Reli's World

Aunt Honey and the Boy

I've been playing around with the aps on the girls' iTouches to get lots of different effects. These are all done with Camera + (same with the lollipop pics above).

Peekaboo

Chinese New Year - Exploration

We had an adventure taking the crew to an Asian market in search of things to help us celebrate Chinese New Year. It was fun looking through everything, though I didn't have the heart to tell the girls that the fish tank was not full of future pets, and I recognized almost nothing. Drewdad and spent about 15 minutes in the paper goods area trying to figure out what was New Year stuff and what was not, and finally located a different section of the store full of what we were looking for - lanterns, toys, red envelopes - lots of fun stuff.  The kids really wanted these HUGE lollipops. Instead, they got to hold them for a pic. :)

 We brought home some foods to try - rice cakes, mamon (a sweet bread), strawberry New Year candy (wrapped in pretty red and gold paper), and of course, the girls wanted fortune cookies. Beebs wanted to try pumpkin seeds until she realized that she had them at Halloween, and the girls liked picking out the things in the store that they recognized (veggies and such) and looking at their names written in Chinese.

The favorite find of the day was "Lucky Red Dragon" (so named by the girls) - a Chinese lion marionette (red is the color of fortune and joy, and 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, thus the name, and this dragon stick puppet ran a close second:

The crew also loved the Koi pond outside the store...

The kids had fun learning about the Chinese zodiac and their totem animals. Even Buddy (a tiger) colored his animal (with some help). Keetah was thrilled to learn that she and Drewdad are both roosters and Yaya giggled as she told them, "You're both stubborn according to the zodiac!" (Everyone Noone else in the house is stubborn, too. Ahem.) Yaya was disappointed to find that she's a Year of the Goat baby, "It's not like I go around the house eating strange things all the time!" We had to discuss the fact that for our purposes, these things are just for fun.

This was a fun country to study, and I'm sure it won't be the last time we celebrate Chinese New Year. Because of these little explorations of other countries, our own holidays have become a mish-mash of favorite traditions from around the world. The Norwegian Nissen have to have porridge each year; the girls miss Saint Lucia day if it's not honored; they would like a pinata, and a King Cake; and now....Chinese New Year! It keeps things fun and interesting, though we've had to keep reminding them that we can't do everything every year.

The girls have always wanted to restudy Norway, which we will probably do at some point. That's their favorite, which is funny because they were 2 and 4 when we did it. We've agreed on Sweden for next year since it's Scandanavian, but a little different than Norway. Should be fun.

Here's a run down on what we studied when, just because I'm losing track. :)

2011 - China

2010 - Germany

2009 - Spain

2008 - Mexico

2007 - Norway

Chinese New Year - Celebration

The girls chose China as our holiday country this year, so we decided to check out a local celebration of Chinese New Year, and it was really fascinating. The costumes are so colorful and beautiful.

It's amazing how lifelike the lions look when people dance in them and they blink their eyes. Also amazing - the kids weren't scared of them at all - not even Troop. They seemed swept up in the excitment of the drum beats and dancing.

The lions were blessing the shops along the walk, so they would dance outside to scare the evil spirits away, and then dance inside the shops, which was cool to watch. Each shop had lettuce hung outside the door with a lucky red envelope hidden inside, and the lions would "eat" the lettuce and collect the envelope (full of money - according to a bystander, it's a symbolic offering to Buddha and an actual donation to the martial arts school putting on the show). After a few minutes of dancing, the lions would spit out the lettuce leaves to symbolically share the luck and fresh start with the crowd. People rushed to pick up the leaves.

After the blessing of each shop, the dragons took donations. The kids bravely handed the dragon figures their dollars. :)

Here's a pic of the girls at "Chinese Panda" - or as we call it, Panda Express - wearing their red for the New Year. :)

After our lunch and celebration, each of the kids got a lucky red envelope full of things in pairs (because happiness comes in pairs, apparently) - dollars, pretend coins, glittery dragon stickers, and gold bars.

Future Member of KISS?

Troop got into my mascara and eyeshadow and gave it a try. As you can see, he's quite pleased with the result.

Puppy Love

At Keetah's school, teachers often bring their dogs with them to class as the class pet. Keetah has the most magical teacher on the planet with the most adorable dog on the planet. Daisy the Wonder Dog has a very sparkly litter of puppies born just before the winter break.

For the last 3 weeks, the puppies have been in the classroom every day. As you might imagine, Keeks is over the moon about the whole experience. Last Friday was the last day before the puppies went to their new homes, so we needed pics! Here is Keeks holding her favorite puppy "Ellabelle," Keek's friend (to the right) and her friend's little sister. Cuteness overload!!

 

Christmas 2011

Better late than never. :)

Yaya didn't get her real horse for Christmas, but she got a play stable and some pretend horses (and a riding lesson), so she was quite pleased.

Keeks got her "aminontronic" dolphin, too:

Deedle got a mailbox just like the one that he loves to play with whenever he visits Kiki's Kindergarten room:

The kids really liked this zig-zag door decoration that they had to break through to get out of their rooms on Christmas morning:

Yaya is fascinated by Harry Potter, and Santa must have known that, because he brought her some Bertie Bott's All Flavor Beans. And when they say all flavor, they mean it. Yaya spent the day conning everyone into trying jelly beans that tasted like caterpillers, baby wipes, and even skunks. Ick!

Here are the cousins at the kids' table that are old enough to sit at the kids' table. The boys were stuck in high chairs, but the girly-girl club may be in for a little surprise takeover starting next holiday season. Right now, Deedle is on the loose and wreaking havoc. Next year, there will be 2 mobile babies, so the girls had better watch out.

We tried out a new tradition of having a white elephant exchange at my girls request. They had seen stuff I brought home from our MOMS Club exchange and were really curious about the game. I warned them that they might not get a gift they liked, and they were down with it, so we gave it a try. Everyone brought gifts and piled them all into one big pile, so noone knew if they were getting a kid or adult gift. Every time Yaya's gift was stolen, she opened a new gift, which worked out for her until she got this:

The look says it all, and I love Keetah's huge grin off to the side. lol! Don't feel too bad for Yaya, though, because she stuck ME with that hat!! and took a Crocodile Dentist game for herself. She didn't even feel bad about it, either! "That's how the game is played Mama! HAAAAA!" Too funny.

Keetah was number 1, which meant she could trade her gift for anything in the room. There were plenty of toys, including a magic wand with sparkles and stars and even the gift Keeks had chosen herself to bring to the swap, but what she chose was that gold-trimmed candy dish she's holding. She brought it home and put it on her dresser filled with seashells she got at the shell shop at the beach last summer. Interesting choice for a 6-year-old, IMO. :)

2011 was a fun Christmas. My favorite memories from the season: the trip we made to the Sea World Christmas event; Deedle learning about "Ho Ho;" Yaya working through all of her anxiety about getting a pony and coming to peace with the fact that she wouldn't and still being very happy; the ELVES and all the joy they brought to us with their stupid antics; the MOMS Club Christmas party; spending time with girls at school for their Christmas things; Yaya getting the part of Veruca Salt just before school was out; caroling with the girl scouts at the nursing home; Drew and how much he was supportive when Deedle and I were so sick this season; and all the time we got to spend with friends and family. :)

Taking a Break

We've had a long run of illness, so I haven't been taking lots of pics, but I'll get organized again and start posting again next week. :)

The Gingerbread Horse

This freehand gingerbread horse creation took up the entire cookie sheet and inspired a story that went along with it!

Oveheard v. 51

The girls love to read about things that happened "a long time ago" on their blog. Reading is new to Keeks, Yaya is getting good at navigating the internet, so basically, they are finding all of this history of their lives and are fascinated by the stories. But they don't understand the limits of it - they want to be able to look up anyone in their lives and read and see all about that person from anytime. Case in point:

Keeks: "We want to see what it was like when you were little. Put in 40 years ago."

Me: "I can tell you what it was like or show you pictures, but there is no blog of my life 40 years ago."

Keeks: "Come on, just try! Put in 40 years ago so we can see you. We want to know!"

Me: "Keeks, listen. There were no blogs. The internet didn't exist yet. There was no computer at my house, or at anyone's house. Really. No 40 years ago."

Keeks: "Arrrrrrrggh! Can you PLEASE just try? PLEASE? I really really want to see it!"

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Me: There was this weird chick on the other end of the phone...

Yaya: Who was the weird chick? You?

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Yaya: Mama, when I run for President of the United States, are you going to vote for me?

Me: Yes, of course.

Keeks: Well what about if I run for President of the United States at the same time? Then who are you going to vote for?

Yaya: Then she wouldn't vote for anyone, Keetah. Or maybe she would vote for someone and Daddy would vote for someone else.

Keeks: Well, what about if Troop was running, too? Then what?

Yaya: Then noone would vote, Keetah!

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Troop's first little sing-along song -- he shouts "Ginch!" on "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch!"

During the weeks before Christmas, he had to take breathing treatments and the ONLY things that kept him calm were a) Yaya breathing through the mask first and demonstrating how fun it was and b) watching the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. And because he loves it so much, it became our go-to to entertain him for 10 minutes while we got Christmas things handled. So now, he has seen it about 10 million times, and he apparently knows every word and his ability to show this is limited only by his ability to speak. If we all really want to thrill him, we bust into a family chorus of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." haha

And, finally, we know that he has internalized the concept of the Grinch as someone who is doing something that others don't like. We know this because Troop hates to have his diaper changed, and one afternoon when I was changing him, he fussed at me, said no to the diaper changing table, and then when I insisted, he pointed to me and said, "You Ginch!!" haha

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Troops second little sing-a-long song, he shouts "TAR!" when we sign "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little..." :) The boy is musical.

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Yaya: If Santa's not bringing me a pony, what is he going to bring me? I mean, he can't bring me little kid things, and he can't bring me all the teenager type things either!

Me: What are teenager-type things?

Yaya: You know...cell phones and IPod Touches and IPads and stuff!

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Yaya was having a hard time with the transition back to school. She wished to be little again so she could stay home and play and not have homework and responsibilities, and she was so very sad.

Troop offered a hug and kiss. Yaya reflected, "If I went back just a year or two, I wouldn't have my baby brother with me anymore! I wouldn't have how funny he is and how cuddly he is."

Keeks offered her comfort, too. "Yaya, I wish I could be you just for today so that I could be sad instead of you."