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.

Today was a good day.

I saw that on a poster on another blogger's wall in her home. 'Today was a good day.' I like that.

Today *was* a good day.

Finding fantastic apps for an iPad - it's amazing what is out there!

Making a 'Fun Family Things in 2012' poster for the wall. We're going to go camping. A lot.

Neighbors coming over to play all day.

Getting a model train to run!

Chili dogs because my girls are obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog who is obsessed with chili dogs.

Dance performances. A growing girl who insists on watching Mamma Mia in her own room with the door closed to dance and sing by herself.

Beginning of the year budget review and planning fun stuff for the future.

NCIS episode after the kids are in bed.

Today was a very good day.

Random.

My pictures are getting away from me. I can't remember which ones I've shared (even though those are so few these days) and there are so many cool things we've done. Here's some really recent stuff.

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?

Too much joy...

for a camera to capture in a still image.



TRAINS!!!

My night out with just my boys was too much fun.



Even the fabric store, where Gray insisted on carrying every bolt to the cutting table and both my bags out the door, thereby charming every woman within 'awwww'-ing distance.

What have we been doing?

Painting faces.

Playing on Daddy's new phone.

Making gangster faces while crafting.

Napping.

Being spiders ...

and flies.

Eating blueberries.

Planning projects for the next week.

Napping.

Ainsley made a turkey cake for Thanksgiving.

Running really fast.

Taking silly pictures.

DINOSAUR POOP!!!!!!

Becoming mermaids.

Napping.
Indulging in 10 pm cooking.

Putting wilted celery to good use.

And napping. 'Cause that's how we roll around here.

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.*

Food freedom.

What that looked like last night.

Grayson, P.I.

Grayson found the binoculars and has become a private investigator.

Zander is not getting a moment of peace.

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.

Hello, camera!

That is all.