The Pearl of Great Price

I painted Pearl's nails, and then she painted a picture of her nails!  How creative!

:)

Pearl and Bethany and I went to a free circus show that is designed for children with vision and hearing impairment.   I was so surprised how Bethany listened to the audio description(through the headphone) so intently during the entire performance.  How is it like to just listen to clowns, acrobats, trapeze and jugglers performance?  How much she really understand?   I really don't know.   But we all had a great time.

At the end of the show, there was a "touch" session where kids got hands-on experience on the performance.    Here Pearl tried to spin the plate.

And Bethany did it too!

Bethany is not afraid of dogs anymore!

I am always surprised by how much our kids copy what we do and say.   This scene looks exactly like how we do our story time every night.  Speaking of copying - many times I caught one of our kids scolded others harshly exactly like the way I did...... It is always very humbling... It is like my worst behavior on re-play.  They've taught me so much more than I can ever teach them.

Design, measure, cut, nail, sand, paint and stain, San and I built this cubby shelf together on one Saturday.   Materials for the shelf cost about $50, but the memory we built together is priceless and will stay with us forever.

Picnic on our backyard.

Here is a funny video clip of what the girls love to do most - playing school.   

A rare dinner with all eight of us at Cracker Barrel on a gift card from Tang Tang Ah Yee.  We don't eat together very often anymore, mainly because we all have so different and busy schedule.    A little sad, but that's how life is as the kids are grown.  It is a good thing that they are independent and have their own social life and responsibilities.   An old wise friend once told us, "Life is 1,2,3 and 3,2,1".   It is so true.    For us, it is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and... I've been thinking about lately - we will starting counting down soon.

Finished their first 1000-piece puzzle!

People always ask me, how are the girls?     My answer is usually, "They are happy."   They truly are.    Not that there is no struggles or issues - in fact, there are so many that I can spend all day talking about them and become very down.   But that's not my focus and is certainly not our future.    We are chugging along this path, with bruises and bumps, trip and fall at times.  I am tired, I got so mad at them, I am frustrated and despair at times.   But these girls are truly happy and that's what's matter most.   I love them so much so much with all my heart.

1,2,3, let's line up our steps!

Let's go!

Our chickens are still laying eggs for us everyday.    They are like families to us.   Ummm.....   People have dogs or cats, we have chickens.  LOL

I like this picture.   I like how Pearl watched Sam so intently while he was putting on his boots.

Story time with big brother Ben.   Awww.....   Ben always like to make her sisters scream, then cry, then smile and giggle.....   The girls always come to me to complaint Ben;  But then they will happily go back to play with him.   I can never figure that out!

Sam made through his first year of army ROTC training(phew!) and attended the end of year ceremony in this handsome uniform two weeks ago.

They came downstairs one morning and found each other in gray shirt and jeans.   What a coincident!

Pearl LOVES Scruffy.   Love, love, love.   No other words can describe it better.

Beth - walking to the mailbox by herself to wait for her school bus, with a little bit of verbal cue from Faith behind.

Being parent of a blind child can often be perceived as very harsh and mean.     Most people have a lot of compassion for blind people and are always ready to jump in to help when they see a need, which is so wonderful.    But I, on the other hand, need to set high goals for Bethany to be as independent as possible, in order to prepare her for life as an independent adult.  It is also important for Bethany to know that she CAN and SHOULD do everything herself to her best ability, instead of relying on people around her and constantly playing the compassion card. (Oh, she knows how to!)    Many times when Bethany dropped something on the floor, people around her were so quick to pick up for her.    I would usually interrupt and tell people NOT to help her, and let her retrieve it herself, even when it means she is crawling around on the floor.     

Speaking of playing the compassion card, here is a really funny story her teacher told me.     One day during circle time at school, Bethany decided that she wanted the spot up front closer to the teacher.     She then tapped her classmate in front of her and said, "Excuse me, I want to sit here because I can't see;  I am blind."    Ha, ha....

Everything you see in this picture looks normal, but everything is actually so hard for Bethany.   The girls are blowing and popping bubbles, but Bethany can't see them and doesn't really know what the blowing does.     The girls are wearing flip flops in summer;  To Bethany, learning to put on flip flops is like learning a totally foreign skill (very different from putting on sneakers).    This is true for a lot of the "everyday" and "normal" things kids do.   To Bethany, all these "normal" things are new challenges for her.   But I insist that Bethany does EVERYTHING her sisters do because life experience is such a big part of good reading and conversational skills.

In this past school year, Ms. Lori has been Bethany's school bus driver.   She would always come pick up Bethany with the sweetest greeting and smile.      A few weeks ago, she told me she was moving and began to pass me lots of used toys and girls clothes used to belong to her daughter.   One day, she came by our house to drop off toys once again.   About 30 minutes into our conversation, she slowly shared with me how she is going through some very very difficult time in family, health, work, and finances.   She is a Christian, but struggling much spiritually because of all the turmoil going on in her life.   Her life is literally falling apart.   I later learned from another friend that at one point, her bank account was down to only $13.    With her smile on her face driving the bus every morning, no one could ever possibly figure out all the hardships she is going through.

More and more I am convinced that Jesus wants us to be "people person".   We cannot, and must not just live our lives in our comfortable little circle and call it a good life.   He wants us to be salt and light and be among the people who are suffering.    And sometimes people who are suffering are right in front of our eyes, and we missed out because we are too busy planning and enjoying our comfortable life in our comfortable little circle.    

 "The Good Life" by Paul David Tripp in his book "Broken-Down House" page 136:

Easy to be passive
Easy to avoid involvement
Easy to look the other way
Easy to shut up your heart
Easy to focus on me and mine
Easy to withhold compassion
Easy to shut the door and close the blinds
Easy to love what is lovely
Easy to give to what will bring a return
Easy to build a fence around your comfort
too high to see over with no gate for exit
Easy to sit in the middle 
and call it the good life

God has given me a task and told me to bring a snail to go for a walk.

I cannot go too fast.   The snail has worked hard to climb, but it always moved only a little bit.

I urge it,
I threaten it,
I scold it,
Snail's sorry eyes looked at me ...
As if to say: "I have done my best!"

I pull it,
I tug it,
I even want to kick it,
The snail was injured, sweating, panting, crawling forward.

How strange, why God told me to bring a snail to go for a walk?

"God, why?" 
Heaven quiet.
"Oh, perhaps God himself is gone catching snails!"

All right! Let go! Anyway, if it doesn't matter to God, why should I care?
I let the snail crawl forward, I sulk in the back.

What's this? I smell the flowers.   Here, there is a garden.
I feel the breeze blowing; the wind at night was so gentle.
Hold on! I hear the birds, I hear the insects, I saw how beautiful the sky full of stars.

What's this? Why didn't I ever notice these before?
I suddenly think of it, is it my mistake?

Then I realized, God called the snail to bring me for a walk.


上帝給我一個任務，叫我牽一隻蝸牛去散步。

我不能走得太快，蝸牛已經盡力爬，但每次總是只挪那麼一點點。

我催牠，
我唬牠，
我責備牠，
蝸牛用抱歉的眼光看著我...
彷彿說:「人家已經盡了全力！」

我拉牠，
我扯牠，
我甚至想踢牠，
蝸牛受了傷，牠流著汗，喘著氣，往前爬。

真奇怪，為什麼上帝叫我牽一隻蝸牛去散步？

「上帝啊！為什麼？」天上一片安靜。
「唉！也許上帝抓蝸牛去了！」

好吧！鬆手吧！反正上帝不管了，我還管甚麼？
任蝸牛往前爬，我在後面生悶氣。

咦？我聞到花香，原來這邊有個花園。
我感到微風吹來，原來夜裡的風這麼溫柔。
慢著！我聽到鳥叫，我聽到蟲鳴，我看到滿天的星斗多亮麗。

咦？以前怎麼沒有這些體會？
我忽然想起來，莫非是我弄錯了！

原來是上帝叫蝸牛牽我去散步。

I never intended to teach Beth this song.    As far as I remember, we sang it a few times during shower time.  Then one day as I was driving, I heard Bethany singing this song from the back of the van.     


    cccc

Bethany and Ruthie's one-year post adoption reports were due in January.   We managed to finish the reports at the last possible minute.  Yeah!  But not quite -  that night at around 9pm, we got a call from our adoption agency saying that our reports were missing a recent family picture!     So we scrambled to gather all the kids and took a quick family picture, in our pajamas!    LOL

We had a family Valentine's Day this year.  We took all the kids to Basket Robins for ice cream that night.

Sam and Ben

Faith insisted she wants her ears pieced.   So I took her to our pediatrician Dr. Huang.

Ouch! That was painful!  But in her tears, she insisted she wanted to do the left ear also.  Ok, let's do it.

All done.  There is a pretty smile again.

We got her a new pair of sandals for Easter this year.  She tried on the entire Easter outfit the night before, and took a picture of herself through the mirror.    Umm... my little angel is growing up fast.

This is Scruffy.   Scruffy is with us now every Tuesday.    I want our girls to feel comfortable to be around dogs, because eventually Bethany will likely be using and depending on guide dogs.   But we really can't have the responsibility of caring for a dog now.   So our friend Ms. Cathy kindly lends us her dog every Tuesday.   And we LOVE Scruffy.    Pearl is such a natural with animals.  She fell in love with Scruffy right away.   Ruthie is doing less screaming around Scruffy, and she would even kiss him now.   Bethany has come a long way, and is more willing to pat him now.

"My dog and I"- Pearl and Scruffy waiting for Faith's school bus home.

Bethany is learning the alphabets at school.     I try to put Braille labels all over our house to expose her to Braille as much as possible.    One of the things I did was to put the girls' names in Braille on each of their chairs.   Every time Bethany comes for her meal, I would ask her to find her chair by touching the labels.     Recently, she really began to get it, and almost all the time she would find her chair.   I am not very sure how she distinguished the different names (she doesn't quite know her alphabets yet), but that tells me she knows the difference in the four names.  And I am so excited about it.

Braille is actually so much fun.   We all enjoy learning it.   Faith can read most Braille letters.  Pearl is catching up fast.   Well, they will probably make very good Braille-Print transcribers when they grow up!  Lol....   Here are the girls' names in Braille (faith, bethany, pearl and cc (Ruthie's nickname).   Would you like to give it a try?

They went to see Cherry Blossom with a group of friends.   It was just a bit too early - they did a lot of walking around DC that day, but didn't see much blossom.   We'll try again next year!    LOL

Lord, thank you that your mercy is new everyday.   Help me to remember everyday - "You Are I Am"

"I've been the one to shake with fear
And wonder if You're even here
I've been the one to doubt Your love
I've told myself You're not enough

I've been the one to try and say
I'll overcome by my own strength
I've been the one to fall apart
And to start to question who You are

I've been the one held down in chains
Beneath the weight of all my shame
I've been the one to believe
That where I am You cannot reach

You're the one who conquers giants
You're the one who calls out kings
You shut the mouths of lions
You tell the dead to breathe
You're the one who walks through fire
You take the orphan's hand
You are the one Messiah
You are I am
You are I am

The veil is torn
And now I live with the Spirit inside
The same one, the very same one
who brought the Son back to life

Hallelujah, He lives in me
Hallelujah, He lives in me"