Luk

Luk
Our family.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Mount Washington





 



Too bad it was getting dusk, Eric was looking pretty great, all matched.  

 
 
 
Totally wild.  On our island is an Alpine resort.  Felt bizarre to be there, weather was sunny and warm and then suddenly after two and half hours of driving we were in winter wonder land.  We went tubing on a Saturday.  Newbies.  It was so busy that we paid for two hours and only got three runs in.  Need to find out when it's quieter and go back another day.  I pretty much hated the tubing part but the rest of the day was fun.  Kids and Eric loved the tubing part, even Jia.  It was crazy fast and I have no idea why everyone doesn't wipe out.  I clearly just don't need that big a thrill in my life anymore.  Lili is already plotting how to get back there.  Fei isn't talking much but she blogged for the first time in forever so she must have really liked it.  Aside from the tubing, all four of them had a blast playing in the snow piles under the trees.  My feet were cold by then and I was just coaxing them to get moving towards the van.  We left the house at 10 and were home around 8.  It was a long day to go play in the snow.  We'll be better prepared next time.

Jia's 3rd Birthday.

Before balloons and kids.

Jia's B-day present from her Dad.



Pink Minnie Mouse pancakes.

Eric cooked pink Minnie pancakes for two whole hours straight.  Impressive. 

Jia didn't eat much but she sure cut the heck out of that pancake!

Didn't this group shot turn out amazing?!  Ist one.

Kalum brought Jia a Sally car from Cars so that she could play Cars with him.  How cute!



Jia asked for pink ice cream but on the last day before her party she was talking about cake.  Shannon very graciously took the time and  made her a tray of gorgeous pink cupcakes, so we had both desserts and Jia didn't eat either one :)  Oh, and for reasons completely unknown our whole town was out of strawberry ice cream!  Had to drive half an hour away to find some, Eric went to five big grocery stores.

What fun!  Party went well.  She was thrilled.  She is however insisting that she is four now :)  We're working on it.  When it was ending and everyone was leaving she kept saying she wanted more party and first thing the next morning she was fussing about not blowing out her own candles and asking for more party.  So sweet.  Today is New Years Eve and the girls and Eric are home gearing up for our party tonight so that should make her happy today.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Christmas 2012

Miss Lili as an elf in the school choir for the Christmas show.

Miss Fei as a reindeer for the school show.

Eric put in a lot of hours for the stage and set up, the production was very good.  Gym is just soooo crowded.  There were four shows, I saw two of them and sat in the back row for both.  Sigh.

Jia came to work with me while Eric helped take the stage down, she made her mark!  Mess everywhere.  We had fun though.

Fei's teacher has a mouse in the classroom that had babies.  Fei almost never talks about her day or anything from school but we got daily reports about the baby mice.  Some of the kids were allowed to take them home, here is Minnie the mouse.  Not Minnie Mouse, but Minnie the mouse to be clear.

She is so tiny, it's amazing to me that she runs in the wheel, scales the sides of the cage and climbs in the tube to her bed.  Jia is totally in love with her and asks non stop for someone to help her hold Minnie.

Christmas train.  Seem to have forgotten how to work my camera again.  Not a great shot but the kids are all in it. 

Eric got Jia a fish tank for her Birthday, we set it up early so that it would be up and running for her Birthday.  She was delighted and got right into helping him get it set up.  I need to get a picture of the finished tank.  It's really pretty.

She scrubbed each and every part.  Not a bruise on her back, it's what is left of her mongolian marks.

She was allowed to pick out a friend for Tia, she has a new fish that is white with black stripes, she has named him Zebra.  We got Zebra in Nanaimo and she wanted to hold him all the way home.


Christmas Eve, with the traditional matched jammies.  I bought a pair for Little Guy too.  Can't believe it's been six months and we still don't know anything.

Fei's desk

Lili's desk.

Eric did a fabulous job refinishing both of them and both girls were thrilled.

Finally was able to give Jia her tablet.  Hoping this will relieve her insistance to play with our phones.

The girls were playing with the RC cars and Eric ran and got his to join them.  His is 20 years old.  It was snowing outside so they played with them in the house.  Great fun.

Again, the snow was a bummer for this gift from Gramma and Grampa.  Eric cleared couches in the basement so they could go forward and back.  They are anxious to take it to the driveway.  It holds 140lbs, so all three of them can drive it but Lili doesn't fit and Fei is close to not fitting.

Gearing up for Jia's 3rd Birthday now.  We filled her 'goonie bags' last night.  No matter how many times I say 'goodie' she says 'yes, goonie'.  Too funny.  She is so excited.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Christmas Piano Recital 2012

I know you're all waiting.  They were fabulous.  As always, we were very proud.  I missed Lili's introduction.  Just didn't get the camera on fast enough.

You Tube link:
 

Santa

I thought we'd skip seeing Santa this year. The big girls no longer believe and Jia was so scared last year but she has been asking to see him so we made the effort yesterday to take her. She was excited, chatting in the line up and happy to see him she was relaxed and happy...right up until it was our turn. She froze, so I dragged her a bit then leaned down to get to her level and she leaped onto my neck and refused to even look at him. Eric, Lili and Fei were no where to be seen. I was trying to untangle her from me and place her on my knee facing out and suddenly out of the blue the rest of the family showed up, they came running in, plunked themselves around Santa, I finally got Jia turned and they took a photo. I paid $16.97 for this photo. It was supposed to be a close up of Santa and Jia with a lovely snowman border. Aside from the fact that she is looking so unhappy I think the photo is pretty great. It's certainly better than her buried in my neck :) When I showed it to her last night she thought it was funny and thinks she looks great. Then said something about Santa taking her. No clue why she thought he'd take her. My Santa frame is upright, second year in a row I ended up in the photo and it's been the wrong direction. You just never know what will happen in those 45 seconds you're with Santa!
 

December is TOO busy!

Keeping you all in the loop of our brand of crazy.  Fei's rat Sophie has cancer, she's our first biter and she began biting Stella a little too often.  Stella needed to be moved so she's been living for a few weeks in a  transport cage (too small).  She was healing so it was ok to keep her quiet but she really needed a bigger cage.  Now, buying a new rat cage at $160 seemed a little insane since Sophie has cancer and we don't know how long she'll be with us so I was looking for something used and cheaper like a rabbit or guinea pig cage.  Eric found another rat cage identical to ours for $50 so we managed to find time in the Dec. chaos to pick it up.  I'm thrilled that they match of course and the price was good.  It's not however ideal to have rats living on their own.  They should have cage mates.  Eric is still dismayed that the girls are intent to keep going with rats.  He's likely a little worried that there is room for even more rats now!    While all the rat drama has been unfolding Fei's teacher has a pet mouse in the class with a litter of babies (pups) and Fei has been giving us daily reports and she really, really, really wants to have baby mice now.  They are soooo tiny and super cute.  I'm a push over, I'd say yes but I've told her she'd need Dad's approval and she better prepare a really good argument to present to him.  She tried, bless her, she told him they are tiny, so have tiny poops, so would be easier to clean.  Since he doesn't clean them, that wasn't much of a selling point and he has said no to mice.  Too funny.

Jia and I decorated the N house together, she loved it and likes to talk about it.  She worked as hard and seriously as I did and she didn't eat any of the candy.  I stole a few, I tried to get her to eat the project but she wasn't interested.  Go figure.

I showed Fei how to do counted cross stitch, she picked it up really fast.  This is her first project.  She did it for her teacher.  She did a fabulous job with it.  She's already moved onto project #2, it's a panda. 

Dancing at Cairnsmore on Saturday, Jia's first public show.  Honestly, I was sure she'd be sitting on my lap, refusing to go out.  Darned if she didn't get right in there and dance with all the kids.  Beyond cute.  I almost cried from the cuteness alone.  So proud.  Fei and Lili were happy to have her out there with them.

She was so scared and so excited and she told us later that she had fun.

Jia's 1st sleepover in her room.  Also her first time in her Tinkerbell ready bed.  They had a grand old time in there the two of them but after an hour we had to take Jia into our bed and let Kalum get some sleep.  She was just too excited to ever settle down. 

Deanna and Fei spent a fair amount of time in Fei's room drawing and writing and having some silly time.  Fei didn't want Lili in her room so unfortunately Lili was a little left out.  Too much going on these days, Fei is having a hard time holding it together 24/7.  We're having a tough go with her being unkind to Lili these days.  Hoping for the end of school so she can get back to normal.

I went upstairs to chase the littles back down to the playroom and found them all snuggled up playing with ds's.  Jia had Fei's ds.  They played like that for over an hour.  Jia asked me to leave them alone so they could do their ds's.  I ran down and got the camera and then I left them alone.  With Jia having Kalum to play with, Eric and I had a couple hours alone in the living room on Saturday night.  I think that bodes well for her having a sibling close in age!

We went to Butchart last night, in a storm.  Wind and rain like I've never seen before.  It was totally crazy to stay, but we were there and I didn't want to have to go back and we thought "how bad could it be".  Well, it can be very bad :)  Seriously crazy.  Earlier in the day Jia refused to walk in the mall but she walked the whole garden because she was happy to be using one of their umbrellas, two year old logic boggles the mind.  So, poor Eric had to push an empty stroller the whole time.  I had to have my purse in a plastic bag.   Normally we laugh about rain but this was survival.  It was hard to keep the umbrellas from blowing away.  At least it was only chilly versus the freezing we've seen there before.  It felt like we were there forever, but even including dinner in the blue poppy room and a ride on the carousel we were out of there in two hours.  That was record time for the walk.  None of us stopped to ohh or aww over anything.  It's a bit of a blur already. 

Ok, the weekend ended, I'm back at work and feeling like we missed the weekend!  There sure wasn't any down time!  As I look at my calendar for this week I feel a knot in my stomach, knowing that we don't get to breath until Sunday.  Concert week, last week of school, too many parties.  Just too much all at once.  The kids just don't need this much stimulation all at once.  Bah hum bug.  We've had our tree for a week and it's still not decorated.  Sigh.  Wish us luck with the next week.