Sunday Snapshot: Little Helper

I don't know if I love his candy necklace or his flip flops more.

Owls and Big Boy Beds

My favorite part of today:  teaching Abigail how to paint with acrylic paints.  We spent 2 hours painting a duo of owls together.  Larry saw the painting set and asked me how much I helped her.  I didn't.  He said that I at least must have helped her with her branch.  I didn't.  She watched as I did mine and practiced 3 times on paper and then totally nailed it.  For other difficult parts (the shape of the baby owl, the leaves, the heart) I had Abigail practice on paper and then sketch it lightly in pencil on her canvas and we had to erase a few of them and do it again before she applied the paint but this work is all her.  I was so happy to have a painting buddy.  I hope that we can do this more often.  I really MISS my girl and haven't spent the kind of time with her since May that we used to spend and she is becoming such a cool person so quickly!!

My other favorite part of today:  we moved Joseph out of our room into a new big boy race car bed. This nudge into growing up carried over into how Joseph comported himself for the rest of the day after we set up his bed and made a HUGE deal out of it.  Instead of clinging to us and crying/ wanting to be picked up while we made dinner, he wanted to play by  himself in his room. (!?)  At dinner, he tried salad for the first time.  When Abigail sat on the staircase and cried (we told her to eat some more protein based items at dinner and she isn't feeling well so she took it poorly), Joseph went and sat by her and patted her back and stroked her hair to make her calm down and feel better. We are cautiously optimistic that maybe this trend of acting more like a little boy and less like a toddler-terrorist will continue.  

Sunday Snapshots

Joseph delighted at his daily candy
from our advent calendar

I should disclose that the
kids have been wearing these
Santa hats all month long!!

Abigail's time with Santa; She asked for a remote
controlled car after we promised to buy her a violin (her first choice)
once she learns to read music.

Joseph watching Santa from a distance.
We didn't force it to obtain a crying,
unhappy, escape artist photo.

Sunday Snapshots

Saturday morning the kids made
Ninja-bread cookies in honor of Abigail's
green belt test the night before.

Messy but having a blast.

Abigail is showing off her chopsticks skills with
Light Saber chopsticks.

We took the kids to the Air and Space Museum for
the first time.  (Yes, I know I know.  We live so
close to DC that the kids didn't finish a 48
minute Christmas DVD in the car and we
really should make the trip more, blah blah blah,
but I really do hate DC but I would if DC
were NYC)  Anyhow, both kids LOVED
the Zero.  It was the fav plane of the day.

Joseph now stands for a pic for a microsecond
before running to see the image on the
camera screen and pointing to himself
and shrieking.  

Sunday Snapshot(s)

It has been a while since I have done one of these blog entries. Enjoy the pics.

A student of mine had our family over for
an Asian feast this week.  Her mother
had gifts for the kids to keep them occupied
while we were there.  Abigail LOVES her
new Princess Castle Tent.

Joseph (and new-found love, Stuffy "Murphy") enjoyed
making Christmas decorations for an hour this afternoon.

Kids LOVE glue.

Working on Joseph's chopstick skills.  These are skills he
probably would have had if he were an almost 2 year old
living with a family in China.

Leaf raking this weekend and Joseph really enjoyed himself.

This is just the sort of situation for a Cozy Coupe

Siblings modeling their Moose Hats while we raked.

Lar and I laugh all of the time that we are
raising an old Chinese Man.  Joseph has so
many "old" habits.  Here he is, tired of
playing, he grabbed a wicker chair from the
house, dragged it to the yard, and watched
us finish the leaves while also waving
at cars driving by.

Sunday Snapshot: New Bike

With some gift card money we recently received, we bought a Cozy Coupe for Joseph, slide for Joseph, and Abigail got her first bike (with training wheels).  All she wants to do is ride it!!  (We do make her wear a helmet when she leaves the driveway so no criticism on that front.)

Sunday Snapshot

This is the first photograph Abigail has ever taken of us.
Since she got 90 % of us, it is not too bad, right?

Sunday Snapshot: Red Umbrella

It
has
been
a
little
rainy
here
lately.

There
are
mushrooms
growing
in
the
landscaping.

Sunday Snapshot: Bring on the warm weather

Sunday Snapshot: Is this a good tree?

Abigail was being silly.  She picked out this tree for us to cut down at the
Christmas Tree farm to take home for our tree this year.  She finds herself to
be hilarious.  Larry and I can't disagree.  She cracks us up!!

Sunday Snapshot: My Kiddo LOVES Horses

After her pony ride, the man tried to get her off and she said "I am not done yet."  So he gave
her another trip around the loop.  She said "thank you."

Fearless around animals, she put this goat into a headlock to try to get him to eat from her hand
and she reached through all of the bars to pet the horses in the pens too.

Abigail just loved the horses, even after her pony ride time was over she just wanted
to be with them.

Sunday Snapshot and the Bieber Eye

For any of you who haven't heard of the "Bieber Eye" yet (a lazy-eye condition, described by optometrist Andrew Hogan, that is caused when hair, in the style of Justin Bieber, is always covering one eye of a person), YES, I am worried that my daughter is at risk for it.  But she won't keep pigtails or barrettes in and I don't want to return to the shaved-head look of her orphanage days!

Sunday Snapshot: Sprinklers and the Beach

Sprinkler Fun (this was actually 2 weekends ago in April but
I forgot to post it)

Digging at the beach on Mother's Day Weekend

Sunday Snapshot (s) - I couldn't choose just one!

Come on, Uncle Jim!

Aunt Steph, this is grass for Huxley's salad.

Beautiful day at the LDW.

Sunday Snapshot, with stories

This weekend Lar, Abigail and I were visiting my brother Jim and his awesome wife Steph at their home in Virginia while we took care of some rather exciting business.


My parents were also there to babysit Abigail while Lar and I were getting some professional things done.  My dad loved "taking my wife and granddaughter out to breakfast" he boasted all day long.  His favorite part was when the waitress cleared my dad's finished plate, Abigail gave her the stink eye, wrapped her arms around her plate and pulled it away from the waitress's reach.  That is the orphan coming out in her I guess.

This is Abigail being dragged around the house on
a beanbag.  Steph was dragging her.

Abigail then spent most of the weekend getting loved on by her grandmother and her Aunt Steph.  (Lar and I were delighted to essentially have a weekend off, which is rare since we live 500 miles from loving relatives who could care of Abigail so we could have adult conversation and catch up on sleep.  It was quite a treat for us.  A vacation, really!)

I love her dimples when she is trying not to smile.
She is so gorgeous.  

Abigail weighs about as much as a typical American kid half of her age, but she is tall and lanky.  Since she is so light, we hadn't turned her car seat around yet, but she spent the 8 hour drive up to NoVA with her knees up to her chin and was clearly uncomfortable.  So for the drive home, we graduated her to a forward-facing car seat.  She LOVED it.  She spent the first hour just looking out the front window and pointing out stuff she saw.  

The big smile on the proud girl finally came out!

Sunday Snapshot

Reading the paper with Yinski

Making cookies with Grandma 

Staying dry in Baba's rain coat

Sunday Snapshot: Chinese New Year

I will try to post a full Chinese New Year entry this week, after we celebrate official Chinese New Year tomorrow at home, but this weekend we attended the festivities of our local Chinese Cultural Association.  Abigail cried when we first dressed her, but she eventually stopped being upset (pretty much when she saw the dragon running around the auditorium).


Every time I tried to take a picture of her, she kept going into a sumo-wrestler pose, but I do have a full shot of her walking out of the house.  (It isn't really an award-worthy shot or anything, but hey, she's two!)

Here comes the dragon!

Sumo girl

I really hated this outfit when Larry picked it
out last year in China, but Abigail is so
darn cute in anything that it was okay!

Being silly in her room after the
festivities!

Sunday Snapshot: Somebody just couldn't sit still!