Chinese New Year Celebrations

February 1st through the 15th was the official Chinese New Year celebration and although we don't make a big deal about it here at home, because we only think of Olivia as an American, her class happened to be studying China and emperors and palaces. Olivia's teacher asked me if I had any items from China that I could share so I ended up bringing in a whole table full of things and had to give a couple small talks to Olivia's class and to some of the older kids also. It was fun to dig out these souvenirs and treasures that I had kind of forgotten about.




Olivia's teacher pursued this more and found interesting facts on the Internet and discovered the current new year celebrations and decided it would be fun to incorporate that into the classroom and teaching. So, she made lanterns with the class one day and I made parade dragons with them another day. On Wednesday, which is also the day the playgroup meets, we joined the Kindergarten, First Grade and the playgroup and had a huge Chinese New Year parade in the gym. Everyone had something to carry and the kids thought it was very exciting and had a great time.




Olivia knows we came to China to get her when she was a baby but has not pursued too many more facts or questions about any details yet. She is just a happy American kid and loves to have parties/celebrations/parades, etc. no matter what the occasion is.

Valentine 2011 Celebrations

We had a great weekend celebrating Valentines Day and the new warmer weather that has finally come back to us.

Sunday after church we had a surprise visit from Aunt Lynn, Uncle Jody and Olivia's beloved cousins Kate and Scott. Since Grandma and Grandpa happened to be on the road when we talked to them we had them swing by to stop and join our visit too. We had a really nice impromptu visit the rest of the afternoon and Olivia got to play with two of her favorite cousins AND see Grandma and Grandpa.




On Monday her class had their Valentines party so she had a great time. They exchanged Valentines and pigged out on snacks and treats. After that she came home and crashed in the afternoon since it was a busy morning and she had also skipped her nap on Sunday.



Monday night I made our favorite lasagna and we had a nice quiet dinner at home with salads, fresh french bread, a little Chianti and of course fancy heart shaped decorated cookies for dessert.




HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!


(Even Gizmo had to get his little face on the last picture if you look close)

School Days, Snow Days, Sick Days

That's just how this week has gone. I guess when kids go to school you have to expect that all kinds of sicknesses are going to constantly be going around.

Over the weekend Olivia had the stomach flu come up (literally) all of a sudden with really no warning on Saturday. She was much better on Sunday and was able to go to school on Monday. By Tuesday, when her school had a two hour delay, the preschool was cancelled and I was sooooo glad since the stomach flu was hitting me by 11:00 am. Jenny came home in tears after having the stomach flu in her school and Olivia was starting to develop a cough. Steve came home from work early to help us and he had his hands full running back and forth from bathrooms to bedrooms. Wednesday, thankfully, turned out to be a big blizzard snow day where we all stayed home and rested.

By this time Olivia's cough had gotten progressively worse so we decided to get her into the Dr. and I'm glad we didn't wait because we were able to get an antibiotic going right away. A negative test came back for influenza but he did hear a rattle in her right lung and decided to call it a "walking pneumonia". So I kept her home to stay warm and quiet for the remainder of the week and she has the weekend to rest and stay home also. Her cough is getting a little better each day so hopefully we can get back into the school routine next week.

She is enjoying spending her days at home with me watching her cartoons and movies and playing. The better she feels the more she wants to play and if she gets too excited she goes into coughing fits so she needs lots of rest to get over this. One more dose of medicine and hopefully this will turn around soon.