My Little Trooper

This week has been busy, busy, busy!  And this little girl has been quite the trooper!  I took Lauren to another city a couple hours away to see an international dentist because I knew she had one cavity and thought possibly two.  I considered waiting until we got back to the States, but felt she needed to have it done sooner, so off we went.  The dentist saw her and she had FOUR cavities.  Poor baby!  They drilled and filled and she did great...no local anesthetics or pain meds.  What a trooper!

They were also very impressed and gave her two prizes for being so good.  They said they had not see a little kid cooperate so well.

Ayi finished Lauren's birthday present.  On Lauren's birthday (May 31) Ayi told her that she was knitting her a sweater to take to America with her because America would be MUCH colder that here.  She is so proud of this sweater and wants to wear in now in the 90 degree weather...don't worry, I have it put away.

Katherine got into some play make-up and put this blinding lipstick on herself and her big sister.  haha :)  They had fun though.

Benjamin had me take this picture for his new blog.  Yep.  He doesn't like to write much, so we are working on improving those skills.  He was not thrilled with his writing assignment this week until he found out that he might be able to publish and be an author.  So we wrote up an "about the author" and started a blog for him to "publish" all his stories.  After he gets enough stories together, I told him that I can have it made into a book.  Guess who is excited about writing now?  I can't wait to see the improvement.  If you want to check it out, he has a link on the side of this blog.

Here is my baby all ready to go to a wedding....by herself!  Yep, she was the only one invited :)  I'm not surprised.  She had a blast.  It was actually a coworker of Ayi who was getting married in another city and invited Ayi and Lauren to go.  The coworker didn't actually know us, but everyone knows Meimei :)

This is me trying to get a picture as they are leaving.  Lauren was ready to go and rushed into the elevator. 

Benjamin has always enjoyed art.  He asked if he could paint the other day and this is what he painted.  I was quite impressed.

Oh yes, and the bag dress...When I picked Katherine up from school on Thursday, her teacher informed me that Katherine needed to bring a dress to school mad out of grocery bags.  I was instructed that Katherine was to design it and help make it, but we were to do it together.  I couldn't see how it could possibly work, but it turned out cute.  Katherine did all the cutting and I did all the sewing.  She was excited to take it back to school.

 The other thing we did besides dentist appointments, orthodontist appointments, two separate doctor appointments out of the country, making a "dress", and having school was our family and a few helpers cooked lunch for 30 plus people.  It was fun.  Our portion included spaghetti,  garlic bread (from scratch....which is actually how most things are cooked here), alfredo, cookies, brownies, and fruits.  It was delicious!

 Here is my beautiful 9 year old girl.  She, too, likes the idea of publishing her writings.  So, we took the picture.  Here blog is not done yet, but will hopefully be up soon.  You will also be able to access it from here.  Now, I need a little rest! :) 

Great Mother's Day

I know this is seemingly a little late, but I had a wonderful, packed Mother's Day!  So, here's a little peek of what I did!  First, I went to a cookout for "moms", but it was really a group of teachers that asked me to come.  They asked me to come once a week to teach the English teachers English.  They were a fun bunch and I think it is a good opportunity. 

Here's a look at the delicious food they grilled.  Truthfully, I have never had green beans on the grill, but they were delicious! 

We had some crazy flooding last week.  It's that time of year when the sky literally just opens up and we can get several inches within an hour.  Usually, it does that and then it passes quickly.  Last week, it forgot to pass.  I was picking the kids up from school and we tried to get a picture from the bus (but does not do it justice).  All the roads were completely covered and the cars were driving on the sidewalk to try to stay above the water.  Needless to say, there was a drainage problem and this week they have been doing lots of repairs so that it does not flood again.

So, after all that rain, we decided it was time to get a raincoat for Lauren.  It's a little big, but she can grow into it.

This was the best Mother's Day gift ever...we spent the morning together, ate lunch, then J and the kids let me pack up to go work with a medical clinic.  It was my first time "translating"  I did have some cheat notes because I have not studied some of the technical medical terms before.  It was so much fun!  I can tell many awesome stories sometime.

This little guy was adorable and my little buddy.  He has a hole in his heart that will hopefully close up on its own.

Hard at work :)

I got to tour a factory.  That was fun.  It's not a common thing to get to do, so I was excited about that, too.

Random parts..

Katherine's class had a special day for me to come watch her class.  This was snack time.  She loves her oranges.

Her class showed us how high they could jump. 

Katherine made me some doughnuts during her class.  She later gave it to me with a coupon booklet for 1 free hug and 1 free kiss.  Regan, Benjamin, and Lauren also made me some sweet cards and gave the best hugs.

This is just a random shot from the little girls school.  It still amazes me to see these little guys going into school by themselves and carrying their backpacks and blankets. 

These are some of our friends on Mother's Day morning.  We had just had lunch and were about to leave.  So this is my Mother's Day picture this year ;)  Loved every minute!

A Day Out

Well, poor Doggy Bones gets left out of many of the pictures so he gets the first one today.  He was just chillin' with me while we watch the kids try to fly a kite. 

 Papaw was giving the kids a kite flying lesson right before he left for the airport.  It was a really windy day.  This was about as high as we could get it.  I think if we had been in an open field, they might have been able to get it higher.

All the girls had very wind blown hair that day.  It looks like Regan is looking right at me, but she really did not know I was taking a picture.  She is quickly becoming a beautiful young lady. 

 Haha!  This one cracks me up.  This is how excited Katherine gets when we have one of her favorite foods!  If you look closely you can see some on her plate.  Do you see it?  Yep, boiled shrimp.  Jonathan and I are usually the last one to finish our food on shrimp days because we spend all of our time peeling Katherine's.  She typically eats around 30.

 On the actually holiday this week, we spent the day with our friends.  They invited us to hike a mountain, walk around a reserve, and go to the beach (plus all the meals for the day).  This was on our way to the mountain.  The kids were so excited to see several butterflies.

 We started climbing and the steps seemed to never end.  Literally 3,000 steps later we made it to the top.  This was one of the few places that had rails. 

 Benjamin looks like he's thinking "you can still smile, smile for the picture, then you can collapse"  We didn't know how much further we had to go, so a photo op was a good excuse to rest for a minute.  We were actually very close to the top.  The kids were so tired when they got to the top.  Lauren was so happy that her daddy agreed to carry her back down the mountain :)

 The original plan was to rent bikes to ride around the reserve, but there were too many people.  We just walked it instead. 

Lauren loved that she got to have a couple of little flowers.  She was so happy.

It had started to sprinkle on our way to the beach, and Katherine was prepared.  The rain actually held off all day until we headed for home.  This is a shot of two very excited girls about finally getting to the beach.  The kids had been waiting all day for this moment.  I was also looking forward to it because I knew the kids would love it (I had even packed each of them a complete change of clothes because I was going to let them have fun and get wet.)  BUT when we arrived, THIS is the beach we found....

 ...not exactly the cleanest beach.  It was covered in trash from the sea and from people.  I couldn't even let the kids take their shoes off to put their feet in the water because I was afraid they might get cut by glass or something.  They were such good sports though.  They didn't complain one time about not getting to play, but just enjoyed the water.  I reassured them anyways that we will be going to a beach soon in America :) something to look forward to!

 I still needed to get the "beach pictures"  The lady on the left just had to jump in and try to get a picture with the kids.  Her friend was off to the side snapping the shots.  Benjamin looks frozen. It was starting to cool off because of the storm coming in and it was really windy.

 We managed to get a family picture too.

Finally, this was the group shot of all of us that went out together.  It was a fun day and I we all slept soooooo good that night.