Julianne's Birthday - 3 Years Old

On Saturday, March 1 we celebrated Julianne's birthday at Playscape in Brewster.

HAVING A BALL

Julianne is a special friend of Katerina's. There are some kids she immediately connects with and Julianne is one of them. The other is Grace who lives in Florida and is from the same orphanage.

TAKING CARE OF THE BABIES

La di da! Another beautiful day in the neighborhood.

On Monday, the 3rd, we met Julianne, her Mom, and sister at the diner in Ossining where they have character appearances the first Monday of every month. Tonight it was ALLLVINNNN!

Katerinaisms

I want to get these down so I don't forget them. If I can add pictures at another time, I will.

I LOVE TO LAUGH: As we were going to a Japanese restaurant the other day, Katerina asked me the name of the restaurant which is: Yama Fuji Sushi. She laughed so hard and made me repeat it at least 20 times. All the way there, while we were inside. At one point she looked at me and said: "Mommy, I LOVE to laugh!".


PENGUIN: After a bath the other night, Katerina had her towel around her. It's one of those with a hood and you wrap it around you like a cocoon. She started waddling down the hall and said: "Mommy, I'm a penguin".


KATERINA WANTS A DOG: We have this stuffed animal - black lab - which we call Promise after the dog that joined our family the year Constantin and I got married and left us one day about 10 years later. She was a very special dog and we've told Katerina all about her. Katerina seems to have a strong connection to Promise and asks about her, likes to look at her pictures and plays with the stuffed animal. The other night she told me she was getting a dog; that Daddy told her she could. When I asked Constantin about it the next day he told me that Katerina had told him that MOMMY said she could have a dog. How do you like that? The little conniver! I have no doubt that a dog will join this family one day, but I don't think it's right about now. Katerina should continue to enjoy the stuffed animal named Promise.


TELL ME ABOUT YOUR DAY: Katerina has learned tricks for delaying bedtime. The other night after story reading, lights out, etc., as I kissed her goodnight, she said: "Tell me about your day Mommy".


DOCTOR: Katerina wants to be a Doctor. I'm not sure where that has originated from. She told us she wants to be a doctor like Dr. Traister - her pediatrician.

THE PIGGIES: Katerina still calls her toes piggies. As I was getting her out of the bath the other night she reminded me that we didn't clean the piggies.


PRONOUNS: Katerina speaks very well but is having trouble with pronouns. She will say Her is going to the store or Them is eating ice cream.


HIDE & SEEK: We were playing around the other day and she hid behind a door. I played that I was looking all over for her and finally AHA, there she was behind the door. She said in the sweetest little voice: "Mommy, I'm proud of you for finding me"


WHO's TAKING THE PICTURE: We were looking at pictures from the cruise we took in September. There's Uncle Bobby and Aunt Susie, and here's Uncle Johnny and Katerina, look at this nice picture of Grandma with Uncle Lou, and so on. Then we came across a picture of all of us in Lou and Dale's suite which we took with the self-timer. She looked at the picture and said: "Who's taking the picture?"


REMEMBER ME: As I called Katerina up the stairs for bedtime the other night, I told her to say goodnight to YaYa and Papous who are still visiting with us. I then told her to bring up her blanket which she loves to twiggle with her fingers as she's falling asleep. She said, "I'll leave the blanket so them can remember me"!

A Day With Julianne at the Library - February 23rd

Snow Day - Feb 22nd and Feb 25th

Other February Happenings

Believe it or not, February was not all about Chinese New Year! We had some other fun things going on.

Emily's Birthday Party at Westchester Gymnastics

Birthday Girl
Katerina

Playdate with Katie

Jennie's Birthday Party

The Birthday Girl

In the Jump Castle

Yummy yummy ice cream cake

There was also a great play date with Tessie, and Daddy was responsible for taking pictures that day. Well, guess what?? No pictures!

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Chinese New Year (Chun Jie) is the most important festival in the Chinese lunar calendar. Chun Jie means the "spring festival," and based on the almanac of the emperor Han Wu Di (140–87 BCE), it falls on the first day of the first month, which does not correspond to January first of the Western, Gregorian calendar. It is celebrated for fifteen days and culminates at the first full moon of the new year. Before the New Year, Chinese families customarily conduct a thorough spring cleaning of their homes. On New Year's Eve, family members gather for an annual reunion dinner. They offer food to the ancestral tablets, which are believed to embody the spirits of individuals who have produced sons capable of performing ancestral rites. In return for this attention, the ancestors ensure the fertility and prosperity of the lineage. This ritual renews and reaffirms filial ties. After dinner, many people visit local temples to offer prayers.

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.

To say happy new year literally: Xin Nian Kuai Le!

THE NEW YEAR THAT NEVER ENDED! In true tradition we celebrated the New Year for two weeks; actually, more than 2 weeks as the New Year began on February 6th (New Year's Eve) and ended on February 21st. We began celebrating on February 2nd with a Chinese New Year party put on by the Westchester Association of Chinese Americans. We were obligated to go as this is the group we have jointly put on a party with the past two years, but decided this year we wanted to focus on children's activities. So Dan's family and our family attended their party and their party planners attended the Families with Children from China party. There were over 800 people at the WACA party but not many activities for children. It began at 5pm and we had dinner, did a couple of crafts, stayed for a little bit of the show and left before Karaoke and Ballroom Dancing. The party went on until midnight.

With Melanie and Emily

Our Little Bunny

Extra special fun was that Dani & Ally were at the party as well, since Dani was playing in the Ge Zheng performance later that evening. Katerina got such a kick out of seeing Dani on stage.

Ally and Dani in the foreground

On February 6th, New Year's Eve, we hung a lantern from the dining table chandelier and put up a hanging we got in China of the 12 animals of the zodiac. On February 7th, we ordered in Chinese food (cheating, I know!) and had a lovely dinner. YaYa and PaPous are still visiting so they enjoyed being part of the fun. Next year I plan to purchase a special broom for Katerina and each year she can sweep out the old year as a tradition and we'll hang up the Good Luck symbols.

On February 9th we had our FCC Lunar New Year party. We had been working since December 15th to pull this together and it was a huge success. We had over 400 people, mostly FCC families, but a good amount from the Organization of Chinese Americans and the Westchester Evergreen Club (Chinese Senior Citizens). We had wonderful workshops; ribbon dancing, magic, lion dance, mahjong, dumpling making, song & culture, fun rooms, and crafts. We had vendor tables, a raffle, great food, a lion dance parade to the auditorium where we then had a 2-hour performance with Chinese folk dancing (adults and kids), Chinese line dancing, magic show, and a Ge Zheng player. It was a tremendous amount of work even with over 70 volunteers. It's funny, but Katerina enjoyed the setup the night before more than the party.

Setup the night before

An exhausted Katerina The Party

Lion Dance Clinic

These are the girls from Katerina's dance class; the class she dropped out of last fall. She really enjoyed seeing the girls on stage. In fact, she seemed to be in awe that they were dancing on stage. She kept saying "There's Emily or there's Katie"

Mother's of Huaxia Chinese School students

On February 10th we had a Chinese New Year celebration at Katerina's pre-school. I read a couple of books on Chinese New Year, Fiona's Mom brought snacks and crafts. We had bubble wrap to make firecracker sounds and I brought in 3 children's lion heads for a "parade" which turned into everyone just trying on the heads for a moment or two. The kids really enjoyed it. Katerina's teacher took pictures and as soon as I get copies, I will upload them.

PICTURES COMING

On February 15th we were supposed to go to Uncle Bobby and Aunt Susie's for a Chinese New Year dinner, but Susie got sick so it was postponed until the following Sunday.

On February 17th, we joined Kryssy and Richard Egnor at the Greenwich Library for a Chinese New Year celebration of performances; Chinese folk dancing, ballet, magic and martial arts.

Wearing the new dress Grandma gave her for Christmas.

On February 23rd we had our dinner at Bobby & Susie's with Aunt Dale and Uncle Lou and Deb. It was so sweet of them to honor Katerina's heritage by having a special family celebration.

Photo Shoot

Today Katerina and I were photographed by the local paper, The Journal News, for an upcoming article on how different people celebrate the Lunar New Year. I was interviewed about 2 weeks ago and told that the photographer would come today and just take a few pictures. I was asked to dress up in our party clothes. The photographer ended up staying 1 1/2 hours and in addition to tons of still shots, conducted an interview on video and took lots of video footage for their website. I was so not prepared for this and hope that it came out OK. Before the photographer got here we took a few photographs ourselves since we were already dressed up. Couldn't let party clothes go to waste now, could we?

With Nancy, her babysitter

Katie's Birthday Party - 1/20

Katie was 5 years old on January 3rd and had her birthday party today.

Whooppeee!

Movin' and Groovin'

Yesterday as I was getting Katerina ready for ballet class, she said: "It's movin' and groovin' time"! I ask you...where do they get these things? And move and groove she did.

Two Years Ago Today...We Saw Her Face

January 4th, 2006 was the day we received our referral. I got the phone call at work late afternoon. Our agency had limited details at that time; name, age, height, weight, province and orphanage. That evening they were able to email the referral pictures to us after scanning them in. As we opened the jpg file there was a scream heard round the world; IT WAS ME! I fell in love with that little sad face and couldn't wait to bring her home and put a smile on her face.

THEN

AND NOW

New Year's Eve & Day

New Year's day is the feast of St. Basil (Vassilis) "the Great" who was an archbishop in the Greek Orthodox church from 370 to his death in 379 and considered one of the three Hierarchs of the church.
It is the Greek tradition to exchange gifts on New Year's day and not on Christmas day. Lucky for us, we do both! On New Year's Eve, Katerina's godparents and our close friends George & Deb spent the evening with us to celebrate Christmas and New Years. Typically we spend Christmas Eve with them but this year it did not work out. On New Year's day, Constantin's sister, Popi and her husband Ed spent the day with us. New Year's day is also Constantin's Mother's Name Day, as she is named after St. Basil (Vassiliki)

It is tradition to bake a special cake (more like bread), Vassilopita with a gold or silver coin hidden inside, and after Happy New Year wishes are exchanged, the cake is cut: one slice for St. Basil, one for each family member, one for each other person there, the pets, and for the poor people of the world. In one of these slices is hidden the coin, which brings blessings to its recipient throughout the year. And I got the coin on New Year's Eve!! The cake was baked by George's aunt in Greece and shipped to us. We cut another one the next day that Popi had sent from the Greek Monastery in upstate NY and Constantin's father got the coin. He was so excited because, in 80 years, he has never gotten the coin.

Happy New Year to All!

More gifts under the tree

Katerina eating her slice of Vassilopita

Reading Time

New Year Gathering - December 30th

We went out with a few other FCC families for dinner on Sunday night to celebrate the New Year. Katerina loves being with the older girls and they are very nurturing with her. What great role models they can be.