Mischievous

Sam answered a wechat from our friend Han, who was leaving for Chengdu, where we are going in a few days. Han was at the airport and called to say bye. Sam replied, "0k, we're going to the airport too, see you in a couple days!"
I told him, "but we're not going to see them, that's going to confuse them."
Sam chuckles, "I'm tricking them."

Touching you with a napkin

At breakfast today, we went around the table asking what we were each looking forward to on our upcoming vacation.
Annette said, 'I'm looking forward to spending time with my boys!"
That made Samuel so pleased. He picked up a napkin and started to reach for her arm saying, "I'm going to touch you with a napkin because my hands are greasy."
It was an impressive that he could stay true to his tactile loving self, while also managing to not get his greasy fingerprints on his mom, which she very much appreciated.

Happy Birthday Samuel!

Samuel, you are now 5 years old!
You love to play with your brother, and copy everything he does, from building StarWars legos, to battling Air Wings on the iPad, to wearing "tie" shoes.
You are a fast runner, and I expect you will be a track star someday.
You haven't started to speak much Chinese yet, but you have already started to use chopsticks and even squat on a regular toilet!
You love to snuggle, especially with mommy at night.
You like to sing silly songs, like "Smelly stinky sushi!"  Who taught you that?
We are working on your math skills.  When I ask you what 5+5 is, you say, "That would be 10, dad."

Doing laundry

Our Beijing apartment has a tiny washing machine and a neat contraption to dry our clothes old fashion style.

First day of Kindergarten

So proud of Samuel today. We dropped him off for his first day of kindergarten, in a class full of strangers speaking a language he doesn't understand. He was very brave and handled it so well. His teachers said he ate his food well, albeit, struggled with using the chopsticks so they gave him a spoon. And he napped for 2 hours. Must be exhausting learning Chinese!
We celebrated his first day of kindergarten by going to his favorite Chinese restaurant: Pizza Hut!

Last days of preschool

We celebrated Samuel's last days of preschool with a pizza party with his classmates. We have so appreciated his teachers Libby, Sophia, Rena, and Laurie.

Learning Chinese

In 2 days, Samuel has gone from not knowing his name in Chinese to being able to write it now in Hanzi. Very proud of him

Tiramisu

Samuel discovered a new favorite dessert at Ikea: tiramisu. He wants a tiramisu cake for his birthday this weekend.