Last day of the 'War'

So Today is the lantern Festival. Last day of the Chinese New year. It is also the last day for people in Beijing to set off fireworks, so they are going off a lot! Almost as much as the first day of the New Year. The last week, things have slown down a lot, and then tonight, bam! Huge amount! In fact, just a couple minutes ago we had a bunch go off right in front of our window!
We have gotten used to the noise so much that perhaps tomorrow will seem weird when there are no fireworks going off anywhere. It has been a lot of fun to see this. I think that everyone should do see it at least once.
Not much else is going on. As you can see from the last couple of posts, Jada is growing and is quite happy.
I was able to play Rail Baron on Friday with some friends from the Branch. I didn't win, but it was a lot of fun! I had a string of bad luck, with the dice and destinations... I'm just glad I could play! As the other people were learning, I gave a lot of advice at the start on what rails to pick up and how to connect the network. Chelsey did not play, but wanted to. It can be hard to play a 5 hour game when there is a baby. So we had 3 people playing. Chelsey made us some food (THANK YOU!) and everyone had a good time playing.
One of the people I taught how to play found a copy here in Beijing (used) and was able to pick it up for only a couple of dollars. How random and amazing is that? To give you an idea how random it is, this game has been out of print for over 10 years. As well, a good copy on Ebay can go for over 200 dollars!!

Thats all for now
mikey

Video Moment with Jada

This is'nt as good as in person but it is in some ways better or different then skype. It is hard to catch Jada in her cute everyday things on Skype, you just see her in one setting so I thought I would share this adorable video with you'all, especially those grandpas and grandmas that don't get to see her often.

Yum!

Mom feeding Jada Yam, you think this is messy....?

Jada feeding herself mom's yam.

You want a kiss mom?

Fooling Around with a Video Camera

Jada hoggin' the spotlight!

We got this free digital video camera for trying out this insurance thing for a trial period while we were at school in Rexburg. When we tested it out in rexburg and lethbridge the picture was too dark to see much so we thought is was garbage. We brought it along to Beijing anyways and just yesterday we decided to try it again, still not the best picture but we have really great natural lighting in this apartment so it is alot better than before and definetly better than nothing. We got this clip while we were playing around with it and thought it was really cute.

Jada's Fuzzy Hat Hair

Ultimate Firework show

HAPPY NEW YEAR! (Chinese New year)

Last night (Feb 13) was New years eve, ending the year of the Ox (Jada's year) and beginning the year of the Tiger (your year if you are 12, 24, 36, ect). This is probably the most important holiday in China, as for a lot of people it might be the one time a year they go back to their homes. Trains, buses and planes are all very busy. People start lining up around 2 weeks to try to get a train ticket (preferred way to travel in China) back to their home towns. If you are unlucky, you might start looking at buses, and at last resort a plane. Family is very important for this holiday, and everyone gathers around to eat a big meal on new years eve. All kinds of food, and lots of it!

Here in Beijing, we foreigners may not have our family here, but as members of the Church, we do have the branch family. So most of us that stayed in Beijing gathered together for a big potluck.

There were lots of options, and everything was very tasty! Of course, because we are in Northern China, there had to be dumplings. Everyone in Northern China eats dumplings on New Years eve, including at midnight. The shape of a dumpling looks like old Chinese money, so they are supposed to bring good luck. Many Chinese families (we did not do this) will put 1 coin or make 1 sweet dumpling (out of a batch of a hundred plus) and who ever gets it will have luck and prosperity this year. We ate, played games, and such. A lot of fun.

We also set off fireworks! It's New Years, there HAS to be fireworks! Before we ate, we set off a 1000 firecrackers for good luck. In Beijing, people can only by fireworks starting a week before the new years. So people have been setting fireworks off every day, all day for a week already, and will continue to do so for the next two weeks.

Jada enjoyed the fireworks. All the lights and noise did not even faze her! In fact, she fell asleep after a little bit!

As it got closer to midnight, more and more fireworks were going off. We walked back to our building and went up to the roof (about 30 floors up!) were we had a commanding view of our area of Beijing. Every where you looked, there were fireworks going off.

There is one thing that you have to do at least once before you die: Be in China during the Chinese New year! I promise you that it will be the best firework show you will ever see! As Austin Wilcox (branch member, he is the one helping light the roman candle a few pictures back) 'I am now ashamed of the 4th of July's Fireworks'. We did capture some of it on video, sans sound as my camera does not have a mike. I'll try to get a video from a friend that is clearer and has sound, but for now, enjoy these short videos, to try to get an idea of how it is. It is just a small part of the city, but things like this go on all over Beijing, and China.

These are not professional fireworks. Just People setting them off on the street.

On the agenda for tomorrow: Temple Fair at Dongyue temple, and Rail Baron pizza party at our place. Expect a few posts this week!

One Secret to a Healthy and Happy Long Life

Since Jada is starting to eat solid food and of course I want to make sure she is getting all the vitamins and minerals she needs to grow up healthy I have been doing a little research and I came across a list of the 10 healthiest foods in the world, some of them surprise me. Eat more of these and you should be feeling healthier which equals happier and both make life that much better. There are many health benefits attributed to each one but I just choose one or two of them for each that I thought were interesting to share with you.
Spinach- Spinach is rich in iron, amount a number of other vitamins and minerals, ect. , which gives you strength and energy.
Broccoli- interesting fact about broccoli is that it reduces the risk of Cancer.
Cauliflower- slows the growth of tumors.
Sweet potato- ranked highest in nutritional value.
Tomato- Benefits for the heart.
Apples- help with weight loss and controling colesteral.
Blueberries-slows affects of alzetimers and other effects of aging as well as lowering brain damage due to strokes.
Almonds- contains one of the good fats that lowers LDL colesterol and they are gluten-free.
Salmon- important for brain function and structure.
Yogurt- helps with digestion.
There you have it.
Another tip for all of those new mothers out there. I want to share with you something that you can do to help tighten up those stomach muscles and get them back to normal that I have found works really well. For some people it is hard to stick to an exercise routine, we just get busy and as new moms that is definetely true. This takes no time at all, it is something you can do any time, any where without stopping what you are doing. Just when ever you think about it tighten your stomach muscles, like you are sucking in, and hold it for about 10 sec and then release. So easy, you can do it with any other part of your body that you want to strengthen your muscles in as well.

A Duh Moment and More on the Growing Bean

A few months ago I was wandering around this Market near our home grabbing a few things that we needed and I walked past this shop that had all these cute little outfits that looked tinny enough for premie babies which is what Jada was. There were ladybugs and turtles and other really cute themed outfits. The chatted with the store owner who was standing there about how cute the outfits were and she asked me all kinds of questions about Jada. I asked her how many months old were the outfits for and she told me she had sizes all the way from 0-6 months. I didn't buy any because we were low on money. Here is the Duh moment. So Mike and I were at that same market yesterday and I saw the little outfits hanging there as they were before and then I realized that it was a PET STORE and those were little outfits for DOGS. How dumb did I feel and that lady totally let me think that they were baby clothes. Now that I just admitted to a very dumb blonde moment I hope you all are nice to me in your comments, hehe.
And for more on the growing bean; Jada has started eating solid food. I noticed that Jada was starting to complain about still being hungry after I feed her so I looked up what the signs are for when an infant is ready to start eating solid foods. Jada checked off for all the signs, she holds her head up, she is able to move food from the front of her mouth to the back, she is making chewing motions, she is teething, ect. It is so much fun for us to introduce the world of food to her. She is mostly just eating plain rice cereal and she has eaten some pureed yam. She is really good at keeping food in her mouth, her bibs are barely touched afterwards. She just chomps down on that spoon. She will be six months in about a week and her eye color is still a mistery to us. They were a dark dark grey blue at birth. The blue has gotten less grey and a more vibrant dark blue and they are slowly turning green from the center out. They are a beautiful color, they probably won't stay that color. The question now is will they get more and more green and eventually turn brown or will the blue keep getting bluer and the two colors will meet somewhere in the middle? I guess time will only tell. I have heard that green eyes are a result of incomplete dominance where blue and brown share dominance and they mix resulting in the color green.