Family Day

February 16 was Family Day here in Ontario so I got the day off work. We had been out late with Maeve the night before visiting Uncle Peter, Aunty Carolyn and Cousin Connor, so we all slept in a bit. We had a great day together playing and taking a long walk to a Starbucks on the far side of our community.

The thing that Maeve wanted to play with most when we got home was the stringing bead set that she got for Christmas from our friends the Jagers. She has been playing with them constantly for the last month or so. (Thanks Thomas, Julianne, Jacqueline and Walter!)

Here's a video of her stringing beads while watching Bao Bei (a learning Mandarin video for kids) and dancing with her valentines froggy. This kid can multitask with the best of us!


The finished product!


I think I need to do something different with Maeve's hair now. Between keeping the bangs out of her eyes and trying to encourage the back to grow in, she's now got a mullet. Eek!

My Helper

Maeve loves to help me with whatever I'm doing -- cooking, laundry, cleaning. Often it makes the task take longer but it is more fun to do it with my daughter.

This weekend she decided she wanted some pancakes with lunch.

Please ignore how cluttered my kitchen is. One day I'll have enough cupboards to put stuff away. Or maybe less stuff!

The happy chef at work.
Enjoying the fruits of her labour.

It seems like yesterday

I can hardly believe that it has been two years since we completed our journey to Maeve and started our new adventure as a family. What a joyous two years it has been! We've laughed. We've cried. We've had amazing joys and a couple of scares. We wouldn't trade these experiences for anything! Well, I guess we could have done without the scares.

What a privilege it has been to watch our baby grow into a little girl.

The first thing we noticed when she was placed in my arms was how observant she is. She watched everything that was happening around her. She still notices and remembers every little thing. She is great at sharing, loves to help people, has great empathy when others are upset or hurt and has a huge heart. She is and always will be our little love.

We didn't expand our family by just one though. An unexpected benefit of having shared our adoption experience with a group is that they are now part of our extended family. The girls are a tie back to each others' life in China... before they joined their Forever Families. And their parents are a great support group for us!

Happy Forever Family Day Maevey! Women ai ni. (We love you.)

Happy Forever Family Day to the Xinyu sisterhood! We love you and miss you.

Maeve with her Foster Mama
Gotcha!
Our first smile...almost.
Our first family photo.
A royal photo for Queen Maeve.
Our first anniversary, this time last year.
Frolicking in the fall leaves last October
February 5, 2009
The Happy Family
Double Kisses

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy New Year everyone!

Xin Nian Kuai Le is Mandarin for Happy New Year.
Xin Nian is New Year. Xin is new and Nian is year.
Kuai Le is happiness, joy, pleasure, delight, or rejoicings.

The most common Chinese ways of saying Happy New Year are Gong Xi Fa Cai (Mandarin) and Gong Hey Fat Choy (Cantonese). Even though the pronunciations are a little different, both are written the same way.
Gong Xi is congratulations or respectfully wishing one joy.
Fa Cai is to become rich or to make money.
Thus, Gong Xi Fa Cai means wishing you to be prosperous in the coming year.

And so endth the lesson for today. :-)

We went to CNY celebrations two weekends in a row. First we went to the local recreation centre for a citywide celebration. It wasn't very busy. I think because it was very cold outside and also the local Chinese school was having their CNY celebration on the same day. One of Maeve's preschool friends and her mom joined us. The girls had a hoot walking around holding hands. They got to see a martial arts demonstration, but it didn't hold their attention for very long. We missed the dancing because I didn't want Maeve to skip her nap.

This past weekend the local play group for kids adopted from China held another celebration. This one went from 3 until 8:30 and Maeve was completely wiped by the end of it. We did crafts, had a raffle, ate a great Canadian-Chinese meal, watched two different dance groups (little girls) and saw a great martial arts demonstration complete with Lion Dance. I think Maeve's favourite thing was playing ring around the roses with her friends while we waited for supper.

Maeve checks out her Chinese Princess coat in the mirror.
That's her orphanage assigned name on the scroll behind her "Yu Cai Ling"
Here's Maeve looking a little unsure at the Bamboo Bunch NY party.
These Lions is what she was unsure about.
No smiles for the camera after the scary Lions!
We bought this coat in Hong Kong on the way to meet Maeve. It just fits her now. Good thing I didn't forget about it like some of the other stuff I've bought for her!

Budding Photographer

Maeve got a camera for Christmas. Here are a few of her photos. The quality of the photos isn't great but the camera sure stands up to lots of bumps and has some fun extras. I think they are more art than photography. She hasn't quite got the hang of waiting for a second after she presses the button for the shutter to go before she moves. :-)

Her doll house from Santa.
Cousin Alex
Uncle Will
Maeve's broom.
Her Madeline doll.
A scroll with Maeve's name in the orphanage "Yu Cai Ling".

Mommy plays with some of the fun features:
Maeve in a winter scene.
Is that you Baba?
Our little viking.

Happy New Year

After the Christmas festivities here at home, we piled into the car and headed to PoPo and GungGung's house for a few days. While we were there, my brother and his family also came for a visit. So my parents had their two grandbabies in the house for about 5 days.

The girls had a hoot playing with each other and checking out each others' Christmas loot. They had great fun playing with their trains, tea set, doll house, puppet show, Madeline doll, etc. Santa knew just what to bring this year!

We spent New Year's Eve with friends, but since we all have young kids that wrapped up around 9:30pm. So we got to see the ball drop in Time Square with my family while the girls slept upstairs.

I spoke with my mom the day after we all left and she commented on how quiet the house was with all of us gone. The holidays are never long enough are they?

All in all, a wonderful holiday season spent with family and friends. We are truly blessed!

The girls exchanging presents.
Thank you hugs all around.
Let's put all our trains together!
Relaxing the next morning.
Getting some exercise ball work in.
Like her mommy, Maeve runs away from exercise.
Enjoying a puppet show.
OK, my turn.
Is this how it works? Am I on TV now?
Cousin Robyn with her Grandma.
The girls relax with a bit of colouring.

Merry Christmas!

Just sending a quick message to say


Merry Christmas Everyone!