Family Reading Night

We missed Jia's Family Reading Night at school, so we decided to host our own. We started by making bookmarks out of beads and colorful wire.

Here Jia is comparing colors of wire:

And pondering her bead selection:

Willa is organizing hers:

Everyone is busy at work:

And having fun:

Our bookmarks!


Here's how they work:

We then ate some bookworms!

Finally, it was bedtime, so we each selected a favorite book to read out loud and piled into our bed. Willa went first. She tried her best to sound out each word, and expertly showed us all the pictures. Jia then read her book to everyone loud and clear. I'd like to say that Joe and I read our books but alas, at that point, things went downhill. Almost simultaneously, Willa started getting overtired and Jia got a bloody nose, so that concluded the evening.

Nevertheless, it was fun while it lasted! We're glad our girls (usually) love reading!

Maple Snow

A bunch more snow dumped on us. It pretty much snowed for two days straight. On Sunday night, we pulled the girls around on a sled in the middle of the blizzard. It was fun! The snow is now higher than their swings and almost higher than their slide (which is already sitting on a bunch of snow).

The girls said this was their snow cone.

We also made maple snow taffy. It was delicious!


Chomping away at the taffy. It was perfect. Soft and slightly chewy.

Yum!

More New Year Fun

Jia and I attended the New Year celebration put on by our local Families with Children from Asia group. Here she is excited and ready to go. When we bought her this outfit in China, I could not imagine her ever being big enough to wear it! That day has arrived.

Here she is making a sock bunny for the Year of the Rabbit.

Freshly face-painted and sporting a new necklace she crafted, along with a beautiful smile.

Working on her balancing skills.

Doing a little ribbon dancing!

And getting a formal lesson.


Attending a show with her friend, "The Other Jia," who was adopted at the same time and place as our Jia.


An exuberant lion.

I found this in my inbox later that evening from my friend Tracy - what a nice surprise!

We have some skiers!

What do we have here? Some brand new skiers!

We took the girls cross-country skiing for the first time. We thought we would have Willa snowshoe instead, but she was excited to ski and the nature center happened to have skis just her size!

We figured we would just have the girls try it out for a while, but not go on any trails. Jia, however, was a natural! She hopped on the trail and zoomed along. Willa was great too! They both had the best outlook and laughed whenever they fell down and then got right back up again. I was impressed with Jia because at each hill, she would practice speeding down it until she could master it without falling. I was impressed with Willa because we skied for a long while and although it was sometimes hard for her, she had a terrific attitude the whole time!

Amazingly, they did the entire loop! We were Proud with a capital "P!"





I think more of this is in our future!

LOVE

We've had a fun time celebrating the love this year! We all attended a share-in at Jia's school today. It was about Martin Luther King and love, and it was terrific! The classes performed songs, read poetry and did skits. The songs ranged from the MLK song "Rise Up" to U2 to Eminem to Louis Armstrong to everyone singing "We Shall Overcome" at the end. I was so impressed with all the kids.

Here is Jia ready in her LOVE outfit:

And Willa in hers:

We had fun with the girls' gifts this year. Keeping in line with our handmade holiday, I made these sweet little corsages for the girls. I got the idea here.


They also had fun with their finger puppets.


We hope you're feeling the love today too! Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine crafts, part III

Our final Valentine craft post! The girls found some fallen branches and wanted to use them in our display. We bound them with our Valentine fabric and added some pinecones and a heart in the vase. Then we made an assembly line for tissue paper heart ornaments. I cut the hearts, Willa cut the string and Jia glued.

(Why did Jia - the master cutter - not do the cutting? Because she lost her scissors privilege for a week. Why? Because she was combing her hair, found a tangle at the top of her head, and decided to cut off a big clump of hair. She then stuck the clump of hair behind her dresser. Feeling remorseful, she then came and told me about it. Thankfully, her hair is so thick you can't really tell. I figure this is a rite of passage for both parents and children alike.)

Back to the final product:

Our Valentine display completely finished and completely homemade!

Valentine crafts, part II

We decided to add to our Valentine display. We made some hearts out of shimmery red yarn and pink embroidery thread following this project idea. We dipped the yarn in a gluey mixture, formed hearts and then baked them.

It was a sticky, gooey project that Jia and I didn't especially like, but Willa did!



Once they were dry, we hung them from the mantel.



More crafts to come!

Valentine crafts, part I

I realized that we didn't have any Valentine decorations. The girls and I decided to craft some together using stuff we have around the house.

Here's the first one. We cut out heart shapes from construction paper and attached them to raffia to make a garland.

The final result! This simple garland makes me ridiculously happy!

And so do my girls!