Gabrielle's Adjustment, or lack therof

For the record, two years ago at meetings, Tobin at 2 years old, said on day 2 to the workers: 'No more this mommy' (and pointed right at them)...we all laughed.

But I remembered. And I knew this little pipsqueak/stubborn/fit-throwing/long-lashed Coker 4 would not go easily...

The first day she went on a hunger strike and refused to play with anyone. By afternoon she had found the one Asian that was helping and clung to her. She was actually a daughter of someone at the meetings with us, was Vietnamese not Chinese, but baby G doesn't know that.
I thanked her profusely and begged her to come back the next day.

Gabrielle actually day by day got better with the workers. But at night she went through what I call anger detox therapy, or what most might call 'A Gargantuan fit'. She screamed going to bed. Really Screamed. And since we were in a hotel and the other three needed to sleep, she got taken to our room.

I would have loved to have rocked her to sleep. Seriously, just cuddle with me girl!
None of it. Arch her back and claw to get down. Then she would look at me and smile (anger manipulation, some term for this....anyone?)

 David had to call China one night so I just let her have her way and play (it was 9:00 p.m.). Try to hold her, scream. I honestly think she was just down right mad at us for putting her in child care. The first three days, with us on vacation all day? Peaceful nights, even with all four in one room. Child care nights? The fit until exhaustion set in and then we would force her somewhat to lay on our bed, where she would fight us a little, but she was so tired by then she would finally suck her thumb and go to sleep.

I laughed with some other moms as I re-told what was going on: 'she is in control and she knows it' that is not a good confession from a mom, btw.

I am sure there were better ways to handle this. but we knew it was coming every night, so we wised up a bit. Let the others fall asleep, let her play some, etc. Finally by the last night in that hotel, She went to bed with the others.

Had she been 2+ years old like Tobin was I am sure she would have been saying to us: 'no more this momma'.

The other three? LOVE LOVE LOVE being with these other kids. Tobin had a blast and his teachers dubbed him the 'class clown' (gets it honest from his papa).

On the river...

We are now on a leadership retreat out in the middle of no-where Thailand. Except that right out in the middle of no-where is this amazing little resort. We had nothing to do with the planning of this event but we are so thankful for it. Sophia mentioned that she has never been this close to a mountain before (she forgets our little drive literally through mountains to Dali last year). But you can reach out and touch these!

Out side our front/back porch is this river where every morning the elephants come roaming with their wares on their back (okay, really with people who have paid good money for a ride, on their back). 

The brown is the river water.

This is a mini-pool at each bungalow:

 elephants...

Sweetness:

See...from our room..can you see the elephants coming down the road?

Right outside the window

Tomorrow is Sophia's birthday, it has been interesting to plan being away from home...but I think it will be quite memorable!

Filled

When meetings come around every year, usually we are somewhat excited, (kids thrilled). It can be stressful maneuvering everyone through what it takes just to get there. Early on in our overseas life and structure, quite frankly we never knew what we were going to get in terms of feeding on the word and P&W. Not a complaint, just a statement. 

The past 6 or so years we have LOVED coming together with some of our now closest friends and learning and loving and pushing on towards perseverance with Joy.

  

But still, in my pride, I have previously thought, 'I don't need this meeting, etc.' And thankfully, God's closeness has been real and ever-present the past few weeks apart from this time...

But....this week. It has been so rich, so real, so needed. 

I know Jesus fills all, but He used the body to fill me this week in so many big and small ways. And all we can say is Thank you Father!

We are now on a retreat and have two sick littles...I am about to start typing up all my notes from last week and cannot wait to re-hear and re-learn and re-mind all that the Father taught me so I can apply it!

The other thing we did that was so helpful, is that we left 3 days early to do dental and medical. The afternoons were spent, just our family, lounging by the pool, finding sticky rice at the night market and reading aloud, all in one big bed. We realized then that we had never done a family vacation with just our family. It was much-needed down time! No agenda, just relax and be with one another.

Quick pics from last week.

And One More Mini-party

Sunday get togethers with other ex-pats have been hit or miss over the years. But in the past 3 months or so we have consistently had one family come over for time in the Word and a meal together (Sunday Soup). 

We have gotten to know this family pretty well the past two years, but these past few months have been precious. They have 3 boys, 1 girl. Tobin loves playing with their oldest son, who is Sophia's age. On days we host in the morning, after naps our kids go to their house and stay through dinner. We keep G at home of course. Last Sunday we flipped flopped. Their house in the morning, our house full of kids from 3:30-6:30, It is a great trade-off. Like swapping date nights almost. They will move back to Holland in December and we will be sad. sad. sad.

Bella wanted them to come to her party but it was already quite big and all of her school friends, so it worked out perfect to have one more small celebration right after our Sunday Soup.

Tobin racing a car up the ramp and their boys built.

Cupcakes today. Today we sang in English and Dutch (we LOVE the Dutch cheer!)

Twelve around the table, Every Sunday.

I did capture the blowing out the candle this time!

 And they gave Bella two plaster horses to paint, she and Sophia did a great job painting them.

Happy Birthday Bella! Again! What are we going to do on Tuesday???

Party Success

We were so thankful so many people came and participated! It was one of the best birthdays we have hosted. These kids are super and since I had already started to get to know the moms a little from previous years, and more lately our children's day adventure and now our graduation dance practice, this was a great gathering! 

This is the girl we hear the most about. Duan AiNi. Her little sister (yes, really!) and her mom stayed.

This is GuoXingYu, sweet precious. She was dropped off and picked up right at 5 p.m.

 WuYiDe, this is one of our new favorite friends, We met him and his mom a few years ago on a flight, now they are in the same class, and they are moving into our neighborhood (into a much bigger house than ours). He is Hilarious, boisterous, and has come over to play before, both Tobin and Sophia enjoy playing with him too.

WangKeYu.

We also had YangYang, a best friend of Sophia (and Bella) and LuBingHua and her mom (one of my BFs) over.

 playing musical chairs. I put David in charge of the music, and I kid you not, he played:
'Bring Sally Up', 'All of Me' (J. Legend), and some Josh Garrells. We were rocking it out. I explained the game and they had a blast, see the moms recording in the background.

Pin the head on the Lady bug game was fun for all, with no real winner.

 
This is Wang Yu Han, she came a little late.

The last game was 'make a lady bug to match mine', It was a race and a race for accuracy. There were three teams...

This team was stacked with all elementary kids, and they won.

 But these girls were having fun.

Time for singing, and cake!

 The party crew.

Two of her teachers came, they had worked that day (overtime), but still came,
We LOVE this lady: Teacher Yang. She has been perfect for our Bella, and so helpful to our family in so many ways.

Teacher Hang is pretty awesome too...

This is ZhenYuanYuan. She came very late, when it was almost over. We had heard about her a lot because she broke her arm pretty badly. Her cast was off and the pins taken out! Her mom was showing us pictures!

You usually don't open gifts like at an American party sitting  around watching her, in fact many people have told us you actually can wait until the guests leave. But some of the girls wanted Bella to see what they got her,..so at the very end she opened a few.

This dress, fits her perfectly and is beautiful. She happens to love blue these days.

 She did get a lot of great and thoughtful gifts, one barbie type castle came in this box, then Tobin climbed in it and David carried him around like this.
Always the careful one, I asked: 'are you sure he can breath in there?'
David: 'no, not very well I am sure, I will get him out in a sec'.
Comforting.

Really this day was so much fun. Our closest friends stayed on well after the party and we finally went out to Dicos for a late dinner and talked about the fun and how thankful we are for Bella and blessed we are to have such good friends, old and new.

Bella's Pre- Party Prep and Fun

 Bella is not yet six. This Tuesday, the 16th is her big day. BUT since we leave for Thailand this week, I just could not muster all that was needed to do it right so close to departure.
Saturday, the 13th from start to finish we celebrated our Bella boo.
Starting with the traditional pancake stating her age.

In the morning David took the kids out to buy her her gifts.
In-line skates from Poppy and CC...

 looks born to skate...

 let's start by walking on the rug...

 And this big bear from mommy and daddy. She has been wanting one for a long time!!!

 yes it is as big as she is.

Then we started getting ready. She wanted a lady bug cake (because she sees pics of her two year old bday and thought it looked so cute). She also named the friends she wanted to invite from class, it started to get long...we can't invite all fifty something, I kept telling her. 'Narrow it to about 8', plus we would have some neighbors too. Two years ago we did have a mixed party of locals and some ex-pats, but they were our neighbors, no one from her class. This year it was all schoolmates, she loves her school.

I found these big, colorful sunflowers at a local shop

these flowers...

And the cake I made and froze earlier in the week, then thawed it to decorate.

 The head was a little too big so I cut it to make it look more like a lady bug.

 chocolate rocks, mini oreos, whola! "Look Bella, at the ladybug I found in a rock garden!"

She wanted to 'bei' the bear. This is what they do with babies in China. With cloth just like this.

Lady bug + princessy cupcakes. I made a lot because she was inviting 8 kids + who knows if parents would stay, + 3 neighborhood kids (parents?)+ 3 teachers= anywhere from 11-32 people, not including our family!

 I ordered a small cake from a bakery just in case.

I called all the parents on Thursday, saw some of them on Friday at a quick teacher-parent meeting and then texted them all our address on Friday night. I had confirmations from many of them, so that was good news!