Day 178

Sitting with Dad and watching Cars on the iTouch. Just love how close these two are!

Day 177

So we are heavy on T. this week it seems. Two things - check out the DRESS that T. picked out. Her teacher was totally wow'd. T. thinks its covered in apples. Cute, huh? And also check out the bandaid. She scraped her nose on a book and HAD to have a band aid. So there she is - in her 3 year old glory!

Day 176

What is more fun than a brand new refrigerator? A brand new refrigerator box to play in! I was so excited to see ours and Eric helped me drag it into the garage. C. had no interest but T. grabbed a crayon to color her new house. Notice that she doesn't have to duck at all, its just her size!

Day 175

T. started gymnastics this morning. Check out this mid flight photo that I caught! She was a little slow to warm up but once she was on, she was ON! Very fun watching her follow in big sister's footsteps!

Day 174

Tonight my big girl went and took a shower all by herself! Such a little thing, but it feels like such a big milestone. She was so proud of herself. Here she is with her wet hair, feeling like the six year old that she is, sharing the limelight with little sis.

Day 173

Grandma came to visit today and to watch the girls' swim lessons. =)

Day 172

Had another doctor's apt. This nurse was SO great with T through our entire appointment. Here she is using the smallest blood pressure cuff I have ever seen. I just love when I find people that are great at their job and love it!

Day 171

And so we enter a new Pixar obsession...

Day 170

Ahhhhh! So, I have no refrigeration with at least a week more of two small coolers and ice, BUT I have a beautiful new freezer and even more important to me, I have cold, frosted mugs, which are incredibly important to drink my diet coke at the perfect temperature (which is just shy of frozen...). Yum!

Day 169

Happy Father's Day! What could beat this? Doughnuts in bed and all kinds of presents picked out from your two loving daughters. Eric received a rain guage, a door knocker, 10 seed packets (T. chose 5 packets of grass, C. chose 5 different flowers), hand made cards, stickers and cookies. Yum! We had planned a trip to a local park but the death of the fridge yesterday and subsequent purchase of fridge and a freezer for the garage meant we had some work to do here so we ended the day with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. Yum!

Day 168

Some days are a struggle - the photo is some weird thing I've thought to grab and then there are days like today. I had cute photos of T. and Dad walking through Lowe's (buying the new fridge which wont be here for a WEEK! - Ugg), CUTE photos of C., T. and their best buddy, Cute photos of C. and her buddy showing off their nails BUT this one tops it. This is T. and she is Skyping for the first time with her foster brother! She hasn't seen him since late August and she was delighted to see him and meet his big sister, mom and dad. I couldn't stop smiling, it was so spsecial. She just chattered away like talking to him was an every day thing. They both wore Lightning McQueen shirts and he just smiled and smiled at her! He will always be a special part of her heart and its wonderful that his family values their relationship as much as we do. His big sis and C. would become fast friends I suspect. =)

Day 167

So for some reason, our refrigerator seems to have heard that our existing dishwasher was getting a ticket out of this joint and is thinking it might get in on the deal. =( The freezer is suddenly not so cold, which is a total bummer. Eric was unloading it to try to diagnose the problem. All of my good Trader Joe's stuff is probably gonna be a loss. *sigh* I've always hated this stupid fridge, but had hoped we wouldn't be replacing it right after the lousy dishwasher.

Day 166

Crashed out! After fighting to go to sleep she finally gave it up tonight.

Day 165

3/4 of our family got mail from Grandma today. Love the reflection from the envelope on C.'s face. She was delighted to get her own envelope - this one is a father's day card for dad. Kids LOVE mail - thanks Grandma for making this day special!

Day 164

We bought these cool bubble wands at a festival last month and I finally had bubbles and the right size dish so we played in the backyard before dinner. I had to crop some stuff out of this photo as it was a "by chance" side shot around dad and T. Cute, huh?!

Day 163

What are they looking at? Well, the little special...W O R M S that they brought home from their first day of summer program! Two big fat worms in baggies. We took some photos and then released them out into the wild (ie our back yard!) They happily disappeared into the lawn to go make us some nice fresh dirt!

Day 163

Today we dragged the kids to Lowe's to buy a new dishwasher. Ours finally died (oh - second guess the Dish Drawer if you are thinking about it now...) and we selected a beautiful Electrolux. The only other thing in the parking lot is a Buffalo Wild Wings so we decided to check it out - dark, loud (um, something about a little basketball playoff and wall to wall big screens...) but yummy. I caught T. giving her Baba one of her regular spontaneous displays of affection!

Day 162

So, C. saved her braids for two days to get wavy (or crimped if you are a child of the 80's) hair. She was so excited! Here she is, ready to go to dinner at the house of some friends. She's also sporting a pair of sandals we bought in Guangzhou last fall. My 1st grader now!

Day 161

Kindergartner no more - tonight was graduation and also goodbye to most of C.'s friends as they all scatter to their various schools. Mom was in tears most of the evening. C. enjoyed every minute of playing in the park and then the little pizza party after. This was an exceptional group of kids - each one as sweet as can be. We hope to stay in touch for play dates!

Day 160

How often does your favorite author come to a bookstore in a neighboring town to discuss the book you are enthralled with right now! I went to listen to Lisa See talk about her new novel, Shanghai Girls (that I am currently listening to in my car). She is an amazing author - this is her 7th - I have read three now, Snowflower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love and now Shanghai Girls. I have some of her first books, which are mysteries, but I do better with audio than print at this point. If you haven't read her books - GO NOW...they are amazing!

Day 159

What day isn't better with a slurpee? This was one of those days. =)

Day 158

C. was asleep when I came home the night before so she came in to see me, all smiles this morning. "Mom, guess what I got last night?" "What, C.?" "Mom, was it a token?" "Did you get a token at swimming?!!" "NO!!!" "Mom, was it a......rib...boN!!!?" "C.! You got a ribbon! for what?!!" "Mom, for backstroke - I'll go get it!" and she came back, proud as can be. She JUST started backstroke and I had the pleasure of watching her first lap and I have to say, it was good that first time out. She was so proud this morning and I couldn't be prouder!

Day 157

Look who has moved into our house. Lightning is being given a run for his money - these days, its all about Buzz Lightyear. I was mom of the year after bringing this home!

Day 156

C. and I found this great Nihao Kailan floor puzzle for T. and then helped her assemble it. It has words in English and Mandarin all over it and was a huge hit! They put it together lightning fast (mostly because big sister lead the charge). Got it at Target (in case you need one for yourself...)

Day 155

Its beautiful outside today and a little windy so took C. outside to get some photos of the gorgeous sky and instead we had fun with the wind and her hair.

Day 154

Okay, so this week has been mostly T., but she was home with us 4 days from school so she had more photo ops and then today she looked so fresh and bright as she got dressed for school I just had to use this one. C. will reappear tomorrow!

Day 153

I didn't get this quite the way I wanted it. Lots of T photos this week, she's been home with me for 3 days. This is our neighbors' rose bush next to our driveway.

Day 152

Looks like I'm sleeping with the fishes tonight! I came upstairs and found this scene. So its you and me, Nemo!

Day 151

Okay, so I had told T. that once she lost/broke all of her pacifiers (we call them "dwa's") that was it and she has made the last three or four really last. This has been kind of a bummer week for her so I was in our local drugstore and found this Nemo dwa - she's had one before but lost it. She was so happy. She grabbed my leg and said "Oh thank you, Mommy!"

Day 150

Peeking in on C. asleep. She falls asleep almost before her head hits the pillow and surprisingly, despite all of her bed buddies, she wakes up rested and smiley, every morning. I love her not so little feet hanging off of the bed.