bathtime

I love the soft, buttery, clean feeling of my freshly-bathed Hannah:


And I love making shampoo hairstyles on the kids (especially putting horns on Eli when his hair is long enough). These kids are so excellent.

Our new house doesn't really have a bathtub, but we have small baby tubs that we use for the kids...probably saves us on water in the long run. It doesn't matter, bathtime is always fun no matter what.

the visit: everyday 'round here

Of course we had down-time too. We wanted to show our folks our regular life so that included hanging out at home and showing them some of the local sights. The sights also included the latest greatest grandchild!

I love this picture that Boppa (Alan) took, aptly naming it "the two Cuties" How true. Hannah is not hurting for food, she almost eclipses Dana!

I love the grandparent shots with the newest grandchild, so I included one of each. Nana was excited and soon remembered her baby-burping skills without any coaching.

Hannah's favourite spit-up target was Boppa. It hardly ever failed, I would hand Hannah over to him to hold and 4 seconds later she would have a productive burp all over him. But her smiles made it all worthwhile right Alan?

And Babi too, took a shining to little Hannah. I love both of their expressions here, equally enamoured with one another.

This is the closest thing we have to a farm: one rabbit which Dana loves to feed our fruit and vegetable scraps too,

and two ducks that have miserable living quarters as far as I can tell.

When you don't have a backyard, this is what you learn to do in your house. We are looking into gymnastics for this little monkey, but may do a stint of diving in the meantime as it incorporates trampolines and swimming for a reasonable rate. If you remember how China did in the diving at the last summer Olympics, you'll know the coaching is decent.

Eli and Dana's bedroom. Eli was delighted to receive some Lego from Boppa, Nana and Babi.

On our date night, Scott and I got to go for an evening riverside walk with our folks, while Eli, Dana and Hannah were babysat.

One day we went for a horse-drawn carriage ride along five historical streets that featured (mainly) European architecture. We also saw the former residence of Eric Liddell. If you don't know who that is, watch Chariots of Fire or, better, read a biography about him. He was a remarkable man.

The sleeping slug. Hard to believe this little man could ever get into trouble isn't it? Hah!

Reading stories, and/or watching world cup soccer on the couch. We also played our share of games in the evenings with Scott's parents. My mom preferred to turn in early and get up early the next day to, buy fruit at the market, or play ping pong/go for runs with the locals.

We rode in the Tianjin Eye on a somewhat clear day. The whole rotation took about 20 minutes and there was lots to see from the 12 o' clock position especially. Eli opted to be at his friends house.

So, all said and done, it was a tremendous visit. I must admit I was a little worried about how it would go because I wanted to figure out things to do and see that would be interesting for our parents and fun for our kids too. Also, it was the first visit for my mom and so I viewed it as a "make or breaker" for any subsequent visits. I daresay that based on how it went, my mom might very well be back again, I know Scott's parents will. I felt very blessed to have them and the fact that they made the effort and incurred the cost to come means a lot to us. Thank you!

the visit: Great Wall

There's a good shot of Hannah, completely unaware that we were on our way to the Great Wall. She was also blissfully unaware of Eli getting carsick on the way there too. Lucky her...but lucky me too (I had an extra shirt).


Here we are setting out. Little do we know how tired we will be by the time this day is done...

We were ambitious and did decide to "try to the whole route" but at least we did not leave "evening into the scenic".

Gorgeous weather and even a breeze!

Dana and Eli walked a lot of the way on their own, I'm sure I sprouted more than a few gray hairs as they navigated the stairs (especially going down!).

And here's Speedy Brimacombe. He reminds me of Dash from the movie "The Incredibles".

This is the view at the end of the climb, just cross the bridge and go through a maze to get to the parking lot where we were picked up. My mom and I (with Hannah) decided to walk the rest of the wall that you could see beyond the bridge. There were three more towers to get to and where it ended there was still a trail which we did not reach the end of.

I was sore for at least 5 days afterwards, hobbling around like a lame sheep and wincing if the kids so much as touched my legs. My mom was just fine though, a regular mountain goat! I hope I can be like her when I grow up! She's 68 for goodness sake!

Eli's 5th birthday

For Eli's birthday, we decided to stick with tradition and make it a 10am to 2pm affair, with games, food, gifts and cake. Eli was the quality control for the chocolate cake I made for him (I like this recipe --no eggs, so he could lick the mixers without me worrying!):

I'm glad we have a big kitchen table to accomodate all the friends that were able to make it! I was especially appreciative of the parents that also stayed to do crowd control and help out.
This is one side of the table:

And here's the other: Notice all the cut-up vegetables! What was I thinking!? There was way too much healthy food for this group, but you can't say I didn't try.

Here Eli is starting to fade and he's probably thinking, "I like the presents, it's the sharing I don't want to do!"

Dana and her friend Emma weren't too interested in Eli's new toys. They decided to sit in the toy box and catch up on old times, just like their moms like to do from time to time.

It was a wonderful, tiring day and I could hardly believe that I've been at this mom thing for five years now. How does that happen!?

malaysia: bugs

When you have kids who are one metre or less in height, it helps you notice what is on the ground more and take the time to check things out. It also became obvious that the kids would enjoy going to see other insects so we went to this butterfly farm that included other insects, reptiles and rodents too.

I wouldn't put it past Eli if he were trying to count up the legs on this caterpillar.

Eli wanted to hold different insects. Here he is holding a large horned beetle on a stick.

He's braver than I am, that's for sure, here's what it looked like up close! I didn't get too involved in this excursion, the smell of the rodents was getting to me.

Christmas Musical

Eli and Dana got to be in a Christmas Musical this year! It was put on by the local home-schooling group of which I am a new member. We get together every Friday afternoon for some outdoor play, then we come in and have a snack, and then we read a story and do some kind of related craft. Each parent takes a turn leading it and providing the snacks. Eli really enjoys it and calls it "story and craft time." Dana wishes she could go, but it's for kids ages 4+.

Eli had three roles: Moses, a tax-collector and a pig (some people think the latter two are the same thing). Dana was a cute little pig too for the manger scene (they had extra animal costumes, so Dana could take part too). At one point in one of the performances, Eli was pretending to eat voraciously out of the manger! It was pretty funny! Thankfully in that particular scene, Jesus had not been born yet.

I really wanted to post a movie but it would not download! Eli and Dana really enjoyed the songs throughout the play, especially "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" (Eli's favourite) and "The First Noel" (Dana's favourite, she sometimes calls it The Next Noel").

It's January now and they are both still asking to sing these Christmas carols at bedtime...well, why not?

Christmas and snow!

We had a wonderful Christmas! We especially enjoyed Skyping our families and chatting with them. The kids were pleased to receive Play Doh (especially for Dana)toys and Lego (especially for Eli). The best toy of all was the box the Play Doh Creativity Center came in: the kids are sitting in the box and it reminded me that they are two of the best gifts I've ever received!

We also had a big snowfall (after Christmas), the biggest in 20 years. I went around taking pictures of "typical Chinese snowmen." Here are a two examples.

Yep, just piles of snow, with heads on top, but points given for creative decorating of the heads nonetheless. It was entertaining to me (since I do not own a car) how upside-down the city was rendered by this snowfall. It really slowed things down for a few days there, and it seemed to clean things up a bit (rather refreshing to see clean white snow on the ground for a few days rather than the usual dirt and frozen loogies!)

Eli turns 4!

We invited a few of Eli's classmates and some friends to to help us celebrate Eli's 4th birthday. When everyone got to our house, we went outside and had a water fight. It was fun for Eli and his older classmate, all the other kids either cried or were not interested. See the video at the end of this post.

Below is a picture of Eli's younger classmate looking fiercely poised with his watergun. Once he got sprayed with a bigger, more powerful watergun and he got upset and made like he was leaving. This was a good language experience for me: trying to coax a toddler back with the others (his parent's had dropped him off)! I eventually called for Scott to help me with this.

Eli and his best friend Caleb are playing with some of Eli's new toys.

Caleb's mom and dad made a very tasty ICE CREAM cake for Eli's birthday (this not having an oven businesss is really working for me!). It had wine gums on the top of it, which Eli and Dana call "gummies."

Here's an aerial-ish shot of the action at the dining room table. It was a similar deal to Dana's party, fruit, cake, veggies and pizza. We tried to have a balloon stomp game outside, but it was once again, over most of the kids' heads and the oldest boy ended up stomping on all the younger kids' balloons before they even knew what was going on...sigh...at least it was fun for him I guess.

Here's a short video of the waterfight action. Eli got a new watergun for his birthday so he was pretty into it.

Afterwards as things wound down, Eli announced to our few remaining guests, "I want you to go home now, I'm tired." Nothing like being direct, but we all (parents included) were tired and so our friends graciously took their leave. It was a fun-filled morning, but I'm glad birthdays are only once a year.

Great Wall camping

My school offered a two-day, one-night camping trip to the Great Wall and so I jumped at the chance to go. Scott stayed back to work on his two papers and enjoyed the fact that he could work uninterrupted for more than 2 hours at a time.

Here's a picture of Eli amusing himself with our camera on the bus. There were about 30 of us total, with two other kids also going. I was a little worried that Eli might play too rough with the other kids (all younger and all girls) so I asked some of the single guys to go ahead and rough-house with Eli whenever the opportunity arose.

On the first day we walked into a village that is located near the Great Wall, about a 2 hour hike through trails, and woods and corn crops. The villagers put on a show for us, with drums, singing and dancing. The boy in the fore-ground of this picture isn't shy about showing his dislike for the music!

I carried Dana is this pack while Eli walked or was carried by those blessed obliging single guys.

This was my favourite dancer, one of the few males, he was just delightful in his expressions and really enjoyed having a large audience.

Didn't get a picture of our tent this time, but pretty much exactly the same set up as last year, we camped in one of the towers. It was a gorgeous night, clear, not too hot, with a pleasant breeze and a bright almost-full moon. It was not the best sleep of my life, sleeping between Eli and Dana, but it sure was memorable!

The next day we walked the Wall itself. I again had Dana and I borrowed a pack and a mule...uh I mean, another student...to carry Eli. So thankful for the help of everyone who went! Otherwise soloing it with both kids would have definitely been too much for me, and an experience not worth repeating!

rollerblading!

Look at Eli's moves with his rollerblades! He would like it better if he didn't have to wear all the protective gear, especially because of how hot it is here (even at 9 am it's 25+ degrees C). Having the kids learn early how to skate and swim is a priority for me.

springtime changes

This is one of Eli and Dana's last rides around in our old neighbourhood. Dana is content to be the passenger and Eli shows surprising skill in driving this "police jeep" It was given to us by a friend whose son had outgrown it.

We moved to a neighbourhood closer to Eli's school, only a 5-minute-walk away! We love our new neighbourhood because it is more convenient for buying fruit and vegetables (markets nearby) as well as having a great play area and courtyard that is full of kids in the evenings (when it has cooled off).

I love our new apartment itself as well. Although it is technically smaller than our old place (and quite a bit cheaper!), the common areas: kitchen, dining area and living room are more spaceous and therefore more suitable for having people over.

I thought I'd throw in the picture of Easter bread that I made for Easter too, using my new new Czech cookbook. It turned out pretty good!

And here's a great picture of Dana smelling the lilacs that were growing like mad this spring. "Smells good!" Dana would say after a big whiff.

Eli goes skiing

Scott and Eli went with another father and son (Eli's best buddy Caleb) to try skiing for the first time. It was a huge success and Eli wanted to go again the next day (and the day after that...). He really got the hang of it, so now we are hoping that his success with that will rub off on his learning how to rollerblade.

Christmas!

We had a great Christmas! It even snowed a little bit the week before. It never snows here, and the snowfall we had broke a fifty year record for the amount of snow in one day. It was only about 3 or 4 inches, but we were so glad to see some of that white stuff! And we still have some!

I was actually under the weather on Christmas Eve, but managed to feel quite a bit better for Christmas Day which we spent at our British buddy's place. Our American friends also joined us, so we were three couples with young kids enjoying an international Christmas together. We tried to act out the Nativity with the kids, but it turned out better to just read them the Christmas Story.

Eli got this second-hand Power Wheels jeep for free on his birthday, but we were not able to use it until recently because the rechargeable battery was useless. Scott managed to find a place that makes batteries and so we were finally able to let Eli use his new wheels. Here he is giving one of the neighbour kids a lift with Ye Ye (grandpa) looking on.

Dana thinks that Eli's undies can be hats, so here they are with their "Wise Man" hats on.

This one of Dana could be on a CD cover! Oh yeah, Scott got me some Chinese rap for Christmas, so hopefully that should help my fluency!

This last one is just for fun, This is Dana a year ago in a Santa hat. A little more chubbiness in her cheeks, less familiarity and confidence in front of the camera and no neck are about the only differences I can see.

We continue to marvel at how blessed we are: good health, great kids, a chance to study a different language in the country that speaks it, good friends (old and new), a warm and cozy house, reliable bikes, a fantastic house-helper (ayi)...I am so thankful for these things.