Can you believe it? We met our darling 4 years ago yesterday. Today is our 4th Forever Family Day. Usually we celebrate with Chinese food and lots of family activities but this year we are all a bit under the weather and are cuddling on the couch watching curling. It is precious nonetheless.
Winter update 2009
Okay, we are finally back. Glenn has been working hard on the basement so it has taken him a while to get the video of Katrine skating adjusted so that I could log in again. The basement you ask? Well, it is actually looking quite nice. There is a lot of new insulation put up and the skeleton of a wall dividing the laundry room from the rest of the space. I know that he has done alot more but this is what most excites me. A wamer, more functional basement…which wife wouldn’t be excited.
Katrine got her first two CanSkate badges in January. She continues to enjoy skating and has her first club competition at the end of February. There are 5 in her group(The Grasshoppers) and everyone wins something but we are pretty proud nonetheless. Supposedly she goes out and does about 4 moves and that is it but if she is happy then so are we. She is equally excited about her pink skating outfit (actually just a skirted body suit with heart printed tights that was on sale at Zellers).
She continues to dance and is making some progress in learning the fling but it is not her passion. We are planning to dance in Callander in the summer but after that we will have to wait and see how it goes. She did however enjoy dancing at the Robbie Burns dinner in Victoria Harbour.
Glenn and I? Well, not a heck of a lot. I turned 35 in January and celebrated with a delicious dinner out gluten-free cake. I got some lovely gifts including getting to sleep in!! I made the most delicious Chinese New Year dinner but the dumplings gave Katrine hives…oh well, all the more for my lunches! I think that we have been most excited about our new sheets. This Christmas, my parents gave us a silk duvet because they are suppose to be dust mite resistant. However, they could only get a King sized one so we did not have a duvet cover for it. Well, off we go shopping. We came home with a complete bamboo bedding set. My goodness it is super soft. I LOVE it.
Katrine skating
I just thought that I would share some footage of Katrine skating because I find her fun to watch. So here goes… Continue reading “Katrine skating”
Happy Autumn Take 2
Here is our pre-Christmas update.
Katrine did well on her report card. Great academics and too much fidgeting during circle time. Not bad.
She was scouted for pre-competitive figure skating but we have yet to decide what we are going to do with that one. Honestly though, I never expected to hear the words “natural talent as a skater” in reference to my sub-tropical born daughter. Just goes to show that life is full of surprises.
Our tree is up. The lights are up outside. Christmas cards are being written. The wrapping has begun. Katrine is my official tape riper because that is her newest skill. Maybe by next year she will actually do some of the wrapping…hehe…child labour makes less work for mom during holiday season. We are having a skating party in two weeks just for the fun of it so my next holiday project is to start baking cookies. Yes, gluten-free all around.
Now for this posts photo. During my parent teacher interviews I was talking to one set of parents about helping to develop fine motor skills when the parents mention trainer chopsticks. At the end of the interview I just had to ask them what they were and where to find them because Katrine has no skill with chopsticks yet desperately wants to use them when we go out for Chinese. Well, got some at our local Korean grocer. They work. Katrine loves them. So, here they are!
Happy Autumn!
Fall Arrives
September saw Katrine beginning Junior Kindergarten. Glenn walked her to school on her first day and she went in without tears!! And so began her love affair with school. Her favourite game is school and of course I have to be her teacher(not Mrs Attwood Kindergarten teacher but the carbon copy of her “real” teacher! “That’s not the way Ms. V…does it”)
Fall also brings with it the traditional Attwood family apple picking trip. Although, this year Katrine has asked that we go back because we went when there were only Macs out and she is more of a sweet apple girl. She has really been getting into baking; even pretending to read recipes when she is cooking in her kitchen. We have already made pie, applesauce and two apple cakes together. I think that apple muffins with butterscotch chippits will be our next endevour.
She has also got immense pleasure out of our garden harvest. She still won’t eat tomatoes; of which we got a bumper crop this year, but she has enjoyed our pink potatoes (yes, if you are imagining pink mashed potatoes that would be the correct image), multicoloured carrots and cucumbers – with the seeds cut out. I think that we will do less tomatoes next year and maybe some bush beans to see if we can get her to give beans a try. Katrine has really enjoyed fishing this summer so we often looked for worms and bugs in our garden to use as bait. Never could seem to find any of a reasonable size…until harvest time. Then we dug up long juicy worms and fat slugs. Oh well!
Embro Highland Games on Canada Day
After Katrine did so well and had so much fun at the Georgetown Highland Games, and after much pleading by her to “go to another competition” we looked around and found the Embro Highland Games. A very early morning ensued fueled by a quick stop at Tim Horton’s for donuts, followed by a 2 hour drive.
We arrived and got setup, since Katrine was dancing in the Primary A category she was dancing at about 9:40am. First up were the Pas de Basque
After that we took a break
Finally the dance results were in. Katrine recieved a 6th place in the Pas de Basque, and did not place in the Pas de Basque and Highcuts. She did however receive a collapsible lawn chair as a participation award, a medal for her 6th place showing, and a stick of candy for turning in her bib number.
All in all it was a good day and a really enjoyable Highland Games. If Katrine is still interested in Dancing next year, it will definitely be on our calendar.
Finally here are 2 videos of Katrine dancing.
first the Pas de Basques
then the Pas de Basque and Highcuts.
Video of Katrine Dancing
Here is some video of Katrine in her first highland dance competition.
Update #3
Okay, I am going to try and get us caught up with this post.
The highlight of March was our annual visit to the Wye Marsh Sweetwater Festival in Victoria Harbour. Katrine just loves seeing my dad making maple sirop. This year we were joined by my brother and his kids so it was extra special for Katrine because she also got to play with her cousins. My dad got the bright idea of getting a cardboard box out of his garage and letting the kids use it to slide down the huge snowbank beside the driveway…until it split open. I guess that all good things must come to an end.
The highlight of April was Katrine’s 4th birthday. This year her party was on her actual birthday which was kind of neat. The party had a Backyardigans theme. She had a blast playing pin the tie on Pablo and using a Backyardigans playdough set. I think that aside from the cake(which was based on her favourite surfing episode) she loved the pinata best. Glenn set it up so that instead of whacking it, the kids could just pull strings to open it. The first time they pulled it and the string broke but it didn’t open. Then Glenn held it and it opened up. What a frenzy! We got her a new purple bike which she is delighted with. She has since announced that she wants to learn to ride without training wheels so you will probably hear about that in a future post.
May was Mother’s Day, Glenn’s birthday and renewing our paperwork with the Ministry for our second adoption(which is moving along at a snail’s pace!). If things continue to move at this rate, Elspeth will not be home until late 2010 or even into 2011. We are keeping our fingers crossed. Thank you to everyone for your continued support. There are days when it is really difficult to be patient. Katrine has taken to drawing family pictures with three people and then a fourth way off to the side because her Meimei is still far away in China. I guess somethings just don’t turn out as you plan.
June has been a bit of a sunnier month. Katrine had her first Highland competition. We thought that she might get overwhelmed and cry or really mess up but she was all business on stage. She walked on, bowed(totally serious face), did 15 of the 16 pas de basques, bowed, walked off calmly before breaking into a huge smile. She was ever so proud of herself. Well, when they did the prizes we were surprised too. We knew that she would get a ribbon simply for being there BUT she also won a sixth!! She left the stage with a medal as well. She wanted to know when her next competition would be and when she would be old enough to win a trophy. I also dance(yes, I know it is amazing that I still can). I managed to double sprain an ankle but somehow won a 7th out of 21 dancers for one dance. Now that was a shock.
The only other exciting thing that we have been doing is working on our garden. It is doing really well due to all of the rain that we have had. If this keeps up we will get a really nice crop. Especially of potatoes.
That is us up-to-date. I will try to not let it get as far behind again.
Catch-up post #2: February
At the beginning of February, we celebrated Chinese New Year and the arrival of the year of the Rat. We found a company that makes gluten-free dumpling skins and made sui mai and beef pot sticks from scratch. The sui mai were really quite good, although they looked like simple dumplings and not actual sui mai. We have found a recipe for vegetable dumplings which we will try the next time we feel like standing by a steamer for a while. Anyways, we attending the FCC new years banquet with some friends and had a fabulous time as usual. It is always nice to see Katrine experiencing Chinese culture while also having fun playing with friends. Aside from her friends and ample supplies of Chinese food, Katrine loved the candied fruits (particularly the carrots and winter melon) and hong bao (especially those with chocolate money).
Katrine has a very mean mommy who made her cut out and decorate valentines for her whole class. Mommy wanted to do them in batchs – cut now, decorate later, print names still later. Katrine however felt that it was necessary to do it all at once, so it turned into an hour of solid work. They looked quite cute at the end of it all. She had a great time at daycare and carried her heart full of valentines around the house for the next two weeks.
Katrine took Preschool C swimming this winter. Unfortunately we will be repeating this level because she is still not comfortable floating on her back. It was not a waste though because she is now confident enough to swim underwater for short lenghts.
Another highlight of our month was our trip to Ottawa for Winterlude. We went over the Family Day weekend and had a great time. The ice and snow sculptures were beautiful. It was fun watching Katrine and Glenn ride the huge ice slides. We all had fun skating on the Rideau. Katrine skated with us the first day but on the second we rented a push sled and skated while she rode. Our trip also provided us with the chance to catch-up with some of Katrine’s orphanage sisters which is always welcome.
The high point of our month though, was celebrating Katrine’s third Forever Family Day. Sometimes it is hard to believe that it has been three years since we became a family in Nanning.