Merry Christmas!

More Christmas pictures to come but here is our little Christmas greeting for now :)

Okay this really is overkill- last song :)

It works! Will singing again

Ok I never ever ever ever ever ever ever get videos to work on this blog so this may be overkill but here is Will singing another song. I love when little kids sing- so cute. How the sing every third word sometimes or just sing the intonation not the correct word.

Will is very into singing lately. :)

Will Singing- lets see if this works...

Winter has arrived

So it is officially winter here. Really just showed up one day. So I put our electric blanket pad on our bed, turned on our heater units (you have to each room separately), pulled out our warm slippers, got out the winter gear and now we're in long underwear. For the record, this is not my favorite season here. But here are a couple of cute pics of our family getting ready for the cold.

I made Den take this picture before he headed off to work one day- I think he has 4 layers on up top and maybe 2-3 on the bottom. Those funny looking things on his ears are ear cuffs. He rides his bike to work and when its in the 40s you have to dress warm. Way to be tough honey!

A couple of recent pics

So I am going to try and do better with posting pictures so here a couple. Below is Will doing his best impressions of Elmo. I think its pretty dead on. :) Also, here is Will with his favorite monthly publication- the Car Movie Magazine! Isn't that cool that they do that here? Each month they feature a different character- this month its Filmore. Only problem is - its all in chinese and I am not so good at reading chinese characters- but we have some local friends to help and of course there's lots of pictures too. So we anxiously await the 23rd of each month. :)

Happy Halloween :)

Happy Halloween! Ok so we're back after a couple month hiatus. Its been a busy couple months to put it lightly but I promise more pics now (sorry grandparents). On Halloween we celebrated with other little friends in the neighborhood- it was wild but fun. Will took advantage of the chaos to eat as much candy as possible (he woke up at 230am that night- I think that would be the exact time the sugar crash happened). As usual when I haven't posted for a while I will suddenly post a ton of pictures- so here goes...

what do you think he is??? (answer to come)

We started off the day with what might be a new tradition for us.. making caramel apples. There aren't traditional pumpkins here to carve so I brought caramels from the US for this halloween activity. It was fun (again Will participated mostly by eating. :))

yum caramel spoon.......
Here we are getting ready- Will getting on his whiskers and nose...

Any idea what we are? (its ok if you don't know- I don't think anyone got it). We are three blind mice. (as Will says "fee bind mice") And we thought we were so clever..... (by the way I am imitating Will's face)

2 mice walking to the party (we got some looks in the elevators)

party fun and chaos!!!

cutey kids
Hope you all had a great halloween too!

What we did this summer #5

This summer....we went to the beach!

It was so so much fun to be at the North Carolina beach- had been awhile since we had been. And Will has never been to the NC beach. He loved it- well not so much the actual ocean/beach part (digging in the sand was fun)- but the salt water he could do without. Instead he preferred to spend his time, in the pools, lazy river, eating, and playing with grandma and grandpa Rowe. But his favorite outdoor activity was surprisingly the hot tub. He didn't want anything to do with the kiddy pool, too cold. Instead after swimming for awhile he would get out and say "hot tubby" and head over. (Don't worry I didn't let him stay in for that long). It was a lot of fun for Den and I too. So relaxing.... here are some pics from that time.

What we did this summer #4

This summer... Will played with his grandparents. Ok was really spoiled by his grandparents :) But hey that is what they are for - who else would let you watch Thomas the Train all day long, give you ice cream at 10am or play with you puzzle after puzzle after puzzle. There are lots of pictures but here are a few.At the beach with Grandma and Grandpa Rowe
Reading a book with Grandpa Rowe
Laughing with Grandma Baker
At the ice cream shop with Grandma and Grandpa Baker and Great Grandma

One more donut picture

I forgot about this one- so add this to the previous post. We should try and get some sponsorship from KK with a kid this cute :) (that's the last thing we need- more donuts!)

What we did this summer #3

This summer... Will discovered a love of Krispy Kreme Donuts. 

(I mean c'mon how can you not love them). He was first introduced at the children's museum where he got to work in a pretend donut shop (how cute!) So then of course we had to drive across town to let him try the real thing.  That was it.. donut is now a new member of his vocabulary.  

What we did this summer #2

This summer: Will celebrated his first ever 4th of July in the USA!!

So I made sure he was wearing his american shirt and got plenty of photos with American flags. We spend a lot of time talking about his Taiwanese/Chinese heritage but its also important to me that he knows that he is also an American- that is part of his heritage too.  So we did up the 4th good- we went to a parade and then to a little 4th of July festival.  It was great- by the end of the day Will was asleep in the car and Den and I were sunburned (how American of us).  

What we did this summer

So, we haven't posted in awhile- mostly because we have been busy but also because of my lack of wanting to try and figure out how to get my camera to work on someone else's computer. We spent the summer in the states with family and friends and did lots of traveling.  I feel like I am writing an essay like I did in grade school- what I did this summer.  So as long as the internet cooperates here (we are back in China now) I will try to do a post every couple days with a different snippet of what we did this summer.

Here is the first: This summer Will ate lots of popsicles.  We have a new obsession now- he asks for them all the time.

Yea Taipei!

At the beginning of the month we got the chance to return to Taipei, Will's birth city. Before we went we talked up the trip a lot to Will- we taught him to say "Yea Taipei and put his hands in the air" (we have been back a month and he still says it). We were so looking forward to the trip and getting to do lots of things with Will there that we weren't able to do when we were there a year and a half ago meeting Will for the first time.  (Basically we were sleep deprived and overwhelmed and didn't get out that much).  So I planned some jam packed days of sight seeing and culture learning. Here are a few pics from our time there.  

This is Taipei 101 the world's tallest standing building (for now). And it is by far the tallest building in Taipei- I think by some 50 0r 60 stories.

This is Will flying high at the Chiang Kai Shek memorial. 

Taipei has an amazing zoo- I think that was Will's favorite part. 

These paintings were done by a local artist- so pretty- we bought a few.
This is will eating Taiwanese beef noodle soup. These noodle shops are everywhere!
Taipei is famous for their night markets which have all kinds of food and drinks to sample and shopping. They are all over the city. This is at the Shilin night market, probably the most famous one in Taipei. Here we are with our friend Grace (she was in Taipei at the same time too).  Will is drinking a watermelon shake (barely put it down). I have stinky tofu in my chopsticks (another Taiwanese specialty)- Will and I both tried it- and lets just say the name really says it all- so stinky we could both only eat one bite. But hey we tried it right?
It got so crowded at the market so this was the best way to move Will through the crowds.

It was a great trip (we have plenty more pictures- but I'll spare you).  Will sometimes still points out the window and says questioningly "Taipei? I think he had a great time. :)

Look at my big boy :)

Will is getting so big I can't believe it! 

But he will still always be my little boy..............

This is How Will prefers to be carried these days...

even if he is just going to the bathroom to get his teeth brushed he says up pe de (upside down)

GO Heels!

Well this is a little late to post- but the excitement of winning the national championship has still not worn off here.  We were so excited that we got to watch the game live streamed through the internet. Thank you March Madness on Demand!  We had our fellow Carolina family here, the Swems, over all of us dressed in our Carolina blue. It was a great! Not sure the kids understood what was going on but they loved the excitement, and the cake.

I made this cake the last time we played and won the national championship so the carolina cake has become a tradition now.  
Jenny and Vera with Will and I.  Aren't they cute carolina kids ? :)
Family pic  (a rarity it seems for us to take a picture together). Will too busy with the cake.
Cake for breakfast... he loved it! (remember the game aired at 9am our time).

Dennis had the idea to proudly hang our carolina flag (blanket) - we were hoping that people might ask- hey what's with the blanket and we could boast of our tarheels, but......
Here is what the blanket looks like from the ground. Doesn't have the same affect when you live in a 30 story apartment building that is one of many.  Further complicating our plan is that everyone hangs laundry to dry- so it didn't look like anything special- but we knew the real reason. :) 

Hope you Carolina fans all had a great time!