argh... it's really happening

Oh no, how is THIS happening?

I took 67,000 photos of Julianna as a baby. And 42.000 of Lydia.

I have 8 photos of Isaac.

[Those numbers are approximate, and exaggerated. But my point still stands. For all of you third (and subsequent) children out there.... trust me, your mommy loved you, she was just BUSY! And besides, every time she got ready to snap a photo of your precious little face, your older siblings tended to barge in front of the camera!]

Anyways, back to Isaac and the photo-deficit. I scanned through our photos from the last few weeks and found these :)

He is growing up to be such a cute and cuddly little guy.



He loves to smile (especially at the girls antics) but he also has more serious moments.




And while he is mostly content and happy (and sleepy!) he does have an "I'm-really-distressed" look he likes to sport every now and then.



More to come! I am determined that I will actually have photos of this little guy!

shaking out the travel bugs

Yesterday Julianna told me she was "going to America".

A few minutes later she came out of her room dressed like this:


Take special note of the shoes she selected. That will certainly make for some comfortable trekking during her airport layovers, don't you think?

What's in the bag? Snacks for the airplane.

[I'm not sure why she is wearing two ties (part of her dress up clothes collection). Maybe she's hoping for a business-class upgrade? I've always heard that you are more likely to get upgraded if you "look the part".]

Our girls are used to lots of travel, so it's no wonder that their pretend play frequently heads in that direction (no pun intended). But, in actuality, we have a slow summer planned with no family travel on the horizon. She'll have to save her ties and fluffy shoes for another season. Matt is on-the-go a bit over these next two weeks, but we'll be holding down the fort here at home. The girls will have to shake the travel bugs out of their system with lots of pretending :)

the test

We studied for the driving test using a booklet that contained 1315 potential test questions. The exam was a computer generated randomly chosen selection of 100 of those questions. Answer 90 or more correctly and you pass.

The questions covered every conceivable driving related topic (insurance regulations, traffic fines, road signs, general car maintenance, etc) and ranged from "incredibly obvious" to "impossible to understand".

I flipped through the study booklet and picked out a few samples. I copied them exactly as they appear in the booklet. Answers at the bottom of the post.

Right or Wrong (i.e true/false)

1. When encountering people carrying load on shoulder poles or carrying farm tools on shoulders, the driver should observe their movement, control speed, and pass by keeping a sufficient safe distance.

2. When a vehicle goes uphill on a mountain road, it should change to lower gear in advance, speed up and dash uphill.

3. When a wounded suffers bleeding in the forearm or shank, the rescuers may place a cushion in the armpit or in the rook of the arm, crook the armpit or rook and tie up.

4. When a motorized vehicle pulls a breakdown vehicle, the maximum speed should not be less than 30 kilometers per hour.

5. When a motorized vehicle crosses an overflowing road or bridge the driver should stop and look at the situation, and passes through slowly before he makes sure that it is safe to do so.

Multiple Choice

6. When a vehicle 0verturns slowly and jumping out of the vehicle is possible, the driver should jump _______
a) in the driving direction
b) in the overturning direction
c) in the opposite direction of the overturn
d) to the overturning side

7. The main role of the engine lubrication system is
a) sealing
b) cooling
c) cleaning
d) lubrication

8. If the trafffic control department of the pulic security organ needs to investigate and verify the certificate showing the origin of a motorized vehice and the driver, owner or manager of the vehicle refues to accept the decision within _____, the department is not subject to the time limit of vehicle detention.

a) 10 days
b) 15 days
c) 20 days
d) 30 days

Ready for the answers?
1. Right
2. Right
3. Right
4. Wrong
5. Right
6. c
7. d
8. d

Only 1307 more questions to learn before you go take the test!

arriving in style

This morning Matt and I went to take our drivers license test (we passed!). Turns out the "vehicle management station" where driving tests are administered is close to our little town. Which expands our list of things-convenient-to-our-town to a whopping 2!!! (The other place? campus! which is super important, and why we live here. Not to mention the fact that I think I might officially be a fan of small community living - I just LOVE so many aspects, I am willing to put up with the not so fun inconveniences.)

Anyways, back to the vehicle management station.... we rode bikes. How's that for classy? Riding a bike to take a drivers license test.

There was exactly one other bike in the bike parking area. Which was still there when we left. And looked like it hadn't been moved in about three weeks. Apparently most people are way too cool to arrive for a drivers license test on two-wheeled transportation.

So, I have now passed perhaps the MOST counter-intuitive test I have ever taken. (We only had to take a written test, not a road test, since we already have drivers licenses from our home country). I can legally drive a car. The jury is still out on whether or not I will ever want to.

I'm mostly grateful I don't need to grab the book and study every free moment of my day. The free moments are pretty precious, and I'm thankful I no longer have to share them with the driving test.

A few of the questions were pretty funny, and I plan to share them here, but that will have to wait for another day....

Today is....

MY BIRTHDAY!!

We started celebrating yesterday. Matt and the girls went shopping for gifts at the largest store in town (which is pretty much a glorified convenience store). Lydia picked out a diet coke and fruit flavored mentos. Julianna chose two pencils and a roll of hard candy.

It's the thought that counts.

Matt snapped these photos of the gift wrapping session.





After supper we enjoyed cupcakes and the girls opened my presents.


This morning we are off to church, then bringing the children home for an afternoon and evening with Xiao Li and her husband while Matt and I go for a short hike (if the weather cooperates) and dinner out on the town!

The fun continues into Monday when we head to a local park for a morning of play with some great friends.


Note Lydia holding her (whoops, I mean MY) birthday present. Funny how that concept is so tricky for little ones!

Well, Julianna just came out to give me a Good-Morning-Happy-Birthday hug. Yay!

Children's Day

Well, now you all know that I am procrastinating from my studies so I can blog :) If I don't pass the test, we'll know why!! Ha ha.

Julianna's school activity was super fun. The whole point was to celebrate Children's Day (June 1st). I'm not sure why they celebrated on May 22nd. She did SO GREAT!!

Can you spot Julianna?? She's the blond :) It's not too hard to pick her out of the crowd - I think she has about 50 in her class.

Here they are dancing and singing....


This is the attempt at the class photo.... (you'd need a wide angle lens to get everyone)


And Matt took some video with his phone (so it's a bit blurry).





Ok, gotta run. Lydia is scattering scraps of playdoh all over the kitchen floor. Julianna thinks it's hilarious and Isaac is ignoring the whole thing!

it's study time

I know, I know. I haven't posted in a few days. And it's not cause I don't have plenty of material - it's because I am studying for the driver's license test. WHY???? Well, sometimes I'm not sure myself. I mean, seriously, every time I picture myself driving my stomach churns. Traffic here is.... well, different than traffic in the US. So I'm not sure I'd really want to drive anywhere.

But friends are loaning us their vehicle (more about that later) for the summer while they are home. And Matt is getting his license so he can drive it. So if he's going through all the trouble of studying and taking the test, they I figured I might as well do it with him.

Side note about the test: It's not easy. I have a 170 ish page booklet of all the test questions. And some of them are pretty tricky. It's in English (but the translation isn't that great, which adds another layer of confusion) and some of the stuff covered on the test is pretty complex. So I am spending my free time (which isn't that abundant anyways) cramming for this test - we take it Monday morning.

So, no blogging. Sorry :) I'll be back soon.

Actually, this morning I am going to a little performance at Julianna's school, and if I get a little studying in during naps, maybe I'll post some pictures this evening.

our little songwriter

Julianna might just grow up to be a songwriter. She spends lots of time dancing around, making up tunes and the words to go with them. It's kind of like listening to 3-year-old-stream-of-consciousness. Which, depending on your mood, can be insightful.... or irritating :) It's mostly enjoyable, but at 7:15 when I'm feeding Isaac and everyone needs breakfast and no one has changed Lydia's diaper and all I want is a cup of coffee, a 3 year singing stream-of-conscious thoughts at high decibels falls into the irritating category!


In the past 24 hours I've heard her composing with some of these lines, a few of them in the same song:

* "do not interrupt your mommies" - Yep, she's heard this before! Apparently this particular section of the song was instructional, and directed at other young children.

* "the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" - Bits of memorized Scripture often work their way into her music, frequently out of context (this one was in the verse that followed "do not interrupt your mommies").

* "down in the valley lay the city" - quoted from The Little Engine that Could, which Matt has been reading to the girls in the evenings. She also likes to throw in "and all the dolls and toys cheered" from the same book.

and, this is the one that I think will propel her into song writing fame.....

* "i think kangaroos are not bad for me"

Now WHERE IN THE WORLD did she get that? See what I mean about listening to 3-year-old-stream-of-consciousness?


Oh, and I almost forgot. For those of you who read the previous post about Lydia's ah-pe-tus ... I got some great guesses, including one friend who emailed and guessed it was Isaac's ummmmm, boy part. Kudos to Krisanne and Jaci - it's an OCTOPUS.

Lydia and the ah-pe-tus

Lydia loves to talk. Xiao Li has started calling her "the little echo" because she gets in these moods where she repeats the last few syllables of everything she hears. It can be a little unnerving, to hear yourself in repeat, but she sometimes shortens phrases as she repeats them ending up with funny little sayings and then we're all laughing.

Her newest favorite way to spice up her conversation is to use the phrase "in a few minutes". So as she heads out of the room she'll say, "be right back, in a few minutes". She's probably said it 15 times in the past two days.


Of course, she's a little bit hard to understand. But for those of us who listen to her all day long, most of what she says is crystal clear, it's the rest of the world who needs a translator.

I would like to think that I understand her better than anyone else, but I'm afraid that title probably belongs to her big sister Julianna, who occasionally does some interpreting for me. ("Mom, she's saying penguin, she's looking for the penguin.")

Which leads me to the title of this post. Because when Lydia says "manda" she is clearly referring to a panda, and "brab" is most definitely "crab". And, I know now, what sounds to me like "Mommy find it the pink one" is, in fact, "Mommy find it the penguin".

But, what exactly do you suppose is an "ah-pe-tus"?

PS - This one I was able to figure out all on my own - and I'll tell you in the next post!

the quietest one

"Quiet" isn't a word I would use to describe our home. Well, except for the early afternoon hours when everybody but mommy sleeps :) Those are some GREAT quiet moments that I enjoy!

Usually our home is filled with noise - Julianna and Lydia talking, singing, laughing, crying, whining, squealing, giggling, complaining. ALL. DAY. LONG. I love to hear them chatter with each other. I love to hear them playing together. I love to listen to them singing along to their favorite CDs.

But I also love a little peace and quiet. Which is one reason I love nap time :) And one thing I love about sweet baby Isaac. He is a quiet baby. He loves to sleep, eat, cuddle and smile. He loves to look around and explore his world. Even his sweet little 'talking' noises are several bazillion decibels lower than the girls voices :)



I know it won't be long til he's right there in the midst of the fun and chaos. And I'll love that time when it gets here. But for now, I'm enjoying "our quietest one".

life on the south side

We live on the south side of a major city, and development is heading our way! It's amazing how quickly this area is changing and growing.... our little town is still little and won't change much (it's gated, and the area between the gates is pretty much filled in, so I don't see how we could sustain much growth), but the rest of the area is booming. The infrastructure is pretty much ready (nice big roads, lots of apartment buildings going up) and people are slowing starting to move out here.

One perk of all the development is lots of fun places to go and explore. This morning we drove about 20 minutes to a big new development/shopping mall/apartment complex/sports stadium all rolled into one. It's big. Really big. So big that the sales office offers golf cart tours - we accepted and went cruising around the complex :) [Here's a hint at the scale of some of these developments... one of the larger ones is called Century City and will be home to 600,000 people when it is fully occupied. Yep, count the zeros. That's six-hundred-thousand people.]

In addition to the golf cart, the highlight was probably this huge piece of playground equipment, which was a special treat for the girls and their buddy Emma Grace.


Although I love life in our little town, I'm also thankful for the development heading our way. It's fun to have more options for fun, shopping, and entertainment. But I'm not sure I'm ready for 600,000 neighbors :)

our goodbye picnic

For Mom's last dinner I whipped up the not-super-fancy-but-always-popular PB&J. The five of us (Matt is out of town) headed to the park for a picnic.


It was the first time I loaded Isaac in the double stroller (which hasn't seen the great outdoors since last summer).


Matt called while we were there ....

and the girls had a blast telling him all about our picnic.


What a great way to end a special visit with my mom :) We'll miss you Grandmama! Thanks for coming to visit us!

where is Isaac?

See his little head sticking out from beneath the pile of toys? Apparently big-sister-love takes on many different forms.

our top ten toys

I've been thinking about which toys my girls love the most. The ones that get played with almost every day. The ones that they sometimes fight over, sometimes share, frequently ask for, and head for first when we return home. And I came up with the list below.

I took all these photos today - just kept the camera handy and snapped photos from the moment they got out of bed until they changed into their pajamas a few minutes ago.

So, here's our list of "top ten toys" -

10. Plastic stools. "Where is my stool"..... I must hear this question at least ten times a day - from each of them! This morning they used the stools as launching pads for leaps onto the couch. I missed that photo, but got this one later.


9. Clothes pins and clothes hangers. (are they really toys?) I look forward to the day they really 'help' in this task, but in the meantime, they sure do love to play with the clothes pins and extra hangers.


8. The boat (aka the plastic tub I use as a laundry bin) - hardly a day passes that one or both girls don't get in this 'boat' and sail off into the wild blue yonder.


7. The stroller. Fighting over who gets to push this stroller is a hobby for the girls :)


6. The baby doll. We have lots, but this particular one is the favorite.


5. Music. This CD player is a thrill a minute - we listen to LOTS of music.



4. Water. I guess it isn't technically a toy, but bath water, sink water, mud puddle water... any type of water is sure to provide plenty of entertainment.


3. Books. They read alone and they beg to be read to, these girls LOVE books.


2. Chewing Gum. The girls love gum, and Lydia swallows hers only half the time :)


1. And the #1 favorite toy at our house? ISAAC! The girls get so excited when he is awake and ready to "play" with them. As you can see from the smile on his face, his #1 toy choice is definitely his two big sisters!

laundry woes

Laundry.

Recently, it's been the sticking point in my day.

About a month ago, when we first got back home with Isaac, we were plagued with lots of water problems. Well, technically, just one problem.... water outage. Lots of water outages. Washing clothes with no water gets pretty tricky :) So our laundry would pile up and pile up and then, as soon as I heard water running in the pipes, I would rush to start a load in the washer.

Then the water started running consistently again. But my laundry problems were far from over.

The extension cord that runs from our washer & dryer to the nearest outlet began emitting a strange burning smell every time I ran the washer and dryer for an extended period of time. I got a little worried about that and quit running the appliances simultaneously. But the cord still smelled smoky, so I would only run each appliance in short little bursts. I would start a load, let it wash a while, and then pause the washer to let the extension cord "rest". [Can you tell I am not an electrical engineer?]

By the time that extension cord died its final death I had to stand beside the outlet and physically push the cord into the outlet for the washer to finish a load. I was desperate to wash clothes, so I set Lydia up playing with the water in the bathroom sink and stood beside the outlet while the wash finished!

An electrician managed to repair the cord, and I was back in business - the water was running in the pipes and I could have a load in both the washer and dryer at the same time! Laundry heaven!

Until a few days ago when Matt noticed the dryer was on, but the barrel was not turning. He assumed the belt that turned the barrel was broken and called a repair man. I continued to wash clothes, and hung them to dry.

The repair man came Wednesday afternoon, spent about an hour working on it, and then declared he needed more parts and would return "soon".

He came back tonight (Friday) and as of 7pm things were not looking good for the dryer.

The repair man started by removing one part of the dryer and laying it in our hallway (the black and blue bags are his parts and tools).


And then he continued to remove parts and now this is the repair man, with the dryer. Which is in about 97 parts on the floor of our bathroom.

Any guesses as to the prognosis for our dryer?

One other piece of good laundry news: it just started raining and rain is forecast for the next three days. Looks like the clothes hanging in the window will take a while to dry!