Birthday's & Bare Bums

Yesterday, September 11th, was Kyle's birthday. It was so much fun celebrating Kyle's birthday in China! Our good friends, Jeff and Maren, were so sweet in buying Kyle a cake and a vanilla coke! It was a really good cake. I expected  a cake in China to have sort of rice or something in it... typical thing for EVERY meal so why not dessert right? But instead it was an awesome cherry/chocolate cake! It was really good!!

This is the picture that our nanny took. "Hey Au Chen can you take a picture of us with the birthday cake?"...... or just the wall thank you :)

So we had another friend, Hannah, take the picture.

Jeff and Maren have been such a blessing in our lives! It has made our transition in moving to Kunming, China a lot easier. We had a friendship before we even met physically. While we were in the US, we would Skype with Jeff and Maren a lot and that is where our friendship started. When we finally met in person, it's like we have known them for a long time. We eat lunch and dinner with them almost everyday. They have gotten us addicted to eating at McDonalds for breakfast.... ya SHOCKER! I actually enjoy eating at McDonalds at 8 in the morning! When I really think about eating at McDonalds I just about gag, but it's really good!!

Kyle had to teach at the school on his birthday and here is the cake his students brought him:

And yes... those are tomatoes in the middle of his cake!

We have absolutely love our nanny! She is the sweetest little lady, I wish I could communicate with her... but I'm slowly learning Chinese so hopefully soon I will be able to talk her. The food she makes is the best! I look forward to her meals. Even when we have tofu for lunch (at home, I wouldn't even think about trying it) but because I absolutely love her cooking, I have tried every dish she has made... besides a mushroom dish, it looked really gross and I didn't think I could stomach that yet.

 Preparing lunch

Kyle talking with the nanny... I still find it so awesome that this language Kyle is speaking, is actually a language!! haha It honestly sounds like he is just making stuff up, but nope he is actually communicating!!

 Tofu and potatoes... The potatoes were kind-of spicy but they were really good that I kept eating them. The tofu looks like chicken, so that's what I kept telling myself.

This was one of my favorite meals that she has cooked. Pork, potatoes and carrots on two plates, egg and tomatoes on another plate and cabbage on the third plate.

This is, by far, the biggest jug of oil I have ever seen! Our nanny brought this in one morning and I couldn't wrap my head around it that it's oil!! I kept wanting to think it was a drink or something, but nope it's oil!

This is how they pick their fish at the store. There is everything from fresh fish to live oysters. If I liked fish, I'd be in heaven, but I'm not the biggest fish fan.

Fresh banana's. Jeff bought some and the guy cut them off the branch!

Every night, ladies will get together in the court and dance to loud music. It looks like a form of Zumba... except these woman are in jeans and high heals dancing!

Mason has been quite the trooper since we have arrived! His little personality has grown so much these past few weeks and Kyle and I really enjoy seeing him laugh and play. When Kyle get's home from work, Mason gets the BIGGEST smile on his sweet little face. He almost gets embarrassed because he's so excited!

 He just saw daddy after a long day of work!

 He loves daddy!!

 Getting embarrassed because he's so happy!

 Love them with all my heart!


Ever since Mason was a week old, he has loved taking baths! Taking a bath has always settled him down and he loves soaking in the water.

 Waiting for the tub to fill up with water!

 I LOVE BABY BUMS!!

Mason has this new thing where he LOVES giving kisses! My face is usually wet when he is done! It is the sweetest thing I have ever seen. I love this stage of life that Mason is in right now!

 Well there is an update on our lives here in China. We are currently planning to go on a trip to Dali, China with Jeff and Maren next weekend because it's Mid-Autumn Festival here in China and they get a few days off school. We are excited to start exploring China!

My "Building Muscle and Weight loss" Secret!!

There have been many people who have asked me how I lose weight (not really! Actually no one has haha) But I am going to tell you my secret!! It is to move to a different country! That's it! It is as simple as that. Ever since Kyle and I have moved across the world, I have found that eating breakfast, lunch or dinner is kinda like a workout. Mainly because these people here eat their food with these:

I mean..... What are those?? (I'm kidding) I struggle with getting any type of food into my mouth because I am forced to eat my food with sticks. I haven't gotten to the point where I end up stabbing my food with them, but I'm getting close to that breaking point. When we go into a restaurant, there is no slow way of learning how to use these. They don't offer you these stick-things and then 20 minutes later when you have yet to get a piece of rice into your mouth come and say, "Good attempt... here use this fork to finish the rest." They just simply smile and continue with their work. Not one Chinese restaurant here has a fork on hand! I mean who gets tempted to go into the restaurants kitchen to get a cooking utensil just so they can eat?... Me :) I am getting better at it though. 

Okay so on to my secret of building muscle. Well guess what the secret is for this one? That's right... it's the sticky-things that we eat food with. My fingers are doing good at the beginning of the meal, but about half way through my fingers are so stiff! I have never had so many finger cramps in my life... It's gotta be building muscle right? Haha that's what my dream has always been: it's to have these sexy muscly fingers on my right hand only. YES!!

It's not all bad though. I have come to find a favorite dish that I could eat at every meal! It's nice too because they are kinda sticky and so they are a little easier to pick up:

Dumplings and sauce with a side of potatoes! Super yummy! The food here is definitely different then the food back in the States. I actually think I like this food better. It's not as greasy and I am not tempted to eat as many sweets because they aren't available as often as they are in the States. There are so many different fruits and vegetables that I have never seen! Last night for dinner (I forgot to take a picture) Kyle and I had a dragon fruit! COOL!! It tasted like.... nothing actually haha. Dragon fruit has no taste at all but it's the thought that counts. We love trying new things and exploring this new world around us! Mason has loved exploring his new world as well. He has tried banana's and has loved them. Soon we are going to give him a purple sweet potato. They are suppose to be very nutritious for you, so hopefully he likes them! (I'm saying this like I have tried, let alone seen, a purple sweet potato! I guess if Mason likes it, I'll give it a try... horrible mom award right there)

Now I am going to post some pictures of my son, Mason, because he is the cutest thing ever!

This is what we do for a highchair at the moment. We just ordered a highchair, but it's not coming for about 5 days so we have had to come up with something else for the time being.

Oh my goodness! He can sit all by himself! Where did my little boy go?

New Happenings

Well we have officially moved to China! Holy cow... Kunming is our home for the next year or so! Kinda scary but very exciting! We left the U.S. on Wednesday August 28th at 7:30 a.m. to drive to the airport. My parents drove us so that we could park our car at their house while we are gone. Let me tell you, that ride to the airport was nerve-racking! Lots of thoughts going through my mind! I think the thing I was most nervous about was Mason. "How was he going to be traveling for 23 hours?" "Please eat well on the plane, the last thing I need is a baby who is going through a phase and won't eat on a 12 1/2 hour plane ride!!" "I hope there are people at the airport in China to pick us up at midnight when we arrive!"... Lots of things were going through my mind! I think the scariest thought was that we had to leave his carseat behind. In China, if you find a cab driver that would wait for you to put a carseat in he was a saint! So instead of bringing that and probably not using it, we decided to minimize our luggage that we had to carry through the airports and leave the carseat in Utah! Scary! Mason did AMAZING in the flights! We had 3 flights. Our first flight was about 1 1/2 hours to Seattle where we had about a 2 hour layover. Then we had a 12 1/2 hour flight into Shanghai, China where we had about a 3 hour layover. Then we had our last flight from Shanghai into Kunming and that was a 3 hour flight. Oh man, it was a long day!! The worst flight was the last flight because I think Mason was fed up with flying and having his ears hurt on the landings. But I'll take it!! I think the best part out of all the traveling was when we landed in Shanghai and we had to find our next terminal. When we went to find customs, and we had to go through these doors which took us to the place where people were waiting to pick up people that were on the plane. There were about 200 Asians and as soon as the doors opened and they saw Mason, it was almost an uproar! Everyone cheered, clapped and tried to get Masons attention by waving. We are told that seeing a baby, this young especially, but an English baby is like seeing a baby panda bear. It is really rare and not seen very often. So for them to see a blond hair, blue eyed baby they all wanted to touch him and take pictures with him. Kyle and I didn't expect an uproar like that and so we just kind of were in awe at how many people were waving! It was a neat experience!

For our 12 1/2 hour flight I think we got the best seats in the house ... plane??.... besides getting first class seats of course. We had the bulkhead seats (which are the very first seats) and we had so much leg room that if I stretched my legs out I could barley touch the wall in front of us. It was awesome! When Mason was asleep, I would just lay him on the ground in front of us!

Here we were in Shanghai waiting for our last flight! We were ready to be done traveling!

Mason looking out the window! On every flight, we had the whole row to ourselves so we always had extra seats to stretch out and stuff. I think the Lord knew how nervous I was and helped out a lot!! 

Getting on our last plane in Shanghai YAY!! 

The first night was pretty rough. We landed in Kunming at midnight their time, 10 a.m. Utah time. We got our bags and headed to meet Taylor and Drew (Owners of who we are working for) who were waiting to take us to our apartment. We got to our apartment (2 a.m.) and wanted to go to sleep SO bad, but Mason was wide awake! So Kyle and I stayed up until 4 a.m. and Mason finally went to bed (or took a 1 1/2 hour nap!) All-in-all it has been a rough few days! Mason is just barely getting over the Jet-lag feeling which has made our days a lot smoother! I tell ya what, there is nothing like having a new born baby and rearranging their schedule to match yours and then 5 months later switching their days 180 again!! It's tough, but do-able!

Fresh fruit and bread was waiting for us on our table when we arrived! This looked like GOLD after eating airplane food for, what seemed like, forever! 

Living room

Small kitchen

Masons king-sized bed! This is where he sleeps until he learns to roll and then we have to buy a crib for him.

Bathroom... yay for an American toilet!! No squatters here!!

Our view from the living room

Loving life!

First day of church in China

We have a very unique and special opportunity when it comes to attending church here in China. We call into a branch up north in China and we get to listen to sacrament meeting over the phone. If we want to talk, like for fast sunday or if we have to give a talk, we simply un-mute the phone and we are able to talk to every member who is listening on this conference call! There are about 23 different locations here in China that are on the conference call. The number of members varies from 5 here in Kunming to up to 35 up North somewhere. When it comes time to bless and pass the sacrament, Kyle and Jeff (our good friend), bless and pass the bread and water to Maren (Jeff's wife) and I. It is so neat to be able to experience something like this!

Craving something sweet... Tim Tam Slam anyone?! Oh ya!! Hit's the spot!

We also have started feeding Mason real food (other than cereal). We smashed up bananas and gave that to him for his first meal! He couldn't get enough! He absolutely loved the texture and taste of the banana's! Let's hope that he isn't allergic or anything because it's awesome to see him eat real food!

Sorry this post is so long, but I just wanted to update you on what Kyle and I have been doing since being in China! We have loved being here so far! There have definitely been some hard home-sick moments with me, but Kyle is so good at comforting me and helping me through it.

Eating food like a Big Boy!!

Last night, we decided that Mason was ready for cereal. He had been eyeing our food for quite some time (which is a sign they are ready) and he can sit up on his own (another sign) and he is old enough where if he doesn't like it he can refuse it (sign). So we got all prepared... the first time eating food, in my mind, is a make it or break it kind of thing. I wanted him to have the best experience possible so that he knew food was a good and enjoyable thing to do and not make him feel like he's being disciplined. My pediatrician gave me the best advice EVER on how to get your kids to eat anything that is in front of them. He said to let the baby eat the food himself. Babies have this thing where EVERYTHING goes in their mouths... everything. So if food is on their fingers eventually that finger ends up in his mouth by his choice, we didn't force him. Soon he will learn on his own that food is good, no one is forcing him to like it, he has decided that himself. If a baby doesn't like a certain type of food and you keep forcing him to eat, soon he will think that the spoon itself is bad news. It doesn't matter what's on that spoon... he will not eat it because he hasn't had a good experience with it.

So that's what we did; we allowed Mason to take full control with his cereal and he was the one that brought the spoon to his mouth, not us.

First Bite of Cereal!  <-- Click to Watch Video

At first he didn't like it... He actually gagged a few times!

We kept at it though!

He played with the spoon for a bit

Oh boy... The mess begins!! (It's even in his hair!)

Eventually the spoon got to his mouth!

Soon he couldn't get enough of it!

Hurry dad... get more!

 Can't get enough! <-- Click to Watch Video

Overall... It was a success!

Enjoying the little things

Mason has taught me so much and it's crazy because he is only 4 months old and doesn't say one word! It's amazing how I can love someone so much and the only thing Mason can give me is a smile and it melts my heart and makes me fall in love with him even more! How does that make sense? If he needs his diaper changed, he cries. If he's hungry, he cries. If he's uncomfortable, he cries. If he wants out of his bed, he cries. If he's happy, he smiles! It's amazing that all he has to do is give me a smile and all of my hard work is paid off! Motherhood is really challenging and you will never understand how challenging it is until you have a child of your own. I have heard time and time again "Having kids is hard work... but it's so worth it." I thought for years, "Ok how is having kids hard work? All you do is find out what they need and give it to them." Well the problem is that they have a problem that you need to find a solution to about 100 times a day! But when it is 8:00 at night and you are worn out from bending over backwards to fulfill their needs and they give you that smile.... it's all worth it!!

Watching Mason's expressions when he see's things for the first time has made me realize how many things I take for granted. The other day there was a storm that passed through Heber and I decided to open the door so Mason could watch the rain. It really hit me at that moment that there are so many beautiful things around me that I don't think twice about. I absolutely LOVED seeing his eyes get really big when he saw the rain drops falling into the puddles that were on the asphalt. I decided to get his little chair by the front door (and yes his chair is pink, it was given to us by my parents and I decided to keep it because they grow so quickly that he will be crawling before we know it and it would be pointless to buy a Bumbo) so he could sit and watch the rain and feel the air on his face.

Thank you Mason for showing me how important it is to slow down and enjoy the little things in life! I love you so much!