New Year's Eve present mania

We spent the afternoon opening lots of fun presents from grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was great!

Julianna got lots of accessories for her new kitchen. Auntie Krisanne and Uncle Paul gave her the cutest apron and oven mitt set (see her with the oven mitt below). My mom gave Lydia, Julianna and I great colorful aprons. Lydia needs to learn to stand up on her own before she can wear hers, but Julianna and I wore ours this afternoon (see below).

Julianna (always the helpful big sister) was willing to lend Lydia a hand with her presents.


Mom and Dad gave me this cool fleece vest. And the silver chain that I am wearing, but you can't really see it in this photo. I love it!

Lydia getting a closer look at her new musical caterpillar. Thanks Connor, Carson, and Kaelynn!!




here's a big smile from Lydia (in this photo she doesn't look anything like Julianna, it's so weird how at different times and from different angles she can look so different) -


And, one last photo from earlier this afternoon. Julianna and Matt went on a lunch date - one of our driver buddies took them into town and he bought Julianna this birthday cake. The birthday never ends around here!



Thanks for all our fun goodies!!!

taking down the tree

We took our tree down last night. Well, technically, the tree is still in the house. But, we packed up all the ornaments and other Christmas decorations. The tree (still in its pot, still too heavy for one person to move, and starting to sprout green tips on its branches) is still in the same corner. We'll have to recruit some help this morning and have it moved outside, where the apartment complex maintenance folks will probably plant it. In my opinion, it's a bit early to take the tree down, but Matt is traveling this weekend, and it's not a task I wanted to tackle alone.

But, take heart, Christmas is not over yet!! Andy's parents arrived a few days ago and they brought gifts from our parents. Unfortunately, their luggage came a few days late - they were able to pick it up yesterday afternoon... so, we're getting ready to celebrate Christmas again.

Julianna is still sporting her Christmas gear, she loves to wear a dress to church, mostly because of the fancy shoes.



The high today is about 50. Now, I know that sounds like a balmy day in May for your ND folks, but 50 is chilly when you don't have consistent indoor heating. Our two little space heaters are already cranking, and the temp inside the apartment today will probably hover at about 60 - if you're near a heater - we close the doors to the rooms that we aren't heating and they are COLD! In northern areas of the country buildings are heated, but not down south where we live, which is only a problem on the chilliest days.

guests for dinner... 14 of 'em!

Hosting a big dinner here tonight with 14 guests - plus Matt and the kiddos, so that's 18 total mouths to feed. (Lydia is a ringer for the "easiest to feed" award, while Julianna is a sure bet for "messiest".)

Don't worry, it's not steak and baked potatoes or anything fancy like that - our Asian friends usually don't even like that kind of stuff. The menu? Sloppy joes and my mom's famous baked beans. I cooked up a big batch of sloppy joes earlier this morning and popped it in the crock pot to keep warm. The baked beans are ready to for the oven too, so my work is almost done... until dish-washing time, that is!

We're enjoying a few quiet days post-Christmas.... leaving for Thailand three weeks from tomorrow so we'll be packing soon.

Merry Christmas!

We had a WONDERFUL Christmas. Here's a few photos to enjoy!

Julianna loves her new ride-on car. I've already realized it's a bit noisier than I prefer! But, it's an outside toy, so I should be ok...


Lydia's first Christmas -



Matt gave me some scented candles (hard to find here, he got them in another city earlier this fall).

We spent the afternoon at the Huffmans - opening gifts, eating and enjoying one another's company. There were 12 adults and 4 little girls in attendance (Julianna was the oldest, and Lydia the youngest.)



Matt and the other husbands all received small remote control helicopters that we wives found at a local wholesale market. They had great fun piloting the helicopters Christmas Day afternoon. Turns out it takes a bit more skill than you might think!!


Christmas family photo :)

birthday party #3 photos

We spent Christmas Eve morning with some friends at an indoor playground...



Julianna and the other kids loved the ball pit!



and then had lunch (and more cupcakes!) at KFC [yep, we have KFC and McDs here. the menu is almost the same as in the States].

It was a fun day, but time to end the birthday parties for this year! Christmas Eve night I asked Julianna, "do you know what day tomorrow is?" "yeah, Ju-nanna's birthday!", she exclaimed! Nope, although it has seemed like it recently, not every day is Julianna's birthday!

Happy Birthday Julianna !!

Yesterday was Julianna's 2nd birthday and we had a great time! Her big gift was a kid-sized kitchen that I bought from our friends, the Dortches, when they returned to the US this past summer.

We had the kitchen set out in the middle of the living room floor, so it was the first thing she saw when she came out of her bedroom. I wrapped up the plastic accessories the night before and she dug right in - now I am wondering, "why did I give her a gazillion small plastic pieces of kitchen accessories (plates, spoons, pots, fake food, etc)??" - in the first 24 hours since giving her the kitchen I have found various plastic kitchen things under the sofa, spotted them on my bed and tripped over them in the guest bathroom.



here she is working hard - she cooked a variety of dishes, but her favorite dish to cook is definitely pumpkin bread! yum :)




Lydia celebrating with her big sister...


We talked to both sets of grandparents on the webcam (except my dad skipped out on the birthday call to go to the Carolina Panthers game). Later in the day, we hosted about 20 friends for a big meal, Christmas carol singing, and white elephant gift exchange.

Now it's Christmas Eve morning, we are headed out in a bit to go to an indoor playground with some other family friends - we'll play and then have lunch and finish off the cupcakes from birthday party #1.

one more day

I have one more day as a mom of "2 under 2" (aka two kids under two years of age). What a fun journey it has been - we've had our hard moments, but it has been incredibly rewarding. I love watching the two girls together and pray hard that they will be dear friends for their entire lives. I wish you could see Lydia light up, wiggle her arms and "talk" when Julianna walks into view. Or watch Julianna grin when she hears Lydia waking up from a nap. "Lydia! Wake up Lydia!" she cries out with glee.

It's been a busy day here, once again. Seems to be the tune I'm singing this holiday season, doesn't it? Tomorrow morning we celebrate Julianna's birthday as a family and with lots of time on the webcam. Then, at 5:30 a whole crew of Americans from around the city is coming to our place for a Christmas party. We'll have a great time and eats LOTS of yummy food, which Erin Ashley, Alisa and I are preparing. Christmas Eve morning we are going to an indoor playground with some friends, and then spending the afternoon at home baking and cooking. Christmas Day we'll be with friends at the Huffmans for a huge meal, gifts and lots of fun. God is so good to provide great friends for us here, and we are ever aware of that, especially during the holidays when we miss home :(

Well, my "quiet" is almost over. It's 5:20... Matt and Julianna went out for a quick bike ride, Lydia's last nap is coming to a close and a casserole is in the oven. Pretty soon the madness of dinner, baths and bedtime will begin. It's the hardest 90 minutes of my day. Oh, how I love to close their bedroom door behind me with the two little girls sleeping inside!

name that baby girl

Notice any similarities?






The first and third photos are Lydia, second and fourth are Julianna. Wonder what our next child will look like?

dinner and bath time

We had dinner with Xiao Li! Matt had to leave after dinner to go to work, so Xiao Li stayed with me - She's sitting beside me now and we are getting ready to both work on craft projects for the holidays. She is making a blanket for her new niece (2 months old). Can't tell you about my projects, some of them are gifts for my faithful readers :)


after dinner it was bath time! First Lydia, then Julianna. Looking forward to the day they can bathe together!!

birthday party #1

The celebrations started tonight, we had a great time celebrating Julianna's birthday with our friends here! Now the girls are asleep and a bunch of us are sitting around watching a movie (I am half watching, half uploading photos to the blog - already saw the movie once.)


Julianna finally got to eat her cupcake!!


Opening gifts -


This little toy is from the Huffmans... Julianna was fascinated!




Racing cars... the kind that you pull back and let go, then watch them shot across the room!

At dinner.

sisters??

The bigger Lydia gets, the more she looks like Julianna (at least to me).

Here's my proof:

this is Julianna at 3 1/2 months...

and here's Lydia at 3 1/2 months....


Lydia does have (slightly) more hair than Julianna did :)

noodle bead art

This morning Julianna and I pasted noodle beads onto construction paper. You'd be surprised at how much glue we managed to use! It was fun. Here she is posing with her artwork before bedtime tonight.




We are gearing up for a busy stretch here - between family celebrations and work activities, the holidays are full! The fun starts tomorrow night when we host a birthday dinner for Julianna and a local friend - his birthday was the 16th, so we are combining celebrations. We're having make your own mini-pizzas for dinner and cupcakes for dessert. Yum.

We made the cupcakes today and Julianna asked for one at dinnertime. I asked, "when are we going to eat those cupcakes??" In response she sang, "happy birthday Ju-nanna". Which reminds me, she's started referring to herself as Ju-nanna - pretty soon she'll have her entire name down!

She loves to sing and frequently requests, "mommy, Ju-nanna sing songs". Her favorites are "yes Jesus me", "happy know it", "birthday you" and she just became a big fan of "jing jing bells". [the rest of the world refers to those songs as "Jesus loves me", "if you're happy and you know it", "happy birthday" and "jingle bells".]

noodle bead necklaces

A few days ago Julianna and I colored noodle beads. We dumped dry noodles in ziploc bags, added some drops of food coloring, sealed the bags and shook til the beads were colored. We even toasted them in the oven at low temp for a few minutes to dry them out.

Noodle beads have more uses than you might imagine... I made a "needle and thread" using a long piece of yarn, a thin drinking straw and some packing tape. Julianna kept busy threading colored noodle beads onto the yarn and creating a long necklace. (An added benefit of a noodle bead necklace is that it is delightfully loud if you drag it across a hardwood floor!)

Colored noodles are also lots of fun in the kitchen. Julianna likes to sit on the kitchen counter and stir her noodles while I cook.

Here she is, concentrating hard on stringing noodles. She LOVES her apron (my old button up shirt turned backwards, with sleeves cut short and collar cut off). Once she has it on, it's hard to convince her to take it off. One of Matt's buddies was here on Saturday afternoon and asked, "what is that thing Julianna is wearing?"

decorating the apartment

I can't believe it is already the 3rd Sunday in advent! Wow :) I thought you might like to see a picture of some of our apartment decorations - Matt took some the other day to show in class (he's been teaching some English classes again recently, but not on a permanent basis, just off and on for a teacher friend of his).

Every year I try to create some sort of advent wreath, and this is my most successful attempt ever. I managed to find some pillar style candles, but the store only had 9 - 6 red, 2 green and 1 purple. I settled on four red as the outside candles, and put the green one in the center. (It doesn't really follow the traditional color patterns, but, hey, it works.) The greenery is fake, and here's a little secret: the black "base" that it sits on is a piece of cardboard covered in a scrap of black fabric. It's all about working with the resources you have....

The nativity is sitting on our dish cabinet and I really like it there - this photo was taken early one morning. It looks like it's raining outside, but it basically never rains here except for during the rainy season (summertime). The moisture on the windows is condensation. Our windows aren't double paned, and the warmer temps inside cause moisture to form. We have water running down the inside of our windows almost every morning in the wintertime. The windows on the sunny side of the house dry up first, but the windows on the north side are often wet until late afternoon.

Yep, that's a Wake Forest stadium cup sitting on the end of the table. Go Deacs!

happy 4 month birthday LYDIA!!

Here's a little photo tour of the past four months with our little girl :)

This one was taken the morning after she was born -

one month
(this is from our time in Grand Forks, Lydia actually turned one month old the day after we arrived in Asia)

2 months.....

3 months....

4 months!! (taken this morning - about 5 minutes ago!)

two little princesses

The girls got matching princess sweatsuits in the package yesterday and boy are they cute! I got a little carried away taking photos!

I love Lydia's grin in this picture!


Julianna just finishing lunch....

Julianna loves to pat Lydia's head (it's a very bald, very pat-able, very kiss-able head!)




When leftover lasagna meets applesauce and oreo cookie....


another package arrived today - thanks to our friends at Faith in GF, ND!! We are so blessed to have so many loving family members and friends.

Lydia's check up went super well

Yesterday afternoon I took Lydia to see the pediatrician and get her 4 month shots. She did great - hardly even cried :) She weighs 15 lbs - not sure what percentile that is, and I already forgot how long she is - but I do know it's a lot bigger than Julianna was at this age. She sleeps a lot better too - just did two 12+ hour nights in a row!! Yay Lydia!!! She celebrates her 4 month birthday tomorrow.

She's sleeping now and Julianna is in the kitchen with Xiao Li making mini-loaves of banana bread and apple bread to give to some of our friends in the neighborhood as Christmas gifts.

We've been reading lots of books together recently - here's a photo from yesterday morning, reading in our pjs (well, the girls are in their pjs, I beat them out of bed by almost 2 hours, so my pjs are already distant history by this time of morning!)

if you think you are a patient person....

If you think you are a patient person, I challenge you to make 300 salt dough ornaments with an almost-2 year old! (you can borrow my toddler for an afternoon if you think you are up to the challenge!) Julianna wears an old button up shirt with the collar cut of and the sleeves trimmed down to size. Works like a charm!

Our first Christmas package arrived and we dug in this morning! (No, we didn't start unwrapping gifts yet - just the stuff we were supposed to have and enjoy the whole season!) Julianna and Lydia are now proud owners of hand-knitted stockings from Grandma Jan. They are beautiful! I'll take a photo and post it soon.

Here's a photo of Julianna digging in to the goodies.

Lydia is a laugh-er

Lydia is becoming quite a laugh-er. She is especially entertained by her big sister, but appreciates all efforts to coax a laugh out of her. A few days ago Julianna was playing peek-a-boo with Lydia and the two girls were both laughing so hard at each other. Maybe I'll try to get a little bit of laughter on video and post it to the blog. in the meantime, here's a photo of Lydia and Matt laughing at each other....

taking the TV plunge

Well, for the first time in our married lives, Matt and I are TV owners. We bought one yesterday (and a DVD player to go along with it). We, obviously, don't do much tv watching, and we watch movies on our computer screen. But, we decided it was time to jump in and buy one - Julianna watches a video sometimes, and we would like to be able to have "movie nights" at our apartment without having 11 people huddle around a 11inch computer screen. Our first movie night is planned for Friday.

And, here's a photo of our tree. Realized I never posted it. You can see that it is not only real and alive, but still growing in it's own pot. in past years when the Christmas season is over we have put our trees out in the public area of the apartment complex and the gardeners have planted them. You can go back to our old apartment and see our old trees. I think we might ask them to leave this one potted and use it again next year.

It has a wonderful "real tree, not perfect" flavor to it. If you know why the ends of the branches are bending down like they are, please post a comment and tell me what to do - yes, we know that we need to water it!! so, the issue is deeper than that.

And don't worry, we've added lots of presents since we took this picture :)

more christmas outfits

We had a full day yesterday and it was nice to get home, get the girls in bed and enjoy a few quiet hours working on various projects I have going for the Christmas season.

I have been busy making salt dough ornaments for Christmas parties we are having in December... Erin Ashley and I hope to make about 300 ornaments, so we've got plenty of work ahead of us. Julianna is a big "help" :) I concentrate on pressing cookie cutters into the dough and scooping the shapes to the tray quicker than she destroys them in her own attempts to cut and scoop.

Here's a picture of Julianna sporting her candy cane shirt... a hand-me-down from Caroline Redfern - Caroline's mom Julie is my first cousin. Does that make Caroline and Julianna 2nd cousins? or maybe 3rd? Julie used to get my hand-me-downs and now she's repaying the favor :)

And, our sweet Lydia, who just gets sweeter by the day. She is a joy and our whole family delights in her. Lydia has an appointment on Thursday to see the pediatrician and get her 4 month shots. I am eager to see how much she weighs. She is definitely bigger than Julianna was at this age.