Gigi’s Sweet Shop

This post is just a tad late, but I seem to do a better job keeping up on Instagram.  Follow us over there for your “daily dose of vitamin E”.  Lots of Eden updates and snapshots into our crazy little life!

What to do when its 110 degrees outside every day for over a month straight?
Host an Ice Cream Social of course!!

Gigi served up a sweet shop party for her friends to celebrate her 5th birthday.
(Well ok, her fairy-Grandmother brought all the party-fixin’s in her suitcase from the US and corralled half a dozen sugar-crazed kids.)  Me with a brand-new-nursing baby did little more than “pin” some ideas and let Abi and Britain help Grandmoni execute all the implementation.

As is the tradition in our family, Gigi got to invite 5 friends since she was turning 5.  In addition to 5 cutie pies who donned their party apparel, we had one very dapper little gentleman who was also on the invite list because Gigi insisted that Peter had to come too!!  He’s 1 and quite the little ladies-man!

Table lavishly laden with sugar sprinkles, sweet syrups, cookie crumbs, frothy whipped cream and a cherry for the top, we handed each child a bowl and let them create their masterpiece.  (I did apologize to the parents for the excessive amount of sugar – especially Anya’s mom who told me this is the first time she has had sugar – ever.  (gulp!!)   Im so sorry!  …… it could be worse I assured them…Ive been known to host parties and send home live animals!)

Oh these sweet days of pink and sugar sprinkles and pigtails and chapstick!  My sweet baby girl.  Always a bandaid stuck somewhere.  Chewing gum connoisseur.  Future negotiator for the UN, present persuader of everyone in our house.  Loves nail polish and dresses that twirl.  Eats rice like a proper Asian.  Has been known to request an “omelet with no egg”  and “spaghetti with no sauce”.  High maintenance diva but willingly relinquished her position as baby-of-the-family to a little brother she adores!  Loves naptime with books and M&M’s every afternoon.  Eats hummus with a spoon and drinks lime juice from the bottle.  Contagious giggler and affectionate snuggler.  Can you please just stop growing now?!!

Hope your day was as sweet as you are little monkey!!

Basking in the Babymoon

My mother’s 3 week visit on the heels of a move and new baby was the perfect timing to allow me to extend the baby-moon and linger in the stage of rest and recovery.
In true “Mary Poppins” fashion, I still cant fathom what magic allowed her to carry so many gifts and treats from home and still have room for socks and underwear of her own.  And just like “a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down”, Grandmoni was administering M&M’s right alongside Tylenol as she arrived on the cusp of the worst flu that has run through our family ever!!  Every 24 hours, another Smith came down with the plague which made its way through our entire family save Eden (thank you Lord!!) and Grandmoni who managed to ward off the heebie-jeebies with her Young Living oils!

Having lived most of my adult life with an ocean between us, Ive acutely missed those moments of being able to call in reinforcements when C is out of town, or having my mother pop in for a visit or meeting up for lunch on a whim.  It was a real treat to have her “mother” me and insist that I stay in pjs and make me breakfast each morning. 

We delicately balanced a few fun outings (which always end up being an ordeal with a newborn) and a lot of lazy days just making memories at home with the kids…tea parties, reading Anne of Green Gables, playing dominos, cooking for us, crafting, party planning for Gigi (more on that later),and gazing at the newest of 18 grands. 

As an expert in interior decorating, we provided a blank canvas of sorts for her creative genius with the new-to-us apartment that we’d just moved into.  Never mind those boxes that are still in my office….we got right to the fun part – decorating!!  After a trip to IKEA for fabric and a sewing machine on loan from a friend, my mother whipped up cushion covers for the ostentatious gold pillows that came with our furnished place and recovered the purple glider seat cushion that has clearly been there since the 70’s.  Whew!!  So much more homey!  While I love party planning and events, Ive not received my mother’s knack for arranging wall decor.  So relieved to turn this project over to her and Im THRILLED with the result!  She did her thing creating sweet vignettes throughout the house and filling frames with some of my favorite photos.

Among our most memorable times together was an afternoon get away in honor of Mother’s Day to a ritzy hotel for high tea at the “Chocolate Buffet”.  The name says it all!  Absolute decadence.  In addition to a savory buffet of tea sandwiches and sushi bites, there are dozens of desserts comprised mostly of chocolate laced goodness.  But the real treat is a fancy trolly staffed by a swiss pastry chef which boasts two-dozen varieties of chocolate chunks on little bowls.  You take your pick from 50% cocoa, 90%cocoa, swiss, german, bittersweet, lindt, white chocolate (the list goes on) and the chocolatier hand crafts a hot-chocolate for you accented by a dollop of whipped cream or swirl of hazelnut if you choose.  I was clearly born in the wrong era, because I could totally go for high-tea on a daily basis!!

Mother accompanied us to a weekend volleyball tournament cheering on Abi in her debut season! She also joined my Women’s group and was able to share from her years and wisdom with some dear young moms in my life.   I was amazed again at this woman’s capacity – always the last one to bed (often posting a blog post of her own or touching base with a friend of family member state-side) and then up to braid hair and see the kids off to school early in the morning.  And its a good thing she’s so fit and energetic with the 89 steps (I kid you not – we counted) she had to climb to her bed every night (our new place is a townhouse that literally is stairs straight up!!)…..  this woman runs laps around me!!  We did manage to squeeze in a foot-massage one evening to pamper our tired feet.  These steps are killers!

If I didnt love her so much, I could never have agreed to the outlandish request of hers to bequeath Tristan to her to take back to the states for the summer!!  Made the parting a bit less sorrowful to know that he was going to surprise my dad for Father’s Day.  So grateful for the visit of this woman who made me a mom and taught me well to love the sacred privilege of mothering these precious gifts from the Lord!

Big Baby Brother in Bangkok

It feels like a lifetime ago already, but Id be amiss to not take a moment to document my brother’s visit just prior to Eden’s birth.  In the whirlwind of a move and new baby and more houseguests, Im embarrassingly late getting a post published about this super guy who helped facilitate our move….kept Gigi stocked with gum….and did the school pick up on a regular basis to keep this 10-month-pregnant-mommy-with-swollen-feet-and-tired-body from going crazy!!

My baby brother made the excruciating 24 hour trip to see us despite the brutality of being caged in tiny economy seats with a 6’3” frame!  For three weeks we were privileged to do life with him and have his help with the church plant and ministry.  The kids had the short-but-sweet joys of an uncle in close proximity to spoil them and make memories with.  With golden arches just across the street, you can bet they suckered him into afternoon ice-cream cones on more than one occasion!

He even braved the “fish spa” with these girls.  A tank you put your feet in with hundreds of flesh eating fish who nibble off the dead skin cells……gross!!!!!!

Tristan and Isaac jetted off to a remote island for some “guy time” and a little saltwater air.  You cant visit Thailand and not see a beach!!  Tristan loved having some guy time away from his sisters with this man who has mentored him and poured into his life even across the miles!!  How lucky we are to have Uncle Isaac!!

We dragged him to markets that we frequent….took him on public transport trains and smelly taxis…. and had a great time introducing him to some of our favorite fare….like this wonderful little place called “Starbucks”.

I will say that getting through the last few weeks of a school schedule with an indulgent uncle in town did not make for a well-kept bedtime routine.  It was not unusual to come into the kitchen to find a batch of cookies in the works or root-beer-floats bubbling over, inevitably always at bedtime!

And what a servant hearted guy….he willingly extended his originally scheduled ticket so he could help assist us with the move.  We put him to work and then left him with half a dozen kids in his charge when we took off to the hospital to deliver Eden.  With the exception of a standoff with Gigi over a bite of chili that she refused to eat, he managed the mayhem beautifully.  Eden’s the coolest kid in town to have his awesome uncle (who walked onto the UGA football team back in the day) be one of his first visitors.  Our little tyke’s gonna have to bulk up if he’s gonna keep up the family tradition, cause right now, he’s only about the size of a football! 

Back off ladies…..he may be THE most eligible bachelor around, but you’ve got to pass this girls approval to get a date with him!!  Big sister here think’s he’s pretty awesome!