These Days…

 

These days, Josh’s cheeks are not as plump.

Although they are still rosy.

Especially when he’s hot or when he’s been running around.

These days, he hardly sleeps with both arms above his head anymore.

He mostly sleeps with his arms and legs hugging a bolster pillow.

But he still kicks off his blankets.

These days, he doesn’t look as babyish anymore.

He’s a first grader already.

But forever and always, my baby he will be.

~~--~~

 

For more cute “snoozing” photos, please head on to A Sorta Fairytale.

Beach Babe

 

We hit St. Stephen’s Beach again (remember how we dug for clams and brought them home and made clam soup?).  We’re trying to get a few more visits in before the weather completely gets too cold for going to the beach.

 

The water was beautiful that day –so clean and clear.

~~—~~

For more Black and White Wednesday pictures, please head on over to The Long Road to China.

 

For more WW fun, please visit A Beautiful Mess, Parenting by Dummies, Live and Love Out Loud, 5 Minutes for Mom, and Aspire.

A Little MJ…

 

As in mahjong.

 

(Don’t they look like rows of big, big teeth to you?)

 

My parents were over for a visit last week.  And so was my 83-year old aunt.  My 83-year old aunt who LOVES to play mahjong.

 

Chris and I bought a mahjong table and a mahjong set when my in-laws first came for a visit.  My FIL loved to play mahjong.  There was plenty of ribbing and trash-talking going on –or rather, what amounted to trash-talking from my FIL, the gentle and proper soul that he was.  It was quite cute to hear the glee in his voice and to see how carefree he would get whenever he played.

 

Since my in-laws’ visit a few years ago, we hadn’t really brought out the mahjong table to play. See, you need four players to play;  plus the fact that the only time we’d have to play would be after the kids had gone to bed.  So last week, during my parents’ and my aunt’s visit, I asked if they wanted to play MJ.  My aunt gave a resounding YES!  So, after the kids were in bed, we set up the table and got out the mahjong set.  My aunt, my dad, Chris, and I took up our places.  (My mom doesn’t know how to play.)

 

Chris and I haven’t played in a while and we didn’t remember the rules too well –and there are many different rules, depending on what “style” of mahjong one plays.  My aunt made it simple for us:  Whoever completes a hand first wins.  A hand would consist of four sets of threes –either running numbers or three-of-a-kind, --and a pair.  No complicated scoring and pre-conditions.  And so we played. 

 

We shuffled. It was NOT quiet.  Thankfully, the kids slept on.

 

We built.  We took turns getting blocks of tiles.  We arranged our tiles.

 

We picked new tiles and discarded ones we didn’t need.

 

We laid out to the side the ‘flower’ tiles drawn.  In this particular style of mahjong that we played with my aunt, the flower tiles didn’t count for anything, unlike when we played with my in-laws.

 

After a few rounds of drawing and discarding tiles to build our hands, somebody would gleefully announce victory and the rest of us would pay up (with chips;  We never play for money.)  And then all tiles would be shuffled once again and another round started.  We played quite a number of rounds –until we completed the entire “cycle” dictated by the four “winds” (East, South, West, North).

 

Who won?  My 83-year old aunt did!  And she was giddy with glee!  Like a little child.  So cute!  I think my dad was up a little, too, but Chris and I were both down in our chips from what we started off with.

 

 

Do you know how to play mahjong –the real mahjong, not the solitaire version on the computer?

 

Please share with us what your “Today” is like in your part of the world and link up with Communal Global!

 

iheartfaces – Week # 39 | Chalk

 

The only times my kids are able to play with sidewalk chalk are when we visit my in-laws in Canada.  I chuckle to think what might happen if I give Josh and Zoë some chalk here and let them draw away on the outdoor common area downstairs where they play every day.  Within five seconds, a security guard would most likely come over and tell them off.  I’d probably get disapproving looks from the other parents and grandparents who would be there minding their children.  Not so much for letting my kids have fun, but more for “defacing” public property.  Unfortunately, there are rules and rules are sometimes –in the Josh’s words, –NOT FUN.

Oh, to have a backyard of our own!  Look at Zoë here (2yo in this photo)… Look at her jacket all covered with chalk dust.  Look at her holding a piece of chalk in one hand and a water gun in the other.  She couldn’t make up her mind whether she wants to play with chalk or the water gun. Ah, the hard decisions a child has to make…

~~--~~

For more Chalk photos, please head on to iheartfaces.

The Paper Mama Photo Challenge | A Hint of Color

 

~~—~~

Head on to Paper Mama to see wonderful photos with just “a hint of color.”

My Little Chinese Gurrrrl

 

I don’t know if I can love this little girl any more than I already do.

And yet with each day I find that I do.

Love her a bit more than I did the day before.

How can I not?

 

~~—~~

Zoë’s wearing a Chinese outfit because they had a Lantern Parade at her school to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.  And for the record, all the poses she struck were totally hers.  No direction from anybody.

Macro Friday | Red Lantern

 

A lantern with the Chinese character for “Luck” on it.

~~—~~

 

Do head on over to Blogging from Bolivia to check out other macro entries

iheartfaces – Fix-It Friday # 72

 

The original

Fix-It # 1

Fix-It # 2

~~—~~

Please head on over to iheartfaces to check out other edits of this photo.

Mid-Autumn Festival | Mooncakes

 

Yesterday was the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節).  It was the 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar.  On this day, the moon is supposedly at its roundest and brightest.  But we had been having some rain and we didn’t see the moon last night.

Traditionally, people buy, eat, and gift each other with mooncakes in celebration of the festival.  One usually buys them from bakeries… and they come in square tins of four.

Neither Chris nor I are fond of mooncakes, but surprisingly both Josh and Zoë love mooncakes.  They first got a taste of the delicacy as a snack in their school.  This year, HSBC (Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) gave away boxes of mooncakes and even got the bakery to put the HSBC name on the mooncake itself (see picture below).  Talk about opportunistic marketing.  I thought that was pretty cool, even though I don’t eat mooncakes.

Traditionally, the mooncake filling is made with lotus seed paste, “considered by some to be the original and most luxurious mooncake filling.” According to the Wiki article about mooncakes.

Here is a cross-section of a double-yolk mooncake, one of the premium mooncakes.  The yolk symbolizes the moon.

Are mooncakes yummy?  I guess they are.  I know quite a number of my friends who LOVE mooncakes and one of them could even consume an entire tin of four mooncakes all by herself!

Here’s an interesting folk tale (from same Wiki article) about the significance of mooncakes… at least during the Ming Revolution:

Mooncakes were used as a medium by the Ming revolutionaries in their espionage effort to secretly distribute letters in order to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China in the Yuan dynasty. The idea is said to be conceived by Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) and his advisor Liu Bowen (劉伯溫), who circulated a rumor that a deadly plague was spreading and the only way to prevent it was to eat special mooncakes. This prompted the quick distribution of mooncakes, which were used to hide a secret message coordinating the Han Chinese revolt on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month.

Another method of hiding the message was printed in the surface of mooncakes as a simple puzzle or mosaic. In order to read the encrypted message, each of the four mooncakes packaged together must be cut into four parts each. The 16 pieces of mooncake, must then be pieced together in such a fashion that the secret messages can be read. The pieces of mooncake are then eaten to destroy the message.

~~—~~

Have you tried mooncakes before?  Would you try them if you were served or offered some?

At the Library

 

Zoë had an unexpected day-off from school today on account of a typhoon.  Kindergarten classes are suspended when the Typhoon 3 signal is hoisted.  So we headed to the library.  She immediately ran to the children’s section and sat down at one of the little tables.  There were chairs of different colors and she first sat on a red chair.  Then she promptly got up and moved to a green chair, because “I’m wearing green and it matches the green chair.”

 

She had pulled out Madeline in London and asked me to read to her.  We have Madeline in Paris at home, so the book has familiar characters.  She sat through the entire reading and then she decided that she wanted to play on the computer.

Before we left, we borrowed a few Mr. Men books for Josh, who finds the series quite funny and would giggle and laugh out loud whenever he reads the books.

~~—~~

“We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.” ~ B.F. Skinner

~~—~~

For more Black and White Wednesday pictures, please head on over to The Long Road to China.

For more WW fun, please visit A Beautiful Mess, 7 Clown Circus, Live and Love Out Loud, 5 Minutes for Mom, and Aspire.

Inside-Painted Snuff Bottles

 

My parents visited China and brought these back for their friend.

 

These are decorative snuff bottles hand-painted from the inside.

 

From Wikipedia, “These are glass bottles which have pictures and often calligraphy painted on the inside surface of the glass.  These delightful scenes are only an inch or two high and are painted while manipulating the brush through the neck of the bottle maybe only a quarter inch across, and also painted in reverse. Ursula Bourne, in her treatise on snuff, suggests that artisans painted on their backs to make it easier to work through the narrow opening. It has been said that a skilled artist may complete a simple bottle in a week while something special may take a month or more and that the best craftsmen will produce only a few bottles in a year.”

…and they came in this very pretty red box.

If you get one of these bottles, what do you think you’ll use it for?

~~—~~

Please share with us and link up with Communal Global’s “Today”!

iheartfaces – Week # 38 | Smirk

 

I saw the theme this week and I thought, “Oh, perfect!”  I have plenty of “smirk” photos of Josh.  But wouldn’t you know it, when I looked through to find one, I actually had to look through several folders before I found one I liked! 

We were at the hardware store and the kids were goofing around trying on the hard hats, while Chris was trying to find what he needed.  Josh had face paint on, because I had to “entertain” the kids that morning.

The slightest hint of a smirk, but a smirk nonetheless… “What, another picture?”

~~--~~

For more smirky faces, please head on to iheartfaces.

Paper Mama Challenge | Baby Hands

 

My ‘babies’ are not exactly babies anymore.  I miss their chubby hands and dimply knuckles.  But you know what?  My fascination with their hands have moved on to a different level… See what not-quite-baby hands can do now?

 

~~—~~

Head on to Paper Mama to see pretty, cute, chubby, dimply baby hands and fingers.