Birthday Trip

As it has consistently worked out so far this year, we needed to make a trip to the capital on one of our family member's birthdays.  It just so happens that KB's birthday and DB's half birthday fall on the same day.  Traveling to the capital has become both easier and more difficult in the past year and a half.  Easier since we now live in a city that has daily high speed trains headed straight to the capital ever half hour to hour - so much easier than flying or taking the 10 hour slow train.  It is more difficult since we have two young kids for whom staying in a hotel, no matter how nice, gets old fast. 

Traveling was easier without kids.  Well, duh, but I still felt like saying it.  Our trips now revolve entirely around seeing pediatricians and dentists, eating at restaurants within walking distance, going to Ikea, and staying at hotels four times the cost of the filthy hotels we stayed in before kids. 

 

I am not trying to complain though.  The upgrade in hotels has been nice.  The nice hotels have softer beds, better pillows, baby beds, better towels, great service, cable TV with foreign channels, and this one even has a top sheet rather than just a duvet cover - it blew my mind!.  However, my absolute favorite nice hotel amenity is the swimming pool, which was the deciding factor in choosing our hotel on this trip.  We thought if our poor kids have to be drug around all day, miss naps, and eat unfamiliar food, at least they can go swimming and it can be the highlight of the trip for them.  Even a month later the swimming pool is the only part of the trip that AB remembers.  Totally worth it. 

 

 Taxis are sometimes great and sometimes stressful, especially when it is raining and/or during rush hour.  To avoid this, we stayed within walking distance of everywhere we needed to go.  We ended up walking a lot, but considering the amount of food we ate, it was probably a good thing.  



Did you know that by law we are supposed to wear swim caps at all pools in the country we live in?  I am sure you did not know since I myself just found that out.  As an American I feel really weird since wearing a swim cap because 1) I am not a serious swimmer...yep that is basically it, I always feel like a poser wearing one.  AB is pretty proud of her hat. She even likes to wear it around the apartment sometimes. 

Later that evening DB crawled into bed, pulled out a Sports Illustrated magazine (thanks Grumpy!) and took a few minutes to unwind.  Seriously he did this all on his own.  He is quite the observant little boy.

After we returned home AB and I made daddy a "looks bad but tastes good" German chocolate birthday cake, daddy's current favorite.  Happy 31st birthday daddy!

First Haircut

DB needed a haircut.  We loved his shaggy look, but the back was beginning to really really look like a mullet.  Honestly we were in denial, but after looking at some baby pictures of AB, it seems denial of the mullet is something we do - in reality AB's mullet was worse than DB's.  Whatever, it was time to cut DB's hair.

A lot of the local parents here shave off their young child's hair (like 3 month - 3 year olds, sometimes including girls) during the summer.  I was told this was for two reasons, 1) It is cooler.  2) It will make their hair grow thicker, like it will change the make-up of a child's hair.  I can understand the first reason, but when people told me I should shave my 2 year old daughter's hair to make it grow in thicker, I skipped their advice. 

Anyways, since I have a bumpy history with local hairstylists, and they seem to be clipper happy with children, I thought I might as well try to cut DB's hair myself.  I figured if it came out bad, which was a very real possibility, I only had myself to blame, not a stylist who refused to listen to me and did what they thought was best.  Since I was scared of cutting too much, I felt the spectrum of bad would be less with me, than with them.



I stripped DB down, sat in him his high chair, wet his hair, and started planning my snips.  By the way, that look he is giving me in this picture is not a look of confidence.  Gosh, if he only knew my history of hair cutting was strictly with cutting our dog's hair, and wow did our dog look terrible afterwards, DB would probably look absolutely terrified and should be trying to get away from me. 

I started with the bangs since that seemed safe.  Later KB told me I should never cut boy's bangs straight across.  As a girl who spent the first 14 years of her life with bangs, I knew those things would grow in fast if I messed them up, so I was not particularly concerned.



Next I worked on the sides since the hair hanging over his ears was particularly annoying me. I literally have no technique.  However with that said, I have had short hair enough times to know I should lift a vertical section of hair between my fingers and snip, but since that technique turned out terrible on our dog, I was not certain it would look good on DB.  

Ever the good sport, AB faithfully stood by her little brother in his 10 minutes of need

I eventually moved around to the back.  Essentially I trimmed his bangs, trimmed the hair around his ears, and cut off the length in the back.  It looked pretty good until it dried.  KB said was too flat on the top and too wide around the sides and back.  He said it looked like the hair of a man who is bald on top but keeps the sides and back too long (something he sould know since bald is the direction his hair is going, love you Kev).  Whatever, I brought out my scissors again and really went to town this time.  I did not hold back. 

Here was the final product (this was the next day).  Other than around the ears, which I still have no idea how to do, it looks okay - there are no visible lines or chunks of hair missing.  Now two weeks later it looks better.  Time has worked in our favor and has smoothed out my amateur snips.  He was a good sport.  

Tent

One morning while Gigi and Grumpy were in town we built a tent out of old curtains.  This was a first for our kids - not sure what has taken us so long to do it, but the kids loved it.  

 We all got a kick out of how our hair reacted to the static in the tent.

Not one to be left out, Gigi's hair also got in on the static action.

Morning at the Park

While my parents visited last month the weather was still nice and the heat had not yet hit, so one morning we stuffed all our bodies into a taxi and headed over to our favorite park.  It really is a beautiful park - kind of like a botanical garden, and since it is nestled into a residential area, it is usually just visited by people living nearby. 

This was our attempt at a family picture.

My dad did his best.

This is the smile AB likes to give me when I tell her to smile - it totally looks fake.

Have I ever mentioned that for several reasons the school schedule here is a little different than in the West?  They start later, end later and have quite a bit of time off for the New Year - that is not really different from the West, but what will leave an American scratching their head is the fact that no one knows the exact date schools start or finish until a few days or day before it actually happens. There is a general "understood" calendar but nothing you can rely on with absolute accuracy. The day we went to the park school was supposedly still in session. However apparently a rogue local elementary let out a day or two early. Because as we approached the play area I grew a bit apprehensive as I heard a loud roar of kids happily (and some not so happily) playing.  So much for our quite morning at the park.

I feel like this picture can in no way capture the chaos that was this play area.  There were kids everywhere.  Since we came all that way to visit the park and really our kids probably have can only remember crowded parks, we just dove right in.  I was super proud of my dad.  If all those people phased him, he did not show it.  My dad is the tall one in khaki shorts, dark hat and grey shirt. 

The lady in white shirt and jeans with light brown hair that is taking pictures is my mom, well at least the back side of her. 

You can see KB helping AB cross the bridge.

My Little Guy

My little DB is 18 months old now.  As any mother might wonder, where has the time gone?  Thankfully he is still squishy in all the right places and generously comes to me several times a day just for me to hold him.  He says phrases such as "here you go" and tells me when he has a messy diaper by saying "ba-poo."  He is a pro at yelling "momma" and refers to most objects as "ball" - which is unfortunately not very helpful when he wants something other than a ball.  I love my little guy. 

My DB is also energetic.  He loooooves to climb on anything.  He likes to push our kitchen stool all over the apartment so he can reach those forbidden and wonderful things he wants so much.  Unfortunately my little climber also falls off of tall things a lot.  I am thankful we have "wooden" (fake) floors - as opposed to something less forgiving, but the sound of his head hitting the ground in his inevitable once-a-day tumble still sounds terrible. 

While my parents where here, one day DB was apparently ready for dinner and decided to help himself to the casserole cooling on the table.  I cannot blame him, the Ritz Crackers and butter topping is my favorite part too.  You can see in the first picture below that he actually put the food he grabbed on a plate...when you think about it, it was really was considerate of him to do that, or just plain precious.  You can see in the second picture that he seemed pretty proud of his accomplishment.  

Next to milk, bananas are his favorite.

Dash, the Glow Worm and the Wardrobe

Earlier today KB could not find DB, but when he walked into AB's room he heard something coming from her wardrobe.



Hi. It has been a while...

I have no excuses for my unplanned (more than) month-long break from posting.  I had some stuff going on, and since things are getting back to normal, here are a few recent pictures during all of that "stuff."

You might ask yourself (or not) "why is AB fully decked out in her pink princess outfit while sitting in our junk room/office?" 

Answer: She somehow felt the need to dress up to watch two men put their life in danger to install an air conditioner in our office.  You know, this situation somehow feels familiar...

Oh yea, it was just a couple weeks before that some other guys put their life in danger to repair one of our other air conditioners.  We live 5 stories up.

AB was there for that too.  Whenever our air conditioners seem to break one-by-one every single year, and one-by-one we (my helper) must call a repairman to come and fix them, I get nostalgic for central air and that one enormous unit that cools the whole home.  However, it is not too long after that I get smug when I remember I have the luxury of just moving to another room when one of my air conditioners breaks, and I get to sit without sweating while waiting for someone to come fix it for me.  Gosh I am lazy. 

"Uncle" J dropped in for a two day visit.  It was just like old times. 

I cannot seem to get enough of my dead asleep DB in the baby carrier pictures.  It is just so cute. To accomplish this picture I simply bent over on my (unmade) bed, unsnapped the carrier and he never moved.  His body is positioned exactly as it was when he was smashed up against me.  He was tired. 

My Mother's Day Gift

All you people living in America, just...don't even read this.  I do not want your pity, that is unless you are willing to contribute to my Dr. Pepper fund.  Dr. Pepper contributors and ex-pat friends, you may read on.

Look at what my wonderful husband gave me for Mother's Day, and because they were shipped over on a boat and will expire in 6 months, he has promised to buy me more so  that I can have a Dr. Pepper every week for a year.  Rocking thoughtful husband indeed.

Sharon and Photo Time

So, Sharon (KB's mom) has been to visit us twice this year.  For some reason during and just after her first visit I was unable to upload pictures from her visit, but I can now so here are a few.

The series of pictures below deserve and explanation.  Sharon wanted a picture of the family together.  Since I was probably still in my pajamas when this happened, I volunteered to take the picture.  Here is how it went down.

First they tried to coral the kids...

 ...they were not successful.

I like this picture of AB.  She is all ready to pose pretty.

Next, I managed to take 5, that is  F-I-V-E, pictures of Sharon, my kids, and my precious husband with his eyes closed.  I have posted all five pictures of KB with is eyes closed below for prosperity. 

Finally things began to unravel...

...and this was the last picture I took.  AB has clearly checked out. 

I am not sure if it was the subjects or my rocking photography skills, but it was because of this attempt at taking a family photo that we took Sharon and the kids to a real photographer when she came back the second time and came out with nice looking photos like this.  Slightly better for sure.