School Birthday Party

We brought a cake to Vera's school on her birthday. The kids were all very excited. Here are a few pics.

Vera got a wonderful birthday present. After nearly a month of not seeing her best friend because of vacations and holidays, Xing Xing returned to school.


































Kai spent much of the morning being held by Mrs. Liu, one of V's teachers.

















Disaster nearly struck as we were waiting to start the party... One of the little boys touched Kai. Vera is VERY protective of her little brother.

















Anxiously awaiting the cake!

















OH, WOW! I wish I had a video of the childrens' reactions. Can you tell Vera picked this out herself? Cakes here look impressive but are not very sweet. I would take an ugly American cake over a pretty Chinese cake any day.

















Vera helped Ms. Zheng cut and serve the cake.

















Little boys enjoying their pink cake.

















"Po Po" eventually held Kai and put him to sleep. "Po Po" is the word for maternal grandmother. This is Xing Xing's Po Po. She brings Xing Xing to our house about once a week to play with Vera.

Happy 3rd Birthday Vera!

I can't believe it's been three years since we were blessed with our wonderful daughter, Vera! Here are a few pictures from her birthday party.

Yummy pizza at Vera's new table.

















She was very specific that she wanted a chocolate cake.

















All of her friends that came. The cool thing is that when we moved to Xiamen there weren't any other foreign babies. Now, there are five in the picture and one more on the way (not ours).

















After most people had left, we brought out her "big" present. She had to cover her eyes.

















A pink bike! She's been talking about a bike for the last 6 months. Now she finally has one.

















Family pic.

















This is where we found Vera about an hour after putting her to bed. Her legs were hanging off the end. The sugar high must have kept her moving even after she was asleep!

Vera's 3! Look at how she's grown!

At some point after getting to the hospital for Vera's birth, I put on Matt's Bryan College t-shirt. I was wearing it when Vera was born. We took her picture in the t-shirt on her first birthday and have made it a tradition every since. Look at how she's grown!

Just born!

















1 year old! And what stands out more than Vera in this picture?

















2 years old!

















3 years old! The shirt no longer drags on the floor!

Light at the end of the tunnel!

Two things have changed with Kai's sleeping over the last few days and you can see them both in this picture!
















First, the swaddling blanket. When he was born he loved being swaddled. He outgrew the size small swaddling blankets, but was able to "break out" of the large ones. See his hand? I was thinking that might be contributing to him waking up so many times at night, so we decided to put him down with his arms out of the blanket. He had a hard time sleeping that way for a couple of days. After waking me multiple times a few nights ago, we finally decided to just let him cry. I had been worried that he would wake Vera, but I decided a few nights of her awake was better than a few months of him waking and crying multiple times a night. The first night was difficult! The first time he woke, he cried for 30 minutes. That is not easy to listen to! The second time he awoke he cried for 45 minutes, then slept for the rest of the night. The turning point, though, came at the end of that time. He started sucking his thumb! So now, when the pacifier falls out of his mouth, he puts his thumb in. I know that's a more difficult habit to break than sucking a pacifier, but at this point I'm very thankful that he is able to self-sooth. The second night that he "cried it out" he only cried one time, though it was for 45 minutes. Last night was the third night and he didn't wake up at all until 6:15 this morning! I've read multiple places that for a baby it takes three nights of "crying it out" to learn to sleep through the night. It was really hard to listen to him cry and know that if I chose to I could stop it. But, to have his sleep through the night is worth the couple hours of difficulty. I know it may still take a few days before things are stable, but I'm holding on to hope that we've reached a turning point!

Visit with Uncle Mark

My brother came to visit for a couple of days this week. It was great to see him!

Things here are going well. The kids are both doing really well. Vera loves having a little brother and seems to be growing up more each day. Right now she is coloring and cutting at her little table. She's been at it for almost an hour. She finally understands what we mean when we ask, "Why?" The bad thing about this is that when we tell her she can't do something, she asks, "Why not?" Kai keeps growing. He's up to about 15 pounds! Right now he's watching football with Daddy, eating his hands, cooing, and starting to think about eating again. He's still waking up quite a bit at night, but thankfully he gave me a little bit of a break last night, sleeping from 10 to 4 before waking to eat.

We took a mini vacation to Hong Kong last week. After such a busy summer we decided to take some time away as a family. Here are a few pictures from our vacation.
















Our first morning in Hong Kong, we went to the Zoological and Botanical Gardens.
















Aunt Nancy (who lives in HK) got to meet Kai for the first time.
















Vera and Nancy looking at the Pygmy Marmosets. Very cute, tiny little mammals!
















Daddy and Vera riding swings in the park next to the Gardens.
















Watching the waterfall in Hong Kong Park.
















Playing in the waterfall.

















Then they found another "waterfall".

















After spending two days on Hong Kong Island, we went to Cheung Chau Island for a couple of quiet days. It's a fishing island with no vehicles. The retreat center we stayed in was a 25 minute walk uphill! After going up, we decided not to go down again until it was time to leave! We did end up going down once to get dinner and groceries.
















There was a typhoon in Hong Kong while we were there. We ended up walking down to the ferry in the rain.

















There was another family staying with us in the house at the retreat center. They are from New Zealand but live in Malaysia. Vera had a blast playing with the kids. We didn't take any picture with them until this one on the ferry ride back to Hong Kong.
















Time to go home! Riding the Airport Express from downtown out to the airport.
















We enjoyed some Krispy Kreme doughnuts in the Hong Kong airport while waiting for our very delayed plane.
















I sent Kai out for some groceries after we got back.
















Reading while doing her business. What will V think of this picture 20 years from now?

Kai is 2 months old!

Kai is already two months old! He is a big boy but still seems so much like a newborn. He still wakes about every 3 to 4 hours at night to eat. Ugh! It's amazing that even after doing the exact same thing with him as I did with Vera, that he's not sleeping very long in one stretch whereas V was sleeping about 8 hours by this point. He is so peaceful and sweet at night, so I'm just trying to enjoy those middle of the night feedings while I have them. He's about 13 1/2 pounds and 24 1/2 inches putting him at about 90th percentile for both height and weight. I can't believe any baby coming from me would be that big!

Here are some pictures.