Does he always look like that?

Except when he's hungry, tired, or when his sister has just jumped on his head, yes, he almost always looks like this:) Asher is now 4 months and a week old and cute as ever. He downright laughs and sings to himself in the middle of the night. He's trying hard to stand on his feet, to sit up, and to do the wiggle dance at every occasion. He's in love with his sister and his parents and just a smiley guy.




And Josie. Does she always look like this? Yes, usually.

Warshing

"Warsh, mama peese, warsh!"

I hear this comment most days while I'm getting dinner ready and trying to clean up the kitchen. Invariably it's while a chair is being pushed around the kitchen corner from our dinning/living room. And Josie is behind that chair just waiting to get into the already crowded kitchen and participate in the dinner preparations. But for her, that means standing at the sink and "warshing"-- otherwise known as getting water all over the counter, the floor, the chair cover and herself.

Thanks for the help, Josie.

Twins???

No, this is not an announcement. Just a funny comment. That I've gotten 2ce now. Now with my new jazzy second hand strollers I roll with my kiddos side by side around the UBC campus. And their cute little faces peep out from under their hats. Most people smile as they pass by. Some students still almost trip over the stroller or shut doors in my face (buhao), and others ask "are they twins?"

Huh?

Um, no, not quite.

But are they cute?
Yes indeed.

Breakfast time

When Dad isn't home for dinner...

this is how we entertain ourselves.

you better enjoy your juice!

Josie has discovered that she likes juice of all kinds. I'll be putting breakfast on the table in the morning and since the kitchen is in a separate room, I don't see her when she climbs up on the table and drinks my or Dave's juice from a nice big glass glass.

"Yummm, Juuuice" she'll say.

She calls oranges "O'Juice" because I showed her once how juice is squeezed from the oranges. She liked that. She'll get into the refrigerator and pick out juice for herself when she can get those little hands into the fridge.

So, when we went out to dinner with our Chinese friends for Chinese New Year a couple weeks ago, we were the honored guests. They had been planning for some time to take us out, and because they knew that Dave was a vegetarian, they booked a seafood restaurant for us. Of course. Dave assured them that I was the one who loved seafood. I do like it, in normal doses. But at this particular place it seemed every specialty was a large seafood dish. So, taking it for the team I packed away some kind of pigeon (not seafood), clams, king crab, shrimp, fish, and a tofu pork dish and a beef and snow pea dish. Talk about being full. My stomach hasn't exercised like that since the last time I was in China!
When they asked us what we wanted to drink, I knew that Josie would probably not eat much, and so juice might be her nutrition for the evening. I also didn't want to raise the price of our meal in suggesting wine, knowing the prices around here (especially for the dishes already on teh table). Yes, juice was the way to go. You can imagine my surprise when the waiter brought out pitchers of fresh squeezed orange juice.
And Josie loved it. Of course. And so she should as we found out later each pitcher was $28. I probably should have suggested the wine.
Oh well. At least, you can't go wrong with a crab like this one!
Apparently we didn't eat enough of our fancy schmancy meal because our friends invited us to their house for a home cooked meal 2 days later. I'll be honest. We liked that food better. And Josie packed it down. But she especially liked the strawberries and the O'juice at the end of the meal!

Mr. Bubbles

Someone's been enjoying his newfound spittle freedom. I remember Josie going through this stage too. It's so funny when babies discover something new they can do. A couple of Asher's new tricks are pulling down my shirt when he wants to eat, rolling over onto his back every time I put him on his tummy, and this lovely bubble blowing.

facecloth anyone?

chatterbox

Thanks Joy Kinz for the book! As you can see, Josie loves reading it!

stroller envy part 2, answered prayer

Thanks to Cheryl Leschide for sending us every Craigslist posting for this particular stroller she could find, and thanks to Debby Coons for graciously providing the money to purchase this stroller, I have had an answer to prayer. Thank you!

We got a used Cheetah Chariot for less than half the price, thanks to the great Craigslist trading site. A family who had to older children and a baby on the way were downsizing to a single stroller of this particular kind. And they loved this one, every minute of using it.

So, from what I can gather, these strollers are a Canadian specialty. I guess if you are a northern country with brutal rains and snows, you want something as rugged as where you live. If you are willing to purchase all the attachments, this carrier can be converted from a regular stroller, to a jogging stroller, to a bike trailer, to a hiking trailer and even a cross country ski trailer! The kids fit inside and can be completely enclosed for any weather. So long to the rainy-feeling trapped inside-too cold outside-can't go out- excuses! The only excuse I have for today is that kids both have bad coughs and my own raingear isn't up to par!

So without further ado, here we go. http://www.chariotcarriers.com/english/html/cheetah.php

First, this is what our dining area used to look like. (One downside is that this Chariot isn't a fold down easy thing, and we can't get it into our storage area well).
So this is what it looks like now.
A handy kid's chair in the living room perhaps? (fleece my addition)
Josie isn't quite sure about it yet, but yesterday we went on a long walk around the harbor area of Steveson and Josie was thrilled to poke Asher during the entire walk!

Dental Genes

During the Thanksgiving holiday soon after Dave and I started dating we scheduled a call home. As Thanksgiving is the main holiday celebration in my household, almost the entire family had gathered. The evening we called, I could picture the family beginning to gather around the breakfast table, Gram brewing her tea, others lingering around the food, about to begin a day of cooking and eating. Thanksgiving really is my favorite time of the year in upstate NY.

But this particular year I was in China, and not lingering around the kitchen table in NY. Instead, Dave and I called home for his debut skype conversation with my family. They knew we were getting serious (we had been dating now for over a month, right?) and all were quite curious about this new man in my life-- and perhaps a little worried I had met a vagabond hippie in China. Naturally, Gram wanted to know what kind of stock Dave was from (and if he would be able to earn a salary that could support her vagabond hippie granddaughter if they were to get married) and so asked "So Dave, what does your dad do?" When he answered "oh, he's a dentist",

"Oh, well there's still time for you to go back to dental school" she quickly replied, relieved there was some potential for job and financial security in the family.

Needless to say, we both had a chuckle. Mostly because we didn't see much of a possiblity for dental school in the future, and in fact we didn't see much green stuff in the kind of future we were interested in.

But now there's Josie. She begs to brush her teeth all day long. And all night. Perhaps she will carry on the dental tradition in the Coons family?

stroller envy

It's raining outside. We've got to go to gymnastics by foot. My rain cover is ripped and navigating the sidewalks can be a slippery business with 2.

I'll admit it, I have stroller envy.

http://www.chariotcarriers.com/english/html/cougar.php

I knew NOTHING about strollers until I was pregnant. I don't even remember ever using a stroller when I was a baby... And after having Josie, I was definitely happy with whatever we could find second hand that worked ok. And with one child, that's fine. But two children, now that's a different story. I see now why people buy expensive strollers. (I previously thought they were crazy.) My previous experience with children before moving here is that you drive where you need to go, and you would use a stroller if you intentionally "going for a walk". In China I just carried Josie because we were there only 3 weeks of her life. But life in Vancouver where you walk most places, or regularly walk on trails, beaches, get on and off buses--is much different. And having 2 children to transport is so much different. Carrying Asher and managing Josie is a different story indeed. Now I get it. You want something that will keep kiddos safe, dry, something easy to push, able to use on different terrains, tow behind a bike, use as a storage for groceries, baby stuff, etc. I am feeling like a stroller is kind of like a prosthetic limb in this culture.

Only problem... I'm just not willing to bite the price bullet that such a savy prosthetic limb costs.

There's prayer right? And even as I'm typing my complaint here I'm humbled that I have never lacked what I've needed. And we'll make it to gymnastics today (I can manage a 10 minute walk!) Perhaps the rain will let up?

New Friends!

One of the things that's been really neat for us this year is just making contact with lots of people from China. We're literally surrounded by people from all over the world, but especially Asia. And now that we live on campus, there are so many students who come from across the world. We've been blessed to have gotten to know some students through Church who have been helping babysit during our mom's group which has doubled in size and number of quickly growing toddlers who could use some extra eyes and help so that the moms can have some more focused Bible time together.

Needless to say, we've loved having these ladies as part of our lives! And the more we've gotten to know them, the more we have in common. Like, for example, they've all gone to International Schools in China, they've all lived and traveled around the world, they are students here, and they (mostly) attend our church. We've enjoyed the time together so much that we've started a college women's group that meets at my place one evening a week. It's a natural fit, I actually feel like I used to in China when I met regularly with a group of girls who wanted to grow in their faith. And these ladies remind me of an older version of my TIS girls which is really neat. It's like I'm beginning to step out of the pregnancy and baby time warp I've been in for the last 2 years and interact with students which is a part of me that I've really missed. I'm blessed and so glad for these gals!