Livin' Like a Celeb

Sometimes in China...wait, Many times in China, as a foreigner, you are approached by Chinese who want to take a picture with you. Often, they hand off their baby to snap a picture of you and the little one. I'm sure it goes straight into the baby book "First Foreigner Photo."

I like to think it is because they are in awe of my beauty. Or think I am a celebrity. (kidding) In reality, I'm sure it is just because they think I look weird with my bright orange hair!

Well, on our recent trip to Shanghai. John was hit by the paparazzi. We thought this grown man was offering to take a picture of Carter and Daddy on his first train ride. NOPE. He wanted a picture with John all for himself.

Take a look at how awkward this photo is! (they always are.)



Do you get close? Do you put your arm around their shoulder? Throw the piece sign up? Or just keep them by your side?

John was a good sport and the two became fast friends. John practiced his Chinese with the man until the conversation too became awkward with this question "How much money do you make each month?"

Hmm.....

"Not enough." Quick save John!

And I leave you with Carter. Into the baby book:



"First Train Ride!"

WARNING: Explosive Poop Pictures

When you become a parent, there seems to be a strange obsession with bodily functions. Every few hours, you open your child's diaper hoping to find it wet, or REALLY wet. When it isn't, you keep a watchful eye on that baby until you witness signs of some type of movement in that direction.

Well, last week, Carter was wet at each diaper. However, for 4 days straight he was never REALLY REALLY wet. 4 days. 4 DAYS!! In that amount of time, we had anxiously waited and opened each diaper with anticipation.

Apparently this is normal at his age. BUT we desperately wanted to see some poop in that diaper!!!

Well on the night of the fourth day, after a full belly, he seemed super relaxed on mommy's lap. And then, I noticed a sudden wetness all over my lap. When I lifted him up, I noticed the deed had been done....and it was ever where! It was on mommy and all over Carter.

All over his back....





And down his legs to his feet. As you can see, this happy baby doesn't seem to mind at all!

We rushed him into the tub and cleaned up that messy baby!



He was so happy afterward that he did his happy jig.



Then relaxed before bedtime!

There's No Stopping Him

This is how we found Carter yesterday morning. He is supposed to be wrapped like a burrito in this thing!!


(I snuck him into our bed for a bit. Bad mommy!)

Notice the legs and arms are out. This clearly took a lot of work. I don't know how I didn't hear any of this. Especially since he grunts 24/7 and his bed is right next to ours.



I wish I had a camera set up to watch the escape in action.

Got Milk?

We're Baaaack!

It has been way too long and way too much has happened in the mean time.

Last time I blogged Carter looked like this...


This was the day of my 41 WEEK appointment...and much to my surprise, the day the doctor said Carter MUST come out.


He is now 7 weeks old and looks like this...


So much has obviously happened in between these two pictures.

-Carter arrived on January 16, 2010 after an emergency induction, followed up 9 hours later by an emergency C-Section.
-Carter's Grandma and Grandpa Van Sickle came for a visit!
-We moved from Shanghai to Nanjing.
-Carter outgrew his New Born clothes.
-He began to smile.
-He lost a ton of hair and it is slowly growing back.
-He has gained 4 lbs since birth, weighing in at a hefty 11.7 lbs.

and the MOST current news...

his latest trick

Things That Make You Go Hmm....

We have no clue what this means, but it has got to be good.



Was it supposed to be PEACE or FAITH? Who knows.

Believe it or not...this is NOT a one-of-a-kind. The lady selling these had tons of them. She also would not negotiate price because she said it "was the best quality." I didn't have the heart to tell her that it was not the "best quality" because it means nothing to the people she is trying to sell it to. So I paid full price of 30RMB (~4.50USD) and was full of FACE with my purchace.

Our Furniture Has Arrived

Having furniture made here was a big experimental project on our part. There are no Pottery Barn's, Z Gallerie's, or even Rooms-to-Go in China. We also didn't have a real NEED to have furniture while living overseas because every home we live in is furnished. However, we don't have much real furniture at home-home.

Before we moved to Norway, we were just settling down in El Paso, Texas. We bought a house and started moving in, only to be transferred six short months later. Needless to say, we pretty much combined our bachelor/bachelorette furniture with a few new pieces and made do...all of which is in now in storage.

So why would we buy furniture here?

Two reasons:

1. Because it is dirt cheap. I LOVE a good deal. That is the truth.
2. There are wonderful people here who are experts at replicating/copying.

What made this challenging was that the furniture workshop is an hour away one direction, the fabric market is one hour in the other direction,(I'm sure our driver, Mr. Goo, is as sick of these places as I am) and there is very little English involved, which can get tricky.

At the bottom of this post is what we had in mind.

And here are some pics of what we got!!




The new things in this picture are the apothocary cabinet in the left corner. The two chairs, the pedestal table and the ottoman coffee table.