Golden Week 2016

During the first week of October, the nation of China takes a break to celebrate their country. They call it Golden Week. At first we were a little down, because you really don't want to travel because everyone else is - and besides travel is expensive! - and we have a whole week off but not the means to see family as we would prefer. But at the end of it, we were very thankful for our "stay-cation." I highly recommend it to families with small children. We didn't go anywhere so the girls slept well the whole week for naps and night times, which allowed us to get some good breaks too. Ryan caught up on sleep and spent extra time with the girls. I got to craft. We went out to eat more often to save on chores and just enjoyed being a family, as well as taking turns with child duty to let the other have a little extra relaxation. It was great. :)

 Miss Ellie practiced more of her super walking skills!

 Ryan went with Dassah and friends out on an overcast morning, to a place about 30 minutes away by taxi. It was amazing the number of Chinese lanterns they had out!

 Fisherman's Wharf was the place, complete with rides and food and a kind of beach!

 Chinese :)

 Dassah loves to climb up on anything she can!

 There were horse rides...

 And about an inch of water covering the beach, just perfect for a little girl to have a blast running barefoot in!

 There were also a ton of crabs crawling in and out of holes all over, but no toes got pinched!

 The ferris wheel definitely got ridden, as well as a roller coaster braved by Ryan and Hadassah. Bad idea: here there are not as many regulations for things, and the roller coaster shook so bad, Ryan had whiplash for weeks afterwards!

While Ryan and Dassah were out, Ellie had a great, long nap catching up from the exhaustion of Sunday... Isn't her sleepy chub adorable?

 Then she was my sewing helper as I put the finishing touches on some skirts for her. :)

 We went out with friends to a Muslim restaurant. We've decided we really like the Muslim (XinJiang) version of Chinese food. Thick yogurt with honey to mix in takes the edge off the slightly spicy grilled lamb skewers, and they had some great potato dishes as well as delicious honey-fried bananas... Yum! It always takes a long time to order with a large crowd, but it was great being out with these good friends.

 The kids loved the stage to dance on at the end! We went back on a Saturday recently and they had a lady dancing that evening, with a beautiful long sparkly dress, with lots of twirling and even dancing with bowls of water on her head. Hadassah was enthralled. :)

 We've been enjoying the freedom to bike, even if it does take 20 minutes. And I feel safer now that Ellie is finally big enough to fit the smallest helmet I could find!

 We took a break from typical "preschool" (more for my sake in not having to plan - Dassah loves the extra activities!) but did a few fun crafty things here and there, like this one. If you color leaves that aren't too dry with marker, then roll them onto paper with a rolling pin, you get some fun fall prints!

 On another morning, Ryan took Hadassah ot the Minhang GongYuan - it's been closed since the spring, but recently reopened complete with new rides.

 Her smile says it all! I sometimes complain about the lack of free outdoor (or even indoor!) parks around here. But Ryan reminded me that we will likely never again live within a ten minute drive of a perpetual amusement park!

 A trip to Zoo Coffee to finish out left this girl extremely happy - what a fun daddy-daughter date!

 A crafted mommy and rested baby then joined on a taxi ride to Burger King. We hardly eat there in the states but when it's one of very few Western restaurants close by, ever now and then we give it a go here. ;)

 I bring some veggies for the girls to cut down on the grease. I've got to love that Dassah prefers salad to chicken nuggets! ;) And even Burger King makes for cute baby pictures!

 Ellie got an early birthday present... A swing of her own! Having a place to contain her when I need to sweep or whatever is quite nice, and she absolutely loves it. It's something Hadassah can push her in too - I love anything that gets the girls playing nicely together!

Truth be told, though: one day I hear "Can I flip Ellie over in the swing?" and before I can say "NOO!" she's done it. Thankfully the buckle held the terrified Ellie in, and Dassah got a stern warning not to do that again. I think she's been watching too many extreme sport GoPro videos with Daddy. ;)

 Ellie is at such a let's-have-fun giggly stage!

 Ryan also affectionately deemed her our goat. She's always climbing on whatever high surface she can get to!

There you have it... catching up on pictures, grateful for the "stay-cation" a few weeks ago, enjoying our home and the surroundings God has given us here.

Girls and Gates

 When Dassah says, "Let's sit on this bench and take a picture of me hugging Ellie" you really can't resist, right? :)

But we did have to cut it short because Ellie had the "Help - I'm being strangled!" face pretty quickly. At the heights they're at, it's really hard for Dassah to hug Ellie without strangling her, because her arms are right at her neck... The love is genuine, but we're working on the execution of it! ;)

If the weather is good enough (ie, not raining!) we often find ourselves at our "Secret Garden" after afternoon naps. It's a beautiful botanical garden, just 15 minutes away by bike. There I can let Hadassah wander without fear of cars or bikes coming up suddenly, and even let her practice her tree climbing skills. :)

Or gates, as the case may be. ;)

 Their recent favorite spot has been this big, always locked gate. They love hanging on it, holding on to it and jumping, and clanging a few metal pieces.

I couldn't help but take some pictures, because this is the way I pray for them to be... Side by side, sisters and friends, playing and talking and sharing life. I love seeing glimpses of this more and more as they're continuing to grow.

E is for Elevator

There aren't as many activities that spring to mind for the letter E. :) But it was nice to have a little less planned, as we had enough going on that week to keep us busy. E still had Exciting moments though! ;)

 E is for Egg hunt - I filled plastic eggs with little snacks: a few goldfish, raisins, nuts, and even a few m&ms for extra excitement. It kept Dassah busy searching and eating while I hung up a load of laundry. At first she would just open them and let the insides fall wherever, and I'd remind her to be careful... Once a prized chocolate fell in a crack and got covered in dust (thus not edible) she learned her lesson and carefully opened them over her lap from them on. ;)

Since I didn't have as many letter-related activities, I planned some simple whenever learning activities for this week. Dassah had a lot of fun adding stickers to the numbered columns. I was impressed how she counted accurately, doing it almost completely without help!

 Then she wanted to draw while I cleared up the kitchen a bit. A minute later I heard a giggle and "I drew a cute yeye (grandpa)!" I love seeing drawing ability develop!

 E is for Elevator - the biggest hit of this week. I saw this idea online, and knowing how much Dassah loves pushing elevator buttons, I thought she would enjoy it. She definitely did, and even Ellie enjoyed climbing in and out of the closet!

 When she pushed the "close door" button we'd slide the closet door shut...

 Except for a little crack, without which we couldn't see inside! Love those little fingers.

 Then the doors would open! We played this for quite a while, pushing different numbers related to our home, our friend's apartments, the outside, the basement, and making up ones for restaurants and stores We'd go out "to" the place (reading a book our friend let us borrow to "be" at their house, etc.) and then go back in for another trip!

 How did my baby get old enough to sit in little chairs at a table? Ahh... it's so fun seeing them grow up and play together though!

 E is for Eyes - so she colored her E and covered it in googly eyes! I put drops of glue on the page and left her to put the eyes on top of them.

 Since faces have eyes and ears, we pulled out the Mr. Potato Head felt I'd finally made. I downloaded the pattern from this site quite a while ago, so it was good to have a reason to cut it out!

 On Wednesday we had a friend join us again, as his mom had another prenatal appointment. They enjoyed playing playdough while I made some fun tools.

 E is for Exciting Tools! Yeah, got to stretch it a bit to make my alliterative brain happy sometimes. ;) I had also been meaning to do this for a while after seeing the idea in a book. You can take whatever you have around to hot glue to popsicle sticks. They're perfect for 2-3 year olds, as they can press them without needing help. Some of the pasta fell off, but everything else has stayed through lots of playing.

 We also made birds from paper plates and feathers in preparation for our story of Elijah the next day. It was fun to see how serious they were about picking which color feathers went where.

 A few cut out shapes and popsicle sticks kept Hadassah engaged for a while. Things don't have to be fancy! This has then gone into the box to bring to restaurants or other places she needs to sit for a while, as it's easy to set up and do wherever.

 I had labeled the shapes with the number of sides they had - 3, 4, or 5. She was concerned because we didn't have a "1" or "2" shape, so I cut out long rectangles and labeled them for her to feel she had a complete set to count. ;)

 E is for Energy! This wasn't planned, but after all that sitting, they needed to get some energy out! We couldn't go outside since it was almost time for lunch, so they raced up and down the hallways. I was proud of how careful they were of each other. This little guy is sweet to have around. He's just 4 months younger than Dassah, so they play well together and also have enough times where they have to learn to share. ;) But that too is good learning!

 Who knew a box of plastic eggs could provide so much fun? Ellie just likes sucking on them. Our little friend liked taking them apart and putting them in the basket, while Hadassah wanted to make sure the matching sides were put together. So they kept each other busy for a while!

 E is for Elephant! This page has so many cute heart animals, so I've enjoyed making them with Dassah where it corresponds to our weekly letter. The elephant one was one of my favorites. :)

E is for Explorer! Dassah was very serious in dressing up for her explorer role. :) I hid animals around the room for her to spot with her "binoculars." :)

 But our apartment has no toilet paper roll holders, so we've been using the kind they sell in kleenex type containers. But I needed a toilet paper tube for the binoculars, and had a full roll on hand, so I started unwinding it myself. But then I realized it would be so much more fun for the kids to do it! Ellie had an absolute blast, and I still saved the paper to use later, of course! ;) I didn't think it would do much harm since we have no rolls in our own home for her to want to unroll. But since she has tried hard to get to any roll she sees in a public restroom - though ones that actually have toilet paper here in China are rare! Pretty much only the ones in nice hotels do...

 I gave Dassah a few hints about where animals were hidden if she got stuck. This was an activity she really enjoyed :)

 Especially when I let her climb up on the couch! ;)

 She wanted to give Ellie a turn with the binoculars too! Dassah has her moments for sure of being selfish, but overall God has given her a generous heart and it always makes me so happy when she wants to share fun things with her sister. One of the reasons I am planning weekly activities is to make sure there are times I'm there encouraging them and guiding them in sweet play together. I can see a difference when I do.

 We're working on cutting with scissors these day too. Something finally clicked with Dassah this week, and she got it. Before she would try to cut with both hands and just didn't enjoy when I'd try to have her use one. But now she can cut with one hand and hold the paper with the other!

 She also loves to use tape. So I put the pieces she cut to form a little e and big E for her to tape down. Kept her busy and happy! Another time she wanted another do-a-dot activity, so I drew shapes with numbers 1-5 for her to put that many dots inside of the shape. She did with with dot markers and then went through again and dotted with a regular marker. :)

 We finally did our E for Elijah Bible story acting too. :) Here Dassah went to "hide" down by the brook Kidron. :)

Her favorite part by far was when the birds came to feed her goldfish crackers. :) Dassah never turns down an opportunity to eat! Oh - didn't even realize when I was typing that, but E is for Eat after all! ;)