Cherries and Cheetos

It's Saturday afternoon and here's what's going down at our house as I type: I am snacking on some fresh cherries. Andy is snacking on some oreos and milk and EG is snoozing. Andy just told me that I am going to live longer than him because I actually eat/like eating fruits. (He does neither) I promptly reminded him that though I like fruit, I am often the one leading the charge on the unhealthy snacks. How many times have I worked on my blog while eating cheetos? I basically eat fruits ALONG with all the other junk food I like!

One of the great things about our life here is the fresh produce! The area of the country we live in has very mild, warm climate-which means lots of great produce! One thing I've had to adjust to is "seasonal vegetables and fruits." At good ole Harris Teeter you can get most produce year round-you just might have to pay an arm and a leg for it out of season. But not here-what is in season is what you can get. It's currently peak season for several fruits and veggies-asparagus, peaches, tomatoes and cherries We have two strawberry seasons, which I love!!! Apples are good year round and oranges are at their best in the fall and winter. We have amazing corn most of the year. So needless to say we eat ALOT of fresh produce. A lot of my recipes from America call for canned this or that, but I can't get canned here and prefer the fresh anyway! When produce is in it's peak, it's abundant and pretty cheap! I will say that the cost of living has gone up considerably over the last year. It's very easy to tell this when I buy veggies and meat-they are all steadily rising in prices-it's not just the price of gas in america that's rising! But all in all, we get some GREAT deals on fresh foods-it's by far the cheapest way to eat in this country. Last night we had BBQ chicken, roasted asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes. Today, it's a crock pot of veggies wth seasoned chicken! yum yum. Andy gets really excited when all the ingredients for our meals come from the local market-that means fresh and it also means cheap (the latter of the two is the most important to him-hehe) Meals that have imported products are not cheap! (but who can resist homemade mac and cheese-even if the cheese cost more than the rest of the meal combined?) Ok you've probably heard enough about my grocery shopping. I just start writing and the topic always leads to food.

On to the other topic I always write about: Emma Grace is doing ok. She had her shots on Thursday which went as well as they can go but she's been out of it ever since. Trying to give her a lot of slack cause I just think she hasn't perked back up to her normal self-still fussy and VERY MOODY! I didn't realize how effective the "arch your back, throw yourself on the floor" technique was for preventing mom from picking you up-Maybe I'll try that if someone ever tries to kidnap me. Seriously-she's been out of sorts but I do think she's just not back up to par-lots of praying and patience and a lot of time outside in the sun is what the doctor ordered I think! Speaking of doctors-we are so blessed to have wonderful kind American doctors here to care for us and our children. Dr John, who we saw on Thursday loves babies. He prayed for Emma Grace before he gave her those mean shots. He said she was the picture of health which is encouraing to hear as a mom! I am so grateful for the way God provides for us through these American doctors.

By the way (and this is for the grandparents) Emma Grace weighed in at 22 lbs!

One thing that is sure to cheer up EG is a bath! She loves bath time. Here she is with her duck. We bought her a few more bath toys for her birthday which has made bathtime even better! Bathing an infant is really a two man job so I love it when Andy's around to help. But usually it's just me and the bean. She's on a Tues/Thurs/Sat bath schedule.

Here she is with her new stroller. She can't walk yet but she still enjoys pushing it around and "man handling" it from a sitting position.

We are having some new friends over tonight for dessert-there's a group of students here for the summer from the US and we are having them over for desserts and games tonight. Should be fun. Made a peach cobbler, a pumpkin dip and a caramel dip served with apples and will have a texas sheet cake (in honor of my Texan friend, Marianne) When Andy first came to China on a short visit, he lost A LOT of weight. After a few weeks of eating a lot of strange chinese food, going to some foreigners' home and having peach cobbler was a welcome relief and encouraged him that maybe he too could live in china long term-this was the first time he saw foreigners living in china and not eating chinese every meal!!! I am hoping our desserts will do the same for these guys! (By the way, Chinese food has really grown on both of us and we eat it reguarly-just not every meal!)

I'm finished with my cherries-now going to search the cabinet for something salty. Wish I had some cheetos.