I picked Hunter(7) up from school early today after the school nurse called to tell me he was in a mess of allergy misery - eyes itchy and watering, headache, sore throat...

I gave him some medicine and it appears he's on the mend, as he had enough energy to do the unthinkable.

Ella(5) just came into the kitchen and plopped herself down at the table in a pile of tears. From the emotions pouring from her broken heart, I really thought maybe Hunter had taken scissors to her beloved blankie or stuffed spotted dog.

No, it was much worse.

"Hunter, sob, Hunter, sob...sob, sob, sob...Hunter...turned...my twin dollhouse... into a, sob, sob, into...A...HOTEL!!! SOB, SOB, SOB..."

I'm real serious when I say that I really hope Jesus returns before the teenage years. Holy Moly.

edited to add: *To her credit, Ella bounces back from such trauma incredibly quickly. Less than 5 minutes later I overheard her up in her room singing "I'm happy, happy, happy!!! Happy, happy, happy!!!".

The Goop that keeps on giving...

Piper and Grandma at Piper's "Messy Party", in the goop. The "goop" is just cornstarch, water, and blue food coloring. It has a really cool feel to it - sort of soft and gooey, but dry feeling, you know, like goop.
My nephew couldn't get enough of the goop.
Piper and Grandma

This afternoon, Piper in her new swimsuit, socks, Ella's tap shoes, and a whole lot of sand and leftover cornstarch goop.
She was real concerned about that one white spot on her arm, kept showing it to me saying "messy, messy!!".
She takes her sand mixing very seriously.
Beautiful, even covered in Grandma's famous cornstarch goop.

We had Piper's 2nd birthday party in our backyard on Saturday. The theme was all things messy, since that's Piper's specialty right now. I'm working on a slide show of the party pictures from the messy party. Well, to be honest, it's really just in the planning stage at this point. I keep going to the sites that help you make a slide show and there are just too many choices. It's stressing me out!

So for now, this is it.

Maybe tomorrow I will wake up with an enhanced ability to make a decision.

Or maybe I'll just go play in the goop.

24

Piper Grace, you are 2! For your birthday I thought I'd list 24 reasons I love you - one for each month of your life, because 2 is just not enough. Here goes, in no particular order:

1. Your resilience - I personally don't know anyone who has this down better than you, adults or children. You are simply amazing.

2. Your openness to love - once you feel safe with someone, you LOVE THEM real good - with your whole heart, I love that.

3. Your perceptiveness, this one is between you and me girl, but I love it!

4. The way you love other children - your siblings, their friends, their classmates, your cousins and friends. I love how you know the names of several of Ella's favorite friends from pre-K, and shout them out when we get to her school. "MACY!!! GWACE!!! EMMA!!! ABBY!!!"

5. I love because we've seen Ms. Linda at Hobby Lobby twice, every time we go there you get excited and shout "Ms. Linda! Ms. Linda!" and start looking for her. When we don't see her, you tell me to "call Ms. Linda!".

6. I love your beautiful face.

7. I love how much you love being outside. It is your favorite thing to do, and you are the happiest running free in the yard or playing in the sand or "widing bikes" with your brother and sister.

8. Your love of shoes - it has endured since we met you at 10.5 months old. To see the joy you get from shoes - it makes me smile.

9. Your voice - I love your sweet little voice.

10. Your language abilities - At 24 months you can communicate just about anything you want to. You have hundreds of words, can sing the ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, name most parts of your body - your favorite being elbows, can name orange, blue, purple and green, & count to 13, way beyond that with a few numbers missing. For someone who did not hear English until 10.5 months of age - wow!

11. I love the way you tell me to sing You Are My Sunshine, "SUNSINE, SUNSINE!".

12. I love watching you mother your baby dolls, holding them, and gently patting their backs. Then you shout "Nigh Nigh!!!" and put them to bed.

13. I love that you get excited to see me each morning.

14. I love that you have stolen Hunter and Ella's hearts as well as your daddy's and mine. You join right in with their pretend games, wrestling, and chase.

16. I love watching you pray along with Ella at dinner time, and smile when she thanks God for you every single night.

17. I love that when we go to pick Hunter(7) up from school you get excited and shout "Hunter's school! Hunter's school!" each day.

18. I love the way you complete our family and make each one us of better than we were before.

19. I love that you are Chinese. You make our family so much more interesting! Because of you, we have a connection to a country so rich in history and culture.

20. I love the way you are the answer to so many prayers.

21. I love the way you love to turn round and round in circles until you are completely dizzy.

22. I love that when we get in the car you shout "Allelula, allelula!!! Hear it!" because you want to hear David Crowder's "All Creatures #2".

23. You make me smile from the inside out every single day.

24. I love that the other day, you rubbed your heart and said, "luv Papa", talking about my dad.

25. One to grow on! I love that when I sat down to write this list, I thought it might take me all day to finish, but here I am at the end, still with an endless list of reasons why I love you. Like how I love the way you pay attention to the tiny details of a person and mimic the smallest of gestures, the way you get so excited to see a bird or hear an airplane, the way you "help" me with chores around the house...
See? How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Happy Birthday, sweet girl! I love you!

I went to check my sitemeter to see if any poor soul is still checking my blog for an update. It'd been so long since I'd checked it, that it treated me like a perfect stranger and asked me for a username and password - RUDE! Like I can remember my username and password...

Before I go to bed tonight, I have to say:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET BABY PIPER GRACE!
We love you like crazy.
You have rocked our world
in the best possible way!!!

Pictures coming soon...

"I have everything I need"

Hunter decided he wanted to memorize Psalm 23. His ability to memorize large volumes of information is nothing short of miraculous considering he has 50% of my genes, seriously. I sometimes draw a blank on my own phone number - home phone number, scary.
But I digress, back to Psalm 23. His version of the bible starts it like this: "The Lord is my Shepard, I have everything I need." That little phrase has been running around in my mind for the last few days. What if I really lived that and believed that?

I have everything I need...to handle whatever the Lord allows in my life. What if I believed way down deep that He will supply all of my needs, even when I feel completely overwhelmed? Or I find myself worrying about a "what if...".

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written: For your sake, we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:35-39

Working on being 100% convinced that I have everything I need for whatever comes my way.

"I believe, help my unblief!" Mark 9:24 - love that verse.

Could I get a few extra hours for my day, please?

I have so much I want to write about, but nary a moment to do it. My friend Linda and I took a little road trip this weekend and just had a grand ol time! I will post about it just as soon as I come up for air from this mountain of laundry I'm currently under.

I came home to this sweet card from Ella(5), a tired, but happy husband, and 3 children - just as alive as when I pulled out of town on Friday. Can we get a holy hand clap, please?

I'll be back...

Crazy for babies

Besides the clothes she was wearing, this little bottle is the only thing we have of Piper's from the orphanage. I let her play with it for a while, then put it away because although its monetary value is small, it means something to us.

Ella(5) and Piper(almost 2!) have been toting little plastic babies everywhere lately. Ella's big baby is name Betsy. Piper's baby is named BABEEE!!! I looked and looked for Piper a Chinese baby for Christmas, but couldn't find one that looked like her. My mother in law asked if she would like an American Girl Bitty Baby for her upcoming b-day so I looked on their website and found this one. Perfect! Shhh, don't tell Piper!