A Thanksgiving to be Thankful For

After Brandon and I got married we had approximately 7 months to prepare ourselves for the "who gets Christmas? who gets Thanksgiving?" issue that married people face. You know the issue I'm talking about. The one where you have to divvy up how much time you spend at his folks' place and how much time you spend at her folks' place...etc...etc...etc...
That first year of marriage we felt that we had an especially difficult time because that particular year all FOUR sides of our family (ie...his dad's side, his mom's side, my mom's side, my dad's side...) were ALL in one city. And it just so happened to be all in one day.

So we did what every brainless couple would do and chose to attend every single event all in one day.
We tallied up about 3 quality minutes with each person we're related to, ate entirely too much turkey and pumpkin pie, and argued each and every minute of alone time we had that day.
We swore we'd never do it again.

Flash forward to a week ago, Thanksgiving day.
We were approximately 12,000 miles from said city where 7 years ago all of our family was gathered...save three.

Brandon's mom, dad, and sister flew those 12,000 miles to spend Thanksgiving with us!

It was a great day. Fabulous. It felt just like Thanksgiving is supposed to. A little chaotic. A little noisy. Food taking longer than it should to cook. An assembly line to fill up your plate. Aunt Terri's bacon wrapped green beans. Everything a Thanksgiving day should include (in my small world.)

Minus my folks, my brother, his gorgeous wife and kids, and my fantastic sister and cool husband.

But because God is so awesome, He provided family here in family's place.

And it made me realize that He's been doing that all along. It took me moving across the world to realize that having four Thanksgivings is something I should be Thankful for.

Now that I'm literally half a world away from all of that, I'd give anything to attend four thanksgivings again. I'd pass Caleb around to all 76 some-odd people that would surely hold him that day. I'd wonder what room Uncle Ron had run off to to read a book. I'd get smoked yet again by Granny in Rats. I'd eat an extra helping of Aunt Susie's dressing just because I could. I'd look like a total moron during Trivial Pursuit at Aunt Jeri's house. And I'd hug everyone really tight because that's what you do when you love people.

I'm thankful for FOUR sets of family. I'm thankful that "his" family is my family. And this year I'm so incredibly thankful that they endured overseas flights to have Thanksgiving China-Style.

We had a full house on Thanksgiving day...


That week we showed them some of the sights of the city.






Eden is unsure of that bright yellow thing in the sky that we so rarely see!


And when we weren't out exploring the town, we did a lot of just hanging out.





The kids opened early Christmas presents.


Salem was pretty smitten with Aunt Nay Nay.



You can't come to China without seeing the Great Wall, right?



And just to make sure that they'd all come back again some day, they each got a turn on the back of our new ride.


(more pictures to come!)

We love you guys and are so grateful you braved a trip to the Big Chicken to spend Thanksgiving with us!

Eat Your Heart Out

My youngest is turning out to be quite the charmer. He knows his smile melts my heart and he uses it to his advantage! Dimples and giggles this cute get him all the attention his little heart desires.







*since there's several comments about the blanket... it was made for Caleb by a friend, Glenda. She's a Jedi-Quilter and has made all three of our kids an incredible blanket. She wanted pictures of Caleb on it so I snapped them yesterday. He was in such a great mood for them that I felt they were blog-worthy. :)

Boring

The other day Brandon and I were watching an episode of The Amazing Race. Something about what they were doing made Brandon think. He turned to me and said, "Our life seems boring compared to this."
We sat and felt sorry for ourselves for about two seconds.

And then I reminded him that every morning he takes our daughter to Chinese preschool on the back of a motorcycle down streets with live chickens.



Turns out...maybe we're not so boring after all.

To the Capital and Back Again

Every now and then we make a trip to the Big Chicken's capital.
Sometimes it's for mere sanity. A big, fat, juicy cheeseburger can really do a lot for your emotional state!

Sometimes it's for furniture shopping at IKEA.

But this time it was for shots. Immunizations. Vaccinations. Whatever word floats your boat.
We threw in some time for cheeseburgers, subway sandwiches, shopping, and wayyyyy too many hours wandering the maze of IKEA...but the purpose of the trip was for Caleb to get up to date vaccinations, and flu shots for the rest of us.

We usually take the train up to the Capital, which can be an adventure in and of itself. This time around, it was thankfully without many stories to tell.


Blog reader, meet Chiner's countryside:


Vast stretches of farmland cover the land between our city and the Capital.

Now, blog reader, meet the exact opposite:


That was our view from our hotel down to the old train station on one of the most muggy/smoggy days I've seen since being here. The day before was gorgeous...which is a rarity around here. So don't let the picture completely fool you. Occasionally, it's a pretty place to live! But yeah, the crowds are the same, regardless of weather. :)

On the agenda was to visit the frighteningly crowded Silk Market to get the kids some new shoes and snow suits for bundling up during bike rides. Salem happened to be sleeping in the stroller during the purchasing of his snow suit. So for his sake (and our own) we didn't wake him up to try it on before buying.
oooops....


Oh well...at least it'll fit him next year, right?
He kept calling himself a fireman.


Eden's fits...though it may not fit next year.


And after our arms were all sore, our bellies were all happy, and new shoes had been bought...we got back on the train and came home. Have I mentioned that this train goes 191 mph? Oh yeah. I forgot that part. It makes a 5 hour car ride turn into a 1.5 hour train ride.


We had almost an entire train car to ourselves on the way home...


That kind of space in this part of the world is a rarity. We took full advantage of it.
Even giving mini-man his own space to stretch out.


All in all...another successful trip to the Capital and back again.

Halloweenies

We're total weenies when it comes to Halloween. If the "holiday" totally got wiped off the face of the planet, I couldn't care less. It's just never been something I've been "in to."
Don't get me wrong...kids in costumes are cute! Who doesn't love a little boy dressed up as a cowboy or a blonde little tinkerbell?!
It's the freaky faces. The hoards of candy. The strangers my kids encounter while out knocking on doors. The festivals, the candy corn (gag me now!), and those rubber "fingers" that look like witches wrinkled old fingers.
I really could just do without it all.

And then I moved to Asia. A place where Halloween is almost unheard of. It's one of THE very few things that totally makes me fit in here...the fact that the billions of people around me couldn't care less about that holiday.

And then my blessed husband went out for a bike ride looking for a gym. He stumbled upon a place called "My Gym" which totally suckered him in since he was looking for a gym, after all.
Turns out, it's a kid's gym! SCORE!
With truly great play areas for the kids! SCORE AGAIN!
That was having a halloween party that evening and who really wanted the foreign white kids to attend! oh blast.
We juuuuuuuust almost made it through October without the mention of Halloween. I seriously had JUST posted on facebook that I was glad this year that Halloween was passing us by.
But like all things "western" here, Halloween is becoming more popular.

So I got over myself, my pity party, my tendency to want to crawl in my bed and pull the covers over my head at the mention of Pumpkin Carving, and we loaded up and went to the full blown Asian Halloween party.
What would be appropriate for an Asian halloween party??
Answer: Entirely too many people crammed into one room.

Eden and Salem were promptly lined up for a million flash bulbs to ensue.
What makes white kids stand out even more in an Asian crowd??
Answer: Put them in superman and princess costumes.

What's the little girl to Eden's left supposed to be dress as??

Answer: no idea.

What did Caleb think of all the hoopla?

Answer: He's indifferent. Like his mommy. 

Or, maybe he's less thrilled than me...

Either way, he was the cutest little cow there...even if Eden insisted that he was a Giraffe.

I'll try to have a better attitude next year about it all...because you never know what can come from a Halloween party.
This year's halloween party resulted in me teaching a parenting class (wha?!) next sunday at the Gym for attending parents so that our kids can attend classes for free. That's right...occasionally we take full advantage of our "foreigner" status. :)

It's just not that Unusual

Doors are over rated right?

I mean, who needs a door when you can just crawl through a window to enter a building?

Because that's what Eden has been doing the past few weeks when she goes to preschool.

So this one day Brandon came home from dropping Eden off at preschool and said, "They want us to drop Eden off at the back window now when we take her and pick her up."

After some semi-confusing conversation with her teachers (semi-confusing because my Chinese skills are still under par...over par? I have no idea. My golf skills are bad too.)
Anyway, what we think they were saying is that the preschool is next to an elderly couple's apartment. The preschool is in an apartment so it's surrounded by actual tenants. And apparently they complained about the door to the preschool opening and closing too often, loud children, and what not. So the solution for awhile was to climb through the back window.

And then the elderly couple kept complaining. And kept complaining. And kept complaining.

Not about us specifically. But just about the noise level of the kids. And we all know, kids are going to be noisy kids, no matter how many times you ssssshhhhhh them and no matter what nationality they are.

And since the preschool's teachers are too nice to say, "Get over it Granny!" the preschool is moving to a new location. It's bigger and better, so really, it's a win/win.

We realized just how adjusted to the culture we've become though, when they told us that we needed to pick her up from the window for awhile. Because our immediate thought was not, "hmmmm, that's strange." or "uhhhhhhhh....alllllriiight....."

It was more along the lines of, "ok. sure!"  Because, well, that's just China. And in China, picking your kid up from preschool through a window is just something that's not that unusual.

Pie Month has Arrived

I scoured our blog this afternoon for evidence of me ever informing you of one of our family's traditions. Lo and behold, I think this is the first mention of it!
Which is so sad, as it really is a great little tradition.

This is our Third Annual Pie Month!

Yes, you heard me correctly. Pie Month!

Three years ago Brandon declared October to be Pie Month. He felt that October kind of got the shaft as far as holidays are concerned, with Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas in December. Plus he thought we kind of needed a "warm-up" for all the eating that comes in November with T-Giving.
(why not go ahead and give your waistline a little stretch in it before the big event comes along?! :) Since I've finally gotten back into the routine of exercise post-baby, I'm ok with the arrival of Pie Month!

If you know my husband at all, you understand that his declaration for completely-made-up-holidays or traditions is not unlike him at all.

And so yesterday, yes the 21st of October, I finally fulfilled our Pie Month tradition with a warm apple pie.

In Brandon's perfect Pie Month world, he'd like one pie per week during Pie Month. I'm still playing my I've-got-a-newborn card though, so we're over half a month in to Pie Month and we're just now getting around to it!

But isn't it a fancy shmancy pie to kick things off with?!

Next week: Buttermilk Chess Pie! (yes, we miss you Bekah!)

Next year I vow to get our 4th Annual Pie Month off to an appropriate start with a pie on the FIRST day of October! Anyone want reservations at Hotel Chancler next October?!