Diaper bag

Not that I need another diaper bag. But women know it's nice to have options. You don't want to use the same purse everyday, so why have just one diaper bag? So, I made a personalized one last week during our Chinese New Year break. Wish I had done this with Harrison. I was very happy with my bag with photos of him, Ryan and myself. That one was pretty personalized too.
I think I might add a few more embellishments later. Just haven't decided on what yet.

THING 2

Couldn't help myself. I just think he is so adorable in his pajamas. I always think of Dr. Seuss when he runs around dressed like this. He sure knows how to make a mess too!
See what I mean.
"Uh-oh, daddy found me, now who can I blame this mess on?"

Martyr's Shrine

So, we have lived in the same apartment going on two years now. We live in Shihlin, a district of Taipei. We are very close to the Grand Hotel and not much farther, the Martyr's Shrine. Well, until Christmas break, I had no idea it was the Martyr's Shrine; we pass it all the time but I had never looked up what it was. It is very beautiful and always has tourists. I had always assumed it was a temple. I finally looked it up in a tourist brochure during Christmas break and decided to go. It took two tries, and since the bus never came the first time, the second time we just walked there. It was a great day out with my family! Here is a glimpse of our afternoon.
This is the front gate, taken from inside.
The inside
Harrison and me
Love the Asian architecture
A bust of a famous martyr-this is what is inside the pretty gazebo.
The entrance to the shrine-such beautiful colors, and details
Changing the guard, done every hour.
They stand silently at the entrance to the main hall for about a minute. No one is allowed to enter and can only look through the doors.

Thing #1

Hello friends. I have joined a group of super cool people on a year-long journey of blogging about 36 significant things we will each be doing.
So, my first thing to share with you is that I have taken up sewing. I know, I started this a little before February, as evidenced by the scarf I made Harrison last month. Since then, I have made:
This pink rattle for Camille, the daughter of our coworkers Nestor and Karina.
This jungle themed changing pad for Marshall.
This evening I made these shorts for Harrison. I made the matching bloomers for Marshall a little while ago. I didn't think to make the shorts for Harry until I went to the fabric market with Alice last week and she suggested I make matching jumpers for the boys. Now I am all about matching clothes for our sons. They might not be crazy about the photos when they are older but for now, I think they will be adorable!
I haven't made anything since high school when I was introduced to the fun of sewing in home economics class where I made my first dress. I have to relearn a little bit and have looked up more than one term on the internet during these projects. But it is so fun making baby stuff!!! I am considering embroidering a small blanket with Tiffany (for Marshall). That's all for now.

Scarf

Yesterday I was finally struck with the inspiration to make something with my fabulous Christmas present from Ryan, Simple sewing for baby. So, I made Harrison a scarf. After I finished all the sewing, I took him to the store to pick out a button for it. And here is the end result. Thanks to Alice for making this all possible by taking me to the fabric market AND lending me her sewing machine!

Christmas

Harrison bundled up because it is always cold in our apartment. He is giving the peace sign, because that is just what you do for photos in Taiwan.
Wearing my scarf and posing, Taiwanese style, for the camera.
Our tree with all our presents underneath.
Now- with our presents plus all the presents Kenny brought from our family back in the US.
Christmas eve, he arranged his trains at the top of his pillow and went to sleep.

We have had such a fun and eventful Christmas break, and it isn't even new years yet. As soon as exams were over we took Tiffany to the Adventist hospital to have her teeth cleaned. That weekend we sent her to Japan for a day to renew her visa.

On Tuesday Kenny delivered the presents he had brought from our family back in TN, and took us to the glass museum. Wednesday's excitement was a doctors appointment for me where we found out we are expecting another BOY! - Marshall.

Of course Thursday was Christmas eve. We went downtown, bought a few more presents, had dinner at a Japanese place where they cook in front of you, saw lots of pretty lights and some very large Christmas trees. Then headed home to unwrap presents with a very excited toddler. Harrison barely got his shoes off before running to the tree and yelling "otent prepents" translation: open presents. Harrison handed out all the presents before he sat down to unwrap his. When we finished opening presents, I told Harrison it was time to get ready for bed. He immediately jumped up, grabbed all his trains, went to his room and called us in to have prayer with him.

Christmas morning Harrison actually didn't wake us up like usual (standing beside our bed loudly saying EAT), instead he quietly came to the living room to play with his new train set. Then when the rest of us joined him we opened our stockings and then headed to Alice and Harry Bennett's for Christmas dinner with them and Tamara Karr, all TAPA coworkers. Saturday was pretty uneventful, but we did rent Polar Express for Harrison, boy did he love it.

Yesterday Tiffany and I went to a fabric market with Alice and Tamara, I had no idea of it's existence before. I bought some fabric to make a few things for the baby. Ryan got me the book Simple Sewing for Baby for Christmas. It was a book I saw at Barnes and Noble this summer and told Ryan I wanted it if we ever had another baby. I was very surprised that he remembered.

And now we are at today. We planned to go to the Martyr's Shrine but after waiting at the bus stop for more than 45 minutes in the cold and when it started to rain, we gave up and headed home. We will try again sometime this week, hopefully on a day that rain isn't in the forecast.

Tittot Glass Museum

Kenny Lee and Tiffany picking out glass for their projects.
Kenny working on his pac-man tray.
The finished project, complete with ghosts.
Tiffany working on the mold for her project.
Tiffany's project after decorating with glass fragments.
Angel made a beautiful and very artsy clock.
Here she is at the beginning stages.
Harrison's beautiful project, not accomplished without the shedding of a few tears.
Very glad Harrison insisted on bringing his backpack he packed with toys, since he was done with his glass art project within about 5 minutes while the rest took around 2 hours.
Ryan designing his map on a glass, before it was etched on.

Last Tuesday Angel and Kenny took us to a glass museum. We had a wonderful guided tour, Kenny translated, and then finished up with each of us doing our own glass project in their workshop. The museum pieces were beautiful although some were a bit confusing. The first floor of the museum was a showroom of pieces that were all made there, by the Tittot artisans. While the second floor had local and international pieces and a brief history/time-line of glass making.

Ryan got to bring his home that day but Tiffany and I have to wait two weeks for ours to be finished. Can't wait!

Getting into the holiday spirit

This year, we decided to go ahead and splurge on Christmas decorations. We bought a small fake tree and went with very traditional colors- red, green and gold. We put everything up during our Thanksgiving break; and since then Harrison has had many opportunities to reorganize the placement of all the ornaments within his reach, or to simply take them off and play with them. The snowman ornament I bought especially for him and told him it was his and he could take it off any time he wanted, guess in his mind that meant "all ornaments are Harry's to do with as I please." And yes he speaks about himself in third person, so I assume he thinks about himself that way to.

The stockings we had last year. The red ones were a gift from Ryan's parents, with our names on them. The blue and white one says "boy" on the front, I bought it here for Harrison last year, and we used it for Tiffany, hehe.

The pictures in front of the tree are ones we took to send out in our Christmas cards this year.

Thanksgiving 09

Our first Thanksgiving all by ourselves! What a fun time we had. Ordered our pie from Wendels German bakery, Ryan made the potatoes and gravy (I helped), and I made the corn and rice. The turkey was compliments of Tiffany, she won it at the school's Thanksgiving dinner at Chili's.

Miracles happen

This weekend was a very enjoyable one. We decided not to make the hour long trek to church, so Ryan and Tiffany got to sleep in on Saturday. We went to the playground with Harrison in the afternoon, until it started to rain. Then we had the pleasure of babysitting little Camille. She was so fun and adorable. She talked and talked to Harrison and he showed her his favorite toy- Bubba, a stuffed puppy. He showed her Bubba's foot, hand, ear, nose, eyes, tummy and back.
On Sunday, Ryan and Tiff slept in again. Harry and I went to the grocery store and when we got back they were still... Sleeping! That afternoon after Harrison and I took a nap, we all went downtown to Eslite bookstore, where I found an adorable memory book. Then we went to a food court to eat some yummy Japanese food, unfortunately that eatery was closed. We did happen across a Godiva store where Tiffany and I each got a truffle! Then we picked up food from about three different booths and ate to our fill, except for Ryan, who- as you probably know, is never full! As it was getting late we headed home knowing Harrison wouldn't be in bed by his regular bedtime. When we got to our stop, Jiantan, on the MRT we deboarded the train and headed to the escalator. When we got about halfway down on the escalator Harrison started fussing and saying "SHOE, SHOE," I looked down and saw his shoe had disappeared into the side of the escalator! I immediately picked him up and tried pulling his leg, it didn't budge though, so i quickly pulled down his sock and managed to free his foot that way, then the escalator spit the shoe and sock back out onto our step. I picked it all up just before we reached the bottom. He was wearing his crocs and the one that had been stuck was completely destroyed. Ryan tossed it in the trash, and I carried Harrison home. All the way home Harrison kept telling us about his harrowing experience. "Shoe, away, daddy. Hurt." Which meant, "Daddy threw away his shoe." And "his foot hurt."
How grateful we are to have been able to bring home our little boy, without even a scratch! God is so good.

Proud moments in a mother's life

This weekend was pretty big in my book!
In Sabbath school Harrison said the main three words from the memory verse this week. After we say the memory verse together as a group, parents included, I have the kids come and repeat the memory verse to me. Then I give them a sticker to put on a chart by their name, for saying the memory verse. Well, Harrison wanted to put up a sticker too. So I said the memory verse to him one word at a time and he repeated "good to help". I was so thrilled. It is of course my prayer that the Bible will be one of his favorite books and that he will put much of it to memory. I am so happy that he is starting now :)

Then on Sunday morning, while Ryan and Tiffany were still asleep. Harrison and I were playing in the living room and I asked him if he needed to go potty. He yelled potty and ran to the bathroom and pulled down his pullup, sat on his little potty for a while and peed!!! Yay. It's a start anyway. There is much more work to be done.

Pinata time

Harrison's 2nd birthday party

We celebrated Harrison turning two at Daan Park on Sunday, September 20. Those in attendance: Harrison (a given!), myself, Ryan, my sister Tiffany, Cha Ye -Ryan's friend, Nestor and Karina - our coworkers, and their daughter Camille.
Here is a glimpse of some of our fun!

Tiffany, Ryan, me, and Harrison

Karina and Nestor with baby Camille

Cha Ye, me, and Tiffany doing our Taiwan pose

Cha Ye got Harrison a book with blocks and pictures of shapes you can make with them.

Harrison loved his cake. I bought the box of cake mix a week before the party and all through the week Harrison kept getting it out and asking for "day day" which means birthday.

I made the pinata and Harrison was so excited! It turned out to be more than he could handle though, and aunt Tiffany had to cut a hole in the side so he could break it open.