Happy Birthday Kendalan!

Our baby turned double digits today!  She has been planning her bithday for months!  She wanted to take cookies and juice to school.   Daddy helped her do that.   Then she was trying to figure out where she wanted to go for our traditional birthday supper.   She had several places picked out but hadn't narrowed it down to one.   Then we had a chance to go to an Asian Festival in Olathe Saturday
afternoon.   We decided we would go, take the big girls and then go eat at Joe's Crab Shack.

Well, we picked up the college students at their dorm at 10 am  Saturday and Mark was not feeling right.  Said he was seeing double.   I decided he needed to go to the emergency room instead.  After getting him checked in, I went out and asked the big girls to drive my car out to our house and find a movie to watch, fix some macaroni and cheese and have a relaxing time.

In the meantime, Mark had blood drawn, gave them a urine sample and they did a CT scan of his right flank where he has been having pain for over a week.   In the meantime, I also figured out that he had managed to take his night medication instead of his morning meds.  So he had taken his sleeping pill along with a pain pill.  Enough to knock an elephant out!

So after the hospital checked Mark all out and decided that he has pulled his muscles somehow and that he needed to go home and rest I brought him home and then took all the girls out to Red Lobster for Kendalan's celebratory meal.   It wasn't Joe's Crab Shack but it was good.

Kendalan is getting a new case for her mini i-pod so she picked out the one she wants and it will be sent to us from Amazon.

I can't believe my baby is TEN YEARS old!  Even though she acts like a 26 year old, she is still our baby.   Happy Birthday Kendalan!  We love you to the Universe and Back a 1,000,000 times!

Track

Zora decided to go out for track this year.   I have been really proud of her to take the initiative to go out for it.  I felt that she would be great at track and so far she has proved me right!!

First track meet was at Osawatomie and she took 1st place in the 7th grade hurdles and her team took 4 in the 4/100meter run.   I think she will only get better as the season goes on.  She just flies over the hurdles!

We are just so proud that she tried it and liked it and has stuck with it.   Yes, she comes home exhausted and complaining about how far they had to run, but she goes back the next day with a smile on her face.  

You go girl!!  We are super proud of you and your team!  Keep up the good work!!

Coloring Easter eggs with our Big Sisters

The big girls came out Saturday to help us dye eggs for Easter.   They were very interested in this idea.  I was so busy getting things ready that I didn't have the chance to ask if they celebrate Easter in China.   I know that Kendalan asked them if they believe in God.    Iris and Yoyo are Christian and Eva is Buddist.

I had many different kits for decorating eggs that I have picked up on the sale rack after Easter the last few years.   I have been a working mom and so there are some years that we have just not gotten around to doing eggs.   So it was fun to see what I pulled out of my bag of tricks!

I really didn't remember buying some of these kits.   And then when I saw what was involved in doing the eggs with beads and glue...well, I must have been shopping in my sleep!  Good thing we had the bigs to help the littles :)

I kept putting more items out on the table for them to work with on their eggs and giving the big girls different ideas of what to do with their eggs.   They kind of sat there looking at all the stuff with perplexed faces!

Once everyone started the real fun began.   The one idea I had seen on FaceBook I think made some of the prettiest eggs.   It was dry rice in a cup, add lots of food coloring and then drop your egg in and roll it around.  If done correctly it came out with the prettiest speckles on them!

Some of the girls just wanted to over do the dye so making the Tye Dye eggs turned into gray eggs and the rice eggs were just one color and not speckled.  But it was fun.   Ava used crayons on most of her eggs and they came out very pretty with multiple designs.   Five dozen eggs were decorated very quickly.  I am still cleaning up beads and sparkle!

I was busy trying to find enough things for them to try and I didn't do a very good job of taking the photos.  But it was fun and then I did get them to don bunny ears for photos by our flowering pear trees.

Happy Easter to all and remember that He died on the cross for us and He is Risen!

Just a little sucking up to Mom this weekend.

Mom needed some down time this weekend.   Kendalan came through for her.   Just needed a little Mom me time.   Actually a lot of Mommy me time would have been wonderful, but we take what we can and don't pitch a fit.   So Kendalan wanted make Mom feel like a Queen for the day.   So I had my feet buffed, my toes painted and then my feet lathered with body butter.   

I think these could be called  a combination between grumpy cat and possibly a pumpkin.  But it is the thought that counts.   I could tell that Pugston was feeling just a little left out.   he was  letting me use his back as the back drop for my photo shoot.

Thank you Kendalan!  You did a great job and I am looking forward to the next time you give me a spa day.   

And then we went to see Cinderella.  GREAT SHOW!  I was in tears :(  I can't wait to see it

again!

It's the life!

So I come home from my third day of working 3pm to 11pm.   Most of the days my kids are in bed and the Dad is just hanging out to kiss me good night and then he is off to bed too.   This is my quiet time.   This week has been spring break.   First spring break in a while that we have not done something.   The girls have been busy going to friends houses for sleep overs, having their black belt recommend ceremony and just doing what they want to for the week.

It has been a week of the girls basically doing what they want too.  I came home from work Tuesday night and Zora was still up at 3AM.   I told her she better get to bed.  She told me, "Mom, it is spring break and besides I don't have to get up for anything in the morning."  Well, alrighty then.   Tonight I came home to find Kendalan and Zora in the kitchen having a midnight snack.  Kendalan was looking her finest for a late night snack.   I told them things would be different tomorrow.  "Why?" they asked in unison.  Because..Mom is going to be home all day!!

Sending an update to RaeAnne's orphanage.

One of the single Mom's from our first travel group has been living the last two years in Shanghai, China.  Oh my yes, you can spell me all shades of jealous!  Her oldest daughter is from RaeAnne's orphanage and while they are in China they are going to visit.   She let us know of the visit and wanted to know if there was anything that she could take to the orphanage for us.   We have in the past sent a small package with some updated photos and candies.   I was thinking what will I send this time.  

Then it came to me.   Make a book on Shutte*fly and have our "big girls" translate it for us!   I didn't spend as much time on it as I should/could/would have, but I still like the way it came out.   When our friends (the Big girls)  were here last weekend I showed them what I had done and asked them to translate for us.  They were excited to do it and it opened some communication with the girls about speaking Chinese.   Now I want to do this for the other girls :)   Of course, I would love to be the one who delivered the book to the orphanage too.  

It was easy to pick the photo I wanted on the front cover.   Some of the photos in the book were kind of a hit and miss.  I was trying to show them how she has grown over the years.   Some of the photos were not very good to blow up but I think they will get that it was from the heart.   I have heard that the orphanage director that took over soon after we adopted RaeAnne and her assistant have both retired in the last few years.   I also know that the orphanage has had a closed door policy for many years.   I hope she is able to at least get in the front door to the conference room.

Here is RaeAnne with her book.   And I love the translations with the graphic photos!

The birthday cake!

And the smiley face.   They are precious.  I ordered a book for RaeAnne to have so she will remember that we sent the book to China.

School musicals

Zora had her musical last week.   It was a combination of the 7th grade and the High School Chorus.  It was really nice.  7th grade did not have to dress up really, just their matching T-shirts with jeans.  So it was a little odd to see the High School all dressed up nice.  Oh well, they did a really good job.

Tonight was the 5th grade musical.  It was a comedy and really cute.  Their teacher seems to be a really nice woman and she likes to do things that are fun for the kids to participate in.  This musical had jokes, wild animals, old ladys, cowboys and a whole lot more.

I did have to stop and introduce myself to the teacher tonight.   I also mentioned that my girls are short and each concert they have been placed behind a taller person.   She said she had a method to her madness..well that might not be exactly how she phrased it.   Tessa had a boy with a cowboy hat on in front of her.  So it was fun trying to catch her when she was not behind him.

Zora was the same way.  Taller girls, so less opportunities to see her smiling face.  Oh well, I tried!