Category: Family

Yes, that’s right.  There will be two Attwood girls soon.  We would like to introduce our newest sweetheart.  Her name is Elspeth Qian-Xiang Attwood.  She was born October 13, 2009 and is currently living in Shengrao City in Jiangxi province.  Enjoy the photos.  We are over the moon and Katrine is thrilled that it is a girl not a boy.

Okay.  The files have arrived in Canada ( I know because refferals have started to arrive in Europe).

So hang in there and keep your eyes open!

It is quite relaxing when you can’t clean or cook because it is not your own house.  Almost like a vacation for mom because there is the added bonus of other people who desperately want to entertain your child by spending quality time with them.

After hunting for eggs this morning, she talked her Grandma into helping her dye eggs.  Then it was off with Grandpa to the Wye Marsh (0f course) to do a scavenger hunt, egg hunt and craft.  Then back to the house to decorate cupcakes and play outside.  Notice how I managed to find time to update the blog during the day.  I think that photos will showcase her fun better than my words so here are some more photos for you to enjoy.

Boy were we hungry after hitting Dynamic Earth this afternoon.  We headed to a really nice restaurant just 5 minutes from our hotel called the Hourglass.  All I can say is YUM!  They have a whole gluten free menu so I was in heaven. Gluten free battered fish, burgers, chicken finger, garlic bread.  Mmmmm! Crispy, galicy goodness followed by hand cut fires and a homemade burger.  I wish that I could still eat egg because all of the desserts on their menu are gluten free and there was tiramisu.  I wonder how rummy it was?  Even without dessert it was delicious.

Heather, why post about food first.  Well, food is my issue now so I started with it.  Now about our trip.  While Glenn is working on the basement Katrine and I are up in Sudbury with my parents.  Katrine thought that it was awesome.  “Wow! That is one huge coin!”  “Look at all of these minerals.”  “I found some gold!!  Can I keep panning?”  It was one huge smile all afternoon.  I am expecting more of the same tomorrow when we visit Science North.  Fingers crossed.

Elspeth?  Nothing yet but it is not May yet.  We are thinking that there will be at least two more weeks until the next batch of referrals.  Keeping our fingers crossed that they do 7 days of files so that we will finally get our photo of our wee one. It is looking like the group before us is suppose to travel just 6 weeks after their referrals arrived.  That would be awesome if it could happen to us too so again, keep your fingers crossed for us.

Now off to relax so that we can get up bright eyed and bushy tailed for more science tomorrow.

Had Katrine’s birthday party on Saturday.  The drive down the DVD to the beach volleball place (she wanted a beach party, and where else can you find sand in the GTA) was bad but getting the supplies in from the car was wet and freezing cold.  That however was the major glitch aside from my personal inability to properly operate Glenn’s camera which resulted in having less photos to chose from for this post.  (I guess we know who will not be taking most of the photos in China)

Once everyone was inside they had fun.  I am so glad that we got the games organizer.  She had them running races, playing soccer, dodge ball and, my favourite, tug of war.  During the soccer game, some of the girls decided to dig trenchs in the sand infront of their goal for defence purposes.  They then added to their teams defence by laying in the sand in front of the net or sitting doing the splits.  Just like little kids playing soccer outside except with sand instead of flowers and clouds.  We arranged for some extra sand time after the food and gift portion just in case they had extra energy to burn.  They build a sandcastle and played volley…well, hit-the-net ball.  Money well spent.

The whole week, I had agonized over wether we had enough food.  We had the party in the middle of the afternoon so we decided not to go with the usual pizza.  Instead, went with cake, candy, fruit and goldfish(the crackers, not real ones).  Glenn kept telling me that there was more than enough. That I needed to chill.  Maybe this time I will learn to listen to him because low and behold he was absolutely right.

All in all, the kids were fun to watch and I think that all of them had fun.  I would declare it a good party.

Now a moment away from the discussion of parties. Snow in April!!!!! What the heck ?  My spring bulbs have finally come up and are almost ready to flower and then snow!  I will be really pis**d off if I don’t see those flowers because of it.  I might hate all of the pollen but I like looking at spring flowers.  Except for pussy willows and Easter lillies.  Have you ever noticed that they are everywhere this time of year?  Those big sacks of pollen on sticks and deceptively beautiful lillies with their bright yellow pollen centers.  They have ruined many a perfectly good Easter for me.  Enough of my rant.  Enjoy the photos.

The Tooth Fairy came to visit our house last night for the first time.  Katrine has had two lose teeth since December.  This past weekend she gave one of them a mighty tug which resulted in a trip to the dentist with her father yesterday morning.  The dentist pulled her two front teeth out and then sent her home to spend the day with daddy, her monkey and movies while the freezing came out.

When Grandpa called to check on her, she assured him that she was fine and that the tooth fairy was going to bring her money and probably a toy or something because she was so very brave.  Next she had to explain about the tooth fairy to her stuffies.  Did you know she is the size of a piece of dirt but very strong?  Also, she only comes once you are asleep like Santa?  Then she tucked the teeth under her pillow and for once fell right to sleep.

First thing this morning, she literally dove head first under her pillow in search of her booty.  The look on her face when she discovered the cash and a cute little monkey bowl was priceless.  Now we have a temporarily half toothed daughter (her adult teeth were growing in behind the baby teeth so they are already half in).

I thought that I would share the highlights of our March Break with you.

Katrine had her last dance competition as a Primary on Sunday.  That means no more loot bags just for giving it a go.  Instead medals or none based on your personal performance in each dance.  We have a lot of work to do between now and June.  That said, she did really well bringing home a second and third in addition to her loot bag.  After a dance workshop, she and I headed up to my parents.

Monday morning saw us cross country skiing again.  It was a lovely day.  Warmer air but still enough snow.  Very relaxing.  It was a good thing that we went on the Monday because it rained on Tuesday and that was the end of the snow.  After lunch it was off to do some skating and then tobogganning.  Katrine even talked me into going down with her.  I remembered that I don’t like going down hills backwards (my parents only have a saucer).  I think that Santa might have to bring them a more rectangular sled this Christmas.

Tuesday was more skating and a long drive home.  Wednesday saw us driving off to the mall for some rock wall climbing with friends and then back home for a playdate and some building.  Building?  Why yes, do you remember how much fun you can have with a cardboard box…or two in this case?  She and I fashioned a house for her monkeys and then another for her fairy family.  It was not enough for them to have walls and furniture but they also have accessories: paper towel soap, toilet paper, tin foil mirros and plates.  Needless to say, we had a light recycling bin for this week’s collection.

Thursday it was off to do some more skating (her only, I sat and froze my butt off).  She was pretty excited about trying her camel spin.  I was happy that she had fun but glad to get back out into the warm sun.  Another playdate followed by some fun outside with our neighbours.  They rode bikes, scooters, climbed, jumped, laughed, screamed…reminded me of playing on my driveways as a kid.  We use to stay out there for hours with the neighbour kids playing nothing or something but always having fun.  We had such a nice time that we were back out Friday afternoon (it was like a playdate for me because I got to know some of the neighbours better).

This weekend?  More skating, building Lego, decomposition experiment (ever watched what happens to bananas in yeast? hours of fun) and maybe a trip to the zoo.  Glenn gets to join us this weekend because he hurt his elbow which is bad for him because it takes him away from working on the basement but good for Katrine and I because we get to enjoy his company!!!

Let’s talk about the birthday first because I LOVE my birthday.  I turned 37 last week.  I didn’t get the skating party with friends that I had planned (see note in the title about the sick child) but it was still a lot of fun.  After picking Katrine up from school on my actual birthday the two of us went to the skate trail together.  She is  quite fun to skate with when she is well.  The Glenn surprised me with dinner out and some fabulous gifts.  I had to make my own cake this year thanks to my growing list of allergies but it tasted like cake to me so all was well.  After Katrine was in bed Glenn made me up a peppermint soy steamer with my new milk frother.  Just think of all the money I can save not having to buy one!  I also had the gift of snow.  Looking outside it is beautiful.  White clouds of snow.

Now about the skating.  Yesterday Katrine was registered to skate in two events at the Winter Glitters skating competition.  Well, on Friday night she came home from Chinese class with a fever and complaining of a headache.  Now your going to be thinking, just don’t go to the competition she’s obviously sick; and you’d be right except that one of the events was a team event where the team consisted of only two people.  So we doped her up on Tylenol and headed out to Ajax.  The Tylenol got her threw the day but by the time we headed home she was miserable (poor thing).  That said, she skated really well.  She got a 1st in both her individual event (if you are going for one event you might as well do both) and a 1st in the team event.  Plus, she got her first bouquet of skating flowers because the other family thought that the girls would get a kick out of having them.  They were right.  She was thrilled.

Today she has spent the morning laying on the couch or playing her computer games.  I don’t blame her.  It was a long day yesterday.  Hoping that she gets better before next weekend because we are suppose to be dancing at the Robbie Burns dinner at the Legion in Midland.  We are even going to do a Mother-Daughter dance which should be pretty cute.  Keeping my fingers crossed.