Choo-choos and Cheerios

There is a small train station behind our house that used to be an old line that went all the way from our city to the border of the country, but now the line is closed and they just use the train to go back and forth through the city like a bus, and it costs about 20 cents and takes an hour to ride it from right behind our complex to the end of the line and back to our place. You can actually see the station from the kids' bedroom window in our 11th floor apt. Before, Callie was never very interested in it (other than the loud whistling about 6-7 times a day, disturbing her naps), but last week she and a few of her friends got to take that one hour ride on the train, and since then every time she hears the train blow its horn, she yells "Choo-choo!" and runs to her bay window to look out at the train. Here are a couple pictures taken from that day. They had a fun game of "peekaboo" during the ride.

Our most recent discovery about Callie's personality is something she gets from her daddy, and that is the need for neatness. Every time she gets food on her hands or clothes, or gets them dirty from something she has to get it off. Immediately. She still has not learned to communicate this with words yet though, so right now she just kind of shows us the dirty spot and whines about it.

As for Zane, he's still as cute as ever with his big, chubby cheeks and irresistible smile, though lately he has gotten needier and wanting to be held more. He still hasn't started crawling yet, though he has figured out how to scoot backwards. He is also becoming more adept at picking up Cheerios from his high chair tray and getting them to his mouth. Where there's a will there's a way, right? Here's a video of him scooting backwards.



As for life in general here, this past week it has gotten quite cold, in the 30's F / single digits C. We've had to start pulling out the winter clothes, finally. Though it is nothing like Edmonton's winter, it is still quite brutal here because most places don't have heat, like classrooms, restaurants and stores we go to, though our home has good heat, so no worries there. Whatever the weather here decides to do for the rest of the season, it won't matter to us because we're heading back for 2 months in North America, starting next Friday night, a week from tonight. We'll be flying through Korea and then DC, and then finally to Raleigh. Pray for our flights, that they will be smooth, and especially for the children as they endure long hours of staying in one place and not being able to run around freely. Next week will be full of packing and temporary good-byes, but we sure do look forward to seeing family for the Christmas season.

Sweet Friends

I took the kids to a health fair a few weeks ago and discovered that Callie is just a little over 5 pounds heavier than Zane. Craziness. Needless to say, Callie is on the petite side for her age and Zane just keeps growing like a weed. Whenever we go out in the double stroller, we never fail to hear the locals call out "twins, twins." We're not sure if it's because they think they look similar sized (I think they're similar, but not that similar!), or just because they're in a double stroller and since we live in a place where most people only have one child, they assume the only way we could possibly have two is if they were twins. Their reasoning remains a mystery to me.

Callie and Zane are such sweet friends. They love playing together. Zane is almost ready to crawl, and often times Callie will get down on her hands and knees and they'll hang out together. Callie likes to call him "buddy" when we say "Zane." She likes to imitate his noises and hand toys to him. Zane just loves the attention. Sometimes she is a little rough on him - she'll push his head down or grab and pull at his skin. How do you teach them the concept of "gentle"? Anyway, we're sure Zane will outgrow Callie any day now and he'll have his turn. Here are a couple pics of them playing together.

This past weekend, I (Anita) attended a mom's conference while Jeremy watched the kids. It was such a fun and refreshing time. I enjoyed hanging out with the other moms, catching up and sharing tips and life experiences, and shopping - a past time that I love yet rarely get to do anymore. We also stayed up late (another thing I rarely do), and I enjoyed the hotel's great breakfast spread. A couple breakfast items that I made sure to thoroughly enjoy were over-easy eggs and an omelet, both of which I don't ever make since the hubby's not a huge fan. I had a lot of fun, but I have to admit that I did miss Jeremy and the kids and it's good to be back. As for Jeremy, I think he survived pretty well, though he was under the weather for a couple days afterward - I think the kids wore him out a little.

We can't believe we'll be flying to North America in a couple weeks. We have a pile of things to pack and are figuring out what else needs to go. The last time we were back we were having Callie, so we're not quite sure what it'll be like traveling on a long plane ride with a toddler and a 9-month-old. Any tips out there for survival??

Daddy Dates, Doggies, and Dress-Up

Zane has just started sitting up on his own over the last couple weeks or so. He's also getting more and more interested in his surroundings. A couple days ago he noticed a dog for perhaps the first time and got really excited. It was so cute seeing his reaction. Here is a cute pic of him sitting up.



Callie's hair is finally long enough to put in little pigtails. Of course she always pulls them out a few seconds after you put them in. She loves to play with hair bows and thinks that "hair bows" and "pretty" mean the same thing: hair bows.



Jeremy had the day off on Monday, and took Callie on what we call a "daddy date" for the first time. They went downtown to a ball pit, which Callie wasn't too crazy about and then went out for lunch. Here is a picture of her enjoying the fishies in the fountain.



Last Friday night we went to a Harvest Festival put on by some folks in our city. Zane went as batman, and Callie went as a fairy princess. Here is a picture of all of us at the festival



On the topic of eating, Callie has just started understanding the concept of "if you eat your veggies (or something else relatively nutritious) first, you'll get to eat some more bread (or something else she enjoys eating)." At McDonald's, of course it's all relative; oftentimes we find ourselves saying "if you eat some more chicken nuggets, you can have some more corn." You pick your battles, right? Also, she thinks that "try it" is a certain item of food, though rather confusing. Sometimes it's tiny pieces of bacon, and other times it's tofu or something else new to her palate.

Eating & Playing

For some reason, a lot of our posts tend to be about our children doing one of two things, eating or playing. We’ll start with playing. Since we moved to this neighborhood three months ago, Callie and Zane have had a blast going out to play at our neighborhood playground. Since Zane isn’t walking yet he still just kind of sits in the stroller and watches, but he seems to enjoy being outside. He loves to chew on the stroller straps and smiles and coos at anyone who stops to pay attention to him.

We’ll tell you now the playground is a little on the beat-up and dirty side, but hey, that’s life in the place we live. Callie doesn’t know the difference and nor do the other kids. Here is a pic of her with two of her friends riding on the horsey.



As for food, Zane began eating solid food a few weeks ago. That was quite the adventure. At first he still thought it was like nursing and couldn’t really get the handle on it, but now he is a little more adept. Here is a video of him eating for the first time:



Callie’s latest cute word is ‘blueberry’. In the past, it has been extremely rare that we ever found blueberries in our part of the country, but just recently we discovered a large wholesale store in town selling frozen blueberries for a reasonable price, so this is a step up from before, although fresh would be the best! Anyway, here is a video of Callie saying ‘blueberry’, which sounds like ‘boo dee dada’.



The last thing we’ll say in this post is just a reminder that our trip back to North America (Raleigh first, then Edmonton) will begin in less than 5 weeks from today! Get excited! - We are.

Callie & Zane's Antics of Late

Whew! It's been over a month since our last post, so we've got several pics and a bunch of stories for y'all. The first thing is something that we have really enjoyed so far. In late August, Callie & Zane began sleeping in the same room. We were going on a trip and were only going to have two rooms total in a hotel, so we tried it out at home beforehand and it worked great. Ever since then, we've had them both sleeping in their room every night, which frees up our guest room / study, which means that we can actually hang out in there and/or have overnight guests, which we really like to do. Here are a couple of pics of them the morning after their first night sleeping in their room together.
Here is a pic of their two beds in the same room:
Also in the poast month or so, Callie has begun to recognize people by name, but of course at her age she still can't always say their name properly. Her friend Brennan is "Bebo", which is funny b/c "bebo" is also her word for bellybutton. Her friend Kayleigh is "Kaykee", and similarly her friend Bailey is "Baby". Other words she is saying in very cute ways happen to be cookie "koo-gee" and granola "gaga". Here is a video of her saying "koo-gee:


For Zane, one of his latest antics is that he absolutely hates being in a stroller. One time while we were out of town in late August, Jeremy was pushing him in the stroller and it began raining (sprinkling really) unexpectedly, and so Jeremy went as fast as he could to get Zane back to our room, but he screamed the whole way and after that has just screamed bloody murder every time we put him in a stroller. In the past week or so, though, he has started to get used to it again, but that little bit of rain really served to prejudice him against strollers. Since we never took any pic of him screaming in the stroller, here is a cute one of him in his little seat at home.
The last two things we wanted to share about the children have to do with Callie. One morning, as Anita was giving polyvisol (vitamin supplement for babies and toddlers) to Zane with a dropper, Callie grabbed the entire bottle of vitamin and started guzzling it. It was especially funny because Zane can't stand the stuff, fussing and spitting out as much as he can every time we give it to him, and Callie loves it so much that she downs it when we're not looking! Callie's last antic we want to share reminds me (Jeremy) of a picture of me as a child wearing my dad's boots, which were way too big for me. This is a picture of Callie wearing Mommy's red shoes, which of course, are way too big for her.
Just to compare, here's that pic of Jeremy wearing his dad's boots:
That's all for our pictures for now. We just wanted to share also that we will be visiting the US & Canada this holiday season. On Thanksgiving weekend we plan to arrive in Raleigh and stay through Christmas, which is also Callie's birthday, and on into the first week of January, at which time we plan to head on up to Edmonton and brave the cold with Anita's family until the end of that month when we'll return to East Asia. Remember to check out our photoshare on the right side over there for many more pictures. These here are just a few we wanted to feature.

Big-girl bed and rollovers

Big news: Callie just started sleeping in a big-girl bed! The above picture captures her first night in it. She's doing great. Right now the bed is about 1.3 m long and can adjust to two longer lengths, eventually all the way to two meters as she grows. Her new favorite words these days are "outside" (she's always asking to go), "tat" (her version of "cat" - she likes to search for the neighborhood cats whenever we play outside), "peas" (her version of "please"), and the most recent, "whoa!" (I didn't realize we said it that much).

Zane makes the best pouty faces. He also just started rolling over. Check out this video to see him in action:

Family Visit

A couple weeks ago, Anita's dad and brother came for a visit. They stayed for a week, and we mostly spent time as a family going to fun places, eating good food, and letting Callie & Zane play with their grandpa and uncle. This was Ed's (A's brother) first time to meet Zane, and it was her dad's first time visiting our home here in East Asia. Here are a few pics from that time.

One day we all went to a park, and we realized that b/c we live in a country where in most places it is not permitted to walk on the grass, she was scared to walk on the grass once we put her down to play. Something about the strange soft variable surface was freaking her out. At first she wouldn't take a step without a grown-up's help. This was just a reminder that she is growing up in a different place than where we grew up.

Moving and unpacking

We actually moved on Canada Day (July 1) and it took 4 truckloads to get all of our stuff to our new place. The apartment itself is just a 5-minute drive from our old place. We went from a first floor apt to an 11th floor apt, so now we get a lot more sunshine and less second hand smoke coming in our windows. Unpacking took more than 3 weeks and after that we had Anita's dad and brother come visit for a week, so now we're finally getting around to some blogging. Here are a few pics from the past month. Enjoy!

Callie would rather play with the mango pit than eat the mango.

Everyone here thinks Callie & Zane are twins when they roll in this ride.

She loves wearing Zane's bibs for fun.

Fathers’ Day Weekend

What a good weekend! On Friday we picked out a new apartment for the upcoming year. We hope to move in a week or so once the paint job is finished and we can get our current place packed up. Then on Saturday we had lunch with some friends who also had babies down in Thailand at the Juniper Tree Resort. It was good to see them again, as we had spent a lot of time together when we were down there and had not seen each other too much since returning to our city.

Then, today being Father's Day, Anita made me a big breakfast – eggs, bacon, grits, & waffles. Callie loved it too. Then in the afternoon I went over to a nearby college campus and played basketball with some random guys and sweated a lot, which was good for me. Sometimes I feel like I don’t get much exercise although I’ve been mountain biking more recently, so that’s good. Anyway, after that we went to a cookout at our friends’ place nearby. It was such a close ride that we all (the whole family) hopped on my electric scooter and headed over. There were burgers, chicken, potato salad, mac 'n' cheese, baked beans, and some really good desserts. Callie got to play with some other kiddos while Zane slept in our friends’ place.

All in all, it was a fun weekend. A little tiring with a big decision about a place to live as well as playing b-ball with a bunch of guys 10 years younger than me, but overall good. Next up, we've got to decide on paint colors for our new place. And I’ve got to make Anita’s birthday special on Wednesday.

Backlog Bloggin'

My apologies that I haven't blogged recently. I started regularly cooking again about 3 weeks ago - I've missed it! - but of course, that has taken up more of my time. Needless to say, I'm still trying to "get my act together" and figure out some kind of organization among the chaos that is currently my life, which seems to consist mostly of feeding one child, changing the other child's diaper, putting one down for their nap, then switch the order of activities and child, all day long. And in the midst of it all, there's always laundry and figuring out what to fix for lunch and dinner, and trying to get dressed and get a shower in there somewhere. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying being a mom to these two great kids - they are a true joy to be around. It would just be nice to not feel like I'm just trying to stay on top of everything, and actually get some time to myself without thinking of what things need to get done next.

Callie started walking just a little over a week ago. She gets really excited, her pace quickens and she lets out a squeal of delight just as she's about to reach her desired destination - i.e. when she walks about 6 steps from the coffee table to the couch. She has a doll stroller and loves to push it around. One of her newest words is "rice" (which actually sounds more like "ice") and she uses it in reference to bread as well as rice. Another new word is "apple" (which sounds more like "bapple") and is exclaimed when she anticipates eating applesauce.

Zane started sleeping through the night just over a week ago as well. This is a big deal because it means Jeremy and I have been sleeping through the night too and getting more rest lately, hallelujah! He loves it when you tickle him and play with him a little roughly - a true boy. Jeremy anticipates wrestling with him in the future. Zane constantly cracks huge smiles and coos happily whenever anyone pays him any attention. He's growing so fast, it seems like he gets bigger and heavier by the minute.

Here are some recent photos of the kiddos.

Recent happenings

A lot has been going on these days. I've started making my own yogurt for Callie to eat because I recently discovered that the yogurt we've been giving her has aspartame in it - she eats it practically every meal, and I just didn't want her regular diet to consist of artificial sweeteners. We've switched the kids to cloth diapers for a couple weeks now, and that's been going pretty well; they are bulkier than disposables so some of Callie's pants don't fit anymore. We just got a double stroller off their version of e-bay here, and that's made it a little easier to get around. Callie is still cruising (holding onto things for support while walking) and not quite walking on her own yet. She's mimicking us and babbling all the time, and she has added to her vocabulary "hi" and "bye-bye" though I think her favorite word is still "didi" (little brother). Zane is growing like crazy - he's only 2 months old but he's already wearing 3-6-month clothes now; he'll outgrow Callie before long! Jeremy's been out of town again for 3 days this week (today is the third day). Although I've been enjoying the kids, I'm so glad that he gets back tonight and will be staying put for a while. Anyway, I was planning on posting some more pictures but that will have to wait since both kids are waking up now. More later!

Who does Callie look like?

Good news: we are all recovered from our sicknesses, and Jeremy got back safely last night! The 4 days without him weren't as crazy as I thought they'd be, but I'm sure glad to have him back.

I was looking at old photos of Jeremy as a kid, and I thought I'd post a couple in comparison to a recent photo of Callie, just for fun.
In case you couldn't tell, the first two are of Jeremy and the third photo is of Callie. But I think that Callie has my hair, or lack thereof as a child (I'm the older child in the photo below, holding my sister Connie, who is 16 months younger):
Who do you think Callie looks like? We'd love to hear your thoughts :)

Surviving Sicknesses

Things have been pretty hairy around here lately with sicknesses. First, Callie came down with a nasty stomach virus that just wouldn't go away. She was on the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, apples, toast) for two weeks. Now, she won't touch bananas or apples. I hope she'll decide later that she likes them again! Then, I (Anita) got a horrible flu-type thing. Fever, complete with chills, cold sweats, and a sore throat. To make matters even worse, it got passed on to Callie. And then, Jeremy got pink-eye. It started in his right eye, and spread to his left as well. So we've been a pretty miserable-looking and -feeling bunch. Thankfully, Zane never got sick. I guess he just has so many immunities built up from breast-feeding? Anyway, the fevers are now gone. We are left with Callie's residual stomach bug and Jeremy's pink eyes. And worn-out bodies all around.

Jeremy's going out of town for 4 whole days starting tomorrow, so I (Anita) am trying to psych myself up for that. He asked me, "What do you plan on doing while I'm gone?" "Surviving," was all that I could think to respond with.

Back Home in Our City

Happy (belated) Easter! We've been back for a couple weeks now, slowly adjusting to "real life" (as in no longer having all our meals cooked and laundry done for us, like we did at the Juniper Tree), and to our family of 4. Here are a few pictures to show you what we've been up to lately.

Zane is starting to hold his head up now

Callie loves being outside. We try to take her out at least once every day - this pic is taken in a small park in our neighborhood. She's almost walking on her own - but for now, she's holding onto things for support, and insists we hold both her hands when we walk with her.

Callie in the ball pit at a friend's birthday party - she felt a little overwhelmed in the sea of balls.

But she loved the slide on the way into the pit. As you can see, she also loved playing with the balls - she just didn't enjoy being surrounded by them.

Callie and Zane with a bunch of their friends who live here

Enjoying the outdoors as we picnicked on Easter

Callie's first Easter egg hunt