Kung Hei Fat Choy!

We're welcoming the year of the horse with lots of beautiful weather and outdoor play! It's sunny and in the low 70s here and we are just feeling so grateful for the weather and family time together.

 

I'm realizing that I need to take out my real camera, not my phone, over the holiday to get some better quality photos of the kids, but until then here are fun shots from this morning.   

Leaves

Elise loves leaves. She spent 15 straight minutes carefully sticking leaves into the drain grates at the playground the other day. (Great fine motor exercise!) She was so into it that I couldn't stand to stop her, though I doubt the cleaners appreciated it. On her behalf, she does often pick up the leaves and throw them into the trash after examining them, so we'll call it even. 

CNY Best for School

Getting dressed for CNY at school!

Movie Wiggles

Finley gets to watch a little bit of a movie after bath at night. This is a short video demonstrating how an active little boy watches a movie. Actually, we usually can't get him to even sit down!   

Click this link: http://youtu.be/zVC_vSAMWpU

CNY Horses

We are loving the beautiful CNY decorations these days.  (It really lessens the let down of Christmas being over!)

Reading Time

It's just lovely when they're playing nicely together. They both love reading so much!

Night at the Races

Nate and I were invited to go to the horse races in Happy Valley last week. This racetrack has been a fixture in HK since 1841. We were fortunate to get to sit in one of the owners boxes and have a great view of the finish line!

Our Little Runner

CLICK ON ME! 

Here's the link to a quick video of our little runner. Blink and she's dashed off somewhere!

E's 15 Month Update

Elise is 15 months old and taking off, in more than one way!  She is learning to run already, and turn around in circles.  She is also talking up a storm, learning at least one new word per day and beginning to put two words together ("hi baby").  Here are some of the words and phrases she knows:

• Mama, Daddy
• baby
• more
• hi, hello, hiya
• bye bye
• no
• that's all
• flower
• up, down
• happy
• apple
• row row
• ow
• hi baby
• ball
• roar
• gotcha
• pee pee, poo poo

Elise is getting her molars in, so she has 8 teeth in the front plus 3 of the 4 molars taking months to come in.  (Not sure if the 4th is breaking through yet because she really doesn't like people sticking their fingers in her mouth.  But who does?)

Our little lady seems to exhibit some of her parents' independence and stubbornness, but in different ways than Finley.  Elise very much wants to be the one to put objects away.  Whatever you do, don't take anything from her.  Ask her to do it, then wait patiently (it may very well take a couple of minutes) while she holds it and debates what to do.  Eventually she will put it where you asked.  You can guess that this causes a lot of problems between Finley and Elise, because Finley does not have 1-2 minutes worth of patience and tries to grab items from Elise.  She employs the death grip and won't let go, and screams.  Then Finley tries even harder to grab it, also while screaming.  (There's a LOT of screaming in our house at the moment.)  Next, Mommy has to step in and pry all the determined little fingers off the object, quell the screaming, and try to discuss the incident with the perpetrators.  

I'm not exactly sure of Elise's height and weight, but she still seems to be on the taller, thinner side, at least for a toddler.  She doesn't really have any rolls, but she does get a round little belly immediately after eating.  

Elise's favorite toys are baby dolls.  She sleeps with a stuffed bunny and little minky blanket.  She is generally a good sleeper now unless she is sick or something.  She still takes a short nap in the morning and a longer nap in the afternoon.  (Finley needs less sleep like Daddy, and Elise needs more sleep like Mommy!)  

Assuming she's not sick or tired, Elise is a reasonably good eater.  She is not as picky as Finley was at this age, but she's also not one of those kids who will eat anything and everything.  Elise absolutely LOVES fruit-- mango, mandarin oranges, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, pomelo, dragon fruit, raspberries, apples, bananas, etc!  She is still largely dairy-free and has enriched almond "milk" for calcium.  At this point, she can handle eating a few Goldfish crackers or a couple of bites of yogurt, so it seems like she may continue to very slowly outgrow this dairy protein intolerance.

Playing Dress Up

Even at 15 months old (and fighting an ear infection), our little fairy princess loves to play dress-up. She pulls these out of her toy box and insists we put them on her. 

Dreaming of Fire Trucks

Merry Christmas!

With so many photos, I think it's time for a video!  Here is a link to our Christmas video that shows St. Teresa's Christmas play (F's school) and Christmas morning.  Click HERE.

And now on to Christmas photos!  We have decided not to "do Santa" with our kids for a variety of reasons, but when they came out into the living room in the morning, we had a few gifts from us already set up.  There was a pop-up tent with a bouncy horse (or maybe donkey-- hard to tell) and a couple of wrapped gifts.

The kids got some new play food for the kitchen, and Finley put the food basket on like a hat!

Now into the stockings!

Elise absolutely adores the baby Granny and Papa sent her.

The kids' big gift this year was a car for the roof.  

On Christmas afternoon, we went over to our wonderful friends' house for an early Christmas dinner and singing carols.  It was complete chaos with 4 children/babies who were completely overwhelmed and overstimulated from the excitement of Christmas, but it was very special to get to celebrate with our "HK family" and softened the blow of our first Christmas away from family in the States.

Making vegan marshmallow snowmen.

Christmas Day was entirely too crazy (there were tons of meltdowns thanks to aforementioned overstimulation), so I took a few photos of the kids in their Christmas best after church on Sunday.  They may be the cutest things I've ever seen in my life.

A few days after Christmas, we ventured to Pacific Place mall and the beautiful HK Park.  Here are a few of the Christmas decorations there.

These are at Pacific Place, a ritzy mall known for bringing in the most realistic-looking Santa in HK.  He's rumored to be from Canada and hired each year just for this.

This is a real Christmas tree which is 3 stories tall (as you can see in the photo above).  I just can't even imagine how much it costs to bring in a 3-story-tall live tree to HK, likely from the Pacific NW. Just to buy a (half-dead) 5-foot tree, it costs anywhere from $100-$125 USD.

Outside at HK Park

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Hong Kong!  XO