Where has the time gone??? Our baby is ONE!!!!

I can not even believe that I am saying that Cambry is one already! (July 21- yes I'm a little slow on this post!)  I thought Reese grew up quickly but I think the following children grow up even FASTER!  We celebrated her birthday by giving her a present a night early because that was the day that we found out we would not be heading back to Michigan this summer and well...Eric said we needed something to be happy about!  So, Cambry got her present from Grandpa and Grandma Yonker a day early! Can you tell that she is excited!

Everyone thought that they needed to assist dad in putting it together and that it would help him get it together more quickly!

SHE LOVED IT!!!! Thanks so much Grandpa and Grandma Y!!!!

And, she had no problem with figuring out what she was supposed to do with it!  She kept walking back and forth down the hallway!  I really can't begin to count how many laps she made through the house!  This should definitely improve her walking skills!

Gotta love the diaper shot!

Oh, then Reese thought she should show her how it is done and got out her stroller too! I can't wait for them to start actually PLAYING together!  Cambry tries but does not yet know how Reese likes to play!

Cambry thought that was pretty funny and just kept laughing at Reese!

The following night we went out to eat at a Brazilian BBQ!  Dad, well actually both dads, you would LOVE THIS!!  They walk around from table to table with all of this different meat/veggies/fruit on these giant skewers and cut/shave you off a piece.  For example, many different types of beef, pork, chicken, chicken wings, ham, fish, shrimp, cow tongue (yes, I literally about puked when I saw it), pineapple, mango, corn on the cob, and many others that I can't remember right now!  Sooooo good!  You leave there so full every time we go!  But, it is a place that Reese and Cambry like too because there are so many different things to eat and try!

My little princess on her big day!  You are just one of the sweetest little honeys!
Some stats so I remember:
*you have three teeth
*weight 23lbs
*you can say "mama", "dada", wave bye-bye, and do the motions for "so big"
*take an 1 1/2 hour nap in morning and a two hour in the afternoon (I'll keep holding on to this for as long as possible)
*you can't quite walk yet on your own but around furniture or holding our hand you are quite good
*you still like a bottle before bed and when you wake up in the morning ;)
*you are such a flirt!  you love any attention that any stranger will give you!  actually you try to get their attention and always have a HUGE smile on your face, however lately you are extremely good at giving dirty looks at us!  Very funny!
*your favorite people are daddy and Reese!  You light up any time they walk into the room!
*you sleep with your polka dot blanket, purple lamb, and your pipe! (yes, that last one needs to stop soon!)
*you are one of the most laid back babies I have seen and do not get upset often!  Many of our friends here wonder if you are just a doll and are not real, oh you are real, we have just been blessed with a very good baby!  Maybe we shouldn't try for a third!  Maybe we should stop when it is good!
*There are so many ways in which you have already blessed our family and we pray that God continues to bless you and watch over you!  We love you so very much little Cambry Faith!

*

Ha, love the ball popper!  Actually Reese loves it just as much as Cambry does!

Just realized that we did not take any pictures of Cambry eating her cake!  We got it all on video but I have not attempted putting videos on here yet!  My mom, and I think Leesa and some of the kids got to see her eating her cake, boy was she a mess!  She clearly likes cake as much as her daddy and big sister!

Friends and fun times!

 And she's off...she prefers to not be in her floaty, but would rather crawl around the entire shallow area!

 And of course drinking the dirty, disgusting, pee-filled water is a MUST!  What do you do...guess she is just going to have one of the strongest immune systems right?

The last few weeks have been spent with many daily trips to the pool with many friends.  We either take lunch down to the pool and have a picnic, which is Reese's favorite, or just each lunch at home and then head down.  Cambry usually takes a pretty good nap for me during the afternoon at the pool!  I'm so lucky that she will just lay down and fall asleep in her stroller.  I do feel bad because it is usually in the high 90's and she is taking a nap in her stroller under the trees in the shade but still very hot!  Obviously she doesn't mind it too much!  Last week we also went with a bunch friends all right around Reese's age to a huge water park!  That was a lot of fun!  I left Cambry home and Reese and I just had a fun day out with her buddies!  Glad that I didn't take Cambry because I wouldn't have been able to do anything with Reese.  She wasn't afraid to go down any of the slides by herself and really liked it!  (Yes, she is going to love Cedar Point as much as I do!) They had tons of things for the kids to play/climb/crawl across in the water.  They also had a lazy river (one of my favorites, not sure why because it is not so exciting but just relaxing) and a huge wave pool that we took the tubes out on!  Us ladies were getting tossed around trying to hold on to the girls tubes that they were riding on!  The girls were just screaming and laughing with excitement!  We had a great time!  I don't have any pictures of the place yet, but Eric has off this week and we are going to take the girls there so I will try to get some pictures of the place!  Other than that, we have had a BBQ get together with different friends each weekend so that has been keeping us busy!  Don't get me wrong, wish like crazy we were back in Michigan spending this time with our families and friends but we are keeping busy here too! Here are a few pictures of the pool and whatnot.

 Yup, the good 'ole hose is still one of the favorite things to play with!

 That tongue is ALWAYS out!

 Along that tree line is where there are a lot of lounging chairs to sit in at the pool as well as some to Cambry's right and behind her!  We are usually down to the pool on time as most Asians prefer not to get their beautiful white skin tanned!  What, we love getting tan!  I guess good for us right!  Many people, besides us die hard ones that like the sun, don't come out to the pool until 3-4pm!  In know, CRAZY!  But that leaves us with many quiet hours by the pool with only a handful of people!  So lovely!  And then it gets INSANE when we are ready to leave!  I mean the pool gets packed!  So funny!  They will probably live a lot longer than us with more beautiful skin, but ah when it is sunny I want to be at the pool!

 "Aunt Fabi" playing with the girls in the pool. 

 L to R Emma, Reese, Ruthie, Fabi, Elina, Lily, and in the background is Zoe and Olivia!  Yes, there are many, many girls right around Reese's age!  It is such a blessing for sure!  Seems like every time we go to the pool she always has some friends to play with!

 Cambry thought she needed to wear goggles too! I wouldn't be surprised if she would put her head under to look around either!  This girl is a water rat for sure!

A Saturday in Suzhou

 A few weekends back we wanted to get out of the city and explore a nearby town about an hour away called Suzhou.  We had been told by many that it was the "Italy" of China.  This was because of all of it's water ways, bridges, and rivers.  Many ways of transport are by water.  We made the mistake of not getting a map before we left of Suzhou so we spent much of the morning just trying to find anything, but eventually made it to a special garden called, "Lingering Garden."  We discovered how old China was by visiting this city.  Many of its original buildings, houses, some roads, and bridges were kept up to show tourists and locals.  Finally we got to see some real "China" looking buildings.  They were beautiful!

 They had many different little nooks where they had big rock formations that had special meaning of some sort.  We couldn't read everything, A) because it wasn't all in English, B) It would take too long and we had little ones, and C) I'll remind you that it is always at least in the high 90's or more these days. So...no standing around too long for us, unless we literally wanted to melt!  This place was also NOT A STROLLER FRIENDLY PLACE.  But, you live and learn, and we should have known because not many places in China are.

 Thought these boats were cool.

 Not very often do we get a family shot so thought we should!  Cambry is at the age that she NEVER looks.  She is always looking at something, just not the camera!

 Try pushing a stroller up this rock path!  It was all up and down or little paths!  Reese thought it was just awesome, but not too easy on the stroller.

 This is one of the 300 year old Ginko trees!  Eric was pretty amazed by that!

 You can't read this sign in this picture, but it states that this tree is 300 years old.  It is a Ginko!  Amazing!  It was so pretty!

 Everything was just landscaped so beautifully!

 Yes, I freaked out on Eric when I was looking through the camera and even screamed a little at him to be careful!  He still thinks it is funny to get me going!  (Not laughing!)

 They had so many different pictures made out of stone and rock on the ground, very cool!

 Fancy trash cans.  I thought Robin might like these so I took a picture!

 We did kind of cheat and follow a couple around who had a tour guide.  Well, we didn't really follow them, we just kind of moved at the same pace, so we did get to hear quite a bit of history on many of the things in this garden.  Very interesting!

 Reese thought this little area was neat because it led her right down to the water!

 You could see tons of Koi hiding underneath these lily pads.

 As we were walking we could hear this beautiful, almost harp like music, and it was coming from this lady.  I wish I knew what this instrument was called but it sounds just like what you hear in the movies. It was beautiful.  Tons of people gathered to watch her play.  Reese thought for sure it was Mulan at first until I told her sadly it wasn't, but she swore it had to be some sort of princess!  Ha, always princesses on the mind ;)

We wanted to see more but decided to head home after this because we just didn't know our way around this city.  It has 5 million people in it so it is fairly large, so just not worth getting lost.  We will definitely need to go back with a map and explore some more!