Happy things happening: 2016 Family portrait and some thoughts

Yay!!! Our yearly family portrait of "four."

Four sounds sweet and perfect. :-) Replaced by the girls' laughter, the loneliness I used to feel for my older is long gone. Big thanks to my girls. Although my 2016 didn't end sweetly, I was able to put myself together quickly because of the love hung around in my house. <3

Here is the short letter I wrote on the Christmas cards we sent out to friends to briefly review what happened in our life in the past year.

Last year was a year full of excitements for us. Lindsay became a big sister!!! Charlotte came to our world on December 30, 2015 and filled up our lives with joy and love in the entire 2016. She had a very bright personality and was such a great blessing to our family. Summer began in a super busy way. We bought our first new home in Maryland. Lindsay graduated from St John Preschool, where she had been transformed into a brave and bright big girl. She started her new journey at kindergarten in fall. No tears transferring to the public school. We were so proud of her. Chan still worked at UMBC as a researcher. He spent a month at the Australia's Great Barrier Reef catching mantis shrimp larvae for his research at the end of summer. He loved his job allowing him to travel from time to time. Although his workload was getting intense, he did a pretty good job balancing between work and family. He was our proud papa as always. Crystal went to a mom group at Church on a regular basis to learn about nurturing and raising loving children as well as American cultures to make sure the whole family adjusts well in the United States. In her very limited spare time, she managed to polish her photography skill and started taking pictures for others in addition to the kids. How exciting!!! Last year was hectic but fulfilling. We are looking forward to what 2017 will bring to us.

Every year hubby and I share our new year's resolutions. So far my resolutions are coming along, except for exercise. Ugh...how do those people manage to run on the street every single day regardless of the rain, the snow, the scalding heat, I wonder. As you may have guessed, perseverance moved up to my first priority that I want to practice in the new year.

My friend recommended the book called "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (by Angela Duckworth)" and I read it because I am desperate to have a permanent change in respects of the ability of doing things over and over again no matter how discouraged things will turn out and how those disappointments will try to bring you down. And it is a great book!!! It will definitely go to my collection. :-)

The author mentioned that gritty people usually have four psychological assets that keep them from quitting. These qualities are interests, practice, purpose, and hope.

Interest is to do things you enjoy. "Passion begins with intrinsically enjoying what you do."

Practice is "the daily discipline of trying to do things better than we did yesterday."

Purpose is regarded to the concept that things they do are meaningful, which makes them keep going because they believe others will benefit from what they do. "What ripens passion is the conviction that your work matter," mentioned in the book.

Bang! This is exactly what I have missed in the past of my life. Finding the purpose of what I love as well as my life is my imperative goal this year.

Hope is a rising-to-the-occasion kind of perseverance.

Self-compassion is another characteristic that I need to practice more. Simply put, self-compassion is the ability to recognize it when you are suffering in the pain because you dwell on failures or whatever distresses you too much and start to treat yourself nicely just the way you help your friends get out of their pain or anxiety.

Gosh, men are just born to be more resilient than women. Looking at hubby, I always wonder how he can just brush things off no matter what happens. He can always go with the flow, while I freak out when things don't go along with the plan. Turned out people like him are those who know how to look on the bright side and know how to be nice and compassionate to themselves, while people like me look at the half full glass of water as "half empty". Well, I am not saying worriers are no better. We are well prepared, but we need to learn when to let go... xoxo

Alright. Here are the rest of our family photographs.

I hope you will enjoy the photos and have a wonderful kickoff of 2017.