Hearty Halloween

We spent a quiet evening at home tonight but it was fun and meaningful together as a family. Halloween costumes and pumpkins make a few scant appearances here in stores but mostly is unknown. We don't feel like it is a holiday we want to make a huge deal about and yet a little celebration is in order. Some of our friends had plans so we just had a simple night at home. Chris and Austin carved a pumpkin, Bennett mostly watched, colored a little pumpkin and screamed for more popcorn and I made homemade pumpkin soup. It turned out pretty well, with beer bread on the side and I think I will try to make a tradition out of it. Pumpkin is plentiful here and cheap and I was pleased with the result. Then Austin (followed by Bennett) pulled some outfits out of the dress-up box, I gave them some M and M's and we watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown to finish off the evening. Both boys slept at naptime and were pretty wired but happy this evening. We are hoping we will not have a repeat of last year's Halloween night- snow! It was in the low 60's today so it would be quite unexpected.

Uh-oh: We just had a new development. Austin just ran in our room (it's 9 pm) "Bennett just crawled in my bed!" followed by a grinning Bennett "get out of bed mommy!". This is a first - Bennett still sleeps in a pack and play. Maybe not for long.

Roaster surprise

Today we went back to one of our local parks as a family. The weather was beautiful (it has continued to be either horrible or beautiful...no in between) and enjoyed a nice day and getting into nature. See the pictures for explanations of it- but it was good to let our boys explore and get a little dirty and discover things God has made- thankful for good parks in the city.

I have had a full couple of weeks, which has left me little time to blog. Bennett had a stomach bug- throwing up and diarrhea- for almost a week. It started while Chris was out of town (an up- all-night beginning of course) and then just lingered with a couple of bad episodes a day for almost a week. In the midst of that, I had a mom's weekend in the city but away overnight. So i had Bennett sick for 2 days, then Chris got home the day I left and he got to be the solo parent. We had to miss our planned anniversary overnight because of Bennett, but we could not get a refund on the room so I stayed by myself for a night! It was really nice (and weird) to be by myself in a hotel for 24 hours. Now I am back, everyone is well and Chris is around (minus 2 nights next week) until January. Yeah!

The setting...a sandy beach with a big hole dug in it, a lake, lots of rocks and reeds.

Austin loved this big whole and completed the challenge of climbing out of it.

The victory dance...imitating a good friend of ours (and every Chinese person who has ever been in a photograph).

What a cutie pie! Bennett is talking more and more and speaking quite a few Chinese words too. Now he likes to count- but he starts in English and finishes (1-10) in Chinese...one, two...san, si, wu, liu, etc. It is very cute and gets him even more local attention than he already commands.

The reeds...we found these reed tops on the little beach. Austin called them "roasters" (and hot dogs too) and played with them for a long time.

And Bennett- pretending it is a hot dog. He was a little too good at pretending though!

And then...the discovery. Chris accidentally stepped on one and suddenly hundreds and thousands of little seeds came out- just like a dandelion that you blow away. The rest of the time was spent pulling them apart and watching it. You just pulled a little bit and it sort of exploded out like in this picture.

whoo! Austin was entertained completely by this and we had to drag him away after there were no more "roasters" left to disembody.

poor buddy

Bennett and I did not sleep much last night- poor Bennett had diarrhea and threw up a lot of the night. Don't know where this came from, but it got him. He still cannot really keep anything down today. And Austin had a hard time with me holding or attending to Bennett most of the day and Chris is still gone. Thankfully Xiao Chen was here and did about a zillion loads of laundry today. Pray with me today (my night) that we all get some sleep and heal. Also I am supposed to be gone this weekend with some mom friends...hoping that I can still keep my plans, which I am really looking forward to! Thanks for your prayers. Off to bed while everyone is sleeping.

Bennett's 2 year check up

Today we went in for Bennett's 2 year old check up. Everything looks good and he is continuing to grow nicely :). He weighed 28.3 pounds (right at 50% percentile for weight now) and was 35 inches tall (65% percentile or so)...still shorter and lighter than his brother, but not sure how long that will last. He did a great job and the doctor commented on his talking- he was impressed that he is speaking in short sentences already. I told him he followed a VERY verbal brother, but still manages to get his share of talking in. Bennett will repeat anything you say these days and while he has his "2 year old moments" he is mostly a really sweet boy who likes to snuggle, LOVES his older brother and people in general, loves playing with trains, Legos and his giant Doggie. We are missing Chris again but this trip is short and he will be back before the weekend. Blogger has temporarily disabled photo uploads, so no photos today.

Happy Birthday Grandpa (belated)!

Happy Birthday to Grandpa! Sorry this post is belated though we did get to SKYPE with him on his actual birthday. Austin has drawn 2 cards for Grandpa, though I have not made it to the local post office yet...but be on the look out. We are thankful for Grandpa's sharing his love of trains and cars with our train-crazy boys, for the many ways he helps us with details we cannot take care of while living overseas and for the many treats he gives us.

Riding Thomas the Train at Tweetsie this summer...the boys had a BLAST, thanks to Grandpa's discovering and treating us.

Playing baseball at Aunt Diana's this summer- batter up!

Thank you! Love, Bennett

Thank you everyone for all the great birthday presents and greetings you sent to Bennett. See for yourself how he liked them!

Thank you Grandpa and Nai Nai for the fun puzzles and book. Bennett loves to do puzzles and is at the perfect stage for them. And Happy Birthday to Grandpa! More on that later.

Thank you Nana and Bop - for the fun Wedgits set and the Bob and Larry book. Austin is also managing to get his fair share of time with Wedgits and they have been building pyramids and robots together.

Thank you Aunt Emmy and Uncle Mark - for the really fun Vegetales coloring book and Elmo book/magnadoodle pad. It arrived at the perfect time- we have one small magna doodle drawing pad that both boys LOVE right now and the night before the package arrived I had to go in their room at night to take it away because they were fighting over it. Now they each have one and are both very happy! (And Happy Birthday late Uncle Mark).

Wow- a train! Thank you Aunt Char and Uncle John- for the great puzzle train. Bennett has spent quite a lot of time since he got it driving it and rearranging all the pieces. It is also a big hit with the neighbors.

This is the only video we managed to take, though we did get to SKYPE live with Grandpa and Nai Nai. Thanks to everyone who loves Bennett and made his birthday special. Just a clarifying statement...Austin's comments continued after the video ended to clarify the Wedgits were really fun...not TOO much (I think he thought there was such a thing as too much fun) but just the right amount of fun - more than a little :).

The Orchard

We went on a little family adventure today that turned out to be very nice. Chris got back Saturday afternoon and no one was happier than me. Actually, it is possible that is not true. Austin was so excited to be with Daddy he was just doing his little happy run all over the place. He didn't act that sad when Chris was gone, but from the minute Chris got home Austin did not leave his side. Austin refused to nap, and wanted Chris to be in the room with him. I went in there at one point and Austin said "Mommy, you can go out now. Because I haven't seen Daddy in a long time and I need to be with him". Then later they went out in the backyard to play and Austin wanted to hold Chris' hand, saying "Let's hold hands Daddy, then we can be connected." They colored chalk, played football and baseball and probably lots of things I don't know about...needless to say we all were glad he was back.

So today, Monday, was beautiful. The weekend's weather was miserable...awful gray skies, a pollution index listed as hazardous and really yucky air. But Sunday night it rained (who knows whether it was a "natural" rain or not) but today was gorgeous. So some friends of ours had recently gone to an orchard not too far from here and we decided to check it out. Our friends' had driven their own car, but Chris wanted to try the bus. It turned out the bus went all the way to the orchard, though we got off a little earlier not realizing that. We picked pears and apples, had a picnic lunch, enjoyed the blue skies and mountain views and then came home. We did not know where to get the bus coming back, so we walked a good ways on a rather narrow road. At one point Austin said "I know Mommy. I think we should pray God will give us a taxi" which I thought was an excellent idea. Instead of a taxi He lead us to the right bus stop, which was just as well. So, in all a really good day. I came home and made applesauce and now I am tired!

Apples right off the tree (we did wash them first)...yummy.

A lot of the trees had low branches...perfect for little people to join in the fun.

Mmmm...Bennett eats a pear. Bennett kept picking them and eating a couple of bites and then giving it to me before I could stop him...he also ate little bites all around the fruit, so it looked sort of like a soccer ball.

Then Austin was not content with the low branches and wanted to try climbing higher with a little help.

Austin found all these sticks and "planted" them in the ground into a "forest". We had our picnic lunch in the forest and talked about how Great-Grandaddy Haney was a forester for his job.

Starting the applesauce- made lots to eat and to freeze.

Coloring

Both the boys have really gotten into coloring lately. Bennett has always seemed to enjoy it since he could actually color without eating the crayons. Austin seemed to have little interest in coloring for a long time, but in the last month has begun to really enjoy it. Even a month ago, we had some very short "school" times in the morning and he seemed to have a lot of trouble drawing anything other than scribbles and trying to write letters caused lots of frustration (so we stopped). But in the past couple of weeks he has gone from scribbling to drawing shapes, stick people and some letters. He often says he writes (a B, a P, an A) a "drifferent" way...so they aren't exactly correct, but of course I wouldn't expect more of a not-yet 4 year old. But I was a little worried at first because it seemed like he couldn't follow simple directions about how to write a letter or couldn't get his hand to do what his mind knew it should look like. He still has a ways to go in fine motor skills development but I am impressed with what he is doing now versus a month ago. I still do not know if he is left-handed or right! He uses both so frequently it is really hard to know. I thought it was left for awhile, but in writing he uses his right a lot too. Chris says he seems to throw a ball better right handed but automatically tries to bat left handed. So the jury is still out.

Lately the boys (and Bree, Jesh and other friends) have really enjoyed drawing with sidewalk chalk in our backyard. It has become the post-nap default activity when the weather is nice (which it has been a lot lately). Here are a few shots- they especially got into tracing each other's whole body lately.