still here!

A quick photo update on our life.

One lost tooth:

One very happy 4 year old who is spoiled rotten by his sisters.

This is Anna's beloved "Claire" bear and she even allows Caleb to sleep with it if he asks.

Anna has even been letting Caleb play with her digital camera.

Little does Caleb know how huge this is. Anna...joyfully sharing with a brother? Huh? Bizarre. But true.

Can you tell Caleb took this photo?!

And apparently Anna discovered "sepia" setting on her camera. Lovely, huh? Wait....is that a school book in the background (above AND below!)? I thought Kara was quietly being studious upstairs in her room.

Uh, ya. Definitely a school book here. And from the looks of things...not one studious child here. Not one.

bad shoe choice for state fair

Although our state fair involves plenty of my top 10 things in life that I could do without (heat, humidity, animals, heat, crowds, heat, foods that seem like a good thing at the time yet inevitably end up making me feel sick and several pounds heavier, heat, and...need I go on?!) we have made it a yearly tradition in our family. I'll just say that the pictures always turn out way cuter and perfect looking than I am ever feeling at the moment. Last night it was my shoes. I hate walking around the fair in flip flops or sandals b/c there are just too many nasty things on the ground. But I also hate wearing anything BUT sandals/flip flops in the summer b/c I'm always hot and having my feet feel hot as well generally puts me over the edge. And over the edge is not a happy place for me to be or for my family to have to be around. So I had this dilemma last night. Cool flip flops + nasty animal crud on my feet or semi-tennis shoes + clean but hot feet. I chose the latter and it ended up not being the best option. My semi-tennis shoes that LOOKED fairly cute and were supposed to keep me from feeling dirty and hot ended up giving me blisters about 1/2 an hour into the evening. We were there for over 4 hours. AND....I nearly had blisters on my hands too b/c the stinking stroller that we used for the first time was nearly impossible to steer. So although I spent most of the time complaining about how hot it was (it was SUPPOSED to be just 82 degrees yesterday...no way. it was NOT that cool at the fair.) and how much my feet and hands hurt, it was still fun. Sort of. In a hot, miserable kind of way.

Of course, none of these photos would ever make you think that we had anything less than a grand time last night. The kids had a fabulous time. And maybe in a few years I'll look at these and think that I did too...



Really. Does it get any sweeter than this next one? Caleb is in his happy place with two of his favorite things in life: things with wheels and his thumb.


More wheels...this time without his thumb!



And the fair wouldn't really be quite as fun without our friends the Shanks.

can you even believe?!

Really. Is it even possible that this scared, frowny faced boy is our Caleb?


Just look at him now!




Sweet as could be...


and obsessed with anything that has wheels.


He even spotted a blue Honda Odyssey the other day and started freaking out in a crazy excited kind of way b/c that is the car Mama drives and it rocked his world that there would be another person driving it. He kept yelling things in Chinese and pointing to the other van and then pointing to me (I was driving at the time) and seemed all confused yet somewhat giddy about the fact that there was another car JUST LIKE HIS MOM'S CAR and someone else was driving it. Hilarious, huh? He certainly thought so.

Here is a rare family photo of all six of us.

It was from the VBS kick-off at church the other week. And, boy did Caleb love VBS. In fact, we have the CD with all the songs from the week and we use it as his wake-up music on his CD alarm clock, which, by the way, has solved all of his sleeping (or rather non-sleeping!) issues. I'm telling you, Caleb is one smart boy. We spent about 15 minutes trying to tell him that he has to stay in bed until the music comes on. Not an easy task considering we don't speak the same languages! So we did some creative role-playing/acting to try and get the message across. And, by golly, that boy got it. Even if he is wide awake, he just lays in bed waiting for his music to come on. And when it does, he jumps out of bed, comes running down the hall w/this huge grin on his face and yells, "All done night night" complete with all of the role-playing hand gestures that we used to teach him what to do in the first place. He closes his eyes and "lays" his head on his hands and then pops up his head and opens his eyes and starts dancing. Then I have to follow him back to his room so he can dance and sing and do all the motions to the song. Every day, twice a day, without fail. Can I just say that we are blessed beyond blessed? Because we are. Immensely.

Oh, and I almost forgot to share this one. Caleb got tubes in his ears this week. The surgery was quick and easy (for him and for us). This picture was from bath time the day of the surgery. When he awoke from his anesthesia, the nurses told me the first thing he said was "Mama." It warmed my heart.