niū jiǎn chū detective agency

The name combines China and detecting, perfect for her.

妞 niū "little girl"

检出 jiǎn chū "to detect / to examine and discover / to sense"

Inspired by a pin I saw on Pinterest, this was my gift to Ainsley for Christmas. Her own detective kit. She's always asking if we have a mystery for her to solve and saying "Trust me. I can solve this."

I made up business cards for her with her agency name on them. They say "International Private Investigator. Based out of Idaho and China." I also made up a Detective Pass for her to wear at crime scenes. It has her catchphrase printed on it.

Other things I included were brushes, evidence bags, fingerprint lifting tape, a magnifying glass, and a flashlight.

Also, a fingerprint stamp pad, homemade fingerprint cards (our entire family has now been finger and toe printed), evidence swabs, a pen, and a detective journal.

She loved it, but it took awhile to grow on her. The Chinese calligraphy set took up most of her time for the first week after Christmas, but then she became a full-time detective. So much so that a week later I put this up on Facebook: "I made Ainsley a detective kit for Christmas. Today she came up to me and said "Mommy, I wish I could go back to the good old days when I wasn't a detective and everybody in the entire world and all of China didn't want me to solve their problems. 'Just find your own stuff', I want to say! It's just exhausting, Mommy. EXHAUSTING!" And she falls on the floor spread-eagled. Which you can't blame her for because she's exhausted. I really shouldn't have asked her to find my camera two minutes later."

Now it's down to a more manageable level. And she needs a new notebook.

Our house looks a little bit different.

Ainsley loves China. A lot. I've been told that she was born on the wrong continent. By her. So it's not much of a surprise that the Chinese New Year was going to be a pretty big thing here. We hung up some Asian stuff that we got at the party store. Not authentic, but fun. Lots of red!


And construction paper Chinese lanterns.


She has her own 'China desk' where she keeps her favorite Christmas present - a Chinese calligraphy set - and she's got Chinese dragons taped up all around it. I wasn't allowed to take pictures of those because they might lose their luck - don't ask - so you get a side view.

Those are her calligraphy pens hanging from the board.

On Sunday night we added to the ambience with good luck posters that we painted and bowls of oranges the kids cut out of construction paper.

Sunday night we had dumplings and today we had noodles, for longevity.

The kids got red envelopes with money in them and a little present. Gray thought his Buddha was worthless, so I traded him for a Twix bar. We were both happy with that. Hannah got a monkey figurine (she was born in the year of the monkey and is proud of that). Ainsley got a 'Chinese waving good luck kitty bank'. I'll have to get a picture of it for you because she's going to make me. She is in heaven.

When I get my sewing machine back from the shop, they'll each get a new article of clothing that is red or orange.

What else? Oh, yeah - Hannah decided a party wasn't a party without a pinata. So she made one out of construction paper and packing tape. It took twenty minutes to break that thing.

And Ainsley wants me to show you her origami 'China girls'.

Technically they're 'Japan girls' because they're wearing kimonos, but we're not much for being technical around here. Our house has a distinctly Asian vibe right now. It's not a traditional holiday for us, but it is important to Ains, so we did what we could. It's been fun. I kinda hope she's still into China next year.

The selling food man.

Ains saw Zander sitting under the stool where he'd crawled while I was making lunch and burst into giggles. "He looks like a selling food man, Mommy!" And off she ran. A minute later he did indeed look like a selling food man.

And what will you have?

Tap-a-tap-a-tap-a

Ainsley is in dance this year and she loves it. She had her first performance this week.

In all of the times that I've seen her practice this dance in class, I've never seen her without that shy little smile when she skips with the other little girl in class. So sweet.



The teacher has them perform at five or so nursing homes before their 'big performance'. It's a lot of fun for them and for the nursing homes and since the performances are in place of class it's not a big hassle for us.

*Cute Gray pictures here.*

From the "I meant to post about that files".

We went to Oregon a few months ago and hit the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art while we were there. We had a reason to do that with 4 young kids - Ainsley is crazy about China and they had a Chinese collection there. She was in heaven.

One of the guides noticed her interest and gave her a personalized tour - wish we could have gotten more photos, but, um ... we weren't even supposed to get these ones. The guide showed her how each little window in this building had a little Buddha sitting in it. She wanted to make her own. We need to do that.

Hannah was not as interested, but certain pieces piqued her interest. Don't know why this picture looks like she's touching it - she was trying to point to a pretty color at the top of the piece. She wants to do some artwork like this. Pictures on tiles.

Gray and Matt did their own thing most of the time we were in the museum - Gray was not interested at all.

One thing that the girls really liked seeing was a wedding rehearsal at a beautiful reflection pond they had there. Romantic Hannah was blissed out.

I really *am* that smart.

I was busy doing something yesterday when Hannah came up and asked me what red and yellow make. "Orange." and she ran off. I heard her tell her sister "You should go ask Mother a question. She's really smart today."

Ainsley appeared by me. What's seven and nine? "Sixteen." She ran back to Hannah. "You're right!!! She really is that smart today."

See? I really am. Today.

Cookie cutter stories.

Literally.

It's the cutest use for cookie cutters.

It makes my years of collecting them worth it.

It adds ten minutes onto making cookies since I have to make sure they're washed before I use them.

But that is such a small price to pay for the cuteness.

We just added some doggie cookie cutters thanks to a great friend, Danni - everyone from Bella to Cygnus to Scooby Doo now make an appearance in the stories.

Life is dangerous.

It is therefore only prudent when you protect yourself.

From flying game pieces.

Or unruly peas.

Or snow. Dangerous stuff, that.

Or little brothers.

He looks dangerous doesn't he?

Clay can be dangerous too.

And playing with matches.

Alright, she's got me there.

She's even gotten her brother in on it.

Though for him it may be more of a fashion statement.

Tis the Season

For lots of cooking. It seems to come with the winter weather. Inside more means cooking more.

(But first, go check out Ainsley's new apple pants. So cute! - the pants too. :) )

Ainsley goes for the sweet things like marshmallow fudge.

Hannah goes for the feel-better things like marshmallow crackles. (Same ingredient name, different basic ingredients - this is made with marshmallow root.)

Gray makes anything and everything that he can. He just loves helping.

Applesauce making was huge a few weeks ago - the girls insisted that I be Ma and I call them Mary and Laura.

Ainsley is big into pie-making these days. On this day, she asked her father for help, so she got to make a chocolate pudding pie - with extra flair, of course. Sprinkles in both the crust ...

and on top.

It was verra crunchy. Yum.

Oh, and her hair - I have to show you her hair.

She can wear it in pigtails now. Happy Day!

She loves how it looks.

Wanting to be included.

After a summer break brought on by a cracked arm, Ains is back in gymnastics.

This means that Gray and I are back behind the fence watching. Watching for five minutes until he breaks into squealing because he wants to be in there too and I have to haul him off to a different part of the gym.

This time, though, things were unexpectedly different. This time Gray decided to try to do the movements outside the fence.

Wish I'd thought of encouraging him to do that.

It kept him busy and happy.

For all of 15 minutes.

Then they moved to the trampoline and he couldn't follow. Back to exploring the rest of the gym far away from her class, but it was a glorious 15 minutes.

In which we meet The Phantom of the Farmyard.

A whole bunch o' summer snapshots.

The Phantom makes an appearance.

The county fair brings out the crazy.

(that's the only Hannah picture in this post - not because she's been doing nothing, but because everything she's doing I have blog posts planned for)

Gray tries to convince us he's old enough to water ski.

The youngest get their groove on at an outdoor concert.

Ains makes a wish upon a star.

Seriously. That's what she's doing - with her little clasped hands and her upturned face on a horse bareback by herself. I think I deserve an award for not eating her up before now. Better than chocolate, that cuteness.

Skippy Jane Jones tried to ride Gray's trike.

But she got distracted by the ribbons. It could happen to even the most reasonable kitten.

There was air travel.

Though she's declared that she doesn't want to be a space traveler. "I'm gonna be that wady that twains seals at the ocean." So that's that.

Play in the living room in a life jacket.

Just in case. Better safe than sorry.

This had nothing to do with the fact that I overran the bathtub last week. He's too young to connect the dots. I hope.

Boat rides.

And we've still got a month of summer!

Yee haw, Cowboy!