Saturday, April 23, 2011

Friends Came to Visit!



The first weekend of April we had two girls who teach on the East Coast (of CN) come out for a visit. We got to take them to see some more rrual areas of China. Like this gorge, where C made some new friends.


A walk around our city


I made them walk a long way to this pagoda because I thought all the lotus flowers would not be dried and dead :( sad


Here we are eating in a village house, many homes in touristy places (like the gorge) will cook you a meal (for a price!) when you come. 


Jen and I went to college together!


Love these girls, they are amazing teachers - Caed absolutely LOVED them both. They have been on many adventures, and I am excited for all the places they will get to go in the future. 


Caed brought DaTu with him, his lizard, man he loves that thing

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Sticky Posters


Here are two fun projects I finished this week. A while ago I found that I could use photoshop to design something then turn it to a jpg and take it to a local print shop and have them put it on a sticky back poster paper (glossy or matte). The possibilities are endless! I cut the sides of those foam pieces we have under our rugs, and put all the letters on them. 


The foam is super light and easy to use. 


I glued them above C's bed with my trusty glue gun. They are not that glossy - it's the flash.



You can't see too well but I especially love the "A" paper - little orange trucks


For Sean's b-day I made these prints of his favorite verses 45cmx45cm. Got this 'paper board' from a local print shop - they sell them in HUGE squares for $3.80.


Here are all the posters before I stuck them on.


I taped them against the window then places the board backing on. 


And there you go!


Hung in our room.
 [ignore the mess]

Oh and how could I forget - it only cost $7.50 to make all those sticky back posters! If you know me you know I like doing things for cheap - or free, so I am very happy with this. I think getting Adobe Photoshop Elements was my most favorite gift of all time!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Saturday Activities


Got this fun idea from this site - 
An inside 'car wash'
I bought this foam paper and cut out little cars from it. 


Caed drew on the cars with washable marker to make them 'dirty'. 


Then he washed them in the soapy water with the sponge.


Then rinsed. 


JieJie Men came over to do English lessons. And we decorated hot (just boiled eggs) with wax crayons [I got this idea from a blog too but I forget with one :(] 
It is super fun, the wax melts and looks really cool!

Sean's B-day


Sean's yummy b-day dinner


So happy about his new Dodgers shirt from David and Jake!


Pazzoki and candle time, Caed was seriously SOOOOOO excited to help blow out the candles. 

And in about 30 minutes we are dropping Caed off with his friend Grady (and some wonderful 'aunties') and heading to the city with our friends for a kid free dinner!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

House Tour - Caed's Room.Spare Room

In the midst of posting the house tour (one more installment to come in a few days) I am getting ready for Sean's b-day tomorrow! My love is 30!!! How exciting huh. Instead of going to the city for very minimal western food choices (Papa John's, Pizza Hut, KFC) I decided to have friends take Caed and cook a favorite of Sean's meals white chicken enchiladas. I am also making a Pazzoki. Made the ice cream already (so thankful for a friend letting us use their ice cream maker!). Should be a fun, low key time together!


From the door. He loves his Ikea swing (we have the handle bar thing too) he got for his 1st b-day from Unc CJ. I love the way thankful tree number two turned out. Maybe I'll do another post about that later.


His bed and little drawers (that was the landlords t.v. stand and it works perfect to hold his toys and books). I am working on doing his name to hang above the bed.


Our big Ol' tv thing from our old house is way to big for this houses' living room so it became Caed's closet, slash our storage.


Here is the view of the dining area from the bathroom. Spare room on left and school room.office on right. 


spare room. i like to read in that blue chair on the left


futon unfolded


I really like the way these two things turned out! I do my getting ready which most days is like 5 min or less here. i was recently looking at pictures that we took when some friends just came to visit and thought, I really ought to wear some make-up. So maybe soon I will be upping my time in front of this mirror :)


Prints above spare room bed - love them!


View from living room looking into dining area our room on left and C's on right

House Tour - Bathroom.Kitchen


Continuing on with the house tour - here is the bathroom. It is nothing special. Though we did add the western toilet! Right now all the water drains into [or needs to be manually pushed into...] that tiny little whole infront of the toilet. Yep. We are awaiting the day when we can put a bath in, trouble is we need a smaller bath than the standard size to fit in there so it has been slow going.  


looking out to the buffet and the guest room 


This is looking into the kitchen from our room doorway. The bathroom door is right to my right. Sean is there on the left sitting at the dining table and way in the back left is the living room. I added those curtains under the counter because the cabinet doors were COVERED in mold. And I mean unsalvageably covered.


Looking into kitchen from doorway (we removed the door and put it on yang tai) - also removed the door that should be separating the kitchen and the yang tai you see at the far end of the kitchen.


Right side of the kitchen when you come in. I eventually plan on hanging some hooks or a shelf in that big white area.


View from other end of the kitchen. Again I need to add something - picture> more shelves> to that white wall.

This is the kitchen yang tai [right side]. Awesome washer machine we bought form previous tenants. I need to go on-line and get English instructions though as I have no idea how to use anything but normal cycle. On the table I keep bread maker and electric pressure cooker. I use these two things almost daily. 
Oh and nice little fact the washer machine and the dryer are literally at the two FARTHEST points in the apartment they can be. That is 32 steps [I just counted :)]. A friend had the idea to get something built to stack them. This will be on my wish list of eventually but probably never things we will do. 


This drawer thing used to be in Caed's room. Now it houses our oven on top, cook books, plastic bags, tinfoil, silver ware, utensils, bake ware, tupperware etc.


Left side of the kitchen yang tai. The fridge and microwave and deep freeze (my love!). 


Here is the view from the buffet. The bathroom straight ahead, kitchen to the left and our bedroom to the back right and Caed's bedroom to the direct right (you can just see a sliver of his door). Guest room is behind me. 

* on another note I can tell I am being lazy {or can we just say focused} right now because I just listened to the whole Chris Rice christmas hymns album because It was next up in Itunes and didn't want to bother changing it...

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

House Tour - Office.School Room

Well here we go - a tour of the new home :) I know parents have been waiting to see. Disclaimer *there are still boxes to be unpacked and many things to be hung, and cleaning and organizing to be done*

The size of this apartment is quite a bit smaller than our last so we got rid of a lot before we moved and downsized our 'stuff' as much as possible!


My office (yeah I have an office space!) and Caed's school room is my favorite!  It opens to the yangtai [patio] so has sliding doors and gets lots of light. 


I plan to make the dark blue area a place for us to hang up Caed's art, still working on that. the door looks into our dining table.


This little yangtai art space I love. The wall to the right is chalk board paint wall (got the idea and all the stuff from a friend here who did it. That old mirror and the table thing are the landlords. I cut and put contact paper around the mirror.


There are always art choices here, coloring, chalk, gluing, cutting, or stickers right now.


here is the view the other way - that yi gui [clothes closet] on the right is our 'garage'. Beyond that is where we dry laundry and the dryer.


The table where we do work. And one choice self on the rights (bottom three shelves are choices). On top are library [aka borrowed from friends] books. 


Other side, my desk, printer and more choice shelves (sean's books on top). I want to do something creative for over my desk. You will all see soon enough!

Love love LOVE this room. Love spending time with my boyo in here :)