She's too cool!

Today I cleaned out Emma Grace's drawers and moved out the 12 months clothes-we're moving into 18 months sizes. I was also looking for a few gender neutral items like burp rags and bibs to take back with us for when Buffy comes! If he's anything like EG was in the spitting up category we're gonna need 'em! I ran across these glasses and Emma Grace had a ball putting them on!


Here's Grandma Wang (also known as the milk Gmaw) holding her grandson, Xiang Xiang and Emma Grace. She really loves Emma Grace and me too! We tried to go out and get he fan today for lunch but unfortunately it was all sold out by the time we got there. We ended up with a sweet potato, an apple, and a pastry that ended up tasted like a jelly filled donut. Not the lunch we were expecting, but it'll do. After our a la carte lunch we headed across the street to Emma Grace's favorite joint in town-the yogurt and milk shop, which also happens to be home to several rides and the kiddie fishing pond. My favorite thing about these rides is that they all have a button you can push while riding to make machine gun noises. I am not sure how machine gun noises go with giraffe rides playing nursery rhymes but EG really likes the machine gun button.

That's all for today. Hope you enjoyed the pictures of my favorite little girl in the whole wide world!

Apology

Hope you are having a great Sunday. I have decided to give up blogging. Ok, just kidding. I am pretty sure I just gave my mom and mother-in-law a heart attack. Right now, at this moment though, that's what I want to do. And here's why-God seems to work his way into every area of my life, including my little blogging world and use it to reveal things in me that he wants to change-to burn away the impurities in me so that I am more like Christ and make me so much more of a lover of him who died for my sin. It burns...but I am thankful. I started this whole blog thing for you, my dear family to see our lives in Asia-not so I could also broadcast my sin to the world and be humbled for all of cyberspace to see. But it makes sense that as you see our lives, you would see our sin-since, in fact, we fall way short of God's wonderful standard and sin is a part of our everyday lives!

So that's what this post is. So, let me get to my apology. I have realized that I recently wrote a couple things that were exaggerated so I need to apologize. First-Last night Andy and I were working our way through Count of Monte Cristo (which is slow work, I fell asleep again) and God's spirit, gently yet firmly convicted me that I had exaggerated on my blog about how far we'd gotten in the book-I had said we were not quite through when in fact we are only about half way done. Anyway, I feel terrible that I exaggerated on that and ask for your forgiveness! Secondly, I also wrote recently that Andy and I had a conversation about things we were looking forward to about America. I included in the list something that we had not talked about that time, but in an earlier conversation. Sorry about that as well. I am grateful for God's standard-holiness-and I am grateful he calls me to it and also gives me grace when I so often fall short! So in seeing our lives, you also see a glimpse of our sin-which is way deeper and more profound than these two things-and I hope you, along with myself are able to taste and see the goodness of our God to show us those places he wants to bring his holiness, his healing and his hope to! I hope our blog is always a place where you are encouraged as you watch us journey Christward as a family! Thanks for your understanding! EA

Belly Buddies

Andy isn't having all the fun...I'm having a bit myself! I did a friend exchange last night-Andy went into the city to stay with his friend David while his wife and long time friend of mine, Marianne, came out to stay with me and Emma Grace. Marianne is due in early February so we took some pictures of our growing bellies while together. I think this picture makes my belly look really big and hers really small.

We had fun and talked the whole time she was here. Andy and David, on the other hand, did very little talking but were still able to bond over hours of video games and movies. This is my hubby's definition of fun with his guy friends. Men are from Mars!

Andy's having all the fun

This week is China's national holiday-a little like our 4th of July-so Andy's been off from work and having lots of fun. He's been having all the fun while EG and I stay home! On Monday he went with some friends to a local tourist attraction and there happened to be a circus there at the time-he got to see boxing bears and monkeys riding bikes. This place is so random! Then on Tuesday and Wednesday, he went camping with some local friends. Actually, EG and I were perfectly happy to stay at home-though we might have wanted to see the boxing bears, we both love our little routine and the comforts of home. I am pretty sure my squirmy wormy sleeper could tear down a tent while sleeping. Next year the plan is for Andy to take her camping while Buffy and I hold down the fort! We've had a low key week at home with a few visitors to help pass the time. Our friend Ellie came out to spend the night while Andy was camping-it was fun to spend some time with my China roommate pre-Andy! After Andy returned from his camping trip we were able to have lots of fun family time! It's so nice to have him home during the day-I actually get to have a little grown up conversation while wiping spit up pear off my daughter's shirt and trying to keep her from diving into the pond in our courtyard!

The weather has been getting cooler, but it's bright and sunny! Fall is my favorite season. I...ahem, I mean, Xiao Li made some pumpkin muffins on Tuesday which are the perfect fall treat. They are more like cake than breakfast muffins but that hasn't stopped us from having a few for breakfast. Emma Grace only does a nose dive into the high chair tray for two things-birthday cake and these muffins! We also had sweet potatoes for lunch today. I am into orange colored veggies right now. We had a date in last night and talked about the things we are most looking forward to about America-fall weather is one of them, along with seeing our friends and family, meeting Buffy, and taking Emma Grace to Panera to introduce her to the Cinnamon Crunch Bagel on a chilly fall morning!

Here are a few pictures of EG outside on her new toy. Our friends Steve and Marlene, who have 4 kids-oldest 8, youngest 4, with twins in the middle-pass down lots of fun things to EG. She loves this little train. Her favorite part about it is not riding it, but rather gathering lots of sticks and leaves and rocks to put in the compartment under the lift-up seat.

My lunch dilemma

Figuring out what to eat for lunch while living in China has been quite a challenge for me. Can I just say that the American grocery store is a wonderland of delicious, quick and healthy lunch options? You should do a happy dance every time you walk past the deli section and you should say a prayer of thanks every time you pick out a yummy loaf of non-sweet sandwich bread! My ideal lunch would be Boar's Head Honey Baked ham (sliced very thinly!) on whole wheat bread with some cheese and mayo beside some chips, fruit and a dill pickle spear! I can get the cheese, mayo, and fruit here-that's about as far as I get in my American lunch dreams. Now that Emma Grace is eating "big people food" I scramble even more to figure out what to make for lunch. We sometimes have peanut butter and jelly or some less than excellent ham on slightly sweet Chinese bread but those two options just aren't that appealing to either of us. It takes a lot of time and energy to gather ingredients and prepare for each evening's meal. Because I try to cook American food most evenings, I spend a good chunk of time each week working on them. I just don't have the spare time or energy to make a "real meal" twice a day. So lately I've had Xiao Li start cooking Chinese for us twice a week for lunch. It takes some of the burden off of me, it's delicious and also includes some meat and several veggies-which makes me feel good about the fact that EG is getting something nutritious. The other days we usually have leftovers from the night before or some random assortment from the fridge. We also go out on Mondays and get He Fan (box of food) if there are no leftovers. This week we broadened our lunch horizons a little more-we had Chinese dumplings and Emma Grace really liked them! Chinese dumplings (Jiao Zi) are made by placing a meat and veggie filling into a thin dough wrapper and boiling them. They are usually served with a soy-vinegar-hot pepper dipping sauce. They are a traditional food used to celebrate the Chinese New Year but are also eaten year round. Getting together with friends to make dumplings (bao jiao zi) is a big deal! I am really bad at this and mine turn out looking more like giant lumps of dough rather than the crescent shape they are supposed to have! Our beloved friend, neighbor, and deliverer of all things dairy, Milk Gmaw made us some last week. We froze them and pulled them out today to boil and eat. Emma Grace enjoyed them and I was so excited! This is a big deal for our lunch options. I can buy jiao zi pre-made in our grocery store (even in kid size) and pull them out from time to time when lunch options aren't so bright! I must admit I'd still choose most anything from the deli section at Winn Dixie over the chinese lunch options but they are slowly growing on me! Yeah for a new quick easy lunch option!

Merry Christmas!

We wish you a Merry Christmas...early! Since we'll be in America for Christmas this year and will miss out on celebrating with our friends here, we decided to host an early Christmas party with some of our local friends. It was lots of fun. The evening included Christmas music, Christmas cookies and a Christmas movie and the best part was our gift exchange. Instead of giving gifts to one another, we divided up guys and girls and went out and bought gifts to fill shoe boxes for the Operation Christmas Child project. There's a great video on their website that will get you excited about what they are doing! I was very impressed with all the stuff we managed to get. Our local friends were commenting on how these boxes might be the only ones from China! We informed them that this is true, but that everything bought in America for the boxes also comes from China! HEHE. Here are a few pictures from the evening!


If I had twins...

We are super excited to be home this year for Christmas. I am not sure how awake I will be for all the festivities, as I will have a one to two week old baby and will be lacking in the sleep department but we are tickled pink to be celebrating this important day with our families! Can't wait! We've already gotten out the Christmas music! My current favorite Christmas song is "I Heard the Bells" by Mercy Me. Check it out-it makes me cry every time I listen to it!

Silver Spoon and Veggie Wars

We had a really fun Saturday! We went to the Silver Spoon (a local western resturant) for lunch and Emma Grace had a great time. She liked our sophisticated food much more than her own grilled cheese! She loved my Chipotle Chicken Sandwich!
She also loved the Chocolate Chunk cookie we bought her for dessert! I also enjoyed my decaf vanilla caramel latte! Afterwards we headed to B and Q, our version of a Home Depot with a lot less selection and really ugly light fixtures. HEHE. We were looking for a new one to replace the broken one in our bathroom. We ended up with one that's not quite as ugly as the first one we had! Success!

In other news the funniest thing happened this evening. To explain I need to give you a little background. See, there are edible vegetables, like the ones I cook and (in my opinion) most Americans cook. They aren't bad, they're just...well...edible. You eat them because they are good for you and because they taste ok. And then there are mouth watering, make you want to keep eating them even when you full vegetables that Chinese people cook. In a country where meat was a delicacy for many and still is for some, these people have mastered cooking vegetables. While we are steaming and boiling and roasting bland veggies, these people are stir frying some of the most delicious vegetables you've ever tasted. Andy actually didn't really eat veggies til he came to China! I've started to learn how to cook veggies Chinese style as they are superior in taste to our American style! Today I was cooking a very American meal when the funniest thing happened! I was cooking mashed potatoes and green beans (both American style) to go with some BBQ chicken when our local friends came over with a gift. In order to thank me for some help I'd given them on a project, they brought over some stir fried green beans and some stir fried sliced potatoes with pickled vegetables that they'd just made. These two are both a speciality of this area of the country and are some of our all time favorites! We all got a good laugh when we realized the veggies they brought were the same ones I was preparing at the time. We decided to eat them both and man, I got showed up! Here we are eating our American veggies...

And our Chinese ones...

We both had less than one serving of the American style veggies and 2 of the Chinese style! What a fun day for the Huffmans! We can't wait for Buffy to join the fun!