Wonderful birthday

Today is my birthday, heading into the last year of my thirties. I really don't get very caught up in the age thing, so I am actually looking forward to hitting a milestone year next year. Especially because my milestone birthdays always coincide with our milestone wedding anniversaries (every 5 years we try to take a major trip to celebrate).

I had a wonderful day (despite having to work) & was really blessed by the cards I got from Matt & Maddy. They came to pick me up from work & Maddy proudly held her card in her hand saying 'Look what I did Mommy, this is for you' She had drawn in the card & on the envelope, so sweet. We went out for a nice dinner & then to cap the day off, I came home to a beautiful vase of roses.

I also got a lot of nice calls & shout outs on Facebook from family & friends. I can say today that I am truly blessed and grateful for another year of life.

Here are pictures:

Fun times with Daddy

On the rainy days when they can't get outside, Maddy & Daddy do fun things inside-

Watching Kai Lan with her dolly in the stroller

Playing video games- see I have my own 'trollee'


Making fun things out of cardboard boxes

P.S. An update on my mom, she's doing better. She is undergoing physical therapy & still in the nursing home but we are hopeful that she will go home within the next week or so. Hopefully by Easter. Thanks for your prayers & thoughts!

Missions Sunday - China focus

We had our monthly missions Sunday this week at church and the country of focus was China. The family that spoke has served in China for 11 years. Their main ministry is running an orphanage in Southern China. Their stories were inspiring & in some cases heart breaking. Matt & I are on our church's missions committee & have recently been assigned to Asia as our area of focus. We had a great time on Sunday as some of the families in the church have kids adopted from China so we all dressed in our Chinese clothes & we had a buffet afterwards of Chinese food.

Here are a few pictures of our church cuties (Maddy is the youngest & coincidentally there is another girl named Madison adopted from China). I was excited that Maddy finally fit a dress that I had made for her in Nanchang that matches one that I has made in the same fabric.

Been a bad blogger lately

I have to apologize that I haven't posted in 2 weeks & I haven't had a chance to go around to look at other blogs. Matt is back from India now & getting over his jet lag. The day he got back my mom went into the hospital so that's kept me tied up this week. She is still in the hospital and slowly improving- I'd appreciate your prayers for her.

Here are some pics of Maddy trying to help me clean. Matt will do a post on India next week hopefully so you can see what he did there.