Randoms..

Here's some random photos to get caught up..

I'll say it again, if you want imported food you have to pay a huge price here. Or for our family, if you want to eat cheese then you must also pay!!! Unfortunately, we can't live without cheese :(

Take a guess as to how much this small shopping trip cost me? Answer at the bottom :)

Last gymnastics class of the semester...

 Coach Rachel

 Coach Ross

Rilynn's favorite class is art. Her school had an Art Show where they picked samplings of students work to be on display. Here's Rilynn proudly posing with her artwork :)

Last day of swimming with all of our favorite coach, Coach Alex. We will all miss him :)

This is for you Val.. A decked out Hello Kitty car!!

ANSWER: $77!!!!!! Ridiculous!

And she's off!!

Our little girl just keeps getting bigger everyday :( It's a great thing to see her grow and learn new things, but just sad to see her grow up so fast!!

When we were home she tried a couple of times to go without training wheels, but just never got it. She has a bike here and we found a nice, long, open path right by our house so Chad took her out. Well, he said he bent down to do something and looked up to see her riding all by herself!!! No help, just took off!!

Well, after about a week of her new found freedom she also had her first accident. Unfortunately, Chad was out of town and we were heading home after swimming and she wiped out :( She split her chin open and was pretty wide so I brought her into the hospital. Thankfully, no stitches just glue. She was a trooper though and hasn't let that stop her from cruising again!

Art time!

I found this great store called Marie's Art Center in Puxi. In fact I liked it so much that I visited it twice in one week :) The 2nd time I brought the kids and they had so much fun picking out supplies for our dinner playdate with Brycen.

Rilynn is a very artsy and creative kid. She loves anything to do with art. So I decided to let her paint some canvases for me to decorate our hallway. It turned out so cute that I am going to have them both decorate the whole wall with canvases. Since we aren't supposed to put holes in the walls canvases are great to hang with the 3M hooks :)

Rilynn's Violin Concert

At their school YCIS students are required to start playing the violin 2nd semester in K4B. They chose the violin because it helps them to learn the tone associated with the Chinese language. Rilynn has been playing for one year now and really enjoys it. In fact she wants us to buy her one to practice at home, which we are planning on getting for her. We can buy them from the school for pretty cheap, ~$60.

Chad started traveling this week after a long travel freeze since October. So unfortunately he had to miss her concert. They had to do the hour long concert two different times because of the amount of children. They had 3 grade levels participating for a total of 282 students! It was the kindergarteners, and 1st and 2nd graders.

They played 2 songs as a whole group, which sounded good. And then they divided the grade levels up to each perform 2 songs, which was not so good :) LOL. I couldn't recognize the 1st song, but did the 2nd one so that's pretty good.. Ha

The most important thing was that she enjoyed her and also didn't worry about being in the front row in front of a large audience. GO RILYNN!! And plus they all looked pretty darn cute :)

Year 1's (Kindergarten)

Railway Museum

Yesterday I was able to volunteer to help out with Brady's field trip to the Shanghai Railway Museum. They had been learning about trains in school so they were all pretty excited when we got there, especially Brady! The first thing he saw was a large train outside and immediately yelled to his teacher that it was a passengar train :)

 Simulated ride from Shanghai to Suzhou

 Brady's class

Happy Birthday Brady!

Feburary 12th was Brady's 4th birthday. He is growing up so fast and I can FINALLY say he is officially potty trained. Woohoo!! Boys and girls are completely different, plus being a little stubborn boy doesn't help :)

His birthday was on a Sunday so for breakfast I made some yummy yellow cake birthday pancakes with powdered sugar and sprinkle syrup (thanks Pinterest!). We then played Wii, opened presents, and had soccer practice. Then ended with dinner (Brady's choosing) and then cupcakes.

He has been begging for a balance bike. These bikes are very popular here. They do not have pedals so the kids have to use their feet to move. However, it teaches them balance so they usually can just go right to a big bike. He was disappointed when we brought the presents out and no bike. However, when we were all done Chad went to grab it and he was so happy :)

Birthday Cake Pancakes

New Bike!

Per his request, chocolate Cars cupcakes with yellow frosting :P

The following Friday afterschool we had his birthday party with 9 of his buddies. We had it at Lollipop which is an indoor playground. The kids loved it and I also did as there was no cleanup :)

New favorite toy, Hot Wheels carwash. Rilynn and Brady washed every single one of his cars :)

BOOM go the Fireworks!!

Chinese New Year finally ended and went out with a bang! The 15th day marks the Lantern Festival and the end to the festivities. So of course this must be celebrated with LOUD and MANY fireworks all over the city and even right outside our window.

The videos don't do it justice just how loud it really is. Being right in the middle of the city the sounds echo off of the buildings and surround the entire apartment. It seriously sounds like we were in the middle of a war zone. They started around 8 and went until after midnight. I have no idea how the kids managed to sleep through the entire thing!!

Standing on our porch outside our living room. Being able to stand outside I could hear how loud it really was!! I thought it was bad enough being inside ;)

This video was taken out the window of our dining room on the opposite side of the house. These were the one's that I couldn't believe the kids slept through as they were shooting them right outside their bedroom window!