What's Up Wednesday (on a Friday)

I couldn't quite get my act together to get this up on Wednesday, but thought it would still be fun to post today - here is a little look at what we have been up to lately.

One. What we’re eating this week. We just got back from a weekend in Xi’an where we ate some delicious food: Chinese hamburgers, lamb kabobs and homemade strawberry Popsicle just to name a few treats.

Two. What I’m reminiscing about. Our trip back home. Just writing through all my recent blog posts has me missing the people that we love the most.

Three. What I’m loving. Colleen Rothschild skincare products. At the beginning of the year, I committed to myself that I would get a skincare regimen and stick to it. While I have still not committed to making this a daily priority, I am getting better. For the first time in my life I have exfoliated and my skin feels nothing short of amazing. This is a total splurge area, but so fun to experiment with different things!

Four. What we’ve been up to. I don’t think I mentioned yet, but our golf course hosted the China PGA recently and we had so much fun visiting with friends. Afterwards, we had a bar-b-que at our house and enjoyed some yummy food together :). The next day took a turn for the worse when we headed back to the golf course and simultaneously could not get off the golf course for a very long time... just let me tell you it didn't look this fun the whole time ;).

Five. What I’m dreading. Not too much!

Six. What I’m working on. Besides lots of work, Wes and I have been working on Emma's reading every night.  She has sight words for school, but in addition we have added the BOB books to our rotation. I cannot recommend them highly enough for beginning readers. They are just the right length and size (read short and small) and when she reads two to three she feels so accomplished! We are making such great progress and it is one of the most rewarding parenting moments so far - to see her gain so much confidence and enjoy her reading time with mom or dad each night.

Seven. What I’m excited about. Nonni coming to visit us!! She is planning on coming in July and we are counting down the days. Literally. Emma or Everly asks me nearly every day when is Nonni coming to visit them.  These are a few of the pictures that came up in my daily calendar this month that highlight Nonni and Papa George's visit last summer :). We can't wait. Hurry up and get here, Nonni!

Eight. What I’m watching/reading. Survivor, This is US and Big Bang Theory. These are our three regular shows and we love them! Will we ever stop watching Survivor- probably not ;). 

Nine. What I’m listening to. Podcasts. Seriously though, listening to podcasts has changed the way that I feel about commuting. I used to dread my commute every single day and now I turn on a podcast, chill out and enjoy the traffic. Ok, just kidding. I never enjoy the traffic and I may text Wes when I am annoyed with it. But most of the time, I chill out, listen and I am home before I know it. Got any new good ones I should know about?

Ten. What I’m wearing.  Did you catch the post where I raved about my loafers? Still loving them! 

Eleven. What I’m up to this weekend. All things Easter J. We are preparing a small Easter egg hunt for the girls, Easter baskets and dinner with another family. I had so much fun looking back on old Easter pictures, here are just a few to share with you :). The first one is one of my favorite pictures of Emma and Nonni together ever! and the second one is when Emma was the only grandchild on her second Easter sneaking into some chocolate :). How was she ever that small?!? The third one is an Easter egg hunt for one! 

Twelve. What I’m looking forward to next month. We are heading to Australia!! For two weeks!!! We are sooooo pumped. Australia has been a bucket list type trip for me for awhile.  We have thoroughly planned our itinerary – driving from Sydney to Brisbane and finishing off our trip with four days at Hamilton Island (in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsundays) and we are hopeful the hours of planning will pay off. Cannot wait!!

Thirteen. What else is new. Xi'an was pretty incredible and I can't wait to share more pictures with you next week, but for now, here is a little sneak peek.

Hope you have a fantastic Easter weekend, see you back here next week :).

Spring Fever

Have I mentioned that springtime is seriously the best time in Chengdu? In case, I haven't - spoiler alert, it is. And new spring clothes have us loving springtime even more than usual. I got super lucky when a friend of mine came from Dallas to Chengdu and offered to bring me some things. Made even luckier that it was right after my favorite clothing brand for the girls (Alice and Ames) dropped their spring line. The girls couldn't wait to get in their new outfits and wanted me to snap some pictures (definitely a change - especially from Emma!) and I couldn't wait to oblige. Here are a few spring time pictures of the girlies. And I couldn't resist those sunglasses!!

^ that smile! ^

^ looking simultaneously big and small. ^

^ working on her yoga moves. ^

^ she had just exclaimed, "hey! duuuude!!" and was pretty tickled with herself. ^

Also, is it possible to already miss a stage when your right in the middle of it? I am absolutely loving these ages right now - four and a half and six have been so much fun! They are full of fun ideas, witty remarks, silly smiles, lots and lots of 'I love you's' and then there is still that magical sparkle in their eyes that is the icing on top. They are really into playing together right now and I could not love it more.I know I am going to look back on these years as the best years of our lives. 

Chengdu | Xiling Mountain

I am not sure if you can remember way back to Emma's 5th birthday, but I mentioned something about her wanting to go to snowy mountain for her birthday... anyways, the girls were not feeling well and we never rescheduled or prioritized so we didn't make it to snowy mountain. womp womp. However, this year, we got together with some friends and planned a day trip! I am so happy we did!! We had very low expectations for how the day would go (before going, I really thought we might just drive up there, the girls would hate it and we would drive home), but we were pleasantly surprised with how much fun everyone had - us included!

The Friday before our trip, Wes got the girls all dressed up in the snow clothes :). 

It is about a two and a half hour drive from where we live - we were happy to finally make it!

Once we got to the ticket office, we bought tickets to take the gondola up and we thought we were there. Nope. Then we took a bus up to finally make it to Snowy Mountain.  The girls couldn't wait to get their hands on the snow even though the first patch we found was quite dirty ;).

Pretty thrilled with her first snowball attempt.

Once we got there, we split into two groups, the group that wanted to ski and the group that wanted to play in the snow. Emma wanted to ski and Everly wanted to play in the snow, so we split up.

This was mine and Emma's first time on ski's and we were definitely a little nervous.

We fell a lot. We laughed a lot. And we had so much fun trying something new together.

At one point in the morning, we both fell off this escalator thing that takes us up the mountain - balance (or lack there of) may run in the family ;).

It really was a beautiful morning and then the fog started rolling in and that was pretty too.

We both ate it on the snow more than a few times.

But really enjoyed our morning (we spent a little less than 3 hours out there) together.

While we were skiing, Wes sent me this cute picture of Everly - looks like they had fun too!

Reunited with Daddy and sis and it felt so good! We rode around on this big banana!

Then, we let the girls ride snowmobiles! Even Evsie's gave it a go.  Funny story, she couldn't figure out how to turn it at first and definitely took it off course (and maybe even went up one of those hills).  It is funny now, but it was a little scary at the time :). 

We went to go find a really late lunch (I think it was around 3pm at this point), but the girls wanted to stop and take pictures along the way.

I thought Emma looked extra adorable all bundled up in my hat!

Ev's wanted her picture with the stars :).

Twirly girly - my girls literally twirl through life.

Best friends.

Looking for her next victim.

The aftermath - you can tell she is pretty pleased with herself by the look on her face.

Calling a truce.

At this point my phone had died and we ended up going down a few more rides - one that was a toboggan and one that was similar to an inter-tube before finally calling it a day and getting ready for the ride home.  We had so much fun, we are thinking about making a weekend out of it next year and spending the night on the mountain.