Thanksgiving FHE

So, for family home evening last week we began a "Things that we are thankful for" chat. We drew hand turkeys and began to write things we are thankful for. Ever night before we go to bed we write at least one thing per person that we are thankful for. Right now we have these things:
family
music
baba's (blankets)
Amy (our nanny)
food
Daddy
coloring
colors
kitties
western toilets
prayer
unselfish people
Jesus
Jesus name (this one is quite funny because EVER night I ask Kenya and the first thing she say is "Jesus name" I do not think this is by accident either. I think that she just really knows more and has more faith in the gospel than I do sometimes. Really, we would have nothing if it were not for Jesus's name. What a smart girl!)
There are other, but I don't remember them at this time. There are so many things we are grateful for and it is good to express it on paper. I think I will take a picture at the end to show what we made.

School trip.

I guess about every two months of the 2 days of testing the school takes all of the children on what they call a picnic. They take a day trip for fun. In November we went to a history museum and then to a smaller amusement park. The museum was awesome, even though we only have like 25 minutes there. It was a museum about the opium wars with the British. It was I am sure the edited Chinese version, but was still cool to see. We only made it through about 1/3 of it. It was cool to have the students walk around with us and tell us the story and see the pride of the country as they told us. We were quite disappointed in the park though, it was small and very dirty. We had lunch with all of the teachers at a restaurant and that took up most of our time at the park. We had passes to ride the rides, but we did not get to do anything. We were able to bring Kenya with us and she behaved really well! Especially when when we had more than 3 hours on the bus that day. We enjoyed ourselves that day.







This was our guide from the bus. He loved Kenya!
Eating lunch. The lunch was quite good!

I will say again. Most of my time was saying "Thank you" to all the people gathered around us and saying how cute Kenya was! She draws quite the crowd!

UPDATES: I hope this is the last of the updates,

Here are some pictures and videos of Kenya that you cannot miss.

What a cutie!

Here is the cake Robert got for me for my birthday. It looked great and was huge! Thanks!
Robert and I hired a guy to dig to America. Here he is hard at work. We figure it would be faster and maybe Grandma and Papa will come visit through the whole rather than flying. At the rate he was going it should be done by Christmas. Who is coming to visit?

Kenya still loves to help clean in anyway. She mops, sweeps, does the laundry, dishes, and putting things away. She is such a big helper and I am learning to let her help and not worry about having to clean up after her help.
Just playing one day in cubes.

This video is of Kenya talking to mama (Grandma) on the phone. She was telling her about our trip to the zoo and talking about a book with a Lion that goes to sleep. (Shi zi if Chinese for lion, you can hear her say "shi zi roar.") Really, we need to do more video of her speaking Chinese, her vocabulary is getting bigger all the time!

Here is Kenya singing. One day she just started sing along with me. This is one of her favorite songs! I was so impressed to hear that she knows so many words to the song. She has been singing more and more.

Yaohua School Halloween Party

We had a great party planned for the school. They adapted it and here is their take on a Halloween carnival.
Here is the party from the 2nd floor of the school. Lots and lots of people. When Robert and I proposed the party it was just for the International section of the school. The school took that idea and invited over 1200 people. I must say, the school pulled it off very well. I think everyone had a lot of fun. The only part that was not fun was the trick0-or-treating. There are 7 teachers here and we thought that everyone was going to share handing out candy, however it was just Robert, Laura (who had only been in China 1 day) and myself. That's right folks we handled ALL of the trick-or-treaters. I went home with a sore back from bending over and getting the candy. It had to have been well over 1000 students that got candy. We really have a great nanny, because she looked after Kenya the hour that I was handing out candy.
This is the administration of the school and some people visiting form America. Thanks for the American goodies.
Here is a picture of the ground level of the party. They had these giant party poppers. Really, they were like 3 feet long and full confetti. You can see a little of it in the air. I got to pop one. It was great!
Here is a look at Robert's costume and one of the 9th grade students, Jackie.
Robert loved scaring the students. Of coarse! It was fun to watch too.
Me and Amy at the party. Really, should a zombie be smiling? Lois, what were you thinking.

Robert and I were Yaohua student zombies. Our make-up was done quite well. Amy our nanny came with us to the party and Pascal is a senior who we did his make-up to be a vampire. He had a trash bag cape.
Kenya playing in Amy's hat.
I was putting make-up on myself and Robert. Kenya was watching and grabbed a brush and started to get Isis ready. She has really grown found of her dog. She takes it to the potty, tells it what it can and cannot do, feeds it, wants to shower it and so many more things. I think a baby doll my be on her Christmas list.

Here is a video of the chaos at the beginning of the party. Those white things standing up are what we used for trick-or-treating. We stood inside and had to bend down cut out window to give the candy. That was not fun at all! But the kids loved it.

Happy Halloween!

China does not celebrate Halloween, but we have many friends that live in a very large villa. There community is almost all foreigners and so it is the place to go to traditional American holidays. Some of our friends here organized trick-or-treating on Saturday night and then we had a party afterward. (Because Halloween in on Sunday) It was fun! Kenya was this gorgeous ladybug! She had fun and even said "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" to most of the people. We brought our friend Pascal with us too! It was his first Halloween. We made him bob for apples. Really, what is Halloween without bobbing for apples? Enjoy the pictures and videos
We have our school Halloween party tonight. I will post picture of those sometime later.


There were at least 3 lady bugs at this party! I think there were actually 2 more.


This is the golf cart at the villa where the party was. AWESOME!

Sorry about the video quality, it is the low light that made it so bad! My girl is so cute!

UPDATES: Yaohua School "You've Got Talent"

This was a talent show that the international section put on. They invited Robert to dance just 2 days before the show. Here are some of the performances that we think were a little more traditional that we would like to share.

UPDATES: Random

This was the second time that we went to sushi. We brought Amy with us. This is at Dairy Queen afterward.
These are pictures of Robert, Amy and myself eating a small red octopus. It was cold and chewy.

I could not resist putting Kenya in her Halloween clothes starting on October 1st. This is he dress I bought last year.


We had some of the senior students over for dinner and a movie on Oct 1st. It is China's National Day. We watched National Treasure, the students picked. We thought it was quite funny to watch a movie about American history on China's National Day! It was a lot of fun. The Senior students do not have any teachers. They actually have 2 semesters dedicated to apply for colleges in the US. We were really shocked. All of these students are fluent in English and so they help us out quite a bit! It was a lot of fun. I cooked tacos for them. Thanks mom for the seasoning.

These next pictures are of a park that is just a ways down the street from us. It is a huge park! It was great. We actually went here the same say we had the seniors over. We had quite the busy day that day. The park was packed with people because it was a national holiday, but we still enjoyed it.

Here is Amy and Kenya!
This is normal when we go out. People take Kenya's picture all the time. They ofter shove their kids into the picture too. This day was especially bad. It really was like 10 minutes of people taking her picture. Really people, what are they going to do with the pictures? Hang them on their walls like family photos? "Look at this cute baby we saw once." We are puzzled as to why they want to pictures.
These were people just outside our complex gates exercising in the morning. They are doing Ti Chi.

This last picture is one Robert took right out on our balcony. Really, I guess the city does have its own beauty. I still miss the trees and nature more. I don't think I am cut out to be a city girl for long periods of time.

UPDATES: Kenya knows Chinese

Here is a video of Kenya. This was on September 24. Since then she has learned how to identify several more things and has begun to use them in her speech. It was about 2 weeks ago that she started to talk to Robert and I using Chinese words. For example: I walked in after going shopping and when I came in the door Kenya say "Ni How, Mommy!" That is hello, she uses the word for careful and any of the fruits and animals regularly.

UPDATE: Children's Palace

During our days off for the Moon Festival we went to a place called "The Children's Palace." It was a little science center for the children to explore and discover. And it is completely FREE! We had fun. Afterward we ate sushi. It was really yummy! We have actually been back to the same sushi place and plan on going back often! We were so excited to get some decent sushi after 5 years.

Above: This was a sugar cane that this man put through a grinder and out came a drink. The drink is in my hand. It was sure sweet. Interesting to try. His drink stand was just a machine on his bike.




This video is Kenya in a slanted room. I wish we could have gotten the first time that she tried to walk in there.


Guess what this next video is... you guessed it! Kenya dancing!

One Down!

That is that I have potty trained my first child. She still has accidents, but Amy was able to get us so underwear for Kenya and so we just bought our last box of diapers. We will use them at night time until she can control that a little bit better, but no more diapers during the day. I think she can do it. So, I am considering that potty trained! Okay, I know that she is still going to have accidents, but most kids do or a little while after they make the change from diapers to underwear. We were mostly waiting for her to choose to use the toilet for poops and for the last couple days she has. We are praying that it will stick, because cleaning up poopy underwear is not fun, I have done it. GREAT JOB KENYA! Once again your are amazing!

Shenzhen Safari Park/Zoo

We went to the zoo last week during our holiday. Kenya loved it so much! I think her favorite was the monkeys. She kept asking "more monkeys." And we still hear about the monkeys at home almost everyday. On the way to the zoo we told her that we were going to see the animals and so now she knows that word and asks to go see the animals. She is getting quite big and learning quickly. What a wonderful blessing she is in our lives! At the zoo we had lots of fun. We took our nanny Amy with us. We saw a great seal and dolphins show. It was great! We also saw a circus at the end of the day. I had been wanting to see a good circus for years. This circus was short, about 25-30 minutes, but it was great! We all had fun and it was something we could share with Kenya during our vacation.

This is Kenya already for the day. She was so cute! I put her hair in pigtails.

The Drapers in front of the zoo.


Amy and Kenya in front of Gibbon Island. This was the first thing we saw as we came into the zoo. Yep, monkeys!
Kenya got to ride on giant chickens. And she let us know they were chickens like at mama and papa's house.
We were super close to the gibbons. There was just a mote around the island, no cages!

We paid just over a $1 to feed giraffes. They sure have strong jaws, they ripped the branches right out of our hands. Kenya enjoyed this, as well as mommy and daddy!

The elephants were fun. Someone was feeding this one peanuts.

Zebras, Amy and I got to pet this one. There were several animals that you could pay to feed. Zebras were one of them. We did not pay, but I am guessing that is why this Zebra let us pet it.
Hippos. This is about all we saw of them. They did come up or a breath once or twice.
How, cute! The swans in the water fountains behind us are kissing too. This was daddy's cute idea!
Kenya, loves fish! Of coarse there were lots of gold fish to feed in the ponds.
These were the penguins. Kenya liked watching them swim. She loves the water and we were all sad when the pool at our apts closed at the end of September.
Here are some pictures of the show. There are videos at the end too!




Black panthers, Robert's favorite animals!
What a cute baby! She did great the entire day! She had a dry diaper the entire day. We had to brave using the Chinese public toilets, but it was her choice. Way to go Kenya!
Just before the circus started. I love it when these two walk around holding hands! I cannot get enough!
Yeah, he is upside down on a horse running full speed. They were quite good at their tricks! It reminded me of Toby Tyler!

This bear was being fed. He would stand there and beg, or ask nicely until someone throw him an apple.
The is a Tigon. This zoo has both tigons and ligers. To us they both looked the same.
So, I was going to post video, but it is giving me an error when I try. I will just post them later maybe.