots of family.

For the next two weeks though I'm sleeping in the middle of a queen-sized bed. Brandon left this morning (on his birthday...Happy Birthday Bran!) for a two week trip to The Big Chicken. All this transition, unpacking, traumatization (word?) of Eden, and my husband flying around the world is leaving me a bit out of sorts. It's oddly unsettling to be back here. 

God did so many good things in our family in NC. He confirmed our desire to return overseas. Grew us both individually and together in our spiritual walk. Gave us a beautiful son. Gave us great friends. I could go on and on.

Praise the Lord that in all this transition, when so many things around us are different, HE is unchanging. He's our constant. And when we feel unsettled or out of sorts, He's our solid rock.

I'm looking forward to what He's going to do in our family during our time in Texas.

Come on Down!

Eden does this cool thing where she occasionally sing-talks. Instead of just saying something to me, she'll sing it to me. Well usually, it's something that I've said and then she'll sing it back to me. And probably too often it is something that I've repeatedly said to her in a very "you-better-behave-young-lady" type of tone. Then she'll sing back to me what I've just said to her usually to the tune of Frere Jacques. (creepy yes?)
something a little like this:
"Sit on your bottom, sit on your bottom. Sit on your bottom. Sit on your bottom. Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit...Sit on your bottom. Sit on your bottom."

And now that you have that in your head...

So it's surprising to me that she's only just now coming up with the idea of a microphone for all this singing.
Enter: Drumstick.
Drumstick seems to be THE long lost answer to all these sing-songy times. It's also the answer to no more drumming as she no longer sees fit for said drumstick to be used as anything other than a microphone. a win/win situation.


as you can see, she's VERY into the performance now!




And as terrible as this may seem, I just. can't. help. but be reminded of Bob Barker and his infamous microphone.




Yes, I know, I know. Comparing my daughter to Bob Barker is a little bit weird. creepy. whatever.
But at least I've not taught her to say, "Have your pets spayed and neutered!" yet. Now THAT would be creepy. :)

Another D.C. Weekend

D.C is one of our favorite places out here on the East Coast. Though we've only been up there four times, we say each time we visit that we'd love to live there! Our motivation for the visit this time around was this little guy, Hudson.



Well, ok, we love his parents too! He looks exactly like his daddy but is already very much a babbler...just like his mommy! :) We ate up his sweetness all weekend and very much enjoyed the fellowship with S&A again!

Last time we were there we got some cool shots of Eden with some of the monuments, so that was one of my goals for Salem this time around. But after taking 30 minutes to park our Toyota Tundra in the spot meant for a tricycle, the capitol building and the Natural History museum was all we felt in the mood for! We still got some fun shots and really just enjoyed hanging out on the Mall for awhile.


Eden chased the pigeons and ran in lots and lots and lots of circles.




We'd never been to the zoo before and having kids is something that basically requires you to do that sort of thing. So we went to the zoo. The cool thing about the D.C. zoo is that it's free. AND, they have Chinese-speaking pandas. Well, that's according to Eden. This was a new fact to us, and one mysteriously not included on the little "Official Zoo Guide."
Oddly, the best picture we got of our zoo excursion was this one. A LOT of excitement for one day.


D.C. is a SERIOUSLY gorgeous place to visit. I think that's the Robert E. Lee memorial in the background.


One reason we love it so much is the hodge podge of cultures. While we were in the Natural History museum I tried to help a lady with her back pack. And then I think she thought I was trying to steal something out of her backpack. And I realized it a little too late that she had NO CLUE what I was saying and since my dutch/polish/swedish/whatever-it-was language is severly lacking, all I could do was muster up a "I'm so sorry, I'm as confused as you are" apology face.

And then at the zoo I tried to help a family of three have a picture together so that they didn't have to mess with the ridiculous timer. Doing my universal-sign-language-invisible-camera click apparently didn't translate well in Russian, and she looked at me like I was seriously deranged.

BUT despite my inability to culture-jump with success, D.C. makes up for it with all sorts of food from other cultures. We had THE BEST Thai food on this side of the planet. I think S&A ordering it in Thai may have added to the taste as well. So fun! And then for Mother's Day we had Lebanese chicken shawarmas, falafel, hummus, fried zucchini, and spinach wraps. YUM! And topped it off with an entirely too big piece of cheese cake from The Cheesecake Factory (which I'll gladly admit that I had no trouble polishing off all by myself).

Thanks S&A! We had an awesome weekend!!