Happy New Year! once more

One of the added benefits of embracing the Chinese culture is that our holiday season is extended somewhat. At the end of January we attend a string of celebrations for Chinese New Year. Last night was the Oak Park Families with Children from China's (FCC) New Years Banquet. Sophie got dressed in a traditional Chinese outfit, complete with her pink Cubs hat. She then proceded to rip the buttons off the top so we had to change into a new outfit for the evening. Luckily we had two in her size, no small thanks to Kristi.

The Oak Park FCC banquet is a nice event and slightly more tame then the larger Chicago FCC celebration we used to attend. There were dance performances by the girls, a traditional lion dance, plenty of food, and my favorite part: the wearing of the lice caps so that the girls could all participate in their own lion dance. As is becoming more typical these days, we let Sophie take pictures at the event so that we could get an idea of the stuff that she enjoyed or was interested by. Also, we know that if Ileana had the camera, we'd end up with no pictures at the end of the night.

My favorites are the last few of Sophie's friend Gwen and I can only imagine what Gwen's pics are like.

A Saturday Project

Sophie is quite the budding artist. That's why Dick's gift of a bird house to paint, at Christmas was just perfect.

We spent the better part of the day painting and drying and painting the birdhouse according to Sophie's specifications. The only bad part was that we had no orange paint. We had no red paint to mix with the yellow to make orange either so we had to settle with a yellow birdhouse. This seemed fine with Sophie as waiting another day to buy orange paint was out of the question in her mind. I am ashamed to say that I am constantly in shock that projects like this, the cards she makes for people, and her constant coloring and cutting out pictures can hold her attention for so long. I thought kids were supposed to lose attention after 15 minutes and move on to something else. Sophie helped paint the blades of grass and was very happy with the final touches I made: a few butterflies and flowers on the bird house sides. I tried to explain to her that it is just for decoration and not made for real birds but I am not sure she gets it. For now, it is decorating the front porch.

Out of the mouths of babes...

First, I need to apologize for my lack of blogging in recent months. I have a bunch of photos. I will try and get through them and post some stuff and some new stories soon. In the meantime, every now and then, Sophie says or does something that I just have to share. This morning, she had one of those moments.

For the holidays, Ileana bought several boxes of Frangos to hand out to folks that we visit. They are really good mint flavored chocolates that were started by Marshall Fields and continue to be produced for Macy's in Chicago. Unfortunately, we forgot the Frangos when we went home and did not give them away. Instead, we are left with, and have been eating our way through, several boxes. Sophie loves them.

So here's the funny part:

This morning, while sitting and watching cartoons, Sophie asks, "can I have one of the dental floss flavored chocolates?"

Holidays in NY 2008

We made it home for a few days to visit with friends & relatives over the holidays. Sophie had a blast with all her cousins. I think she is now going thru withdrawl having only Chris & I to play with. At least school starts back up on Monday. Here are a few of the cute shots from the week. Some taken by us, some taken by the budding photographer, Sophie.

Sophie's Car Trip

If you are at all curious about what Sophie does on long car rides, you will want to know that she loves coloring, playing with her stuffed animals, singing songs, and of course, taking panoramic self portraits of her and her surroundings.