In his free time...

Pierce has such an imagination.. he does not have any imaginary friends yet but he has 10 brothers and he loves to play armies by himself.   I often find Pierce in his room "setting up his armies" and playing good guys against the bad guys.  This video is kind of slow (no dancing in this one)... but turn up your volume and listen to him in action... Jesus is even on the battle field... of course He is.

Blake and I talk all the time that there are military men and women out there that dream to have a child like Pierce... he wakes up and puts on camo, he goes to the library and returns with 7 military jet magazines, he thanks God in his prayers for armies and keeping us safe, he wants to be an army man for Halloween, if there is a second in his day that is not filled with activity he wants to go to the army museum.  We are blessed to have him as our child and we are not really sure where this love of army stuff came from but we will take it... He had a friend that is a girl come over the other day and she wanted to play dress up... he was not down with it but said that he will be an army man and that she could be spider man... we tried to compromise on spider woman... but it just was not working so we watched "cloudy with a chance of meatballs"...

 

Update...

Where have we been... is the subject of many emails that we have received these days...

Well yes I am back from Cambodia and the boys survived and actually did fabulous without mom... I sure did miss them and left a little piece of my heart in Cambodia... and have so much to share with you... God is so good and so real... I will be back to share with you more about Cambodia but I am still processing the 1700 pictures (I am not exaggerating) we 7 ladies took in 4 days...

A little update on Pierce... he did great when I was gone but when I got back he took a couple of days to warm up to me again and after lots of chats (about his attitude) it finally came out he was a little mad that I left.  Poor guy but I showed him some pics and told him how much I loved Him but that I also loved God and that I was called to serve Him in Cambodia and so I went... and Pierce said that is like David when he was "called" to kill Goliath.  Just love that little boy.

Some cute stuff Pierce has said lately:

His Sunday School teacher emailed me and said that they asked the kids questions and here are some of Pierce's responses...  "what would you do if you had a friend that didn't go to church?"  Pierce said, "tell them church is AWESOME and we build things."  :-)

Another question:

"If I wanted ice cream but there was a long line..."  what would you do?  (trying to get them to say, "be patient and wait my turn." 

Pierce said, "I'd go to another ice cream shop."  This makes me laugh every time I read it...


Just yesterday Pierce and I were walking to the library after school and he said hey mom I learned today what a Chinese Soldier says when he wants to say hello... I said What... he said "Audios Amigos" while saluting... either the soldier is confused or Pierce... which one?


I have told you about the "milk" conversation before but Pierce is starting to notice that girls are different than boys... which I know is normal but I am not ready for it... the other day he pointed to a lady (who will remain nameless) and said "she is about to have a baby" and then I said why bc she did not have a big belly "and he said because she has milk (referring to her breast)... I just said that is interesting and changed the subject...


Last one... Pierce has a reward chart at school where he either moves up or down depending on his choices throughout the day... Pierce is notorious for moving down (not up) so we have been spending a lot of time at home talking about making choices and what to do when you don't know what choice to make... first pray and then look at the only girl in the class (bc she always moves up) and do what she is doing... so the other night Pierce prayed this at night "Lord thank you for you... please help xxx (girls name) to move up tomorrow so I can follow... I love you Amen"... Just when I thought he was not getting it... 

I wish I could remember all the things he says... but until then I hope you enjoyed... 

Phnom Penh, Cambodia.... here I come!

Our church here in Singapore, International Baptist Church is taking a group of 7 ladies to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to serve the Andong village.  We will do a mini VBS for the 200+ children (that are mostly made up of Orphans) during the day and at night we will do ESL training (English as a second language) the teachers of the small school there.  We have a busy 4 day schedule but I am pumped... God is good and he has truly taken care of all the details (still praying that my 23KG bag makes in on the plane full of donated clothes and some of the supplies we need for the VBS).  Our team is amazing and I am looking forward to seeing God work in our group and loving on the children of Andong.

Here are some pics from this past Feb. when another group went to love on these people.  I will have many more pics to share with you... in the meantime will you please pray for our team of women, Pst Abraham who is helping coordinate all of this and that the hearts of Phnom Penh people will be pricked and that they will not see us but HIM.

This will be where we conduct the VBS for all the children.  We will have 2 sessions per day for 3 days. 

One of the activities they had the children do last time... 

Oh I can't wait to give her a hug... 

What is VBS with out music and little dancing.

The teachers that will do the ESL training.. bless them for teaching the children throughout the week.

The play fields surrounding the building of the school.

Precious Moments...

Pierce is a little over 4 1/2 and there are moments in each day where I feel like I just need to snatch him up... love all over him and then lock him in a cage so he will stop growing... I can still remember being pregnant with him but the memories are fading a little and that makes me sad.  I will hear new moms say they remember when the baby did this in the belly or this and than when they were first born... and I catch myself looking back at my "notes" or looking at pictures to see if I can remember.  Maybe this lapse in memory comes with age or just because we are making so many new memories I got to make room... I remember the big special moments of course but it is the little ones like when we were back in Texas and I would swing him in the front yard when it was cold, or when I try to remember what his faced looked like when he took his first step, or what were his second, third and forth words, or did he like the green beans when he had them for the first time, or what did I say when I caught him in his room throwing his poo everywhere... the list could go on and on.

So anyways I am having a lot of moments like these recently... and I want to hold on to everything.

For example just yesterday when Pierce and I were praying at the dinner table (daddy was still at work... but daddy did hear all about it later) Pierce wanted to pray and it went something like this:

"Dear Jesus, thank you for today.  Thank you for making us move up in school (their reward/discipline chart you move up or down) can you please help me move up.  Create in her (Lydia the only girl in his class) a good choice so she can move up and I can follow (we talk a lot about not always being the leader and that is ok to follow people that make good choices too).  Thank you for helping us... amen"

We just love this little man... and I want him to be 4 1/2 forever... enjoy the pics of him the other day where we were outside waiting on a taxi and I had my camera and I just wanted to scoop him up so I shot some pics of him saying "ok mom I think that is enough"... and my response was "It will never be enough".

Movies in the Park...

About a month ago... we had a wonderful family +1 night.  Blake had come home earlier that week and mentioned that the radio station that he listens to in the morning was putting on a movies in the park night for free... and they were playing "Despicable Me" and "Iron Man".  He was so excited about this (my man loves movies and loves to be outside) so of course we were going.  We also had a sleepover that night with one of our neighbors kid, Audrey (you have seen her before)... so she got to come along... hence "our family +1".

Here are the kids all ready for the movie to start... we got the pallet ready, food is coming, and the kids are happy... lets get it rollin.

Even these kids are happy for it to start...

We got there early to get a good seat... but so far it does not look that packed right... keep watching....

And have I mentioned that the weather was perfect... look at this sky...



It's getting a little busier... wow where did all these people come from...



The radio host kept saying that there was a surprise coming and sure enough when the surprise came we had to rush and get in line to get a picture... The first picture I have to keep bc it was when Blake's favorite radio host "the flying Dutchman" was helping Pierce get all situated...

And the real deal... so fun...

Compare this picture to the one above when there was no one... it is getting packed... and by the time the movie started there was barely a walk way left...

The kids were entertaining themselves before the movie... they were so cute...

Yeah it is finally dark and the movie has started... the kids were awesome... they watched the whole show and they both were very sad when we had to leave before 'Iron Man' started...


Another great night...

A new love for Sail Boats...

These pics were from this summer when a co-worker of Blake's invited us out for dinner at their house... but it was not a house but even better a boat... a really cool boat.  I just love the idea of living on a boat and think that it would be so cool... it looks like I am not the only one.


Bummer this picture did not turn out well (a little blurry) but he was so happy to think he was steering the boat... he is a pretty cute captain... don't you think?

6 on the 6th!

August 6th 2011... mark the day of Blake and I's 6th wedding anniversary.  I have officially been married to my best friend for 6 years and we always try to reflect on this day where we have been, what we have overcome, remember God's favor and celebrate (in advance) of what's to come.

I love you Blake and am so proud of you in so many ways... and so blessed that God made me for you and you for me.  I am honored to stand beside you as we continue this journey together.  Love Love.



Thank you babe for everything...

Birthday Season...

We have officially hit the "birthday party every weekend" season... I can always remember parents of older children saying "just wait until you have birthday parties every Saturday" when Pierce was little... well it only took 4 years and we are here... and loving every minute of it.  There are some great places to have birthday parties here in Singapore and here are just two of them.

Alex turned 5 and his party was at SAFRA, which has a huge indoor playground with the tallest indoor spiral slide in Asia.  Alex was super sweet bc he invited all of his friends from school and then Pierce and he was sensitive to the fact that Pierce might not know anyone so he saved him a seat right next to him at the table.  Pierce was so excited that he got to sit by Alex and have a green plate (it is the little things). Happy Birthday Alex (this is Pierce's best bud).

 Here we go down the tallest spiral indoor slide in Asia... we were both very happy to take a spin...

 Next party was a friends from school, Hee Chan who turned 5 and he had his party at a Taekwondo place... oh boy lots of fun and lots of children...

 The place had Taekwondo instructors as the party guys.... and they were so much fun they would turn out the lights and let the kids go crazy... so glad they were in charge... check out the video of the madness.

 

Pierce was so close to the cake that it looks like his birthday... he was so excited bc it was an Angry Birds b-day cake...

 Happy Birthday Hee Chan... with his cute little bow tie.

And you better believe it.. we have 2 birthday parties next weekend... stay tuned (again).