Life these days.....

So what is are girls to do when their daddy leaves us for a week: (no pictures to prove this as both cameras are with Tim!)

1. miss him tons....we are so used to having him around quite a bit, his void is definitely noticed. The entire 1st day he was gone, Tally wondered around every 5 minutes, where daddy?? I told her Beijing and she said NO, "anghai". I was totally surprised she had picked up where we live! She still asks and I respond by saying Tally where is he, she says Beijing! (correct tones and all!) She is growing into such a big girl. She is so particular about all the important things in life. Her blanket, her babies, and Ryann. Today Ryann was crying and I was helping Adayla get dressed. I look over at Tally and she is trying to give some of Ryann her very own milk (we hadn't dressed Tally yet and so her milk was more easily accessed!) She is improving rapidly in her vocab and her frustrations levels (as well as ours) have gone down significantly. She is still as stubborn as ever. But lots of fun! She is miss independent and we love her spunky personality and of course her Tally faces!

2. Ryann turned 4 months on Thursday....again way to fast! She is still stinkin cute. She has started to giggle out loud many times a day. She is sleeping quite well, most nights, all the way through. Still stinkin' spoiled, as if she is not sleeping, she will lay by herself if you are sitting there talking to her. She has found her feet! She can't get them to her mouth yet, but she can get ahold of them. She is a sucker....she wants to suck on everything. She still uses the pacifier, but I have noticed because she is swaddled while sleeping she has started to suck on her bottom lip! We must hide those fingers from her.

3. Go swimming....in the bathtub?? Well it wasn't quite the bathtub, but it sure felt like. We headed to the baby pool yesterday afternoon and it was warm! Nevertheless, we had a fabulous time splashing around.

4. Make Cookies....and then eat most of them. Adayla loves to help me cook. We usually do this while Tally is napping or Tally is too busy making messes. This time we did chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips! Mmmm!

5. Practice the Piano - okay, so we do this while daddy is here, but Adayla is doing excellent. We switched teachers to one that will come to our house and she is okay. I almost thought it wasn't going to work out, but Adayla is definitely improving. Her teacher is a stickler on Adayla learning particular things and made her practice the same song 4 weeks in a row. I thought she was crazy, but it has been actually great for Adayla to really learn to play the song and understand the rhythm and see what a difference practice really makes. But before her teacher came yesterday, Adayla was practicing this song again and it sounded great! I look over there and there is no book, she is playing it by total memory. I was surprised completely and impressed. After lessons, her teacher commented what a great memory she has and that she isn't looking at the books anymore. She said I need to make sure that she is still paying attention to the books. I replied that if you give her new songs, that should take care of it!

6. Learn to read - okay, so we do this daddy is here too, but I just had to write this story. We have been using a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy (or frustrating - :) Lessons. (great tip..thanks Sarah!) We are just where we are reading stories (ie one or two simple sentences of 3 or 4 words) and then you look at the picture. Today's was...The cat is sick. The cat is sad. And the picture of the cat is with a fat belly and remnants of what used to be a ton of food around him. Here was our conversation:

Me - Adayla what is wrong with the cat?
A - I think he is hungry.
M - No, I think that he just ate a ton of food and now he doesn't feel good. See the picture.
A - Yeah, okay.
M - Have you ever eaten so much you felt sick?
A - No, if I did that my tummy would hurt. (Should have had this lesson before the cookies!)
M - Don't you see his tummy, it is big. I think he ate too much.
A- Yes mom, it looks like yours. Your tummy is big.
M - Thanks Adayla.
A - Is that Sprite there in the picture?
M - Yeah, I think it was.
A - Good, because if my tummy hurts I drink Sprite and then it feels better.

Oh, how I love the simplistic and honest minds of small children!

So we are surviving without daddy (probably due to the help of helper lady!) But life is good with 3 small kids in China. We survived the taxi ride there, church, and the taxi ride home all on our own! They are such sweet little girls! Daddy - you have 4 girls here in "AngHai" waiting for you to get home!