A few more images

Well, someone has to clean this place up!

Gotta love it!

mary with her latest toy of the month pick!

And a few photos of Mademoiselle Kai-Lan and friends. Chinese words Mary 'knows' thanks to repeated watching of the premiere epi (Dragon Boat Festival) of KL.

1. Yeh Yeh

2. Ni Hau

3. counts to 3 in Chinese ( I haven't remembered this one yet)

4. the word for 'jump'

She is internalizing it faster than I am, although I am always multi-tasking or zoning out when KL is playing.

Ready for bedtime, see below!

Mary's 2nd professional haircut

we went to Great Clips, a hair cuttery type place. mary was pretty good at holding still. After she was finished with her hair cut, she went to the next work station and turned on the hairdryer.

She was fairly well behaved while I got my hair cut.

One more party dress photo

the lighting was cool...

and here is my improv table centerpiece!

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