I have seen it all now...

The other day I took Leah and Lauren to this really big flower market just to walk around for a little while and see what we could see. There were tons of stalls with beautiful flowers of all kinds, azaela bushes and beautiful plum blossom trees. As we were walking, Leo found us and started walking with us then we came upon the bird section of the market. There were tons of little pet birds of all varieties in little cages but nothing we hadn't really seen before - it's pretty normal to see these bird markets around China as birds are a fairly common pet for the Chinese. But then we rounded the corner to go see more birds when we came across these bigger black birds. In the background I could hear people talking in Chinese but didn't think much of it, I mean we are in Shanghai :), UNTIL I realized it was not people talking it was the BIRDS talking in Chinese! The girls and I got so tickled over this that we could hardly believe it. Leo thought we were so funny because we had never seen a bird speak Chinese. I informed him that all the birds we had ever known spoke English! Now I know in my head it makes perfect sense for a bird that has only been around Chinese people to speak Chinese just as babies do, but to actually hear it...was a riot! I tried to video it with my phone camera because I didn't have my big camera with me. So hopefully you can at least get a little blip to experience this with us. There were other birds that were talking lots but every time I went to film them, they just chirped like a regular bird! It cracked me up...it's like they new the crazy foreigner wanted to capture their Chinese on film! So anyway, here is at least a little bit for y'all! You have to listen closely - it's right at the end, the bird says "Ni hao" or hello! :) You can hear the ni hao and see his little beak move! Enjoy!

Babies, beautiful babies!

Ok, before you jump to the wrong conclusions...Leah does not have a new baby sister, although I'm certain she would have been thrilled to bring sweet Anna home!

For a while now, I have been wanting to get the girls going on some type of service project/volunteer work since we homeschool and have time to do it. John and I really want our girls to be full of head knowledge AND heart knowledge but it is not always easy to find things that I can do with a 8, 6 and 4 year old! Today we had the perfect opportunity...we got to go to the Shanghai Healing Home for orphans to hold and play with babies. These are babies from all over China that are here in Shanghai to have surgery done, mostly for cleft lip but there is one baby here for club foot surgery. I wasn't sure how the girls would do with the babies since they "look" different but they were just great, jumping right in to hold the babies and play with them. I just wanted to share some of the sweet pictures we took today.

On a personal note, it has been a long time since I held babies, and my "babies" were always around one year old so it was amazing to me how little a 2 month old baby is - and how light she is! The girls were smitten with the babies and if you notice in Kate's picture that she is rubbing both the baby's tummy and her head. I'm pretty certain she felt like she was petting a puppy and happy to do it! Fortunately, that was one tired baby and she slept right through it! I had planned to do this once a month but all the girls informed me that we should definitely do this once a week...so we'll see! It was such a blessing to us to be able to give these sweet babies a little one-on-one attention.

Happy Birthday to our sweet Leah...

The photos above...
One of our very first family photos – Leah just before she turned 1 years old while we were still in China adopting her!  And another one from our China adoption trip. And two from our recent trip to Bali...So there you can see for yourselves just how fast 7 years go by!

Leah turns 8 years old tomorrow.  I can’t even believe that she is 8 but I know I say that every year.  In honor of her 8th birthday, here are my 8 favorite things about Leah:

1. She has a quiet and calm spirit but can be goofy and funny and silly with the best of them.
2. She loves to dance and I love to see her pirouetting around the house.
3. I love watching her learn new things or seeing the light bulb go on in her little mind.
4. Watching her draw – she really is amazing at how well she draws and paints.
5. Snuggling on the couch and reading a book to her (she’s the only one that I know for sure is really listening :)!)
6. Seeing her little competitive side come out when we play Uno or Skipbo.
7. her beautiful face and that long thick amazing black hair!
8. seeing her love for Jesus and the tenacity in which she reads her Bible and the way she wants to understand it all.
   

We are so blessed to have Leah!  Happy, Happy Birthday to you, sweet Leah!