Monday, February 11, 2008

We Had A Great Time Celebrating Chinese New Year

We attended an exciting Chinese New Year celebration this weekend to kick off the Year of the Rat. It was hosted by our local Families With Children From China program and the Asian Children Mentoring Program at the University of Georgia. I had a good time seeing many of my friends from China and dressing up in some traditional Mandarin attire. Mama, Baba and Xavier were there too and had lots of fun.

Xavier and I took a moment to allow Mama to take some pictures of us in front of the dragon decorations.

OK, I'm already bored with this. Please let me get up and join in the festivities!!!! There are all sorts of things to do: arts and crafts, face painting, dancing, and games to play.

The decorations included dragons, beautiful flowers, lots of gold coins and oranges - all symbolic of prosperity and blessings in the new year.

Xavier had a great time with some of the UGA Asian Mentors who were teaching him how to play with this Asian toy.

Xavier did a great job learning how to get this thing moving!

Some of the mentors did face painting. I didn't know what to think about this at first.

But after I saw another little girl get her face painted, I decided to do it. I wanted a nice red heart on my face. Baba helped me keep really still while Xavier watched.

This is one of my friends who is pretty close to my age. He came to America from China last year.

The mentors put up a sign that had the word "love" written in several Asian languages. The second one from the left is "ai" which means "love" in Mandarin.

We had a lot of fun dancing and playing with one another on the stage. I am on the far right seriously investigating some balloons (yes, I have a fascination with them).

I am just taking in some of the festivities and watching everyone dancing on the stage. The Asian Mentors brought some excellent music for us!

I've got some balloons!!!!!!!!

What does that girl have? A microphone! Ooh, we all want to take a turn with that.

It's almost my turn at the microphone! What should I say?

We are intrigued by this thing!

See my red envelope full of gold coins?

The Asian Mentors seemed to have a great time playing with us. I can't wait until my mentor is assigned to me! It's a wonderful way to help those of us to keep our birth culture fresh in our minds. It's like a "Big Brothers/Big Sisters" especially for Asian children!

I was so tired after all this activity, I fell asleep the moment we returned home. Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Toddler In Motion

Mommy had a great idea - taking pictures of me to show how fast and how much a toddler can move around while she is trying to take pictures of me! So these pictures really require no captions. This is a nice sample of what a todder does in about 2 minutes' time. Oh, and thank you Mimi for these PJs! You sent them to me before our trip to China in 2006, and they finally fit me perfectly!










Check back in a couple of days for new pictures of me and one of our kitties, Mr. Bandit. Oh, and our big Chinese New Year celebration is coming up this Saturday! Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Sunday, February 3, 2008

More Pictures From My Birthday Weekend

After my birthday party was over on Saturday, I still was able to spend Saturday night and then most of Sunday with our guests - Xavier, Pop Pop, Grandma and Doe. It was a lot of fun. Sunday morning, I spent a lot of time learning how to take good care of my baby dolls. Grandma is watching me give my baby some milk while she sits in her stroller. I get very focused when I am doing this!

This baby doll actually cries and asks for her "Mama" (which is me). Every time she cries, I put her up to my chest just like my Mama does to me, and like Grandma did to her.

There, there baby. It will be OK. Mama will make it all better.

I also decided to take my new baby (unnamed at this point) to ride with me on my Inchworm. She really had a good time, and so did I!


I really had a great time playing with the helium-filled balloons that were from my birthday party. I have always had a fascination with balloons.

I especially enjoyed spending time with my ge ge (that's "big brother" in Mandarin), Xavier. He is so fun to play with.

Well, that's it for the pictures from Sunday. Mama has more to post at a later time. Upcoming posts will include: "Mei-Ling & Bandit" and one Mama calls "Toddler In Motion." And then we'll have even more from our Chinese New Year celebration which is taking place on Saturday, February 9th. Gung hay fat choy!