Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We certainly did. We hosted 10 adults and 9 children at our house for Thanksgiving. It was a little crazy to say the least but we wouldn't have had it any other way. Everyone came over for lunch around 11am and we started in on the first round of our feast. Since everyone has children they all left to take naps and returned again around 4pm for some more fun, fellowship, and food. We had a 23 pound turkey that was almost completely devoured and surprisingly not that many leftovers. We are already planning on how we will have this exact meal again at Christmas! We have so much to give thanks for this year. We praise God for all his blessings.

The wonderful feast!

The kiddos ready for some food!

This was supposed to be our Christmas card this year until we decided to scrap it since Zeb looks like he is zoning out. He was actually pretty sick with what we think is an ear infection.

The boys and the destruction zone!

The girls are taking a rest from the action.

Cow Apperiation Day!

I have a confession to make. I might be a little obsessed with Chick-fil-a. The fact that this is my second blog of the summer about this restaurant and the events that have gone on there might be an indication or could it be that we have been so much that I can't even count how many times. Should I dare say that Kayleigh has even mentioned Chick-fil-a in her prayers. She says:
"Dear God, thank you for my friends and Chick-fil-a." I do really love the restaurant especially as a mom with two kids. It is the most kid friendly restaurant I have ever been too. Once I was there alone with both kids. After I ordered they brought me my food to the table and continued to asked me if they could bring me anything else. That was very helpful since I didn't feel like I could leave my kids alone. So when we found out it was Cow Appreciation Day and that whoever was dressed up like a cow got a free meal, we couldn't pass up the opportunity. We had spent the morning with Kelsey John's sister. We got white garbage bags and put black spots all over them. Chick-fil-a provided the hats and the signs which the kids decorated. We had such a good time. They had real cows you could pet once we got there. The free meal was worth all the fun we had dressing up!

The whole gang!

Zeb checking out the cows.

Baby Bash!

Recently we had a Baby Bash to welcome back all the families that had new little ones. There were four new babies to add to our community here. Jack Huffman, Sarah Dean, Zane Smith and Issac Kvernen are the new additions. We had a great time of fellowship with our friends with a cookout and lots of fun activities for the kids. We decided to take a picture of all the kids. It is amazing that not one of them was crying at the time. There are 12 kids total, all 4 years old and under and another one planning to arrive in June! It is so great for John and I to have such a great community of young families here to fellowship with.

Back from left to right: Julianna, Lydia, Callie, Kayleigh, Zeb, Emma Grace, Zion and Bright.
Front from left to right: Issac, Zane, Sarah, Jack

It was really warm that day so the Huffmans brought out their pool full of warm water for the kids to play.

Zeb loved the pool!

Chinese New Year Celebration!

For Chinese New Year's day we had everyone that was left in the city over for some Mexican food! I guess if we should have had Chinese food! We had a great time and most of all survived all 8 kids that played in our house running like crazy. Kayleigh, of course, had a blast and loved having all her friends over. Zeb even had a friend too. Her name is Zoe and she was born two days after him. They mostly looked at each other and stole toys back and forth. Because there was so much craziness I only got one picture for the whole evening. I am so glad that everyone could come. We had a blast!

To Cute Not To Post

I know that Halloween is far gone and that November is almost over too but I couldn't resist posting this picture. My mom had given my kids these outfits for Halloween but I never got around to making their picture in them until after Halloween was over. The murder mystery kept me too busy on Halloween to have time to take the picture.

An Hour and Half Away

Today I looked at John and said "I need to get away!" I had basically not left our apartment complex for most of the week and I was feeling really confined to my house. Having a 3 month old while living in China makes it really hard to get out. It takes about twice as long to get anywhere here. Anyway, I needed a break from the kids. Our helper came this afternoon so it gave me a great opportunity to leave while the kids were napping. John needed a haircut so I thought that it would be nice to go with him. In China you can get your hair washed and your head massaged for about $3. So it was worth it to me to go with him. After they washed and massaged my head I realized that it was time for them to style my hair. I have done this before and have realized in the past there is no use in arguing with them about fixing your hair a certain way. If you try to tell them to do what you want they don't think it looks good and end up doing a style that they think looks better. So I decided not to even fight with them this time and just let them have their way with my hair. Below is the end result. I really don't think this picture does my hair do justice. The guy basically took the hair dryer and blew my hair forward in my face. John said it resembled the shaggy dog at one point. When I got back home Kayleigh kept saying "hair mommy hair" and then taking her hands and shaking my hair around. I don't think she liked it either. All in all it was a great hour and half away. We ended our time by getting some gelato on the street. My relaxing time away was worth the bad hair do.

Airport Games

As we were waiting for one of our flights today, Kayleigh found some friends that she made during our time in Thailand and wanted to play hide-and-go-seek with them. So after running around the gate area, not too sure of the rules, she finally started to get the fact that you do not want to be found. So, she hid with one of the older girls and decided she liked the game. After she was found, they told her she was "it". Then she proceeded to go and hide with the rest of them until the older girl helped her be "it".




Kayleigh learning how to cover her eyes and count at the same time (Hopefully without peeking)


This is Kayleigh covering her eyes and counting (She likes to give herself a good chance of finding the other kids hiding)