Sensory and Fine motor Play

When Caed was little I feel like I set up all sorts of 'fun' activities for him. Beatrice is not getting quite the same treatment so far! There is this group of moms and grandmas that take their babies out to play at the same time each afternoon that we go to. Caed calls it B's 'school' - its pretty cute. 

Anyway today Sean was gone all day and Caed and I did set up some fun stuff for Bei.

Pudding painting. C helped me make some homemade pudding with cornstarch, milk, sugar and food coloring. 

She liked using the spoon and the paintbrush, but overall she is a pretty 'clean' baby

No fancy play tables here. But we do have a stool with holes in the top

 and an abundance of chopsticks!

such concentration

This kept her busy for a good long time!

Eleven months

Less than a week and this girl will be one year old! 

'please'

She loves her gege

pigtails are my favorite

'I'm one!' (well almost)

In our House/Neighborhood...

I often find toys left out to spell things

the kitchen floor looks like this while I'm cooking

I get to dress up this cutie

you can play with these at school

we call this baby Jordan when her tongue is out like this

the kids bathe in a tiny blow up pool

we have daily play group outside on nice days

all one year old babies get to wear these fish jammies (Beia)

Caedmon 2009

Things you probably didn't do today (but I did)

{well if you live in China it is possible}

take a little boy with a bow tie on his shirt to his first day of Da Ban

watch proudly as your child stood still during the Chinese anthem

had a baby with such a cute shirt and little loopy hair watch her gege with joy

seen a child pull up to school in this thing

had to decide which duck neck looked freshest in the store today

or which chicken 

or brain

though to yourself,

 "It's weird how people in the States use cart protection seats to protect their babies from shopping cart germs, I mean how germy can it be there? Here people sort through raw meat with their bare hands then push their carts, and my kids lick everything - I mean everything..."

drive home on the back of a motorcycle

have your motorcycle driver take a short cut by driving on the crowded side walk

grill your dinner on your window ledge

How was your Monday???

Hair!

I am in love with this little brown headed girl! {and her cuteness hair}

Free book shelf display

Last month I finally got  this project up that had been in mind for a long time. I had seen on pinterest these rain gutter book display shelves and loved the idea of putting up books in Caed's room cover out. But I had never been able to find something here suitable to do it with. 

Until one day they started tearing up our whole neighborhood installing new water pipes on all the buildings. The stuff they cover the pipes with looked like it would work!  I am not sure what the Chinese name is, but it is easy to find in any hardware store. 

The white plastic stuff was all over the place. I asked soem of the workers if I could but some and they said to just take it. They even cut it for me to the length I wanted (there is a thicker on and a thiner one, I choose the thinner). 

Anyway I drilled holes into it and screwed it to the walls and there you go. I love the way they turned out, and it has been fun to change up the books with Caed all the time!

In other home decorating I finally got these shelves up. Yeah!

And I painted this wall on our yang tai gray chalkboard paint, but before I did I let Caed create a masterpiece, which he cried about later when it got painted over (even though he had been warned!).

While Daddy is at School...

...we spend time taking pictures to send him to remind him how much we love/miss him!