Christmas Program- China Style :)

Today Brady and I spent the morning at Rilynn's school for their Christmas program. Unfortunately Chad is in Korea right now, but we got it all on video tape for him :)

This week the kids wrote letters to Santa and put them in a box for him. Well today when they checked their letters they were gone, but there was a letter FROM Santa :) He then make a visit and gave each kid a book, well except for Brady. You'll see below in the video where he thought he called his name, but didn't.. After Santa was all done and Brady didn't get called, he ran across the circle to me and was in tears that he didn't get his Thomas the train that he asked for.. I did feel really bad for him, but used it to my advantage since he was a naughty boy yesterday. He started acting better after that and someone from the school ended up giving him a teddy bear and said Santa left it for him.. He was so happy!!!

They had stations set up for some crafts and to decorate cookies. Then they got together with 2 other classes and sang "The twelve days of Christmas" Australian style (very different!), "Jingle Bells" (English/Chinese), and "We wish you a Merry Christmas" (English).. Rilynn did pretty good for only starting a week ago!

We then had a big ole schmorgasbord potluck. Not your typical potluck! LOL.. It was also just a tad chaotic as they do not seem to believe in lining up here!!!

Ms. Anna- Rilynn's English Teacher

Ms. Stacey- Rilynn's Chinese Teacher

Jingle Bells

Poor Brady :( It was funny at the time, but I'm sure it just killed him not ending up getting a present!

Our first dinner..

Tonight's dinner was definitely not McDonalds! We have been eating very western, thanks to my picky palate, but I was a supportive wife tonight. Chad has been eyeing this Singaporean restaurant by our house, so we all went to give it a try. First thing we noticed was that there was no silverware only chopsticks :) The kids were given some plastic dinnerware to use, lucky!


Chad ordered his black pepper crab that he had wanted, but the kids and I were trying to find something to please us.. We settled on what I thought was chicken fried rice and sweet n sour chicken (safe, right?). Wasn't a big fan of my "chicken fried rice" as the chicken was served cold and the rice was not easy eating with chopsticks! Halfway through the meal they must have seem me struggling as they brought a fork over. lol. I was under way too much pressure as the cook was eyeing me eat the food and the waitress was watching me with the chopsticks. One good thing was that the sweet n sour was actually pretty good!


The owner was very friendly and was enjoying the kids trying to speak Chinese to everyone :) They really do love children here. Brady was a trooper and tried everything, including Chad's crab, and even liked most of it! The owner was very nice and bought us a coconut dessert, which I managed to get down since it was a really nice gesture. I really am the world's pickiest eater!


All in all we survived, and only a tad hungry :) LOL

Our sweet n sour chicken

Rilynn's favorite part- Her OJ :)

Chad with his messy crab!

Here's my chicken fried rice :)


This week was a fun one, especially for me :) Thanks to some message boards I have been able to meet a lot of moms around me.

Tuesday's there is a group that meets every other week for coffee and the restaurant is very nice and caters to the kids. This was our 2nd time meeting up with them. It's fun and great to meet people who are living by you.

Wednesday, Brady and I went to a Christmas Bazaar to do some shopping and that was just a madhouse!! Way too many people there! That night I was invited to a Christmas Bubbles Night hosted by a New Zealand woman. There was about 20 other ladies with the bubbly flowing and we all had a great time! However, when I got home I realized that I had lost my entire wallet!! I figured it was just at her house and would wait until the next day to worry about it. However, the next day after searching her house we found nothing and then I started to freak out! Thankfully, long story short, a VERY honest cab driver gave it back to me yesterday- Cash and all!!! I had no contact info for me in China, so it's a miracle that it made it's way back to me.

Thursdaywe had to get Brady's staple out. Which apparently here needs to be done by a surgeon!! LOL - So after he took it out and it didn't stop bleeding he decided that it hadn't healed.. Genius! Anyways, he now has surgical glue holding it together. Hopefully it will heal up after that..

Friday, we met Sarah and Claire (family from Hudson) at the Children's Market to do more shopping. It was a little overwhelming, but fun. There were tons of stalls with vendors selling anything and everything related to kids. Toddlers can only last so long, but will definitely be going back by myself before Christmas. The best part is you get to bargain (which I'm still learning).

And this morning, we all headed out to Hongqiao Pearl Market. This is another huge market specializing in "fake" products. Was able to get Rilynn some cheap "crocs" for school and also Photoshop for only about $3!! Once again, will be great without the kids in tow :)

Killing time before meeting Sarah- Park that Brady did not want to leave. He loved the dragon boat! Who would've thought watching a man clean up a pond would be so much fun :) Notice the Gap store in the background- Just opened, can't wait to check it out!



Brady loved the dragon boat!

Brady and Claire- The best part of the market was the rides for them :)





Love the cute music :)


One of the very few Christmas decorations around here- Christmas will just not be the same here :(

School in session..

Rilynn started school on Wednesday at Yew Chung International School of Shanghai. Her class is a great mix of kids from all over the world. We really are thankful and excited for the opportunity she has there. It's only about a 15 minute drive, which is nice. School is from 8-3:15. She has 2 teachers, Miss Anna (British, speaks English all day) and then Miss Stacey (who speaks Chinese all day, but does know English). It's great!! Rilynn will have an hour of Mandarin a day and combine that with her teacher she'll be picking up the language quick!

We are also hoping that Brady will be starting at the same school in February after he turns 3. We weren't planning on sending him so early, but believe it would really be the best for all of us :) LOL.

She wears a uniform everyday, which is a change. It's nice, but a shame she won't be able to wear her closet full of clothes and they also have such cute clothese here. We might have to do a couple wardrobe changes on the weekends. HA!

There have been no tears and she seems to be enjoying herself. Her daycare really deserves the credit for the transition. If this would've been her first school (all day) the transition probably wouldn't have been so easy. So thanks KB!!

She has a busy couple of weeks coming up. Her class is having a Christmas party with Santa coming next Friday, then her birthday on the 13th, and then Christmas! She'll be having a lot of time off from school between the Christmas break and then again at the end of January for the Chinese New Year. We can't wait for that though, because we just booked our vacation to Phuket, Thailand!! We'll be there over the CNY from 1/28-2/4. Really looking forward to our beach vacation :)

Thought it was cool seeing the months in Chinese too :)


When they get to school they write their name on a paper and stick it into which column they are feeling- So far she's been happy the 1st 3 days!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Minus the snow!!! However, I am really love being here and missing all the snow :) It's been perfect fall weather here, my favorite.

I seriously don't know what I would do without Ikea being here. I'm sure our driver is getting sick of me saying, "to Ikea" :) LOL.. Really though, there is some slim pickings around here for Christmas decorations, tree included, so I am really thankful for Ikea. Their selection was pretty picked over, but we were able put some stuff together to make it feel like Christmas, a very Swedish Christmas that is!

Gardens and more..

First, I'll start with the best news.. Our shipment came!!!! It only took 2 weeks, which made for an early Christmas for us! Was very nice to be reunited with all of our stuff and not just the items in our suitcases :)


More exploring around our compound.. They have 6 gardens around the buildings. Our building has the English Lawn that we have the view of. The next couple pictures are of the Chinese Suzhou Garden. It was very Chinese and peaceful. They had a koi pond with a waterfall and all the walkways had chinese laterns.

Koi Fish- next time we'll bring some food to feed them

Good view of the Shanghai World Financial Center- one of the tallest buildings in the world

German Swan Lake Garden

We all had fun going through the French Maze Garden

On Friday we went to visit Rilynn's school that she will be starting next week. She is very excited to start!! Rilynn and Brady were both even able to play the violin a bit:) I can't wait to hear her start speaking Chinese! Brady will probably be starting here as well, but not until February when he turns 3.

The street we live on :)

Thanksgiving dinner with a staple ending..

Last night we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving with 3 other American families and Chad's boss. We had a total of 8 kids with Rilynn being the oldest, which was a little chaotic, but also nice to have our normal Thanksgiving background noise :) LOL. It was great having some turkey and pumpkin pie to eat and the kids had fun playing with their new friends and sharing their turkey cookies :)

However, around 8pm as a game of Hide and Seek was happening, Brady went to hide behind the couch. Well, unfortunately while he was going back there he hit his head on the metal window sill and split his head open. We were on the Puxi side of the city and had our driver so we headed to the closest international hospital which was about 15 minutes. We walked into the ER and were given a bed right away with a nurse following. She cleaned his wound and a doctor came in shortly after and spoke great English. Brady rec'd one staple in his head and will have to go back in 5 days to get it out. We then went to the cashier to pay our bill and pick up our abx cream and were out in less than an hour! It was great :)

Today is rest day for all of us.. I just want him to be careful and not fall, which is usually an everyday occurrence for him.. But he really is doing just fine :) Now he'll just have a matching scar on the other side of his head from his last stiches.. What a boy! UGGH..

It will definitely be a Thanksgiving that will never be forgotten!!

Kids eating their Thanksgiving dinners

Rilynn finally able to enjoy their cookies that they worked so hard on!

Our 1st ER trip- Shanghai United Family Hospital

Our staple ending on our Thanksgiving dinner

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Ok, so I tried to post this before midnight, but I failed :( This marks our first holiday that we are apart from all of our families. It just wasn't the same not being able to be with you in person, but it was nice to see some of you via skype this morning. Sorry to those who we had just missed!!

It's different- Chad had to work on Thanksgiving and the kids and I went shopping like it was any other day. And then of course there is no Black Friday shopping for me either :( However, I am so thankful that we live in this techy world to help keep us in touch with everyone!!!

We were invited to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday with a couple expat families. Rilynn saw on Nickelodeon (which is amazing we have it here!) Thanksgiving turkey sugar cookies that they had made. Well, we decided to see if we could find everything here to make them to share on Saturday. We had to improvise a bit (could not find candy corn) and spent about $30 to make 9 cookies, but we did it and had fun too :)

WE LOVE YOU ALL AND HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT THANKSGIVING!!!!

Our turkey creations!