It’s been now 15 months since Nathan is with us. 15 months might sound long but they passed by very quick. 15 months of happiness, worry, hard work and more joy. Especially in the beginning it was always so hard to figure out what to do when he got sick or cried for a long time but in the end we always managed. He has grown so much by now that it is hard to recognize him from his early pictures “Wow, he really looked liked Churchill!”
By now he is running non-stop around the apartment, opens every drawer, steals everything he can reach and proclaims loudly in his mumbling way that he is here and be better taken care of. He doesn’t say any real words yet but what do you expect when being around four languages every single day. He will take his time and until then we will be happy with his mumbling some random sounds and tries to copy few words which so far never really worked out.
I can dance
Me like bubble baths
This thing is my hat
Hide and Seek
Is this for me?
What is your happiness in life?
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Yesterday, the 21st of February, was Nathan’s first birthday. To think that it is already a year since he was born is quite hard to grasp for me as it feels like it just happened few weeks ago. So what do you do when a kid turns one year? My wife got all the answers!
Really, in case the birthday party had been planned by me we would just go out eating with the family but of course that is not enough for her. My wife had big plans, very big plans for this birthday of Nathan including several cakes and more than enough guests at our home.
Nathan looking forward to the start of the party
First of all lets talk about the guests. Naturally my parents were invited and my brother with his girlfriend. To bring some more children to this birthday my wife invited my cousin and her husband together with their four children. Last but not least some people from her German language course were invited with one having a baby girl just one week older than Nathan. (however she is already able to walk for three months now while Nathan just did his first steps without support few hours ago!)
Now to the food. That was some rather intense topic as we had to drive to several shops to get all the right stuff. I offered my wife to go alone and buy everything so she can prepare more at home for the party but this didn’t work out. Why you may ask, well, I would need a grocery list but my wife just said “I don’t know what we need, I will know when I see it.” Great planning there! As we had already more than enough to do preparing everything for the celebration my mother got the task to prepare two cakes and my brother’s girlfriend has to create the real birthday cake for Nathan.
My brother with his three cousins twice removed and our rabbits
One might think that there just has to go something wrong because at least when I plan something like this there is always something which gets messed up. But big surprise, nothing went wrong at all. All the food was ready just in time when the first guests arrived. Furthermore all the guests were coming at the right time, something I have never experienced before as there was usually always someone who was very late or had suddenly other plans. Perhaps Nathan is cute enough so people don’t want to miss his birthday and of course free food? Or am I just used to the daily craziness in this family so I always expect the worst to happen?
After the main meal was done my wife brought the birthday cake to Nathan. The little one got a birthday song by all of us and then he was allowed to get closer to the cake. As he is still a bit too young to blow out the candles his second cousin Paul had to do it for him. After this my wife had a little game planned for Nathan. We placed several items in front of him such as a sports medal, pen, calculator and so forth and then we set him lose on those items. The idea behind it was that the item he grabbed first would be then his “future” profession. As he grabbed the pen my wife believes that he will be an author later. It seems me trying to read to him “The Hobbit” has already paid off.
The kids chosing their snacks
From here onwards more eating continued, more noise by all the children, drinks were spilled and the trash mountain in the kitchen grew taller and taller. In between we opened the presents for Nathan and he was allowed to try out each one of them…with his mouth. He just still loves to try to eat everything he can grab such as his favorite chewing toy: The Glass Table!
Now its been already a day since the birthday party and we are still exhausted. To have so many children over and prepare this kind of birthday party is certainly draining your battery quickly. However something exciting happened today and that is all about Nathan doing his first steps on his own. So now I will leave the blog post as it is and try to videotape him testing his walking skills.
Nearly got it right how to read the book, lets just turn it around next time
The cake
Happy with Grandfather
In the arms of his second cousin
Nathancuty got some help with the candles
How are your experiences from birthday parties, your own and those of your children, or even grandchildren?
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2014 was a really amazing year for me and my family. So many great things happened and we just had really much luck with everything. I am not even sure that I remember to write down each and every single good thing of this year in this post as there are just too many things which pop into my head.
But lets start with the beginning.
In January the time of Nathan birth was approaching and with it also my mother-in-law three-month stay in our apartment. But, back then the year started not so well as several bad things actually happened. First of all I got final answers from several Universities that they did not choose me for their programs, furthermore freelancing was going very bad and I could not find any stable job at all. To make things even worse we did not find any apartments for our future in Germany and much of our savings were consumed by our car.
However wonderful February happened. It started with MIL arriving in Finland and giving us already a lot of excitement. Excitement in both ridiculous but also few annoying ways. But what do you expect when three people are living together in a 40m² apartment and one of them is just going crazy as her baby is already due for over 10 days…
Yes, Nathan was seemingly feeling too comfortable in his mother’s womb and extended his rental contract by 14 days! On February the 21st it was then his big day and he joined this world and our family. Both mother and baby were healthy and were able to leave the hospital after two days and come home.
March came and with it our new apartment in Germany. After so many months searching for an apartment and losing another bidding process this apartment basically fell into our hands. My parents had helped an old man for many many years in our building and he passed away in March. What we did not know was that my parents and I would inherit everything he owned!
April was the month we went to Germany and started our first step in the long-lasting renovation process of our apartment. It was also the month when Nathan got baptized, to be precise he got baptized on Easter Sunday. Usually it is impossible to get a baptizing day on Easter as it is a very popular date however we were offered a date and we accepted without knowing that it would be on Easter Sunday…
May came and MIL left. Probably I shouldnt be so happy but I was very glad when she finally left Finland after spending three months with us. Of course she was a great help but enough is enough after such a long time. In May also my parents came to Finland to spend their summer in the cottage.
June was our “holiday” in the cottage where Nathan gathered his first fishing experiences and played first time in ice-cold Finnish lake water. Tallinn was another good thing which happened as we went together with other friends for a short two-day trip there to relax and eat well (at least I did eat very well).
In July nothing really good happened except that Germany won the Football World Championships! Oh, and there was yet another journey through Finland and to our cottage.
August we had our great holidays on Rhodes which we won through an online prize competition! After that we said our goodbyes to our friends in Finland, packed our last belongings and went again to our cottage to relax a bit before starting our journey to Germany.
Then the day of moving to Germany came in September. With two cars we drove from our cottage to Helsinki to take a ship to Germany. After two days on that ship, in a tiny cabin with four people, one baby and two bunnies we arrived and started shortly thereafter the last huge step in the renovating process. Much work was ahead of us but I did it with pleasure as I knew it would be worth it. However September was also full of exhausting runs through the city to get us all signed up, get social numbers and get my wife the German residence permit.
In October we celebrated my fathers 73rd birthday and an end of the renovation work was in sight. We got my wife signed up for the German language course and Nathan was doing of course very well.
Now we are here in December. Christmas is ahead, presents still have to be bought so what good thing could still happen? Well, I am working now on finally “refreshing” the blog, something I had planned already for nearly a year. How will it look like? Lets see, it will be probably a surprise for me too! Just wait and see what new things I have in mind for my Crazy Chinese Family. Furthermore I want to thank you all who are reading this blog and thus give me motivation to go on to write down the weird stories of my family.
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Crazy Chinese Family 