New Year Chaos...I mean Celebration

Yes, Happy New Year! No, I am not really behind in saying this. You can't possibly live where we do and not know it is New Year. The people here celebrate New Year according to the lunar calendar instead of the solar, thus the celebration. People have been flooding the streets and walking around with shopping bags for a while now. It feels like Christmas. New Year's day was Monday, but the celebration began about 2 weeks ago as people began practicing their fireworks shows. The fireworks are still going strong. Some just went off even as I typed that. Britton keeps asking when they are going to run out of fireworks. He actually found out today that it is illegal to shoot off any fireworks 15 days after the New Year. He's happy about that. It really hasn't been all that bad, and we've gotten quite use to it. It's fun to have the experience, and I think it's now Caden's new sound machine. He has slept through every bit of it. In fact, the fireworks went off consistently for 8 hours New Year's Eve until around 1:30am, then he proceeded to wake up at 2:00. What?! All the people I know that live here have used the exact same word I did to describe this crazy event...that it's like a warzone. That is the exact word I said to Britton New Year's Eve. All the booms, crackles, and smoke gives you a feeling of wondering if you should be scared, but it was all just a huge huge party. Our city has been unusually calm with fewer cars on the road, hardly anyone in the grocery store, and most businesses being closed, but the calmness is quickly penetrated by the abrupt and random booming of fireworks all.day.long. Without further adieu, here's a few photos and a video of the celebration.

Lanterns are hung everywhere. Red is the main and pretty much only color (and gold) used during the New Year because it is a symbol of blessing and luck.

What better way to celebrate New Year's than by playing Wii?! We went to a friend's house early New Year's Eve. All the kids loved watching the men play Wii while the women fixed our "finger food" dinner, which was actually more like an entire meal. I can't begin to tell you how good the velveeta/rotel dip was along with our southwestern quesadillas. Oh yum.

Before all the fireworks began at dark, people still had to celebrate with noise by using incredibly loud firecrackers. Right below our friend's balcony, they set off this long line of firecrackers, and this was the remnants. I wish I had a video of it. Oh man, it was loud. I couldn't hear myself scream.

Are these not the cutest boys in the world?! These 3 buddies are just about to a stage of actually playing with one another. It's funny, cute, and frustrating to see them take toys from each other and scream at one another just for existing, but this night they actually smiled, giggled, and even tickled one another. I see the beginnings of a great thing. I love this photo because all their faces are so stunned and uninterested. We really needed a shot of all 3 moms trying to get them to smile. We were obviously unsuccessful. I love Silas' face and Caden holding his arm. I wonder what's going through their minds.

Because of Caden's early bed time, we headed back to our place, but still had an awesome view straight from our bed! We have a little balcony off our bedroom and could watch up to 4 different fireworks shows and see the rest of the sky lit up with utter chaos. We watched one of our favorite shows in bed and would pause it when it got too loud to hear and just watched from our bed...quite the show. The fireworks in this photo are being shot off from where the senior citizen's yoga group meets. It was crazy close.

It was pretty, bright, and loud.

This seems like a pointless picture, but there's more story behind it than quality. A tradition is to set off firecrackers at every entrance to scare away spirits so the year will be blessed. Unfortunately, our complex probably has 30-40+ entrances. I can think of a much quieter way to scare away spirits :o) These firecrackers are so incredibly loud and make your heart beat really fast. You better make sure your bladder isn't full when these things go off!

So, here's an almost 6:00 minute video of the night. That might seem long, but this is an 8 hour night crammed into 6 minutes. There are several videos streamed together. In the 4th video, you'll hear me scream because I couldn't hear myself, but the video picked it up. In the 5th video, I scream, "Happy New Year," all cheesy-like. I think I just wanted it all to end. A video really can't do this justice. The cold mixed with extreme noise made me shake profusely and my heart race at times. Even car alarms were going off everywhere. Try to watch to the grand finale (well, at least the one on the video). Maybe you should be apart of all this next year to see for yourself :o) (it may take a minute to load)

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The next morning, there was red gunk everywhere. I was amazed, though, how fast it was all cleaned up. I guess they have to get it clean before the next night when the streets get trashed again.

I'm not exactly sure what the peppers and tube things hanging from the trees mean, but if I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with luck and scaring away spirits.

local's home, and we had a great time talking, eating, and looking at photos. During dinner, their dog, Tiger, and Caden stared each other down. Caden loved to point and try to say dog, while Tiger just sniffed his food.

Well, that in a small nutshell, is a summary of our week's experience. We've certainly enjoyed the experience but are ready for calm nights again. Happy New Year :o)

The Cadester

We're pretty much stuck indoors the next few days given the New Year celebration going on, so what better to do than post a blog. I will do another post soon specifically on all the very loud celebration, but for now, here's an update on your favorite little boy :o)

Before we get to Caden, I must let you know about mine and Britton's first date in our new country! I hate that it took us 3 months, but it's been quite crazy. Now that we're pretty settled, some of our closest friends here watched Caden one Saturday afternoon while Britton and I went to our favorite mall to do some shopping, grab some dairy queen, and play some games at an arcade. It was so much fun and just nice not to have to have all eyes on Caden 24/7. I meant to take more pictures and have a "just the two of us" shot, but I guess we were having too much fun :o) Here's one of Britton playing a fighting game at the arcade that he used to play as a little boy.

On to the favorite...Caden has learned to climb up on the couch, which is not the greatest thing in the world. He is pretty good about turning around to get down, and other times, I think he thinks he's superman and tries flying off. This kid just about has to be monitored all the time, or we would be visiting the hospital often. We had a local person tell us recently, "He is very active." Indeed, he is, and he is all boy.

Such a ham. How can you not love that face?!

I think I post a ton of sleeping pictures, but they're just the cutest. His favorite things to sleep with are Sir Barks-a-lot (on the left) and Mr. Lambskins (on the right). He always goes to sleep with them guarding his head. During the day, Sir Barks-a-lot must go all over the apartment, while Mr. Lambskins gets to stay in bed. He loves wrapping his little hand around their legs and feeling their soft fur. It's precious.

Meet Sir Barks-a-lot., the adorable, beloved, best friend. Both of his ears were sewn down, but strong and active Caden has pulled one of them off, hence the stuck up ear. I wonder if this might be the next "baby"...who's with me?!

I love love love this photo. What's greater than a little boy wearing his mama's girly sunglasses while also wearing his "play in the mud" shirt. He loves pulling stuff out of my purse, and this particular day he kept holding out my sunglasses to me to put on his face. He walked around like he knew he was a cool dude. Our house helper loved it.

A new favorite word for Caden is "eye." As you can see, Caden really likes to poke his eye out when saying "eye." You'd think that'd hurt.

And here's a video of the Cadester walking. He started taking some steps last month, and is starting to get a little more comfortable with it. He can walk a good ways now then usually just plummets down. The first part is him playing in the curtains and walking around. He gets a little excited at first. The second part is a video from my ipod (hence the vertical angle and worse quality) of him walking and saying "bath."

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Christmas-Take 2

I know I know, Christmas was almost a month ago, but it keeps going on when you live in another country. The mail system helps that be true. Don't think I wanted it to last this long, but I'm just glad after 38 days of waiting, sometimes patiently, sometimes not so patiently, my mom's Christmas package finally arrived! We called them extremely early in the morning when it came, as Caden was about to go to bed our night. They got up to see us open their thought-out and filled with love presents. It still feels like Christmas here because people are buying packages and awaiting a week long of craziness including fireworks galore. The New Year is being celebrated now, so I'm all kinds of confused as to exactly what time of year it is. It's all fun though.

I think this book my parents gave Caden pretty much sums up how we felt when the package came...(and Caden loves pushing the musical button on the tree...all.the.time)

No, our tree is not still up. Even though my mom's package was late, we still had many presents under our tree thanks to Britton's family. This was actually only half of what they sent. We are so loved!

They are here! And it also happened to be the first day the sun shined in 3 weeks. Hmmm, interesting. The bottom one is my mom's Christmas package, and the top one is Britton's mom's package filled with tons of food, a warm apple pie candle, and other awesome stuff for our home.

Caden was excited.

This blow up globe was in Donna's package. Caden loves looking at it and throwing it. We like showing friends where we are from and how far away we are!

oh what fun

quite possibly the best gift ever. My parents sent a recoradble book that they read through. I really should take a video of it, because it's too cute and too funny. Their personality is in every page. I love Britton's face in this picture as he wonders how their voices start playing. Caden is looking at the computer at my parents. He was more interested in them than the gift, which is probably a good thing.

A glimpse inside of the book.

Whoa. It's amazing what can fit in a box. Clothes, candy, and fun galore. Let's not forget the best...the row in the front of all the gifts, is chick-fil-a sauce! If you've been reading our blog, you know we love this stuff. Between my parent's package and Britton's parent's package, we ended up with 22 packets. :o) Oh yeah.

Merry Christmas, once again, and Happy New Year!

A Bright Day

In a city where the sun does not shine much and the rain and clouds dominate, snow is most certainly welcome. We were told it might snow here but not much. Well, yesterday the beautiful white flakes began to fall. Britton looked outside at lunch, and gasped and pointed like a true southerner, and said, "It's snowing!" My house helper and I evaluated the snow as it changed from little flakes to big flakes and how it is so beautiful...all in her language of course! :o) It was so nice to have a little brightness added to our gloomy weather. I think the sun has almost shined once in the last 2 weeks. Notice, I said almost. Even when the sun is "shining," you never really see it; it's just shining in the clouds. This is a very cloudy place, but we are still grateful for the things (like snow, hot chocolate, flowers, and paint on our walls) that brighten our moods. Here's some playing with Caden photos along with some snow!

On New Year's Day, Britton brought these beautiful flowers home to me. They smell wonderful and look so pretty. I was finally over my icky sickness, and this certainly brightened my day.

Caden has an abc book, and his favorite page by far is the "O" page. There is a picture of Oranges, and he always leans down to eat them. Notice he has taken his pacy out (on the floor) and is literally licking the page. It's too cute.

going in for a bite!

I love this picture and how into the book he is.

This may look like an ordinary cabinet that is in Caden's room, but there's something unique about it...

...there's a Caden in there!! This is a new favorite thing to do now that I moved all of his blankets out of that cabinet and there's just a toy bucket in there that inevitably gets pulled out to play with leaving room for Caden to crawl inside.

Still kinda gloomy but the snow is falling and making things look a little brighter

It started to snow during Caden's nap. As soon as he woke up and saw out the window, he immediately started pointing and didn't stop...even while eating his pb&j! He just kept pointing.

He was so excited about the snow.

Caden has his own little window seat that he loves to play in, and yesterday, he simply sat there pointing at the snow.

Even though it was below freezing, we had to let Caden go outside and see it. It snowed last year, but he definitely didn't remember it or care about it at 2 months old. We stayed out about 15 minutes, but Caden's favorite was to hit the snow off the trees with his daddy. Yay for the bright white!

He was not in the picture-taking mood. I look like an eskimo or like I have really awful blond hair!

enjoying walking, which was a little hard in all his garb

love this winter wonderland!

For your enjoyment, here's a short and somewhat boring video of us outside. I thought I filmed more with Caden hitting the show off the trees, but I ran out of room on my camera. Oh well, everyone loves a video, right?!

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Back inside in the warmth. Caden insisted on having the hood to my coat on his head. I think he can pull it off. He's just too cute.

Some things never change. Call me a southerner, but I will always be happy when it snows.

Celebrating Christmas

We had a great first Christmas overseas. It wasn't entirely what we expected, but we still have some sweet memories. After our Christmas party, we took it easy Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, we just played with Caden, watched a movie, and ate chocolate chip cookies. On Christmas morning, we let Caden open two gifts we got him and ate homemade cinnamon rolls. After that, we skyped with family for a while, which was so nice to see everyone. Unfortunately, that afternoon I got really sick. Caden was sick the week before, and I got whatever he had. I forgot to mention in our party post that he threw up at the party, which was not fun, but I was able to lift up the night in his room. All the ladies there kept saying he wasn't wearing enough clothing (what they always say here), and that I wasn't either. It was burning up in our tiny apartment with over 30 people! Anyway, I digress. I was sick the rest of the day, but Britton was great to remind us that Christmas is about celebrating Christ's birth. If we truly believe that, then this day is not about being this perfect day but about worshipping Him like every other day. Thanks to my leader for that. The rest of the week was rough with this awful sickness, but the Lord is so good to heal us again and again. Now, I feel great! Here's some photos of our Christmas celebration.

This is our complex's attempt to decorate for Christmas. Kudos for trying. I love the skinny Santa.

I was walking around my favorite mall when I saw this random cage with deer in it! What?! Not really sure what was going on, but I got a good smile out of it.

This was some more decorations in front of the deer cage. I wish I had Caden there to just go crawl and knock everything down. He's truly a demolition man.

a Christmas Eve photo isn't complete without some crying

Ok, now we're talking. Cuteness galore. That's his new favorite puppy, Sir Barks-a-lot.

yummy chocolate chip cookies

Britton shaved that night, and I said he looked like Santa :o)

Christmas morning and the 2 gifts we got Caden. I don't have a picture of them unwrapped, but it's a train set and stacking blocks.

ready to go see his gifts...although I'm pretty sure he didn't even know anything was out there. Of course, Sir Barks-a-lot is with him. Interesting fact: his puppy was born a week before Caden...it's like he was just waiting on him :o)

walking with daddy in matching pj's. Oh yes, we are being oober cheesy with our Christmas "Chill Out" pj's, but they are so comfy and from my mama!

opening his presents. He was more interested in the tissue box at first, until we sat him down and helped him start to rip. I hope he keeps his non-greedy spirit :o)

Family shot in our pj's

yummy cinnamon rolls, although this was the last thing I ate before feeling absolutely terrible, so they weren't as yummy to me at the time.

one of 4 skype conversations we had. This one was the biggest...I think 6 or so people are actually missing from this picture. This was so much fun! I miss everyone so much!

Caden got a new towel from Britton's Aunt and Uncle and the hood is an elephant. His smile just melts me.

Merry Christmas!!