Happy New Year!

I got exactly 2 silk dresses for Emma while in China - one in size 2 and one in size 6 - so you may see her in a silk dress again in 2011! However, I've seen so many pictures of kids in silks in the last few days that I felt I should go hunt through my closet and pull this little number out of its bag even though Emma isn't well and we're not going anywhere - so, without further ado, here is Miss Emma in her finest silk, with a red nose and refusing to smile!lol She had that dress off about 2 seconds after the photo shoot in our hallway (she's sitting on a tablecloth!!lol) and I don't get the impression she'll be asking to wear it again any time soon!

Crusty

Yeah, Crusty is what we're calling Emma these days. She has a bad cold and therefore, a constantly runny and crusty nose... pretty picture I paint isn't it?lol Anyhow, yesterday I picked up some headbands at the drug store and she's been trying them on. Here she is modeling one from yesterday, and then in today's picture, she's eating her Chinese New Year mandarin orange and is glued to the TV (Dora or Diego or course!)...the profile shot saves you having to see the nose - I guess if I had Photoshop I could do something about it!lol

Cantaloupe

For a 2 year old, Emma speaks really well. She's usually quite clear and speaks in sentences. You can actually have a conversation with her. So, I was a bit mystified earlier today when we had the following conversation:

E: Mommy, I want more cantaloupe.
Me: Emma, we don't have any cantaloupe. Do you want grapes or blueberries?
E: I want more cantaloupe!
Me: Emma honey, we don't have any cantaloupe.
E: I want more presents, I want more cantaloupe!
Me: You want more presents?
E: I want more presents, I want piggy and cantaloupe!

Ah, and then the light went on in my head! Yesterday, Thomas' Mandarin teacher gave Thomas and Emma envelopes for Chinese New Year. Emma's envelope contained a few little gifts, including a little piggy for the Year of the Boar. Emma was looking for more cantaloupe aka ENVELOPE...she wanted more red envelopes!!lol

On to a totally unrelated speaking story. Emma enunciates pretty well. She pronounces most of her letters appropriately. Over the last few days though, we noticed there's one sound she just can't make - the SK sound. I came to this realization when she kept asking to wear her HARF when we were going out. She finally went to the closet, took out a skarf and said "Harf Mommy, harf!" like I was the one with the problem!!lol Thomas now thinks it's really funny and tries to get her to say all kinds of SK words!lol Ah, what are big brothers for!

Flashback!

I was moving my computer today and in going through various disks found around the computer desk, I came up with a photo disk from 2001. 2001 is the year I got my first digital camera. Here are a few pics of Thomas when he's around 2.5 to 3 years old.

Commercial

What do you think of this commercial for The Royal Bank of Canada? Opinions are mixed on one of the adoption boards I read. I like the ad. Here's the address if the link doesn't work: http://www.canadianadvertisingclub.com/?id=20523

Because I said so...

Emma is a funny little character, somewhat dramatic. Whenever she asks me for something, be it watching TV or having a cookie, and I say "No", she puts her hands out, palms up and dramatically says "but why mommy, why"!!lol I have to say though, she's a good sport, not much fazes this child, she's so easygoing!

Snow Day!

Snow day...we had some fun in the back yard.

Skating

Thomas and I have been trying to go skating a few times a week now that the outdoor rinks are up and running. I know we can always go to an arena, but it's just not the same. There's such a feeling of wonder and freedom in skating outside...I guess it reminds me of my childhood - I spent countless hours at the outdoor rink (I'm from a small town, there was no indoor rink!lol) with friends. I'm also enjoying just spending time alone with Thomas. I've thought of getting skates for Emma, but we'll wait until next year, although she's such a physical child, I'm sure she'd get the hang of it in no time. For now, this is a fun way for Thomas and I to have some one on one time. :-)

Puzzles

Emma is totally in love with puzzles, particularly the magnetic Dora and Diego ones. She'll stand at the counter and work on them forever while I'm working in the kitchen. Much to my surprise, the other day I noticed she can now do these puzzles by herself! Oh, and ignore the mess on my counter. May I also add that I love the Learning Tower Emma is standing in. It allows her to play safely at the counter while I'm working or to help me do some cooking and baking...she loves it!

Emma, America's Next T0p M0del!lol

When I took the kids to have their pictures done, I knew Thomas would be great at the sitting. He is after all 8, a very easy going kid about this stuff, and the photographer could give him whatever instructions and he'd follow them without problem. Emma however, is our wild card. If you have a toddler, you know what I mean. Some sessions go off without a hitch, some sessions you leave tearing out your hair without one single useable picture. So, we didn't know what to expect from Emma. I have to tell you, this kid is just too much! The photographer gave her instructions and she followed them to a T. For instance, on the above pic, he told her to sit in the middle of the bench, put her legs up and look down near he feet - and there's the pic!! He had her doing all kinds of poses and she just went along, even giving us a few smiles along the way. You could tell the photographer was getting a total kick out of a 2 year old following along with whatever he wanted!lol

Pics

I took the kids to have their pics taken...here are some proofs.

Profiles

A mom on another adoption blog has a photo challenge. The latest challenge was sharing some favourite profile photos. After a quick search through the last year or so of pics on my computer, here are some of my fave profile pics of Emma and Thomas.

More sledding!

It was a gorgeous afternoon for sledding so while Emma napped, I took Thomas and his friend Jeremy to the hills! We all had a blast.

Here are the boys getting settled in and ready...

Heading down...

And further down...

And now the hard part, coming back up the hill!

Ready for the pool!

Here's Emma, ready for the pool...of course the fact that her swim lessons aren't even today doesn't mean she can't be ready!lol She's always complaining that she's very hot in the house, if I'd let her, she would have worn this all day long! Thankfully we had to go out and this just didn't work well with her snowsuit!lol

Too much Dora?

We never turn the TV on just to see what's on, but I do TIVO Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go. These are 2 shows Emma really enjoys (not to mention shows that I can bear to watch!). I'm thinking she might be watching them a little too much though. These days, when we leave the house, Emma starts singing "Where are we going" with the corresponding answer "To the grocery store, "To Rebecca's house", etc... just like in Dora. And then, when we get back home, she starts singing "We did it, we did it..."!!lol But then again, I could say that it's educational TV since we were at Toys R Us the other day and there was a Diego display with animals from the various episodes and Emma went through them, naming them one by one, everything from a red eyed tree frog to a sloth to a pygmy marmoset!!lol May I add that I had never heard of these specific animals til I learned about them watching Go Diego Go with my 2 year old!lol And I'm embarrassed to say that I thought the pygmy marmoset was a sloth...Emma corrected me!lol At least she's not rolling her eyes at me yet!lol

Long Hair!

Look at how long Emma's hair is getting...we're definitely going to have to get a trim soon. Here she is waking from her nap and taking a bath.

Swimming

Emma loves the water so when we registered Thomas for swim lessons this month, we registered Emma for a Parent and Tot class. She's loving it and Thomas' swimming is getting quite strong - he swam 100 meters without problem this week! The pool is in a new and modern complex, pretty clean and well maintained overall. However, when you're walking (barefoot) around the pool deck or in the change rooms, well, it's wet, dirty, and worst of all, there's wet hair on the floor - I can't even tell you how much wet hair on a floor grosses me out... particularly when it's not mine and when I'm barefoot!! Anyhow, today I went and bought us all Crocs to wear at the pool. Yes, I know they're ugly as sin, but they're practical. Here's Emma showing off her Disney Crocs:

Here she is doing her impression of "Wilson"... c'mon, you all remember Wilson, the neighbour on Home Improvement whose face you never saw?lol

Hodgepodge

I'm warning you, the variety of topics will make your head spin... don't say I didn't warn you...now here you go - here's what a day in my head looks like!lol

I know, I know, not a whole lot of pictures these days. It's really that much harder to lug around a camera in the snow!lol Not much happening in the house worth taking pics of and since Emma has started asking to wear panties, she's pretty much wearing a variety of mismatched tops and bottoms all day long as she pees through her pants...not exactly a pretty picture!lol

I just dropped Thomas off at an after school program. There's a kindergarten in the building during the day and there was a big poster with pics of the kindergarten kids on it on the door. When did Joey, Shane, Harper, Hayden, Noah and Hunter become girl names?? As you can tell from our name choices, we're pretty old fashioned in the naming department, and I while I like these names, I'm not sure I like them for the long run, kwim?

Are there really bad songs that for some reason you like? You know, songs that just reach you at an emotional level and you're not quite sure if the song is brilliant or just really the biggest pile of drivel ever. This morning, as I was driving to our car dealership (may I add for the 3rd time in 2 weeks to "fix" the same exact problem!!), the song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" came on the radio. You youngsters may never have heard of it...it was somewhat of a hit in the 1970s for Gordon Lightfoot (never heard of him either - try Google!). Really, was there ever such a topic that screams "song" as a ship loaded with iron ore going from Wisconsin to Cleveland?? Now how sexy is that...I'm sure Britney will be singing about it next!! This is based on a real event. The ship sank on Lake Superior in November 1975 and 29 crew members died... now there's a fun song topic!! I really can't decide if this is one of the best songs ever or the worst songs ever, but just about every time I hear it, I feel teary eyed... it just gets to me. Thankfully the radio station followed this song with "Footloose", a song I'm pretty sure IS pure drivel, but just makes me want to sing and dance whenever I hear it! Of course, if I'd walked into the dealership in tears, perhaps they would have felt really sorry for me and actually fixed my car for real!!lol

We're in the early days of house hunting. We love our house, but unfortunately, it has a postage stamp yard and we'd really like a little more space for the kids to run around, not to mention that Gary desperately wants a library for his 1000s of books - and no, I'm not kidding, there really are that many. There are built in and free standing bookcases all over our house!! Anyhow, our real estate agent took me to see a house she thought we might like today. A nice 4 bedroom house on a dead end street with a good sized yard and a main floor library. Sounds good so far, but here's the part I just don't get and neither does Gary. This house has 7 - yes, you read that right, SEVEN - bathrooms!! Who needs 7 bathrooms in a house? SEVEN!! I'm sure as he** not cleaning 7 bathrooms!! Each of the bedrooms had its own bathroom, there was a powder room on the main floor and 2 bathrooms in the basement, including one which had a steam shower and a sauna. So apparently not only do kids no longer share bedrooms, they can't even share bathrooms now? Now, don't get me wrong, I think a certain number of bathrooms is nice. Our house now has 4 - a master bathroom, another bathroom for the rest of the upstairs, a main floor powder room and a basement bathroom - that sounds pretty good to me - a lot better than the one bathroom per family of 5 that I grew up with, but not totally over the top. Seven bathrooms just seems like conspicuous consumption at its worst. However, our agent tells us many people love this over abundance of bathrooms... am I the only one who doesn't get the point of 7 bathrooms in a regular 4 bedroom house???

We're meeting our SW for our 12 months post adoption report tonight. I know, we're a few months late. This is the FINAL piece of paper in the overload of paperwork required by adoption. I swear if I never have to fill our another form for the rest of my days, I'll be thrilled!

You made it all the way through?? Well, I did warn you!

Serenade!

Over the last few months, Emma calls MIL every day or two and MIL sings to her. Now, Emma is returning the favour and most of their conversations are Emma singing to her!lol Here is Emma serenading her with her version of the ABC song.

Sledding!

Sledding is one of our fave winter activities...I don't care how old you are, it's just always so much fun! Here are the kids enjoying themselves... Emma got the hang of it very quickly and kept asking "again mommy, again" and of course wanted to go on bigger parts of the hill than we'd let her!lol

It's a style...

Emma's always telling us that she's "very hot" and needs to take layers off and often ends up running around the house in an undershirt. However, she does love mittens, hats and shoes... it makes for an interesting look!lol She must get this from her father who pretty much wears shorts year round in the house!

Consider yourself told!lol

Emma loves to sing. One song Gary has taught her is "Brother John" in Mandarin. She sings it all the time and I thought I'd try to get it on video. Please ignore messy hair and lovely undershirt style!lol


Here is attempt one - well, I've been told!lol





Here is attempt two - well, told again!lol




Ah finally, some degree of success!!lol

Let me show you who's boss!!

Here's Emma showing Elm0 who the boss is around here!

Following in daddy's footsteps...

I think Emma may grow up to be a lawyer, just like her daddy... she can manipulate words like a pro already!lol Yesterday, I was sitting on the couch and she was standing on my lap. She was jumping up and down on me and I asked her to stop jumping on me to which she replied "Mommy, Emma's not jumping, Emma's bouncing"... well, okay then, that makes all the difference!!lolol

Snow girl!

Well, at the very least, she's a snowpants girl - she LOVES her snowpants. It's 50 degrees out and she refuses to go play in the back yard without her snowpants... she'd wear them around the house half the day if I'd let her. Let's face it, they have zippers and velcro, could there be something more fun!!lol Thomas put on some winter wear to play along with her! Also, please note that in this pic, she's in her undershirt because apparently it was too hot in the house for her to wear her long sleeved shirt - however, it's not too hot for snowpants...go figure!!

Time for a little wash...

Here are the boys, doing a cleanup after a long day of nothing!lol

Hair, hair!

I think Emma's starting to wonder if we'll ever take her for a haircut... come on folks, work the bows or get it cut - I can't see!lol

Funny Emma!

Emma's a pretty relaxed, easy going, funny kind of kid. Generally speaking, not much phases her at this point. She's starting to totally crack us up. Here are some examples:

1. This morning, I made her some scrambled eggs. I set her up at her high chair and brought the eggs over. She says "mommy, very hot" and I blow on them and then offer her a bite. She opens her mouth, I put the food in, she spits it out and says "mommy, I told you so, hot!!" Well, I guess I've been told!

2. Gary was reading to her earlier. I've been cooking/baking for a couple of hours now so the kitchen/family room area is pretty hot. As she's sitting on his lap, Gary takes his shirt off, only to hear "no daddy, put your shirt back on"!!lol Ah, there goes the fragile male ego!

3. Gary introduced Emma to Hide and Seek this weekend. She now loves to play it REPEATEDLY!! It's hilarious to watch her though. She closes her eyes (although she cheats and peeks through her fingers) and counts to 10 and then heads off to find daddy, the whole while calling out to him and waiting until he finally answers to find him!lol Okay, so I guess she's still a little unclear on the concept. Also, Thomas and I enjoy playing Connect 4 - Emma now always wants to play, although her version is simply putting a chip in every spot and then declaring proudly "Emma wins"!!lol

Can you guess?

Look at where we spent a good part of the day today...go ahead...take a guess...give up?? The BEACH!! Yup, you read that right... January 1st in the snow belt and we were at the BEACH!! Oh man, what a great day...temps in the 50s and not a drop of snow...at the beach...did you get that??lol We packed the kids up early this morning and headed off to the beach, then the park, then lunch and now we're home with the little one in bed. I can't remember ever in my lifetime (and I'm old!!) a 1st of the year like this...even if winter hits with a vengence now, it will feel relatively short since we haven't had any winter yet!! For various reasons, we didn't end up booking our usual fun in the sun winter getaway this year and I'm just as glad... don't feel like I need to get out of the cold at all yet. Here are some pics of the kids enjoying the beach.

Happy New Year to all!! Wishing you all nothing but the best for 2007.

Bubbles!!

Here's Thomas blowing bubbles and Emma running through them! She adores bubbles! What's funny though is that hours later, we were still finding bubbles all over the kitchen... tough little things they are!lol

Emma's TWO!!

Emma turned 2 while we were at my parents' for Christmas. Here she is getting ready to blow out her candles. I can't believe our baby is 2. She is such a delight. She's now talking up a storm! She was funny at my parents' house. She and Thomas shared a room - she in a single bed; he on an air mattress just beside her. She drove him nuts!! Even though we put her to bed a good hour before him, she was STILL talking and singing by the time he joined her. She went through every song and story she knew and recited and sang them all. After listening to her go on and on for some time, Thomas came out of the room and told us "she won't stop talking and she's driving me crazy, but I'm really impressed at how much she knows"!lol (BTW, he's such a great kid, such a great sport and such a great big brother!) She was singing songs we didn't even know she knew!! When I say that she spent a couple of hours talking and singing after she went to bed, I am not exaggerating a bit...she's such a character! When we were leaving my parents' house earlier today, everyone was by the door, saying goodbye, and just before we turn to go out the door, she faces my family, extends her arms in a wide embrace and yells out "I WUV YOU"!!lol Giving her "people" one last little hurrah!lol I think she enjoyed having a crowd to perform to!lol She's totally irresistible! My brother, who met her for the first time on this trip, remarked that her vocabulary is all in the imperative form. Obviously, part of that is the stage of speech she's at, but I think a lot of it might also just be her bossy little personality!!lol At one point, she'd climbed up on something and someone told her how cute she looked and she calls out to me "mommy, please take a picture of Emma!" Oh well, at least she's polite in her commands!lol Her new thing over the last couple of days is teaching me how to speak Mandarin. Gary's been teaching her a lot of words. Often when they're reading, he'll tell her what a word is in Mandarin. She knows a lot of animals and other everyday items. So now, she'll come to me and she'll say: "Fay-Jie - mommy, that means airplane in Chinese"!!lol She's really hilarious. I can see the terrible 2s coming - we're getting some whining and foot stomping when she doesn't get her way - but overall, she has such an easygoing and sunny personality. So, that's my baby at 2 - a little piece of sunshine. :-) We have been so blessed with our children.

P.S.: There are 3 candles because one's for good luck...anybody else do that? The good luck candle would normally be set on a different part of the cake, but it was easier for Emma to blow them out if they're all together. :-)