Update on Life

I haven't done a lot of regular posts lately-mostly just updates on the kiddos. So here's a long update with lots of pictures to remind me of all that we've been up to. (if you follow me on Instagram you've probably already seen most of these)

This pic is from a few months ago. We don't have a playground or backyard near our house, so we go to the university near our house to play a lot. One day we played with this little girl who was the same age as Paige. If you can't tell-it was cold out.

Since we live overseas and away from family, we try to skype or facetime regularly to keep up with everyone. Sarah's daughter is just a little older than Paige, so they love seeing each other. Sarah and I regularly send each other pictures and videos of our girls for them to watch.

My mom came and stayed with us for a whole month when Joshua was born. My mom loves to bake and Paige was more than happy to help!!

The day before I had Joshua we went to the panda zoo with my parents. Looking back, I'm not sure if it was the best choice-it was a lot of walking and I was exhausted! But Paige loves pandas and had a great time!

I forgot to post this picture-it's me in the hospital issued pajamas. Not the cutest, but so comfy!

Having a tea party with Paige and all her babies! 

Paige playing outside with her new sidewalk chalk! That girl loves to be outside.

The middle of March we went to Taiwan to work on some paperwork for Joshua. It. Was. Amazing. There were parks everywhere, it was beautiful, and we had Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Chili's! 

I love this girl to pieces. 

We went to the zoo while we were there-there was tons of walking and it was really hot, but we had the best time. 

AND, one thing I loved about Taiwan was how nursing-friendly they were!! Everywhere we went had a private nursing room-the zoo had more than one location, several of the subway stops had them, and even Costco! And the rooms were really nicely decorated and very comfortable. Loved. It. 

We were away from home for Easter, which was kind of sad. But we still managed to dye Easter eggs (I will bend myself over backwards to keep a tradition). We didn't too much-colored eggs and Paige got a Frozen sticker book. Joshua didn't get anything this year, but he didn't seem to mind. 

We have friends who live in Taiwan and we were able to have dinner a few times with them and they offered to watch the kids so we could have a date night! Daniel and I went downtown and ate at California Pizza Kitchen. 

Right after we returned home, my sister came to visit for a week. It was wonderful!!!

Paige got sick a few weeks ago with a double ear infection and uti. Poor thing was NOT feeling well and it was rough on all of us. She laid around a lot and discovered Finding Nemo. 

Paige keeps getting cuter and cuter everyday. Especially since she talks nonstop and somehow seems to add to her vocabulary every day. 

My mom sent this scooter for Paige (yes she shipped the scooter in my sisters luggage). It's a little big for her, but she loves playing with it. 

We celebrated Mother's Day this past weekend-my first one with two kiddos!!

Love these people!

That's us in a nutshell!

Coming to town

Sarah & Mike (sis and bro in law) flew in late last Saturday night. I was so excited, I couldn't believe my sister finally made it here!! I couldn't wait to show her where I live and the culture.

Other than their first day, they both did great with jet lag! I think making them stay busy all day long every day helped!

I was very surprised at how adventurous Mike was-he wanted to try everything, no matter how different!

Paige loved all the time with her Auntie Sarah and Uncle Mikey! There was a lot of fun playtime!

Daddy got in some good reading time too!

Enjoying our local noodle shop! (they make the noodles right in front of you) I was impressed with their desire and ability to learn how to eat with chopsticks! 

Sarah LOVES tea! She is a Teavana addict and drinks about 5 cups a day. She really needs to be a sales rep for them. We did a tea demonstration while they were here, it was so much fun! And of course Sarah bought about 7 tins of tea!

We went to the local opera/play while they were here. We had a friend watch Paige, and Daniel and I especially loved having a night out!

We even went to Starbucks and got a gingerbread man cookie, which the barista kept referring to as a snowman. I LOVE Starbucks at Christmas-the red cups, the special mugs, it just makes me feel all warm and happy inside. 

One day we went downtown. Here we are trying to blend in.

There is just something about having a sister. There's just a different realness when being with her.

think we look alike???

I loved seeing Sarah with Paige. Being moms together is so much fun!

I normally would've been really sad to say good-bye, but we will actually be coming to the States in 10 days for several months. So instead of a sad teary good-bye, we were both like, okay see you!

love

laura

Around Town

Daniel and I have a running joke that I'm not allowed to go to any more fruit stores.

Let me explain...

We have markets here where we can get eggs, veggies, fruits, and meat. But the fruit usually doesn't look too great. There are some specialty fruit stores where fruit is a little bit more expensive but is much cleaner and you can usually get a better variety. This is where I always buy blueberries.

In the last year or so, I have had 4 fruit stores close on me. It started with one. It closed. Then there was a new fruit store near our house. One day it was just gone. Then another one opened up across the street. Again, I went one day and it was gone the next. I found another fruit store not too far away. A few weeks ago they had a sign they were closing.

This is what is coming instead.

A 24 hour fresh milk bar. Exactly what everyone needs.

We were walking out of our apartment complex yesterday and saw this very large truck that doesn't seem to really fit with its surroundings. I told Daniel it looked like something from Texas. And then we saw this on the back. 

Home sweet home.

When we were at the local clinic this week getting some blood work for Paige, I noticed this in the corner of one of the rooms. 

It's a scale. I guess it's used to weigh children. However, I'm not sure if getting a child to sit in that chair is any easier than them standing or laying on the scale. But it certainly was cute.

That's a little bit from our week!

love

laura

Tuesday Conversations

After lunch today, Paige and I went to the market just a few blocks away from our house. It's where I buy most of our fruits and vegetables. I had just finished buying an orange from a vendor and we got to talking about kids. All of a sudden a man walks up to me, and yells "For-eign-er!!!" (in english). I was like ummm, yep, that's me.

After making yummy broccoli cheese soup for dinner (with bread bowls!) we took Paige outside to the playground that is in our apartment complex. I sat on the swing and let Paige watch the other kids playing. (i need to take a pic of this swing, it has death written all over it.) 

In true Paige fashion, she has all the local kids around her, talking about how cute she is. I ended up talking with a few of the little girls, and I thought the conversation was so interesting. 

They asked if Paige's eyes would be green when she got older. (they are blue now). 

They asked me if I was a foreigner or local. They must've been unsure because of how perfectly I speak the language (hahahahhahh!). I was honored though, and told them I was a foreigner.

Then they told me I had gray hair. Which is a little crazy because as far I can tell, I don't even have one strand of it yet. 

They thought I was about 20 years old. Bless them. I should've bought them all ice cream. 

They asked about my nose ring, and why it looked like I had a nail in my nose. I definitely didn't have the language ability to explain that one!

They asked how many friends we had here. But the way they asked it, made the assumption that it was less than 10. I told them we have a few more than 10 friends.

And speaking of convo's with locals.....we were at a restaurant with my in-laws a few weeks ago, and the waitresses were ooohing and aaahing over Paige. One lady and I got to talking and she asked if I raised her myself. I said that I did. Then she asked if I cooked. I told her I did. She could not believe that I raised a child and cooked. She said I should only be doing one or the other. I joked with her that this is a great idea, and I would take care of Paige and tell my husband to cook from now on. At least I hope she knew I was kidding. 

That was our Tuesday! What are you doing today?!

love

laura

Weekend Rewind-How to save a life

I would say we had a pretty low key weekend up until this afternoon. Thursday-Saturday was a holiday here. But it wasn't a big one, and it has been raining almost everyday, so it doesn't feel like a holiday.

Friday, we ran errands and I made Poppyseed chicken. I haven't made it in a while because I ran out of poppyseeds. No poppyseeds presents a challenge in making poppyseed chicken.But Daniel's mom brought me some when they came last week, so it only makes sense to use them.

(her pj's say Baby Cakes, is that not the most adorable thing ever?)

Friday night Paige was up till almost 1am, crying and fussing in her crib because she kept trying to crawl. She's getting so close, so every night when we goes to bed she fusses for a bit and tries to crawl. So Saturday morning came a little too quickly.

Saturday morning we drank coffee, and I RELISHED it. Mainly because we had been out of coffee creamer for 3 days and I very quickly realized I am addicted to coffee creamer and don't do well without it. I make my own creamer, and it requires sweetened condensed milk. We were out of SCM until Friday. You see the dilemma yes? 

We ate leftovers for dinner, then decided to live on the edge of the wild side and go get ice cream/coffee (i got ice cream, Daniel got coffee). There is a touristy place about a 20 minute walk from our house that has a Dairy Queen (not like america, so don't get too excited) and a Starbucks. It was a holiday. Paige draws attention wherever we go. People love the foreign baby. But we decided to live it up and it wasn't too bad. Paige loves the attention. My DQ chocolate blizzard was the best I've ever had here. Win-win.

This afternoon we were sitting in the living room and Paige was napping. I looked out the window and saw smoke. That seemed odd. So I opened the window and saw that the apartment directly below us had smoke coming out of their open window. I yelled several times and didn't get a response. It smelled pretty bad.

Daniel went down to see if someone was home, but couldn't get anyone to answer the door. He called our apartment office and they very nervously said they would get someone to check on it. 

I started freaking out. It was a lot of smoke. I kept walking around on our floor to see if I could feel any heat coming through. 

I went downstairs to wait for the security guy to see if we needed to evacuate. He pounded on the door and yelled but no one responded. Then the smoke started coming out thru the door. It smelled SO bad.

After several minutes, a middle-aged man answered the door in the pj's. He acted like everything was normal. Come to find out, he had been cooking something on the stove and had fallen asleep. I followed the security guy into the apartment to confirm that everything was okay and no evac was needed. The entire apartment was filled with so much smoke i could barely even see. 

When I got back home my clothes and hair wreaked of smoke. gross.  

Not sure if this is a cultural thing, but I honestly expected a thank you or something from our neighbor. You know, for saving his life and all. He just seemed to laugh it off, like nbd. I don't need a thank you card, but general acknowledgement would make me feel better. Buy me a Coke, give me a high-five, I'm not asking for a lot here. 

Anyways...that was our weekend.

This week we'll do a little traveling, I'll have class, and I'll probably do several loads of laundry.

Happy Sunday!

love

laura

Paige's First Fourth!

This fourth of July was a very crazy, stressful, day! Both Daniel and I kind of reached our limit that day as far as living in a different culture here. Honestly, it was a rough day.

(ps. my friend just clued me into picstitch-woohoo!)

Here's a little back story-remember we got in bed at 2am Monday morning completely exhausted. So we were really looking forward to resting a bit on Monday, getting stuff done around the house, and I had class scheduled. Well, at 9:30 am the apartment above us started remodeling/demolishing their entire house. There was jackhammering, drilling, hammering, banging. It was SO loud Daniel and I couldn't even hear each other. Our mirrors were shaking, and we have white powder all over the house that their drilling knocked from our walls.  It kept Paige from sleeping, she didn't want to eat with all the noise, and they did this until 6pm. Ya'll my nerves were shot.

Daniel went up to ask them how long they were going to be working. They said it would be one more day. While he was up there, he saw concrete slabs. Concrete ya'll. Just imagine how loud that is.

anyways.....this continued the entire week. (they are banging now as I type this)

So come thursday I was about to lose it. I was trying to be patient, trying to be nice, but I was so close to a mental breakdown, it's not even funny.

So this is still happening on Thursday, our July 4th.

That morning I put Paige's cloth diapers in the washer. You have to wash cloth diapers 3 times. So we were pouring in hot water from our sink into the washer (cause we don't have hot water capability in our washer), and the washer didn't do anything. Nada.

Daniel went to get the repairman. So while the repairman is looking at our washer, the banging is still going on, and my teacher came over for class. Daniel left halfway during our class, because we had plans at a friends house for a big party. So Daniel leaves to go get the grill started. I'm trying to entertain Paige and have class with my teacher, whom I cannot hear.

I ended up ending class early because ya'll. The noise! Where is the xanax??

So Paige is fussing because she missed her naps. I'm trying to get everything ready to go the the party. I called my neighbor to let her know we were ready because we were going to walk together-it's about a 25 minute walk.

This is when the biggest thunder storm in the entire world happened. Lightning, thunder, and torrential rain. So we decided to taxi.

But it was the kind of rain that as soon as you walk outside you're drenched. By the time we walked to the front of our apartment complex, we were soaked!  It was kind of the last straw really. I think my saving grace was the fact that we were going to a party-where thankfully no one would be using a jackhammer.

Call me prideful, but is she not the most adorable thing you have ever seen???

Daniel's aunt and cousins gave Paige this outfit and it is sooooo cute!!! I forget where we got the bow, but it was too perfect! 

Paige seemed to enjoy her first fourth of july. She ended up staying up 2 hours past her bedtime. i kept hoping she'd fall asleep but there was way too much going for her and she didn't want to miss it.

Right before we left, I tried to get a family pic. Paige was way overtired at this point.

I knocked Daniel's coke that was in his other hand-so we're both looking to see if it spilled.

And the classic crying baby pic.

That was our July 4th.  Hope ya'll had a happy one!!

love

laura

Playin Around

I've had such good intentions about blogging this week. But to upload pictures from my phone and the camera, then resize them so Blogger will be happy, just takes more time than I'm sometimes willing to give.

But tonight-Paige just went to sleep and I've got a few extra minutes to spare.

If Paige is going to be fussy, it's without a doubt from 5-7pm each night. We try to come up with things to entertain her. A couple of nights ago she was fussing and I suggested we put some music on to see if it would  entertain her. Daniel got his computer out and for the next hour or so we both walked down memory lane and had one of the best times ever!

We realized that we both had the cd Never Say Dinosaur. It came out in the 90's and I had almost every song memorized back then. I haven't listened to the cd in close to 10 years (my cd was actually stolen when my car was broken into. this was before Itunes, so it was long gone.) We put it on and I was shocked to learn that I still knew every word! ahhhh the 90's. And Paige was entertained I'm sure.

(this is a Laura face, if I've ever seen one)

Tonight we took Paige out to the little playground in our apartment complex. As soon as we sat down we were surrounded by grandma's and their grandchildren just oohhing and ahhing over the little foreign baby. One grandma kept telling her 2 year old granddaughter to touch Paige. She kept saying "touch her! touch her!" over and over. In any other situation, this might be awkward. 

It made me think about the questions we get here about Paige. We get the exact same ones all the time. 

How old is she?

Is she a boy?

Do you breastfeed?

Do you take care of her yourself?

I always get these questions no matter who I'm around. Tonight a lady asked if I took care of her, and when I said yes she said I was very talented. It struck me how odd that would be if I asked a stranger in America if they raised their own child, then told them how talented or capable they were. 

The breastfeeding question is ALWAYS asked. And a couple of times I didn't understand what they were saying, and then they go straight to charades. My life is never boring. 

In completely unrelated Paige news.....I tried a new recipe this week. Every once in a while I like to have a vegetarian meal and change things up a bit. This week we had onion-zucchini-red pepper frittata and asparagus. We do love us some asparagus! The frittata was good, but next time I would cook it longer to really get it to brown on top. 

So seriously, I have a couple of blog posts swirling around in my head, I'll try to keep posting!

love

laura