Abigail's birth: short version by James

The short story: It was a whirlwind crazy delivery. Jill had contractions both nights before and thought we were going to have her then, but then everything slowed down when morning came.  Then at around 12:30 am Jill's contractions started again.  1:15 water broke, 1:45 and a taxi ride later we were at the hospital 

(Jill is having contractions and groaning in the back and about the time we are almost there the driver turns around and says as though it is a casual thing to have a foreign lady in birth pains in his taxi, "Wow, your Chinese is good.  So where you guys from anyway?" (If he had been slower he might have delivered the baby in his taxi.)
  
We got up to the room and endured our worst but thankfully fastest birth experience to date.  The doctor had been great before, but during the actual delivery he was barking orders to Jill and was most unhelpful.  Thankfully at 2:25 am the baby popped out... and I do mean popped out....like the doc, nurses everyone missed her and she almost fell off the bed.  Thankfully some of the pads under Jill caught her!

Then there was a whirlwind of activity where they weighed, measured the baby, made me run her up a floor to get her Hep B shot.  I came back and the doctor was basically yelling at my wife and wanting her to agree to something she didn't want.  I had to warn him to stop yelling.  We finally agreed that the procedure wasn't needed and everything calmed down.  We held our sweet baby and the doctor turned back into a normal caring man. He actually mopped up the floor himself, which is unheard of for a doctor here.

We brought her home the next morning and have been trying to figure out the operations manual ever since.  Thankfully she is a close model to our other children, but apparently she came with some new features and programming that Jill and I are still working on.

Catherine's 4th birthday: by Jill

There's a park near our house that has a ferris wheel. For months, Catherine has been a bit obsessed with it. We told her she was too small to ride it now, but that she could when she was bigger. This led to her asking at almost every meal for months if she was big enough yet. The recent ferris wheel fascination sparked the idea for a carnival-themed birthday party.

This was not the best cake I could have made or party I could have hosted, however, it was the best I could do a week from my due date and living/working/cooking in a home that isn't mine and shopping in a city I'm not familiar with.

Our "carnival tent" was streamers hanging from the light fixture

Thanks to a Curious George episode, Catherine has been asking for weeks to wear a red birthday party hat. Thankfully, Grandma was coming from America and could make her dream come true. 

In the morning we opened presents as a family. Family from the States had sent things with Grandma. :)
This is a book about ferris wheels that has a CD of songs. 

This birthday card played a song and she LOVED it. 

opening the play doh set from Mimi and Grandpa

I'm 4!

And I'm cute!

Again, under the circumstances, the best I could do. 

I didn't take very many pictures at the party because there were a lot of little people here, and because we were busy with the carnival games.

We hosted a party in the afternoon and invited some friends to celebrate with us. Catherine really enjoyed having so many new friends at her party, but it was especially meaningful for me. Most of the attendees are children of people I went to college with. Even though I haven't stayed in touch with all of them, it's fun to see our kids play together and be second generation friends. I think the girls having so many other foreign kids to play with will be the thing we will miss most about Chengdu.

This is one of our carnival games. The kids had to try to throw bottles caps onto the mat to land on the red circles.

Toss bean bags to knock over stacks of bottles (notice she's still wearing the red hat)

ring toss

It's still hard to believe we have a four year old, but we like it. We like that she is able to do more by herself. We like that she has decided she can try more spicy foods because now she's four. We like all that she is learning and her increasing ability to communicate with us. She has a great imagination and is developing quite a sense of humor.

Catherine's 4th birthday: by James

Catherine informs us regularly that she is a Ferris wheel girl.  So, Jill made a ferris wheel cake for Catherine's carnival themed birthday. She is quite smart, a ball of energy, and a joy to be around.  She loves her new baby sister and tells us regularly what all the baby loves:

Babies love kisses.
Babies love Ferris wheels. Can I buckle her seatbelt?
Babies love juice.
Babies love dinosaurs.
Babies love rides in wagons.
Babies love cheese.
Babies love yogurt.
Babies love ducks.
Babies love books....

She is wholeheartedly into the baby.

Some of our prayers for this year are:
That she would grow in wisdom, stature, and in favor with God and man.
She is still behind in her language development so we are praying she will catch up.
We are also praying God would send a speech therapist to our town.
Praying God would send some more friends their age to our city.