Let it snow

I prayed for a white Christmas. Heidi had been asking for snow for many times. That night, I woke up at 5am and it was snowing. I told Heidi it was snowing right after she opened her eyes at 7am. The two of us went out to play after breakfast. Just the two of us, but we had a lot of fun.

The girl was very excited. We made a snowman, of course. And we had a snow fight!

Such a perfect holiday!

Heidi's Christmas sing-a-long

These little kids are soooo cute!

Our tour to the State museum and State house

Heidi and mama took grandparents to the state museum for a visit. This is the girl's favorite place. She played, sang, and danced, saying "don't copy me!" for a hundred times...

We then went to the state house. Heidi loved the leaves, and of course the big Christmas tree there.

The girl wanted to open these huge presents.

Iris is working on sitting up

Sister play time

Prince cat

Cat-Lin: This is what happened when noboday playing with my sister Heidi in the house.

She woke me up from my afternoon nap, made me a prince, and fed me. Do you think I was happy? I was just too sleepy to move...

Shoe box

Heidi and I spent 1.5 hours Saturday making a shoe box full of Christmas gifts for Operation Christmas Child. The shoe box includes a notebook, crayons, candies, a soap, a plush toy, hair clips, a book, a Santa decoration and a card with Heidi's picture. Hope the girl who will receive it likes it!

The best Halloween ever!

Baby Iris' first Halloween. She was a buzzy bee. Do you think she looks like Heidi 4 years ago? Heidi was a Barbie princess. She had fun playing games at First Baptist Church in West Columbia.

Grandparents' first Halloween!

Me and Heidi after she was done with trunk-or -treat

Irmo Okra Strut parade

We went to the Okra parade this morning. This was our first time to go to the Okra Strut in Irmo. A lot of local organizations participated in the parade. I got too many treats: candies, pencils, football, necklaces, stickers, cups... How fun! Iris was awake during the whole parade. She was so amazed by the parade, too. So many cute puppies!

Dance Dept. I think I will join the parade in a couple of years!

Iris' first visit to the zoo

Heidi is so excited to get her dolphin tatoo. The monkey, the one that is sleeping, is so funny

Each time we get kindly reminder that the one we choose won't move. And my reply, "Yes, that's why she chose that one." Heidi still won't try the ones that move up and down.

And here's Iris. On her first visit to the zoo, she slept most of the trip. And when she was awake, she had such a serious face. She is so cute!

Happy Birthday to Aidan

My friend Aidan had his 6 year birthday party today at Birthday Barn. Well, in fact, though I heard about Aidan many times, today is the first time I met him. Our moms work in the same company.
We had a train ride.
I really had fun playing hula hoop. Mama promised to get me one so I can play everyday.

Group picture before we started to eat! Aidan was sitting in the big chair with a cowboy hat.

I met Katie the first time, too. We heard about each other alot and finally we met. We have same taste for snow cone.

Sweet cotton candy, just made my day! Thank you for inviting us, Aidan!

Harbison Lake

Since we moved to Irmo, Harbison lake becomes our new favorite neighborhood place to visit. There are ducks, geese, turtles, birds, fish... And there is a playground! We love to spend sometime on Saturday morning there.

Iris falls asleep each time we take her for a walk.

Heidi says "I just want to touch him, I won't hurt him!" But she never got to pat a duck.

Iris 100 days old

Iris turned 100 days old 8/23/2010. The 100th day of a baby is one of the most important days in a baby's life in Chinese tradition. It's a mildstone and implies that the baby will live 100 years. In the past, family celebrated this day by eating noodles, and friends and relatives would give the baby greetings and gifts. For Iris, we just took a lot of pictures:)

Heidi's new school

I like Heidi’s new school. She likes it, too. She started in June, when Iris was only 2 weeks’ old and everybody at home was still adjusting to the life with a new born. Surprisingly, Heidi’s transition from old school -> home stay -> new school was really successful. Now, she doesn’t want us to pick her up early in the afternoon since she still wants to play at school. This never happened before while she was attending the other two schools.

There’re so many reasons that I like her school:

10. She spends 1.5 hours everyday playing outside (or in the gym if it rains or too hot/cold to play outside). She got tanned but we are both happy. I love to see her play in fresh air and under the sky.

9. She gets to choose the activities she wants to do. Each hour in the morning, she can choose one out of four activities by putting her name clip on that activity on the board. Each activity has an assigned table. And of course she can do all four activities in that hour if she wants.

8. I know exactly what she eats everyday, though I don’t always check the menu online.

7. She does not ever watch TV for a single second at school! I really appreciate this! She sometimes plays on computer though, but just for 15 minutes, and it’s educational games.

6. She washes her hands right after she arrives at school. So I have a good reason to believe she won’t be sick that often this fall and winter.

5. There’s a fountain in the hall way, so she can drink water whenever she needs.

4. She’s been learning a lot. They have a weekly theme. They’ve had ‘camping’, ‘Hawaii’, ‘picnic’, ‘all about me’. She’s slept in a tent, brought a picnic lunch, slept in a sleeping bag, and had a Hawaiian style luau. She always ‘surprises’ us with her new knowledge. She talked to us about playing with aliens in outer space, and she said jail is for mean people.

3. This week the fall schedule began and the part I like the most is they will get serious in learning the alphabet and counting. I feel a little sorry for her that she began to have homework now. But she seems excited about it. Plus, she will have regular Spanish class and music class.

2. There are a good variety of extra curriculum activities: karate, soccer, gymnastics, ballet, and piano. At present Heidi is doing gymnastics, but I may sign her up for another one, which I haven’t decided on.

1. She has 3 teachers and she likes them all. I haven’t met all of them yet (one is new), but I believe they are great teachers according to Heidi’s feedback.

Now I have no doubt that it is all worth the 2 years and 9 months waiting to get in this school. My next goal is to get Iris in there hopefully in 2 years.

By the way, her school is Shandon Presbyterian Church Child Development Center, one mile from USC.

Another Monkey Joe's party

I always wonder why there are so many summer babies. Heidi got 5 birthday invitations at school in 2 months. Her little friend Wes just turned 4. Happy Birthday!