Baiyun Mountain with Daddy

I wasn't there. I had a doctor's appointment. But it looked like fun. It looked pretty. I'm not jealous that I spent the whole time at the hospital where they essentially told me to wear a coat and come back tomorrow for more tests. Lame. But what a fun day for them!

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New Digs

Because this week was not crazy enough, we moved. To keep it brief; we love it here.

The place is bigger.

The area is SO QUIET!

I have a bigger kitchen.

We have a second bathroom.

We are closer to the hospital.

It is a lot less formal and so feels like an apartment instead of a hotel that I don't belong in.

And for those of you who are concerned that I lost my amazing view, don;t worry. In this place we face a big hill that is covered in trees. It's not a lake, but the swaying trees are very relaxing.

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Nook

One of my presents deserves it's own post. Joe bought me a Nook for Christmas! I have been completely negligent of all my duties since. I love my Nook! How have I been living without books for these last 4 months? I have a new sense of life and excitement. The best part is that several of my friends also go them so now we share books and actually have things to talk about that aren't "how much I miss ___ from home." I LOVE IT!

Christmas Day

What can I say, it was awesome. Stacie stayed the night and we filled the stockings and ate treats and made sure that everything was ready for when Avery came out Christmas morning. She did not disappoint; she walked out, came straight to me and asked for a nummie. No interest in the shiny packages, no worries about what was filling her stocking, just wanted a treat. When I showed her that her stocking did indeed have treats in it, well she grabbed the first sugary snack she could and then lost interest in anything else we wanted to do. She eventually realized that the shiny packages frequently were new toys for her and so she warmed to the idea of opening presents after a while. We saved her rocking elephant to the very end because we knew, and were right, that after that all else would disappear for her.

The day was spent enjoying our new toys and watching movies. We went to a friend;s house that evening for a crepe party and sadly I forgot to take any photos. But I can not tell you how wonderful it was to have crepes filled with berries and ice cream. It was truly a wonderful holiday.

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Snickerdoodles and the Cookie-Dough Monster

Do have any treats that you love that you never make yourself? I don't know why we do this, but I think everyone does have one of these. It's like we save it for only special occasions when someone else makes it for us. For me this is snicker doodles. However, moving to the other side of the world and trying to create a Christmas feeling in a country that does not even know why we have Christmas makes you do things you do not normally do. So, I made snicker doodles for the first time. Oh, my, were they yummy! I don't know why I avoided it for so many years. Avery was kind enough to help me roll them into balls and sugar coat them, and it was at this time that I discovered something about Avery; while she does not love cookies, she LOVES cookie dough. I could not keep her hands out of the bowl! I finally had to banish her from the kitchen because every ball she was supposed to roll went straight into her mouth. Where does she get this? I don't particularly care for raw dough, and I don't know that Joe has ever had it. Where do kids learn this stuff?

ChimeLong With Daddy

What is it about a day with Dad that suddenly makes kids act on their best behavior? When I have taken Avery to the amusement park it has been a trial. I've tried twice and both times she cried as we approached almost every ride, she wanted to be held the whole time, and she would not get on anything by herself.

So

Joe has a day off and we decide to go as a family and see how she does. She does great. It's not that she was never scared, there we a few rides she would not go on. But for the most part she was happy to sit on the rides and wave and smile like the big girl that she is. She wanted to run around and snack on the popcorn, she was good when strangers took her pictures, it was a totally new experience. Why do they save all these good days for Dad?

We're Moving

Not back to the States, but we are moving none the less. The apartments that the school rents here for teachers will not be available after the new year, their new year. It seems that the Clifford group sold off this entire complex of buildings to a company that wants to use them for office buildings. So in January we get to pack up all of our belongings and move over to another complex on the other side of the Clifford compound. Joe is excited because it means that we are getting away from the park and all of its noise. I am sad because I will be beyond huge at that point and packing up our meager belongings and moving up the block just seems annoying and there is no park by our new digs. Good because there will be less noise, bad because I will soon have two kids to entertain and Avery LOVES the park. It's a mixed bag, whatever. We have to move.

What I love about cooking

The smells. Whether I'm baking dessert or cooking up dinner, I love the smells when I cook. I made soup last night. We had a rare chilly day and I was feeling like I needed something a little toasty warm so I improvised a tomato-potato soup. While I was chopping the onion and the garlic and breaking open the green pepper for its turn I was overwhelmed by how good my kitchen smelled. I just sat there for a minute breathing in really deeply and letting it soak in. I am accosted daily by smells that I would prefer to never smell again and so cooking always brings me to a happy and familiar place. And it is always even more satisfying when the food turns out well.

The soup was SUPER easy. I chopped:
1 clove of garlic
2 Tb. of red onion
1 small green pepper
1 large potato
1 large carrot
and sauteed that in a tablespoon of butter to make it all start smelling good. Then I dumped in one can of Campbell's tomato soup, plus its water, and then added another cup of water and a cup of milk. I decided I wanted the soup to be a little thicker so I added some flour paste while it all simmered and cooked the veggies until tender. Then just salt and pepper.

Once it was done Joe and I decided that it would have been even better with chicken or pasta added to it so I will do that the next time. I probably would substitute some chicken stock for some of the water, but I had none on hand.

After dinner my friend, Katie, came down and we made cookies. MORE good smells. We made Honey Spice Snaps (my Mom's favorite!) and started off eating them almost as fast as we baked them. The longer I am here the more I learn about how to make this apartment really feel like a home, my home, and cooking might be the biggest part of that.

Christmas is in the air

Or at least I am trying really hard to make it feel that way. In order to bring the Christmas spirit into our home we had a decorating party last night. Stacie and I started by heading into the city to collect the necessary items; a tree, ornaments, a wreath, a stocking, etc. It was many hours but our search was satisfactory.

Once we got home I made a new dessert for me, a plum cake tatin. When I said 'plum cake' to Joe I thought he would throw up. I don't know why the idea was so abhorrent to him, but he was not excited. Well, he should have been because it turned out DELICIOUS! It made the house smell yummy and gave us a treat to look forward to after our work.




After that we unloaded the tree, the first artificial one I have ever had, and got to sprucing it up. Avery thought it was fun until she found out that she wasn't supposed to pull all of the little green pieces off of the tree. But she was all over the decorations. She hoarded all of the pine cones so that we had to search through three rooms to find them all. We debated a lot on the type of ornaments to get, but we decided on pine cones and a lot of stuffed snowmen, Santas, reindeer, and bears. Nothing breakable this year because none of us trust Avery. We bought a long string of red beads to put around the tree and Avery was wrapped up in it about 3 minutes into decorating. I think she thought it was the worlds greatest necklace.


Stacie was a pro at lights and the like so that I didn't have to squat and lean and reach to terrible much. My stomach is feeling a mite heavy these days. She even got the wreath hung on the door so that anyone approaching our door can prepare for the festive feeling within.


We had Christmas music playing the whole time and hot chocolate to end the night. It was probably my favorite night so far in China.

HELP!

How do you keep a two year old clothed when she has learned to remove her clothes herself? I fight everyday to get Avery into her clothes and it takes more energy than I would like to admit to accomplish this small task. But now she knows how to take her clothes off without any assistance and I am left with the dilemma of constantly finding her like this throughout the day! The other day we literally did not leave the house to go ANYWHERE, even though I had many errands to run, because I could not keep clothes on her long enough to get out the door. What do you do at this stage? She hasn't learned shyness or modesty yet so she has no qualms about stripping off the offending items at the bus stop! Seriously, what do I do?