Halloween Card

Halloween 2011

Introducing Rapunzel...

Close-up of our little princess

This picture makes me laugh...

I spent 30 minutes trying so hard to get a good picture!

Halloween day, before school.

You cant dress-up but we wore her bat wings 

headband Aunt Debbie sent

Our "thankful" tree, yes a little early.

Gabby was sick all weekend so we did some crafts.

Getting ready to leave...

Outside our door w/ our jack-o-lantern

Miss Rapunzel again

Look at the long clip-in hair!

My Bella Bunny

Clearly tired of mom taking pictures at this point.

My baby girls having a moment

Ecstatic for the fun to begin

Here we go!

Mama and her girls!

Max, Emily, Gabby, Jade, Lucas, and Amaya

Gabriella and Emily

End of the night

Who would have thought Beijing has the best trick-or-treating? Our compound was alive and happening with houses decorated and kids dressed-up. People really get into the Halloween spirit here and it's awesome. The weather is always perfect. I don't think Gabby even wore a jacket. It sure beats the cold and wet Halloweens that I remember in Washington...

Pumpkin Carving

Before

Isabelle Mae, 9 Months

Drawing the Face

Concentrating

Again with the tongue out..

The Whole Gang sans Bella

Ready to Take the Guts Out

Messy!

After

Crawling All Over

Lucas, Gabriella, and Emily

Watching "It's a Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown"

We hosted the Snell family and had a pumpkin carving party. We always make our Aussie friends do these awesome American traditions. Of course, because of TV, they know all about them. They like to play along with it as much as we do, I think...


On Saturday, we were going to trick-or-treat and go to a haunted house at the American compound (River Garden) but Gabby got sick so we'll just trick-or-treat at our compound on Halloween night. A little bummed, I was looking forward to getting good American candy. Next year!

Self Portrait

Gabriella drew this picture of herself and it's hanging right above her locker. It's pretty good, eh?

Isabelle is 9 Months Old

This has been the busiest month and with the most changes...

- She's getting her first tooth (bottom, front)
- Started to dance. This was great! We put "Single Ladies" by Beyonce on the iPod and she started swaying back and forth with the most adorable smile on her face... Gabby LOVES this song and video so she was dancing too. We all got a kick out of watching Isabelle dance.
- She's waving bye bye now. Chen stands with her at the front door when we leave and she's been waving to us before we head to work. Love that!
- Her first word.. "bye-bye" (October 21st so exactly 9 months). I swear she did and that's her first word! Okay, maybe I'm jumping the gun on that one...
-Clapping her hands all the time. She really likes to play "Patty-Cake."

Showcase of Learning

"Dragon"

Pretty Much Bored and Spacing-Out

(She is my daughter)

Big Yawn... Bored and Tired.

The "Dragon" Group

Gabriella's PreK-4 class did a little "showcase" of what they've been learning... They shared a Chinese folk story about a fish who jumped the gate. There was something about a dragon too but I missed what that was about...

Great Wall Villa

Sunrise... You can kind of see the Great Wall 

towers on top of the hill

View from the Family Room

Great Wall is on top of that hill

There's a loft on the type right

Lots of windows and light

Family Room

Outside Deck/Courtyard

Our room is through those glass doors

Kitchen is behind that door

I didn't take a picture of it but it had all we needed

Isabelle Mae!

Cruising all over the place

Perplexed

Hand in the mouth, of course.

Dynamic Duo

Gabriella and Emily BFFs

Gabby, Emily, and Lucas 

Watching Kung Fu Panda

Dancing Queen

Tongue Out

I have about 10 pictures of her dancing w/ her tongue out.

Nice moves, my sugar-bugar

A friend organized a deal that if we buy 65 nights, we'd get a good price on a villa, so we were able to split this with a bunch of people. We bought three nights and the first one was this weekend. It turned-out to be amazing... stunning, may be a better word. We invited our friends (Alex, Steve, and their kids) so the kiddies played and entertained themselves. It's only a one hour drive from our house but it feels like a million miles away... we had a blast. I'm lookign forward to our two night stay in April.