Learning to read a map

One of our joys of camping is going on adventures around the camp ground. We set out after breakfast to walk one of the many trails. We brought with us a map of the camp ground which Zachary carried & at any split in the path we showed him how to read the map. Zachary determined which direction we should go. Through his direction we ended up near the horses. And, we fed them the dandelions and other wild flowers we had gathered along the hike.

Camping

I have been camping since I was roughly 10 years old (give or take a few years). My family had a pop up camper which we towed all around Georgia. I have many happy memories with my family camping, playing hearts, roasting marshmallows, hiking and exploring the near by sites of each location. So, when Matt purchased us a tent one Christmas, early in our marriage, I was over the moon. And, over our 14 years together we have enjoyed tent camping. The last few years we contemplated purchasing a travel trailer camper, figuring it would be easier to camp with Zachary & our 4 Chihuahua's in tow. We spent some time researching campers, educating ourselves and determining exactly what we needed. We ended up going in on the purchase of a Coachmen Catalina travel trailer with my parents. None of us have a vehicle that is capable of towing anything so we found a campground in north Georgia that offers storage. This past weekend we enjoyed settling into our new favorite vacation spot- the North Georgia mountains! I have found camping a great time to pull out my camera and practice with ISO & F stops! Here's a few of my favorite pictures from this weekend: Nacho Padre & Bingo Patoodoe

Zachary had his first experience fishing at the campground lake. Luckily, the only thing he "caught" were worms for this excursion. Though I am looking forward to seeing his reaction when he actually catches a fish. I have no idea how he will react & if will continue to want to fish or give up the hobby all together. Until then he is content to cast his line with Nonnie by his side.

Every now and again, Zachary takes a well deserved break from the arduous task of fishing visit the near by horses.

I hope to get more pictures of our trip up later...it's night night time for one little 3 year old boy.

Hello to our dedicated Blog readers!! We are so sorry we have been missing in action since April! Wow! What a whirlwind adventure we have been on. Every time we did something special I thought to myself, this will be the picture we add to the blog...but, time continued to slip past us until now it is August and we are finally sitting down to check in. We recently celebrated Zachary's birthday and, what a way to restart blogging! He had 3 Birthday celebrations. His first was at his grandfather Poppi's house. The second celebration was on his actual Birthday with Mommy, Daddy & Chuck E. Cheese. And, finally his final celebration was with Nonnie, Bop-Bop, Aunt Camie, Uncle John & cousins Caroline & Maggie. We are sure we have set a precedence that Zachary will grow up thinking he has a Birthday week not just a single Birthday!

We still have a camera full of pictures we have yet to download. Until then, thank you for checking in with us and we'll talk with you soon!

Happy Easter!

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16 NIV 

Easter is a promise. God renews to us in each spring. May the promise of Easter fill your heart with peace and joy! Happy Easter!

Life has sure been busy for us! I'll do my best to catch you all up in this blog post. At the end of February Zachary visited our local library for the very first time. We went to check out the children's programs. And, to our delight there are quite a few weekly story time options at various library locations. Since our first visit we have been to a few & Zachary has a blast! During our first visit to the library, I couldn't help but take a few iphone pictures of Zachary choosing books to bring back to Mommy to read...

 

I was surprised to find that the library has a handful of dedicated computers for little ones to play games on. Zachary LOVES spending time with the ELMO software and a mouse and keyboard that Mommy doesn't mind him playing with!! I had a hard time getting him to leave the library...but, I encouraged him by suggesting he "drive us home" ...

he felt brave, and sat behind the wheel to pretend to drive Mommy around town. He was so cute!! Though it made me realize one day he certainly will be old enough to be doing just that! And, I couldn't help but get a little choked up at how fast time has already gone by, our little boy is growing up way too fast and we need to do our best to cherish each and every moment.

During the recent Super Tuesday, we took Zachary with us to vote. And, he was pleased to receive a special "I voted" sticker too! We are sure he didn't understand what was going on, but it was important for us to demonstrate one of the fundamental privileges we have in this GREAT country of ours!

Zachary's 2nd haircut was done in our living room! My great friend Monica, came over to do a much needed trim on Zachary (between scrap booking with me). I requested for her to just cut it as short as she could. I was less concerned about style this time :) and more concerned about just getting the cut to last as long as possible. We turned on his new favorite tv show (Umi Zoomi) and she managed to age him 12+ years! LOL, the short haircut made him look like a teenager.

My sister hosted a Mardi Gras party for our family. We had a wonderful day! I had created some St. Patty's Day photo props and "forced" a few members of the family to allow me to document the moment with my camera. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day...

And, my Father was the lucky one who found the baby in the his slice of king cake.

during a recent trip to our local Hobby Lobby craft store, I came across this spring flower hat. I am positive there will be a day when requesting such pictures from Zachary will be met with much resistance. But, for now I managed to get my way.

We've been "suffering" through some very warm weather. It has left us wondering what happened to winter and where is our traditionally 70 degree spring weather? We are in full swing of the yellow cast days of pollen & allergy season. And, we are keeping our fingers crossed that Zachary manages to skip the allergy season that most Southerners experience.

That's all for now. Thank you for making it through this very long post! 

The Z-Man playing with bubble stuff!

We recently took Zach to Monkey Joe's, which is one of his favorite hangouts. Zach and his daddy took another run down the enormous slide, much to the delight of the Z-Man!

Zachary's Valentine's Day cards

Happy Valentine's Day! Valentine's Day, Easter & Christmas are my three most favorite Holidays! A few weeks ago I came across a Valentine's Day themed Thomas The Train activity book at our local grocery store. Zachary spotted it as soon as I did! He went CRAZY over it! It had stickers, coloring pages, a few (not as many as I would have liked) Valentine's cards, counting pages, etc. Finally the time had come to put his Valentine's Day cards together. First Zachary colored each page then he got to chose stickers to add to the cards. He is getting so much better holding a crayon/marker. He certainly seems to be left handed! Also, he has more patience to sit and be creative! It wasn't long ago that he just didn't want to sit still long enough to color, paint, play with play-dough. Luckily we were able to accomplish his Valentine's Day card creations in one sitting before he was off chasing a ball down the hall with his inflatable bat!

The final cards, front & back...He did a fabulous job!! the Cards

Have a love filled day! xoxo

Lunar New Year Stamps & Final Party Pics

I recently decided I like to have pretty stamps on my hand made card envelopes. I figure, if I take the time to make a handmade card every aspect of the final product should be special! And, my current stamp collection is somewhat diminished. So, yesterday I was browsing the USPS website stamp section to make a few new purchases. Somehow I totally missed the news that the price of stamps has increased by another penny! Anyways, our local post office rarely has in stock any of the adorable stamps available on the website. So, over the years I have learned to go online for the best selection. And, I came across the most beautiful Year Of The Dragon Stamp!! Last year we purchased a few of the kumquat year of the rabbit stamp so it just seems fitting to get a few of the 2012 Lunar New Year stamps. I am excited that the Chinese NY stamps are even an option from USPS!! The dragon stamp is so pretty!!!

Also, thanks to my talented Father, here are a few of my favorite pictures from his camera during our Chinese New Year party...

This is just a quick post to let you know that SHADOW OF THE MASTER, the short novel collaboration between Matt and his mom, is now available in a print edition as well as the e-book for the Amazon Kindle. There is also now a study edition of the book available, also in print. This edition is intended for individual or group bible study and is tailored toward young people (7th grade and older).

Matt has his own "author" blog which can be viewed here. He has also set up an "e-bookstore" which gathers together the links to view or purchase the various editions in one place, just to make it easy, which is here.

We had a fun day yesterday celebrating the Chinese New Year at Bop-Bop and Nonnies home! Zachary LOVES a party (Well, don't we all)! When Zach went down for his nap we decorated the dinning room with banners, confetti, dragons, noise makers, etc.

Nonnie and I planned a home made meal full of Chinese delights. Our dinner consisted of chicken dumplings, fried brown rice, Chicken stir fry, fortune cookies & oranges. We have already made menu plans for next years celebration! Here's Nonnie making the chicken dumplings...
Zachary and me looking at all the decorations...
Nonnie & Bop-Bop gave the grand kids their very first "Red Envelope" which contained $$Cash. Traditionally red envelopes are passed out during celebrations such as the Lunar New Year, Birthdays, Weddings & other Holidays. Red envelopes are mainly presented at social and family gatherings. The red color of the envelope symbolizes good luck and is supposed to ward off evil spirits. The amount of money contained in the envelope usually ends with an even digit, in accordance with Chinese beliefs (for instance 88 and 168 are both lucky numbers) as odd-numbered money gifts are traditionally associated with funerals. There is also a widespread tradition that money should not be given in fours, or the number four should not appear in the amount, such as in 40, 400 and 444, as the pronunciation of the word "four" resembles that of the word "death" and thus signifies bad luck for many Chinese.

During the Lunar New Year, mainly in Southern China, red envelopes are typically given by the married to the unmarried, most of whom are children. (In the North, money is not given in envelopes.) The amount of money is usually a single note to avoid heavy coins and to make it difficult to judge the amount inside before opening. It is traditional to put brand new notes inside red envelopes and also to avoid opening the envelopes in front of the relatives out of courtesy.

Before Dinner Zachary was playing with his cousins and they taught him a "magic trick". After doing the trick we all clapped at him and he voluntarily just bowed at all of us, which tickled us all! I am not sure where he learned to bow (I suspect it may be from his favorite Oswald cartoon, but I'm not positive on that) and I managed to capture him mid bow! too adorable!
Our dinner plates were full of Teriyaki Chicken Stir Fry, Fried Brown Rice & Chicken Dumplings! It certainly looks very healthy! And, it reminds me of how we noticed while in China how they ate vegetables for every meal of the day! We need more of it in our diet. Our local Chinese restaurant gave us the Chinese Zodiac place mats for our party. They were a festive touch to the decor! And, PTL for Party City! We found all our decorations on an aisle end cap.
A few festive photos...
Aunt Camie & Uncle John (my sister and her husband)
Cousin Caroline (our oldest niece)
Cousin Maggie (our youngest niece)
Zachary
Us
We took pictures of Bop-Bop & Nonnie in their festive costumes but those pictures are on my Father's camera. So, I will have to share those pics at a later post.

The night before our party Matt and I made fortune cookies! They were time consuming to make but at the same time lots of fun too. We drew a 3 inch circle on top of parchment paper. And, with our chef knife we spread the teaspoon of dough to the edges of the circle. As per the recipe we were only able to cook 3 cookies at a time because you had to work quickly when they came out of the oven, bending them into shape, before they hardened.
We had a lot of fun coming up with fortunes for our cookies. A few of our favorites were..
I think, you ate your fortune while you were eating your cookie.
The harder you try to not be like your parents, the more likely you will become them.
If you never expect anything you can never be disappointed.
Try? No! Do or do not, there is no try.
Those who walk in other's tracks leave no footprints.
Some men dream of fortunes, others dream of cookies.
If you eat a box of fortune cookies, anything is possible.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
Help, I'm being held prisoner in a Chinese cookie factory.
Alas! The onion you are eating is someone else's water lily.
Word to the wise: Don't play leapfrog with a unicorn. On our plates the fortune cookies & orange wedges were the cherry on top of a wonderful evening!

Happy year of The Dragon! For our first family Chinese New Year celebration we went to one of our local Chinese restaurants. Unfortunately we do not have many in our area to choose from. Or, not many of them are "authentic". We were hoping the restaurant would be full of local Chinese people celebrating the new year. Or at the very least possibly meet another family in our area with a Chinese adopted child. Neither were the case. And, we were disappointed the restaurant didn't even decorate for the special day. However, that said, all the employees were bonkers over Zachary! They gushed over how handsome he is & they wanted to know all about him...where he was born, how he was adjusting. Our waitress mentioned he was a "BIG BOY". Which I giggle at because most Americans say he is small but when an Asian looks at him they always comment how big he is. Zachary loved the attention.

The most interesting thing about the restaurant was how different the food was from the Chinese delivery restaurant we normally order from. Our beloved egg drop soup had a sweet flavor with the addition of onion slices. Matt did not like the extra touch but Zachary and I did. Also, unfortunately the sweet & sour chicken and sesame chicken dishes we both ordered were covered in a thick breading which neither of us enjoyed. I think we will be looking for a different restaurant for next years New Year celebration.

Our waitress did offer to take a family picture of us at the table. This will be a cherished photo for us no doubt!
I hope by now you have been able to watch our little iphone video of Zachary saying the alphabet with our chop sticks. And, I have got to share how that all got started. We were all eating with our chop sticks and Zachary was doing the best he could manueving his and at one point he must have noticed that he could manipulate his chop sticks to look like an "X". I was quietly watching him...he exlaimed "X!" I didn't say anything. Zachary intently continued to play with his sticks and he formed a "Y" and explained "Y!" and at that point I knew he wasn't accidentally creating the letters and I brought all this to Matt's attention who then started making the letters for Zachary to identify. It was a fun family moment we are not soon to forget. I must write all this down in my journal. Here they are with their chop stick letters
I've got to share these adorable paper fortune cookies that my friend Monica taught our Card Swap group how to make at our recent swap meeting. She had cut 3.5 inch circles from various valentine's day patterned paper. And, she included different strips of fortunes for us to insert in the center. I have put ours in the center of our kitchen table next to our bamboo.




Today, Saturday, we will be celebrating a home cooked chinese meal with Nonnie & Bop-bop and my sister Camille's family. Last night Matt and I made our very own home made fortune cookies! I will share more on our evening in a few days.

Again, Happy Chinese New Year! The year of the dragon is a very special year because on the Chinese zodiac the dragon is the only mythical animal! And, we wish you each a year full of happiness, health & prosperity!

Monday night, in celebration of both the Chinese Lunar New Year and Nancy (Matt’s Mom)’s birthday, we went out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Zach was a big hit with the staff at the restaurant. During the course of the meal, Zach started playing with some chopsticks. While playing, he spontaneously formed the letters X and Y and identified them as such as he was doing it. We immediately started making other letters with the chopsticks with Zach identifying them as we did. Julia caught it on video…

As promised, here are a few of our favorite photos from my Father's camera on Christmas day.

My Mother is quite the seamstress and she made all of us gorgeous aprons. Here we are posing and Zachary had to get into the action too...
One of Zachary's favorite toys from Christmas is the Thomas the train wooden train set. We have since set it up on our coffee table. He seems to enjoy walking around and around the table pushing Thomas and creating "accidents" for Thomas to over come.
Zachary peeking out behind the large stack of Christmas gifts before all our company arrived.
Zachary cooking on his new little tykes grill...maybe one day soon he will be able to help out and cook dinner for us :)We are well into 2012. Seems as if potty training has been our focus & Zachary has excellent days and not so excellent days. It never fails that if he is wearing his diapers he does a fabulous job at using the potty. However, put on his big boy underpants and less than an hour will go by when he has an accident. It's been frustrating for us. But, we do our best to stay upbeat. We certainly have learned that positive reinforcement is the best motivator for Zachary. Matt brought home a spiral notebook that Zachary "earns" stickers for. Over Christmas Zachary's sticker collection has grown 100 fold! I'll have to take pictures soon to share.

It's 2012, Happy New Year!
Obviously 2011 was a year where our prayers were answered with Zachary. It's hard to imagine that this time last year we were waiting on being matched....in fact, in 3 days it will have been A FULL YEAR since our agency contacted us about Zachary!!! WOW! How quickly time flies...

In our home, Christmas is all packed away. The last bits & pieces were the decorations in Zachary's room. He didn't seem to notice the Santa & his mini red Christmas tree were missing. But, when we mentioned them he looked around asking where were they? We told him Santa has gone bye bye for this year but he left behind his magic Elf!

Reflecting on our first Christmas here are a few Christmas Day pictures...
Matt & I discussed how we should start Zachary's full day! We decided to start very slow by making a big deal out of the stockings. We mentioned to Zachary how full the stockings were and that it was a sign that Santa visited his house last night while he was sleeping.
Stockings...
Waiting to begin the unwrapping, Zachary impatiently posed for Mommy. Notice the onsey Daddy found for Zachary. It says, "My First Christmas"After the stockings were opened, Zachary jumped into Daddy's lap...a perfect picture opportunity for Mommy!
After stockings we ate breakfast (Breakfast Casserole & fruit salad). Then we took Zachary to look at the Christmas tree. I could hardly eat Breakfast, I was so excited to see his reaction to seeing all the presents! And, his face just lit up when he got on the floor to look at each gift. We wrapped each of our gifts in different colored paper. It made it so much easier so we could direct Zachary to bring a "red gift to Mommy, White for Daddy & Green for Zachary".


After his nap, we dressed Zachary in his traditional outfit from China. We picked this out in Guangzhou and we were told that the pattern on the silk set was very traditional and meant to be worn for a "very special event, like his birthday or Christmas". I tucked it away in his dresser and nearly forgot about it. PTL (Praise The Lord), when I was looking for an outfit I came across it and knew it was meant for Zachary's First Christmas! His cousins love to help take Zachary where ever he wants to go.
During the gift opening we all rotated taking turns opening a gift. Zachary seemed to love to collect any trash and bring it to Bop-bop who got stuck with the trash bag. It was cute!!Zachary happily jumped into one of Nonnie's gifts (a 31 bag) to go home with Nonnie & Bop-bop! He waved bye-bye to us and it just broke my heart that he would willingly tease that he was leaving me...maybe I'm a little sensitive ;) But Nonnie & Bop-bop were tickled!Elf on the Shelf...
We are waiting on getting the GREAT pictures of our Christmas day from my Father (Bop-Bop), I can't wait to see what he captured of our day. He took a lot of Family portraits and special pictures of Zachary in his traditional Chinese outfit. Once we get them I'll post some of my favorites! They are sure to be amazing!

Many Blessings to you & yours in this New Year!!