Gone RV'ing: Come visit

We have officially upgraded from tent camping. We caved and repaired the badly warped living room floor and bought an automatic washer as well as a bookshelf. Much more like an RV-ing trip now. You're still welcome to come see us, but I just realized you will have to bring the marshmallows AND graham crackers for s'mores. Here's the pics of the rest of our house.

The bedroom:

The office/Grace's room: (The crib is right beside the dressers just not quite visible.) The bookshelf helps tremendously. Hunt wants to move our desk into the living room as the door creaks terribly and disturbs Grace if she's asleep and we have to go retrieve something. Having a clean living room is very important to me so I'm not thrilled about moving a desk (which is bound to stay cluttered) into it. Decisions, decisions...

Archie at the park near our apartment: (The outside of our building looks quite similar.)

Sorry, all done!

I love having a verbal child. Archie was pretty slow starting to talk, but now he is able to use words to communicate major ideas even though he doesn’t quite use sentences. He speaks two languages with equal ease and people frequently tell me his pronunciation is better than mine. THANKS! Anyhow, I enjoy some of his language blunders:

Sorry! I think he’s got that confused with uh-oh as he says it every time he falls down regardless of if anyone else is hurt.

All done! This means, “I don’t want to do it.” He is frequently “all done” with his nap before he even starts, and he is always “all done” every time we get near him with an eye patch.

Bao le (I’m full). This means, “I am ready to not be sitting at the table.” He uses this regardless of if we’re eating and he’s full or if he’s merely done with a table time activity.

Another funny:

I think it’s hilarious that Archie can correctly identify a WALRUS but hasn’t quite figured out what a cat is even though I assure you we see far more cats than walruses.

Archie's Second Birthday Party

Did we have a second birthday party? Yes, a very small one. After going all out last year, we kept it simple with only us and two foreign teachers from a nearby college. I think the whole thing was over in about 30 minutes :) The highlight for Archie, of course, was the cake.

He's working on using a spoon. I have been lazy about teaching him. Where we live, it's the norm to still spoon feed four year olds. (I'll get him trained before then, though :)

I guess Grace thought we were making too much of a fuss over her big brother.

Party guests

The smallest guest
Archie, Mommy and Daddy love you!

Archie's Second Year Memory Video

Last year I started the tradition of compiling my favorite pictures from the year into a special birthday video. I hope you enjoy the finest from Archie's second year.

Eyes, shoes and towels

What do eyes, shoes and towels have in common? They’re all things Archie is obsessed with. Whenever we read a book, he feels the need to point out everyone’s eyes. (He also likes to make sure we remember that Grace has eyes.) My mom says this is because he has had so many experiences with his eyes at the eye doctor and with us patching him, etc. Makes sense to me.

Archie loves shoes. He’s crazier about them than a girl! He thinks the very act of putting on shoes means a trip to the park is imminent. He also enjoys trying on our shoes and scattering our slipper collection around the house. (He is very good to bring our guests slippers at the door, which is something polite to do for guests here, even though he sometimes sets them out with right and left reversed.)

Towels. He loves to be clean. Anytime something spills, he says “I towel, I towel.” Sometimes, I think he spills intentionally so he can have a towel. He also wipes his mouth and hands.

This pic is unrelated but it's always fun to have a funny pic!

Congratulations, Grace!

Mama is so proud of her Gracie girl. After putting her to bed at 9:30 night before last, the next thing I knew I was looking at the clock which said 6:30. WHOA! That's nine hours, folks. Pretty good for a seven week old! She repeated last night so is 2/2. I don't take it for granted every night will be that good, but hopefully we're on a constant trend upward.

Blockbuster Grace

Grace is enjoying life as only a 5.5 week old can. Although she is 7 weeks now, she still enjoys life in pretty much the same way.

(Hunter Posting) We celebrated Archie's second birthday yesterday. And Leslie and I got to thinking. In just 16 years Archie will be going off to college! We talked about it and decided that now was the time to have a serious discussion with Archie about his future, and where he might like to study. Since Archie is only two we decided to have the conversation at a level that he could understand. Fortunately Leslie was able to video it. Check out the video below:

After our discussion, it was obvious to me that he was on the right track.

I think I'm in love!

Yes, Hunter and the kids are still the real loves of my life. But, I am pretty excited about my new washer! It doesn't require babysitting. The old one that came with the apartment had to be manually filled and drained TWICE each load and clothes had to be moved in small segments into the spinner. WHEW! Oh, and when they were in the spinner, you kind of had to hug the washer (like I'm doing below to express my undying appreciation to the new washer as if it can understand my human emotions) to keep it from dancing across the floor and pulling itself loose from the plug. I am now headed back to bumGenius diapers with JOY! I think our house helper will appreciate the new washer, too.

A smile for you!

Happy 2nd Birthday Archie!!!

Today is Archie's 2nd Birthday. As we did with his first birthday, we'll probably celebrate it several times with different people. Today, Archie got his present from GrandMa. We took Archie down to the big baby/toddler store in town and let him pick out one toy (as per GrandMa's instructions). We had to help him a little bit, since narrowing his choices down to just one was a little bit difficult for him. But I think as you can see from the pictures below he is pretty happy:

Looks like GrandMa got Archie his very on tent with colored balls. He's a big fan. We took Archie out for dinner with a few other teachers in the area and then celebrated with his very own funfetti birthday cake!

We'll probably celebrate again in a few days when some more friends come over from the USA. If we add that to the party we had with Grandma and Grandpa in Thailand, Archie will get to celebrate his 2nd birthday 3 times!

Aunties

One of the best things about being back home is all the visits from friends we've had! Archie sure enjoys all the attention he gets from his Aunties. (Where we live, kids call people of their parents' generation Aunt and Uncle and older people Grandmother and Grandfather regardless of if the relationship is close or if it's a first-time meeting.) I am so proud of how Archie greets his Aunts, Uncles, Grandmothers and Grandfathers by the correct term (most of the time) now.

Language tutor Auntie:

College friend Aunties:

Tomorrow (9/15) is Archie's 2nd Birthday. Happy Birthday, Archie! (I'm making a slide show video, but I don't think I'll have it posted by tomorrow.)

Gone camping: a campsite tour

OK, I'm finally posting the pics of our new campsite (uh...apartment). Although it looks fairly nice, everything is always falling apart...the floor, the walls, stuff in the bathroom, the kitchen sink, etc. We've just decided to pretend we're camping for the next year. After all, you don't really need nice stuff at a campsite, do you? (That being said, I just paid the landlord about $35 bucks to fix the floor that wasn't put in quite right and to adjust the squeaky door so it doesn't wake up Grace when we go in to check on her or retrieve something from her office/bedroom...)

Tent entrance:

Baby playground:
Toddler lounging area:
Wide angle of the large forest clearing we inhabit mainly: (You can tell me how ugly the big orange chair is and I won't be mad - believe me the bright blue paw-print sofa is worse - but it is a pretty comfortable chair.)

Campfire: No gas for a campfire is in the apartment so we have a single electric burner by our mini fridge.

A few camp cooking utensils:

The campsite chef making Hamburger Helper imported from down south! What a delicacy! Beside it you can see our toaster oven.

Camp washroom: How many campsites have hot water heaters (that must be turned on before showering) and washing machines? Luxury!

Camp latrine: (The mop is necessary for mopping up the water that goes everywhere every time you shower or bathe babies.)

The best news about our campsite? We have a campsite helper now who cooks, cleans, washes clothes and helps watch kiddos 18 hours/week.

We're also buying a new washer tomorrow that doesn't have to be manually filled with water twice each load, drained twice each load, and have it's contents shifted into the separate spinner.

All in all, pretty nice campsite, huh? Come visit us, and we'll make you s'mores (if you furnish the marshmallows)!

Grace's life at home

Mommy loves Grace! Isn't she beautiful? Actually, she has both baby acne and eczema really badly and her face isn't too cute sometimes. Hunter and I never thought we'd be retouching baby skin tones, but the pic looks a lot better with her not all red. She should outgrow at least the baby acne in a few months. Whatever she looks like, she is still our little princess.

The Grace "O." We think it is so cute when she makes a perfect O with her mouth like that!
Hokie Grace. Even though it is only the beginning of September, we already have to bundle her up to take her outside. Here's her Hokie hat.

My favorite time of the day!

Both kids asleep. Does life get better than that?


This is also a first for both kids. Since birth, Grace has been sleeping in her travel cot in the bed with me. Since we moved last week, Archie has been sleeping in his bed with Hunt. Now, Grace's travel cot has been moved bassinet-style into her crib and she is sleeping solo. Archie is also sleeping solo in his first big-boy bed. Parental sleep quality improves!

Archie's life at home

Archie likes our new apartment. He finally has his own room. He thinks it's pretty cool. "Room time" has become a part of everyday. Archie is learning to play by himself in his room for awhile and clean up afterward I love the drawers in his bed. One has toys and one has books. Bigger toys go on the blue and yellow mat.

I wasn't a big fan of the cow sheets at first, but they've grown on me.

I had to make new passport pictures of our family for our new visas the other day. Archie's actually turned out cute (at least with a little retouching).

This pic is from before Grace's birth. The workers planting flowers thought
he was so cute they gave him one - pot and all! (Unfortunately, my hands were full so we had to leave it on the side of the road when he finished. Hopefully, it got reworked into the landscaping!)

More newborn favorites

In Thailand, they celebrate Mother's Day on the Queen's birthday. In honor of the Queen, one of the malls made a beautiful tulip display, which I had fun photographing.

Hunt's Dad helped me take these next two with me and my girl:

Now moving back to our apartment photo studio

Grace in our arms:

Grace in Hunt and his mother's arms: