Drinks with Friends

Tomorrow is the first day of a long weekend. Three glorious days ahead of us with absolutely nothing to do but throw rocks, play with playdoh, slide on slides, go for bike rides and look at flowers. We celebrated by having friends over tonight and the kids played (and ate) so well together.

Somebody I love loves strawberries A LOT!!!!

Playdoh with Dad

A few weeks ago Blake visited our downstairs neighbor Jacob and the two boys played with playdoh. I was a bit freaked about the possibility of his eating the dough but I watched carefully and none was ingested. So the next time we were near a Toys R Us we picked up some playdoh of our own.
We brought it out tonight and my two boys played for ages with the blue and the orange. Oh how I love these two guys. And watching them play together fills me up.

Ping Pong Balls

Mom sent a big birthday package that arrived on Monday.
Thanks Mom! We love presents from home.
There were goodies inside for all. Including some ping pong balls for Blake.
Blake thinks it's fun to put the ping pong balls in shoes.

Not All Playgrounds Are Created Equal

This morning we went to a new playground at a local school. It looked great - and I'm sure it is great for older children, but there wasn't much that Blake could do on his own.

He did spend a lot of time playing in the rain water left in these steps.

Blake

Yesterday Blake had his 15 months well baby checkup and all is well.

The nurses & receptionists at the clinic told me how much he looks like his daddy. People all over China tell me how much he looks like his daddy. Friends, strangers, family... it's a pretty common topic of discussion. Usually after they tell me that they quickly say they can see a little bit of mum in him too. As if they are worried that my feelings will be hurt if I'm told he just looks like his dad.

And I know that physically he is a complicated little mix of all the family members that came before him. And I know that his temperament and personality will also be influenced by us, our family and friends.

But to me he is just Blake. He is his own little wonderful self.

Let me tell you what I see when I look at my son.

I see a happy, laughing kid who smiles easily and often.

I see bright blue intelligent eyes that are curious to see everything there is to see.

I see little hands that reach up to grab mine on the rare occasion when he needs help over uneven terrain.
Little hands that reach out to touch and feel everything he sees.
Little hands trying hard to discover how everything around him works.

I see a boy who loves to explore, play, read, catch, throw, investigate, laugh, smile, shout, slide, look, stir, eat, drink, dance, laugh, spin and tumble.

I see Blake, the most amazing, incredible kid.

Wordle

I've been wanting to fool around with wordle.net in my class blog, but it's been banned in China for a long time. It's a little toy that reads all the words in a text and arranges them in a 'cloud.' The words you use more often are larger.

It's finally back up and running so I thought I'd try it using this blog.

Here is the word cloud for the Hossacks 3 blog.

It would seem I write a lot about Blakie.

Here we go again...

We got through the biting and the pinching phases of Blake's young life relatively unscathed.

Blake's newest thing? Eye gouging.

Ai - ya!

Possibly the Cutest Hat Ever

Spring is here and sunny days have come to Shanghai. Yahoo for me who loves the sun! But it also means the beginning of worrying about sun protection for the Big Gunner.

Our friend Colleen calls Blake the Captain of the Pale Force. And she's right - sun screen is definitely something we need to be concerned about.

I went out on the weekend and bought Blake the cutest hat ever! I then took 34 photos trying to get one with the hat still on his head. 34! He's pretty fast. This is the only one that I caught before he ripped it off and threw it down.

Maybe we'll have to resort to using duct tape this summer.

Puzzling

Blake has discovered puzzles in a big way. Our active little guy will sit and play with his puzzle for many minutes at a time. He takes all the animals out of their holes and then move them around on the mat. Next he'll place them really close to where they belong and slide them around a bit in the hopes of getting them in the slot. See how close purple hippo is to where he belongs? Clever baby!

Climby McClimberson

These days Blake is a climber. He climbs stairs, he climbs rocks and he climbs people! Here we see him beginning his acsent of Mt Scooter.

He has a little step stool that he uses to step up to the bench behind the couch or to reach the top shelf of his book case. Sometimes he just climbs to the top to be a little bit taller.

We are so proud of our curious little guy and excited to be part of the adventure as he explores this fascinating world around him, and above him.

Weekends

I can't tell you how much I look forward to weekends. I love spending the whole day with Blake! Especially warm, sunny, outdoorsy days.

On Friday night a bunch of teachers headed to a local pub to enjoy the lovely weather we've been having. And celebrate that there are only 8 weeks til summer. Here's Blake with Malin and Riley.
On Saturday we went for a big long bike ride. We started here, at the bike shop for a tune up, and ended up at Slice for a smoothie. We biked all over Jinqiao, up and down the canal, and through some local villages. Blake carried this flower the whole way!

Peekaboo

This video is a over a month old. I took it on Scott's camera awhile back and forgot to post it. Or maybe I tried and it wouldn't load.

Anyway, here it is.... my broccoli eating boy playing peekaboo.

Feeding the Fish

As I understand it, the word for good fortune and the word for fish are very similar in Mandarin. Naturally fish are very lucky and you see them everywhere - stuffed ones and the real deal. At the shopping complex across the street from us there is a fish pond and today Blake and I went to have a look. We bought two little canisters of fish food and fed the RAVENOUS fishies. They were jumping out of the water to get to the food! Blake wasn't really interested in the fish, but he did like the containers. Lid on, lid off, lid on, lid off.

Pretty cool that he was very his big gunner, big fish shirt for the photo - not even planned. It was pretty hard to get good photos because I was too worried he would topple in to the pond when I was getting the shot.
Later on, we went grocery shopping. I guess Blake likes cottage cheese - he put about 12 packs in the trolley.

Chucking Rocks

Today has been so beautiful! Warm and sunny!!
We have been outside all day - walking, running, shouting and, Blake's favorite, throwing rocks into the river.

We (I) collected dozens of rocks and then we (Blake) threw them into the water. It was super fun. We're home for a nap now, but plan to head out again as soon as the big gunner wakes up.


It was fun to watch where they landed even though it freaked mum out a little bit.

Some black and white pics.

Ben came to play for a little while, too.