Prepping for our CNY party

 Breakfast by Baba one day this week.  Eggs, sausage and grapes.  I don't think Miss A fully appreciates the designs Baba makes for her.

 A and I sweeping prior to Mary (our EI specialist) visit.  Right now she enjoys being included in any activity.   She also wants to know if we are going to bed when I put her in bed.

Friday we celebrated Mary's birthday with cupcakes.  Miss A was taking notes on the candles, wishes, singing "Happy Birthday"  etc.  Unfortunately I did not take any pictures.

  Playing her piano and singing "snuggle puppy".  My attempts to get this on video weren't successful.  She won't take requests.

  Friday afternoon we went downtown to AAA to order Chinese money for the red envelopes we are giving the children coming to our party this Saturday.  Audrey choose this hat and then loved the attention it drew.

Saturday morning we hung out at home as we had an ice storm the previous night.  In the above picture they are playing with Chinese lanterns.

 By Saturday afternoon the ice was less treacherous so  we went shopping for our CNY party.  Here Miss A is pushing the cart. Mary advised us we should take advantage of this "monkey see monkey do" stage.  No pressure.

  Because it was so cold we had another fire Saturday evening.

 Riding her pony.  This is the expression you get when you ask her to do "surprise" face.

 And her natural smile which I am sometimes lucky to get. 

We moved the dragon for the party to a more subtle spot.

Sunday afternoon we toured a toddler enrichment preschool in Hyde Park.  We were impressed with the teachers and facility.  They teach signing and Spanish on alternating weeks.  They focus on teaching children how to negotiate relationships with other children.  Overall they convinced us they had some good methods for fostering a love of learning.  Additionally Audrey was at ease in the environment.  We will see if we get in sometime in February.

Pony, solo performance in musikgarten & mover and shaker classes, 1st bank deposit for Miss A, self photograghy and visiting Paula at school

 Tuesday Miss A received this sweet pony, a gift from Nancy, in the mail!

 We are trying to get her to give the pony a name.  Up for consideration right now are: Caramel, Dorie and Khaki.  She identifies all of her stuffed animals by their species.  Pony might actually get a name.

  Miss A's alpha dog part of her personality was on exhibit in both her Monday music class and again on Wednesday's in library class (picture above).  In Music class she was asked to be the mouse in a skit of the tortoise and the hare.  Her role was to get the other (and older) kids to start the race.  Audrey was only too happy to help Miss Amanda in asking the children to "line up" and race.  In library story time she repeated a line from the Christmas 3 bears story Miss Kelly was reading in the most dramatic way.  Suffice it to say everyone there knows her by name.

   

  The weather was unseasonably warm this week so we walked up to the bank to deposit the coins we rolled over the weekend.  We  love our neighborhood bank for many reasons including the attention they afford this little ham. 

 

Above is one of Miss A's self photography pictures she took with my camera, well technically John's camera.  I hope she likes the children's camera she is getting for Christmas.

  Today we visited Paula at her school.  Paula is a middle school science teacher.

  This girl  whose name is Yutong explained her "holiday celebrations in China" to us.  Additionally she showed us her jade necklace on a red thread and explained it's significance to her.