Falling off the Bandwagon

Well, this week I fell off the Blogging Bandwagon. Sorry about that. The reason is that my hubby was studying for a test this week and needed the computer to do so as most of his articles, etc were online-and he had to write 3 papers on top of studying. So this past week I didn't see much of him or the computer. Needless to say we are ALL very glad the test is over and all the papers are handed in! We both learned a lot through the class (even though I didn't take it) It was called "the Church" or something like that and many of our dinner conversations recently have featured topics which Andy has been studying in the class. The thing is, after a full day of laundry and diapers and discipline and making dinner for my one year old who eats it in about 3 minutes and is finished and wants to get down, my brain is quite fried and I unfortunately don't have a lot left to give to the deeper issues of life. But I did engage and put on my thinking cap a few times and I learned lots from my super intelligent husband. One thing I am so thankful for is that God uses Andy to grow me in my love and knowledge of himself and his word all the time. Andy reads lots of heady books and then gives me the cliff notes-which may sound like cheating but it's not. God knew that I needed someone who can digest the deeper things and give them to me in an understandable way so that I too grow in my knowledge and love of him. Now if I could've just convinced my Business statistics professor that having that kind of help wasn't cheating then I might have graduated a business major after all. (Business stats was my hardest class in college and I didn't do so hot-thus a change in major quickly followed)

Speaking of reading-we are well on our way with our summer book-it program. We are almost finihsed with Swiss Family Robinson, though i am waiting for something bad to happen to them. I mean how can one island and their wrecked boat have every thinkable thing they could ever need for life on a deserted island? I am having a hard time finding it believable, but it's still a fun read. I was glad when their donkey ran away. HA. That's more realistic and is probably what would happen to me if I was on a deserted island.

EG has her 5th tooth and is working on Number 6!!! She and I have been outside a lot as the weather has been great lately! After Andy's test we celebrated with a 30 min bus ride to KFC. The bus ride was her favorite part until she realized what her real favorite part was-ICE CREAM! She had her first ice cream cone at KFC and loved it (read: she had about 6 tiny bites of my ice cream) That's mommy love for you-letting your slobbery child lick your ice cream!

Sorry no pics today, but now that I am back on the bandwagon there will be more to come soon!

Refrigerator Tetris and "Bag o Beans"

I am sure you remember the game tetris-where those little blocks in different shapes would come down from the ceiling and you had to find a place to fit it in with all the other blocks already down at the bottom? Each one has it's own shape and size and you have to fit them all together like a puzzle, not leaving any space. Well, that's kinda like what I do every Monday and Thursday morning with the stuff in our fridge. Our refrigerator is about half the size of your American monster fridges (with as many or more condiments as the average American has-we love our condiments) Many Chinese don't even have refrigerators and the ones that do certainly do not fill them up. Most people go to the market everyday, sometimes multiple times a day to buy their meats and veggies fresh. They return home and cook them almost immediately. No need for that middle man, the refrigerator. But that doesn't work for us for many reasons. For starters-we have a lot of condiments, many specially brought over from home to give us the authentic American flavors we love. Also, I shop at a grocery store about 30 minutes from my house for many non perishable items as well as imported items (so I do some serious stock piling). And finally, with a one year old I just don't have time to run to the market before every meal. So, we have a little system: Xiao Li our helper goes to the market on Monday and Thursday mornings to buy all the produce and meat we will need for the next few days. Therefore, Monday and Thursday mornings are a little tricky when it comes to fitting everything in my fridge. And things just got a little tighter in these parts-Emma Grace has started to drink whole milk instead of formula which is wonderful for our budget (fresh milk is WAY cheaper) but not so great for my game of tetris. Now between the 3 of us we consume 9 cartons of milk a week. (see 2 of them beside tea and one in door) The milk grandma, as we call her in chinese, delivers our milk daily now. Without thinking about my tetris issue I told the milk grandma to bring one carton a day except on Mondays and Thursday, when I told her to bring two! What was I think telling her to bring two on those two days???Ok, this is funny. As I was writing about my refrigerator space issues guess who just rang my bell? The milk grandma-but this time she was coming over to visit and happened to bring a bag of beans she had just made for me. Doesn't she know she just clogged up my fridge with her milk less than two hours ago? You know how tetris gets faster and therefore harder the better you get? And then you start to feel really nervous and you're not sure where your next block will fit? That's how I felt when she handed me said bag-o-beans. Here's a picture I just snapped of Milk grandson and Emma Grace playing during their visit. These two are less than two weeks apart in age. He sat quietly the whole time and played with one or two toys while EG on the other hand crawled every inch of our floor and touched every toy in our living room, stopping only once or twice for a few seconds to actually play with something. She's a wild child. Now that you know all about chinese refrigerator habits let me tell you a little snip-it about Chinese weddings. They are way different than American weddings in more ways than I even know but just one little interesting fact-They decorate their cars with flowers for the drive to and from the wedding. (which is more like a big party and a performance than a ceremony) This weekend we had two friends (girls) graduating from college and we, along with some other friends celebrated this special event with a big dinner for them. We even sent a driver to pick them up and bring them to the restaurant. We decided it would be fun to have the car decorated for them like they do for a wedding. Now I have no idea if this was cool or just weird in their culture because I am pretty sure they only decorate cars when people are getting married. But the two girls felt really honored and special. It was fun to see them driving up in a sleek car decorated with red roses on their big day!

here we are waiting for them to arrive...
And here's the car. Usually the car with the bride has a HUGE bouquet of flowers right in the center of the hood of the car and the wedding party and family all follow in black cars decorated with red roses. (just like this one)

Ok, one final note- God uses the Chinese people around me to bless my socks off sometimes. So not only did the milk gmaw bring me beans when she and her grandson came by just to say hey, but the driver of this car (our uncle Qi, seen in pic above) just came by and brought Andy and I a big bunch a roses-he was concerned for us because he thought we paid too much for the flowers yesterday and he said he saw some today that were a great deal so he decided to buy them for us. Sometimes I don't totally understand the "love languages" of this still-foreign-to-me-at-times culture, but I know one thing: Beans and good priced roses=God's love poured out to me through these precious people around me. It's funny to think about people from two different cultures trying to love each other-I mean, my idea of flowers on the car for the girls' non-wedding event was way outside the box for them, but I really think they felt honored and loved. And today was certainly my first day to recieve love in the form of a bag of beans, but in our own American and Chinese ways we are trying to show our love for one another.

It's so humbling how God uses these people to care for us and show us his love and abundant provision! Please pray for our neighbors and friends-they are such a blessing to us and I pray we too could bless them with the best gift of all-the good news of Jesus! Hope you have a great day!

A year from now...

As you know Kayleigh and Emma Grace are exactly one year apart. (Kay is sititng beside EG) It's fun for me to watch Kayleigh and think, "this is what EG will be doing exaclty a year from now!" Here are all the girls at Kayleigh's 2nd bday party. Terri, Kayleigh's grandma who is visiting from the US made them all birthday hats. This was our attempt to get a picture with them all wearing the hats.

Here's a picture of Kayleigh in action. This is the apron and the broom that I got made for her-Alisa says she sweeps everything now. So fun. Maybe I'll get a bunch made and sell them in the U.S. as a little side business!

listening to your mother-in-law

Just wanted to let you know I took your suggestion and gave Emma Grace a pot and some spoons to play with. Here's the result:




Cute but LOUD! Let's just say I am gald it's stopped raining and we can spend some time outside! When Emma Grace comes to your house I'm gonna pull out some pots for her to bang on for you!

hey there fellow VW bug driver....

You might have read in the news that our area of the country is experiencing heavy rains and flooding. Thankfully our area has not had the extreme flooding but we've had our fair share of rain! (non stop all day everyday is our fair share I think!) Please pray for those in other areas though-especially the hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors living in tents.

Thankfully the only affect the rains have had on us has been forcing us to stay inside all day. (Which is small in the grand scheme of things but is fairly challenging when you have a rambunctious one year old!) The rain has been falling all day. Literally. Every once in a while it lightens up enough that we think we might brave the light drizzle-only to be forced back inside when the bottom falls out within minutes of us gearing up and getting outside.

Speaking of gearing up-Yesterday after 10 hours of being inside with a one year old, I decided no matter what the weather, we had to get outside. With rain jackets, a stroller with a great covering and an umbrella, we were ready. Well almost. What we both lacked were the proper rain shoes. I've been wanting to get some rain boots for the past year. Lots of people have them in our town-young kids to old women-all in different colors. I decided last August, at the end of the rainy season that I needed a pair after my jeans and shoes got soaked every time I went to the market. Well, yesterday was our day! We headed out in the rain, desperate for something to do. First we debated getting on the public bus and just riding for a while. It is dry and something different. But I decided the stroller was a bit cumbersome for getting on a bus with my one year old in tow and my wet umbrella. First stop-the mini mart. Ahh. A dry place to hang out. We took a stroll and bought a few things I didn't necessarily need. After we killed as much time as possible we headed to the market, which turned out to be quite fun. The market is covered so we took our time buying some potatoes, onions and celery for some homemade potato soup. Then we found a new pet/plant store and spent some time looking at the fish, birds and turtles. Man was I happy to see a pet store! A little dry entertainment for the two of us pretty wet and pretty desperate girls.

Our final stop before braving the torrential rains to head home was the rain boot store. The rain had gone from a light drizzle back to a torrential down pour and I decided we could wait no longer for this purchase. I was a bit bummed that I had to buy the men's boots because my feet are more "man sized" in this country of tiny people. (the women's selection had lots of fun colors and I had my eye on the teal ones) I settled on the boring black men's size 38-that sounds big-and got Emma Grace a pair of red boots! PERFECT! Well, they are a little big on her but she's not walking yet anyway, so she has time to grow into them.

We are planning to take a trip with Xiao Li back to her hometown in July, which is the heart of rainy season and she said it would be quite muddy there so I figured we should go ahead and take the rain boot plunge. I am trying to convince Andy he needs a pair. Today EG and I went out in the pouring rain for some street breakfast and our boots came in nice and handy. (hers for a fashion statement and mine for protection from the rain all until a giant tarp I was standing under gave way and covered the back of me-all the way down into my boots with a gush of cold water)

Now I know they look a little silly but man, they are practical. (as long as you aren't standing under a faulty tarp) Plus I feel like I really fit in here when I wear them. I feel like I now have a common bond with everyone wearing them-from little preschoolers to old grannies. I want to wave at them and nod-you know, like you do when you are driving a VW bug and see someone else driving one. It's a little way to acknowlege that both of you are in a elite class of people who have learned the joys of rain boot wearing. We are family-or at least I feel that way (no one has returned my nods as of yet) Also, it makes me happy to wear them because I feel a little bit like I am finally filling my grandpa's shoes-to this days he wears boots like mine down to the barn to feed his animals. I used to put his way-too-big-for-me boots on when I was little and play in them. I feel connected to you too now, G-paw. So, just picture me waving at you and nodding-my way of saying, "Hey there. Nice boots, fellow rain boot club member"

On a final note-if you have any ideas for how to entertain a one year old inside, please please leave a comment. I will pay you in whatever size/color rain boots you want!

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.

I feel like I have a lot to say, so I'll get right to it: Here's the run down of our week (Emma Grace's Brithday week)

We had her official birthday party Saturday, which was a lot of fun. We had quite a gaggle of American kids here. Emma Grace recieved sevreal new toys that she really likes and the highlight of course was the cupcake.

Sunday: Andy went camping with a group of guys so it was just us girls on our own. We headed into town for Kayleigh's bday party Sunday afternoon. (Kayleigh is one year older than Emma Grace to the day!!! They are both our June 10th girls.) Emma Grace and I got Kayleigh this really really cute broom and apron. The thing about China is that things are never really that simple-I actually had the apron made by a local taylor. Costs about $2.50 and took about an hour-pretty good deal if you ask me. The broom-also not as simple as just heading out to walmart and picking it up. They don't make kid brooms here so I bought a full size one, went to my local shoe repair stand at the market and had them cut it down to 2 year old size. My friend Ellie then helped me write her name on the dust pan with cute stickers and VOILA-a cute gift!!! China requires creativity at times! She loved the broom and Alisa told me she's been sweeping ever since she got it! Funny side note: my friend Ellie went to a toy market to look for the broom. She told them she was looking for a TOY broom. They didn't have it and as she was walking away she heard them say, "Man those foreigners are hard core, they make their little kids start cleaning really early!" HEHE.

Monday: Andy returned from his camping trip-they had a great time. No rain which is a big deal during the rainy season. We might go camping for our anniversary-jury still out. we may also go to a fancy hotel-we'll see what kind of mood I am in. Anyway, onto Monday-This next picture needs quite the preface.

Preface, part 1: First of all, I'm from North Carolina-Barbeque (pork) capital of the world. The most delicious pork bbq you can imagine comes from within miles of my house. Last year, that was the first meal I wanted when we got back to NC. Andy has been asking me for years to make BBQ here but my standards were just way too high. I knew whatever I made would be a disappointment. But upon losing a bet to my hubby, my payment was to try my hand at BBQ-and IT WAS DELICIOUS!!! This Monday I made it for the second time and if Hersey's (a local NC bbq resturant) was a 10, then mine was a 9.8. I was shocked at how good it was. And the left overs were even better. I am not a great cook but I was so shocked that I had to write about it.

Ok, Preface part 2: The picture. I got the recipe for the sauce from allrecipes.com-one of my most frequently visisted websites. I really enjoy this webiste. They have some great recipes and the reader reviews are really helpful. BUT-and a big BUT-taking pictures of food is quite an art form. The webiste allows users to post pictures of the things they have made from the website and let me just say-after seeing some of those pictures the last thing I want to do is try the recipe. I am sure the food was good, but taking a good picture of foods-one that looks appetizing and makes the viewer hungry for it-well that's really hard to do. Andy and I literally laugh out loud at some of the pictures. Sometimes we are not even sure what it is supposed to be. Anyway, so I can't beleive I am posting a picture of my food-but just know that my picture does not do it justice. We enjoyed the BBQ along with some really yummy homemade mac and cheese, hush puppies, and corn on the cob. And who can forget the sweet tea? So, here's my hubby's first attempt at food photography. He should keep his day job.

Tuesday: HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA GRACE! We had a fun day. Andy took the morning off and we talked on the webcam to both our parents. We opened gifts, played and even ate a breakfast cupcake all while on the webcam.

Andy and I took EG out for some chinese food for lunch-she gobbled it up. Then in the evening some local friends came over to celebrate with us. There was one last cupcake and a little Emma Grace melt down. I am pretty sure all the stimulation of the past several days combined with the sugar shock sent our little one right over the edge. But no fear, some quite snuggle time with mommy and a good night's sleep and she was back to normal. Well, almost. She is insanely active these days-could that sugar still be in her body? I couldn't get a good 12 month picture. First attempt-shirt got covered in chocolate icing. 2nd attempt-she wouldn't hold still long enough. Maybe third time's a charm. will try again after I wash the shirt for the 3rd time!

Wednesday and Thursday have been pretty low key. We needed that. I am getting ready to take her to the doctor for her 1 year shots though. sad. will let you know how that goes.

All in all, a really fun week.

Emma Grace's Birthday Bash

Happy Early Birthday Emma Grace! We had EG's birthday party this week-what a blast! We kept it pretty simple-the highlight of course being Emma Grace's first cupcake! Andy made a really neat slideshow with pictures and videos from her first year so we watched that, the kids played, we had cake and ice cream, and opened some gifts. Emma Grace got a stroller from Julianna and Kayleigh-this was a big deal. This stroller is for Emma Grace to push her babies around in once she starts walking. She LOVES playing with Julianna's stroller when we go to their house so it was the perfect gift. (PS grandparents we are sending the slideshow to you-you should get it end of next week)

Here's the spread. I made cupcake men which are really cute but kinda hard for 2 and 3 year olds to manage-so we had a lot of chocolate faces when it was all said and done.

Here are Lydia and Emma Grace digging into the toy basket together. They are so close in size-they could be twins! I foresee years of friendship (as long Emma Grace doesn't keep stealing Lydia's paci)
Here's Xiao Li with some of her favorite little people in the whole wide world...
We had quite the group of kids for the party. Baby Zeb in the very middle is just a month old! This group ranged in age from 1 month to a whopping 7!
Here's what we've all been waiting for....

She wasn't sure what to do with the cupcake at first. After rubbing the icing with her hands and then smashing the whole cupcake, she decided to have a try...

Hmmmm, I think I like this stuff...

yeah, it's for sure, I like it! So much so that I think I'll just nose dive into the thing. Why waste my time using my hands???Her favorite part of opening the gifts might have been all the paper...She loves this stroller already! Just wait til she can walk!Here we are with our favorite little cupcake in the whole wide world-Emma Grace Huffman. It is so true that "Children are a gift from the Lord." As I reflect on this last year, my heart just swells with thankfulness for this incredible gift. Being a part of God's creating this little person and being with her for most moments of her first year of life has been one of the sweetest gifts I could ever imagine. She's saying "mama" now and is getting closer to walking everyday! (which is a good thing because she weighs about 24 lbs!) Thanks to all of you for loving our little cupcake along with us and most of all, thank you sweet Lord for entrusting us with this precious life!

personal pan pizza anyone???

It's starting...the mass exodus of foreigners from our city. David and Marianne board a plane in about 2 hours. Every year about this time most of the foreigners in our city migrate west-for sunnier skies (it's rainy season now), family and chic fil a. (well, those are my reasons!) Summer is a great time to head back home and visit with family or travel in other parts of Asia. For the past 5 years Andy and I have spent every summer outside of China-mostly in America and one summer in Thailand. This will be our first summer to stay in our city for the entire time. About 95% of the people that we know in our city will be gone as well. There will be about a month stretch where we are totally on our own!

In one way it will be a little lonely. My English speaking outlets will be greatly narrowed! Poor Andy-he might get tired of me! My friend Laura, who will be gone for about a month, and I take a walk most afternoons with the girls. One day Andy asked me, "so what do you and Laura talk about on your walks?" (as if he thought we must not have much to talk about since we see each other every day) I began listing the topics we had covered in our 45 minute walk that day and he was blown away-basically we talked about everything from discipline to future plans, to deep heart things we were learning and solved most of the world's problems all in a 45 minute walk- (all while trying to teach Emma Grace to keep her hat on, help Lydia when she dropped the keys she was playing with and open a lid for Julianna to get out more goldfish) His response was, "WOW!" So without Laura and my other English speaking friends around, Andy might get his ear talked off when he comes in the door!

In another way though, I am really looking forward to this summer. We do a lot of traveling and our lives often feel like they are full of transition. It will be nice to stay in our routine (which I value more than ever as a mom) and just to be "us." I am looking forward to Emma Grace learning how to walk this summer. (which might be a bit challenging since it is the rainy season here-I foresee a lot more laundry this summer) I am looking forward to some downtime with my hubby. Andy will be studying Chinese this summer, as he hasn't been able to spend much time on it during the school year because he is teaching English. We are planning a "Book-It" summer. Remember in Elementary school, they had you read all these books and if you read enough you got a free personal pan Pizza Hut pizza? I am pretty sure it was called "Book-it." I read a while ago that they were doing away with that because people were up in arms about motivating kids to read with food/the issue of pizza hut cashing in on this whole thing-your kid gets a free pizza so now mom and dad feel obligated to take them but also must buy pizza for the rest of the family. I'll keep my opinion to myself but let's just say Andy and I might celebrate our book-a-thon summer with a trip to Pizza Hut. Anyway, back to Book-It, or whatever it was called-The TV shows we watch are on hold for the summer and we thought it was a great opportunity to find a way to 1. spend time together 2. do something educational 3. eat pizza. We are currently reading Jane Eyre, which has been a year long read for us. My problem was that we would start reading late in the evening and I would be asleep within the first two pages. Now, we start about 7:30 and read til 9. We are covering quite some ground- I am mad at the book right now. Something good better happen in these last 100 pages. I have a hard time when things don't end perfectly. Anyway, our think our next book will be Swiss Family Robinson. My husband has an amazing ability to "do voices" so it's really fun to hear him read. Let me just say, Andy does an old, haggard, Irish servant lady's voice really well!

So, that's the news for the Huffmans. Although we are sad to see our friends leave for the summer, we are looking forward to some Huffman family time and a few good books-hopefully enough to earn the personal pan pizza.

Here are a few pictures from last summer! Makes me miss you guys!

Here's my "I really ready to have this baby" bloated face, along with my cute sister...

The few hours previous to this picture were no fun, but at this point I was doing good...

She's here!

hanging with the Dickeys...if you Nimbus heads see this, give us a shout out!
Andy wrestling with his cousin Luke...Pink Ladies. I love my Rossi....First trip to the beach. That hat is still too big for her!

well, I'm off to earn my pizza

Sorry I haven't posted much video lately. I've tried several times but our internet is really slow-we're talking dial up days slow-it's fastest early in the morning, but I'm not a morning person so that idea is shot. These videos here are just 15 second ones that I take on the camera. The bigger ones, which we use the actual video camera to take, require Andy to do some converting, editing and uploading for me to get them on the blog...now considering I don't really even know what converting video means, you can understand that stick to the ones I know how to do. Hopefully Andy and I will get our ducks in a row for her BDay and take some longer videos. Here's a short one of EG drinking from her sippy cup

Emma Grace verses the Earwigs

In one corner we have the underdog-Emma Grace Huffman. Though she's bigger than her opponent, she has very soft delicate skin which has proven to be quite a disadvantage considering her opponent's secret weapon. Though she has already lost to her opponent two times now, she's has dogged determination and was heard saying to her opponent, "I won't stop til I've chewed you up and spit you out!" (literally) Check out that scar on her face-grrrrrrr....she's toughIn the other corner, we have the current holder of the "insect verses human" heavy weight belt, Mr. Earwig-his friends call him wiggy. Though small, this guy has quite a set of claws on him and has managed to pinch Emma Grace into surrender right before she crunched down on him in both matches. It will be interesting to see if his quick reflexes will continue to save him from the bite of the bigger, prettier Emma Grace "4 teeth" Huffman.

You might remember me telling you that Emma Grace was recently bit by some kind of bug that was assumed was not poisonous. Well, he struck again. We live on the first floor and recently these ugly bugs have managed to find their way into our home-so far we've found 3. Well, I should say, Emma Grace has found three. In the first match, several weeks ago, I, the referee stepped in just before anyone got hurt. ( I found Emma Grace trying to pick up one of these bugs and eat it) In the second round, which took place in the stroller, Wiggy took the title by biting (so I thought) Eg's finger. In this last match, Andy and I heard a scream from behind the couch and found Emma Grace in tears with her finger in her mouth, while Mr Wigs gloated over his victory. After giving Mr Wigs the victory toilet flush, Andy did some research and found out the identity of these little guys-Earwigs, a common insect throughout the world-not poisonous who acutally don't bite but pinch. So now we know his secret weapon against our soon to be one year old. Unfortunately she won't give up, so this referee is busy keeping a close eye on her and any Earwigs who come into our house looking for a fight.

To be quite honest, I am glad these little guys pinch EG. it's enough to scare her and give me time to intervene before she eats them! Seriously, the girl puts everything in her mouth. On another eating note-today she tried chicken noodle soup and loved it. I made the soup on Friday and she and I had the leftovers today. I can imagine that big people food has a lot more flavor than those pureed veggies she's been eating.

We had a pretty relaxing weekend-our friend's David and Marianne came out to the country for a sleepover. We watched the season finale of Lost and had cupcakes. So fun. Andy is busy with work and I am trying to get a few things together to EG's birthday party this weekend. Will post pictures of that!