100 Days of School

Thanks to the winter weather, it took a little longer to get to 100 days of school than expected, but Oliver did get to celebrate his 100th day of kindergarten on Wednesday, February 25th. 

He had to create a 100 days project using 100 things. I jumped on Pinterest and we chose 100 colors since Oliver likes to paint. 

Now, lets see how many days is takes to get through the last 86 days of the school year. 

Gymnastics

Emma Claire loves gymnastics and despite the look from the pictures, she's really having a great time swinging on the bar all by herself. 

Snow Days & Delays

Its been a really cold winter, with many school days off and school opening delays due to snow and cold. It's been a month since we haven't had a school delay or school closing on a Monday or a Tuesday. It seems every Sunday night we have a winter storm roll in. 

Keeping the kids entertained and happy has been a challenge, especially when its too cold to go outside. 

We've had to employ the use of some tried and true games and toys.  By far the most popular in this house, the doctor kit. All three happily played with this one for a long time.

Time for a check-up.

There is always Emma Claire's favorite, play doh. 

And, the older kids favorite, Wii or XBox One.

Come on spring.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè! 新年快乐! 

Its the Year of the Goat! We had our friend Tom over for dinner and enjoyed P.F. Changs and red fortune cookies. Earlier in the day we laughed at our Chinese Zodiac characters as described in Oliver's kindergarten zodiac descriptions. We got a kick out of how they used every positive descriptor for ox in every way but saying "head-strong and stubborn". We have two oxen in the house---Oliver and myself. Chloe is a monkey, Matt is a rooster and Emma Claire is a dragon.

Paper Airplanes

The girls varsity basketball team hosted a paper airplane competition for the elementary school children during half time at one of their home basketball games. Oliver and Chloe wanted to compete.

The kids got free pom-poms to cheer on the team. 

We spent an afternoon watching You Tube videos on how to make a paper plane that flies far. Some of us were more interested in others. Funny enough, the one who lost interest was the one who did the best in the competition.

The kindergarteners and first graders competed separately with the 2-5th graders competing against each other.

Oliver (white shirt, dancing around) won the flight competition with his plane. He broke out into a dance when he won. Chloe's plane (she's in the bright pink on the right) looked like it was going to go far at the start, but came short in 4th place.
Oliver felt like a superstar.

Skipping back from his win. 

The winning plane. 

Snow

Just when we thought this winter wasn't too bad...

 the temperatures drop and stay below freezing and we get a weekly dump of snow.  And, lets not forget about the HISTORIC snow storm that wasn't (in our area anyway). I think pre-schoolers in warmer climates have had more schooling the last two weeks than my older two. It's early February and there is only two snow days left on the school calendar with more snow in the future.

Last week, when the snow fell and school was out (again) and you could still see the driveway. If we get anymore snow, I don't know where we are going to remove it to.

Two Years Post Referral

Two years ago we got "The Call" that Emma Claire was waiting for us in northern China and thus our six year wait for referral came to an end.

So, in celebration of this day, here's an update on Emma Claire.

Emma Claire is now 30 months old (Two and a Half!) and she officially declares herself a "big girl".

She's a chatty little girl with her language seemingly developing overnight. She's also overly dramatic, but she always displayed this characteristic. She's just amped it up a notch.

Her favorite phrases:

"Emma big girl."

"That hurts." -- to clarify, everything hurts. She doesn't like things around her neck and I put her in a turtleneck onesie. There was MUCH drama regarding this article of clothing and I was told it "hurts". Underwear also hurts. So does diapers. Even marker on her finger hurts. In other words, if she doesn't like it, it hurts.

"Homey!" This one cracks me up because she walks around when she is tired saying, "Mommy, homey!" which in Emma Claire translation is "Mommy, hold me."  In case you don't get why this is funny, here's a link to the urban dictionary for "homey".

Emma Claire currently likes Hello Kitty, terrorizing the puppies, terrorizing her big brother (payback Oliver, payback), gymnastics, play-doh and the iPad/iPhone. We're working on potty training and sleeping through the night.