Ellie's prayer

Dear God,
Please keep my daddy safe on his scooter tonight. Please don't let him die. And when it's time for him to go to heaven, then I think that's a good idea but please don't let him die tonight!

Amen.

Rollerblading Class! (Zhi Pai Lun)

Ever since the start of school LAST year, Ellie has been asking, begging to join the after school rollerblading class that her school provides one day a week.  We reluctantly said, "No" in attempt to figure out if her excitement was a fad, or true interest.  She had, after all received ice skates the summer before leaving Taiwan, so we knew she was excited about things of that nature, but she also grew tired of ice skating within minutes of hitting the ice, claiming it's arduousness.

So after a full year of persistence and an agreement with Lola and Baca, we decided her birthday present from Baca and Lola would be new rollerblades and we would pay for her to attend the class weekly.  Needless to say, she was ecstatic!  We waited until this week to really talk about it with her as we knew she would hardly be able to deal with her own excitement.  Well, this has been a long week for her, waiting until her first class on Friday when she would finally see her rollerblades for the first time (we ordered them through the school) and THEN put them on and try them!  

So as you can imagine, Friday came and at 6am Ellie came bursting into our room fully dressed and ready for school shouting, "It's Friday!!"  Haha!  Good morning!  And after waiting an entire school day she finally had her first rollerblading class which was a complete success!! She enjoyed it so thoroughly, in fact that she went home and put on her helmet, elbow pads, knee pads and wrist guards immediately (and would also have put her rollerblades on if I would have allowed her)!  And so, here are the pics to prove her success.

The class was 1 1/2 hrs long and they spent the first 30 minutes applying equipment, sans rollerblades.

Little mei mei waiting patiently to watch Ellie in action.

 Then, they began practicing the art of falling and getting back up again safely.  Really a good idea!

And FINALLY, they put on their skates!

The remainder of time on skates was also spent practicing falling and getting back up again!  Haha! it was really brilliant because the kids learned how to do it successfully and they weren't scared to fall as they had spent most of the time doing it on purpose! 

Can you guess what we will spend our Saturday doing?

Growing Up

Ellie's response to a baby book I was reading to her this afternoon:

Book: "Dream your dreams of moonbeams. Let the night become your friend."
Ellie: "The night can't be your friend!!"
Book: "The twinkling stars will keep you safe till morning comes again."
Ellie: "Are the twinkling stars angels?!"
Kim: "No."

Ellie: "Can stars *really* keep you safe?!"
Kim: "No."
[Clearly our summer trip to the Adler Planetarium did a number on Ellie's view of the cosmos]

And Ellie got her first mani/pedi the day before we left for Taiwan! :)

"Why no posts?" You ask.

There is an answer.  Well more of an excuse, really.  I haven't posted in over a month mostly because I have been sick for that long...well a little longer than that, in fact!  Yes, you guessed it!  I am expecting our THIRD baby!!  This baby is due to arrive about mid-october, and NO, we don't know the gender just yet!  I will let you know when we find out on MAY 9th! We are very excited to know our fate! :)  At 14 1/2 weeks along I already look probably closer to 20 weeks pregnant, but I suppose that's what happens when you've already had two.  Otherwise the course has been about par, with no hiccups, praise God!

It seems a common question is, "Does this pregnancy feel different than the others?"  I'm thinking this question is usually an attempt to try to determine without ultrasound whether or not I'm having a boy or a girl, and for those wondering, every pregnancy has been a little different given different circumstances.  So I can not say with certainty whether this one is drastically different.  I am in Taiwan and THAT is VERY different! ;) 

Another question:  "Will this baby be born in Taiwan?"  YES!  We will go "home" to America this summer (which will mostly be the second trimester for me, though entering into the early parts of the third) and then return for school end of July and have this baby mid-october! :)  So yes, the world will have one more product made in Taiwan!  :)

And yet another: "Do the girls know, and are they excited?"  YES and YES!  In fact, daily I seem to say things like, "I love my two kids!"  Or "I'm so happy I have two girls!"  Or something of the like and Ellie reminds me, "THREE, mom!"  Oh yes, now I have three kids, I guess.  And in addition to praying for a healthy baby, Ellie has been praying for a baby boy since before I ever got pregnant, and she is convinced that God answered her prayer.  Siri usually just points to my belly and says, "You have a baby in your belly."  Yes, she is now speaking in full sentences AND is potty trained, by the way (SHE insisted, not I! And when she started taking her own diaper off, getting her kid-stool and putting herself on the potty, we decided it was probably time! Haha!  Needless to say, this has been an easy transition as she was more than ready!).

And so that is our big news, and the reason...well...excuse...for the silence.

Speaking of the girls, here are some recent pics!  :)

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone!

Yes, we are "celebrating" Chinese New Year here in Taiwan! Basically for us it means a week off of school AND on Thursday and Friday we can not drive on the highways with only one person in the car as that would mean we are not carpooling and to avoid traffic overload on the elevated highways, you MUST carpool! YAY! So we took that as our warning to stay off the roads lest we want to sit in traffic all day.

After doing lots of entertaining over the Christmas and Gregorian calendar new year, we are happy to have a quiet break to ourselves, though it is only because we thoroughly enjoyed our guests that we now feel we can rest! (I WILL post pictures of the family visits!)

Here are some pictures I took a few months ago that I never posted. Two things the girls love to do: 1. Wear their fluffy skirts. 2. Play in their room and on Ellie's bed (For some reason when I take the sheets off of Ellie's bed to wash them, the girls think it's SUPER fun and that they then have permission to jump).

Shunting Trucks and Hauling Freight

Here's Ellie's rendition of the Thomas and Friends theme song:

They're two they're four they're six they're eight

Shunting trucks and hauling freight

red and green and brown and blue

they're a really useful crew

All with different roles to play

'Round Tidmouth sheds or far away,

Down the hills and round the bends

Thomas and his friends

Camaraderie (and snow)!

In effort to support and encourage camaraderie between the girls, Joey and I have decided to put Ellie and Siri in the same room! We had begun to notice jealousy (mostly on Ellie's part, though some on Siri's part too) in the last few months. It seems that once Siri started really walking, things changed around here. Siri began to receive a lot more attention and Ellie began to feel the competition! Ellie even regressed slightly in some of her recent progress and development (namely potty training and sleeping in a toddler bed). So following the advice of my aunt, we decided to let them share a room together in effort to support and encourage their friendship, and hopefully help Ellie return to her normal self again. It's been a bit of a rocky start but I suppose in a good way. They have had a hard time going to sleep because they've been too busy playing together! :) After 4 days it seems they are getting the hang of it and I do feel they have a lot more fun together during play time during the day. So though we've had crabbier children, they've at least had more fun together! :)

Also, Ellie is back on track! She has only had one accident, and she has vowed that she will "never pee in her pants again!"... so far so good. As far as staying in her bed, well she gets up to give things to Siri, but otherwise stays in her room, which is a start I guess! hehe

And just like nearly the rest of the U.S., we got snow this weekend!

A new bike!

Ellie began reaping the benefits of her third birthday about a month in advance with a trip to "The Target mall" with her Baca and Lola. The trip resulted in a new bike complete with training wheels!

It took her a while (about a day) to get used to pedaling and steering, but once she got it, she was unstoppable (with the exception of going uphill)!

At first, we had to put rubber bands on her feet to keep them on the pedals!

Siri had a great time outside with her Baca and Lola too!

A happy (almost) three-year old!!

Neighborhood friends

Our latest source of entertainment in the afternoons while waiting for Joe to come home is playing right outside our front door with the kids that live next door and just across the way! This is somewhat of a new thing, though they would all occasionally play together during the summer. But now that the weather's getting cold, they've finally all decided to be friends! It's been nice for Ellie to have some kids to play with right out her front door. So here are some pics of the kids (mostly Ellie) playing right outside.

Ellie and Reef (notice Reef's glasses!):

Reef and her parents moved to America recently to learn English so our interaction with them consists of very little (though increasingly more!) words.

Here Ellie is riding Reef's bike, a regular occurrence as Ellie does not have one!

The kids in this picture live right next door. The girl is 5 whom Ellie gets along with and plays with the most and the boy is just 3 months younger than Ellie. They also have an older sister,7, who they play with too when she gets home from school:

Another regular form of entertainment in our household is smoothies (oh and phones)!

Never had one lesson!

Although she may seem young, Ellie is really amazing at pressing just the right "keys" to find the perfect (demo) song for the occasion. ;)

She was a little upset about the song that was playing

I just love this picture of Siri so I had to post it!