Beach 2

This is another one by the wall... but I love this picture. I think it is so cute. This was pretty representative of our trip. I was usually holding Bennett, so Austin and Chris had a lot of father-son bonding. They had a lot of fun together...making jokes, saying funny things, singing funny songs, digging holes in the sand, Chris carried Austin a LOT since we just brought the single stroller. Now that we are back Austin asks when Daddy is coming home about once an hour throughout the day- he misses him when he is gone.

This was Austin's "big boy hotel bed"- 2 single beds pushed together. Notice the wonderful wallpaper strip right by his bed- its almost as good as an ocean view room (ok, not at all). But he slept great and would talk away quietly as if we weren't even in the room before he fell asleep. Now we can officially travel with only one portable bed (we brought Austin's tent and the pack and play, afraid he wouldn't go for the bed but we only used the tent on the beach).

Remember my post called The Green Island back in May when Chris and I had our weekend away at the beach? Remember all the couples getting their wedding pictures done? Well, this beach was no exception. And I completely predicted this scene...that someone would want two cute little white kids in their wedding photo. Well, it happened. Austin even agreed to pose, I don't know why (though it doesn't look like it here). I wonder what they will tell their kids, I mean kid, one day about this photo?

Austin and his watering can. Austin loves to play in and with water, so the beach was lots of fun. He spent lots of trips filling up this watering can and dumping it on the sand, in the pool, on Bennett's head...wherever seemed fun.

One of the few moments where Bennett was not trying to eat something. He stayed in the pool (see behind him) a little bit, but nor for long. By the way, the only bucket this one store had was pink, so we have a nice pink bucket. Not that boys can't play with pink...but I thought I would mention it. :)

One totally unrelated thing. If you do not live in the country we do, this will not seem funny or make much sense. But today I got a notice today for "停奶 ” (which means literally "stop milk"). Now i have seen lots of ting shui (stop water) and ting dian (stop electricity) signs in my years here, but never a "ting nai". It made me laugh for some reason. Basically, our yogurt delivery service (we just started getting yogurt delivered to our door. In little glass bottles like milk in the 1950s in the US. They put them in a little box outside our door around 5 pm every day and pick up the previous day's empty bottles. It is great!) will not be delivering yogurt because of the holiday tomorrow, b/c no delivery trucks will be allowed in the city for security. Today was one of those days I wanted to tell Bennett I was "Ting nai"- I am still nursing but today was ready to quit. I won't all at once, but he still likes to nurse but is SO active it is annoying. Ask me tomorrow though and I will probably be sad at the thought of quitting.

If you are wondering what holiday, October 1 (other than being the day we will NOT be seeing U2 in concert in Virginia) is the national holiday and this year is the 60th anniversary since this country began in the system it is now under. A really big deal. No one will work or go to school. There is a huge parade in the big square downtown. The airport is shut down all morning. Many roads are closed. And the partying goes on for 7 days. I will be staying home and possibly not leaving the house at all (I might go to my neighbors to watch the parade on TV. But that is as far as I want to go out...people will be everywhere). More on that tomorrow.

The Beach

Actually these are mostly from the Wall ( a 25 km drive from where we stayed, but also on a different beach). This is where it meets the sea. This was our one "active" day, and it was long but fun.

This is where Austin went from just taking off his pants, to going completely nude and having a great time. Right by the wall was a great stretch of beach. ON the wall were hundreds of snails, which made one little guy very happy. This might have been Austin's happiest moment on the trip, though he had a good time overall. He was very joyful and playing so freely in the water for about an hour.

You could pay $1 to play this big gong on the city wall. We let Austin do it and he had a great time...right up his alley.

Doesn't he look so little running alone on the wall? This part was so desolate...we loved it!

More beach-y ones tomorrow. We are still trying to sell our Oct. 1 U2 tickets in Charlottesville. Any takers? If so email me or my sisters.

In One Room

Well, the day Bennett turned one I took the plunge and moved Bennett into Austin's room. Chris was home and took Austin out to do errands so while Bennett napped I rearranged the room (which I had been planning in my head for months). Here is the final result.

It has gone great so far. I took a good friend's advice and am having Austin sleep on our guest bed for nap - he is too loud and often sleepless at nap time to be in the same room. But the evenings have gone well. Bennett is down first and falls asleep immediately. He hasn't woken when we being Austin in 30-45 minutes later. Austin did protest at first that we had to sing to him out of the room instead of after he was in bed, but he has adjusted now. Bennett wakes first in the morning but I have gotten him up quickly and Austin hasn't woken. I have a sound machine going pretty loud with white noise...I guess that helps.

Here is the view from the door. Austin's bed is behind the bookcase (giving him his own corner and a little more barrier for sound). Bennett's pack and play is immediately to the left of the door, giving easy access to get him out if he is awake in the morning.

This is the view to the left of the door, across from the beds. I moved the little table in and the rocking chair is now in our room (though not being used much these days). Notice the drawers on the bottom of the wardrobe - the covers with the handles they had fallen off and been off for almost a year! Chris spent last Friday as my "slave"- doing whatever I needed him to around the house and one of the results was drawers that close! Thank you, Chris!)

This is the view from the window, with Austin's bed on the right. The walls around Bennett's bed are pretty bare...I need to hang some more pictures now.

Austin's big boy bed - his crib with the rail off. Several times since then he has asked me to put the rail back on! But not so much because he cares when he is sleeping, but because now when he plays "zoo", "cement mixer truck" etc in his bed all the pillows fall out. I am trying to encourage new games that don't require all the pillows in the house to be in his bed.

The boys! They love playing in the bed and both of them crawl in and out throughout the day. Bennett usually bonks his head a little getting out, but it doesn't stop him. I am so glad that Austin was excited to have Bennett join him in the room. I thought he might be possessive about HIS room, but he was excited from the time I brought it up. They probably will be sharing a room for a long time, so hope it will last :)

Vacation pictures next time, but the new room pictures were in high demand.

The banks are his...

"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" Psalm 24:1

Austin has gotten pretty good at transferring concepts that he learns from one place to another, and sometimes it is really funny. A few days ago, Chris took Austin on some errands he had to run. While they were at the bank to pay bills, Austin started singing. One of his favorite songs is "My God is so big". If you don't know the words, it goes

"My God is so big, so strong and so mighty there's nothing my God cannot do, for you!
The mountains are his, the rivers (or valleys) are his, the stars are his handiwork too"

So Austin started singing a new version "The banks are his, the cars are his". Chris of course thought it was cute and a good chance to encourage Austin that, yes, everything is His. Chris continued to ask Austin what else was God's as they were out and about. Later at the store Austin sang more "The videos are his, the lollipops are his...". I hope he continues to remember this when it comes time to share toys with friends or Bennett. :)

more birthday pictures

The cake for everyone else...a Bennett end zone football field. I was kind of proud of my goalposts- I glued pocky sticks together.

Post- cake eating attire!

Game time...everyone got pretty into it. There was chocolate for prizes.

Opening presents with "just a little help" from big brother.

Do you think he liked it?

We had a football theme for Bennett's party - because he is a lot like a little football player and he is the battering ram (i.e. his head banging habit, similar to the 1920's Carolina football player called the battering ram, who is the reason our mascot is a ram). He was a little slow at first, but he soon got pretty into it.

Hmm what is this? I am going to touch it. (amazingly even though everything else goes right in this mouth, it took him awhile to get to that point with the cake).

Just a little taste first.

Hmm, that was good. I think I will pick it up and lick it. Yum!

Oh this is good stuff.

I am one!

Well, I have lots of pictures...more than Blogger will allow me to post. I think I will put them on my Facebook if you want to see the rest. We had a LOT of people at the party...I think 15 or 16 kids and some parents. They played a couple football games that Chris led...throw the football in a hoop and then take one step back and see how far back you can go and still get it in. Also, knock down stuffed animals with the football competition. Bennett did not compete, however. Then we played a game that originated in this country I think. We put a lot of things representing jobs or possible careers in a pile (like a language book-linguist, a football-athlete, an airplane- pilot etc). THe first thing Bennett touches is "what he will be when he grows up". Well, he looked at everything and then crawled over to our neighbor Lucy and pulled up on her...she is 8. We all laughed and decided Bennett would like older women when he is older. :)
Then we had the cake. The rest of the cake was the football field- complete with goal posts (Pocky Sticks make great cake props by the way), some presents and then the Hunemullers (as in Bree and Jesh and parents) stayed for pizza. Bennett was exhausted by the end but I think he had a good time. Austin did. Well, stay tuned for more pictures. Anyone know the best way to make picture collages for a Mac? I can't figure it out. Then I can fit more pictures in a post. The video is on our video camera, which will take some editing before I can publish.

Bennett turns one!

Happy Birthday to Bennett! It is hard to believe he is already one. I feel like his first year of life has gone by so quickly. We are so thankful for Bennett and his sweet, joyful spirit. He loves to smile, loves his big brother and people in general, loves to move and is so strong. He is standing on his own, but he hasn't taken any steps yet.

He started waving bye bye last night- at the train station on the way home he was waving to everyone as we were waiting in the taxi line. At the beach we would have groups of people that would sometimes come up to us and stare or want to interact with the boys. Austin of course was not a big fan (he has now perfected "bu yao xie xie" or "No thank you") but Bennett did not help the crowd situation. He loves the attention and smiles at everyone who comes to talk to him. He will even hold his arms out when they want to hold him. In a way it works out great because they get distracted from Austin and move on to Bennett....so both boys are happy. Lots more blogging about the beach later though. Bennett also has started saying "Zhe ge" which means "this" in Chinese. I think Xiao Ji says it to him a lot. He doesn't really know what it means exactly, but he will pick up different random things and say "zhe ge zhe ge zhe ge". Wow, biligual at one, not bad huh? :) Ok, he knows 4 words, but one of them is Chinese.

This morning Bennett got to open his present from us (with Austin's help of course).


It is a lawn mower, that can help him practice walking and pushing. He seemed to like it pretty well - it entertained him for quite awhile, which is sometimes hard to do these days.

He was a little timid pushing it while walking. He would stand holding on for awhile, but the minute he pushed it he would sit right back down. I am sure it is a matter of days before he is walking with it around the apartment.

We had McDonald's for dinner ( that seems to be the norm for kid birthdays around our house) and we sang to him. He is looking a little unsure of the candle in his chicken nugget. By the way, this was his second time to eat McDonald's (well, he tried it one other time so technically his third) and I would say he is a fan, but he definitely prefers fries over chicken nuggets. Guess he is a pretty normal kid.

Tomorrow is the big party and cake destroying-fest. More posts to come, both from partying, the beach and more.

Uh oh

Ok, sorry no picture today. I didn't get around to it and now the boys are in bed, so you will have to wait for the big boy bed picture. We are excited to go out of town tomorrow and will have an early morning (our train leaves at 7:50). We will be sure to let you know how it was when we get back

In other important Gaertner news, Bennett started saying "Uh oh". It is so cute...when something falls (usually something he drops off the high chair. usually his food. or his sippy cup) he will now saw uh oh. He also says it somewhat randomly throughout the day, but I think he gets it, he just likes saying it a lot. I will also try to get that on video sometime, but haven't been able to yet.

Well, take a break from our blog till next Thursday when we get home!

Writer's block

Sorry for the silence. I think I just had writer's block or something and couldn't get around to posting this week.

So, here are some brief synopses of what is going on around here:

Chris was supposed to go out of town this week. But unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) he had passport issues and could not go. Basically, our passports were in to get our new visas. Chris was told he could still fly within the country with this certain piece of paper. When he got to the airport there was disagreement among different powers that be about whether he could in fact use this piece of paper. In the end, he was told he could have used it if it had his picture on it with a stamp, but the side that could put the picture on it refused to do so, so in the end, we had Chris home all week. :)

This coming week, we are going on a little vacation. We have not technically taken vacation this whole year (I guess our little trip in June was not vacation) and so we are going to a beach that is a 3+ hour train ride away. It is also near an area where the Wall meets the sea. I am looking forward to having time together as a family. At the moment we are hoping to all fit in one smallish hotel room, but the deal is if no one sleeps we may look for a second room. We will have lots of this to blog about in a week. We will go from Sunday to Thursday. Austin is excited about riding the train- this is his first train ride here. There is no internet there and we are not taking the computer, so don't expect a lot this week.

Austin is officially in his "big boy bed" - which is his crib with the rail off. I very spontaneously decided to take them off this week. Austin was playing, Bennett was napping and I just did it. But I am hoping after Bennett's birthday to move them in the same room, and Austin was getting ready to be done with the crib. I didn't want to have two big changes at once, so I am letting him get used to the bed before he gets a roommate. He could technically climb out, though he only tried to during discipline times (not bed times). He did great. The first nap I heard him pitter-pattering around and went in and told him he could not get out of bed and if he did he would be punished. He hasn't since, as far as I can tell. He waits in his bed still in the morning even if he has been awake a little bit. When I come to get him up in the morning he says "Mommy, I didn't get out of my bed!" It is great! He is in and out of it a lot in the day now, still creatively playing in it and Bennett can climb in too. I will post a picture soon, but not today.

We had lots of diaper rash issues with the cloth diapers last week that included a trip to the doctor, but everyone is fine now. The main issue is at night, so for now Bennett wears cloth in the day but both boys wear disposable at night. Well, that is it for now. I will try to post a picture before we leave Sunday and then we will have lots of catching up to do, with Bennett's birthday and our trip coming up.

Bennett's new trick

Check out this new trick of Bennett's. He thinks he is pretty funny. :)

Cloth Diapers

When I was pregnant with Austin, Chris and I had the "disposable s. cloth diaper discussion". At the time, Chris was pro-cloth diapers, for environmental reasons mainly ( and financial too) and I was pretty against it. I had visions of sticking my child with diaper pins, swirling messy diapers in the toilet and a lot of work. And since Chris' arguments were all theoretical (he had never changed a diaper prior to Austin's arrival in the world), I dismissed his opinion completely and so I guess you could say I "won".

Well, times have changed. I learned through some friends of a "diaper grant" that gives a free set of cloth diapers to people who live overseas like us and decided to try it. Months after applying for the grant, I finally received the package. For free, I got about $350 worth of cloth diapers, liners, detergent, diaper pail bag and so on and we have begun. But I have to say, this is not like the horror stories my mom used to tell- cloth diapers have come a long way. They have velcro tabs (no diaper pin worries), very absorbent liners and, well, there are of course still messy diapers to deal with. However, after about 2 weeks of using them, I am a fan. It is more work (washing diapers about every other day) but not that bad. I still have disposable diapers on hand for trips out and travel. BUT it is saving lots of money, and the environment, and is fairly convenient for cloth. The boys don't seem to mind (Austin just wears them at night) and I think I have now figured out the right combination of liners to keep them dry all night. Check out Bennett sporting his.

It does make his rear look like a marshmallow...Bennett already has quite a little butt and now it is even more padded. Austin and Bennett continue to be different in so many ways, including their bottoms. Austin's is so small his pants fall off him and Bennett has plenty to hold his pants up :).

In a totally unrelated picture, this is Austin playing his "newest" instrument, the upright bass. He played along during a recent practice of Chris'. He was concentrating the whole time and would speed up when the tempo was fast and slow down when it slowed. He definitely loves music.

rainy days

The weather has been very foggy lately. Today has been a slow drizzle all day. It has cooled off some but has been humid lately...pretty dreary. I would love to actually crawl in bed for a long nap today, but I don't think it will happen. WE have a music practice in our living room, both boys in bed but Bennett due to wake up at any moment. And Austin is talking in bed, of course. Austin had a very low fever this morning...there have been a few nasty bugs going around (one more like a cold and one a stomach bug, I really hope it is the former) and it looks like we might be the next target. I think I better start the Airborne today.

Not much new to report, other than a few funny things Austin has said lately. Yesterday he said "mommy, I realized something." I asked him what he realized, but he never answered me and I don't know if he really fully understood what he was saying. But he said it several more times in the day. This morning I made myself a cup of decaf coffee in our French press. Usually Chris makes his in the coffee maker. Austin said "Mommy, what kind of coffee is that?" and I said is was decaf. He looked at me and said "umm, well, actually mommy it's a press-kind". I agreed that he was right, it was the (French) press. Lately he often starts sentences with "Well, actually..." He also has been pretending to play the upright bass a lot lately. Chris has mentioned a few times lately how cool it would be to have one (and I am thinking, we should never buy an instrument we cannot possibly fit on an airplane. Or in our apartment) and now it is Austin's instrument of the week (he "plays" it with a stick and his inner tube we got at the water park).

That is about it for now. Hopefully we will stay well (or get well in Austin's case) and see some sunshine soon.

Daddy, the climbing wall

This scene is becoming the norm after dinner these days...everyone climb on, crawl over and jump on Daddy. The other night Austin and Bennett were "wrestling" and Chris asked Austin who was winning. Austin said "The Cardinals" ( as in the baseball team St. Louis Cardinals, Chris' number one team. I guess Austin doesn't understand the concept of winning in wrestling, which is maybe a good thing at this age. He does often hear Chris talk about the Cardinals though, so he is being well-indoctrinated).