Happy Birthday to the Babies!

Tonight, we all got a much needed chance to laugh and forget how homesick we all are. We threw the girls a birthday party. They all had birthdays in October ... except Zoe - and her birthday is today (Thursday, the 9th). There are four families left from Guangdong province so we are back to our small group again.

Btw, the dates on the headings each time I post in blogger come from whatever time it is in California at the time I save my writing. There's probably a way to adjust the headings to China time ... but I didn't notice it until just a day or so ago ... I'm not going to bother trying to fix it at this point. So, for example, it's already Thursday here (Zoe's birthday) but it will say Wednesday on the post.

They each got a "Birthday Princess" hat, beach ball, washclothes that expand in water (Zoe's has a Sesame Street Zoe on it), a rubber duck with Chinese characters on it and a panda bear squeeky book. They had fun playing with the wrapping paper and one of the girls even liked the taste of the wrapping paper ... Martha was chewing on her paper! ... not me, baby Martha. :) It's been a little confusing having a big Martha and a little Martha!

Zoe found Laney's frog rattle ... it has some interesting noises and textures and she was transfixed with it for quite a while. Guess I'll be looking for one similar when we're home.

Laney got me laughing so hard ... She was rubbing her mouth with one hand about three times ... brush, brush, brush and then switching to the other hand ... brush, brush, brush ... then back to the other hand. No matter how we distracted her, she went right back to it.

It's so sweet to see these little habits that they learned at the orphanage to keep them busy or to comfort themselves while they were alone in their cribs ... but now, we parents are ready for some of these habits to start disappearing. They are driving us a little crazy!! ... the habits are driving us crazy .... not the babies! :)

Zoe rocks from side to side as her main "habit" and she does it less each day ... but it will probably take months for her to completely stop. Anyway, it was good to just get a laugh and enjoy them ... even their crazy little habits ... for a few minutes.

We got each girl a little birthday cake of white chocolate. The bakery in our hotel had no clue how to make an American birthday cake. They kept wanting to make it a cheesecake. But, they make great little single serving pastries with lots of decoration on them ... really pretty! ... so that's what we ended up ordering instead.

The bakery also gave us Chinese style birthday candles. They looked like tiny thin straws and you can burn them on either end. They were really pretty! We moms got to blow out the candles and make wishes for the babies.

Zoe didn't like her cake ... She didn't want the messy, sticky icing on her fingers ... and she hadn't napped enough that day, so she was already a little grumpy anyway. Bain was happy to eat the cake for her!

For the grown-ups, we ordered pizzas from Danny's Bagels (delivery pizza company) and had Coke and we even found Diet Coke. Diet Coke is hard to find here. The Chinese don't like the taste of Diet Coke and none of them need to be on a diet ... so it's not a big seller here. They just drink regular Coke or Sprite.

Fun night!! Our camera was not on the right setting and our pictures could be much better ... but you can get an idea of it all with these! The group shot is Zoe (on the left), Martha, Megan then Laney. They will be going home to Tennessee, Montana, California and North Carolina.
:)