So this other blog I follow is having a contest where you can upload a picture of your hubby in his very own “Hey Girl” photo. Of course my hubby is super hot so I had to get in on this action! I could only submit one to the contest, but here are a couple that I made.

p.s. The Red Card is the Target credit card in case you didn’t know.

(You can click the images to see them larger.)

UPDATE: Matt is into this as much as me. He keeps sending me lines like this one!

Evie is really into playing Polly Pockets these days. We have two Polly Pocket cars and her favorite thing is for her to have a car and me to have a car and for us to drive our dolls around and pretend stuff. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with my little girl, but I just can not get into playing with these toys the way I wish I could. I still suck it up and play anyway, but it’s just not fun for me. Similarly, Kaelyn can play with her Little Pet Shops or her vast collection of plastic bugs for hours on end. And, again, I can hang with it for a little while but after a while I am just totally out of imaginative ideas for my Pollys/Pet Shops/bugs.

BUT, I can totally dig going out into the backyard to jump on the trampoline, play keep-away with the soccer ball, or set-up a totally rockin’ obstacle course like this:

(run, go down big slide, crawl through tunnel, kick soccer ball through cones, jump in trampoline and throw the kickball out over the top, throw the frisbee past the cones, go down little slide, run to finish line, give lots of high-fives)

My girls had a blast with this and would have played for who knows how long if it hadn’t of gotten dark and dinner time. I was having real fun too!

So, back to my “aha!” moment. I was thinking about this and thinking back to my own childhood. I always loved to be outside playing, running, riding my bike, skating (making skating routines in the drive way), jumping on the trampoline, digging in the ditch, and anything else I could get myself into (and always accompanied by my BFF, Lisa, and my little brother, Jared). I did like to play certain things inside, but more like “real world” type pretending: school, grocery store, fabric store** (Ha!). We even played radio station DJ when we discovered that Lisa’s house had a portable telephone with a speaker phone. I was never that much into things like Barbie dolls. I think I had maybe 2 or 3 Barbies while friends my age would have boxes full of dolls and accessories.

That’s when it all made sense – even as a child I didn’t get into the playing with little figurine things that much. Suddenly I just felt this sense of relief like I wasn’t this horrible mom who doesn’t like to play Polly Pockets. It’s just really not my thing, and never has been.

Nothing is really going to change on the outside – I will still sit down and play dolls/bugs with my girls because they like it and I want to engage with them and do things they enjoy. BUT, now I don’t feel this guilt like I’m doing something wrong by not enjoying it to the fullest. I DO enjoy the time with my girls, just not the activity (see the difference there?), and that’s okay! Also, I will pay more attention to also engage them with activities that I am naturally inclined to do, because they actually love those things just as much. (And thank goodness we’ve had just beautiful January weather to do all sorts of outside playing lately!)

I think us moms are bombarded with all this “stuff” we are supposed to be doing (who comes up with this stuff anyway??) – play with your kids every second of the day, have you taught them to read by the time they are 3?, have you enrolled them in the perfect preschool program to ensure their entrance to Harvard? – AHHHH – seriously it can get ridiculous. It’s so hard to not feel that pressure even when you try to block it out. I am thankful for this simple moment of realization I had this week that has helped me to relax a little as I go along this journey of motherhood.

I’m signing off now because it’s almost bedtime and I know my little Evie will want to “boom” (aka drive) her Polly Pockets around one more time before drifting off to sleep.

I’ll leave you with videos of our action packed obstacle course:

**Fabric store: this is when my grandmother passed along a bag full of old fabric scraps to me and we would pretend to shop for fabric, bring it to the counter, measure it out, cut it, etc. It was awesome!

A few days ago we printed off all the templates. Then we made a to-do list of the other supplies we needed to buy. We also made a list of things she had to do to complete them such as “Write Kaelyn’s name on Valetines.”

So today she was working on cutting them out and the conversation went like this…

Kaelyn: “Check cutting them out off of the to-do list.”
Me: “We didn’t put cutting them out on the to-do list.”
Kaelyn: “Well, write it on there and then check it off.”

Yep, she’s just like me. That’s exactly what I would have done.

We hope this letter finds you well. We have had a fun-filled and busy year with much energy devoted to raising our two beautiful daughters, Kaelyn (who turned 4 in August) and Evie (who turned 2 in June). Some highlights for the girls were their first trip to the circus, a new trampoline in the backyard, a big girl bed for Evie that was hand-made by Papa, and their first weekend alone at a grandparents’ house.

Kaelyn is in her second year of preschool and has really been getting interested in drawing and coloring activities as well as telling jokes (“Moo”-related cow jokes are her specialty). Evie thinks she should be in preschool too and is definitely the nurturer of the family, always carrying and taking care of her baby dolls.

Leigh Ann continues to be a full-time, stay-at-home Mom, but also started doing some part-time, work-from-home marketing for a friend’s website, MealBaby.com. She continues to be addicted to running, completing her second half-marathon this spring in Raleigh and then her first full marathon at the Outer Banks in November. We were all so proud of her and several times since, the girls will run through the house doing their own “marathons” like Mommy. Leigh Ann also got a Mommy break a couple of times to go out of town while Matt watched the girls for the weekend. She visited her brother in Charlottesville, VA and went to a Beth Moore conference in Charlotte. Leigh Ann also finds time to do volunteer events like organizing some summer activities for kids at the Durham Rescue Mission and a Fun Run for Charity for the girls’ friends.

Matt’s paragraph reads about the same as it has the past several years (plays some ultimate Frisbee, does some gym and running non-superhuman distances, blah, blah, blah). He did decide to leave Cisco and take a new job at NetApp this December. It is still doing software development, which he loves, but working with different technologies.

Our larger family had several changes. Kaelyn and Evie got their first cousin when Lila was born to Eric and Lisa in February. They got a new aunt when Jared got married to Jenna in July. Also, they lost their first living great-grandparent when Grandma Miller passed away in August at the age of 91.

Lastly, we were blessed to go on several trips this year. First, there was Ohio over Memorial Day to meet Lila. Then, we went to Virginia for Jared’s wedding followed by a beach trip to Oak Island with both grandparents. We spent Thanksgiving in South Carolina with Leigh Ann’s parents and will go to Ohio again for Christmas to see Matt’s family.

We pray you have a blessed and joyful 2012!

Love,

Matt, Leigh Ann, Kaelyn, and Evie

——————–

I am a runner and I love that my children seem to love running as well. They will put on a watch and run around the house as if they are running a race. Sometimes they’ll even put a baby doll in the toy stroller and take their “jogging stroller” too. Anytime my hubby or I participate in a race our girls always enjoy doing the “fun run” for kids (which most races usually have as part of the event).

Over Thanksgiving vacation I was having a discussion with my 4-year-old and we came up with the idea to create our very own Fun Run for all of our friends. As the idea evolved we decided we’d ask our friends to bring a toy to donate to charity as their entrance fee for the race.

Today was the big day and about 20 of our little friends came out to a local park to run a lap (or several laps for some of the kids who were *really* enjoying it) on a paved trail that encircles the playground. We collected around 30 books, toys, and games that we are donating to a local charity just in time for Christmas!

We served cut up fruit, bottled water, and of course some cookies to all of the runners. And I just love the little “ribbons” we handed out to all of the finishers.

I am so thankful for all of our friends who came to participate. I loved having this opportunity to share the joy of running and exercise with my kids and their friends, and I especially loved making it all be about loving on other people and giving to others.

The first day was a festival at Matt’s work. I forgot to get a good picture of the whole costume, but I did get these pictures of their face paintings. This day Kaelyn was Rapunzel and Evie was Abby Cadabby.

The next day Kaelyn got to dress up for school and she was Abby Cadabby. Evie dressed up as a super cute 2-year-old this day.

The next day we had a playdate with some neighborhood friends and both girls dressed up like puppy dogs. Their names were “Rock-o” and “Peekos.” (Can you tell who is who??)

And finally, on actual Halloween night, we had a Princess Tiana and a repeat appearance from Peekos the puppy dog. (You should have seen that little puppy tail wagging up to all the houses collecting candy!!)

Seriously though, these stories leave me absolutely speechless.

But then there is this one dude who totally cheated and tried to claim 3rd place in a marathon by riding a bus for the last 6 miles. Why would you do that?!

(1) Timing is everything. For example, the last bits of chip crumbs spilled all over the floor would usually result in much stress and anger. But today, the last bits of chip crumbs spilled all over the floor just before I was going to vacuum anyway = “Yay! I get to suck up lots of fun stuff that will make satisfying noises as they are being sucked away!”

(2) This simple game brings much joy to a 2- and 4-year old: turn out all the lights and hide all of your teddy bears around the house (you know you have at least 300 of them if you have a 2- and 4-year old). Give the children flashlights and let them go on a bear hunt! Use laundry basket as a “cage” to collect the bears in. Much fun had by all.

Side note: while you clean the bathroom/fold laundry/mop/nap, tell the kids you are going bear hunting after dark. It’s a great activity to have them go around the house and collect all the stuffed bears in preparation for the big event.

Warning: they will ask to play the game over and over again. Be prepared.

(3) I am one super blessed girl.

(4) Happy birthday Daddy, I love you!

“Mommy, I wish a wishing star would go by so that I could wish for these things: I wish I could tie ribbons, I wish I could live at Caroline’s house, I wish I could have all the other princess dresses, and I wish I could stand on top of the barn.”

investigate
inspire

Evie’s two favorite words today:

Hold Me!
Hold Me!
Hold Me!

There are too many stories to tell to try to catch up on everything. I will just do a quick run down of the basics from the past few weeks.

We went to Ohio to meet our niece, Lila, for the first time. She is beyond precious.

We got to hang out with our good friends, Willerie and their kids.

We took the girls for a visit to “The Cabin” in West Virginia where we spent lots of time playing in the creek. The girls took it very seriously as they decided it would be much more appropriate to play butt-naked in the creek like true country girls. (Not posting those pictures, but trust me, they are adorable!)

We celebrated Evie’s 2nd birthday at a local farm with lots of friends and family.

We’ve been growing a garden pretty successfully for our first attempt.

Kaelyn completed her first year of preschool (where does time go?!) with a super adorable class performance.

We’ve done lots of other fun things this spring like visit the zoo(s) several times, played outside on the new trampoline, spent tons of time at the pool, hung out at the nearby “lake beach” as the girls call it, visited SC for my brother’s wedding shower, ran in several races (5ks for Matt, 1/2 marathons for me), and took the girls to their first circus.

Life with the girls is so incredibly fun right now. They keep us laughing all the time. Just tonight Matt and I almost spit our dinner out about 6 times from laughing so hard. For example…

Kaelyn fell and scratched her leg. Matt was giving her a band-aid and Evie really wanted a band-aid too. Matt told her that she didn’t have a boo boo, so Evie promptly *flung* herself on the ground and declared she now had a boo boo. She repeated this drama a couple of more times just to make sure she earned herself a band-aid (she did).

Oh, and I must leave you with one more incredible cutness – Kaelyn’s first dance recital!

Kaelyn: “I’m going to put on this pull-up and throw these dirty panties away.”
Kaelyn: “But not really.” (giggles)
Evie: giant roar of laughter
Kaelyn (in sarcastic tone): “Was it really that funny Evie?”

A few minutes later Kaelyn gets a taste of her own medicine:

Evie picks up little piece of trash
Kaelyn: “Eww, that’s dirt Evie, we don’t play with that.”
Evie: “Why?”
Kaelyn: “Because we don’t like dirt.”
Evie: “Why?”
Kaelyn: “Because dirt is yucky.”
Evie: “Why?”
Kaelyn: “Evie put it in your pocket.”
Evie tries desperately for next 3 minutes to put the trash in her tiny little jeans pocket.

My drive up was nice. It was all back roads and I often felt like I was driving back in time as I passed through tiny towns that seem to be living life in the past. I saw some interesting sights like a bison farm. Actually as I got close to Charlottesville there were farms everywhere. Very pretty! Also on my drive I went through a town called Farmville and I saw a sign for a town called Yogaville. Those both made me laugh a little. I would have called and told someone about it but I couldn’t get phone reception in the middle of no where.

I arrived on Saturday afternoon. We stopped by this place called The Garden. It’s a building that hosts several groups including Jared’s church. An old friend, Evan, from my college days runs The Garden. Jared, Evan, and I went out to a local place for lunch. We also shopped around some boutiques next door to where we had lunch. Jared showed me around the area known as the “downtown mall.” It’s a cool area of town with outdoor shops, street vendors, etc.

That evening Jared was working on recording some music for a guy. I got to sit on on the recording session for a couple of hours. It was cool because I had never done that before. Plus I always love to hear my brother play music. They even had me clap and sing on a song. If the album becomes famous I’m sure it will be due to my clapping. If it does not become famous it will probably be due to my singing. Ha!

After the recording session we picked up Jared’s girlfriend, Jenna and the three of us went to dinner at another fabulous place.

That night we went to a benefit for a homeless shelter that was being held at The Garden. They had a variety of artists – musical, creative, visual – all give performances. My brother played a couple of songs with a band as well. It was very cool. In case you haven’t figured it out already Charlottesville is a very artsy, creative type city. It has a cool vibe. Lots and lots of hipster types. All the restaurants had local, organic food and for very reasonable prices. Recycle bins were common around town and most places had those toilets with an economic flush option for #1s.

After the benefit the three of us tried to go to a local tea place to hang out but it was too crowded (a band was playing, surprise surprise). Instead we just hit up the McDonald’s drive-thru and then went back to Jared’s house to play games.

Sunday morning I got to sleep in – YAAAAY! Jared had a meeting at church that morning so I just hung out at his house, took my time getting ready, and read a little. When he got home we headed out to eat at a place called Michie Tavern. Oh.my.word. Delicious! I swear they had a magic fairy garden in the backyard that produced fresh vegetables and chicken every day because the food was amazing. Michie Tavern first opened in 1784 – yes, 1784. The building was very interesting and all the staff wore period clothing. It felt like you stepped back in time. A definite must if you ever visit the area!

After lunch we went up the street to Monticello which was the home of Thomas Jefferson. I can’t describe how much I enjoyed this. Jared and I had great quality time together walking around and having great conversation. Plus learning more about Thomas Jefferson was incredibly inspiring. It is definitely worth the drive to Charlottesville to visit this place!

Unfortunately we didn’t have as much time at Monticello as we would have liked, but we had to run back to town to be at church by 5:00. We went to church at All Souls where we met back up with Jenna. After church the three of us went to yet another awesome restaurant. After we finished dinner everything was closed down for the night so we grabbed some munchies at the grocery store and headed back to Jared’s house to play more games. (Side note: if you are at the grocery store exploring exotic fruits in the produce section be sure to read the names before picking up any fruit unless you want to go through my experience of picking up a “cactus pear” only to be left with cactus prickers stuck all in your fingers. Harris Teeter should really put a warning on those things!)

Monday morning we headed to the downtown mall to The Country Store. It is a really cute little country store where Jenna works. We ate breakfast there and after that I headed back home.

I can’t thank Matt enough for allowing me to get away for a long weekend while he watched our girls (and he did an AMAZING job). I was so very happy to get back home and see my girls though!

Me and Thomas Jefferson contemplating (he was 6’2″)….

After flipping through the pages (along the way describing to me in detail the life cycle of a butterfly and also naming several butterfly species) she came to the conclusion that butterflies do have legs based on the pictures in the book.

This story does not have a dramatic ending or anything, but I was just proud of my girl for doing her research and investigating her thoughts! I wish time could stand still, but I’m also excited to see how she uses that brain of hers as she grows up into the incredible woman I know she will become.

Later in the day, I see that our little Evie just might become an explorer. During a diaper change, I found all of these items in the feet of her pajamas: toy CDs, chalk, smushed edamame, and toy tweezers.

This year I am planning to order Christmas cards from Shutterfly. I have made several of their photo books and I have been very pleased with the quality. My goal this year is to make a giant photo book of our entire 2010! So far I have completed through June. Seems like the summer got busy and now I have some catching up to do. I might have to make it into 2 books as we like taking pictures of our cutie pies and it’s just hard to narrow it down on which pictures to include.

Matt and I have also made photo cards for each other in the past and that was always fun. I like getting a card with pictures of my family even better than some random design from the card store.

I am thinking of going with the starlight flurries card this year. I like it because it will be a great layout to use with the pictures that we had taken this summer for Evie’s first birthday.

Wow, I can’t believe it’s time to be thinking about Christmas cards already!!

Carl Tyler’s Blog :: Increase the size of your VMWare disk drive

Increase the size of a virtual disk on ESX | VM /ETC

One specific need is diapers for all the babies living in these tent camps. There is no running water, no washing machines, no Wal-Mart to buy diapers, but there is lots of mud and disease. It absolutely breaks my heart for these parents and their babies who don’t even have diapers to protect their little ones.

On October 15 there will be a Diapers for Haiti fundraiser and all diapers/money collected will go directly to Nick and Gwenn to be used towards providing diapers for these families in the tent camp. The fundraiser will be held on Friday, October 15 from 9am-9pm during The 2nd Look Boutique Consignment sale at New Horizon’s Fellowship in Apex, NC. You can bring a pack of diapers in exchange for 2 raffle tickets or raffle tickets can be purchased at the door for $5 each. We will be raffling off a HD Flip Camcorder!

If you don’t live nearby or can’t make it to the sale on the 15th but you would still like to participate, then please email me and you can purchase raffle tickets directly through me by using Paypal.

I don’t think there is anything else I can say that would give a better explanation than these pictures…

Evie helped everyone with their shoes (while she was sporting her All Stars):

Got all these groceries (including the organic milk) for $21!

Evie practiced being a hippie…

And it appears that Mommy needs to practice dressing her children in complete outfits.

(2) If you put any kind of food on a skewer it is immediately much more fun to eat. Like chocolate covered marshmellows…

(3) It is very likely at a young age that you will pull a large dresser or chest of drawers on top of yourself by trying to climb up the drawers. Matt and I both did this to ourselves as little kids and today Kaelyn had her rite of passage as she tried to climb her chest of drawers to reach her jewelry box on top. It was quite the scary experience but thankfully she was not hurt at all!

(4) My children are adorable.

Our Three-Year-Old

It’s hard to believe you’ve been a part of our lives for three years now. Even though I can’t remember life without you, it still doesn’t seem too long ago that I was pushing your cart around the maternity ward. Last year, you were just getting to know your new sister, Evie (“Nice hair, baby Evie”). Now you girls play together all the time like you’ve been friends forever.

You’ve become such a good big sister for Evie. Like tonight when I was eating some jelly bread and Evie kept grunting and pointing at it and you told me Evie wanted my bread and I told you that I’d already given her a piece and you lectured me on sharing so I gave her another piece. It doesn’t seem like long ago you’d always be knocking her over or tackling her, but now you’ve become such a sensitive big sister, always listening for her “stop” grunts to know when she wants you to leave her alone.

You’re becoming such an amazing little lady. I love all the conversations we have these days and seeing what new thing you’re going to learn next week. You never cease to amaze us with your love of reading books and how you memorize everything we read to you. This year has seen you switch from board books to bigger girl books like “Little Miss” and the Bernstein Bears. Goodbye, “Hello Moon”, hello “Little Miss Sunshine”.

And, your imagination has really matured this year. You’re always assigning everyone one roles in your worlds. Like the Dora one where you’re Dora, Evie is Boots, Mommy is Diego, and Daddy is Swiper (Oh, man!). Or, the animal one where tonight we had Kaelyn pig (chosen b/c you had a pink towel after your bath), Daddy cow, Mommy crocodile (you always specify, a “nice” crocodile), and Evie sheep (who was Evie cow until she made a “baa” noise at which time you promptly switched her role).

You’re still our little cautious Kaelyn. When we go to the pool, you rarely venture beyond the step in the 1-foot section, content just to play with your one toy there for a while. You love just giving us a plastic toy or stuffed animal and having it just converse with your toy (who knew dinosaurs ate at Chick-Fil-A so much).

Some of the other things you’ve enjoyed this past year include: dinosaurs (we watched The Land Before Time for the first time recently and they opened a new dinosaur walke exhibit at the Durham museum), bugs and critters (whether it be rolly polly bugs or crabs and fish at the beach, you love picking up little critters), and a nature pile (collecting all kinds of miscellaneous sticks and rocks to keep in our backyard).

In addition to all your three-year-old friends, you’ve also started playing a lot more with some of the older girls on the street like Rainee and Morgan. They come over all the time looking for you and Evie.

Another big thing this year has been potty training, which Mommy’s worked so diligently at since last December. You’re almost there, sweetie. And I’m sure after you start pre-school next week that you’ll have that knocked off your checklist pretty quickly.

We love you so much, Kaelyn Rose!

Here are some of our favorite Kaelyn-isms from the past year:

• Mommy: “Where did you get your blue eyes?”
  Kaelyn: “I got them at Target!”
• “I want to play Candyland and celebrate Jesus!”
• One time you randomly started singing, “I’ll spin you right round, baby, right round.”
• Whenever the two-minute warning for getting out of the bath was done, I’d say “Two minutes are up” to which you’d reply “No, two minutes are down”.
• Mommy: “I should make you a smoothis tomorrow.”
  Kaelyn: “Well, you could make me one today.”
• “Nemo is my favorite orange friend.”
• “Mommy, shouts Kaelyn.” (This likely marks the first time you refer to yourself in the third person)
• When Daddy picks you up after running: “Daddy, you’re worn out. You’re getting your worn out on me. Can Papa hold me? He’s not worn out”.
• There was a phase when anytime we’d ask you if you liked something, you’d always say, “No, I like Nemo and ladybugs.”
• Daddy: “I can’t chase you anymore, I’m out of gas.”
  Kaelyn: “I have a gas pump. I’ll fill you up so you can chase me some more.”
• When asked what mommies and daddies are supposed to do: “Obey Kaelyn and get high stuff down for Kaelyn.”
• To Mommy: “Evie is growing up to be big like me, and I’m growing up to be a Mommy like you.”
• Riding her little bus around the house: “My GPS says to run right at this road.” (as she proceeds to turn right at the kitchen table)
• Upon shutting a door and yourself stuck in a bedroom: “Mommy, this is horrible!”.
• Kaelyn told Daddy that her dentist office had a TV on the ceiling, then: “It was funny. It’s funny like how Red Robin has a TV on the floor.”
• Daddy: “What do you want for your birthday?”
  Kaelyn (in one giant breath): “I want a puppy and he’s going to come in a box and he’s going to push the lid off the box and I’m going to hug him and I’m going to name him Bilbert!”
• Kaelyn: “I hear a train.”
  Daddy: “Maybe it’s Thomas”.
  Kaelyn: “No.”
  Daddy: “Maybe it’s Gordon or Percy.”
  Kaelyn: “NO, it’s not a train that has eyes.
• Kaelyn is holding her shark while on the potty.
  Mommy: “Does the shark have to go potty?”
  Kaelyn (in her shark voice): “No, I’m a shark and I don’t have a bottom.”
• Our GPS got a little confused. Half an hour later out of the blue, Kaelyn says, “That crazy thing is going to run us into the trees.”
• Kaelyn got some chips and chili and immediately tried to avoid the chili, saying, “I’m looking for a chip that is dry and clean and fresh, like a baby.”
• Kaelyn: “Where is that music coming from?”
  Mommy: “The iPod.”
  Kaelyn: “Do you put it on your eye and listen to music?”
• “Evie, you drive a hard bargain” (yet, Evie only say a couple of words…it’s all in the body language, I guess)
• Out of the blue on using her regular cup instead of a sippy cup: “I don’t do so well when I drink water or orange juice out of this cup, I usually spill it out”. Our little introspective girl.
• Daddy asked Kaelyn where something was that she lost in a firm voice. She grabbed my hand and said, “No, be the good daddy”.

So once when Kaelyn was a little baby (maybe around 4 or 5 months) she started screaming crying. It wasn’t like her…it was a something hurts cry. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon and she cried for probably an hour. I called the doctor to see if we could go in before they closed. My thoughts were that I just didn’t want something to be wrong and then we have to wait it out all night until they reopened the next day.

The doctor graciously agreed to see us before closing. We went in, and, of course, within 2 seconds of walking in the doctor’s office she calmed down. He checked her all over and gave her a clean bill of health. He smiled politely and handed me my paper to take to the check-out desk. On the top of the paper in the box labeled “Diagnosis” he had written “Fussiness.”

Oy, did I feel like the biggest goof!

Me and Yao...Chillin'

The parts of Shanghai where we were felt very safe. I guess they’ve pretty much modernized the city in the past 20 years or so and it does have a feel comparable to big cities in the US. Their metro system is great. The language barrier is hard when you don’t have someone along to interpret. After a week, I was glad to be back to some place where I could ask simple questions without needing to do makeshift hand signals.

Gumby's long lost brother, the Expo mascot

The food was great (and pretty cheap). I love American Chinese food and obviously it’s different over there, but it’s the same basic idea (once you get over the fish and shrimp being served with heads still on). It’s great when you have someone who’s Chinese that can just order a bunch of stuff for your table. The most exotic thing I ate was jellyfish (eh…weird texture and not particularly a great flavor) and the only thing I remember not eating was the duck feet (it actually didn’t look bad, but, still, it’s duck feet).

Yuyuan Market

One thing I didn’t think of was I should have learned to use chopsticks before I went because, yea, I was that American that had to ask for a fork at every meal. They have a lot of good beef, pork, and duck dishes in addition to the veggies. Surprisingly, it’s not like every meal just comes with rice (like American Chinese). You get it if you ask for it, but it’s not like they just bring it out like we bring out bread. For sweets, I found these little egg-based pastries they had pretty scrumptious. When you didn’t have someone Chinese with you, ordering was hard. You had to get a picture menu and then make an educated guess what kind of meat it was for a lot of dishes.

Obama Mart

So, what did I do there besides work? When I got there, I met up with the people I was supposed to see before I even got to my hotel room and pretty much went straight to the World Expo. They have a bunch of pavilions for various countries. You’d just wait in line for potentially hours to get into one. It wasn’t that bad because we went in the evening, but it was still pretty crowded. I guess sometimes folks spend the entire day there just to see 2-3 pavilions for the entire day (another interesting side note is that a lot of stuff closes at 10pm over there and doing stuff during the day seems more popular than doing stuff at night). Honestly, I didn’t really find anything there worth the wait, but I guess it’s part of the experience.

At the Pearl Tower

It was nice to have a fellow co-worker and his wife to tag along with in the evenings. On Tuesday, we went to the electronics market. I wasn’t brave enough to buy any electronics, but the Food Republic (a big food court) was pretty nice. On Wednesday, we went out to eat with our hosts (and then stayed up at the hotel to watch that exciting US soccer match against Algeria). On Thursday, we went to The People’s Square and walked around there for a while. They had like a nine story mall there, but it was mostly Western-like stuff at Western-like prices. On Friday, I did my souvenir shopping at the Yuyuan Market. That was pretty cool because you can bargain for a bunch of trinkets for the kids and I went a little “back alley” to get Leigh Ann a “Prada” purse. We also went to see the Pearl Tower and all the stuff around it (didn’t go up since the visibility was poor). Saturday morning, we set out to find the 1933, a former slaughterhouse now supposed to be a architectural piece of work, but that metro ride took us a bit further out of the city and no one seemed to have a clue where it was, so we gave up on that little jaunt.

Lots of bikes

The flight back was fine and it was great to see all my girls again.

We had Evie’s 1st birthday party (ladybug theme) this past Sunday and I think she throughly enjoyed it (especially the cake smashing part). Here’s proof:

At one year Evie is saying these words:
uh-oh, ball, book, bird, baby, bye bye, Kaelyn (“Kay”), mama, dada, papa

She also does the baby sign for “milk.”

Crawling is still her main form of transportation, but her walking has really taken off the past couple of weeks. She’s been taking one or two steps for a while now, but lately she has gotten more into walking across the room. I think it’s only a matter of days before she is walking full time.

She LOVES her big sister, playing outside (particularly the water table and sandbox), and being in the pool. She is amazing at being able to entertain herself. (Maybe it’s a 2nd child ability??) She especially loves whenever she has a few minutes of playtime alone in the playroom without big sister coming in to take her toys away.

I have to watch her because she has gotten into the habit of climbing on things and then standing up on top, for example: Kaelyn’s little rocking chair and the kiddie table. She also loves climbing the stairs.

Lately she is really starting to exert herself more and will be sure (with very loud noises and points) to let you know what she wants. If she doesn’t get what she wants she throws a little baby temper tantrum. She has already had to sit in time out several times.

Speaking of pointing, I love it when that little tiny pointer finger starts pointing at stuff. It’s usually pointing to whatever she wants, but also she will point up in the sky at the sound of an airplane and things like that. It’s just such a sweet little finger.

She loves music and will dance whenever she hears any. She has the funniest facial expressions and the biggest grin that will just make your heart melt. One of my favorite faces is when she grins from ear to ear and scrunches up her little nose and squints her big, brown eyes (sigh).

Evie Wren, Mommy loves you more than you can ever know! I love your determination, your charm, your curiosity, and your sunshiny personality. You have already brought so much joy to me, daddy, and Kaelyn. We are so blessed to have you! Happy Birthday sweet one!