Happy Chinese New Year!

What a wonderful--

Awe inspiring

and

Absolutely exhausting Day!

My lovely girls dressed to the nines!

Excited for thier very first on-stage performance! 

The past year or so Josie has exclaimed that

she wants to dance on stage with other Chinese girls.

Today she did!

Scoping out our seats in the auditorium. 

In the staging room with our

good friend Claire.

Does Josie look like she's ready to take on the

world or what?!! 

A picture with their beloved teacher, Mei Mei. 

Practicing thier songs and dance. 

Let's not forget the lipstick and blush!

So grown up! 

Anothe picture with some of their best buds--

Grace and Claire. 

The group. 

Backstage, performers next in line. 

On with the show! 

Stars on stage! 

Clara Rose wanted me to stay backstage where she could look back and see me.

The girls were nervous during practice-- Josie would not practice saying

her name in Chinese.

Clara Rose would run out of line to me every 5-minutes.

During the performance, they both did everything perfectly!

Most importantly, they were all smiles through the performance and afterward!

I hope to have some pictures from in front of the stage in the next few days.

They have another performance next weekend!

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Weather Alert! Weather Alert!

The day of Clara Rose's big Super Fun Kid's Gym Party was

had by a Winter Snow storm.

Dash it all!!!

The storm hit most of the day bringing lots of snow.

So we made the hard decision to postpone her big Kid's Gym party.

We did our best to make it up her by making the

best of what the day brought us. 

Which was a little more than a half foot of snow! 

Still snow hard-- we broke out a boogie board

and Jie Jie and I gave the girls a few rides around the yard.

It was good cool fun! 

A favorite site--

Red glowing cheeks! 

What a great Jie Jie!

Snow angels! 

Snow sliding. 

Later on Clara Rose was able to open one present

that Thankfully(!) arrived in the mail after her birthday.

A big box-- so exciting!

A Dora Pillow that is about the same size as Clara Rose! 

She was able to lay on it while watching cartoons

in my backpacking tent-- set-up in the living-room. 

Of course, we had a ginormous cake!

We had already ordered it sooo . . . 

We ate Dragon Cake for Dessert

(we'll be eating it allllll week!) 

Very fitting since it is the Year of the Dragon!

Happy Birthday Clara Rose!

We Interrupt This Birthday Week . . .

We usually have a special Birthday Dinner-- just our family-- which the girls, their Sibs and Wim still had . . .

I on the other hand, was indisposed with a stomach bug-- yesss, lovely. No pictures and I'll spare you the details.

Suffice it to say that I was in no condition for-- well-- anything really.

Clara Rose was fairly upset that "Mommy not eating for my Birthday."

She waited until the day after her Birthday to open her presents from us----

We had her little home-made birthday cake

(albeit slightly stale at this point--

and her not too happy that Mommy felt the need to pass on her special dessert).

More Presents. . .

Josie's consolation present. 

Yeah!

A game to play! 

Clara Rose was feeling better and looking forward to her big

Kid's Gym Party coming up on on the weekend.

A Preview of the day we 'were' to have this party. 

Turning 4-Years Old

Clara Rose's 4th Birthday

Her Birthday Week as we tend to do them in our home . . .

Kicked off on MLK day.

The girls and I started the day with a fun crystal growning experiement from Christmas.

Science kits for kids are great presents!

Kids are so excited to use the equipment and discover what happens!

Not to mention the whole learning factor as well. 

For this experiment the girls mixed colors into new colors

 and sprinkled crystal growing dust into the mixutre.

(Why do I feel like I just described a meth lab?) 

The kit even has test tubes! 

Later we went out for lunch and what a surprise that

we ran into the amazing balloon animal guy!

He made each of the girls a pretty spectatcular balloon animal of their request. 

It was a GREAT kick-off to Clara Rose's Birthday week that

would later turn into not that great of Birthday weeks!

The Most Played with Toys-- so far

Santa brought the girl's a gum-making kit and they couldn't

wait to make their own gum!

The suggested age for this kit is actually 8+ so I am not really sure

what Santa was thinking giving the girls this kit,

but we made it through relatively unscathed and they were thrilled

with their creation. There are lots of materials left over for several batches as well.

Lite Bright!

I enjoyed playing with this toy when I was about their age

and they really seem to have fun with it as well!

Also note the Leapster2 in the picture-- the girls like playing those as well.

I like them because they are educational.

And . . . the marble run toy.

They are able to build their own maze of sorts and then

watch how the marbles roll through.

This is a great toy that the girls are loving!

It has lot of pieces so there are lots of different mazes the girls can build.

I love that it keeps them occupied and they are learning

spatial relations and a bit of physics!

Yeah, maybe that makes me a bit of a geek mom but they don't seem to mind!

At least not yet!

After Christmas . . .

The week after Christmas.

So many new toys.

So many new dress-up clothes.

So much new everything!

We are doing a fashion show!

Featuring the newest styles of Macy's

Puts a whole new spin on recycling!

New Year's Day

Wim's Aunt and Uncle throw a really fun party on New Year's Day!

The younger set had a blast seeing each other again.

They played kitties and puppies nearly all afternoon!

Xavier taught Ethan how to play Angry Birds.

It was a fun afternoon.