Eva's Anniversary

Since Eva's birthday and Family anniversary are the same day, I ponder her life a lot during this time.

Ten years home.  Every single birthday with her family.  Wow!  She knows nothing but us.  No recollection of life without us.  Just our stories and pictures of China.  

I'm sure the day will come when she will have a lot of questions.  Right now, she's content to just be loved and safe.  She is an amazing 11 year old.

And because I think he is so cute, here is a photo of Eva's nephew, Abraham.  He has a ton of fun with all of his aunts, uncle (sometimes), and grandparents.

Flying Time

Wasn't it just recently that I held my own baby boy?  No, wait, that was 22 years ago!  Way back in the 90's when bright colors were the thing.  I'm glad I held onto some of Seth's clothes.  Now his son is rocking the 90's look.

Seth, 1994               Abraham, 2016

Baby Abe sure is growing.  Way too quickly for my liking.  He is starting to show his sweet personality.  He is interested in every single thing.  And, he lets us know when he is mad.

These photos were from last month.  

And these photos are from this week.  Such a difference.

I love kissing his "triple chin" and "bouncy  cheeks".  I heard grand-parenting was Ahh-mazing, but never expected such love.  My husband is pretty much mush; putty.  I can only imagine what he'll be like when Jordan has her first.

 ::Sigh::

Life sure is Beautiful.  

Thank you, Dear Lord, for all of the wonderful Treasures You've blessed us with.

All About Joy

Ten.  

She has come a long way.

She had such a temper when she first came home.  She also had lots of happiness.

She loved to be loved.  Still does.  

She's has grown into a sweetheart.  Now she is double digits.  Never to be single digit again.  It makes me somewhat sad that this time has quickly passed by.  Oh, to just rewind for a little while longer.  My youngest is 10.  Yep, 10.

We delayed celebrating because we had just returned home from Hawaii.  And she was perfectly fine with celebrating her big birthday a few days late.  

At age 10, she is still my tiny girl.  She is 47 pounds (but was 45 pounds before she had steak and potatoes at dinner) and 49 inches tall. 

This year, she worked hard at learning how to ride a bike.

I have to admit I was thinking her "day" would never come.  She was so timid...afraid of falling.

Her tiny had isn't large enough to grip the handle.  So, she really is riding her bike mostly with her rock hard abs and right hand and arm.  

She had surgery on her hand about six months after coming home to us.  The doctors hoped to widen her grasp.  

Just 24 hours after surgery, she removed that cast, exposing her stitches and skin graft.  This mama panicked a bit.  

Joy continued removing cast after cast until...

...the doctors gave up and told me just to keep her bandaged instead.  She went through 5 beautiful casts in 2 weeks.  Her doctor called her Houdini.

Of course, Joy has no recollection of any of this.  She is just a sweet, intelligent, happy 10-year old girl.  Loving the sweet life that God has so blessed her with.

My DaughterJordan

It is amazing how quickly the last four years have flown by.  This was the scene at our home way back then.

It was so sad to say goodbye.  We've only seen her a handful of times since then.  She has served in the Navy, moved to Hawaii in four short years.  Now, her time in the Navy is over.  We're very proud of our girl!  Her birthday was a few weeks ago, and Mike blessed me and the girls with a trip to see her.

Ivy, Eva, and Joy haven't flown since they came home from China.  So, they were very excited about their long travels to the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

But, after the layover in Denver, they had enough of flying.  After all, there are only so many Star Wars movies to watch on the airplane.  We They were exhausted after 12 hours of flying.  Eva begged to go to sleep at 6:00 pm Hawaii time, but I refused her until 8:00.  The reason...they were all up at 6:00 am the next morning.  At least we had a beautiful place to hang out at.

Yes, the water is really this turquoise.

And, in the evenings, we hung out, laughed, and watched movies together.

Jordan took us to a different beach almost every day we were there.  After too many days of big waves, we needed a break.  Some of them were scary for my two youngest.

Eva didn't make it in the water at the above beach.

And Jordan wouldn't let the girls go out very far at this beach.  She was exhausted after getting out of the water.

One night, we went to a Luau.  It was a great time, too.

After watching the various island dances, Jordan asked Joy if she could hula.  She replied, "That's a whole lot of butt shaking."  She says it like it is.

I'm not a fan of pig, pork, or any meat cooked in the ground.  I also have a hard time looking the animal in the eye before I eat it.  I don't know why.  My girls enjoyed it, though.

Speaking of food...I had my fill of Asian.  We went to a hot pot and another Chinese restaurant.  Very tasty.  I love all the flavor.

And, of course, the shaved ice.  Did you know that you put sweetened condensed milk on top?  Who knew?  It was so good!

We also had the expensive, unmentionables.  So I won't mention them, how much they cost, or how many I ate.

Snorkeling.  A first for the girls unless you count the swimming pool.  But, there are no colorful fish at the pool.

Hanauma Bay

And, I never want to go to Honolulu without going to Pearl Harbor.  I think I would get teary eyed every single time.

I sure miss Jordan so much already.  She will be in Hawaii until next year.  And, hopefully she will be much closer. 

 Selfie.  Couldn't resist because she is so beautiful.

Photos of Life

I admit that I have not been very faithful at snapping pictures like I used to be.  Life just gets busy and it quickly passes by.  I think I need to slow down.  I sat down the other night with the girls' old iPhone that they use as a camera.  I always find amazing things on there.  I love that every picture isn't perfect.  But, it tells a story...a moment.  Some pictures are just random, crazy.  Others have deeper meaning.

Sisters.  What could be better than having each other?

I'm enjoying our first very warm day of the year.

Ivy, Eva, and Joy spend a lot of time playing music... daily.

Would you believe this is colored pencil shavings?  Who would have thought they would make such an interesting photo?

Virginia scenery.  It's beautiful here.  I need to take time to look at it more often.

Pets are good.  Growing up, I always had a pet.  Hobo and Chip aren't ours, but we get to see a lot of these crazy dogs.

Just hanging out, coloring.  There is such a comfortableness about this scene.

I'm not sure what to say about this.  We live in the country.  Dogs bring things out of the woods.  The girls find them.

The girls find lots of things.  Eva, especially.  One day she was very thrilled by the fact that she actually caught a mouse out in the woods...with her bare hands.  My question is why would she want to?  She brought it in the house to show me.  Yep.  Placed it right on my kitchen counter...in a baggie.

She was told to immediately release it back into the woods.

 Random Joy

Loving baby Abraham