Museum and the ballet.

Can't see the woolly mammoth, but he's iconic, so we take his picture every time we're there.

Lili loves the old kitchen and the smell of apple pie, Jia was sniffing like crazy and asking "what's that? num numbs?"

She walked the whole museum and then crashed in the car after one bite of cookie.  We thought the crumbs on her lips were so cute!

We found these dresses at Costco, got a little one for Jia too but she didn't go to the ballet with us.  Anyone looking for Christmas dresses, they're on for $18.99!!

Fei and I couldn't believe we got this shot of Sophie!  They move so fast.

Love this one of Stella, looks like she's peeking at Sophie.

They seemed to really like these Halloween decoration rats!  Too funny.  Sophie sat posed for quite a while.  Wild.

The girls had a pro-d day Friday, Eric was taking them to the museum and at the last minute I skipped work and went with them.  We all had a great relaxing day.  On our own, it was raining so it was a perfect day to stroll and explore the museum.  The big girls have been often enough that they're familiar with the exhibits and have favorite sections.  They were awesome with Jia showing her around.  Jia has been before but this was the first time she wasn't in a stroller.  She walked the whole thing. 

Saturday Jia and I went to her music class.  We have so much fun doing that.  She loves it there.  Then the big girls and I went to see Footloose.  It's corny, total remake, storyline the same but it was fun and I grinned through a lot of it.  Then the big girls and I went to see Ballet Rock with Avery and my Mom and Dad.  I'm a bit worried about the symphony next weekend though, there were 12 dancers, all of them beautiful and amazing to watch but the music was sleepy time for the first half and I had a really hard time staying awake through parts of it!  Ballet isn't our thing for sure.  Both girls said they much prefer to hear the bagpipes, it makes them want to dance :)

Sunday we had an occupational therapist come to the house to meet with Fei and work on ideas for her sensory issues in the classroom.  It was a bit lame, all the same stuff we basically know already.  She did talk to us a bit about Fei using crunchy food and that was new to us and so Miss Fei will be allowed potato chips etc in her lunch now.  She's underweight so it won't be a big deal for her and if crunching on snacks will help her make everything feel right in her body then how great is that?!  What a lesson we're having on sensory issues.  It's clear to us now that although Fei's sensory issues are huge, it's clear that Lili has lots too and now we see as Jia gets older, her need to be moving constantly is clearly sensory seeking.  So we have three kids with sensory stuff going on.

Then we had our social worker come and do Jia's 12month post placement.  She said all signs of babyhood are gone.  Sniff.  The also said she's hit all of the three year old milestones.  Sniff.  Then asked if we wanted her to look at the four year old milestones, we declined.  Yikes, she's only 20mo.  I still see a bit of baby left.  Anyways, she asked if we were done and I said I still think about my son who I've named Ren Di and Eric pretended to hit me over the head with a plastic stool leg so I guess he's clearly still saying he's done. 

It was a busy weekend.  We tidied quite a bit for the SW.  I know on all levels that's it's no big deal.  I know that too clean is a problem.  I know that our house on any day is plenty fine.  And I still fretted.  Cleaned the toy room the morning of the visit and then realized it looked like no one played in there, so I sent Jia in to make a bit of a mess and she wasn't messy enough for me so I scattered a few things just before our SW arrived.  I do know the levels of my insanity and I'm ok.  I think.

The big girls stayed overnight with Gramma and Grampa on Sat. so they needed to come home early Sunday for the appointments.  Their stuff was all dumped, they had chores to do  (critter care) and they both needed to bath.  I ended up sitting Sophie (Lili was cleaning and she's a bit afraid of getting bite again by her so Fei brings her to me).  I ended up doing a wee photo shoot of them and we got some great pictures.  I'll just post a few.  Sophie is almost 6mo. and Stella is 4mo.  They are just sooo sweet.

Family Frolics & Costumes

She liked all the other kids around but she sure wasn't sure about Inge.

Come on Lili, lets go!

Ok, she wasn't totally last, one kid decided not to run at all.

Our cute wee kittens!  Jia was so unhappy about this costume.  She'll likely warm up to the idea of dressing up like a 'mew' sometime after Halloween.

Lili and I took Jia to her first Family Frolics.  It's a gym full of toys, free play for kids 0 - 6 and then at the end they run races.  Way back when Lili and Fei went, there used to be a circle time too.  I was told last night that they dropped the circle time because it's hard to get kids to sit in a circle.  I said 'ya' that's why it's good to introduce them to sitting in a circle'.  So they did one song at the end for me and Jia very happily sat in the circle with all of the other kids and they all looked happy too.  Jia LOVED the gym and all of the toys, she ran from toy to toy for the whole hour.  There were some favorites, she loved crawling through the tubes and Lili would run ahead and say 'boo' to her at the ends which caused lots of laughing.  She loved the mini trampoline and all of the ride ons.  Hula hoops were funny, she figured out how to make them work, she insisted I hold onto one and then turned herself around and around in circles in the middle.  She seemed to enjoy the other little kids and was upset when clean up time came around.  The races at the end were a hoot.  She was last.  Which made me laugh because Lili and Fei were always last too!  She didn't care though, she ran her heart out with a big smile.  The drive was long, so not sure we'll go every week but we'll certainly drop in there again.

Then last night we managed to finally get her cat costume on her.  The big girls had theirs on and they were pretending to be cats to entice her, which finally worked, she did finally insist on having hers on too.  That lasted until the head part came up and then she was done.  I managed to take a couple pictures but honestly I suspect that's the last time she puts that costume on.  My one idea of using her apron from her toy kitchen was pretty good, I even found a red bakers hat at the thrift store to match but she won't wear the hat!  She puts everything on her head and asks for hats all the time but won't even contemplate the red one.  We put it in her toy room.  Hoping she'll aquaint herself with it before Halloween.  Ok, so what do you dress your toddler as if they won't wear a costume?!  The girls taught her how to say halloween and trick-or-treat last night and then she did trick-or-treat with all of us for a while.  So she's half ready.

Miss Lacie is in her surgury right now.  I'm a mess worrying about her.  Dying to hear from Eric with an update!

Selena Gomez and Pumpkins

Quack Quacks!

Doggies!!

There is a baby sitting on the other end of this table getting his picture taken with little pumpkins.

Jia insisted on joining him.  The other Moms graciously let her join him.

I love how expressive Jia is.

"ooohh, Mooommmiiee, yuok how cute!  So sweet mumpins, yike baby Jia!!"

What a gorgeous group of girls.

I took the girls to see the Selena Gomez concert.  To say they were excited is quite the understatement.  They loaded the bic lighter app before we got there.  Lili took video of most of the show.  Fei was taking picture, video and voice recordings to use as her ringtone.  I sure could have done without the one hour pre-show and I was a bit shocked at how late the event went.  Home at midnight.  Yikes.  Jia stayed awake that long too!  Selena was lovely, said all of the appropriate Disney things and the music was good.  I'm so old.  I hated the screaming, way too loud for me.  Surprisingly, Fei wasn't bothered by the noise at all.  $80 for two t-shirts was crazy too.  It was the girls first big music concert and they were very happy and appreciative to have been able to go. 

We took the girls to McNabs Corn Maze on Sat.  It wasn't as muddy as usual and for the first time ever the big girls seemed to 'get' the idea and were very determined to find the four posts to punch their cards.  When we accidently came across the entrance Jia and I made our escape and went to go look at the little pigs (doggies) the goats (doggies) and the emus (quack quacks). 

Life is busy, too much going on last week and this one.  I'm quite certain it won't slow down until after Halloween.  Seems we're just constantly running errands.  Yesterday Eric and I took Jia to apply for her Canadian passport.  Lili had her pre-op in the afternoon.  Today Lewis had his booster shot, Lisa comes this afternoon and I want to take Jia to family frolics tonight.  Tomorrow Miss Lacie is getting dental surgury done.  We're all nervous about it.  Several months ago I let go of the swinging door and Lacie was behind me and it hit her in the face.  She had blood on her bottom front teeth and they fell out in a few days.  Lately she's been quite bothered by her teeth so we took her in and she has three wiggly teeth in the front that need to come out.  Her back teeth and gums are fine so she'll be able to keep eating like normal but her tongue will hang out forever with no front teeth to hold it in.  I'm just sick about that.  Our poor wee beautiful girl. 

10/10/10 to 10/10/11

Random shot of Mom.

Celebrating Avery's 16th Birthday!  Jia was too enthralled to look up.

Look!  We're matched for music class!  No one noticed.

Jia was so excited to see Fei during the school day and even more excited to play in the computer lab, her computer wasn't turned on though.

Lili's grade 4 class did a Thanksgiving show for the parents.  They were awesome!

Celebrating Meiling's 6th Birthday with biodegradable lanterns.  Very cool.  Kids were thrilled, the lanterns were like the ones in Tangled.  The security guard at Arbutus Ridge thought there were UFO's.  Lili thought that was hillarious!

We got to meet baby Emily before the dinner.  Jia was thrilled with her and wanted to do everything she was doing.  Including wearing a bib, walking with assistance and sitting in a high chair!  This one is out of order, we had dinner before we let the lanterns go :)

Mom brought the bed and blankets for Jia.  She had lots of fun tucking in her babies.  We were having dinner together, combined Jia's Gotcha and Thanksgiving. 

We interupt this photo shoot to take a very important call.

Back to saying 'cheese'.

Who knew you could fit so many on the little couch?!

It's been one year since Miss Jia was placed in her Mama's arms!  Happy Gotcha Day Jia!!  We all adore you.  You've brought a ton of laughter to our family and we all love you very much.

New baby rattykins no name.

Lili's new baby being held for pictures by a lady working at the pet store.  Notice the cute belly birthmark!

We've found the thing that works the BEST for getting over rat death is a new rat baby.  I did the rounds of used sites, pet sites, breeder sites, made a couple calls and sent out quite a few e-mails.  No luck yesterday in locating babies.  After work Eric and I took Jia to a couple pet stores in town while my Mom had the girls for dance.  We actually found five females only 11 weeks old in our local pet store!  I called Lili to let her know they had a black one (her most recent wish) but I wanted her to know there were four caramel ones too, two with white bellies and one with a white diamond on it's forhead and all of them with dark eyes.  She wanted to see them so I said I'd put a hold on the black one.  Then I had a huge 'duh' moment.  I was standin there talking to her on a smart phone!  So quickly took pictures and loaded them to the blog for her to see at Gramma's house.  She was so excited that Gramma just raced them down to see and once Lili had her little one in her hands, she clutched her to her chest and it was pure love from moment one.  So, yes they die and apparently at around 1 year and half but then there is new baby rat love to follow.  Harsh life and death lessons we're learning for sure!  Eric would like to be done with rats.  I still really enjoy them.  The girls are still willing in year 3 to keep cleaning and feeding them.  Lili said her life just wouldn't be complete without them. 

She still needs a name, two sylables and Lili seems to be leaning to S names to go with Sophie.

Jia got her booster shots yesterday, she did great, barely made a noise or flinch.  Last night when Gramma brought the girls home she ran to show them her three bandages from the shots.  Then she insisted that Fei be the one to take the bandages off.  She skipped nap again but slept through dinner on Eric's shoulder and I put her to bed a half hour early.  Eric says she asked for a nap today.  Fingers, arms and legs crossed that she keeps napping!  Boy-oh-boy do we miss her naps!

The highs and lows of life.

Thrilled that Jia is an official Canadian.  Happy that her last post placement is in a few days.  Then we realize rattykins Mia who has been losing weight has taken a turn for the worse and her breathing is labored.  We gave her some antibiotics but obviously too late and not what she needed.  Lili found the poor wee girl dead in her cage after school today.  Eric says we've ruined our eldest.  I'm at work, can't offer much comfort.  I suggested that Fei clean the cage for Lili since she is so upset and she reached her hand in and got bit by Sophie.  So she was in tears too.  Not sure if Jia was crying but she was making a lot of noise.  Eric just hung up the phone with me to take care of the pure chaos. 

Started the day with Fei's IEP meeting, where it feels like the district is against her.  Anyways, she had an iep, now she doesn't, just a learning plan.  She has no designation and no EA support.  I'm delighted that she's doing so well in class and we're hopeful for a better school year but it does feel a bit like we went backwards on the paper trail.  So far Fei is enjoying school this year and we have only heard one story.  Apparently a kid in her class willfully poured water over her teachers desk and over library books and the teacher was upset.  Fei came home and said she didn't like that, her interventionist was there and it turns out that Fei didn't like how she felt when that happened.  So we explained that she'd had a feeling of empathy for her teacher and that it was a good thing.  Fei doesn't agree.  She prefers her more even keeled way of life.  Can you imagine being able to shut off feelings?!  Sometimes I wonder why we try to change her, sometimes how she thinks and feels seem like a gift.  Especially as Lili is rolled in a ball on the couch moaning about Mia while we're having this conversation.  I sure wouldn't mind a break from feelings now and then!

Then it was off to the dentist because I've broken a third tooth.  I assumed age.  Fei's teacher asked if I'm clenching my teeth and possibly fracturing them.  Hmmm.  Maybe.  I did ask and was told that the tooth that broke is right beneath my fake tooth that is so strong that the bottom one didn't stand a chance. 

Poor Mia, Poor Lili.  Just such sadness when they die.

Jia is Canada's newest Citizen!

Jia has Canadian Citizenship!!!