Fish, Food, and Flowers

Sunday 5/19: Was Dallin's pretend birthday! (He was gone on his real birthday). So he had Mango and sticky rice for breakfast, a lion candy bar as a snack, and dinner included bacon, eggs, fruit (that was my addition to his requests), and an amazing sausage potato recipe I got from Alex! He also got a happy birthday sign with some weird ballons that kept popping while I tried to blow them up. His "knock you naked" brownies will be featured later this week along with his shopping trip for some fun summer clothes and a stop at our fav. Korean BBQ restaurant! He and Mitch also tried to build a boat, (Mitch quickly lost interest), at the park. -The Nephi building a boat story sunk in a little too literally this week. (We taught it in Primary and acted it out at home for scripture reading). He also got a haircut, which he modeling quite nicely in the picture with his birthday BFD (breakfast for dinner).

Saturday 5/18: Dal was gone on his business trip. The kids and I had planned to attend a district women's conference. But all the stars were out of line for us. So instead we stayed at home and went crazy. :)

Friday 5/17: Dallin's Birthday! He left at 6am for his business trip. Boo. Mitch had an ear infection, so we went on a hunt for the nearest clinic... we got a little lost. But once we found it we had a great appt. and afterward sat down in Starbucks to eat our lunch. I realized once again the different views Americans and Chinese have on personal space, since the majority of people there were from the American embassy (the embassy and its housing are part of the building and next to we were in.) We were hardly even noticed and no one came over to inspect or coo at my children. (Even grown men coo at Jules, everywhere we go. She loves it!) Downstairs we found a little piece of home, in a store full of American imports. You will be happy to hear they had Lucky Charms! They were $15 a box! :)

Thursday 5/16: Dal got off work early and we hit up the zoo/aquarium! The aquarium was so well kept up we almost thought we were in America!  Mitch loved the deer, probably because they are so exotic. Moe, they have unicorn fish! Here's the pic. Oh and as a pre-birthday we had Mango popsicles for dessert. They taste just like a frozen mango and look like the seed of a mango. You need to eat one of these sometime! You will love them! Here are the boys eating them...Jules may have had a taste too.

Unicorn Fish!!!

Spider crab... creepy

Sea turtles.. hiding in the water

dolphin whales? Whatever they were it was pretty amazing!

Eaten by a giant dead shark

Amazing mango popsicles!

Wednesday 5/15: Was our wash/clean the house/ go shopping day. Mitch was an excellent helper. He is getting so big. He really loves chores (when he is in the mood), and loves doing it himself! He takes his "big boy-ness" very seriously. He and I are loving it!

Tuesday 5/14: We went to the botanical gardens! It was beautiful. Although the tulips had just died and the roses were still in their buds. Once again we were quite the attraction. Three white women nursing their babies was a perfect  target for a group of about thirty. With people trickling in and out of the  crowd one of our friends was stuck there for a good 30 min. Like I said before and will say again, Chinese have a whole different view on not only personal space, but most social norms. Mitch loved playing with his Chinese  friend Isabella from our branch!

Monday 5/13: We went to the Silk market with our friend Whitney.

And Jules always seems a little left out when it comes to these insta-mails so here is a pic of her from our Sunday walk. And one of Dal and Mitch on Pride rock.

I will post last weeks letter... when I finish writing it. Due to a weird week, it never got written. But it will have some great pics and stories, so it has to be written. I made a great friend... and might have gotten into a slapping match with a Chinese mom....

Funny things in/about China

Since Dal is gone on business this weekend I have more than enough time to blog once the kids are asleep. So  I thought it would be fun to record/share some of our fav. funny things about/in China.

-The sidewalk always has feces on it. The street we take from the subway to our house we have named "long poop street," "poop rock" is also located on this street and is always adorned with a fresh bit of potpourri.
-One of the phrases I have memorized here is "Oh look there are two!" And they giggle and laugh. Two children in China, especially Beijing is rare. People often ask if they are twins... (My thought process is always, seriously, how close did you look?) But here in China one of the only ways to get around the one child policy is to have twins. Our stroller also surprises people, since one of the kids are assumed to not exist until they make a noise and all of the sudden people realize there is another behind the child they can see.
- Couples love to wear matching shirts when they go in public. The zoo, parks, site seeing areas are more often than not partially populated by couples without children in matching outfits, or the same shirt. :)
-If you (as in a white person, or a white person with kids) hold still for more than a moment, expect to become surrounded. At the park the other day a few of us were sitting down nursing our babies. A swarm of Chinese people came around us and as some would trickle off, more would fill in there place.  We become the entertainment wherever we go.
-You can get almost anything delivered to your door. (One of Dallin's fav. things!)
-I found Lucky Charms at an import store today for $15! Whew, you can get anything if you are willing to pay a bag of gold nuggets and your left shoe.
-When Chinese people become uncomfortable they will often laugh. For example, Mitch begins throwing a fit in public, old people will stare at me and then laugh. (Doesn't help my frustration, but ya gotta love it). The funny thing is I have noticed Mitch will react the same way when he knows he has done something naughty and he isn't sure how to respond, or how I will respond. It may be a result of underdeveloped social skills. Since so many other areas of learning are pressed here it seems possible that social skills can become underdeveloped. (This is an assumption of course).
-The markets are incredible! I love the produce here, you almost can't go wrong.
-The Chinese are like backseat parents. It is so wonderful in so many ways. Mitch will get to close to the pond and two chinese women will be there holding onto him. Sounds like an exaggeration but it is pretty close to the truth. When it is cold all you hear is that your baby is too cold, shouldn't be outside, ect. Older Chinese women are especially opinionated, and why shouldn't they be, they are the ones raising the children.
-It is normal and honorable to live with multiple generations. As the grandparents retire they care for the housekeeping and grandchildren while the parents go to work. Hence the reason I end up chillin with the grandmas. They are wonderful.
-It is a dog eat dog world. Push a little here, shove a little there, if you don't work your way to the front of the line carefully you may never make it. Leave a little room and you'll have a new friend or two in front of you. :)

Heavenly Father knows and loves the people here. We have met some incredible people already who feel so ready for the message of the gospel. I hope one day they get to hear it.  It is sad to know that the majority of these people have no knowledge of Christ. I start to cry at the thought of living my life without the blessings of the gospel and my savior.

side note: if you want a book to read to learn more about China's history and culture "Wild Swans" is a fabulous narrative about three generations of women in China. It is fascinating and eye opening.

Fear of Backfire

I am a little late posting this. I also realized after sending the letter to Moe I forgot to explain the title. That is what I get for writing it at 11 at night while I am falling asleep. (ps 11 is not what it used to be, with kids who wake up for the day around 5:30-6.) Potty training a boy has been an interesting experience. He has done fabulous. The fear comes in when I stand him on the stool in front of the toilet and try to get him to not only aim into the toilet, but not to 'backfire' on his mother during the process...

Sunday 4/5: We had friends over for dinner. The Putnams. We adore them and their baby boy. On average we are 2-6 years younger than our friends with one more kid than they do. It makes for interesting dynamics. I am supposed to be the baby expert of the group and with my vast knowledge of two years of mothering...experience is the best teacher though right... We had a great day though. I even got to go to RS since fast sunday the Primary presidency takes care of the kiddos. PIC- Jules has begun playing cars! It is so cute. She sits or lays and runs the car back and forth over and over again! #maybeiwonthavetobuydollsafterall

Saturday 4/4: We went to the market. (The guy I buy bananas from hates how indecisive I am about choosing. After about 30sec of me inspecting them he picked up about the size I usually get, weighed them and handed them to me. Love it.) Mitch said hello to his fav. turtles. We dropped off our groceries and headed out to Ya Show, our movie shop. We stopped at the mall so that I could feed Jules and Mitch saw the golden arches and needed fries. So since we needed him to go potty anyway we took him to the bathroom there with fries as the incentive. He refused. (Even though they totally have a legit tiny toilet in there.) Well when we told him he could pee in the drain, he was more than happy to do so! I love potty training in China. PIC-Jules ready for our adventure. Mitch in front of the beautiful flowers outside our apt. building.

Friday 4/3: PIC- Mitch wearing his new H&M outfit, with his many newly acquired cars in his backpack, riding his trike. We are trying to teach him how to push both pedals... not just one. We didn't spend a lot of time outside this week, trying to keep the underwear dry. Distractions are like kryptonite for this kid.

Thursday 4/2: We had friends over for baby group! It was very fun. We also started potty training again. For real this time. I even bought 20 new hot wheels cars for each time he did something in the potty... or the shower. ( He loves peeing into the drain in the shower. And he loves that it is private. He goes in and shuts the door, does his business, comes out happy as can be about his new independence! Getting him to use the "tiny toilet " another matter entirely. Although not too bad. He is going to be pretty awesome at the squatter bathrooms here. Several times he has just squatted happily in the shower to do his number 2 business... if you know what i mean.

Wednesday 4/1: Dallin was home sick. He had eaten mystery meat again. Bad choice. So he worked from home. We had a lovely day and a nice walk in the park.

Tuesday 3/30: We took to our friends to eat at our fav. hot pot right by our house! They are known for there overwhelming attentiveness and generousity.PIC- Mitch received a car, and Jules a pony and girl. We watched a guy dance/stretch noodles for another table. Jules dumped water all over my lap. (She had such quick little hands!) Then we came home and made cheesecake brownies... :) Love my rice cooker!

Monday 3/29: PIC-We went to Behai park. It was beautiful and very Chinese. We rode a large chinese boat across the lake. saw the Behai towerish altar. It has 455 ceramic tile buddhas on it! Afterward we stopped by a book store and H&M to get Mitch some shorts for summer!

And an addition from Dal this week:

This is actually Dallin. I had to take a minute to send out a description of the scene that I just was witness to. Abby was trying to read the scriptures to Mitch and he was not paying attention. So she started having Mitch act out the story with his cars. Abby was using McQueen to play Lehi and another car to play Laman, and Mitch had a car to play Nephi's role. Mitch was really getting into it, and I was about to compliment Abby on what a great idea it was and how much it was sinking in when Lehi asked Nephi if he would go get the plates for him.

To our astonishment Nephi (played by Mitch) replied to his father/mother "No, no, no, I don't want. I just want to take a nap."

Children are so gratifying to work with every day.

(Nephi was eventually convinced that going to get the plates was a good idea.)

And the we love China pic... something random and fun

And we are back online:)

We finally got the VPN up and going on the computer, so I can blog again. I will be posting at least this  weekly update that is taken from our letters to Moe. Please forgive me for spelling and grammatical errors, writing this between taking care of/holding/feeding/... kids, can make for an interesting slightly scatterbrained version of what I am trying to convey. 

MOnday 4/22:

I talked to the fam today and they were eating my birthday dinner for me! Chicken cord on bleu, jello, and cinnamon rolls... yum! :) Mitch fell asleep watching Megamind... don't even have to put him down for his nap :) that never happens, and Jules is playing with her toes next to me!

Sunday 4/21: Well we try to talk to the Palmers and the fam/Ash on Sunday mornings, this week was no different. After chatting we realized it was getting off-ly close to church start time, so we raced getting the kids ready and decided getting a taxi and taking the subway were to much of a gamble... time-wise we were past those options. So since we now knew how to walk to church we made a run for it! The usual 30min walk became a 18ish min run (I told heavenly father it was not exercise... it was formal speed walking. I hope he agreed.) Well the good news is we made it for the opening song, even better, both kids were asleep in the stroller! The rest of the day was wonderfully uneventful. We successfully made Panda Express chow mein noodles, finished off my birthday cake, ate some left over cookies (a friend made), our fav. chinese street popcorn from the night before, and ice cream. It was one of our most healthy days in China...Americanish junk food tastes SO much better in another country!

Saturday 4/20: Dallin went into work for a few hours in the morning, the kids and I cleaned the house, did wash, and made my fabulous chocolate birthday cake using my own homemade applesauce to cut the fat (and how much i have to spend on butter here.) When Dal got home we took the subway and bus to get to the art district. However while we were waiting at the bus stop a friendly drunk chinese man was trying to make friends with the kids. We couldn't convince him to leave the kids alone so we walked to the next bus stop... which happened to be down the road and over a small part of a freeway-ish road. It was interesting. But  we made it. Crossing the road in China a game of chicken. Luckily I am pretty good at this game. The art district was awesome! We even happened upon Ai Wei Wei's exhibit opening! He is a big deal! He has had shows in the Guggenhiem and is a worldwide known contemporary artist! And of course the photographer there could not stop taking pictures of Jules! We found out that one of the reasons they love her so much is they only have white baby dolls, and she is the spitting image of them with her pale skin and big beautiful eyes! That night we had some friends from the ward over for cake and ice cream (which is where we acquired the delicious chocolate chip cookies :) Dal even set up a movie projector on our white wall. It was really fun! Pictured: Jules eating her first Chinese rice cracker. ( They taste like bugles).

Friday 4/19: MY BIRTHDAY. We spent a slowish morning at home as I slept in then dal made me breakfast and I talked to mom for a little bit. Once we got out the door (dal stayed home from work to play with me:) we headed to the National Museum and saw and exhibit that was visiting from the Met in NYC. They had a Van Gogh that was gorgeous. Now dal understands why he is a big deal. Ban Gogh in person is a breathtaking experience. We then ate at the Blue Frog. An american style restruant, where we ordered a pastrami and club sandwhich with mac and cheese for Mitch. He loved it! So did we. Jules slept. Afterward we went to Uniqlo and our fav. movie store, then home for the night. We watched a movie and ate a slice of cake we bought. Pictured: My birthday cake, art exhibit

Thursday 4/18: Baby Group day.

We used the subway and bus system to get to our friend Jessica's house. We went to Daylight Donuts (apparently they have some of these in Utah.. weird) the only donut shop I have heard of in Beijing. Mitch was in heaven! They even had drawings of route 66 inside! Afterward we went on a walk with another family from the ward who have daughter that is 4. Mitchell adores her! They had such a fabulous time.

Wednesday 4/17: We started running in the mornings and going to the market as part of our run! It is really fun! We spent most of the day after that inside until we met dallin at a friends house for dinner. We brought pound cake. And it was incredibly good! I made it with yogurt in my rice cooker!

pictured my tasty pound cake, and the kids... mitch was trying to be a baby

Tuesday 4/16: The kids and I tried to go to a meeting about first aid at the hospital, but I couldn't get a reasonable taxi man. And we had a following as we tried to get the taxi. People just kept following me trying to touch the kids, as I'm carrying both of them. Love Chinese people some days, they are so fabulous and their love for kids can really be so helpful, but other days.. like this day I had to swat a few. After that we spent the day inside. Did not want to deal with any more attention.

Monday 4/15: We had a family night about listening and played the game of whispering chain. Where you tell the person next to you something and they pass it to the next person... Mitch was really good at it! We tried to talk about listening to mom and dad and learning to listen to the holy ghost.

Here are some photos from the Ai Wei Wei exhibit:
This is our fav. piece since it reminds us of the ceramic made by the very talented Joan Palmer!

Each cow, such as this one had its counterpart the camel, pictured below to accompany it.

And we loved that they served MILK as the refreshments!

Juliet Vai Palmer aka Jules

Jules last few hours in her "itty bitty living space"!

If you can't read the numbers below it says that this beautiful girl weighed in at 9 lbs 9.6 oz.  after  her graceful exit from the womb. In my Perinatologist's words she "took over the ship". Meaning that she was very efficient at getting all the sugar she wanted from my bloodstream. Interestingly enough she has continued to show signs of being very efficient and adjusting quickly. Dallin and I decided she will probably be the "Ashley" of our family- the organized one who gets things done ( and arranges all the fun partying!)

 Our first family photo of four! 

(If you can't tell, Mitchie's shirt says BIG BRO!)

 Our beautiful girl! And she is as sweet and patient as she is beautiful!

 Our trip to the zoo before their daddy had to leave again. Jules found a friend. The slightly hidden giraffe behind us was born only four days before Jules! So fun! (Unfortunately for Jules she spent almost the entire trip to the zoo safely hidden from all the germs inside her cute carseat and carseat cover.)

 Jules received her first bath in her bathtub by Grandma MaryAnn and the crew who were very excited to help!

 My life as a full time mom has now officially begun! I am finally getting to do all the things I want to with and for  my children! And I am loving it! What a blessing it is to be able to be at home with my AMAZING kids! 

I really wanted to try taking Jules newborn pictures so two locations, one awesome grandma's help, an exhausted baby (and big brother) and 4 hours later here are the result! (These are a few of my favorites.)

We feel so blessed to have Jules in our family! She is a sweet, content, patient and beautiful little girl!





p.s. Next up will be a report on Mitchie and hopefully the result on Moe's mission! I still can hardly believe she is going!

Summer Fun

We have had a wild and wonderful summer! Here are some of the events from our summer 2012!

 Dallin turned 24! 

So as tradition he got his requested breakfast in bed and we toilet papered the bedroom!(I think Mitch may have enjoyed the breakfast and toilet papering even more than Dallin did.)

 

 It's A GIRL !

As one of Dallin's birthday presents we went in for the 20 week ultrasound to find out how our baby was doing and discover the gender! Afterward we invited the family over for dinner and gender revealing cupcakes!

Mitch was a little nervous to find out it was a girl, but as you can see he still enjoyed the cupcake very much!

Mitch also found some new favorites!

Mitch LOVES dipping his food in almost anything with strong flavor just like his daddy!

Mitch LOVES shoes! We think it is because shoes mean he gets to go outside! He adores wearing any and all shoes that he can find!

Mitch LOVES his bath time! He has been dying for Dallin to come back and give him the "FUN" bubble baths!

Mitch LOVES his blankets! It might be hard to tell but this morning he had gathered 4-5 blankets! (In Mitchie Judd's words they are his dum dums!)

Mitch LOVES parades!

Mitch LOVES swimming! (This is his swimming outfit, which he brings to me with his swim diapers and tells me "wimming"!) 

Mitch LOVES cars! The movie cars, matchbox cars, big cars, toddler sized cars, pictures of cars, ect.!

Mitch LOVES a lot of things these days! His other great loves include his stroller(dum dum)/walks, ROCKS, trucks (doo doos), coloring with anything and on anything (we are working on this one). He loves turning on all the fans in the house at the same time, playing in any form of water, being mommas helper and buddy, wrestling with dad, and playing with Emmy, Moe, his grandmas and papas!