Trampoline

While Lizzy is in school, Hayden and I do fun stuff at the local indoor playground. Sometimes she sees the pictures and gets jealous. One weekend, we finally found some time to go together. Here they are having fun on the trampoline.

2 year old haircut

As Hayden gets older, haircuts get a little easier. Bringing my portable DVD player with a cartoon helps a lot. Here you see him staring at the screen.

He did okay, except for when the scissors would touch his skin he would cry. I guess that's understandable.


Before shot - he was eating Beard Papa Cream Puffs, yum!

After

High chair memories - Hayden

Highchair memories - Lizzy

Tribute to the Highchair

Today, the highchair broke. For a couple of months now, we have been thinking about transitioning Hayden from the highchair onto the family dining table. We just haven't gotten around to it. Now that the highchair is broken, we've decided to make the move. But before we say goodbye, just like to say a few words about the high chair.

Four years ago, when we moved to Tianjin Lizzy was only 1 year old. At that time, there were VERY few highchairs available on the market. The Chinese babies used a highchair that was made out of wood and just not what we were accustomed to. Being brand new to an unknown city, a kind friend who I met at the airport flying from Hong Kong, drove her car and took us all around the city to find a decent high chair. At long last, we found this one, a Taiwanese brand! It is not the most high class of high chairs, especially by American standards, but it is quality and sturdy and has served both of our toddlers. We have had many memories of silly meal stunts, food battles, and dinner "conversations" with our children in this highchair. So although it has now officially retired, we will always remember it.





Goodbye high chair.

*you can easily find a variety of highchairs on the market in Tianjin now, it's amazing how much has changed in just four years.

What are they doing?

I don't know. All I know is they are both sprawled out on the floor and Hayden has Lizzy's headband on.

Swing

Lizzy is 5 and still can't swing on a swing. :( There just isn't that many swings in China. Our apartment complex playground has a couple of swings, so I'm getting Hayden started early. He's a little unstable on this "big kids" swing, but he's got a tough head and can tolerate a couple of falls, no problems.

Mom and daughter haircut

Lizzy was due for a haircut, so we got an appointment together.

Smile Lizzy!

front

back

our new haircuts! I know, we look a lot alike don't we...

Work Day

We went to the office to organize some stuff for short term people who come who need basic necessities like pots/pans/dishes, etc. My brought Lizzy with me and she and some other kids were a great help!


The rest of the time they played hide and seek.

Transformers Birthday

Hayden's favorite favorite toys are his little Transformers action toys. Daddy ordered a whole batch of them and has been eagerly awaiting his birthday to give it to him. I made him a Transformers cake with two of the toys as cake toppers. As soon as Hayden saw them, all he wanted to do was to play with them.

We decided to have a quiet celebration with just our little family. Hayden is still quite anxious in big crowds and also he's 2 and not gonna know any better. It has been a huge joy to see Lizzy get excited for his birthday, and learning what it means to treat him special for his birthday. She was so excited about the cake, balloons, presents, and smothered Hayden with lots of Lizzy love. It was too cute.

After we served him a piece of his birthday cake, we cleaned the icing off the toys and set them right in front of him so he can admire them.

Hayden got lots of toys for his birthday, and had a hard time parting with them for his bath and bedtime. But his ultimate favorite present that he got were those two guys sitting on his cake: Optimus Prime and Megatron.

We are so happy and proud of Hayden, he is truly such a joy and blessing to us.

Birthday morning

This morning, Hayden got woken up by the blinding light from Daddy's video camera. "Happy Birthday Hayden!"

Fun in the park

asymmetrical

They say nobody is perfectly symmetrical. But Hayden is especially lopsided, one side of his head is flat because he always laid on one side as a baby (we blame ourselves, we really do). What didn't help was that Lizzy got the idea from a friend of mine (you know who you are) to give Hayden a haircut. She took scissors and chopped off a chunk of Hayden's bangs! Is it noticeable? Now he's really asymmetrical.

Don't let your children play with scissors. lessons learned.