The Graduate!

E is no longer a Preschooler! She had her Preschool Graduation last week. All the kids did a great job singing some songs, reciting some material and giving thanks to their families. It's kind of sad that now I will be entering a new phase of having all School age children. I have been driving to this preschool for 4 years now (M for 2 and E for 2) and now it's over. E is very ready for Kindergarten and I'm looking forward to seeing all that she acoomplishes this coming fall.

And Now Introducing the Graduate!

Can she Make it to the top?

E at the bottom of the rope in gymnastics.

Halfway up!

She did it!!!

This year in gymnastics E has had her ups and downs. She really is doing very well on her skills but was having some problems with controlling her emotional side or otherwise crying over little things. Once E starts to cry she has a very hard time stopping and would usually end up crying for the rest of the class. We were almost ready to not let her move up to the next level because we weren't sure she could handle the pressure. E is a perfectionist and she got very frustrated with herself if she wasn't able to do something. If the coach told her to keep her legs straight after a skill she would start to cry. If she couldn't jump as high as the other girls, she would cry and so on. I finally asked her if she liked gymnastics (didn't want her to think she had to do it because her sister is very involved in gymnastics) and she said "Yes, I love it." After a heart to heart talk with her, and after I told her that it was ok that she couldn't do something and I didn't care, she started to change. She also brought up her size (E is the smallest in the class and she is very aware that she is a lot smaller than all of her peers) and I had to explain to her that in the long run, her being small is actually a huge advantage for her in gymnastics. Also letting her know that she was actually doing some skills better than her older sister did at the same age boosted her confidence. The past month she has made a huge improvement and hasn't cried one time. Because of her improved positive attitude she has finally overcome her fears and climbed to the top of the rope. Once she made it to the top and she was so proud of herself. Now all she wants to do is climb that rope. Due to her improved attitude she is also going to be moving up to the pre-team this summer for the gym. She wants to do it now so we will let her try. She knows that she has to control her crying in order to be on the team and she said "I will not cry". Her coach just loves her even through all the crying and thinks she has the skills to be on the team. She too agrees that she thinks she has made a 180 in class and thinks she will do ok this summer. I'll keep you updated on how well she deals with everything.

LWB Art Auction

Update: The final bid on the quilt and wish book was $464.99.

Today is the beginning of the LWB Art Auction. Love Without Boundaries is a great organization that helps fund surgeries and other medical needs to children in China. A family that traveled with us when we adopted M has a second daughter that benefited from Heart Surgery that was funded by LWB's Art Auction, so every year I try to make a quilt and donate it to the auction. This year I was only able to finish one quilt. Keep an eye out for the below quilt during the auction:




All the squares represent each of the 50 States and Washington, DC. I hope the quilt brings in lots of money during this auction.

Sickness

M has been ill with strep for the past 5 days! It started as a cold that went on about a week and then she started to run a fever. On Saturday this fever started and didn't go away by Monday so we took her to the Pediatrician. I was thinking that maybe she had broncitis or something because of all the coughing she was doing but it turns out she had Strep and is now taking her first ever antibiotic. She made it 7 years without being on any kind of medication (other than tylenol). She has been home from School for 2 days and I'm so ready for her to go back today. I'm hoping when she wakes up this morning that she no longer has a fever so she can go back to school. Yesterday she was a little stir crazy (and was starting to drive Momma a little nuts!). I thought she was on the mend yesterday because her fever was gone for most of the day (the motrin worked well) but last evening she had a temp of 103.2 again. The motrin brought it down immediately again but I'm hoping this morning it's normal. I'm also hoping no one else in the family comes down with Strep (including me!).

LWB Art Auction

For the past 4-5 years I have donated quilts to the Love Without Boundaries Art Auction. LWB is a great organization that provides medical and other services to Children in China. Friends of ours youngest daughter, received a much needed heart surgery funded by LWB. Today this little girl is full of energy and keeps her Mom and Dad very busy. This year I didn't make as many quilts as I have in the past due to not having as much time now since the girls are a little older. My sewing time isn't as great since now I'm never home because of all the driving around to the various activities that they are involved in and waiting around until they are finished. I did manage to finish up one quilt that I actually started for last years auction but wasn't able to complete it on time. I only finished it last week too so it's nothing like waiting until the last minute to complete something when you had a whole year to work on it! This is a US State quilt. All the squares in the quilt represent the 50 states and Washington, DC. There is one extra block of patriotic type fabric too because I needed 4 stars for the corners of the quilt. There is also a wish book that goes with the quilt that describes each of the states and the fabric chosen for that state (the wish book was made by another one of my on-line quilting friends). I hope the quilt and wish book bring in lots of money so that another little boy/girl can be healed by receiving a much needed heart surgery.

Closeup of the quilt

I finally completely finished a UFO too! YEA!!!!

What begins with W....

a watermelon, waffle, water, window, wig and a wagon!

Each week in E's preschool they learn a different letter. E already knows all of the alphabet so the teacher told her she could draw things that start with the letter W on the back of her practice writing paper. This is what she brought home.

Dance Competition

M's Chinese dance class performed their Chili Pepper dance at the Regional Pittsburgh Showstopper dance Competition on March 7. They did a wonderful job especially since none of the girls have ever danced in a competition before and also this was only the 3rd time they have performed their dance in public. Their group won 3rd place in the Under 8 small Group Recreational dance category. Not too bad!!! Way to Go!! M's dance school was the only other dance school that performed a folkloric type of dance so it was also a great arena to schowcase traditional Chinese Dance.

A beautiful group of Chili Pepper dancers!!

Happy 5th Birthday E!!!!

Today E is turning 5! It's hard to believe that my baby is now five and no longer a little baby! Today is a low key day for her but tomorrow is her big party. She is having a party at her Gymnastics gym and all of her friends from school and the neighborhood will be there. Below are some photos of E through the years.

E right after placement in China. She was 8 1/2 months old

E starting to walk at 10 1/2 months old. Yes she was that young and that tiny ! She's always been my girl who is on the go and into everything!

E at 18 months old

E at 2 1/2 years old. I don't have many professional photos up to this point because she refused to sit for a photo shoot prior to this one.

E's 3 year old Preschool photo.

E at almost 5.

Today E is still very active and has a great imagination. She's a very bright little girl who on a daily basis keeps surprising us with what she says and talks about. She is even full of advice for her big sister, like "If you want something, just cry. That's what I do" (she actually said this in front of us!) Today if you ask E what she wants to be when she grows up, she'll tell you a Scientist. Pretty ambitious for a 5 year old, but I have no doubt that she'll be doing something in the Science field when she's adult. I even envision her being a doctor (she is constantly looking at a Human Body book and asking me all about the photos). I'm looking forward to experiencing all that this special little girl does during her life!

I've Failed

My attempt at posting a picture a day has failed! I will try to play catchup for all the days that

I've missed, but not sure if I can continue to post a photo a day. It was a great idea but the extra time it takes to do this, just isn't available. I will do my best to keep posting photos but I can't guarantee that it will be daily.

On Saturday, I spent the most of the day sewing at my little guild's UFO Sewing day. I got a lot accomplished and I actually finished another one of my UFO's that I have listed. I finished piecing the top for the Tobacco Roads quilt. I think it turned out OK. Now there's another one to add to the "to be quilted" pile. I also made great strides in finishing up the Shadow of the Bear Quilt top. Only one more side to sew on and that top will be in the finished pile. Below are photos of the Tobacco Roads quilt and another photo of the Trading Patches quilt.

Tobacco Roads Quilt (photo 13)

Larger view of the Trading Patches quilt (photo 14)

One UFO top finished for 2009

I've finished one UFO Top!!!! YEA!!! Now I have to get it quilted but at least I have the hard part completed. This pattern was from a McCalls quilting magazine and it's called Trading Patches. Most of the fabrics were from 8x8 swaps that I did with my Yahoo quilting group. I did have to add fabric from my nickel (5x5) squares and my 1 1/2 scrap strips. There are 440 blocks in this quilt! If you go to this link , Mccalls Quilting has a free pattern for this quilt in a throw size. I did change the size of my blocks just a little. It can be made from 5x5 squares and 1 1/2 x 8 rectangles. I cut my blocks to 5x5 squares to finish at 4 1/2x 4 1/2.

One down and many more to go!

photo 12

Can You Do This?

On another blog that I like reading (she's a fellow quilter and also has 2 daughters from China), she posted a photo of her daughter at gymnastics doing a little pose. I thought I would do a similar photo of M. She doesn't do this pose at gymnastics, but in her Chinese Dance Class (she is the only one who can touch her feet in class). I still think it looks like it hurts!

photo 11

Steeler Fan

M has wanted a #7 Steeler Jersey ever since the Steelers made it to the Super Bowl. Up to this point, neither one of the girls have any kind of Steeler apparel. I'm not a big football watcher so I don't get all caught up on all the Steeler Fan Craziness that happens around our area. We did breakdown and purchase a Jersey for M for her Birthday. Now she won't be the only kid in class who doesn't have something Black and Gold when her School has Black and Gold Steeler Days. You may ask why a #7 Jersey. Well, both girls think Ben R. is "Hot".

Photo 10

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was M's 7th Birthday. We had a low key day for her this year. No party for her this year either and she is ok with that. Because both girls have Feb Birthday's and are only 11 days apart, I can't do two different parties. Since E is turning the Big 5 she is going to have the party.

M did get to have her Dad eat lunch with her at School. She loved that. She also got to have 3 different cakes/cupcakes. One with her Chinese Dance class on Sunday(no picture of that one because I forgot the camera) , another with her Nana and Papa yesterday after school, and the last one last night with just our little family.

HAPPY 7th BIRTHDAY M!!!!!!

photo 9 (cupcakes #2)

cake #3

All Lined UP

E loves animals. We have a huge collection of animal figurines of all kinds and sizes. This is the view that I saw this morning. She had all of her horses lined up from biggest to littlest.

photo 8

Chinese Show

Last night, we all attended a Chinese New Year Celebration show. There were dancers, singers, and other performers from China at the event. The girls loved the first half of the show but faded quickly after intermission. The show was running late and by then it was well after 9:00 pm. It became too much when 2 Chinese people came on stage for a comedy act for about 15 minutes and only spoke Chinese (the audience was mostly Chinese so they were laughing at the jokes but I had no idea what they were talking about). The girls fell asleep and I would have joined them too if we hadn't decided to leave early. Below are a few photos of some of the performances.

photo 7: Chinese Dance performers

Peking Opera Performer

Acrobat Performers

Snow

Sorry for not posting a photo yesterday. I did have a good excuse and that was I had to attend my Aunts Funeral. My dad's sister past away last Tuesday from a brain tumor. She was 77 years old and put up a valiant fight. Thursday afternoon E and I headed up to my parents house for the evening to attend the funeral on Friday. My photo for Friday is a picture I took of the all the snow that was on the ground. My parents only live a little over an hour from me but they have received twice as much snow as we have. They still had lots of snow on the ground. We are going to have some high temperatures this weekend and most of next week so all of our snow will probably melt. I'm not sad about that. I'm ready for Spring!photo 6

My Little Monkey

Both girls are in gymnastics right now. M is on the pre-competition team and E is headed in that direction. She's on their Plus team for 4 and 5 year olds. She is doing better than I ever thought she would. She's not as brave as her big sister so I thought she would be having a few problems doing some of the skills. I hope E continues to enjoy it because there really isn't a whole lot of other sports that she will probably be able to excel at because of her small size. She is about 3-5 inches smaller than all the other girls in her class who are her same age. The other day I put her measurements in a height predictor to just see how tall she might get and it said 4 fee 11 inches tall and that was only after I tweaked her age by a month because the first time it said it couldn't calculate because she was below the 3% for height.

All the girls are required to climb the rope, something that makes us parents a little nervous because that rope is very high. E has made it over halfway now. I think now she is having to overcome some fear to go higher. I think she's strong enough but once she gets so high and looks around she begins to come down. I'm proud of her climbing any height because Mom couldn't even get off the ground!

photo 5

What is so Good in Denny's

This is what I saw when I was driving in front of a Denny's in our town. What in the world can be so good in Denny's to make anyone in their right mind stand outside in the cold just to get in the front door. Even if they were giving away free food, I don't think I would stand in line at a Denny's for it.

photo 4

Chili Peppers

My oldest daughter had another public performance last Saturday for her Chinese Dance School. Here is the group of beautiful Chili Peppers! They did a another great job on their dance!

photo 3

Photo a day For the Month Of February

I visit another blog where she is posting a photo a day. I've decided to try that myself but only for the month of Feb. I may continue after Feb if I'm successful. This will force me to keep my blog up to date!! I'm already a few days behind mainly because I just decided to do this this morning. So in my first attempt I will post photos for Feb 1 and Feb 2. Both of these photos were taken at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. Having the birds so close gives you great opportunities to get some beautiful shots of birds and even this squirrel (who was just outside the front door).

photos 1 and 2