My future cellphone

Archie knows what he wants in a cell phone. Here's our daily funny. This morning's Chinese dialogue between him and our house helper.

Archie: babbling and playing with my cell phone
House helper: Mama's cellphone, Daddy's cellphone, when Hai Tao (Archie) grows up he'll buy a cellphone.
Archie: I want one that takes pictures!

He seems to already have his sights set on a camera phone.

SMILE!

Happy Birthday, Memaw! (And, Happy Thanksgiving to All)

Archie made a little something for his Me-maw! We are all so excited she's sharing her birthday with the Turkey this year.

Grace isn't quite at the phase where she can make things for Memaw (other than smiles), but she is the cutest little turkey you will ever see!

What are we doing for Thanksgiving anyway? Counting our blessings, being thankful, and heading to town for some good Hong Kong style duck with a few friends. (Check out posts from last year if you want to know why we're not eating turkey.) Last year we had four parties at our house with tons of cooking, but since we just finished Grace's 100 day bash, we'll probably hold off until Christmas for more parties. (Plus, I'm still turned off by Thanksgiving food from last year's parties since at the time I was pregnant with Grace but didn't know it yet. I was totally revolted by much of what I was making. I may never eat pumpkin pie again!)

Skills

One of my favorite things about kids is watching them develop. Archie is finally starting to feed himself. Yogurt is one of his favorite things ever so I thought it might be a good start. (The only thing is yogurt is really runny here so he likes to use a straw and drink it because it's faster.) I let him practice on Cheerios and milk sparingly since I have to bring them in from out of country. He loves rice and we eat it everyday. The only problem is rice is clumpy, and it's pretty hard for him to get it out of the bowl with his spoon so we still have to help. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

Grace just loves looking around. I bet rolling over will come sooner than we think.

Coordinated!

Don't you love it when your blanket matches your outfit? My little color coordinated princess does. These are the softest pj's ever and the material is the same as the Grace monogrammed blankets one of Hunt's mom's friends gave her! Thanks for the blanket and PJs.

Gentle Archie

At this point in her sweet little life, I don't think Grace could ask for a much better big brother than Archie. He's naturally sweet and gentle with her. One of his first sentences was "I hold Grace." He loves to sit in our laps and "hold" Grace while gently patting her head. He's genuinely concerned when he hears her cry and always alerts us (even though we already know). He alternately calls addresses Grace by her name "Grace" and the Chinese term for little sister "Mei Mei."

The kiss:

A gentle pat:

Just hanging out:

Grace just being cute and wondering, "When will Big Brother come and play with me?

Grace's first 100 days! The video

A cheer for the Hokies!

Since our little fighting gobblers helped the Hokies win last week, I thought we'd do our best again today. Here's our family gearing up for the NC State game! (Yes, I was wearing a maroon and orange sweater, too!)

Quick pic with Mommy!

Grace of the jungle!

There's just about nothing I enjoy more than making pictures of Grace. She usually enjoys getting all the attention, too, despite the "I've had enough pics, can I sleep now" look in the second picture.

I think I have the reverse of the "poor neglected second child who doesn't have any photos" problem. When Archie came onto the scene, our camera was REALLY bad, and I wasn't very good at making pictures either. When we got our new camera last year, I just went photo crazy! While I would be more than willing to make tons of pics of Archie, too, he doesn't cooperate too well for photo shoots so Grace scores!

The look alike kids

I think my kids look alike. Do you? Who's who? Can you tell? (While people often say Archie looks like his dad, Grace is unquestionably the spitting image of him.)

Real or fake: A winter conglomeration

Ready or not, winter is here! Its' been downright cold for awhile, but since we live in such a dry climate, we don't actually get a lot of snow. It's just once the snow comes, it doesn't melt for about 6 months. And, it's here now. Couple that with some English Christmas music that was blaring from a nearby loudspeaker, I'd say winter is official.

OK, so what does real and fake have to do with anything? Keep reading. But there's nothing fake about this first picture. Archie doesn't seem to remember last winter and is quite intrigued by his "first" sight of a snowman.

Now on to the fake, In the summer, they decorate with real flowers. In the winter, they decorate with Christmas lights and fake flowers. Anything strange about these snow covered fluorescent pansies? (There's no Photoshopping here!)

The winter weather leaves me searching desperately for creative ways to practice my photography hobby. Our house is definitely not a studio, and props/backdrops/lighting are pretty limited so I like to take pics outside. But, there are only so many abominable snowmen pics you can take of your kids. And, when you live where we do, you find babies were made for kisses and cuddles and warm soft blankets - not the outdoors.

So, since I can't take Grace outdoors for pictures, I just get cheesy and bring the outdoors to her via Photoshop!

And, when I get tired of being somewhat cheesy, I just go all out as you can tell from the next pic. The good thing is I did learn about using color gradients, which I think I will be able to use in a more natural way someday. (At least I can pretend that way I wasn't totally wasting my time :)

Culinary delights from a 100 day party!

Some of you have asked, "What do you do at a 100 day party anyway?" Well, eating was definitely the focal point at ours. I had a buffet dinner delivered to our door cheaper than I could have cooked it in America. (A great benefit of living overseas!) Other activities including lots of chatting, purusing through photo albums, playing with kids, listening to my speech about Grace's name and the blessing she is in our lives, and watching the 100 day slide show I made (coming soon to blog world). We also had a yummy cake!

Food is very communal here. Instead of taking plates back and sitting down, guests hover over the buffet line and chat there. You can pick things off the serving plates directly with your chopsticks. (The girl in front is my Chinese teacher.)

The featured item from the restaurant is "bing" (upper right corner) which is a pretty broad term used to describe a variety of fried pancake type things. Tell you what, come over and visit and I'll buy you all the varieties of bing you want, and you'll find none is the same and none tastes like the American counterpart. In the middle corner are some fried pork pieces and in the lower right is a dish called "bountiful harvest" that has hunks of pumpkin, potato, green beans, corn and meat.

Here's some more of the spread. (There were 18 dishes in all, including two whole fish.) You can see the corn quite clearly. The dish in the middle left is a noodle made from potatoes. Yummy! The favorites were the fried pork (pictured above), the bing, and the fried, spicy green beans.

Archie's aunties were very eager to feed him, but he was more interested in looking at pictures.

My Hokie opposites!

Meet Hokie Tall and Hokie Short! I thought Tech needed a little encouragement for the Maryland game!

Awww. Archie loves his little sister. How sweet!

Other than encouraging the Hokies, my inspiration for the post was Archie's education. I was trying to think of some ways to teach him opposites, and then I made this pic. Tall/short, big/little. Hey, you got it!

Archie is doing GREAT with his school. He now recognizes almost all of the capital letters. My goal is that he knows them all by tomorrow, and I think he's on track! He knows colors and basic shapes, too. He loves counting to eleven in Chinese, and he even knows a few characters like his name, car, on/off. The think I like about Chinese is there's no phonics. Once you recognize the characters, you're reading. For example, he can already read "get in the car, get out of the car" but he could never do that in English.

The 100 day bash!

A child's 100th day is major-ly important here so Hunt and I made a major big deal out of Grace turning the big 100. We had a crazy party with over 30 people all crammed into our little apartment. Fun times. We didn't even notice the space was small.

The sign on our door says "Wishing Little En Qi a happy 100 days." Grace's Chinese name is Huang En Qi （黄恩琪）. En is from the word en dian, meaning grace. It's also a super popular character in baby names now so all our friends love it. Huang is our family name and comes first. It means yellow. Actually, a married couple does not usually have the same family name, but I really wanted us to because it's who we are. I made a speech about Grace's name.

Only a baby could sleep through the noise 30 people in a little apartment make.

She was spoiled. Riding around in my sling in the house is a special treat reserved only for special days.
Aunties were constantly fussing over her.

Archie had fun playing with his aunties, too!

Look for a culinary delights post coming soon, featuring the yummies we ate!

My little model: Grace gets a job!

I feel totally flattered. The photo studio sure knew how to win a mom's heart. Tell her her little princess is beautiful and perfect and they want to use her picture in their ads! Score for us!

I took Grace in to get her 100 day pictures the other day, and she was so charming during the shoot they asked to do an additional shoot for promotional purposes. Six hours later, we were tired but happy. I think she wore about 11 different outfits plus plenty of diaper/hat combo shots. I get all the pictures they took for free. She got two nap breaks and three meals so it worked out for her, too. Nice when your kids are earning their keep. HAHA!

Something clicked with her holding up her head during the shoot. When they got out the big flashes, she just had to know what was going on. Since I won't have the pics for another two weeks or so, I'm posting a video of her showing off her new skill.

A trip to Sunshine City!

The other weekend, our family of four took it's first trip to visit sunshine city, which is four hours south by the speed train and was pleasantly warmer.

The skyline from our hotel room:

All aboard! Archie loved looking at passing trains through the window and shouting "bye-bye train". In fact, he still shouts this all the time even though no trains are visible from our living room window.

Grace got plenty of cuddling while aboard the train.

She also liked snuggling under the covers after her bath in a real bathtub. (We only have a shower head attached to the wall in our apartment.) Actually, we could not get over how wonderful the hotel room was (even though it was not particularly expensive.) It had a mini kitchen with TWO burners. (We only have one.)

Archie enjoyed meals out, but we could never seem to find anywhere with a playground.

Here's the crowded street. The McDonalds and KFC have kind of a USA feel, right?

Happy 100 Days!

Happy 100 Days! A child's 100th day is a huge deal where we live, and we're having fun joining in on the celebrations! Yesterday, we had portraits made (post coming soon) and tonight we're having a 100 days bash at our home with lots of friends. (I'm sure there will be a post on that as well.)

For now, I'll just show off one of Grace's accomplishments. Raising her head while on her belly. She's still not a huge fan of tummy time, but it helps now that she can turn her head from side to side.

We love you, Gracie Girl!

We love Mommy!

Thanks, Daddy, for making these pics. I'm hoping my kids (or at least Archie) learn that "I love Mommy" sentence pretty soon. I still can't get Archie to reliably say he loves anyone but himself. He does ask to hold Grace, though.

On cats and walruses

Archie is becoming a little TV addict. (Thankfully, he has loving parents who impose a 30 minutes/day limit.) I love how sheltered he is here. The only thing he watches is kids' music DVDs. Although he is still memorized by Baby Einstein, my definite favorites are Baby Genius Favorite Nursery Rhymes and Children's Songs and Praise Baby.) He likes to suck his thumb while watching. FUNNY!

Archie is obsessed with walruses and evidently still doesn't have much use for cats. Listen to our funny conversation.

Happy Three Months!

Grace turned THREE MONTHS on October 29. I can hardly remember life before her. I'm a little late in posting pictures and these pics weren't taken on her three month either, but I hope you enjoy. She will turn 100 Days this Friday, which is a big deal here. I'm planning to take her to a photo studio, and I'm contemplating hosting a party.

Grace is really into talking now. She talks quite loudly. I was at a meeting recently, and the speaker asked a rhetorical question. All the sudden, Grace busts out with a loud AAOOOAAHHOOO, and everyone laughed. I figure her incessant chatter is because women statistically need to speak so many thousands more words than men. She's getting an early start. She is also getting quite good at holding her head up and definitely prefers sitting to laying down.

What's up with so many pictures, Mommy? Can't I ever get a rest?