First Dance Competition of the Year and a Surprise!

Today was the Georgina Highland Games as well as Katrine’s first outing as a Beginner!  She was a mixture of excitement and nerves.  Over all, she danced really quite well.  There are definetely things that she can improve on but she did well nonetheless.  Well?  Two thirds in her first outing.  We had been preparing her all week for the distinct possibility that she would not win a medal being that it was her first outing in a new and harder group.  She was over the moon.  To make it better, my parents decided to drive down to see her dance.  She was just happy to have a larger cheering section.  All of the girls from Katrine’s dance school did well which was nice because no one was left feeling left out of the celebrations. Once the girls had got their medals, a whole group of them went to the craft zone to do crafts and get their faces painted.

Katrine also chose to do the mass fling at the opening ceremonies.  Mass fling?  Well it is every dancer that they can convince to walk into the middle of a empty field and then do the fling in front of the crowd.  It is actually really fun to do because it doesn’t matter if you make a mistake or remember all of those things that you are suppose to.  Instead, it is a chance to just dance and entertain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for the surprise, I woke up this morning and went to check my email before setting off for the competition and what should be there?  Two new photos of Elspeth and a brief update!!  She has grown a whole centimeter and is up to 20 pounds.  Her feet are TINY.  Only 4 1/2 inches long.  That is like 12 month robbies and she is turning two in October.  She has more hair now, all spinky like.  Anyways, I promised more photos once we had some so here they are!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glenn and I?  I got burnt at the competition as is my usual at the first competition of the season.  Doesn’t look too bad though.  How I managed to get burnt with sunscreen on while sitting under the trees remains a mystery to me.  Glenn has cleaned up all of the crap from the basement and has the ceiling painted.  Yes painted.  Tomorrow it will be on to the walls.

Katrine’s First Dance Recital

I know that it sounds wierd, her first dance recital…but you have been posting about her dancing since she was three.  It is true though.  Competitions? Check.  Exams? Check.  Recital?  Not until today.  Her first recital and she was adorable.  I could have just eaten her up.  She danced really nicely (which bodes well for our first competition as a Beginner this Saturday) and finally looked like she has been practising like she has.  Her group even did their Flora, named after the Flora MacDonald who flirted with Bonnie Prince Charlie.  Now they were flirting but they were adorably cute.  At the end of the recital, all of the girls got their exam awards and then goodies.  Katrine went to bed a happy girl tonight.

Last weekend we got to go to Kingston for the annual reunion of the China girls (and boy).  It is a really special time because it lets Katrine reconnect with her Chinese “sisters” and “brother”.  At the same time, we get to see how all of these fabulous kids are doing and also reconnect ourselves.  We catch up on how they are doing in school, with friends and their extra-curriculars.  We also get to share adoption related issues with those who are also living variations of them.  We are very lucky.  We were blessed with a wonderful China family.  The families are friendly and fun and they all really care about our kids.  I mean, they were so happy about adding one more sister to the mix that they enthusiastically asked about our travel plans (August 1) and gave some super sweet outfits.  I have attached a copy of one of the cards which almost made me cry.

The curse is lifted!

This morning Glenn took the forms to Purolateur and couriered them off to our agency.

Sigh!  The curse has been lifted.  Yippee!

Once again I have to say that our social worker is the one who broke the curse.

Now we can just enjoy our girls.

The Curse of the Forms

Part one of the curse drew to a close just before midnight tonight.  There is a slight repreave before the beast rears its ugly head again tomorrow night.  Beast you ask.  Yes, that hideous, cramp causing, sore eye causing, headache inducing monster known as adoption paperwork.  The curse will be lifted after we complete our visit with our fabulous social worker tomorrow night (she really is amazing, a godsent) and Glenn sends everything off in the courier on Friday.  Then we wait and go back to playing with toys and looking at clothes.  Until then.

More information

Got the UPS information package today so here are a few more details about our cutie based on an assessment in March of this year.  She is healthy and already has 8 teeth.  She is small – only 72 cm tall weighing in at 18 pounds 7 ounces.  She appears to be on a diet similar to the one I will be on in China – rice, rice, rice, congee with a little fish or meat.  No wonder she is so tiny.

Developmentally she does not appear to be where Katrine was at the same age which is not surprising.  She has at least 10 words, crawls, stands, walks holding a hand, tears paper.  She can put things into and outof a cup and bang things together.  She does not yet stack blocks and it appears as if she has never seen a book or crayons.  That will change soon enough.

They also told us that she is very energetic and likes to be outdoors.  Plus she is extroverted.  Sound like another daughter?

It looks like we are going to be a family of early risers.  The orphange has the kids getting up at 6:00am and going to bed at 8:00pm with a 1 1/2 to 2 hour nap around lunch.  The nap in the middle of the day will be good once we get home because she will be awak for the arrival of Katrine’s bus from school.  I can’t imagine how she is not a total crank keeping those hours.  It must be the long nap.  I think that mommy will have to nap with her.

There you have it.  That is our Elspeth in a nutshell.

It’s a GIRL!

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.

A weekend of fun

It has been a nice weekend.  Katrine got her Canskater of the year medal on Saturday along with a nice framed certificate.  Her proud Grammy took her to the RHFSC’s end of the year banquet.  She was just beaming about it.  In fact, when she came home she went right upstairs and hung her medal up on her bulletin board.

On Saturday,Glenn and I got to attend an absolutely lovely wedding.  The weather held so the service was held outside and at the beginning of the service, the clouds parted and the sun shone through.  It was beautiful.  The groom and ushers looked smart in their formal wear as did the bridesmaids.  The bride looked breathtaking.  A delicious dinner and fabulous dancing with friends.  It was a wonderful way to spend an evening.

Today we headed out for a family movie day.  Kung Fu Panda 2!!  It was a really good movie.  I liked how it approached the two families of adoption and how each can love you.  Katrine cried a bit, laughed a lot, had fun.  We had some good discussion tonight about her two families and the similarities and differences btween their stories.

Now for our final piece of news.  Our referral is on a plane from China.  We are hoping to have it in our hot little hands by Wednesday or Thursday.  Katrine is pretty excited.  Glenn and I are like little ducks.  Calm on the outside but paddling furiously underneath.  Keep your eyes open for more news.  We will share as it arrives.

What else? The robins have hatched and are getting bigger.  Unfortunately they are fairly protective so we can’t get any really nice pictures of them.

We have also managed to get our garden planted in amongst all of the rain.  Flowers out front and veges out back.  We have sunflowers (for the seeds…we hope), carrots, watermelon and two types of squash (summer and acorn).  In addition, the strawberry plants that we planted last year are growing like crazy.  I expect that Katrine will soon be picking of the berries while she is playing outside.

Have a great week.

Skate Canada Award Show

Today we are crashing on the couch after a long day yesterday.  How was it?  Awesome!

Katrine had a lot of fun practising for the show with the other CanSkaters.  Three hours in skates followed by another hour and a half in skates for the real show without a complaint.  Think she was happy?  I suppose the second clue was the huge smile on her face the whole time.

Their number was adorable.  She also did really well receiving her award and bursary from the Figure Skating Boutique.  Seemed to take it in stride instead of being overwhelmed.  She was so eager to show off her trophy, certificate and new necklace.  That said, I think that the real highlight of the day was meeting Patrick Chan.  She was glowing afterwards.  Here is some photos for you to enjoy.