Precious Petite Pumpkins

Two years ago I took these. . . .


Today I had fun shooting these . . .







Happy Halloween! We decided not to dress up or celebrate this year. . . unless you count scarfing the Halloween Butterfingers Jason brought back from Guam (yummy!!)

I Eat It Up

One of the little joys in my day is watching the little kids go to school. Most children start school here at 2. Not just playing the sand and eating paste, but school. . . backpacks, learning, homework, and my favorite part- uniforms. I get asked all the time why Josiah is not in school. While I don't think that a structured environment would benefit him at the moment, I would love to get him a little uniform. I shamelessly (with permission) took a picture of these twins in their bow ties going to school yesterday.

This song JJ Heller wrote for her baby girl, When I'm With You, expresses my heart. Enjoy these 7 month moments with Annette.

Introducing. . .

. . . Annette's two front teeth! She has four total now and has been the happiest baby since they made their appearance.

(This is for you Gerry :)

Hunkering Down

Well it has been an interesting week for me. Wednesday morning I kissed Jason goodbye as he took off for a five day trip to Guam with the Cross Country team. On that same day the buzz began about "severe Typhoon Megi" in route from the Philippines threatening to directly hit Hong Kong. In case you are not as well acquainted with Megi, here is an introduction. She:
- killed 27 people in the Philippines this week
- sent 25 ft wave surges crashing into villages.
- has winds up to 260 kph
- is larger than Hurricane Katrina
- looked like the worst typhoon to hit HK since 1974

Normally I am up for a good typhoon, viewing it as the tropical equivalent to a snow day. But this is three times bigger than any typhoon I've experienced. The last three days I've been typhoon tracker. I am happy to tell you Megi has headed east and will be missing Hong Kong. Thank you Jesus! Please pray for Fujian and the coastal areas of Southeast China as they are bracing for this typhoon.

All of the windows were taped in expectation of the wind. . . can you guess what letter Josiah learned today?
Jason got to fly OVER the "super typhoon" not once, but twice on his way to Guam.

Do I have something on my face?

Learning Around Home

The teacher in me LOVES the stage that Josiah is at. His insatiable curiosity ("whats dis called?" all day long) and explorer personality are opening up the world before his eyes. Josiah is not into toys so much, but loves "working". . . using tools, washing dishes, juicing carrots, scrubbing the bathtub, shaving his legs (just kidding). . . anything he sees me doing. With this is mind, my creativity is always being stretched to think of news ways to have him "help" me.

Last week we made an apple pie together. It began so fun, but as the process progressed the kitchen and my one square foot of counter space starting shrinking. An hour and a half later by the time we were finished and had cleaned up the flour (everywhere!) I was about to pull my hair out. Here is a random compilation of some of our play pictures (again sorry for the nudity, he really does wear clothes sometimes!)

home- made puppet theater

playing the guitar

finger painting

counting Cheerios

Going on a "red hunt"
sorting buttons, beans, shells, pasta. .. .

Josiah's favorite: nuts and bolts

shaving cream- this got out of control

sink or float game

we turned his tool bench into a play kitchen for hours of fun

Please leave a comment to share ideas of fun games you play around your house.

This year I've been taking the kids to a lot of school functions (cross country meets, middle school camp etc). The kids seem to draw a crowd like magnets. Josiah is such a ham, he usually adores the attention while Annette smiles oblivious to it all.
Josiah is caught sucking pool water in this photo. Nice.

My Happy Place

Confession: I have been known to deliberately "forget" to buy something at IKEA, just so I have an excuse to come back the next week. I love it that much. It is such a great place on a rainy afternoon.

10 Reasons by IKEA is brilliant:

1. you can check your kids in for 40 minutes (count em 4-0 minutes) of playtime where they are entertained by a ball- pit, wooden trains and play kitchen

2. miniature shopping carts for kids to push

3. space. BIG space reminiscent of mega stores in America

4. Josiah can touch just about everything, without breaking anything

5. western food including chicken, salmon, pasta, coffee, cake/ pie and the only meat that Josiah will get near, Swedish Meatballs

6. interactive toy kiosks for kids to play at strategically placed throughout the store, including in the dinning area= peaceful meal

7. fun, Scandinavian style decoctions at Christmas

8. cheap scented candles

9. did I mention 40 minutes of of babysitting?

10. ice-cream at the end


(Don't you just love the "I- can't- believe- you- are taking- a- picture- at- IKEA- you- are- just- like- your- mother" look that Jason is giving me here? )

Picnic

Hong Kong doesn't have a lot of grass. It probably works out to about one blade per person in the city. However, our new estate has a few grassy patches. I've never seen anyone sit or walk in it, but there are no signs saying not to. So following the letter of the law, we had a lovely picnic Sunday afternoon outside. And to my surprise no one told us to stop. This was the first time we've done this in the five years we've lived here and think we will make it a tradition. I like how these photos have a dreamy sort of quality (or maybe I'm just tired). I cherish simple, little moments with our family like these.

Breath of Fresh Air

Newsflash- the current Hong Kong temperature is 77 degrees!! Yesterday was in the 80s and we thought that was heavenly, but 77 actually feels chili after four months straight of humid 90+ weather.
This time of year I always get a wave of homesickness when I think about fall. Not that the seasons change much in California, but we at least pretend they do; apple farms, hay bales, cinnamon spice candles, acorn and leaf centerpieces etc. This is the time of year when bloggers put up pictures of their fallishly- clad kids in corn mazes and pumpkin patches (you know who you are). I bought a little pumpkin at the market and set it on my bookshelf. Although to my Chinese friends this would be equivalent to decorating with broccoli or bok choy, it makes me happy. Annette decided to celebrate the temperature change with a hat. Another thing that makes me happy. How are you celebrating fall (I promise not to sulk!)

Today is Chinese National Day and we siezed the holiday by traveling out to one of our favorite spots, Sai Kung. Lately Josiah has been reading books with kites in them so we thought it would be fun if he could fly a kite. We bought a $4 ($3ohkd) butterfly on a string and soon wondered if we had gone too cheap. It took so many attempts to get the piece of plastic in the air that by the time we were high flying Josiah's interest had moved onto the vendor selling raw pieces of chicken to BBQ. Oh well, Jason was really into it and it was refreshing to get enjoy some ocean breeze.


Up at last!


Jason let me fly at the end. I got carried away singing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" and crashed the butterfly into a BMW passing by. It's okay we were done anyways. (: