TAGGED..AND CATCHING UP!

I've been TAGGED by my dear friend, and fellow Nanping mommy, Sarah. I'm supposed to list 7 random things about me. so here goes:

1)I DID NOT have a heart for Asia until God called us to adopt from China. seriously. I remember praying that if God wanted me to be a missionary I'd go anywhere, but "please don't send me to China". I have a feeling the whole time I was praying that in my youth, God was giggling cuz He knew the path He'd lead us down years to come. :)

2)I long to go back to China....I cannot wait for the day we can return..whether it's to adopt again or just to show Elizabeth her beautiful birth country.

3)I have a fear of heights. this baffles most people since I'm a flight attendant. :)

4)this fact is one that made John sit up and notice me before we started dating....often times, on the plane, if I want a passenger to do something I think they might be hesitant to do, I pour on a thick, albeit FAKE, southern accent. Amazing what that can get ya!

5)remember back in PE in grade school..we had to do the President's Fitness stuff? I could NEVER do the arm hang thing. NEVER.

6)I'm quickly becoming obsessed with "healthy" stuff....like grinding my own wheat to make fresh bread, using coconut oil, drinking roobios tea....check out this wonderful blog The Nourishing Gourmet to see why...she has some amazing recipes to go with her research!

7) I love working out at the gym while The View is on...although I'm getting so stinkin' sick of Joy Behar's demeaning and condescending attitude toward anyone who doesn't think Barack Obama isn't all that and a bag of chips.

Ok-now for some catching up. Photos and a video.

I wanted to share a few photos of Andrew's birthday parties. Tuesday night we had a little family one with just us 5, and then on Sunday we had my parents and my sister's kids over for pizza and another small party. As you might be able to tell, this year's theme was Spiderman

cupcakes I made for Tuesday night

I had to throw this in..we went garage sale-ing on Saturday and I found this baseball helmet and a glove that fits him perfectly...all for $1.50! This is Andrew on his way to church Sunday morning! ha! too funny!

and yes-he did take it off before going to Sunday School. :)

my sister found this Spiderman at a garage sale too! He is now a permanent fixture at our house.

Andrew threw him in the corner here while we ate pizza and I thought it was too funny...just looks like Spidey is just hangin' out!

he had to open his presents up with Spiderman by his side.

My big 5 year old with his Spiderman cake grandma made him.

I didn't pose this!!! Each night they get to pick one thing to sleep with..last night Andrew chose Spiderman. that dumb thing took up the same amount of space Andrew did! and we have no idea how clean Spidey is so it kinda grossed us out..but Andrew was so happy we just chose to go with the flow.
of course if I'm taking a pic of Andrew, I MUST take a pic of the girls!

this morning I was elsewhere in the house when I heard the silverware clinking around. I had put the clean silverware dishwasher tray up on the counter for Andrew and Becca to unload (one of their regular jobs) and walked in to find Miss Elizabeth doing it. What's even more amazing..she did a GREAT job! she got all the spoons in the spoon area, the forks in the fork area...even the big serving spoons were put in the proper location. I was so proud of her!!



and one more proud moment...this is Elizabeth counting to 10 in English AND Mandarin-with a smidge of help.

There's a story behind the Mandarin part-About 2 weeks ago I took the kids to Chi*ck*Fil*A for lunch. For some reason Andrew and Becca wanted to count to 10 in Mandarin -something they learned before we went to China. We've practiced our VERY limited Mandarin quite often since being home with Miss E and she usually acts like she has no idea what we're saying.

WELL, this day was different. During lunch, as we started counting..she chimed in..IN PERFECT MANDARIN! that stinker!!! it makes us wonder how much she really does remember but isn't using. And, on Saturday I made Chinese food for lunch and gave her (all the kids really) those cheater chopsticks...after awhile she wanted my "real" ones. That stinker..she used them pretty well..again remembering something from so long ago for such a young kid.

I SOOO wish she could communicate and tell us all about her first 21 months.