decorating the tree

We decorated our tree last night with a few friends - Lydia was already asleep, but Julianna had a grand time.

Lydia "talking"

Lydia has added a few activities to her daily repertoire - she really likes to interact and "talk" with all of us, especially Matt. She coos and squeals and squeaks in response when we talk to her.

She is also enjoying her Bumbo - a little seat that we got for her (our friends Sloan and Ginny are moving back to America and left the seat for Lydia to enjoy). We put the Bumbo on the table and sit Lydia there during meals - she gets to be a part of the family fun.

Here's a little video of Lydia in her Bumbo, "talking" to the camera. Also note that she has picked up a new challenge in the last few days - attempting to stuff her entire hand in her mouth. If "stuffing hand in mouth" was an Olympic sport, she might qualify for Beijing 2008! (Speaking of, we have plans to go - and even bought our plane tickets - but are currently without event tickets... hoping to get some in the next ticket lottery. Our flight to Beijing leaves on the evening of August 15th, Lydia's first birthday. Beijing with its 14 million residents and the chaos of the Olympic games doesn't sound too kid-friendly, so the girls will be holding down the fort back at home while we spend a few days in BJ.)

murder mystery photos

Grabbing a free moment here (both girls napping!!) to finally post the photos from our murder mystery party. Remember it was a 1920s gangster theme?



Matt's character was a gambler - let's hope he didn't bet much on this hand!


This is the whole crowd - these folks are some of our best friends in Asia.

up four flights

Yesterday afternoon we moved our Christmas tree from the stairwell entrance to our apartment on the fourth floor. (The tree had been stranded downstairs since we bought it Sunday afternoon - it's so heavy, we knew no one could possibly steal it.) Matt recruited a few workers from the local market and they helped tote the thing upstairs.


Andy came over to help too. After the workers left, we got the tree positioned "just right"....


Lydia (fortunately) slept through most of the chaos and woke up from her nap just in time to help water the tree!


Matt and I put lights on the tree and put out some decorations for the house last night after the girls were in bed. We'll wait and hang ornaments with the girls one evening this week. Julianna just woke up and walked out into the living room - she seems pretty pleased with the lights and the tree.

I sit out here most mornings and read - for the next month or so I get to enjoy not only the morning quiet, but also the lights of the tree ... it's one of my favorite things about the Christmas season.

not your average Christmas tree farm

The four of us just got home from our annual "hunt for a Christmas tree". Buying a Christmas tree here just isn't the same as it is in the States... this is anything but a simple trip to the tree lot in the parking lot of the local home improvement store. Most people here don't even know what a Christmas tree is, why you would want one, or what it should look like.

Our first step was to locate the nearest tree/plant market. After church (and a quick lunch) we loaded into the car and told our driver, "we'd like to buy a pine tree, do you know where we should go?" He assured us he knew just the right place, and off we went. After a lot of stopping and asking folks and doing our fair share of u-turns we located a potential tree seller. At one stop, the owner assured us he had just the right thing, and led us through the tree lot to the back of his property, passing all sorts of trees (none looking the least bit like a Christmas tree). But, he did have a few pines, and we chose the only one that was small enough to fit in the apartment.

Next , while the workers at the farm dug the tree out of the ground and located an appropriate pot, the tree farm owner found a truck (with driver) that could deliver the tree to our house. So, here we are, back in our apartment, ready to get out our Christmas decorations (actually, it's just me and the girls, Matt had to run out to an appointment).

The only problem is, the tree is still downstairs. A live, potted, almost 2 meters tall Christmas tree is quite heavy, and we live on the 4th floor. It took four men (manual laborers) to lift the tree into the delivery truck. So, when Matt gets home we'll tackle the "how to get the tree up the stairs" problem. He'll probably end up going to the local market and looking for a few guys who want to make some quick money by carrying a Christmas tree up a few flights of stairs!

Here's Matt and Julianna with the tree farm staff. The guy on the right side of the photo facing the camera is Qiu - a driver that we frequently use (he really enjoyed the hunt and was quite determined that we get just the right tree).

And, me and Lydia with the tree we bought - on the left side of the photo. See the much larger tree over my left shoulder?? We thought it sure was nicely shaped, but it wouldn't even begin to fit in our apartment!

when bad goes to worse...

Well, at the last minute we canceled our post-Thanksgiving plans and the family is here at home, not at the weekend get-away with our friends. A situation with Matt's work escalated from bad to worse on Friday morning, and we needed to be here, not away on vacation. (If you want more details please email and I'll be glad to update you.)

Our house was full of local friends for most of yesterday afternoon and well into the night. How many people can you feed with 40 boxes of take-out fried rice?? Lots! ... but not without a few rice-on-the-floor casualties.

In the evenings I frequently give Lydia a bottle of expressed milk - it gives me a nice break and I get to eat dinner without a baby in my arms. Lydia enjoyed last night's bottle in the arms of one student, surrounded by a rotating audience of 5-7 other college girls! She's never had quite that much attention :)

Anyways, I spent part of the morning (yesterday and today) taking the carved pumpkins from Wednesday night and turning them into pumpkin bread, muffins, pie, etc. Julianna had a grand time sitting on the counter and sorting through pieces of discarded pumpkin.

Hope you are enjoying your leftovers :)

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

We had a great Thanksgiving Day with lots of friends. 6 families and all their kids - 13 kiddos in all. It was a full house.

We leave tomorrow morning for a three day, two night get-away with three other couple friends of ours - Huffmans, Greenes and Deans. The 8 adults, and 4 kids (Julianna is the oldest and Lydia the youngest) rented a little 'house' at the resort with hot springs where we stayed a few weeks ago. It'll be a lot of fun. So, I am offline and not posting for a few days. Here's our family Thanksgiving photo:


One of the perks of Thanksgiving with our friends the Shickleys (who hosted us today) is all their play stuff - Julianna loved this little slide.

happy thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving Day! We are so thankful for so many things, and have lots to celebrate. It's a little before 7am, the house is still quiet, and I am up and at 'em... lots to get done today!

Last night's celebration was super fun - we had a HUGE feast and then sat around and decorated a "thanksgiving tree" (a dried up branch stuck in a pot) with paper leaves. We wrote things we were thankful for on the leaves. After that, we carved pumpkins. (yes, i know that's a Halloween thing, but when you live overseas you can flex on details like that)! Each pumpking carving team had one local and one expat. Admire our handiwork below:


Well, really gotta run today. Happy thanksgiving to all of you. We miss you terribly, especially at holidays, but are so thankful for the community that God has provided for us here!

sentences!! and a trip back in time

Not sure how this snuck up on me, but I realized this morning that Julianna is starting to use sentences! Pretty exciting stuff, huh? First, a disclaimer and a helpful vocab list, then I'll share a sampling of her newest skill set. Disclaimer: her poor grammar is not indicative of mine (as far as I know, I conjugate most verbs correctly). Vocabulary to know: Julianna refers to herself as "Nana" and to Matt as "baba".

So, are you ready? Yesterday at breakfast she heard Lydia waking up and said, "Nana go see Lydia". Then, this morning, again at breakfast, "Baba eat yogurt too". Conclusion: Julianna's mind is sharpest at breakfast! Either that, or it's still early enough in the day that my brain has not yet gone into "super overdrive mode" and I am paying enough attention to what she says to realize her accomplishment.

Here's a photo of the little genius modeling her mommy's house slippers (no one wears outdoor shoes in the house here in Asia).
I thought it might be fun to pull out a photo from last Thanksgiving - Julianna was 11 months old and I was newly aware that Lydia was on her way....

Isn't she cute?

Another day on the road to recovery here... Julianna better again today.

I love this time of night, when the girls are sleeping and the day is winding down. Usually, after dinner, Matt starts the bath/bed routine with the girls (we don't do baths every night) and I work on the mess we created during dinner. We both finish up about the same time (depending on the size of the pile of dishes by the sink) and breathe a sigh of relief.

This week we are gearing up for several Thanksgiving celebrations - Wednesday night with a group of 8 (locals and Americans) and then Thursday we join four or five other expat families for a big feast. The host family has four kids and Julianna thinks they are great! She squeals and giggles and runs around the house trying to keep up with them. It'll be fun...

progressing towards health!

Today is the first day that I can confidently say I have seen significant improvement in Julianna since this whole thing started 9 days ago. Yea!! We did not go to church this morning (no need to infect the entire nursery full of kids), so it was a quiet day at home. We had a fun time playing with "the babies" late this afternoon - Julianna was careful to make sure both Lydia and her baby doll were covered with a blanket (it got quite chilly today).


















Late this afternoon the whole family went for a short walk around town (it's a small town, so a long walk is out of the question!) Here we are just starting out ... still in our apartment complex. Our apartment is at the very end of this path, fourth floor on the left.
















I am carrying Lydia on my back in a "beibu". All the local ladies use them. It's very cozy and Lydia loves to snooze while riding back there. When I have Lydia in the beibu and Julianna in my arms the two girls are facing one another (over my shoulder) and they love to talk. Julianna says, "Lydia!! Hey Lydia!!" Lydia coos.

The not-so-great thing about Lydia in the beibu and Julianna in my arms is the combined weight of almost 40lbs!! Try carrying that load up to the fourth floor :) (The stroller weighs an additional 13 lbs, but at that point, I stop counting!)




This is main street (and the only street) in town. You can see that traffic is not a problem! I can stroll right in the street. Julianna is showing off her pink wardrobe - pink hat, pink coat, pink pants. That's pretty much par for the course around our house - when we sort laundry the piles are "darks", "lights" and "pinks".
















Along with the Huffmans, we are the first foreigners to ever live here in KC (a suburb of the big city we lived in for the past three years). It's kind of like a mill town - all the folks work for (or are retired from) the factory at the end of main street. Four apartment complexes, an elementary school, middle school, and some small stores and businesses (like hair salons, the bank, post office, a fruit/veggie/meat market, etc) make up the rest of the town. It seems like most everyone knows most everyone else. And EVERYBODY knows about the foreign families. No secrets here. But, all in all, the folks have been very welcoming and seem glad to have us around.

to the doctor again

Julianna wasn't getting better and had some new symptoms, so we headed back to the doctor today - he thinks she has type 1 herpes (explains the sores in her mouth and her fever). A significant chunk of the population (worldwide) is an asymptomatic carrier, so she could have picked it up anywhere. Many adults have antibodies to it, which explains why Matt and I have not gotten it, and Lydia is still getting my antibodies (lucky her!), so she is pretty safe. Still, it is very contagious.

It will "run its course" in a few weeks, the sores should get better and her fever should slowly subside too (its already better today than it has been). In the meantime, Julianna gets to eat lots of ice cream and benadryl can numb some of the discomfort.

She's snoozing now and Lydia just woke up for her afternoon snack! Gotta run....

not getting any easier (but the NC package helped!)

Things are not getting easier around these parts. Julianna still sick (doctor on Thursday thought it was a virus and she could fight it herself). But I think I might need some medicine to continue to fighting her crabby attitude!

Dryer fix-it guy did arrive, took two hours to "fix it" and left. It is quieter, but I haven't had a chance to see if the drying time is faster. Yesterday, when the washer and dryer were both running at the same time the fuse blew and now the outlet is busted and won't work. (in the past, I ran them at the same time with no trouble.) At least it was sunny yesterday - we're sticking with the sunshine for now.

I did have a good evening cooking with Erin Ashley after the little girls were in bed. Matt and Andy were both gone til late and we made meals for the freezer (lasagna, meatloaf, chili).

We did have fun opening up a package from my parents!! Julianna got a new set of jewelry and LOVES it... she even shared with Lydia and me - we each got to model the bracelets and necklaces for a brief period of time.

Here she is digging in to the goods (Lydia was there too, see her feet in the bottom left corner?? )

the dryer fix-it man

We have a clothes dryer, for which I am very grateful... they are not very commonly found here, and we bought ours a few years ago from a foreign family headed back to the States. But, the dryer has its limitations. It's always been a little slow - about 90 minutes to dry a small-ish load, which worked out fine, since we have a small washer (at least compared to the giant washers they sell in the US).

Recently, I've noticed that the dryer has gotten REALLY slow, like 3 hours to dry a load. And, ever since the move this past summer, its been pretty noisy (well, actually, it's so noisy it can drown out the sound of Lydia crying). So, we decided to call the dryer fix-it man and have him take a look. We called him Monday afternoon and he said he'd be here Tuesday morning. Right now it's Thursday about 10:30 am and he has yet to show up.

I've been hanging a lot of my clothes to dry (I usually only hang bigger, heavy things). But, the tricky thing about hanging clothes to dry is that if the sun doesn't shine, the clothes don't dry. After two cloudy days, we've got quite a backlog of partially dry clothing. Lydia's bibs and onesies dry pretty quickly. Matt's jeans... not so quick. The sun is starting to peek out from behind the clouds as I type. At this point, the good ole sunshine seems a bit more reliable than my dryer fix-it man. I'll keep you posted...

a better day

Well, today was a tad bit better - Julianna is making some improvement, but not very quickly, so I made an appointment to see the pediatrician tomorrow afternoon. If she is much improved in the morning, I will cancel, but at this point I plan on taking her in to see him. At least her attitude was better today.

We hosted some good friends for dinner and had a lot of fun chatting around the dinner table. I think they even managed to distract Julianna from her own misery and she smiled a few times while they were here. Two of our friends were busy teaching Julianna a song popular with the local kids - sung to the tune of "are you sleeping, are you sleeping, brother john". The words are really catchy and she really got into the hand motions.

Lydia is holding strong, happy as can be and growing like a weed. Here she is showing off how she can "stand" in her daddy's lap. Tomorrow is her 3 month birthday!

I'm sick and I'm grumpy

This first photo actually belongs most appropriately to my post from earlier this morning - Julianna sporting her best "I'm sick and grumpy" face. She is feeling a bit better, and we had a few fun moments together late this afternoon.

Thanks to our attempt this past Saturday to get all three of us girls in a photo using the timer, Julianna now thinks setting the camera on timer and running to pose for a photo is a game. Here's one we took together this afternoon. (Lydia is not a big fan of this game, because for her it mostly involves bouncing back and forth from one end on the room to the other in mommy's arms - she chose to sit out this round.)

it's not all grins and giggles

Lest you thought it was all grins and giggles here in apartment 401, let me assure you.... we have our tough days! Julianna is sick... and I am realizing the remarkably strong indirect correlation between her whiny attitude and my extra patience :) I talked to a pediatrician yesterday, and he thinks it is just the common cold, and said treat it with rest and Tylenol. His main concern (and ours) is that Lydia would stay healthy - she slept in the office last night to try to keep her away from Julianna's germs.

Please pray that Julianna would recover quickly, Lydia would stay healthy and I would not quit my job as mommy! This is only the second time Julianna has been sick and I am realizing just how limited my patience is!!

a taste for middle eastern cuisine

I really enjoy hummus and since chic peas are easy to find here, I make it a lot. A few days ago I also made some baba ghanoush... it's a middle eastern dip (similar in texture to hummus) but made with roasted eggplant. There is LOTS of eggplant where we live, so it's always good to have new ways to use it.

Of course, Julianna "helped" me make the baba ghanoush (she especially loves making anything that involves the food processor since it is so noisy and the food swirling around is fun to watch). I served it for lunch, along with the hummus and some pretzel sticks. Julianna ate gobs of both - she would scoop it with the pretzel, take a big bite, and lick the extra off her fingers.

Reminds me of our trip to the middle east (spring 06)... Julianna wasn't eating solid foods at that point, but she apparently picked up a taste for middle eastern cuisine while she was there!

here's one of my favorite photos from the trip - Julianna and me in Istanbul (that's the Blue Mosque in the background)

three girls in a picture

The murder mystery party game last night was LOTS of fun. We didn't use our own camera so we need to get copies of the photos and I will hopefully post them soon - Matt wasn't the murderer after all, but he was acting very suspicious the whole evening!

I left my hair straight for one more day and took this photo with the girls this afternoon. Julianna calls it "mommy's new hair". In case you are wondering, setting up the camera, using the timer and getting all three of us in the right place at the right time was no easy task. But, Julianna and I had lots of fun taking photos and running to see the results on the camera screen while Lydia tolerated all the bouncing back and forth from one side of the room to the other just fine!

Julianna has a case of the sniffles and is a bit under the weather. Hoping she will kick this bug easily and that the rest of the family (especially Lydia) will stay healthy.

Murder at the Four Deuces...

Tonight is the big murder mystery party... the basic idea is that all party participants are assigned a character and part to play, one of the characters is a murderer and the participant who correctly solves the murder wins. There are lots of different parties, we are doing "murder at the four deuces" - a 1920s gangster/speakeasy setting. If you are really interested you can read more about it here: http://www.dinnerandamurder.com/games/4deuces.htm

My character is Donna Wannabe, I am the little sister to Don (played by Andy). Don and his wife MeMe (Erin Ashley) are opening a new speakeasy. Matt is Brett Bumbler (a gambler). According to my character background info, I am supposed to flirt with Matt all night long! He thinks it's going to be a great evening :) I think he might be the murderer!!! (just kidding, I really don't have a clue who the murderer is!)

This morning I went to a local hair salon and had them use a flat iron to straighten my hair and then use a curling iron to flip out the ends. Unfortunately, Matt has the camera with him this afternoon, so I can't post a pre-party photo of my hair-do. Matt was home briefly at lunch and I asked him if he liked my hair. He said, "not really". But then quickly added that it's perfect for tonight's party, he just prefers the curls. At least he is honest.

Tomorrow's post will hopefully include lots of photos!

Let's pretend

The world of pretend grows bigger every day here at our apartment in East Asia... Last night while I was putting Lydia in bed Julianna was busy as well - putting her own little baby to bed. She was so proud to show me her baby sleeping on mommy and daddy's big bed, buried under a pile of blankets with a picture book next to her head.

Julianna's baby also frequently naps in this little cradle that we got from our friends, Ruthie and Mary Van Montague.

And, of course, every baby needs to eat a little lunch.


I've been having fun helping Erin Ashley get ready to host a murder mystery party - it's tomorrow night and 15 of our friends are coming. The setting is a 1920s speakeasy and we are all dressing up to look the part. I got a great dress and boa and fishnet tights from a local wholesale market. Don't worry, we'll take plenty of pictures.

Time is short this morning, Lydia is napping and Julianna is entertaining herself in the office while I type - she's got a pen, a pencil, two pieces of scotch tape and a sheet of computer paper.... but with her short attention span my time is quickly running out.

apartment photos

Here are the long-promised apartment photos - I took these last night after the girls were in bed. We continue to recognize how perfect this place really is for our family... months of praying for this home and God provided exactly what we need. We have a wonderful open family room/dining area/kitchen. And three nice-sized bedrooms - one is Matt's office, the second belongs to the girls and we occupy the third! We've got a futon in the office and would love to host any of you if you're ever in the area :)

Views from the two "ends" of the dining/living area. (our front door is on the far right of this photo)





Here you can see the kitchen from the dining area...


another kitchen photo (try to ignore the dishes drying in the dish rack - I had just finished cleaning up after dinner!)



Here's our bedroom

It's perfect for our family!

Lydia smile at you

Julianna's language ability continues to develop rapidly, but she still confuses pronouns, and often uses them incorrectly. The most common mistake is switching "me" and "you". So, when she says, "mommy help you" what she means is "mommy help me", likewise "hold you" means "hold me".
My favorite is when she gets right in Lydia's face and says "Lydia smile at you" .... what she means is "Lydia smile at me". She learned this from me, because I frequently point out that Lydia is smiling at her. Lydia is more interactive every day, and Julianna continues to delight in her little sister.

I love Mondays...

Matt is taking Mondays off this semester and I am loving it! He went on a bike ride this morning while I went grocery shopping at Jia Le Fu (a big, Wal-mart type store in town). Xiao Li was here to watch Julianna and Lydia slept. It is SO NICE to shop on my own, without the kids. I usually try to go to Jia Le Fu about once a month or so.... I buy a lot while I am there, but it's not a terrific shopping experience, so I prefer to avoid it.

We got some big chores done around the house and Matt managed to repair the lamp that was broken during the big party last week. Julianna and I took a quick trip to the market this afternoon - she is really getting in to singing and knows quite a few songs so we sing as we stroll around town. It helps that no one within hearing distance speaks English or knows what the songs are supposed to sound like, so they don't know how bad we really are!

Here's Lydia sitting in Julianna's little armchair. It's still a little big for her, but she's growing fast!

Sunday evening

Went to fellowship this morning and then to a birthday party for 1-year old Aria (daughter of our friends Ginny and Sloan). Julianna slept through most of the party, so she missed the pinata but Matt snagged some candy for her. She was mostly excited about the cupcake that we brought home for dessert, but when the time came to eat it, she just licked off the icing and smashed the cake into her high chair tray. (Matt and I rescued part of the cake and ate it ourselves!)

The two girls are back in the same room for night number two (as sisters that are 20 months apart in age, I figure this is the beginning of a very long roommate relationship). Lydia is having some incredible nights, and both girls woke up happy about 7:45 this morning. Julianna looked over at Lydia and said, "hi Lydia! Hey. Hey Lydia." Lydia grinned.

roommates

Julianna and Lydia are roommates for the first time tonight - moved Lydia into Julianna's old pack n play for her morning nap and she is there for tonight too (Lydia took no decent afternoon nap, but that's another story and involves recounting lots of crying, so we'll avoid that topic for now.)

Anyways, last weekend when I was in Thailand with Lydia Matt hosted a "small get-together" attended by 50 students... now, our apartment was NEVER intended to host 50 students, but the only casualty was a broken lamp. Not bad. Julianna was awake when the party started, Matt put her in bed and she slept through the WHOLE THING! So, I conclude, she is not an easily disturbed sleeper and will hopefully adjust quickly to little sis in the same room.

In terms of Julianna being upset by sharing her things with Lydia .... she is still so obsessed with her graduation to a big girl bed that I am not sure she has even noticed Lydia inhabiting her old one.

Today's photo: Julianna "helping" Lydia with her paci.

a package from ND, Xiao Li arrives, and more...

When I first started this blog I thought I might not have stuff to write about every day.... I mean, I am a stay-at-home mom with two kids under two. Some days I don't even get out the front door - what could I have to write about? So, one fun thing about the blog is it helps me realize that important, fascinating things happen every day (at least in the eyes of my little girls). Thanks to you who read it and "enter in" to life with me :)

Xiao Li arrived this morning for her first day at our new apartment! She'll be here on M/W/F mornings and T/Th afternoons. What a sweet blessing she is - Julianna knew her right away (she was with us for our first three years here and had always been a part of Julianna's life... until we moved to our new apartment - so Julianna had not seen her since late June). I am so thankful for Xiao Li as a sweet friend and also tremendous help to me as a mom. Hoping that with her arrival I'll advance from "barely keeping my head above water" to some real "swimming" as I figure out how to do life here in China with two little ones!!!


Later in the morning a package from ND arrived! Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for the fun goodies - Julianna watched her new movie tonight after dinner :)


Around lunchtime I headed in to town for a haircut and to say goodbye to my friend Anita. My hair is pretty short - I was inspired by my cousin Julie (who got her hair cut short this summer) and by my sweet Lydia (who is a spit up queen...I was tired of finding clumps of baby spit up in my long hair - gross!).

Julianna and I also did a little baking this afternoon - don't worry, I don't really let her take things out of the oven, but she does enjoy wearing the oven mitt!

we're home

Well, we're back home again. The retreat was a lot of fun! I'll just post a photo or two for now and write more later. Yesterday was a long day and I have a busy one coming up here, so I don't have much time this morning.


The main attraction at the resort was a hot springs-fed pool. We all had fun swimming. Julianna took a tumble walking to breakfast the first day - check out her face!!



The weather keeps changing - on Tuesday it was jeans and short sleeves but by Thursday evening we were all bundled up again.


Julianna feeding the fish some popcorn (there were several ponds on the property).