Of Course caed would say "BEER"

Back in November the kids and I boarded a plane to attend a homeschool week. It is really fantastic that once in a while these are held to help out us parents who homeschool in places that our kids get very little same language interaction with peers. This was Caed's first one and he had such a blast. 

My little travelers. I think this was Beatrice's 17th flight in 13 months...

The theme was knights and castles - they did tons of singing, dancing, art, reading and acting

One of my closest friends out here and I got to get away for a few hours and enjoy a real treat - Starbucks! In a clean new mall. Where no one was smoking. It was bliss.

Another very special treat - McDonalds!!! I don't know if you can count McDonalds as special until you live somewhere with no hamburgers for months on end :)

And we got to shop at H&M, and spend some Christmas money. Why do so many clothes have cats in them? Is that a thing in the States too?

Caed and his buddy practicing for their performance

And we met a boy with a pet lizard - highlight of Caeds time of course. 

He loves his art time

All boys, I don't get it but there is really an abundance of boy expat children out here! Made for a very rowdy week

my loves

I took Beia to some free gymborre classes there - she loves it!

dance dance

little knight

castle building

And the there is the beer. On their first day they made this circle chart of things you can fine in a castle and things you can find at home, and things in both. When I picked C up I saw one of the answers was "Beer" and right away new that it was him who had said it. I called Sean and told him and we both laughed out loud at our funny, observant boy. 

This Boy

I am loving the 5 1/2  age. There are things I have loved at every age, but right now Caedmon sure is funny. He is really growing into who he is, his likes and dislikes. I just adore watching his personality develop. 

He is sounding out and writing words now all over the place. He made the above book - his "writer famous Caedmon" book to write all his important thoughts.

He plays library and then falls asleep like this. 

He loves making 'parks' or 'lands' for his animals or toys

he is spunky, creative, funny, brave, energetic - like a peacock he says :)

"plants vs zombies"

The Gup aka Space Pod House Tour

Dining room. 

The other morning Caed and  I had a long long talk about what his dream "Gup" or "space pod" would be like. (Gup is from Octonauts - like an underwater space pod). We took turns saying what we would have in it. His ideas included a refrigerator and stove to make snacks, a play ground, tons of secret buttons that shot out all sorts of weapons. Well after a while he said okay now lets build it. So with a razor, some string and a hot glue gun we came up with this. Then of course it somehow turned into that we needed Beia to ride in it with him, hence the tow behind Gup. He took her all over the house in it. 

 Into mom and dads room

The school room/office

look at that face!

Through the kitchen

I am loving the long hair

and one for cuteness

Daddy's Girl

Since Beatrice first made her arrival people have said how much she looks like her dad. Well here you have it, here she is at 4 months and Sean at 3 months - if you cover up eyes and hair I think they are dead on :)

Also when you let your gege pick out your clothes for the day this is what ends up happening. He picked all of the 'prettiest' clothes she had and then insisted she be called Princess Cherry Flower Heart.

friends

Caed and Ima met the day she was born :) They were born at the same hospital too! And we were so glad to get to spend some time earlier this month with her and her parents again. 

This is out of order but the other day I told Caed to pick up his room because it was going to get vacuumed and anything on the floor might be lost. Instead of putting things away it ended up like this...

Also we made this light box, which was not as fun as I had thought it would be. Probably b/c it was SUPER hot in that tent, and our light box toys are seriously limited. 

Back to Ima - the kids had fun on a hot summer day playing paint and swim in the bathroom :)

The funniest/cutest thing that happened was after this I took the kids out to order lunch. This woman came up to Ima and said (in Chinese) "Oh let auntie pick you up" and seriously in a flash Caed ran in front of her and told the woman (or maybe yelled, he needs work on politeness...) "她不是你的!" - that is "She isn't yours!"

Reading to meimei. Now why we didn't get any more pictures than that I have no idea. I am usually way better at taking pictures! Luckily we will get to see them again in November, so guys lets make sure to get some pictures then okay?!

Two times since they left he has asked for them to come back or for us to go visit them :)

Experiments

I'll admit I have been totally lacking with the themes 'school' with C. But we have still been keeping ourselves busy doing lots of 'science stuff' together. Most ideas are from pinterest or that Berensteins Bears Big Book of Nature (I think its called that).

Here we set up string with little pieces of straw on it, then tapes a balloon to each straw and it is balloon race time. 

Getting better at writing and other pre-k skills

rubber band painting his thank you cards

pony bead melting - he kept saying he was making 'fractals'

 (anyone else's child ever watched Super Hero Squad????)

p.s. he is naked b/c he didn't want to get his clothes dirty during the painting time that came before this..

LOVE that profile... ahhh heart melting

There was a family day at preschool last week where they showed us all their dances. Caed has become way into 'dancing' lately. He shows us all the moves that his teacher teaches him. Yesterday we were in town and a clothing place was playing loud music and he says, "Um I think I need to go in there and dance for a little bit" - which he did, with some hilarious moves we had never seen, and then pouted about having to leave (until we told him we could have a family dance night at home). And Sean and I were like "Who's child is that???" and Sean said - "Your's dear, I was never like that, this behavior has Nicole written all over it". Right after we left we saw a group of kids playing on the steps and C goes,

"I need to stop and play with them for a while because I think they want to play with me." - Yep definitely mommy genes. 

Here is me when I was maybe 3? Minus dark hair and eyes I see lots of C in this pic :)

Making a volcano erupt, by far his favorite, just look...

at his excited face!

LOVE love love this boyo. 

We Had a Good Time But We Left...

On our third day we visited the thousand peak forest

beautiful lake and hills

and valleys

The hotel was such a treat, many amenities we don't have in our apartment! Some of my favorite parts were soft carpet, a bathtub, air conditioner, fresh clean towels and bathrobes everyday, a nice mattress (we have been sleeping on two pieces of foam for over 5 years now, and I never think it is bad until I sleep on a real mattress and remember what we are missing!), huge tv with USb plug :) So needless to say we took many baths and wrapped up in the robes as much as we could. 

The day we left C and i went into town and got snacks for the ride home. He also bought this fake snake which he carried all over the store and the streets saying in Chinese , "I have a snake! Watch out!" He scared so many people and he thought it was sooooooo funny. We had to make a rule no showing little little kids or old people. 

p.s. Caed is, just as his shirt says, "awesome like Mommy"

Our room had this add on area where C slept (on that gold couch), it had its own tv which he thought was pretty cool. Here we are walking out. And in good Garofalo/Baran tradition we sang (or more like I sang) "We had a good time but we left, we had a good time but we left, we had a good time but we left right left right left!" as we marched out of the room :( I'll get Caed to join with me in the singing soon, but Sean may take a few more years...

On the way home C slept most of the time, he kept brushing hair out of his eyes while he slept so I put his hair in a 'punky' as he calls it. Sleeping with his snake who was first named "Fire Ball Flame" but who later changed into "Anaconda".

All in all a perfect family getaway. 

Praise the Lord for some time as a family to enjoy each other and God's creation!