Little Miss Jane

Today is Jane's birthday. Anybody else SHOCKED that she is two years old? I can hardly believe it! I remember so well all the details of my labor with her like it was yesterday. I remember holding her for hours and hours wrapped up like a burrito as a newborn (also when she was 9 months old, which was when she finally stopped wanting this!). I remember singing her her first lullaby. I remember the way Jeff looked when he held his daughter for the first time. Life is good, isn't it?

This week was a fun one, where we got to do some things a little different from our everyday activities. Jane, of course, doesn't really get the whole birthday thing, but it was fun to spoil her a little bit anyway.

Tuesday was actually Anutra's birthday, so we spent the evening with her and Bird at a Korean restaurant. She is obsessed with Korean things right now because they are completely caught up in a Korean TV series. From what we can tell, Korea is the Asian Hollywood. They are the ones pumping out all the good series and movies over here. Although, we have yet to see one. I'm sure Anutra will get us going, but how exactly do we enjoy Korean TV with Thai subtitles?

The food at this place was great. I even ate raw tuna. Have to try everything, right? My favorite moment was when Anutra came out of the restroom and says, "You must see the bathroom, it's very sexy!". She was right, but I was giggling at her choice of words. This place was super modern and sleek, and thankfully, very empty. Between the kids running laps and eating their own bowls of ice cream, we actually got to eat and visit too. We LOVE Anutra and Bird, and love that they want to spend time with us! This picture was taken from the balcony. Aren't they cute?

Jack's friend, Pinky, came over to play this week. She doesn't speak English, and Jack doesn't speak much Thai, but they play together great! She is wearing her school uniform. We see Thai children in different variations of this uniform all over the city during the week. Very cute!

So, on with our Jane. The star of the week! She LOVES ba mii (egg noodles, surprisingly like Ramen!). She eats it forever, and eats every noodle. If I don't keep her bowl filled, she starts on the ones that have fallen on the floor!

Jane LOVES to play Jack's violin. So much, that we have to practice while she is sleeping or Daddy is here. She wanted to get it out this week just for fun, so I let her play on it for a while. She played and played, and made some interesting sounds! No matter what is coming out of this fiddle, though, she is PROUD of it!

I have been talking about doing it forever, and I decided this was the week! I finally took Janie to get her hair cut! I heard about this great place for kids that is cheap, so we tried it out. The girl was so sweet and fast, and Janie hardly knew what hit her! According to Jane, she went into this great place with awesome toys, sat down to watch Barney (not MY favorite, but it works), played with a blowdryer, and then posed for pictures. She just got a trim, but it was nice to get rid of some of the wispys, and she even still has curls!

This girl was so cute. She actually put braids in Janie's hair, which I don't know if I could do with that little amount, but it was cute. Notice, Jane is still watching Barney at this point.

Thursday, we met Scarlett and Sasha and their mothers at the Emporium to see a rain forest exhibit throughout the mall. There were lizard and porcupine cages along with many others, scattered throughout. Someone could hear a parrot sing while they were testing lipstick! I felt bad for the people who really were there just to shop! We got lucky and got a last minute ticket in to see the tiger cubs! Janie loved it, although we had a hard time keeping her off the snake that was also in this room. She thinks she can touch ALL snakes, just because she can touch the ones at Ocean World. Scary!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the park where the kids played like crazy and Heather, Liza and I got to visit. We love to eat popsicles at the park! These are some pretty serious eaters, too. I LOVE watching my kids eat something they really love.

Janie loves climbing up the slides at this park (I know, I'm a terrible mom for letting them climb UP! I figure, if they aren't in anyone's way and it's safe, go for it!). She always gets to the top and says, "I did it!". I love her expression when she is so proud of herself.

Friday, I took Janie to a class at Little Gym. They let every kid have a free trial class and since I'm too cheap to actually PAY for a gym course for my 2 year old, I decided to just enjoy the free one! She loved doing somersaults over the huge balls, flips on the bar and especially the balance beam. It was fun to just let her run and play on new, safe, and clean toys. We had a GREAT time together. No pictures of this one, unfortunately. We were too busy, and I didn't want to seem like an annoying mother who's getting a free course and disturbing the class with pictures!

After her class, we went to the exhibit one more time to see the butterflies, her favorite! She stood and watched them forever! She kept flapping her arms every time one would fly to or away from the glass. She was in heaven! This exhibit was AMAZING! There were LIVE plants all over the mall, even around the escalators! I've never seen anything like it.

We spent yesterday at "The Mall" (this is actually the name of it) Bankapi where they have a water park on the rooftop. We decided this would be a fun place to have Jane's "party", which consisted of the four of us! We decided to splurge and start off with ice cream at Swensen's! Their ice cream is like a work of art! We all picked out our own creation, even Jack and Jane. Jane's was actually a face on the ice cream scoop with the chocolate covered cone as the hat. And Jack just wanted a strawberry scoop with sprinkles. I wish you could see the spoon Jeff ate his with! Very fun.

Theirs all looked pretty good, but mine was definitely the best. It was AMAZING! Chocolate ice cream, truffles, whip cream, bananas, with a shot glass full of hot fudge. Wow, can't do this very often!

We then went upstairs for some rides. The kids thought it was great that they actually got to put money in the machines this time! I kept reminding them, it's because it's a BIRTHDAY!

Swimming is Janie's FAVORITE thing, so we played and played, but didn't get any good pictures of Jane because she was too busy playing! But, here's a fun one of Jack. Don't you just love the swim caps everyone has to wear? Trust me, I was lovely.

After a couple of hours, it started to rain. This, of course, didn't stop us. Then, it started to pour. This was okay too, we were already wet, right? Then, Jane said it was time to get out. Not with words or motions, but with her lips. They were blue. I think she would have gone down the big slides again and again, floated in her tube, and splashed in the shallow water for hours, but I decided to be a responsible mother and put some clothes on her!

Jeff thought this was too funny, we had to share it. It's a plus size women's store called "Fat Story". How do you think this would go over in the states? Thais are just so matter of fact about their weight here. I'm sure they think it's weird that we use words like "Plus", or "women's size". Why don't we just say it like they do? I tend to think their way is a healthier approach in a lot of ways. Anyway, it's an interesting culture difference.

Since Jeff had meetings Sunday morning and afternoon, we decided to do almost everything on Saturday, so we finished off the day with blowing out candles on her cake at home. She actually understood the whole candle thing, which was fun. Although, Jack was more than willing to assist her if need be.

My darling Jane in her big two-year-old Birthday dress with the flowers she personally picked out from the vendor. Is she not the sweetest thing ever?

A few fun facts about our Janie Grill:

Every morning when Jeff leaves for work, she has to hug and kiss him multiple times. She runs and hug him and let her legs dangle, then kiss him on each cheek and grab his face so she can kiss him on the lips. She also LOVES our "family kiss" after our family prayer. She dives right in and wants to do it over and over again! She is so affectionate, we can't get enough of her!

She loves books. When she finds a book she wants to read, it doesn't matter where we are, she will yell, "read it! read it!". This is great, unless we are in church! Her favorites are The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear. She's also really starting to enjoy our Curious George collection. We got some GREAT video of her reading with us last night. In Goodnight Moon, she says "Mouse" like this: "Mouw...sh".

Her favorite songs are: I Love to See the Temple, I am a Child of God, and 'A' You're Adorable. She will often cuddle up to me in a taxi and say "Temple!", and close her eyes to listen. This makes taxi rides quite easy some days.

When I ask her if she wants something, occasionally she won't answer, "yes!", she will say, "ME!" and raise her hand. I think this comes from me asking the children "who wants...." questions.

She is almost completely potty trained! Yay! I can't believe we are almost diaperless!

This is Jane enjoying her birthday presents she opened today. She didn't want anything to do with a doll in this stroller, although Jack sure tried! It was fun to give her some girly things for once! This girl's been raised playing with tools and trucks! Not a bad thing, by any means, but it's fun to enjoy having a GIRL! Notice the cute flip flops. She picked these out herself, although she can barely walk in them!

I am continually amazed at Janie and how she adjusts to all the change in our lives! She's stayed in countless hotels, traveled so many hours and lived in Thailand for almost half of her little life. She seems to always adapt better than we dare hope. She has no idea how many people she makes smile when she walks past every day. The kisses she blows to random construction workers, taxi drivers, or cashiers brighten so many faces, especially mine. I wish everyone could have a daughter.

Here's a video I put together in honor of our sweet Jane. You will see some familiar pictures, I'm sure, but they are our favorites from the last two wonderful years since Jane joined our family. Blessings, blessings.



We found out some fantastic news today. The sweet family from church who had to report to immigration last Wednesday, through some miraculous events weren't required to stay in the Detention Center until they move to Canada in a couple of weeks. It was an answer to all our prayers. Jeff visits the Dhakhal family in the Center again this week, but thankfully, it is just one family, not two. Having people we know and love having to worry about safety in their home lands and immigration problems, has made us very aware of how wonderful it is to be Americans. So many of our everyday problems suddenly seem embarrassingly insignificant.