Happy 2nd Birthday Finley!

A week and a half ago, our little man turned 2!  We had a great time celebrating his birthday with gifts when he woke up in the morning, and then a birthday party with a few friends in the afternoon.  It was a great, low-key day.  Finley's big gift from us was a scooter, and he also got a puzzle and some books.  His birthday cake this year was a Lego cake, because this kiddo loves to build with his blocks!  Finley actually tasted a couple of bites of cake this year, but was much more fond of the veggie chips and blue potato chips we had at his party.  (Any sort of chips are a huge treat for him, because they're crunchy, salty, and not normally allowed.  Honestly, we could have just given him a few chips and called it a day and he would have been happy!) 

It's hard to believe it's been two whole years since this:

Happy birthday, Finley!  We love you so much, and we can't wait to see what joys the next year brings!

Now on to the photos....   

Here is the link to Finley's birthday video.  Click here.

Videos!

I'm trying to catch up on videos, so here are a couple to get us started.  The first link is to the videos from Langkawi.  If you've already seen the video I posted previously of breakfast in Langkawi, skip over the first couple of minutes.  There are new clips during the second half of the video.  :)  Click here for the Langkawi video.

If you only have time for one video today, check this one out.  It is Finley helping me read his current favorite book, We're Going on a Bear Hunt.  At the end, he has a little fun pretending to make calls on the phone we use to buzz people into our apartment.  It's pretty cute.  Click here for the Bear Hunt/phone video.

I promise I will post about Finley's birthday soon!  You can blame it being late on all the school work I've been doing.

Photos from Langkawi

So, I should probably be doing school work or baking a birthday cake right now, but I'm taking a quick break to post these photos from Langkawi instead. We had a great trip, and were so excited that we were able to go. It was probably one of the most carefree trips we've taken, because the biggest thing that went wrong was one flight got delayed by less than an hour. Other than that, no problems! (And that is rare for travel in an unknown place!) The weather in Langkawi was great- about 90 degrees and sunny- and the people were very friendly.

These first few photos are of our trip on the cable car up to the top of the mountains. It was an extremely steep ride, but the views were amazing!

In the cable car

View of the islands from the top

Walking between two lookout points (we held on tight to Finley!)

Finley is going to kill me for this when he's older, but it was too funny not to take a photo. This is at one of the lookout areas, where he absolutely insisted we put him on top of whatever that cylinder is, then proceeded to poop, in the position pictured.

Beautiful views

Our only family picture from the whole trip, thanks to another tourist

At the bottom of the cable car, there was a little "Oriental Village" with shops, restaurants, ponds, and playgrounds. We tried to help Finley feed these ducks some of his crackers, but he ate them instead.

Nate got ice cream and gave Finley a little taste

We spent most of our time at the beach and pool while in Langkawi, and Finley was very happy about that! He loved to throw his little basketball in the pool. He attracted some attention from others while there and made some new friends, and one woman even told me with her heavy accent, "Your kid is d*** cute!" I was kind of like, "Oh, uh, thanks!"

Stopping to swing on the way to the beach

Chasing some birds on the way to the beach

A considerable amount of time was spent saying, "Don't eat the sand/seashells!"

We bought Finley some sunglasses, because he's finally getting interested in them. At this point, he'll only wear them for a few minutes at a time, but they're so stinkin' cute.

The little restaurant where we had breakfast every morning

Finley being silly while waiting for his eggs (less that $1 USD) at breakfast. Nate and I enjoyed yummy banana pancakes (less than $2 USD).

View of the pool from our room (it was right there!)

If you look through those trees, you can see how close our room was to the beach

These next several photos are from an outing to the Wildlife Center. It wasn't particularly nice, but they sure had a random assortment of animals, most of whom we were allowed to feed. Finley loved it, so we were glad we went!

Throwing food to the flamingos

This one's blurry, but I had to include it because it shows Finley talking/shouting at the birds, which was hilarious.

We got up close and personal with these little birdies. Finley wasn't quite ready to let them sit on his hand, so he held mine out for them.

Finley throwing food at the birds

Finley was pretty interested in the ostriches. I didn't let him get too close, because I've heard they can be a bit vicious, and I didn't want him to be bitten! (Not to mention, they were surrounded by tons of flies.)

The look on Finley's face here is too funny. He's not sure he can trust that monkey.

It was such a wonderful trip, and I'm really glad we were able to go! Finley learned lots of fun new words and phrases, such as "momocycle", Langkawi, mango lassi, and "swimsoup". It was so fun to have a week of full-on Daddy Time, because we don't usually get that. We've really been missing him this week while he's been gone to the States for a conference, and we can't wait until he comes home Saturday night!

Breakfast in Langkawi

Here's a quick, unedited iPhone video of Finley waiting on his breakfast in Langkawi. Enjoy! Click here.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from the Dennison family! We celebrated this year by dying eggs for the first time. I'll be honest, it was a big job keeping Finley's hands out of the dye, but it was still very fun and a great tradition to start. I decided the kitchen floor would be the safest place to do the eggs. With a lot of help from his parents, Finley managed to get his eggs dyed, only significantly breaking 1 in the process.

As you might imagine, American Easter supplies and candies are not so easy to come by in Hong Kong (especially jelly beans-- practically non-existent here). We were fortunate enough to have a friend give us her extra "grass" and a dye kit to use, and we had the basket left over from a gift someone gave us when Finley was born.

There were several paper towels used during the process, and we could only manage having 3 colors out at a time.

The waiting is the hardest part. Well, actually, the waiting and keeping your hands out of the cups.

Showing off the finished product after his bath. This is the face Finley makes now when you tell him to smile.

On Easter morning, the Easter bunny left some goodies for Finley. Since he doesn't eat candy, he got toddler-friendly treats like animal crackers, freeze-dried strawberries, and fruit bars. He also got some ABC bath stickers.

Going straight for the fruit bars! Yes, we let him eat one for breakfast!

After going to church, we had an egg hunt and lunch with our friends from church. We ended up doing the egg hunt in the gym at the high school since the weather was a little iffy. This is Finley hugging Macy, one of his favorite friends.

Finley discovered some chocolate eggs hidden during the egg hunt, and he was very curious to bite the foil wrapper.

Finley only retrieved about 3 eggs, but he had fun running around the gym like a maniac!