20 pictures for a 2-year-old

I wasn't kidding about wanting to put 20 pictures on my blog...but the thing is, even though it's samantha's birthday, I still have to include pictures of emma, because she's cute too. :)

Anyway, we had never been to the Zoo in our city before so we thought we'd give it a try for mantha's birthday. Fortunatly for us, our expectations were so low that anything beyond a cement slab with animals would have exceeded them. We ended up having a great day - the sky was overcast so sweat, squinting and overheating were out of the question. The zoo was unusually quiet, hardly any people to speak of, so it really felt like we had the place to ourselves. This almost never, ever, ever happens.

As I was the official photographer of the event, josh had the duty of being the guide (a duty that usually falls to him anyway). I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of green that surrounded us.The first stop was the monkeys. Even though the zoo exceeded our expectations, I doubt they exceeded the monkeys expectations of a long and carefree life. The monkeys paced nervously through their cages, stopping only to belt out fierce shrieks at any humans that might be watching. Josh convinced Samanthat that the monkeys were smiling at her and saying happy birthday, so she wasn't afraid. I, on the other hand, was. And I was also very thankful for that little peice of glass.After a while, we made it over to the part of the zoo where the animals are a bit more calm. Of special interest to my girls was the baby giraffe - emma especially loves anything those name has "baby" in front. We took a little rest on some rocks......the girls pretended they were elephants......and just enjoyed themselves. We started walking toward the "little animals area" and found that indeed there were some very little animals! Most notably, this little pony - what is their official name, the ones who are always so tiny? Anyway, it was super cheap to ride them and the girls were enamored by the tiny pony. I was a little taken aback by what seemed to be a glass eye on this particular one, but the pony dude was insistent that we ride this one. I agreed, even though he was the uglies of all of them.

I will never be able to express my gratitude to pony man for teaching my children how to flash the V-victory sign that is so quintesentially Asian. Sheesh.


The girls had a blast on the ponies and have talked about often since then. On the way out, we saw these "ponies" too and gave them a try. Too bad they didn't walk around, but they were free.

We stayed most of the morning at the zoo, then made it home just in time for lunch where our house helper made mantha's most-ever-favorite lunch: pepsi chicken and potatoes. It's a bunch of tiny chicken legs and potato chunks marinated and stewed in some sort of concontion made of pepsi - samantha truly loves it! After lunch, it was time for the much-requested "flower cake" to make its debut.

First, let me just say that whoever knew it wasn't easy to decorate a cake never informed me of this little fact. I consider myself to be decently endowed with hand-eye coordination and at least a twinge of artsiness in me, but I found that I was all thumbs when it came to cake decorating. Ok, well, mostly the writing on the cake. I even had little decorater tips to write with, but it totally came out botched. Because I have not a shred of pride about me, I'm posting this picture.

We had princess decorations and princess crowns instead of party hats, thanks to our local Carrefour supermarket.
Samantha didn't seem the tiniest bit concerned that her name was botched on the cake. She ate several peices and enjoyed them thoroughly!
After lunch, we opened presents together - samantha got new rain boots from our house helper, a talking toy broom and lady bug remote control car from josh and I, and several packages that came just for her! She loved all the special things from josh's parents and his sister kristen - thank you guys! Paint books, sticker books, new clothes....it was a happy day for her.

Later that night, mantha got to have her choice of movie for a Family Fun Night - and, surprise surprise, she chose Cars. So there you have the recap of mantha's happy 2nd birthday!!

my little secret and our big change

So I'm dying to blog about samantha's birthday, which was (cue flushed cheeks) almost a week ago. The secret I refer to is that I actually only write blogs on monday nights. Blogger has decided to start adding great new features like post-dating your blogs, so now I post on monday nights and then ride the wave for the next week to 10 days. If I have crushed your image of me as a fab blogger, I'm sorry. But post-dating is the only way for me now.

Except that today is monday. I have loads of pictures (is 20 too many for a birthday post? I mean, for a normal post, I'd agree that 20 is overboard. But it's birthday. Can I get an exception??), funny stories, I've got some serious goods for you. But, I'm being told that I cannot connect to the internet, that perhaps there's a problem with the webpage I requested.

If I can't get these fun pictures of my brand-new two year old up tonight, I might break my tradition and blog tomorrow night.

In other unrelated-to-picture news, june 17, that charming date where samantha blessed this world with her bubbly little self, also happens to be our anniversary. Until this year. As we lay in bed last tuesday night, exhausted from full day (sneak peek: we went to the zoo!) of celebrating a fun birthday, we decided we're going to change our anniversary date.

I was afraid this would happen when I was in the hospital, dilated 8 centimeters at 5:45am.

I wondered if our anniversary would ever be the same.

We gave it a good run. Last year, we tried our best (though last year, if you remember, I was triply blessed with father's day, our anniv, and mantha's bday all on the same busy day. All I had to say about that was, phew! Glad it's over!) But it never really has been the same, and I always feel like I'm shortchanging josh of my emotions, planning, and time trying to celebrate our anniversary on its real date.

Neither one of us are terribly sentimental, so we decided it would be switched. We have not yet determined our new anniverary date, but it will be forthcoming soon. I think it will be at least one week after the initial date - in the rare event that my husband decides to take me on an exotic vacation for a grand anniversary, at least a week after samantha will give us a chance to get things organized and etc.

I'm seeing the positive in this. We could do a little ceremony thing just to make it feel official. Not that my wedding dress would fit me anymore. Not that any cake here would match my wedding cake then. Not that any of you would be around this time. But still, it would be fun.

It's funny, you know, getting married. You date someone for a relatively short period of time (in our case, about two years). You think you have a pretty good idea of who they are and about your future with them, but the reality is that you don't really know. You aren't sure about the degree of their morning breath. They tell you they like kids, but what happens when the first one is born? I marvel at the things I know about josh now that I didn't know about him when we got married eight years ago.

And yet, I would happily say my vows all over again with these past eight years of knowing more josh behind me. I'm amazed at how he loves and dedicates himself to our children, I soak up the way he loves me and respects my opinion, his pursuit of the lord challenges and motivates me. I love how we laugh at different things when we watch seinfeld, and even how he compliments me when I lose at Settlers.

So the idea of "getting married" again doesn't seem so bad.

So, I will save you all the trouble by telling you - you dont' need to ask what we did for our anniversary this year, because it hasn't happened yet. I'll be sure to let you know, though, so you can change it on your calendar.

pictures I usually miss, part 4: morning mantra

We were taxiing to a party at a friends house when we passed this construction site encouraging its workers to: "Happily come to work, peacefully return home." And something about it just cracked me up. I thought I'd pass it along to all of you so that when your alarm clock goes off tomorrow, you can remind yourself:

happily, happily go to work

peacefully, peacefully return home,

courtesy of your local asianese construction site.

there are some things in Asia money can't buy...

...but for everything else, there's a house helper!

It's true, there are lots of things that just can't be bought here, even if you ARE willing to spend lots of money for it! But we've found lots of creative ways to make our culinary lives here quite enjoyable. here's our most recent addition:

Bagels, fresh out of the oven, courtesy of our house helper and our breadmaker!
fried peanuts coated in powdered sugar, our favorite local snack, introduced to us by our house helper:

and she also doubles as language teacher and close friend for all of us!

the very hungry caterpillar

"Hurry, emma and samantha, come quick!" came the call from the kitchen.

We all rushed into the kitchen where our house helper was preparing lunch for that day. The girls squealed a squeal that only a girl can manage and we watched, transfixed, as a huge caterpillar crawled out of the broccoli home he had been inhabiting recently.

The girls got up on stools and intently watched him crawl around, his furry body inching ever so slowly away from their curious eyes. I'm not sure whose idea it was, but when the green bean sword made its appearance, the fun grew exponentially. Caterpillar was poked and prodded from all sides, nothing like the carefree life of the caterpillar in Mr. Carle's book.



Finally, caterpillar rolled over in defeat on the green spinach leaf examination table and pretended to be dead to avoid further prodding. Or maybe he was dead. We're not quite sure.

the moms must be crazy!

With june and july being the peak months for hand-foot-and mouth disease, emma has still not returned to preschool yet this summer. But we've tried to find ways to keep the days fun and full of opportunites to see friends. Our weekly schedule usually includes one day with Clara Anne and Chloe, one day with Peter, Alex and Savannah, one day with a picnic lunch and one day of running errands by bus - to the post office, grocery store, the market, etc. The girls love riding the bus, everything from swiping the bus pass and the "ding" it makes as it takes our money to holding on the hand rails to making friends with the driver.

But nothing beats playdates, whether it's playing baby dolls with the girls or learning the specifics of making train tracks with the boys. Several weeks ago when clara anne and chloe were here, I thought I'd try one of the activities I'd been putting off for a while - body paint.

I mixed some powdered tempera paint with johnson's baby soap, took most of their clothes off and stuck them all in the bathtub. The result was a bathroom full of nonstop shrieking, the fullness of three-year-old delight. My own face hurt by the time it was over because I was smiling so much at their enjoyment.

Paint gets squishy in your fingers...and feels great...

It's so much fun to laugh with friends...

Chloe has had enough (mantha didn't want anything to do with it from the start!)...

dirty hands, dirty feet, happy girls!

The beauty of it - I mean, aside from the obvious joy - was that at the end of this grand party, I cleaned the girls off, walked out of the bathroom and shut off the light...knowing that it would all be magically cleaned by my house helper this afternoon. Why go to preschool when you can do this!

in pursuit of golden perfection

Golden perfection, what could that possibly be? A nice, big hunk of cheese...breaded and deep fried to a golden brown...served with your choice of dipping sauce...yep, fried cheese sticks. This is my newest aspiration. Perhaps you can blame it on our recent addition to Top Chef reality cooking show, perhaps there are just things I want to try to make, but either way, as time goes on I find that I am more and more brave in testing out my culinary skills. If fried cheese can be called a culinary skill, that is. [I do realize that I have at least one friend to whom this entire post may seem revolting. So, for bp of ky, you may want to stop reading here! :) ]

So if you are a fellow fried cheese stick lover, here's how I did it, if you're interested in trying it. (Especially since UBC Coffee or any other accessible asian restaurant does not offer this on their menu!)

Cut your choice of cheese into nice thick sticks, about the size of string cheese that you'd buy in the States. Since I was trying this for the first time, I used mozzerella, cheddar, hot pepper jack, and swiss. I figured I'd just go for broke and see what happened.

Next, I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and took the crusts off of four sandwiches. This was not specialty bread, this was plain, no-frills, asianese supermarket white bread. I pulverized it in my blender just a few seconds and poured it into a big bowl.

I added italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt and a few dashes of pepper until it looked and smelled like coating I've seen on fried cheese before. (Sorry I can't offer anything more specific than that!) At this point, I was already in fried cheese heaven. It smelled so good.

Next, I combined 1/3 cup flour and 1/3 cup cornstarch in another bowl.

In a third bowl, I poured maybe 1/2 cup of milk. [i think egg would actually have been better to use, but samantha is allergic to egg and I didn't want to leave her out of such a scrumptious meal!]

I poured cooking oil into my wok, enough to where three or four cheese sticks could have ample room to do their thing. I heated the oil to 360degrees F (I used a cooking thermometer for this.) After only just a few seconds, certainly less than a minute, they began to look like this:I was pretty pleased with my fried cheese sticks, especially when paired together with chicken and bacon pizza and ranch dip. Yum!
If you make this yourself, here's a few problems I ran into:

the temperature of the oil was a lot more important than I thought. The oil has to be hot enough so that those little sticks will brown quickly, before the cheese melts. At one point, I turned down the heat because some breading had fallen off and was starting to burn....but then the cheese melted out before the cheese stick was sufficiently browned.

I think using the egg instead of the milk might have helped the breading stay on better, but I use only milk for chicken fried steak and it seems to work ok. Any thoughts or suggestions?

My breading tasted good but seemed a little off. Rachel suggested toasting the bread before I blend it? I thought of maybe adding some flour or crushed up crackers to the breading mixture to give it a bit different consistency? I'm not sure. Again, any thoughts?

The last issue is that when we ate them fresh, within a few minutes, they were excellent! But after the initial taste test, by the time plates were on the table, girls had bibs on, and everything ready to sit down and eat, they had cooled to the point of marginality. How to solve that? besides doing it all ahead of time? how do restaurants to it?!

Well, there you go. I'm not interested in competing on Top Chef, but for recreating tastes of America I'm game!

happy children's day!

Not usually celebrated (at least to my knowledge) in America, but celebrated here is "International Childrens Day". On June 1st, all the preschools had special little shows, older kids got out of schools, and the dentistry profession gets further assurances it will be needed in the future, what with all the candy that is bought for kids on this day alone.

Our preschool had been preparing for weeks in advance for the big Children's Day shindig. I, of course, was asked to do some special little "program" which I was only vaguely sure of what they wanted me to do. I asked around to see what the other teachers were doing and picked something accordingly. Being the only english teacher representing the "English department" (haha) at the preschool, I felt some pressure to do something that was not lame. After my initial choice fell flat after a day of testing (I tried do an old youth group number - dum dum diddy, you know where you hit your lap and then your neighbor's lap...yeah, yeah...sometimes I can still see rob doing that in my sleep!) I ended up choosing a little action rhyme from a past issue of High Five (the 2-5year old version of Highlights - shameless plug to all you preschool parents out there...my kids adore these magazines!) It was about a certain big grey elephant who lived in the jungle.

Anyway, we practiced it a few days in my english class and the kids liked it and actually could do it with me. Nice.

I also got to watch the four and five year olds practicing their numbers in the afternoons after my class got out. The five year old girls were going to be dressed up as ballerinas, prancing about the stage waving ribbons that would eventually come together to form the olympic rings at the end of the number. Some of the naughty, ahem, I mean energetic boys would be doing a kung fu demonstration under the direction of teacher Peter. And then the girls I really like (and posted pics of on my blog) were going to be dancing the life cycle of a sunflower, complete with little sunflower costumes. Even I, with my lack of affection for bustling crowds, was looking terribly forward to it. Josh and I both agreed it would be fun to take the girls, too. In the end, josh also came and so that was really fab.

So before we get there, we were notified that on children's day, all the kids get a little present from the preschool - new clothes! (that look strangely like uniforms...) but anyway, Emma got her own little set of preschool clothes so she got to wear those to the big party.

So here are the pictures I took, though I have to confess my ignorance of acheiving good lighting in bad-lighting sitations and am open for any ideas for the fab photogs who read my blog

A "Where's Waldo?" game for you. Can you find Emma? :)

A last encouraging word from teacher Peter before the class of dancing chickens take the stage...I never saw these kids practicing before the program, but these barely 18-24 month olds were representing the olympic mascots. They all wore makeup. Even the boys. For once in our asia lives, all these video cameras were not pointing at us!Kung-fu boys enjoying the olympic mascot danceEnter dancing chickens, stage left:

kung fu boys:

Samantha eventually moved from her spot on the front row surrounded by unfamiliar places to the back of the crowd where she could stand on a stool and laugh at everything! She loved it!Emma actually went up on stage with me and did the Elephant Walk, but there are no pictures of that since I was the photographer. :) After all the festivities (which included josh being called up as a volunteer for teacher Peter's "program") we went to all the classrooms and passed out bookmarks that had special words on them about how children are a blessing from the Lord. We all had a great morning, and we finished the fun off by picking up lunch at kfc and having a picnic in park next door.

Here are a few more pictures of happy parents and children celebrating children's day together with us...

(of course, we all know that children are the center of asianese families, but this picture - with energetic little tao tao being filmed by both of his parents - cracked me up!)doesn't emma look like such a big girl in her school clothes?Mantha was all happy smiles around the other kids, and especially loves hugs from daddy...