August Birthdays!

It has been two months since my last post. Since two months ago, I have returned to school (part-time), begun a new Bible study, seen my toe heal, and gotten a year older, among many other things. Speaking of birthday, we celebrated three birthdays in the family in August. Here are some pictures. Enjoy!

The first one was my sister-in-law Rachel's birthday. We had a pool party at our aunt's house and it was a lot of fun! We also welcomed my other sister-in-law who had moved to the state with her family about a week before.

Rachel cutting the cake while the kids eagerly waiting to have a piece.

Later in August, we had another party to celebrate two birthdays! Princess N's and Miss E's birthdays were only a few days apart and my baby sister-in-law was going through town before moving out of state, so my back-to-Texas sister-in-law threw a party for both birthday girls.

Fun water balloon fight between my nieces and nephews before the birthday (cup)cakes.

Princess N turned 10!

Miss E turned 1!

We ended the day with dinner at Hubby's favorite barbeque restaurant, and with a picture of the five oldest children lined up by height.

Celebrating Freedom

We had a great Fourth of July weekend with family.

We first spent a little bit of time with my aunt and cousins before my cousins went back to Hong Kong for a few weeks. It was a musical night as we played drums on XBox and listened to my younger cousin play the flute. Fun!

Then we spent the rest of the weekend with my sister- and brother-in law and our three nephews. It was a fun-filled weekend as we watched baseball and World Cup (and I snuck in however much Wimbledon as I could :), drew pictures, played ball/toy airplane/video games/Scrabble/magnetic letters, read stories, went grocery shopping (okay, that was just my sister-in-law and me, the girls), did dishes together, ate home-made icecream, and as a bonus, I even got kisses from my youngest nephew......good times.

But my favorite Fourth of July moment actually came a few weeks earlier, if that could count. At my baby sister-in-law's college graduation in mid-May, I happened to sit next to my oldest nephew. We sang the national anthem at the beginning of commencement. As we sang, I also heard David's singing. It was such a beautiful sound to me. Listening to adults sing those treasured words often brought tears to my eyes, but listening to a 9-year-old sing those words was in a way much more powerful.

Not only can we celebrate Independence Day by singing the national anthem and watching fireworks on the Fourth of July, but we can sing those words any day of the year. And even more significantly, our next generation has the freedom to sing it too. What better way to celebrate our country than this?

Nieces and Nephews: Hanes

Yes, it's Hanes, the cat. Since she is my sister-in-law's cat, we call ourselves uncle and aunt when we "talk" to her. In that sense, she is our "niece," the feline one. But I guess this post is also a way for me to update on Hanes, because it has been a while since I last posted her pictures.

When I met Hanes for the first time (if we could call it a meeting), she was sleeping on the couch at my mother-in-law's house. It was before Hubby and I were married, so it was many years ago. She did not get up (or get away) so I did not even see her face or any movement. She was just a ball of fur on the couch. She did not seem too "friendly."

Then, I saw her move around the house during our subsequent visits, but she was shy and I still did not know her much.

Hubby became her keeper almost three years ago, when my mother-in-law moved and we moved hubby to our current town (I was still in school in Florida). Since I was not moved yet, I would see her once a month for a weekend, but she had become much more "friendly."

When I joined Hubby in our current town two summers ago, I spent the first couple of weeks of summer at home unpacking boxes from my move from Florida and his move from his apartment, and setting up our new home. But I spent most of the summer finishing my thesis. Hanes began to let me love on her and we developed a bond over the summer. She would come sit on my lap while I was writing, and she let me play with her.

Now, Hanes is no longer just the ball of fur that kept a distance. She is my "little one" or "sweetie," as I sometimes call her. I love it when she comes and drapes her head on my arm, or just sits on my lap, because she lets me love on her.

Below are some pictures of Hanes. Enjoy!

Hanes likes sleeping on Hubby's shirts, like this one (note her paws, very proper like a lady)

Napping on the couch by the window

Cute!

Robo-kitty!

She likes paper

Having a sweet moment with Hubby

Napping, again (but her paws were all over the place that day!)

She also likes shoes

and bags

and boxes

and Christmas presents

Hanes hanging out on my lap

On Hubby's lap

I love this picture of Hubby and Hanes, even though Hanes seems a bit indifferent

Hanes on my lap as I was sipping tea

Robo-kitty (with laser-sharp eyes) in her box

Hanes "hiding" behind my tennis bag

This post also officially concludes my little "Nieces and Nephews" series. Hope you have enjoyed it!

Nieces and Nephews: Princess N

Nine-year-old Princess N is big sister to Lady A and Miss E. She is tall for her age (she will be taller than me in a few years) and is active, fun to be around, easy-going, tranquil and practical.

She absolutely loves Star Wars. She got a Star Wars Lego set for Christmas and was very excited about it.

N holding her Star Wars Lego set (see below)

She also likes Webkinz and has a lot of them at home (I can't keep track of what she has). She got a Love Monkey for Christmas too.

I also played Apples To Apples with her (as a group) for a while and she was laughing pretty hard too, just like David did! It was great to be with kids who were enjoying themselves so much!

However, my favorite memory with N was when she was reading to me before she went to bed one night. I had read a few books to the kids. Afterwards, N picked out the Cars book to read. It was a fairly long book and N was already halfway through when I joined her. She read the rest of the book to me and she did a great job!

All Photo Credits: Lady A

Nieces and Nephews: David

David, big brother to Alex and Miguel, has an engineer's mind; he is serious, curious and specific. A perfectionist. He loves baseball and the space. One of the presents he received was a telescope. He had fun watching the moon (there were not many stars) with Papi and Cousin N, even though it was very cold outside.

David also loves video games -

Playing video game with Uncle M

More video game with Aunt S

Did I mention he loves video games? :-)

Right now, he is at the stage where he does not like to be photographed very much so I was not able to get a lot of pictures of him. I tried, and this picture, taken at the zoo, might be the best shot -

With Lady A's help, here is the goofy side of David at our BBQ dinner!

My fondest memory of him over Christmas was when we were playing Apples to Apples. I can't remember whose gift it was, but it was so much fun to see him laugh out loud and could not stop for a few minutes! He does have a lighter side!

Today is also his special day - he turns 9! Happy Birthday, David!

Nieces and Nephews: Alex

Five-year-old Alex is about 8 months older than Lady A. He is Miguel's older brother and is a happy little guy! He is goofy, outspoken, excitable, and loves his Legos. Over Christmas, he got quite a few Lego sets so he was busy building - and playing with - his Lego city.

The funniest memory I had of him over Christmas involved him, Hubby, Miguel and a bunch of Chilean Flemingoes at the zoo we visited.

When we were looking at the Chilean Flemingoes, Hubby joked to Alex that because these were Chilean Flemingoes, they spoke Spanish and he could say "hola" to them. So Alex greeted the birds enthusiastically! He even told Miguel, who was standing next to him, to say "hola" to the Flemingoes which Miguel did. It was so funny!

Other than his Lego city, Alex also played  a little with the sword, another gift he received. One time, when he was playing with it, he put on two hats (one backwards) to make himself look more like Darth Vader/Anakin from Star Wars.

Alex in his gear

The double hats

A funny little guy he is.

Nieces and Nephews: Lady A

Five-year-old A is Miss E's older sister. She is the outgoing and adventurous one. One of my fondest memories of A over Christmas is documented in the following two pictures.

My mother-in-law and my three sisters-in-law were by the dining table right before our Christmas dinner, so I asked the "ladies" to pose for a picture, as follows -

Haivng heard me using the word "ladies," A announced that "I am a lady too!" So there she was, featured in the next photo -

Isn't she adorable? :-) Over Christmas, she also took quite a few pictures with my camera. Below is a collection of pictures from the 5-year-old's perspective. Enjoy!

Nieces and Nephews: Miguel

The next young'un is 3-year-old Miguel. Over the past few months, he seems to have grown a lot, at least to me. He is now more talkative and is showing off his personality which can be goofy at times! He has a contagious smile and is very smart. I played Dominoes with him for the first time over Christmas (it might have been his first time playing the game too) and he did marvelously! We played the game using the colors of the dots instead of the number of dots on the tiles. He had no problem matching the colors. At some point during Christmas too, he rode on my shoulders around the house (I really forgot whose idea that was!), and he loved it! I had great fun too.

It's not easy to take pictures of him facing the camera, but whenever I catch him looking my way, I usually get pretty good pictures, like this one. :-)

He likes his puzzles.

Just finished a game of Dominoes with A and me.

I can't explain what was going on in this picture, but he was having fun with Uncle "Monkey" and Aunt J! (It was Hubby with his tea in the foreground.)

Nieces and Nephews: Miss E

In this blog, I have mentioned my nieces and nephews from time to time. Since we have a lot of pictures from Christmas, but more so because they are such darlings, I thought I would do a "mini blog series" to post more pictures about them. We have three nieces and three nephews, from 4 months to 9 years old. To kick it off, I am going to start with the littlest.

Miss E was born last summer. We got to meet her over Christmas for the first time since she lives far away. She is such a sweet and happy baby! She cried only once or twice, but that was only when it was her bed time at night and she did not want to be left alone. When she was awake, she was almost always smiling. And her big blue eyes are stunning!

I tried to take her as much as I could during Christmas. Various family members were generous enough to let me have her quite a bit, and I took A LOT OF pictures of her. The followings are only a small part of the collection. Enjoy!

All bundled up for the outing to the Zoo.

One of the MANY pictures I took of her.

She likes to put two figures in her mouth.

One of my favorite pictures with E!