Snow in Wuxi

Another new experience for us here in China...SNOW:)

A few friends of mine texted me while at the beach saying they were getting some flurries, but for us this was our first China snow. Yea! ;) 

Before the snow started sticking...

Just started coming down hard enough to be seen. 

It actually was sticking! 

It actually stayed over night...yes I know this is not a lot of snow, but it was cool for us. 

We tried to get Aiden to enjoy it, but he thought it was too cold. Ha! 

Family Baking :)

I so love family time. 

Jeffrey has lots of time off this week so we starting it out right on Saturday by making homemade bread and cinnamon rolls. 

This is a "Ratliff" tradition and one of Jeffrey's (and mine) favorite memories with his mom. Every time we would go back to Missouri she would have glorious fresh bread coming out of the oven. And when she made cinnamon rolls...they didn't last more than 5 minutes. Delicious! 

So we decided that this was going to be one of our family traditions together as well. Aiden loves to help in the kitchen so as soon as I said, "wanna make bread" he was off and running to the kitchen. 

Jeffrey's favorite part is rolling out the dough for the cinnamon rolls. 

Glorious bread that we finally perfected. My dear sweet mother in law tried to teach us forever to get Grandma Magruder's bread right. We always ended up putting too much flour in, but this time we got it right. 

Man were these ever yummy!!! We had to hold ourselves back from eating the whole pan at once!! 

I love creating new family traditions together, especially while in China and our traditions are not always going to be the same here as they are at home. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! 

Two Years of Aiden

Can it really be December 18th already? 

My how times have changed in my boy's world. It seems like only yesterday that I was in the hospital ready to give birth, and today he turns 2. 

Please don't look to closely at me, but at my cute little bundle born December 18, 2010.

Some of Aiden's favorite things this year are...

1. Disney's Cars and Cars 2! We watch them over and over. He also has the Lighting McQueen, Tow Mater and Sally play cars that he has to sleep with every night and play with all day. 

2. Play Dough - he loves making pretend food with it. 

3. Spelling his name. He does a great job at this and loves to say it over and over, but his pronunciation of the letter "n" needs some work. Ha! 

4. Fruit - especially apples, kiwi, watermelon and strawberries. He will eat these all day long if I let him. 

5. His Daddy - Wow is my child ever a fan of his Daddy. When Jeffrey is home that is the only person he wants to be around. I love that he loves his Daddy. 

6. The color Blue - he points out everything that is blue and if he had his choice, would only dress in blue.

There is so much more to Aiden, and daily he changes. He is growing up so fast. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Aiden! Mommy and Daddy love you!!!!!