4 ... years ... old, oh my

Helaina's 4 and I can't believe it. Where the heck did the last 2 years go? I'm all sentimental and Helaina's thrilled that she's growing up. "I 4 now. I not 3 any more. Now I 4." Yup, it's true. Four of Helaina's gifts were a huge hit - the Barbie bike, the Disney princess dress-up dress, the Cinderella tiarra and the ruby red slippers. As she posed for this picture she declared "I a princess now." You always have been, sweetie.

She put her birthday balloons in the bike basket and off she went. She must have done the loop around our kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway about 150 times already. Absolutely loves the bike.

The gifts - before and after.

Check out that smile as she checked out her Cinderella tiarra.

I was so excited to see her open the red glitter shoes. She opened the box, took the shoes out and whispered "ruby red slippers, like Dorothy". They've been on her feet ever since.

After opening her presents we took her to the bounce house. You simply must bounce for 2 hours on your 4th birthday.

At home there was more bike riding with Suri in her basket, pedaling fast as she can with her Dorothy shoes on. Watch out Heidi.

Helaina took a 90 minute nap this afternoon and woke up refreshed. She's got such a memory. "We go to Tulley's for dinner now?" Yup, sporting her Otto the Orange Syracuse shirt and orange hair twisties because of the Villanova game tonight. I told the waitress that today was Helaina's birthday so they all came out clapping, singing and gave her a dish of ice cream with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. This picture was when she realized all the clapping, singing and noise was headed her way.

Very pleased with her special treat, then a game of air hockey with Josh before we left.

At home, ice cream cake for an official celebration. Helaina had to put her princess dress on over her Otto shirt - such a fashion statement.

Blowing out the candles, then yum.

Helaina was beat tonight (we were too). Her head hit the Barbie pillowcase in her comfy bed and we didn't hear a peep out of her on the monitor. Sweet dreams, my little cupcake. Tomorrow is another day of partying.

Only in Central New York...

Only in Syracuse can you have a foot of snow in the driveway with a 4-foot wall of heavy wet snow at the bottom (thanks to the plows), and then less than 5 hours later ...

... a bare driveway. Jim spent almost an hour snowblowing this morning, most of the time spent trying to bust through the mountain of snow at the bottom of the driveway. When he finished there was still snow in the driveway but the temperature warmed up considerably, the sun came out full blast and melted the rest of it away. Amazing.

Pictures from yesterday while Jim was (what else), snowblowing the driveway. Guess what Helaina was singing while sitting on the trailer with snow and wind whipping around her? Over the Rainbow, of course.

Knee-deep.

When she was finished playing with her rakes and shovels she said to me "Get me dat soccer ball in garage." She thought it was funny to toss the ball up in the air and have it thump in the snow leaving a big hole.

Our baby, I mean toddler, I mean little girl ...

... I mean big girl. Yikes, I can't believe that Helaina will be 4 years old on Saturday. She's come such a long way (in more ways than one) since this first birthday celebration in China.

Every time I look at this picture I can't get over the cake. This must be when Helaina's frosting addiction started!

Let the partying begin. After lunch today we sat down at the kitchen table, dumped all the stuff out for the goody bags for her party at school on Friday and started assembling them. Helaina was very helpful. She would put one thing in a bag and then say "I have this?" No, these are for your friends at school. "If any leftover I have them?" The little negotiator. She was most interested in the balloons.

All set for Friday, bags for her friends and her favorite sprinkle cookies for the celebration. I wish we could send in homemade baked items but they have to be store-bought. Helaina's class has already had 2 birthdays in February with little individual cupcakes so I thought the cookies would be something different.

Helaina's extremely excited about her birthday. Anyone who will listen to her gets the same story: "My birfday in February. I turn 4 on my next birfday." as she holds up 4 fingers and sticks them in their face. The other day she said to me "I so excited it my birfday soon. Maybe I get that bike I like." We were in Toys R Us a while ago checking out what size bike she would need and she fell in love with a cute Barbie bike she saw. I was wondering how she'd do riding a big girl bike with training wheels and my question was answered immediately. She dragged it down, hopped on, rang the bell and was off riding through the aisles of the store with Jim tailing her yelling "Stop, slow down, be careful. This isn't the park, you know!" The bike has since been purchased, assembled and is hiding in the corner of our basement covered with several blankets. Can't wait to see the giant smile on her face Saturday morning when she sees it.

Any noodle will do

Everyone knows that Helaina is a HUGE fan of anything carbohydrate - spaghetti, noodles, lo mein, mac & cheese - any time, day or night (I asked her what she wanted for breakfast one day last week and she told me ramen noodles). She loves linguini with clam sauce and that's what we had for dinner tonight. She had 2 bowls of it loaded with chopped clams. It was amazing the way she was shoveling it in - you would have thought that she'd never eaten before. Slurp.

I put the serving bowl in front of her to take a funny picture and told her she didn't have to eat any more - just pretend. Yah, there's always room for more!

Chopsticks in China

Here's another video clip from our China adventure. This was taken in the restaurant at the Terra Cotta Warriors exhbit and was our 2nd full day with Helaina. The previous day she was still quiet and reserved but she woke up the next morning and we finally got a glilmpse of her personality - and we loved it. As usual, you can hear me laughing hysterically at her antics. We were seated at the table and as soon as the first course and chopsticks arrived, Helaina picked them up and started using them. It was so darn funny, but we thought everything she did was funny.

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Our future actress - audition tape!

Helaina continues to enjoy acting out scenes from the Wizard of Oz. Her latest favorite takes place at the end of the movie when the Wizard's hot air balloon takes off without Dorothy and Toto. After dinner the other night I was cleaning up the kitchen when Helaina dragged Jim off the couch, assigned him the part of Glinda the Good Witch and went at it. After acting out the scene 4 times with Jim I decided to leave the dirty dishes and grab the video camera. I lost count of how many times they did this - until Jim couldn't stand it anymore. I don't know what I like best - when Helaina says "Oh no, now I never go home. Scarecrow, what I do?" or when she's looking up at Jim (I mean Glinda) saying "You can help me? You can help me?" I know I say this all the time, but she absolutely cracks us up.

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Joshua continues to thinks that I turned Helaina into a Wizard of Oz junkie because it's my favorite movie, but it isn't true. She's been fascinated with the movie since the first time she watched it. It really is amazing that I had her room decorated with Wizard of Oz items before we even knew who our daughter would be. Funny how things work out. I will admit one thing - I do love that she loves my favorite movie!!!

Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year

Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year fell on the same date this year - Happy Year of the Tiger. Sunday morning after breakfast Helaina opened a few gifts. Her 4th birthday is in less than 2 weeks (and I'm still attempting to organize toys from Christmas) so we decided not to overdo it. Thought this picture of her hand reaching for a chocolate was funny!

Peeking into the box sent from Aunt Terry and Uncle Mike.

Yah, that's a look of delight after seeing who is on her t-shirt.

She loves her Wizard of Oz pillow and shirt.

A new pair of Disney princess light-up sneakers and Candyland - an appropriate game for Valentine's Day.

Jim and I agreed (but I guess I was the only one who agreed) that we wouldn't exchange lots of gifts this year for Valentine's Day. I gave him my usual orders - no flowers because they are overpriced, no jewelry because I don't need any more, and no candy because we don't want our dentally-challenged daughter eating the sugary stuff. Yah, like I've said in the past, nobody in our house listens to me. Helaina and I got flowers, candy and I got a new charm for my Pandora bracelent - an adorable little girl in piggy tails. Flowers, jewelry and candy - 3 out of 3, sigh.

Later in the afternoon we went to our local Chinese school's celebration. There was an hour-long program that included adorable children from the school doing various dances.

After the program we had some yummy food. Helaina was very hungry by that time so she dug right in and enjoyed the chicken on a stick and dumplings the most. There was also vegetable sushi, fried tofu, little mystery meatball type things, sesame balls and coconut cookies. Our keepsakes for Helaina's scrapbook include a couple of programs and a Year of the Tiger "red envelope" that had one yuan in it.

Helaina also got to play some games - beanbag toss, kicking a soccer ball, ring toss. She won tickets that she turned in for a prize. What prize did our daughter drive us absolutely CRAZY for? A green ring pop!

Let the Valentine's celebrations begin

Helaina's first Valentine's Day celebration was at school yesterday. The kids exchanged cards and had a special treat of cookies and cupcakes. When I asked Helaina if they had milk to drink with their cookies (they usually do), she exclaimed "No! We had Roaring Waters!" Roaring Waters is a flavored water juicebox that Helaina likes - bonus! Here she is all decked out in her hearts outfit for school.


At home with her stash from school that included cards, lollipops, pringles chips, gummies, mini M&Ms and Hershey bars. Of course, she picks up the Jolly Rancher lollipop and asks "I have this?" Yah, but we have to brush your teeth right after! What goes best with a lollipop? Sour cream & onion pringles, of course.

At speech on Friday Helaina got to read a special Valentine's Day story with her therapist and then made this giant refrigerator magnet.

This morning we headed downcity to a children's fun center set up as part of Winterfest. For $5 we got a bunch of tickets that Helaina could "spend" on various games. At first I didn't think it was worth the trip downtown but Helaina loved it. She selected a rainbow for her cheek (of course a rainbow, as in "somewhere over the rainbow").

Trying to toss a football through the snowman's tummy and rolling a block to match a color she selected. At each game she got to select a small prize - she came home with a whistle, kazoo, ring, tattoos, bracelet, princess wand and some other junk - oops, I mean treasures.

She selected a balloon bracelet at the balloon making station. It's actually quite cute.

Picking a duckie out of the tub (notice she rolled up her sleeve before diving in!) and penguin bowling. She was good at the bowling, knocking down 2 out of 3 penguin pins.

Ice fishing for a prize and her favorite, Pick a Sucker.

Resting on the couch after we got home, pretending to be asleep while holding the balloons we got her. We decided to give her the balloons a day early because she loves them so much (squeals of delight when we gave them to her). We went with Winnie the Pooh, Tinkerbell and Disney Princesses. When I asked her which balloon she liked the most she said "I like all them. I got 3 balloons. I lucky." Yah, Mommy and Daddy are lucky too.