Water Splashing 2012

Here is Soph in a minority outfit ready for Day 1 of Water splashing. Depending on your take on the whole holiday it could be lots of fun or a huge inconvenience. In this pic she is sitting in the kids new 'reading nook', this is just a sneak peek since I am not yet done with the project. But yes, the walls are red, and I do LOVE them.

That is a digression. Back to buckets of water-filled fun. Sophia's school had a water splash day on Day 1, both David and I were able to go and it was a dud since thunderstorms came through. We splashed some that early evening.




Our buckets, water guns, and minority dress. All of the parents dressed up, most wore some killer heels, I chose the Chacos for functionality (running away from the water).


Day two, both girls dressed up and the fun always started around 11:30 a.m. I took the girls our for about an hour the first day at that time. Bella ended up not having so much fun. Sophia loved it of course.




Minority dance pose. The girl has got it down, hip action and all, a little scary.


Bird's eye view here. David gets the most props for taking a few hours in the afternoon and taking Sophia all around to water splash! I opted for the indoor option of filling water buckets and taking them down under the stairs and making sure the guns were full.

The holiday is much more fun with kids. Our first year we went to the big square, and came back with red welts on our backs from relentless waterballoon attacks. I swore 'never again' would I go to the square (and we have stuck to that). But in our school area the folks are pretty nice and great with the kids.

David took Sophia out to the back gate that is not opened and they shot people through the gate! Then they went to the front gate and the side walk folks teamed up against the car folks (who fill up the back of their trucks with water and douse with buckets).

The biggest cheaters (ahem) that I discovered when I went on a run in the middle of the day were the ones in cars who had sunroofs, with their stock pile of water balloons in the car. Not fair. Not fun. Oh and those with the water hoses right at the mouth of a big shopping district entrance. I had both David and Sophia guess how many minutes it would take me to get soaked. Sophia said I wouldn't make it to the gate. But surprisingly I made it probably 3/4 of a mile before I got a real dousing. I think most people didn't know what to do with me, I did have a visor on too. But on the way back, it was all over. I was soaked. But it felt pretty good actually.

This was just day one and two.

What we will now always remember most about water-splashing is that Tobin's birthday is always at this time. Leading up to this, Sophia kept telling us, when it is water-splashing it is Tobin's birthday!

Day three of Water splashing in the next post!

Tobin is 1

4.10.2012

The morning:

He woke up a happy one-year-old! Though his birthday hat did not fit.


sweet. little. boy.





The cake:
Like I said, I finally decided to make a cake and stick a toy on it, an airplane to be exact. An airplane that needed a landing strip, some trees around it, and so on. This particular airplane reminded me of the ones that fly over the beach and advertise, so I added a banner too. The girls thought this was so cute.




Let's talk about the cake recipe for a minute. I got it from smittenkitchen.com. (this link is to the actual recipe). Touted as 'the best yellow cake recipe ever', I was excited to give it a try. And I really think it may just be the best. Except mine wasn't. But it wasn't the recipe's fault, I don't think. When I tasted the batter, I called David over to try it and we both licked the bowl clean, it was delicious. Then, when it came out of the oven and cooled a bit, I took it out of the pan and some of the crumbs crumbled away in soft moisty goodness. Then and there I thought: 'this is going to be sooo... good'. And pride cometh before a fall. I wrapped it up and put it in the fridge to frost and decorate the morning of Tobin's birthday. I had it all decorated by 10 a.m. but had no way to seal it, so I just put it in the fridge. Not only would the heat make the frosting melt a bit, but the ants have pretty much set up camp in our kitchen, so even before we went to dinner I could not take it out to thaw a little. I served it up all cold and cute. And quite dry. No more moist goodness. It was good, in an 'all right' sort of way, and everyone seemed to enjoy it, but it was not 'the best'. Not when I served it, and not close to what it tasted like the night before.

But I will try again. The same recipe, and eat it the day of, or invest in a good cake-keeper!

Back to the birthday boy and his big day:
It was dumpling night, and this was Tobin's first time eating it as his full meal. He loved it. He ate almost all of his five.



The party.
Three families came over to celebrate with us, and we had a great time.

Our new helper, whom our children love, including Tobin.


Us with our little man. (It took about 10 pictures to get one where he was looking at the camera and not the cake).


Another big sis for our kids, Phoebe, our friends' helper, they love her as well. She is teaching Tobin how to show that he is now one.

Before tasting the cake Tobin was given a new toy by some friends, he loved it.


Then we gave him his piece.




hmm...what is this?!

Oh you have been holding out on me with this chocolate stuff.



A little drunk on the sugar.


Wide eyed now


stern in his expression as he eats on


And licks the plate clean


And then the gifts. We ordered a little train set from ikea (taobao).


Bella got him a phone (I chose the gifts of course)




And Sophia got him a firetruck with an extending ladder and sirens to boot.


It matched well with the truck that Poppy and CC sent that he loves as well.

We had a wonderful day enjoying our one-year-old.
We are smitten by this boy's charm. We are so thankful to God for the abundance of blessings in Tobin's first year. We can't wait to see him grow into a little boy, though it is going so fast these days!

Party/cake negotiations: Tobin's first

Leading up to Tobin's first birthday I kept going back and forth: big cake? small cake? cupcakes? no cake? I really did sound like Dr. Seuss in my brain...

Friends would ask...I would say...probably just half a cake, then a week prior...maybe even a local cake (not yummy). Then I joked with friends on one really busy day: what about a fake cupcake, he won't know. My friend reassured me that his siblings would remind him in years gone by that he got a fake cake. I scratched that idea with a laugh...

Finally birthday eve, I couldn't handle it, sweet baby boy had to have a real cake. And I decided we would invite whoever came to 'dumpling night' since his birthday fell on that day. I also decided to do the cake from scratch, which I have not done in a few years since the last one I made did not fare to well. I used packaged icing though and I don't apologize for it. Extra Yum.

I decided I would just put one of his toys on his cake, and the whole idea grew (took on a life of its' own). Next post: The Party: Baby boy Coker turns one!

Tomb sweeping vs Empty tomb: our Easter

The local Tomb-Sweeping Festival came right before Easter. This is quite ironic really. The locals literally do go sweep the tombs of ancestors, clean it up, have a big feast there, and make sure to leave things for their ancestors, food included. All over the market are little doll sized clothes, cars, etc. and lots of fake money to take to your deceased loved ones to keep their after-life good. They will burn these things 'to them' and pray to them asking for blessings of health and prosperity. Some may say they don't really believe it helps, it is just tradition, but in general the tradition is superstitious.

Contrast this with our (and the millions of Christians in this country) celebration of the empty tomb of Jesus and the hope that it gives. No more need for sacrifice year after year, no fear in death, peace with the one true living God, no anxiety over if my dead loved one is pleased with me or not, as if they have any power. A real living hope. A real living God.




About two weeks prior we gathered some things to remind us of Easter.
A crown of thorns, a purple robe. A cross.


There are a ton of things out there and great traditions to start. This year we kept it simple but focused. We do hope to integrate a real Seder meal but not this year.

I found a weeks worth of good activities to supplement what David was doing at night. I hand wrote them on the back of pretty stationary and had them laminated. I plan to reuse them! I did not do every activity and tweaked some. I got the list from this website.


We baked three loaves of Poppy seed bread. ALL of them stuck to the pan, it was a mess. A failure. I asked Sophia who was someone she thought needed some kindness and she said CS. I salvaged one loaf, put it in some tupperware and gave it to his mom. I was so glad it was her because she understood, as a mother of three herself: it was an 'everything going awry' day. I literally said: 'here is your bread. It was supposed to be wrapped pretty, with other Easter things, but really, Jesus is enough, He is the bread of life'. We both just chuckled over this unpoetic (my own word again) display.

One of the activities was adding red dye to water with a white carnation in it. Jesus taking our sins. There were no white carnations to be found, but yellow worked okay. The girls loved it.


David and the girls made a tomb out of play dough. And Bella helped get the 'doll' or 'Jesus' prepared for burial.






They were really astonished when they opened the tomb and it was empty on Easter.
This was just a hodge podge of things we did this year. David did lead in devotions leading up to Easter that were really good. The girls were very excited about it. We also decided to host Easter gathering and a potluck picnic, which made them even more excited. They loved helping me spend Saturday cleaning, making chicken salad, making cookies, etc.

We have opted out of incorporating eggs and bunnies into our Easter celebration so far. Not because we are against it, we actually do participate when others host those as part of their celebration, but so far the simpler the better for us in our home (could be I just don't want to deal with dying eggs), and it is much easier here to keep it focused (I think---there aren't candy and baskets and bunnies everywhere, but if only I had some PEEPS!), and much easier to talk about the real meaning with neighbors when it is translated as "Resurrection Festival". So, we stuck with the essentials and had a great celebration. Who knows what next year will bring to our tradition-tweaking family.


We did do a little impromptu split family photo shoot. Not great.




LOVE this photo. I always talk about the girls, but look at my MEN!

Happy Easter! Happy Resurrection Day!

Quotables of late: Bella

This chic just cracks us up, can't you just see it in her eyes....

Here is what she has been saying lately...of course it may only be cute to us, or cute because she is two, but we are keeping this as a little family journal.

This was a few months ago:

Me: you are not a baby you don’t need to cry...."I do need to because I am a baby."

At night, when turning out the lights: "you go out and I will call for you and go potty in a little while."

"But mommy, I was cleaning the bathroom." (after getting discipline for putting the towel in the sink and playing in the water)

"For you and me and xiao chen, I am going to make coffee also, you don't need to worry."

"Sophia, what did you do at school today, eat and watch a video? That’s fun."

"Daddy, did you have a good day?" (she is so sweet when she asks people how their day was)

"Thanks for doing all that for the tea party, momma" (unprovoked thankfulness, really.)

"I ate too much oatmeal my tummy aches. My tummy aches because I ate too much oatmeal."

"my stomach aches really well"

"the carpet is on backwards"

This month:

As I laid down on the couch for a minute to catch my breath, Bella says: "mommy I am sorry you are tired."

She stopped got off her outdoor riding car flipped it on its' side looked underneath and said: "Mama my car battery died."

"Mama you are sitting next to me while I do math, you are a good mommy." (she is not really doing math, she just thinks she is)

In much angst and a pouty whine: 'mama xiao chen says I am small, really small." Honey, you are a little small. "No mama I am a little big" (said with sure fire conviction)

Now lets talk a minute about her ability to lie. I only note it here because it is a special trait, her straight face, cute smile, and complete untruth coming out of her mouth. It is cute and funny, and then it is really not. For example:

Sophia told me that Bella had eaten some soap on purpose (Sophia is pretty much a truth-teller, not always, but she is a tattler some too, in this case I was believing Sophia)

"Bella did you eat soap?"

"uh uh" (shaking head no)

"you didn't? say yes or no"

"no" (looking straight at me)

"you did not put any soap in your mouth?"

"No mama, I didn't" (sweet tone)

"Bella tell me the truth, did you put some soap in your mouth, you know what happens when you lie."

"no"

(I think I asked her about two or three more times in different ways and she said no each time)

"Bella, did the soap taste good or bad?"

"it tasted bad"

(and she finally fessed up clearly after still denying it for awhile)

Projects: Bathroom re-org

Mid way through my little bathroom re-org, I took a picture. Basically this is what it looked like before but picture much more clutter.

At this point things were cleaned out a bit. My goal was to get the blue drawer thingy off of the counter top, we only ever used the stuff in two of the drawers. My other goal was to get rid of the gray drawer thing, not only an eye-sore but pretty much drawers crammed with stuff without much functionality.

After:

(see me in the mirror?)

Love that clean counter space with small candles. Tooth brushes are on the right. We bought this white shelf off of taobao and it had black doors on it. I used it in the kitchen some, filled only once ever. After sitting there pretty much unused I thought of other places to put it. (I do have a good amount of kitchen cabinet space). I took the doors off and moved it. I told David I was doing this and he had no idea what was going to happen. He was down stairs doing a clean up job too, and the girls helped him SO much.



For this project I only purchased 3 things: this canister thing, which anyone living in China knows it is used for spices and dipping sauces, it even came with small spoons that are now in the girls' kitchen. I already had the frame which now has a good verse in it (Rom 15:13). The other two things were a few new wash clothes (needed) and a stool, which was unnecessary but cute. Since I already had everything else, this was a ten dollar project. Niiiice.


This is the same kind of frame used above but is now a tray for the votives. I got these frames a long time ago in America for cheap!


This may not look super nice to you, but it is more functional, the blue drawer thing is virtually empty and will probably be used elsewhere. The pink bucket has kids wash clothes in it which we use often. The green bag is all extra teeth stuff (toothbrushes, toothpastes, etc.) and then the hand towels stacked next to it. All the towels used to be in an extra shoe closet at the end of our hall. Now they are right at our fingertips, yeah! Plus all this is behind closed doors since it is not that pretty!



Still not sure about the bottom container. It has all the toilet paper in it. I do have really pretty green baskets being used in the girls room right now, and this is working right now.
I organized everything, used some old cute green and white clinique bags for storage, gave David his own basket and me too for extra, miscellaneous stuff, and things are just neater looking, albeit a bit green and plasticky (I made up that word). We like it and most of all--it works!