Happy Birthday

Bonita Rose is ONE MONTH old and she has changed SO much in just 4 short weeks.

Here she is just few days old


And here she is at 1 month


Can you believe how much she has grown?!
She was born at 6pounds 7ounces
and when I weighed her last week she was 9pounds 5ounces. and I'm pretty sure she's gain more since then.

Here she is sporting some Shanghai winter fashion...


and yes. Those are leg warmers.

Baby Dedication

Many cultures and religious groups have different traditions when it comes to welcoming a new baby into the world.When Bonnie Rose was born a couple of our Chinese friends asked us if we had any special ceremony that we did for the baby since we are Christians.
I explained what we usually do is called a "Baby Dedication." The parents usually take the baby to church and stand in front of the church with the Pastor. The parents promise to raise the child to know God and by doing it in front of the church they are also asking their church family to help them raise the child in this way.
Simply put, we dedicate the child to God. We say to God "Thank you for giving us this baby, we acknowledge this beautiful gift and give it back to you."

Anyway, I wasn't sure what we were going to do for Bonnie Rose. We are far away from our home church and our family and it would be nice to do it with them. But since we don't know when we will be home again to our home church, and the International Church in Shanghai was having a Dedication Sunday we decided to do it now.
So we got Bonnie Rose all dressed up in her beautiful rose covered outfit from her Nana and made the adventurous outing to church.



Any time you have ten babies sitting in the first 2 rows of church it's an adventure. For every one. But all the babies behaved very well and we got to practice what it's like having a baby at a public event. It was fun, and it was special. And Bonnie Rose looked Beautiful.



The church people were so sweet and supportive and super patient with all the babies. They gave Bonnie these beautiful flowers and a Certificate for us to remember this special Sunday by.

Baby dedication isn't some magic pass straight to heaven. It doesn't guarantee that the baby will have a perfect life. It's not superstitious or for good luck. It doesn't really mean much to the child.
But it is special for the parents. It's a way for us to refocus our goals and intentions for our daughter. It's a time to stop and be thankful for our blessings. And it's a time for those in our community to remember the value of children and to be reminded of our communal responsibility to them.

And it's a great excuse to get our baby all dressed up and have people tell us how cute she is.

Halloween

I know my Mom posted about Bonnie's first Halloween already, But I wanted to make sure it was well documented.
Bonnie Rose was born during my favorite time of year. Autumn! And just as all the great holidays are coming. For me "the Holiday Season" starts in October. (well.. unless you count that I start listening to Christmas music in September) And Halloween is a great way to start this magical time of year.

Halloween was always a favorite of mine growing up. And I've held on to that child-like playfulness that the holiday inspires. I LOVE dressing up!

Bonnie was just 2 weeks old on Halloween so we kept it very simple (we were ALL still recovering) but we still dressed up.
My mom made some amazing chilli and corn bread and then we dressed up the baby.
OH.. and we decorated the house.

I'm especially proud of our decorations. We finally took them down yesterday.. (well at least we took down the ghosts and Hector (the glow in the dark Skeleton). We left the pumpkins up for Thanksgiving) Because it's time to start decorating for the OTHER Holidays.



This year William and I weren't very creative in our own costumes. Bonnie Rose looked ridiculously cute as Tigger. I dressed up as a hippie (that's an easy one for me) and William is ... can you guess?
Yes. William is a glass of Guinness.

Indignant

Mothers do the meanest things some times to entertain themselves. I know my mother did... does. She likes to poke us in our ribs with a sharp fingers to watch us squirm. She giggles.
I have to admit it is pretty funny when she does it to my dad.
I'm sure I will do similar things.
But for now.. I'll just dress my child up in ridiculous hats and giggle.
Somehow, even at this age, she seems to know I'm up to not good.

But she sure is cute. hehe

Shanghai Fashion

Oh dear. It's been so long since I've blogged. I will try to keep this up. Especially for family who wants to see how fast our baby girl is growing.

Today however, I'd like to share some fashion with you. Not just ANY fashion. But SHANGHAI Fashion.
Shanghai fashion is the best during the summer time...

Shanghai is definitely a shoe city. You can buy shoes almost anywhere.
Some are great.
like these...

oh.. mini skirts are very popular here too.

This shorts and boot combo is one of my favorites.

Something that is extremely popular in Shanghai is to wear you pajamas out and about. Especially to the market. but pretty much anywhere. You can usually see this in the evening but you can also see it pretty much any time of day.

UMBRELLAS!!
Umbrellas are extremely fashionable in Shanghai. In the summer time they are all beautiful and colorful. Women (and sometimes men) carry them on sunny days to protect them from the sun and from getting tan.

Well there is just a little taste of Shanghai Summer Fashion. I'll try to remember to get some winter fashion this winter... but it's not nearly as interesting.

Like Mother like Daughter?

My mom finally made it to Shanghai! I feel like I've been waiting for this day for ... well months. :-)
I'm so excited that she's here. It's a little weird at first when you feel like you live in two different worlds that are so apart from each other and then one day they meet. It feels surreal. But it's very quickly becoming very natural.

I love showing people around our city. Especially to people who like to explore and who really enjoy new things. I also like to feed people. It's a great excuse to go to all my favorite eating spots. Plus, it's an extra bonus when people come and are impressed with my Chinese! That always makes me feel good. (Especially when all I say is "stop here, Thank you" to a taxi driver) hehe

Today was alot of fun. We went Tea shopping at my favorite tea shop. I've been going to this one tea shop for about a year now and I've been telling the lady I'm going to bring my mother. So today she finally got to meet my mom and we sat and drank tea with her for about an hour. It was so nice to be able to show my mom my little corner of the world and the great people I've met.

My mom has only been here a few days and she's already really good at Chinese (her pronunciation is impressive) AND I've been learning alot about myself. (apparently I'm alot more like my mom that I realized.) :-)
In fact, the first thing she said to me when she got off the plane was "you look just like I did when I was pregnant with you"
That made me happy. I just hope someday I can look as good as she does NOW after raising 4 kids.

We are a Modern City

William saw this on this way to work one morning...
It's street sweeping time in Shanghai.


Isn't it cute!
Hey. In Wuxi a man would walk in front of a water truck with a big hose and spray everything down... we are much more modern than that.

Guess what we can do!

Shanghai is an awesome city. It's big and modern and there are lots of things you can do here that you just can do in the states.
For example. You can get ANYTHING delivered to your house for free, or at least very cheap. (that is the delivery is free.. not the stuff coming)



Last week we had a friend from the states visit us for about a week. I love it when people come to visit because then I get to go to all my favorite food places in the name of being a good host. THIS time we decided to do something we've never done before. We ordered in. Guess what we got...






That's right folks. In China you can get McDonald's do deliver right to your front door! So in case you are worried that the walk down to the corner Mc-a-D's might be too hard on your clogged arteries you can just call them and have THEM come to YOU.

We've never ordered from McDonald's before but we thought we should just once ... Because we CAN.

As you can see we were even able to order ice cream!

Jealous?

Saturday Morning

So I'm up at 7am on a Saturday morning about to make Pancakes!! Ok.. I've been awake longer but I was trying to sleep in since it IS Saturday.
But I'm too excited and hungry to wait any longer.

This is the first time I'm making Gluten Free Pancakes since we've been in China. Actually this is the first time I've made any kind of pancakes.

I'm VerY excited! So I just wanted to tell you about it.

Will have to post pictures later.

off to cooking!