Tonight was a fun evening as Grandma, Grandpa, Papa and I attended Hannah’s first tap recital. She was standing so proud as we entered the gym to watch her dance!
Hannah really enjoyed her 8 week tap class and I’m just sorry that the night has been changed for the next session to a night that does not work with our schedule. Hopefully in the fall they’ll move it back to Tuesdays.
Here is my sweetie on the final evening of being 3, dancing with heart….and umm, movement! Personal space is not yet on my kiddos radar.
Holding her final pose….even after the other girls had stood up. That’s my independent little girl!
My little tap graduate complete with the rose each student received from their teachers.
I’m so proud of you Hannah! You danced beautifully sweetie!!
Tonight Hannah and I sat down to read some little books that are some beginner readers. When she started preschool in September she recognized the letters in her name but that was all. I noticed her growing and learning immediately and she loves to soak in new things. By nature she’s my ‘get it done quickly’ gal and we’re working on that but that seems to be changing bit by bit too. I see differences in her tap lessons and gymnastics and she’s beginning to slow down and work on how she accomplishes something rather than racing for the sake of being done.
Tonight we sat down to read a great little set of books that we’ve read twice before. What happened shocked and amazed me!! I know that she’s not technically ‘reading’ this book because if I gave her the words without the pics she wouldn’t know them yet but oh my – she sure is close! I’m sure it won’t be long until Hannah really is reading! I will be moving her into French Immersion when she enters Grade 1 so it’s important to me that she has a foundation in reading English before that happens. I realized tonight that that will not be a problem at all!
Here is my 3yo (okay – 3 days shy of 4yo) ‘reading’ for the very first time! Way to go Hannah XiaoFen!
Monday was Family Day here in Ontario and Hannah and I tucked in for a day of fun together. It’s not often that we don’t have anywhere to go so we chose to stay in our pj’s all day. Nice!
I bought some edible markers the day before and surprised Hannah with Snowman Hot Chocolate
and yummy scones. (Recipe to come)
Much of our day was spent playing games, reading, baking and doing crafts.
The perfect way to spend family day – together with my girl!
Saturday afternoon Hannah and I headed to visit friends who live about and hour from us. There were flurries in the air at home and nothing was really forecasted but whoooeee….what blew in was freaky and BEAUTIFUL!! I think this may have been the worst storm I’ve ever driven in although I will say due to the slow speed we were driving and it being daytime I never felt in danger or frightened. We just took our time and enjoyed the beauty of the snow and laughed a lot! For about 30 mins of our drive we were moving between 8 and 12 kms/hour (6-10 mph) according to the GPS!
This is what we were seeing as we drove along. Beyond beautiful! Along this stretch of highway there are tall buildings lining each side of the highway but we couldn’t see them even though there were only about 200’ away! Only the GPS gave me any idea of where we were.
I called the friend we were going to visit to tell her we’d be delayed (normally about a 15 min drive from where we were at the time) and can you believe it wasn’t snowing a flake there?!! This was a weird snow band being brought in over a lake so one moment you’re in the sun and the next moment you’re in the midst of a blizzard!
It was one of those storms when I had to do the ‘Wiper Snap.’ I’m guessing most Canadians have experienced that little dance at least once or twice during their driving years. The Wiper Snap is when you reach out while the wipers are going and try to grab hold of one when you can reach it and quickly lift it away from the window, allowing it to snap back onto the window to break off the accumulated snow and ice. It was a must as this was what our window looked like and there was no way I was stopping!
Our car was quickly becoming covered in snow so Hannah and I played with the snow in the car.
We drove out of the storm as quickly as we drove into it and it was clear sailing after that. Our normal 60 min drive took about 2 3/4 hours but we arrived having had a fun time together and with stories to share! Our car in turn arrived with a coat of ice and snow, telling it’s own tale of our blizzard adventure!
Thank you Lord for keeping us safe during this crazy drive!
Hannah and I had a wonderful Valentine’s Day!! I take many opportunities daily to tell her how much I love her and Valentine’s Day is just one more opportunity to tell her again and again…and again how much I love her and how thankful I am to be her Mommy!
We had such fun this week preparing for this day of love and I saw a new little girl this year compared to last year and the ones before. In the past I prepared most of our Valentine cards and she added her adorable little ‘H’. This year she was confident and independent and capably handled the Valentines prep. I watched in awe as the writing of her name progressed between the first and last card that she wrote.
This little video made me giggle as she signed her cards while singing, ‘Jingle Bells.’ Hehe!
I also smiled last night at Mom and Dad’s when she signed one of her Valentines for them. For some reason she started to the far right side of the page and wrote her name from right to left. The great thing about having a name that’s a palindrome is that it still turned out just fine and no one was any the wiser!
Hannah handed out Princess Valentines as well as these cute little ones we made. They’re the same as last year’s with an updated pic but it works since she’s in preschool this year so the kids are new.
Valentine’s Day morning she was excited to see what the ‘Easter Bunny’ had brought her! (Oh how I love 3!!)
I was invited to join Hannah at preschool part way through the morning and we were both really excited!! I joined her during their circle time and was able to hear her sing with her friends. I loved being with Hannah in her environment! We started with her making a sweet card
and then a beautiful necklace.
I cannot tell you how excited I was to spend this time with Hannah at her school! It helped me to realize that I’m going to need to portion out my vacation days so that I can volunteer in her classroom when she begins junior kindergarten in September. Thank you for sharing your Valentine’s party with me Xiao Xiao!
After preschool I took her to Ange’s where she gave me a beautiful card she had made and then because it was a piano teaching evening, Hannah spent part of the evening with Grandma and Grandpa and her cousin Makenna. I’m so thankful for the time she has together with my parents each week and since she and I couldn’t be together for supper on Valentine’s Day I was so thankful they could spend that time together. (Unfortunately by the time I picked her up we were in the midst of a nasty storm and I forgot my camera. I was just thankful to arrive after seeing numerous cars in the ditch on my way to pick her up.) When I arrived she gave me this beautiful rose that she had chosen.
Hannah and I are blessed not only to have one another but to be surrounded by family and friends whom we love and who love us! Wednesday night we stopped in to visit Nana at work and she had this cute little bear that Hannah has named Cinderella, for her.
Thursday evening I received a call from a wonderful friend asking if I could pop over on my way to pick up Hannah. Deb had stepped up in a huge way last month and watched Hannah for me on a day when Ange was enjoying a well deserved vacation day. It was a teaching day for me so Hannah shared 11 wonderful hours with Auntie Deb and Uncle Scott. She came home with many beautiful crafts and homemade cookies that day and I didn’t think anything more about it. Yesterday I found out they had one more surprise saved for Mommy. I cried when I opened this beautiful card and saw Hannah’s hand written message of love inside.
(I also laughed as they shared the photo shoot challenge it was to get the pic above. 30 mins of photo taking to get the one they wanted. Oh how I understand! The pic I used with the sucker was one of 80 some taken one day, trying to get the right one…and when she wasn’t laying on the floor or hiding her eyes. Oy!)
Hannah and I are blessed beyond measure to be Mother and Daughter and at the same time are amazed and humbled by the love that is showered on us by others. You know who you are and please know that we love you very, very much too!
Happy Valentine’s Day Hannah XiaoFen! Mommy loves you!! xoxoxoxoxo
This past week has been one filled with lots of wonderful celebrations as Hannah and I celebrated Chinese New Year with many friends.
Our first party was a large one with many other families and was hosted by our local Families with Children from China (FCC) group. We attended it with a group of friends from our agency who travelled to Hunan the summer after Hannah and I were there. Hannah was most excited to have her face painted like a beautiful butterfly and she spent much time enjoying her new look in a little mirror they gave her.
Hannah and Charlotte enjoy playing together whenever our families are together.
We enjoyed a delicious 10 course Chinese dinner with friends and my sweet butterfly fell asleep in the car on the way home. She was sad but understanding the next morning when we had to use moisturizer and a few baby wipes to remove her butterfly before church.
The second CNY party was a bit of an impromptu one when last Friday’s storm caused us to reschedule a party with friends. I live on a major street so it was kept ploughed. Some of the side streets, Ange’s included did not have their streets ploughed until more than 24 hours after the storm which kept them housebound. Liz had ordered a cake that needed to be picked up so she also picked up Asian food for us in the same plaza. She had to be creative when she came to some snow drifts but made it through. These storms cause for creative driving for sure!
When she and Ava arrived we took some pics of our little sweeties dressed in their Chinese finery.
This is one the Liz snapped and it made me LOL as it captures (errr….tries to capture!) Hannah perfectly! This is my girl for sure!!
e are the girls posing with the beautiful cake Liz had ordered for our party. It’s easy to say we only put a dent into it but it appeared bigger as the girls both wanted the snake so we cut it right down the middle!
Sunday afternoon Hannah and I volunteered to take dessert to lunch at Nana and Papa’s house so we made a combo Valentine’s/CNY cake.
We were able to reschedule Friday’s party to Sunday afternoon. Here Hannah is playing with Ava’s lion costume.
Not to be outdone by the bigger kids, Grayson worked on a craft too but quickly ditched the plate in favour of painting the tray of his high chair.
As the kids are getting older it’s getting a little easier to take a group shot.
My cheesy girl showing off her red envelopes.
From Hannah and I, Gung Hay Fat Choi!
Often the weather forecasters call for snow storms that don’t materialize into much. Today that was NOT the case! Wheee…we had so much fun! 24 hours of beautiful weather – as long as we didn’t need to drive in it! Driving was not fun!
We woke up to about 4” so I headed outside and shovelled the driveway. We left less than an hour later and as the garage door went up I realized I’d need to shovel again before we could leave. Hannah was sitting in the car and I suddenly heard her call out, ‘Way to go Mommy!’ I tell you! That’s the BEST feeling! When I was all done she hopped out of the car and ran to me. She said, ‘Mommy, you did great!’ and gave me a high 5! She melts me! I love her amazing personality!
It was touch and go for about an hour about whether I would go to work or not but I decided to give it a try and play it by ear depending on how the roads were. The main roads were slippery although not too bad but as we neared Ange’s place there was a smallish hill to go up. Because it’s a side street it had not yet been ploughed. I began to skid, slide and the car almost ground to a halt. It took about 5 mins of going back and forth to go the remaining 100’ to Ange’s place. I dropped Hannah off and headed to work. All the way there I went back and forth about continuing on or going back to get my girl to spend a day snuggled in at home. Knowing I could leave at any time and clock the remainder as a vacation day I went on to work. About 25% of the staff made it in and many chose to telework which is something I am not a participant in. After today I might need to reconsider that!
Lunchtime arrived and my friend Pat and I decided to go for a walk in the gorgeous snow and pick up some lunch. Isn’t this amazing?
Two crazy gals out for a snowy little stroll.
We had such fun walking in the snow!
I went back to work and then just before 2:00 was told I could leave. Yay! As I neared my car I was really glad I was being sent home early. It was easy to see that just getting my car onto the road was going to be a challenge! 
What’s difficult to see in this picture is that the snow bank created by the snow ploughs was about 3’ wide! Yikes!
Thankfully the owner of our lot was there and used his pick-up truck to plough through. I still ended up getting stuck but he and another guy helped me out. So thankful! About 10 mins of rocking the car back and forth, shovelling and them pushing finally had me on my way to my baby girl!
Ange’s street was now impassable so I parked at the end of it and walked up to pick up Hannah and took the opportunity on my way to stop and help push someone else who was stuck. Once I got to her we had fun walking back to our car and then heading home to shovel our driveway one final time. We were originally going to have a Chinese New Year’s party at Ange’s tonight but postponed that due to the storm.
When I arrived home it was easy to see that I had quite the job in front of me. Hannah helped for a bit but then decided a snack and Mickey Mouse were calling her inside. I appreciate what she did though before she went in…I think! Just like last year she had more fun shovelling snow onto the driveway than off of it. (I’d forgotten about the video posted in the link above and oh how it made me giggle! I love how this blog offers me to opportunity to record things I’d otherwise forget!) One of these years I’ll teach her the proper way to shovel but for now she provides wonderful moments of entertainment! Thankfully the young guy next door came out to help and we had it cleared in about 20 mins. I love how a snow storm brings out the good in so many people!
One final pic. 24 hours earlier there was no snow on my front lawn. Check it out now!
I’ll end this post as I did last year’s.
We’re ready for spring!!!
