Toothbrush girl

Here is evidence of her obsession with:

A: toothbrushes

B: holding an object in EACH hand.

A glimpse

Here is a glimpse of our compound. We live in a place called "New World Garden". It was the very first ex-pat compounds here in Dongcheng. The compound consists of high rise and low rise apartment buildings, townhomes, and free standing houses. We live in a low rise apartment buildings. There are shops and restaurants underneath all of the apartments. There is a lake/pond in the middle of the complex and right across from our building. (middle picture on the far left---our building is on the right) Sometimes we walk around the lake and bring some bread to feed the fishes. Don't you just want to take a dip in the lake? It has such an inviting dark muddy brown color. :) The picture with stairs in the middle takes you to a neighborhood street with homes. A lot of them are being renovated. But most of them I have seen in or been inside of are decorated in typical chinese fashion--marble floors, fancy chandeliers, a bit too gaudy for my taste.

Today Graham was pretending Santa was at our house. When I came out from putting Finley down for a nap. He told me that Santa had left.  I asked Graham if he wanted to write a letter to Santa. The following conversation happened.

G: "Yes!"

Me: "Okay let me go get some paper."

G: Runs back and gets his phone (An old cell phone of OJ's) "Its okay Mom, I'll just do it on my phone." Then he starts counting in Chinese under his breath?? (I think he thought he was spelling) Then he shows me his phone and says, "Look, it's his name."

Diwali

 Every year the Indians throw a huge party for Diwali- Festival of Lights. This year they opened it up to the public. So we went. They had excellent food catered from a nearby Indian restaurant. They had a few displays up and some performances. I loved seeing everyone in their native attire. So fun to experience these different cultures first-hand!

Dancing Queen

We started our weekend with Graham splitting his head open. We should've known that it wouldn't end with that. The next day Finley burned her hand on my flat iron and then had a HUGE blowout on the way home from church (at least it was on the way home...right?) I looked back and thought she had been playing with her food and smooshing it all over herself but no, it was her poop. OJ was driving and repeatedly saying, "Oh my gosh, I'm gonna throw up." We then were stuck in traffic for an extra 45 minutes...

Sidenote: When we drive to church there are always men walking up and down the rows of cars while we are stopped at traffic lights. Well, they sell things. Isn't that funny? Newspapers, airfreshners, etc. I jokingly said, "Too bad they don't sell something cool like cotton candy." OJ (a little stressed from driving ) in all seriousness says, "Tara, I don't think it would be a good idea to buy cotton candy from them." :) So yesterday I made OJ pretend he was going to get something so I could take a picture.

On Saturday my friend Rohini took me to the fabric market. Piles and piles of fabric. Its in the older section of Dongguan so it still has old homes and whatnot, such a great way to see chinese culture first hand. Anyway, the fabric is SO cheap! You have to dig through to find what you want but...its all part of the experience right?

Like I said, the fun never stops. :)

Oh China...

I received this email from OJ on Wednesday:

"So I'm on my way to work and my driver (in a taxi) stops on the side of the road and says I need to pee it will just take a minute.
It took about a minute and we went on our way. I feel like I'm riding in a dirty bathroom car."

Never a dull moment around here...

Can we take a minute and talk about my cute kids for a second?

Ever since Halloween Graham digs his hair like a "dragon".

Can you believe how tall Finley is? She can totally walk, but she won't. She'll walk between OJ and I but will chicken out if I encourage her to walk down the hall. She will however take my pointer finger and suddenly has all the courage in the world. :)

Oh and Graham split his head open today. Awesome. At least OJ was home with him instead of me. I would have flipped out. Don't worry, he just superglued it. Once again...awesome.

I told you...never a dull moment around here.

Its fun. Want to come visit?

Halloween

We had a great Halloween. The week before we had a party at our apartment. The day before Halloween we went to a birthday party and went trick-or-treating. Halloween night OJ made us some famous "hobgoblin" sandwiches, we made sugar cookies, and watched a little show. This is the first year it has actually felt like a holiday. It was nice to have other people around to celebrate with. The Dongguan International Women's Association organized trick-or-treating around our compound (There are free standing homes, townhomes, and apartments where we live). We went to about 10 different homes. They had gone all out decorating and it was fun to be out with everyone. Its amazing what a difference it makes having friends and feeling a part of something.