I can cut!

Helaina can cut with a scissors now. I really haven't given her the opportunity very much because she makes me nervous with them (even though they are children's scissors). The other day she got the grasp and the hand action going properly so she was a cutting, snipping machine. She enjoyed it, then she enjoyed tossing hundreds of bits of paper up in the air!

"Was this the ad that Daddy wanted to save?"

"What do we do with all this cut-up paper?"

"Oh, this is what we do with it. Wheeeee!"

Helaina's morning routine

It takes us twice as long to get out of the bathroom in the morning because Helaina the Great Imitator has to do EVERYTHING she sees us do in the bathroom. Here's a typical girly-girl morning. It is so funny to watch her.

Off comes the shirt so it doesn't get soaked.

Wash, wash, wash your face (and get water everywhere).

Brush your teeth with Princess, Dora or Sponge Bob toothpaste.

Get all of them, then rinse & spit!

Flossing is always a good idea.

The first time she grabbed my deoderant I cracked up.

Uhhum, yes, that is a foot file!

Brush your hair, lotion your face.

Ta dahhhhhhh! Ready to tackle the day, finally.

Happy New Year, Chinese Style! Ox, anyone?

It is now the Year of the Ox. We had planned on celebrating Monday night with dinner out at our favorite Chinese restaurant, the Bamboo Garden, but sickness has spread through our house like wildfire. Helaina started it all with a slight fever and runny nose last week. Then a few days later Mommy got a bad sore throat that morfed into a cold, stuffed up sinuses, no voice (Jim liked that part!) and now a major cough. A day later Daddy came down with a cold. Monday was my worst day, barely able to get off the couch and take care of Helaina, so there was no way we could go out to dinner. We celebrated a day later at China Road because I felt a little better but there was no way I was making dinner!

Our noodle girl enjoying her lo mein.

Yummy, yummy, yummy.

"I'm done, can we blow this joint now before I terrorize it again?"

The first 5 minutes in the restaurant was a true test of endurance. First Helaina had to play musical chairs, not being able to decide who to sit next to. First choice was Josh, got her settled in then 2nd choice was Daddy, got her settled in then final choice was Mommy. I normally would make her sit in her first choice and that's that, but the restaurant is small, she was making such a fuss and I had a headache so we endulged in her chair selection (all the time thinking that I'll never be able to show my face in this restaurant again). Then came the water spill. Then came Helaina grabbing at the little plate of extremely SPICY pickeled veggies and almost getting one in her mouth - which would have been disaster because they were so hot they choked me. OK, let's order, finally - the only easy thing. "Helaina, what do you want to eat?" as she's trying to stab a crunchy noodly with a chopstick. "Noodles! Egg roll! Soda!" We all passed on the special ox dishes honoring the Year of the Ox. While we waited for our food she dunked the crunchy noodles in the duck sauce, which kept her occupied. When the food came she was very good, sitting quietly munching on her egg roll and slurping down the lo mein. After we ate, the plate of oranges and fortune cookies arrived. Jim and I went for the oranges because we need all the Vitamin C we can get. Helaina and Josh duked it out for the fortune cookies, but Helaina was quicker than her brother because she nabbed 3 of them to Josh's 1! After the fortune cookies Helaina hopped from her seat and proceeded to run around the restaurant, finally caught by Josh. And this tale is why we don't eat out much - at least at restaurants where we have to wait too long for the food to arrive!

Cupcakes, continued.....

Helaina is still eating up the cupcakes we made the other day, except now she eats them shirtless. Somehow she manages to get the globs of frosting that are hanging off her lips and chin to fall off of her face and into the inside of her shirt so that it smears all over her chest and shirt. When it happened for the 2nd time today today after lunch I decided that it was time for shirtless cupcake eating! She liked that.

Yummy frosting...

... gets two thumb's up!!!

Note the boo boo on her middle finger. She got her hand stuck in a game by jamming her pudgy fist into an opening it shouldn't have gone in. Had to "jimmy" her wedged hand out and she got a deep scrape on her finger as it came out. Let's see if she listens the next time we play that game!

Cupcakes and "Bama"

In honor of the president's inauguration yesterday, Helaina and I made some cupcakes. She just loves being in the kitchen, standing on the step stool next to me and "helping" with food preparation. She was VERY interested in the cupcakes, especially the frosting. Helaina has also learned who the new president is. When I ask her, she'll say "Bama". I'll tell her that it isn't Bama, it's Obama. After a few rounds of "Bama", she finally shouts "Ohhhhhhbama!"

She wears her frosting well.

Helaina doesn't like sticky fingers, so her first attempt was eating the cupcake (I mean the frosting), by licking it off!

She was very determined to get it all.

When she couldn't get it all with her tongue, she had to go in with her fingers!

Happy Martin Luther King Day - let's go sledding!

With Jim home from work today and LOTS of snow piled up outside, sledding seemed the best way to enjoy the sunshine outside and get some exercise - and let me tell you, sledding with Helaina is a workout! Our little daredevil was more than happy when we told her we were going sledding. "Laina, Momma, Daddy, yaaahhh!" was her response, as she clapped her hands! We were the first ones at the park this morning but withint 15 minutes of our arrival lots of other kids joined in. It's the very same park that I went sledding on when I was a young girl, and also where I took Joshua when he was little - and now it's Helaina's turn!

Here's Helaina on her pink snowtube (Jim's at the top after giving her a shove). I have to time my picture-taking better. I'd love to capture the wide-open mouthed smile on her face as she's whizzing by - it's priceless.

Sitting up on the plastic sled.

Face-first on the sled - makes me nervous!

Did I say it was a workout sledding with Helaina? Here's Daddy (a/k/a the "pushover") PULLING Helaina up the hill "one more time, Daddy" - yah, we've heard that one before! We do make her walk up the hill most of the time, but Jim gives in to her frequently and gives her a free ride back up the hill. At 35 pounds, it's no easy task pulling her back to the top!

Our determined little gal heads over to the swings in knee-deep snow. Phew, it's exhausting playing in the snow!

"I need another push."

The workout continues on this twirly thing - whatever it's called! Helaina loves it and never wants to get off - round and round and round some more.

Thoughtful, considerate, caring

Our Helaina is just so sweet at times. This morning she displayed that sweetness to her Daddy and Momma. Jim got his snacks out of the refrigerator to take to work and headed to the front door to put his boots on. Helaina saw that he had yogurt and a cup of peaches. While he was getting ready to leave she ran into the kitchen, opened up the silverware drawer, reached in, grabbed her favorite bunny spoon and ran back to Jim, handing it to him to take to work. Awwwww! She stayed at the front door to wave a final goodbye as we always do, but this time as Jim was going down the front steps covered in snow she yelled "Careful, Daddy. I luv you, Daddy." Awwwwww, times two! We then went into the kitchen to feed Heidi and Tiger. I have a small step stool in the kitchen because I can't reach the top cupboards without it (yup, I'm a shortie). As I stepped onto the stool to reach a can of dogfood, I felt these two little hands on both of my legs. Helaina was behind me leaning up against me, holding my legs so that I wouldn't fall. She then said "Careful, Momma". Awwwwww, again! Those little acts of sweetness made my morning, and it wasn't even 8:00am yet! I always say that we hit the jackpot with our little China gal, and we surely did.

Helaina in her purple penguin jammies from Aunt Barb, sharing her morning cheerios with Heidi.

Snow, smores & more...

We took our little snowbunny sledding again this past weekend. No pictures of her bombing down the hill because it was icy and I was concentrating on stopping her as she whizzed by me at the bottom of the hill. Her favorite way to slide down the hill now is face first, on her tummy, on a long plastic sled. The first time Jim sent her down that way, as I'm watching her pick up speed and swerve off the the side, I'm thinking to myself "Am I crazy? Face first with the million dollar mouth she has? What if she flips off and crashes her face and mouth into the snow?" She made it down ok, laughing like a nut wanting to do it again. Yikes. Jim and I worry about the daredevil trapped inside of her! Here are some pics of her playing on the ice & snow-covered slide. She slid down so fact that I had to snap the pictures before I saw her because she was on her butt in the snow in a flash. We lost count of how many times she went down the slide, she loved it so much.
Going......

going ......

gone!!!

Next were the swings.

And more swings.

Saturday night, a fire going and a plate of chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers can mean only ONE thing - Helaina's first smores!

Oh yah, they were a hit.

Can we make these every night?

Hmmmmmmmm, gooooooood.

Outdoor fun with Heidi while Daddy snowblows. We have had way too much snow already this season, but Helaina loves it. She still sings one her favorite songs from the Backyardigan's cartoon "I love snow, I love snow!"

Helaina got some dress-up shoes from Santa this year and she loves clomping around the house in them. Here she's modeling the pink poofy ones. Don't they look good with the grey warm-ups and socks?

Playdough is always fun, but its always a messy adventure - but who cares as long as she's having fun, right? This time she squashed a bunch of colors together, made a pie and cut it into a zillion crumbles. Now instead of pink, yellow and orange we now have 3 cans of multicolor! I got creative and made Pablo out of blue and yellow. I'm practicing for when I have to make a Pablo cake for her birthday next month. Daddy made a cute red dog but before I could get a picture of it, Helaina attacked it with her knife!!