Where's Waldo, and Pooping in Public

I got a new phone a few weeks ago, and just learned to move the pictures from phone to computer tonight!

Walking across the river

Playing with Geo-Ville (he loves this fun game sent from Gloria :) 

masks

We brought the parachute outside the other day.

C and G loving the yaoyao che

We went to a carnival type park today and that game with the claw where you try to catch stuffed animals was mis-spelled "Nuderwater World" - instead of underwater world....hahahaha

If you ever want to play a real life game of where's waldo you can borrow our son and take him, on a weekend, to a play place in China. 100 or so kids, three levels, one child with blond hair. I felt like I was playing where's waldo the whole time! Sean is much easier to see in this picture :)

Again where is that blonde boy-o...

And seriously what is he going to do when we are back in America for part of this summer. I mean he will need to sit in a car seat, pee and poop in designated places (instead of wherever he wants, like a garbage can today or as seen above), not get free things from shop owners just for saying a sentence in Chinese...

Oh man I am thinking he will have some major culture shock

Growing Up Big!

Today our friend came for dinner and she has a 3 month old. To prepare for them Caed and I oulled out his old baby chair and put it together for the baby to use. Caed of course got in it and I of course took a picture. Then tonight I looked up all these old pictures of him in the chair. I seriously can not believe he is almost three...

4 days old

3 weeks old

2 months

also 2 months - but so cute in his tiger shoes

almost 3 years old

More of My Funny Boy

Sean is away this weekend, I am catching up on blogs!

First two cute Caed stories - 

1. The other day C and Sean were out playing. S told C it was time to go in. No response from Caed. He told him again, let's go in to which Caed replied, "I tried reasoning with you Daddy!". He said this again and again, until Sean picked him up and took him home. We both laughed later when Sean re-told me this story because both of us swear that is not a line we use with him. Though personally I think it sounds like more of a Sean thing than a Nicole thing to say!

2. Yesterday I took Caed to the park. As I was pushing him in the stroller we were talking about all the people who love him. I told him, "Did you know God loves you more than all those people, remember that verse, 'while we still sinners Christ died for us'." Caed said, "I wish God could come play with me." I asked him what they would play and he said, "Oh I would take him to my room and show him all my toys and stuff."

We went out yesterday in search for those little tubes that hold single flowers. I went to many flower shops and at the last one they had some which she nicely gave me for free! We then took them home, made a box so they could stand up, added a dropper full of soapy water and some water color paint and shook them up.

Fun. Free. Dabbers.

[not my idea, saw this on a blog long ago!]

Messy hands. Also wanted you all to see this pic because the shorts he is wearing and the shirt are on their 3rd summer!!! He wore both of these things when he was only 1 year old, skinny mini. Granted the first and second summer the shorts had to be rolled up. I think he may still be able to wear them next year too... {thanks Gloria - those were a great buy!}

Lastly we used a bunch of cut up straws to decorate this play dough cake.

Put one candle in then sang happy birthday to everyone in the house multiple times in Chinese :)

One for the Grandparents

So I know that not everyone who reads this blog wants to look at ten-million pics of Caed doing 'school'.  So go ahead and skip this post. But I will say that living in another country, this blog has been a blessing to our families at home as they get to keep up on how our little guy is growing and changing. We are so excited to be headed back to the states for the summer to go to my brothers wedding. It will have been 2 years since Caed has seen [in real life] most of our family!

Crushing egg shells. Caed loves this activity. I save up egg shells in a bowl in the kitchen and whenever there are enough he crushes them all.

A few days ago I cut up a bunch of straws. C had fun putting them on these skewers that were stuck into play-dough.

We did splotch art [okay I don't actually know the name of it] yesterday.

Fold it over

Open it! Serious joy to me to watch his face light up EVERY single time he opened one. He told me what they all looked like too. 

Laying with his twin turtles, jungle, rocket ship, man, pig, car, and another jungle

Oh and now he loves to clean up after we are done. I made this home made cleaner with water, vinegar, castile soap {sp}, borax and lemon (thanks Mae!) and he squirts it on there and wipes it down

Yet Another Crafty Project

This idea is also a tutorial on jonesdesigncompany.com [seriously love her ideas...]

Bought this foam paper for cheap, and the wood for cheap. Made a frame (and used a saw!!!) and nailed the foam board to the frame, and added some tape too.

* Cut a piece of fabric into MANY 2.5 inch strips. 

This fabric has a great story. We were in a lamp market a while back and I saw it laying on the floor. I loved it and asked what they used it for. She said they had used it to cover stuff when they were painting, so I asked her if I could have it and she said yes! It was almost 2 yards of fabric :)

* Then tacked the fabric along the backside of the board. This took forever and my thumbs hurt, and the tacks kept breaking, a staple gun would have worked MUCH better if I had one. 

Flipped it over and tacked down the long side then weaved the short side through. 

Finished.

Added some other things I had made. Some things are hot glued on somethings are pinned on. 

Cut this A out of the same foam board and painted it black.

Hung over our bed (don't mind the mess). Our room is pretty tiny hey. 

Pin Board Makeover

We have had that pic board in our apartments for many many years. A while back I saw this tutorial on jonesdesigncompany.com about covering boards with pages from old books. 

So I read Treasure Island then tore out pages glued them on and modge podged it. 

I like how it turned out :)

Doctor Caed

Free fun. Stuffed animals, 'doctor tools', and a white shirt.

And one story. Today I was doing a work out video and Caed told me, "You should put on shoes like those ladies." I told him that they live in America and can wear shoes inside and we live in China and take off our shoes inside. Then he said, "Oh when we go to America let's meet those girls, and they can come to my hose for dinner." I wonder how big he thinks America is :)

Turning 30 and How I Feel

I have so much on my mind lately. And have been having such a hard time lately thinking of how to put it all down in blog form. 

Let's start by saying the past few months have been difficult. I think since that March 4th came and went [the day our baby would have been due] it has been an emotionally hard time for me. I feel guilty first off, wondering why when we have been so blessed with Caed - and got pregnant on our first attempt at IVF - have I have been having such a hard time. I know so many people out there waiting and hoping for their first miracle. I think a big part of that was because everything happened so fast for us back then (we were diagnoses, moved forward, got pregnant) that maybe I never really had an opportunity to really grieve over the situation. I am not sure. 

We listened to a sermon last Sunday (the name of the guy is escaping me - maybe Vasser>). It is a series we have been doing on the Lord's Prayer. I have been out for most of them (watching Caed), but last Sunday I got to listen. And there were some amazing things I felt were perfect for me. He was talking about how God is generous with us. He reminded us that sometimes our perceived need is not our biggest need, and that sometimes our biggest need may be to have that perceived need go unmet so that God can meet a deeper need we may not have been thinking or may not have been valuing. And like he said, I feel like God is teaching me to be content in non-ideal circumstances {p.s. this is not just all about not getting pregnant!}. He said, "God wants to bring you into an experience of Jesus that is so satisfying that you are not dependent on ideal circumstances for your life and your joy. God says I can only teach you that in a time of lack. I am going to teach you that you can have your joy sustained in all things because of Christ who gives you strength." I like to think that all the heartache, all the sad times, arguing, emotional turmoil has a BIGGER purpose in my life. I need to believe that. I don't really see it right now (though Sean keeps reminding me that you rarely 'see' it while in the middle of it). 

In about a month we head to Thailand again for an annual meeting. I am not looking forward to it. At this same meeting last year we did our FET. I felt like everyone there knew what we were going through and was praying so hard for us. And now here we are a year later. I know it will be hard to see all the babies that were born this past year, especially the ones that were born around when we would have been due. And I know it will be hard to see many of our friends who are expecting babies later this year. So if you read this and you are a praying kind of friend please pray for me! I need God to work miracles in my own heart. 

There is actually a very good chance that we will be trying again to get pregnant in June. Though I think that we will not make it as public as we did either of the last two times. It is just painful in a way for everyone to know. Can't really explain it. I am sure I will write maybe some dates on the blog when it gets closer, and for sure the results of it all. But if you want to know the more intimate details of it please email or FB me and I will put you on an up-date mail list. Or you can also leave a comment with your email and I won't publish it. 

And lastly I turned 30 on April 27th. It was bittersweet. It is the first birthday that I have ever felt old, and kind of dreaded coming. I am no longer in my 20's. Sad. But I love this quote a friend wrote me, "20's are fun, 30's are great but wait until your 40's, they are even better!" So I am going to go with that :) 

But I must say my friends both here and at home my boys treated me great! As you will see in the following pictures. Not pictured is the amazing package I got from my girl friends at home. In it there were tons of goodies, and new makeup!!! And a beautiful necklace that I had been wanting for years [I'll get a picture of it on here soon].

I have much to be thankful for!

Flowers and mini cakes and a card from my boys.

A friend watched Caed so we could go on a date to the city. 

We ate at this yummy Chinese BBQ [don't get the idea that this is anything like american BBQ] place and had Dairy Queen after, which is a huge treat!

A few days later my neighbor had us over to celebrate and she made amazing food on her grill. I can't even describe it, you would drool!

Then to top it all off this last Saturday a good friend here hosted a womans brunch in honor of my 30th. It was so so so good. All the woman brought a verse of encouragement and read them to me which was really special. There was lots of yummy food, including this honey strawberry cake!

Activities

I saw this activity on countingcoconuts.blogspot a while back. So easy just ribbons tied on a shelf thing. We told Caed it was a snake who wanted to go over under over under. It was pretty hard for him, and required lots of help.

This was fun - graphing. In each egg was a small item. I made the graph to his left. He opened them and put them on the graph and talked about which had the most and least. This is also adapted from CC.

On the website http://www.kizclub.com/stories2.htm you can download pdf's of all these famous kids books (the pictures not the whole book). Then print them off and use them for school. Here we did Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear.

The next week we did Freight Train (one of C's favs) with JieJie Men when they came over to study English