Nihao, Cupcake!

Red Chinese New Year Dragon Cupcake Cake with Chocolate Pretzel Wings

My youngest son's birthday landed on Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) this year. And as you may know, it is the year of the dragon, so what cake is more fitting than a red (color of celebration) Chinese dragon cupcake cake for the occasion?

My middle son was born in the year of the dragon, so this is his year too! Quite a serendipitously special year for our family since we are living in China, to boot! And this is supposed to be the best year of the dragon as well as the best year of the 144 year cycle (12 cycles of 12 years). Not bad!! 

I'm especially proud of those chocolate pretzel wings that I came up with an hour before we had to leave the house to take the dragon to school. My original idea was a horrible failure, in fact, I knew as soon as I opened the package of the fruit tape that it wouldn't work, so I didn't even try. When in doubt, turn to melting chocolate - it is so easy and you can make anything you want. 

I drew the outline and bones of one wing, put the drawing under waxed paper, I traced the three bone areas with a thick line of chocolate and then placed the pretzel sticks down, Then I filled in the wings and coverd the handle pretzels with a lot of chocolate. Then I flipped the drawing over, traced it through to the other side, followed the same steps as above to make a new wing that was the mirror image of the first wing. Then I placed them in the refrigerator for around 30 minutes and they were done! I did have to saw off the ends with a serrated knife because the handles were too long to stick into a cupcake. But otherwise they worked perfectly! PHEW!

And here he is with the goodie bags he made for his class. (I'll post more details about these in a future post.) That is his drawing of a dragon dance complete with lanterns. THe back side says Happy New Year inside a latern surrounded by fire works. I did not coach him on these drawings but based on the amount of detail they include, there is no mistake he has spent half of his seven years in China!

There's nothing like making a cool dragon cupcake cake (special cakes made by mom are one of our family traditions) and putting together some homemade goodie bags to make a little one smile! It is all about the simple things, isn't it?

I'm linking up at Simple Things Sunday today.

Enjoying the (sometimes) Crazy Culture of My Host Country...

We have been living in Beijing China for over three and a half years now. That is half of my youngest son's life. In all honesty, I am ready to move home. I love where I am from and miss so many things about it. But never the less, one of the things I do enjoy about living abroad, even in Beijing with its horrible air quality (worsening by the day), chaotic streets, and lack of concern for safety, there are some things I really still enjoy.

New Year's fireworks is one of them. I love the craziness. I love the huge fireworks I get to see out my window almost every night for two weeks.

This is the firework that was let off the roof of the apartment building across our courtyard (not a big courtyard, mind you - basically a small park). It is on the top of the building where I used to live. You can see the windows of the penthouse apartment. Rumor has it they own the apartment complex and I am pretty sure letting off those fireworks is illegal. But that has never stopped anyone around here before.

They have cracked down this year and there are definitely less fireworks near our apt this year as we live in the heart of the central business district and near (two blocks away) the skyscraper that burnt down two years ago on during New Year's. 

If you don't worry about the safety issue, [those fireworks in the first photo are bouncing off the building right next to mine (in my same apt complex of four buildings)], it's really fun and exciting. So far I have not gotten burned or lost my home to a fire!

I've learned to appreciate the dragon dance, especially now that all three of my children have been involved in it on some stage at one time or another. It is exciting especially with this being the year of the dragon and all.

I also love ICE CHAIRS which are unique (as far as I know) to China. I've posted about them before and we went again this week during the New YEar's holiday, so you will see me post about them again soon. The boys said they forgot how fun they were. Dangerous, but fun. Give three boys sharp stakes to push themselves around willy nilly on ice and someone is bound to get hurt, right?

It's those simple differences that allow me to appreciate the unique life that I am living.

I'm linking up at Simple Things Sunday.

 

BLOG HAPPENINGS

*You might like to check out the Layout A Day Preparation Blog Hop from Friday here. It's a great challenge and begins Feb 1st - join us!

*Come back on Wed, February 1 for the One Little Word Blog Hop when members of Ali Edwards' Big Picture Classes class share their assignment from the month.

*On February 5, we will have our monthly FAMILYx12 blog hop where we support each other in taking a monthly family photo. Email me (link on the side bar) if you want to join us!

To Share a Name with a Chair...

How fun is it to find a chair in Ikea that shares not only your name, but uses the same Chinese characters in its name as you do (many Chinese words sound similar but mean different things depending upon the characters they are 'spelled' with)?

Discovering the Power of Written Communication...

Braden surprised himself last Sunday by reading his very first chapter book all by himself. I loved when he told me he was finished with chapter 2. I could tell by the way he said it that he hadn't believed he would be able to do it until he actually did it.

So exciting to witness an emerging reader. He makes such an effort and is reading every word that he sees. He is also constantly asking me how to spell words.

Discovering the power of words and written communication is such an exciting time! 

The Best Monster Cupcakes I Have Ever Made!

It was my son's birthday on Friday. One of our traditions is that I make a fun cake or cupcakes in the theme of the birthday child's choice. Nicholas insisted on these monster cupcakes. I had to alter them from the original version which used far too much frosting and have proven difficult too transport. I stayed up past his bedtime Thursday night decorating. He came into my room early Friday morning waking me up saying, "Mom, those are the BEST monster cupcakes you have ever made!" What could make a mom happier than that?! 

He repeated the same sentiment multiple times throughout the day and into Saturday. I'm so glad he appreciates my efforts. I do find it humorous that they are only the second monster cupcakes I have ever made, but I'll take an enthusiastic compliment like that whenever I can get one!

It's the SIMPLE THINGS like a heartfelt compliment from a newly eleven year old boy that warms my heart and makes me smile!

Here is Nicholas with the 18 friends he invited to his birthday party at school.

And this is the cupcake cake I made for his birthday party on Saturday! He told me he specifically chose this design because he thought it would be easy for me to do and he knew I had been working hard on the last minute (less than 2 days, but that is a story for another blog post) party. He has his moments, but most of the time I couldn't ask for a sweeter, more thoughtful son!

Happy Birthday!

To see anything about FUN CAKES & CUPCAKES on my blog, click here.

Simple Things Sunday - Halloween Cupcakes

My boys LOVE when I make these whimsical cupcakes. For any special occasion at school, I am always expected to come up with something cute & creative. Of course, I don't mind but on those days (like this past Thursday), I was not feeling creative at all and really wanted to slap on some frosting and cover the cupcakes with sprinkles. But my kids actually said, "But, Mom, you can't let us down! We told our friend that your cupcakes are the best. And we have to win." Well, those weren't their exact words but it was something like that. They did say, "You can't let us down!" So funny! Everything is a competition to boys. They did say it was a competition. But I can guarantee you the cupcakes made by the other mom tasted better! (I use a mix & canned frosting - shhhhhhh!) I'm sure mine were cuter, though! Haha! :)

 

To see anything about FUN CAKES & CUPCAKES on my blog, click here.

Even more Halloween cupcake ideas in my photostream on Flickr.com.

31 DAYS of CREATIVE INSPIRATION:: Day 16 {Rest}

This is the 16th post in a 31 Day series: Creative Inspiration. Check out all the posts here.

Braden resting so peacefully in this cool, comfy bed. What's not to smile about?

Can you believe we are just over half-way in this 31 Day Series!?

It has been fun really getting back into the blogging habit, but I must be honest, it is tiring me out as well! In order to be inspired in our creativity, we need rest and to be rested. So, today is a rest day. I've left you with this restful photo for today.

I'm linking up here:

Happy Sunday!

 

31 DAYS of CREATIVE INSPIRATION :: Day 9 {Fun Photo Story}

This is the 9th post in a 31 Day series: Creative Inspiration. Check out all the posts here.

I know I promised a post on chocolate toppers for cupcakes that kids can make, but it didn't work out for today. I promise it will come sometime within the next 22 days.

Today I wanted to share a cute little photo set I put together of my 3 boys. Since we now have a teen and a pre-teen in our house, we have seen a marked increase in the eye rolling around here. We were talking about it over frozen yogurt the other day and it turned into a little silliness with everyone giving it a try for the camera. I don't mind eye rolling at all when this is the result! There's not enough silliness in the world.

WHAT I WAS THINKING ABOUT WHEN I PUT TOGETHER THE PHOTO SET

These weren't necessarily the three best photos of the lot, but they were the best of all the photos that were the most alike.

To put together this set, I chose the three photos that were the most alike in 1) orientation (horiz vs vert) & 2) composition. Once my photos were selected, I edited the first photo in Lightroom to my liking, then I selected the other two photos and synchronized the settings. This guarantees the set has a consistent feel and look so it looks as if it goes together.

[To SYNCHRONIZE your photo settings in Lightroom, select PHOTO from the menu bar, DEVELOP SETTINGS from the drop down menu, then SYNC SETTINGS.]

 

NEW NAME & UPDATED BLOG BANNER

If you are regular reader of my blog, you may have noticed that I changed the name of my blog a couple of days ago. When I first started this Typepad blog almost two years ago I never planned to remain for long, so I never really gave the name any thought. Then when I was making my blog banner several months ago now, I came up with a name in a pinch so I could get the blog banner done and see how it looked, again not giving much thought to the name. Anyway, I hated that name! I never liked it and I especially hated it when people would refer to my blog using that awful name (My Creative Days in Beijing - BORING & AWKWARD). Anyway, I finally decided it was time for a change, so I came up with Nihao, Beijing!

I love making cupcakes and one of my favorite idea books is called Hello, Cupcake! Nihao means "hello" in Mandarin, and I thought it sounded cute together, so that became my new name! I hope it isn't too limiting since cupcakes are only some of what I share on this blog. 'Cupcake' is also a term of endearment so I hope that helps it seem general enough. Not to mention, cupcakes are trendy right now and it gives my blog a cheerful feel, I hope.

You may also have noticed that I changed the color scheme. It is a simple change, but I like the feel of the blog much better now. I may continue to tweak things here and there, so don't be surprised if things look different from time to time. It's still me!

 

A NOTE ABOUT my 31 DAYS SERIES

Ok, I'm starting to think my 31 Days series should have been 31 Days of Photo Inspiration since I keep coming back to photography. It is just what I do all the time and in a pinch, it is easy for me to put another photography centered post together. I really want to get back to creating things outside of my camera. This 31 Day Series was meant to be a catalyst to that, but instead that extra time is spent on the posts rather than creating. I'm not giving up, however, non-photography posts coming soon! Unfortunately, not tomorrow!

Tomorrow is all about TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY. I'll share some fun things I did on my trip to India this past June. You won't want to miss it!

 

 

31 Days of Creative INSPIRATION Series

Introduction

Day 1: Design Your Own Cupcake

Day 2: Storytelling Sunday

Day 3: Scrapbooking (Week in the Life Album)

Day 4: Everyday Photojournalism (Project 365/Project Life)

Day 5: Family Photo Fun - FAMILY x 12 BLOG HOP

Day 6: Links to Creatively Inspiring People (all writing a 31 Day series)

Day 7: Healthier (But Still Delicious) Cottage Pie

Day 8: Photo Walk

Day 9: Fun Photo Story

Other topics in the works for my 31 Days of Creative Inspiration Series: 

Photography - I answer the question, 'How do I know if I should buy a DSLR camera?', Family Photo Fun ideas from around the web.

Recipes - my husband's delicious salsa, HealthIER (Yet Still Delicious) Recipes

Scrapbooking - My favorite mini album, 30 minute scrapbook challenge

more Cupcake Ideas, craft ideas...

AND LOTS, LOTS MORE (I'm posting for 31 Days straight, remember?!)

And to find more than 700 other blogs participating in the 31 Days series, go here. There is a huge variety of topics to choose from.

A Tone Flute Happy Birthday!

For Nana's birthday, Nicholas taught himself the first half of the Happy Birthday song, video taped himself using Photobooth on the iMac and then emailed it to her using his new email account. Priceless!

I'm linking up at Rebecca's blog.

A Horse & Cart in the Capital: Beijing

One of the fun & novel things about living abroad is scenes of yesterday like this horse & cart.

It's a simple thing and always makes me smile.

Beijing is trying hard to be a cutting edge modern city. But despite its best efforts the people from the countryside keep finding their way in and spoiling that image.

Just about every day you can find a horse & cart (sometimes three) on any one corner selling fruit from a nearby farm just outside the city. We encountered this one while riding our bikes. In fact, I took this shot while still riding my bike (multi-tasking at its best). 

As we rode upon the scene, a police officer in his car was scolding the cart driver through his bullhorn. The cart driver rode away on down the street, but halfway down the block he paused, looked over his shoulder and once he confirmed that the police officer was driving away, promptly returned to his original spot and went right on selling his fruit - watermelon.

I've witnessed similar scenes. The police seem only half motivated to prevent these illegal vendors from selling their wares in the city. It is the vendors' livlihood afterall and they must get far more for their produce (or whatever they happen to be selling - jewelry, hair accessories, cell phone accessories, r/c cars, socks, bootleg CDs, etc, etc, etc) in the city than they do where they come from in the countryside.

(I'm linking up at Rebecca's blog for The Simple Things Sunday.) Watch her blog on Friday as I will be featured for Friday Craft Day.

McDonald's in India

Some more unedited photos. My computer problems and my bad flu are preventing me from dressing up my photos like normal. This will have to be enough...

While in India for over a week, the kids were craving some Western food (though, truth be told, they did eat a lot of Western food throughout the week), so we searched out a McDonald's. My husband was also keen to go since it is fun to see what is on the menu at McDonalds around the world.

India did not disappoint.

There was no beef or pork on the menu! I have a picture of a sign stating this. My 10 year old son insisted on taking the photo since he and my 12 year old son were so shocked to find no hamburgers. I will have to post that photo later since I have yet to download it on to my computer.

The cow is sacred in India so it is against the law to kill a cow or any animal, for that matter. Or so we were told. I'm not sure the specifics of that law, but based on the plethora of animals every where, I would not be surprised. 

We tried the Chicken Maharaj Mac and the Spicy Paneer Passion and Spicy Paneer wrap. I love the chicken sandwich's name - Maharaj, of course, is the name of some of the royalty in Rajasthan and Paneer is a popular cheese served all over India. If you ever eat Indian food, I'm sure you've seen it on the menu.

Simple things like an exotic menu at a Mc Donald's in Jaipur, India made me smile this week. 

I'm linking up at The Simple Things.

 

Still the same after all these years

 

 

This photo makes me smile for more than one reason. First of all, it is so Reece - if there is nothing else consuming him at the moment, he is reading. I love that this custom made Bionicle is joining him on his bed. He is almost 13 but still loves Legos as much as he did at 3 when he first discovered them. This morning he had dug out our Bionicle encyclopedia and he was pouring over it and searching for just the right pieces to come up with his very own personalized Bionicle. I'm holding on to these moments of boyhood while they last.

 

GUEST BLOGGER & GUEST BLOGGING

Thank you everyone who stopped by yesterday to read the tips from my lovely guest blogger, Vernell. I loved her tips and will be ready to go the next time I bake some CUPCAKES.

We had a few requests for her icing recipe so I will be posting that very soon. She sent it to me but I am having some odd email problems (possibly related to government internet blocking?) and when I get them fixed, the recipe will be up!

Don't forget to pop over to Vernell's blog on Monday when I will be guest posting on her blog and sharing my tips for making cupcake topper designs from chocolate!

Similar to these - but the ones I made for her blog are a bit more sophisticated:

To see everything CUPCAKE related on this blog, click here.

Swimming Lessons - Simple Things

I am so grateful that we have a swimming pool in our apartment complex where all three boys can take lessons every week. And now they are all three on the same day so I get to watch them all every week. It's one of the simple pleasures of being a mom!

To see past The Simple Things posts on my blog, click here.

National Scrapbook Day, Simple Things & LOAD: Day 7

NATIONAL SCRAPBOOK DAY

So many great places to be today for some fun...

**Shimelle.com - she has already started her challenges - one every hour with lots of give-a-way opportunities. 

**Big Picture Scrapbooking has a free class with challenges and give-a-ways.

**Here is Scrapbook.com's schedule for "Camp National Scrapbook Day"

**A good sale over at JessicaSprague.com.

**A nice sale over at twopeasinabucket.com.

WHERE WILL YOU BE HANGING OUT ON NATIONAL SCRAPBOOK DAY? Leave me a link in the comments so we can check them out.

HAPPY {inter}NATIONAL SCRAPBOOK DAY!

 

A MOM BY ANY OTHER NAME...

This week one of the Simple Things that made me smile was receiving this beautiful rose from my youngest son at his school's mother's day celebration. It was a very special program. I always love attending these and receiving the special gifts my kids prepare. 

His school decided to use the word Mum on the rose tag instead of Mother or Mom. We are celebrating Mother's Day at the same time that it is celebrated in the US not in March as they do in the UK, but they used the British word for mother. Not that I mind. I just find it interesting. I like being Mum too. And sometimes Braden calls me Mum especially after he's been playing with one of his British friends or watching an episode of Kipper.

To see my other SIMPLE THINGS entries on my blog, click here.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

I was a guest blogger on Saturday as part of a PHOTOGRAPHY series about purchasing a DSLR.

On Saturday I was the guest blogger over at Lorraine's blog, The Vue from Here. Lorraine is in the market for a new camera. She is frustrated with the limitations of her point & shoot camera and wants to upgrade to a DSLR. She has enlisted the help of five DSLR users to share their experiences and knowledge to assist her in making her decision.

To read my article Do you need a DSLR or should you upgrade your P&S?, click! I compare some high end P&S cameras with an entry-level DSLR.

The week has been full of great information. Head over to The Vue from Here today to read Lorraine's conclusion to the series and find out what she has learned about cameras this week. Will she buy a P&S? A DSLR? Which one?

 

To see everything related to PHOTOGRAPHY on my blog click here!

LOAD: Day 7

My son is not too excited to answer my questions any more, so to add some novelty to the process, I created an online survey for him so he would play along. Read this post to see a portion of the survey.

The lined paper is Ali Edwards from a Lisa Bearnson Kit of the Month from a couple of years ago. The grunge frame is Jessica Sprague.

To see everything related to LOAD on my blog click here!

 

Self-Timer Madness

The simple thing that made me smile this week is the SELF-TIMER on my camera. All of these photos were taken on Saturday with the SELF-TIMER.

We were cooking together in the kitchen and I wanted to catch us interacting together. I love what I captured.

My camera allows me to take as many photos in a row as I want (I'm sure there is a limit - I don't know what it is). I set it to take 10 in a row. It can't do that many in a row without pausing to catch up. The first 4 or 5 take immediately and the rest are taken randomly as the camera 'catches up.'

I love how it did that. Then it caught us naturally. The first 4 or 5 photos were typically awash, but the rest were great. The biggest trick was getting it to focus in the right spot. Sometimes I was lucky, sometimes it was off, but the expressions overshadowed that lack of technical perfection.

We spent so much time in the kitchen on Saturday. First making homemade lasagne.

Then sugar cookies. I agreed to make sugar cookies if the kids helped me since I don't like making sugar cookies if I can help it.

It was the kids idea to spell out Easter inside the eggs.

Simple Things That Made Me Smile This Week

A few things that made me smile over the past week:

Big brother and littlest brother (in China: Da Erzi [Big Son] & Xiao Erzi [Small Son]) having a moment while they wait for Mom & Dad to lock up the bikes.

 

Funny faces! I pulled out my camera and he pulled this face. He thought he was so funny. He had to see it right afterwards.

 

Spending the entire school day observing my middle son at school.

(It is policy at both schools where our kids attend that parents are invited & encouraged to observe their child for the entire school day. I've always loved volunteering in my kids' classes. I love getting to know the teacher and the other kids, but in these private international schools as well as in Chinese schools, that is not the norm. So, it is a treat to get to hang out with my kids every once a while and see what they do every day starting with riding on the bus with them in the morning until it is time for me to leave to go pick-up youngest brother. The benefits have been far too many to name in this short blog post!)

I'm linking up over at Rebecca Cooper's blog for her Sunday Simple Things.

COMING UP ON THE BLOG

* Come back tomorrow for Menu Planning Monday, My Week in Photos (Project 365 & Project Life) and MAYBE a few other surprises.

* May 5 I will have a mini blog-hop to showcase my monthly personal project FAMILY x 12. If you are taking a monthly family photo (or would like to start) and would like to join us for a little support, motivation and light accountability, leave me a comment or send me an email and I'll be in touch with the details. (A family photo can be whatever you define as family, even if that is just you and your spouse/partner or you and your cat [dogs count too]!)

Brothers Working Together

It always makes me smile when the boys work so nicely together. When our family can enjoy an activity together, having fun and creating something unique and meaningful.

                                                               

This weekend is the Qing Ming festival in China.

These are traditional Qing Ming pastries that used to be made a long time ago. Following custom, people used to go an entire month without lighting a fire. Therefore, they had to make food ahead of time.

These pastries/breads could be made and stored for up to a year. After making the dough, we steamed them, then baked them and painted them with food coloring. I poked holes in mine, threaded some sting and now they are hanging in my house. If I get hungry during the next year sometime, I will have a ready snack! : )

Killing Time in the Back of a Taxi

I love family time on the weekends! We ended up stuck in this taxi for an hour and 45 minutes. It was one of those rare occasions that the boys didn't get overly restless and start to bicker or wiggle too much and annoy me. We had fun taking silly photos and chatting. The best part of being a family is time spent together.

 

Week in Photos with an excursion to Wuzhen

Hello again! It has been another week between posts. I will include my week in photos with Simple Things again this week. Scroll down to see which photo I chose...

Sunday, March 13

Passing time while waiting for our brunch food by listening to something on Dad's phone. Likely a recording of themselves.

Monday, March 14

Reece HATES all vegetables as well as fruit except apples. I usually let him get away with not eating veggies, but every so often, I insist he eats some broccoli since it is the best food out there.

Tuesday, March 15

Every week Braden brings home one of these that acknowledges something important he does at school. This week's acknowledgement reads: We honor Braden for showing the virtue of gentleness when he practiced singing and used clam gestures and motion.

Wednesday, March 16I relish watching him grow in his independence. Though not to be overshadowed by his absolute love of FRUIT!

General safety is not a huge priority any where in China. Even at Braden's school that is so diligent and organized, things we would never dream of at home, do occur (like when I visited the classroom and one of the five year old girls carried over a tray with a teapot full of hot water and poured me a cup!). This week he learned how to peel and cut an entire dragon fruit under the supervision of his teacher! I know he didn't use a super sharp knife, but could you ever imagine that happening at home?? He is an enthusiastic fruit eater (maybe an addict?) and helped prepare the fruit 3 days in a row until they told him it was someone else's turn. Now he loves preparing fruit at home. Fine by me! I love the help.

Thursday, March 17

Braden lost another tooth! you can see two spaces on the bottom now. Hurray! Though he was kind of sad when this one fell out. I was waiting for him to get ready to go home and he was holding his gloves in his teeth and out it came!

Friday, March 18

I took a 3 day travel photography workshop this weekend. After a morning of travel to our destination of Wuzhen, a water town near Shanghai, China, we headed out to start capturing photos. I was on this bridge taking scenery photos when I noticed this man heading in my direction. I kept my camera to my face, waiting for his approach, with my focus point set exactly where I wanted it (furthest right hand point) and when he came in to position, I made a slight turn and CLICK! I knew I had it. One of my favorite photos from the weekend caught in the first hour of the workshop.

Saturday, March 19
We ventured away from the touristy part of Wuzhen and quickly encountered this guy. He was selling these straw hats from his wooden cart. He approached me putting one on my head saying in Mandarin 'Pretty! Pretty!' Of course he was trying to sell me one. One hat cost about $3USD, but I didn't need one. I told him I couldn't carry one and he showed me how to carry it easily! Funny. While we were conversing, I knew I had to take the opportunity to take a photo. I put the hat down and turned away. Meanwhile, my photography partner came up to help translate. He took a picture of the man's hands demonstrating how to easily hold the hat. When my partner turned to go, the man started to harrass him for money for the photo he took. It didn't even include his face - it was just of his hands. He was getting agressive and grabbing at clothes. My partner looked at me and asked me what he should do. We had a brief consult and decided it was better to give him a small sum to avoid any violence. He gave him just about the equivalent one USDollar and that did the trick. It's unfortunate and it will probably encourage him to do the same to the next tourist. It is a tough call to make. It is better to be safe for sure.

Check back later today or Wednesday and I will be posting more photos of my trip to Wuzhen.

Chinese New Year Jiaozi

IMG_0010.jpg, originally uploaded by Xnomads.

Braden made these at school out of playdough. Jiaozi (dumplings) is the traditional food eaten on New Year's Day in China. I just love all of the arts and crafts they do at his school each month. This month most all the crafts were related to the holiday. In addition to these, they made red lanterns, hangings with the Chinese character for rabbit (this year is the year of the rabbit) and firecracker banners out of toilet paper rolls. I can't wait until they all come home.

First Lost Tooth (Simple Thing)

IMG_7262.jpg, originally uploaded by Xnomads. (photo taken by Nicholas, 10 years old)

Only a couple weeks after turning six, his very first tooth fell out! The tooth fairy came and left 10 kuai under his pillow. So exciting. Amazing how a simple thing like losing a tiny little tooth can be so exciting and yet bittersweet at the same time. I am excited for my son, but a little sad since this is my very last, 'first lost tooth'!

  

I LOVE THIS IDEA

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm thinking about starting a monthly 'linky' (meaning I will put a link at the bottom of the post where you can link up with a thumbnail of your photo which is posted on your blog) for the Family Photo x 12 idea. Check out my post here. Tara Whitney, a photographer in Orange County, California, who I have been a fan of for a number of years, did this with her family in 2010. She committed to taking one family photo, including all six members (nobody missing!) per month for the entire year. I love this idea and am doing it with my family this year. Our first two photos of the year are in the post mentioned above.

If you are interested in joining me, leave me a comment and if enough people are interested, I'll do the monthly linky here on the 5th of every month.

You can start any time you want. The important thing is that you take a photo of your whole family once a month.

LOTS GOING ON AT THE BLOG!

I have been so busy with this blog lately!

I have been posting a layout every day for LOAD (the Layout A Day challenge).

If any of you remember the blog hop on February 1st, I chose a give-a-way winner, but never posted a photo of the prize. Well, after lots of shopping during the New Year excitement over the last 10 days, I finally have the care package ready and I will be sending it off on Monday. A Photo of the goodies, coming soon.

I've been doing pretty good posting my Project Life (365 Photos) photos every Tuesday. I started three weeks ago and have yet to miss a week.

And on March 1st there will be a second One Little Word blog hop starting right HERE at my blog. So, plan to come back and be inspired by the students in Ali Edwards' class over at Big Picture Classes. I'll have a give-a-way too. A mini-kit of American Crafts Valentine line from 2009 (I think) - it will include patterned papers, ribbon, Thickers shapes, adhesive buttons/badges, and chipboard shapes. Perfect for those Valentine photos!

Thanks for stopping by!

Chinese New Year Fireworks 2011 (Simple Things)

 

IMG_7491.jpg, originally uploaded by Xnomads.

It is really no simple thing to live in a different country and get to experience first hand their traditions and celebrations. This takes place nightly and directly in front of our apartment complex. It is not what I would call safe, but it is spectacular.

The only opportunity I have ever had to have fireworks explode directly over head!.The ashes from this firework landed directly on my camera!

This is the end of one of those famous strings of firecrackers. When fully rolled up in a coil, it is about thigh high! Unreal.

One of the door men from our apartment complex gets help unloading more boxes of fireworks.

That blast to the right is a firework blasting off as the two helpers on the left are setting up some more.

Street view of more fireworks shooting skyward. Notice the man on the three-wheeled cycle pass the fireworks set to go off as if it's just an ordinary circumstance. No extra clearance or anything.

I was directly below the fireworks as they went off. My camera and I were covered in ashes.

It was incredibly loud. I should have brought ear plugs. I was afraid by morning my hearing would be gone!

Another firework explodes through the city streets. Only meters away from apartment buildings and offices.

A father-daughter pair share in the fun... 

and danger!

The scene on the sidewalk in front of our apartment complex in the Central Business District, Beijing.

The police stop for a moment to enjoy the fireworks while on their rounds. I caught these guys looking up but the waved me away as soon as they saw me aim my camera in their direction.

The clean up begins before the smoke dissipates.

Inches of red debris from all the fireworks. Fifteen more days of the same to follow.

Not safe, but it is incredible. A once in a lifetime experience for sure.

My husband bought some for my kids. They will let them off tomorrow night as it is the fifth night of the New Year and a special day for the God of Fortune.

Simple Things - Ice Chairs

This is about as simple as it gets! An ice chair that has seen better days, but it sure makes for a fun afternoon!

http://rebeccacooper.blogspot.com

Two friends and I go out once a week to take photographs around the city. This day we picked Houhai Lake which has been frozen over for the winter. We decided to rent ourselves some ice chairs and picks (used like ski poles) and explore the frozen lake.

These are my photography friends and an Australian friend visiting from Germany.

When you need a break from your ice chair, you can stop here and play ring toss. Perhaps you could win a prize. While I was taking photos, the money collecter came over and told me I couldn't take photos. Since living in China, my personality has completely changed. In English, I asked him why? Why not? I took another picture or two and he left. I then decided I wasn't getting very good pics anyway so I moved on. In China, if someone can't give me a good reason why I should or shouldn't do something, I just go forward with it (within reason). It's just the way you have to be here. So many people are uninformed and insist they have correct information when in fact, they do not. So, you learn more and more to trust your gut, and do what you want or need to do until you find otherwise.

These boys were amused by us. They followed us around the ice and loved when I took photos of them. The boy on the left could speak some English. In Chinese he told me the ring toss game wasn't any good. Later on he caught up with me again and told me in English that he was going to be in New York and DC over Spring Festival (next week) to play the flute with his school! Good for him! 

Who knew? A Cloakroom on ice! I'd never seen one of these before. Have you? Those white things are racks for your shoes. And you can see people sitting on benches in front of them putting on their ice skates.

Alright, so if you were unimpressed with the cloakroom on ice because you have seen them one too many times, I bet you have never seen a sheep robot that carries children in a rickshaw! Have you? I'd only wished that I caught a photo of one of these lovely things actually carrying a child. They seemed to be more popular over in the child section of the frozen lake. When I bring my kids back this week, I'll have to find one with a child in it or see if my youngest is small enough to take a ride! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity if ever there was one!

You do agree that these robots look like they should have a starring role in a horror film, don't you? We were pretty creeped out so we decided to take care of this one before she came back to haunt us in our dreams. Think Twighlight Zone where this thing keeps turning up in your hometown and follows you around Target, Walmart, the supermarket. Maybe she shows up at your son's soccer game, your daughter's basketball game, your husband's weekend cricket match. No matter where you go, she is there, coming towards you. You....CAN'T...GET...AWAY....

And then she invites her friends.....(that first one is Bono in Chinese ice robot form).

I'm not exactly sure what these guys were supposed to be doing. They just sat in the middle of the ice the whole time we were there. They each had a metal square can at their feet. Perhaps they were meant to go around the ice and collect trash? Either way, they didn't seem to mind our shenanigans. My friend slid me by them more than one time so I could get some closer up pictures.

Here's a pretty good one. This is the guy on the right.

Here's the guy on the left.

Here's a chain of ice chairs that passed us by. See how they place their feet on the ice chair in front of them to stay connected. This one had an ice bicycle in the front to propel them faster forward. This group looks as if they won a prize at the Ring Toss on Ice game.

Ah, back to our security guard/trash collector. He wasn't fazed at all when our friend posed with his imaginary friend, Bluce. Frankly, I think they are so bored that we added a little novelty to their day. I'm sure they were thinking, 'Those crazy waiguo ren (outside country people)!'

Here's a good shot of a guy having a great time on an ice bike.

Here's the poor person in charge of checking in and out the ice chairs. Notice the handheld computer used to swipe the card we had to purchase at the small wooden ticket booth at the entrance of the ice. So old fashioned, yet so modern.
It is very cold standing on ice all day. My toes took several hours to thaw. I wonder how long it takes his (her?) toes to thaw at the end of a long day of checking out ice chairs? What do you think?

 

OLW BLOG HOP - Feb 1

Don't forget to come back on February 1st. The ONE LITTLE WORD Blog Hop starts right here. We have 34 participants who will be sharing their One Little Word project for January.

ONE LITTLE WORD is a class over at BigPictureClasses.com and is taught by Ali Edwards.

Best Shot Wednesday a little late

I have been away from my blog for exactly a month. It was a break for the holidays - the US holidays, that is. Here in China, the holidays are just beginning. That sort of makes things fun when you live in two places like our family does. You get to celebrate (and get the time off) for the holidays at home as well as in the land of your residence - in my case, China.

February 3 is Chinese New Year so the whole country is preparing. The stores are crowded with shoppers buying gifts to bring home. The entire country (just about) migrates to their home town to spend time with family. A few days ago the train ticket office down the block was flooded with customers. They were lined up down the sidewalk. Today it was empty. I think that means all the tickets are gone. No joke. If you didn't get a train ticket, find another way home. I also keep seeing the odd person walking down the street towing a wheeled suitcase behind them. These are the people that have already returned home (or are just starting their journey) and haven't quite made it yet. I saw one woman with her suitcase standing around our outdoor mall next door obviously waiting for her ride to arrive. I feel like I should be taking pictures of all these little things that are signs of the preparation going on.

I'm excited for these holidays because the kids are home and my husband doesn't have to work. He couldn't work even if he wanted to. The whole country shuts down. We have no family obligations beyond feeding our children and hanging out with them, so it is the perfect holiday. A no obligation holiday. I think of it as a rest up from the holidays at home. Who doesn't get exhausted after a 12 hour flight, an eight hour drive, three jet lagged kids, a bad sinus infection, catching up with all the family and friends you haven't seen for half a year, shopping for the things from home you miss, packing, a 13+ hour flight, more jetlag and unpacking? It's the perfect time to reorganize the house (from the move just before summer), visit a few temple fairs, sleep in, watch DVDs, play games received at Xmas, nag about homework given over the break and catch up on sleep! Oh, yes, and stay inside away from the freezing COLD!

Since I've missed the last few Best Shot Wednesdays, I thought I would do a little catch up. These are a handful of my favorite shots that I took during my blog hiatus.

What I love about this photo is that my 12 year old is still more than willing to tell Santa what he wants for Christmas and isn't embarrased by it in the least.

This is my five year olds' very first letter to Santa. Here he is addressing the envelope. It is funny because what he listed in the letter is very different than what he told Santa after hearing what his brothers wanted for Xmas. (Legos turned into an iPad and a computer!)

The rainbow we saw from the car on our way to Arizona from California. It looks like we were near Palm Springs maybe.

The boys checking out the gifts under the Christmas tree to see if there are any for them and if so to shake them and guess what is inside.

Bailey, my in-laws cat, in his special spot right in the middle of the kitchen near the warmth from the bottom of the fridge. He's old now and instead of hiding from us, he wants to be in the center of the action.

Nana helps Braden during his turn in Guesstures. Very fun game for the whole family!

My favorite desert photo from this trip. Taken on a walk in my in-laws' neighborhood in Tucson.

Nicholas using his birthday camera to make his latest stop action animation feature.

On the way out of town, Dad wanted to take the kids to Waffle House. He knew they would love it and he was right! Reece insisted I find the recipe and make their waffles from now on.

Celebrating on New Year's Eve with the pulling of some Christmas crackers. I love that this British tradition has found its way to the US. My first encounter with the Christmas cracker was in 1991 at my work Christmas party when I worked at Debenham's (student work visa) in Cambridge, UK. Such fond memories!

Reece playing Step Mania (just like Dance Dance Revolution) in his feety pajamas. I LOVE that my 12 and a half year old still LOVES feeties. He's in now hurry to grow out of his childhood favorites - thank goodness!

I plan to enter this final photo in Rebecca Cooper's weekly challenge, Simple Things, this Sunday on her blog.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon for some exciting things coming up. This Monday, January 24 I will be participating in a LOAD (Layoutaday.com) Blog hop. We will all be sharing how we prepare for LOAD.

What is LOAD? It is a month long challenge in which participants make one scrapbook layout a day and post it in a Flickr gallery. I love it because I work very well under deadlines and it is my most productive scrapbooking time. This will be my 5th or 6th one. Wow!

On Tuesday, February 1st I'm organizing a blog hop for the participants in Ali Edwards' class ONE LITTLE WORD at Big Picture Classes. We will be sharing our project for January and any other reflections on our word from the month of January. Please come by and join in the fun.

If you are a member of Ali's class and would like to participate in the blog hop, please leave me a comment in this post and I'll get back to you with more details.

Other things that I have been working on:

*Cleaning up my hard drive, my external hard drives and refining my back up system.

*Downloading and editing photos from the holidays.

*Creating my photography website.

*Helping kids with homework!

*Studying up on Lightroom & Photoshop 5 (I bought both of Scott Kelby's books when I was at home).

*Planning two birthday parties - first thing tomorrow morning I'll be decorating one of the cakes (a cupcake cake - camping theme, extra cupcakes will be mad scientists). I'll post pictures sometime in the next week.

*Transfering old Hi8 video tapes to digital (so excited about this) using the Canopus ADV110 - couldn't be easier (with the right cables).

*Catching up with Project Life 2010.

*Recovering from jetlag.

OK, I better get some sleep. Thanks again for stopping by and come back soon!

Simple Things & The View from Here

This is the third week I have participated in Rebecca's Simple Things challenge over at her blog. Once a week I will take a photo of a simple thing in my life that makes me smile.

This week the Simple Thing that makes me smile is my son's love of food. Xiao Long Bao is one of his local favorites. He was home from school due to a case of Hand Food Mouth disease in his class, so I took him next door to his favorite restaurant for one of his favorite snacks. I love how he sucks the juice right out of the dumplings.

THE VIEW FROM HERE

The theme for The View from Here over at Gogovivi.com is RED.

Thanks for stopping by.

xxxxx