Mary and her cousins Easter fashion show

more photos , pre egg hunt, of the girls in their pastel dresses!

Getting all dressed up for Easter Sunday

Bruce takes crash course in dressing a little lady in her Easter dress. I love these photos, they tell a really cute story about a wonderful Daddy. Bruce took over this task because I had a major muscle spasm in my back/shoulder. It lasted several days and the Rx muscle relaxant pills did not help nearly enough. But onward to more fun and important things!

Mary: moods and attitudes, this kid is just plain FUN!

She actually agreed to wear the outfit I suggested!

Last week, a few days before a party, I asked Mary which of her dressy dresses she wanted to wear. She picked the green sparkly one, and she actually very agreeably wore it for the party in question.

see photo evidence!

We are still having some sleep issues and scenes from Mary's one girl show entitled "Independence Day'. Fav phrase currently is "I do it", meaning I do it myself. She peeled a clementine herself tonight, folded the napkins, brought 2 diet cokes to the dinner table for her Daddy, and several other little task accomplishments.

She also sings Twinkle Twinkle little star now, as well as parts of 'The sun will come out tomorrow '(from Annie), parts of the ABC song, and parts of Hello, Dolly.

I have been singing her my crazy renditions of show tunes since we were in China.

I didn't /don't know a lot of kiddie tunes, so resorted to Broadway. Sometimes, Mary will let me get a few bars of a song out and then emphatically say "Stop, Stop!"

I guess Uncle Scott will have to sing when next he visits!

The Ogre de Jour

Mary took a few photos, guess which ones!

There is a Shrek monopoly game, Shrek chess set, Shrek Othello, Shrek Shrek Shrek, can you say overly merchandised?!

Three Dozen Roses

As usual, Shrek is 'in the house'!
And, yes, that is sparklin cider in the elegant plastic champagne glass!






Valentine's Day at Castello "E"!

The artist at work

We went to a new restaurant, housed in what was once a diner. The place and most importantly the food has no resemblance whatsoever to a diner's level of quality. Yum. They use white plates that look like my Villeroy & Boch New Wave dishes, only they are a knockoff made for restaurants.

Addendum

Mary standing out in the crowd... she did sit down, finally, after staring the other little girl down (and hearing my stage direction) for a while.

moments from the lunar new year party

We attended our agency's annual
lunar new year party on 1.27.2008.
I felt that it was much less crowded than the previous year, possibly due to the slowdown in the adoption process and the resulting fewer number of families that brought their daughters home this past year. The newbies (of which we could still be considered) usually attend for the first few years.

Anyway, the children had a great time, and I was surprised that Mary held still for the face painting artist.
I painted her face once, very quickly, just a heart and a flower, nothing this elaborate.

Mary gets her face painted like a glittery pink butterfly

Gangster Wiggles, who knew !?

I found, quite by accident, a few lesser known Wiggles videos. Apparently, the boys are more versatile than we thought.
Here is one more...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG1Ms1SLzAg

Mary's Tea Party in a Toy store

A local hardware store has a very cool toy store housed in its upper level. This toy store has been there since I was a kid, oi vei!! its still cool, though I must admit, they did not sell webkinz there then.

Mary spied a colorful table and chairs and set up her own tea party with Bear and the on the spot acquired Pink Monkey.

Landmark Day

Today, after supposedly being put to bed, Mary stood in her doorway, and said Poop. This was around 9 p.m., after she kept getting out of her bed and wandering down the hall to visit us.

So we checked the diaper, and it was clean. So we asked her to sit on the potty. She did, and just after 'reading' the 2nd book, Mary put her poo poo in the potty (as elmo says).

I have photos from before , of her on the potty, but not going to post those here of course.!

anyway, Scott, thought you would want to hear this. And , also note to you, Scott, no further poopy diapers have been flung across the room!

Here are some photos just for fun.

Select photos from Mary and Claudia's playdate

Future student of Miss FooFoo's Dance Studio

My BFF from college (or as they say in Britain, from university) sent us several dance costumes for Mary. I have a feeling that Mary is going to love dance class as much as Chris and Meg did !!