Summer Feasts and Fun

OMG, can't believe it's been since April that we posted! Hopefully, someone is still looking... Laina is growing up so fast. This age, from 3-4 is so very much fun. She has an infinite imagination and it is so fun to see what she comes up with. When she says, "I have an idea...", everyone listens. Here is a photo of one of her more unusual napping places, right smack dab in the middle of the sliding doorway to our deck. She was so cute that no one minded. I woke her up one morning recently and her first words were.."you are wrecking my stew.." She was cooking in her dream. We had her Aunt Kathy and Uncle Tom for a visit and we enjoyed a great Lobster Feast, complete with corn on the cob and freshly caught striped bass, coleslaw and blueberry-peach pie for dessert. YUM. Laina eats her own lobster, and loves all seafood. She and Kathy had a "Mad Face" competition, not sure who won, but here's one of Laina's.(I won't post Kathy's because she is my big sister and well, her mad face can still scare me) We also had a nice visit with Grandma and Grampa and we went with them to a "Reptile and Bird World" that everyone enjoyed. Laina got to pet some baby owls. And of course, we went to the 4th of July Parade and Laina had a terrific time.This year, she brought her butterfly net to catch the candy and stuff that they throw from the floats, it worked out great. They would all aim for her net. Here's our annual photo of Laina with our dear friend Nancy. We are all having a good summer so far and the fun isn't over yet. In August we have our China Reunion, more family visits and an actual vacation to Maine for a few days. We'll take lots of pictures!

Catching Up

I'll try and tell you about some of the hightlights of our life with Laina from the past couple of months. In March, our good friends, Kristin and Brian welcomed their beautiful daughter, Alice Anne to the world. Laina went with us to visit. After she inspected the baby's tiny body parts, she asked,"Does she talk?" I said no, not yet. "Does she walk?", no, not yet Honey. Then she turned to the grownups in the room and said "Can somebody handle this baby so Mommy can go outside?". I guess the baby isn't too exciting yet! Laina is a Big Girl now, totally potty-trained. She just decided one day to wear underpants and hasn't had an accident yet. One time she went and sat on the potty but decided she didn't have to go after all. I said "False Alarm". A few weeks later, she went in and came out quickly and said to me, "Just an alarm clock Mommy." We went on an early spring beach walk and Laina found some cool caves to climb into under the cliffs. She also has learned to ride her trike this year. She finally had her first haircut in March, it has grown in beautifully and she loves to have braids and hairdos, although it is hard to sit still for them. I went to dress her one day in some brown leggings and she asked what she had done wrong. Apparently, wearing brown is a punishment to her! She also informed me that she needs more dresses. One day I was playing with her and she wanted me to wear dressups. Of course, I don't fit hers so I was putting on tiarras and beads, etc. Well, she said "wait her Mommy" and went to my bedroom closet and grabbed my bright purple dress and came back to the living room with her hands on her hips, saying "WHERE are your high heels?". I don't really have any, she couldn't believe it! We had a fun Easter, Laina decorated eggs and we all went to a really fun Potluck Brunch and Easter egg Hunt. Laina wore her high heels and a beautiful hand-knit purple cape from our friend Anne, and some cool sunglasses. She even brought extra shoes to change into from time to time. It was quite a fashion show. One evening, she was carefully folding things and putting them into a little lunchbox. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "I am going on a trip to Hyannis and this is my suitcase." Inside she had all the perfect things, a dress, some underpants, a toy cell phone, some jewelry and a big magnet in the shape of lips. She had on a ballerina dress, some high heels and sunglasses. All of her pretend trips are either to Hyannis, New England or Australia or China. She recently was given a beautiful "Madeline" doll house from our friend Holly and her daughters(Thank you so much!) She loves it and so now we are changing teeny doll clothes and serving teeny cookies on teeny plates and talking in teeny voices....I have lots of photos, so here's a nice spread of pictures for you.

Chef Laina

Like most parents, we fantasize about what our daughter will be when she grows up. When we ask Laina, she has a different answer each time. Recently I asked her and she said a "Restaurant Lady", she has been enjoying anything that has to do with cooking(and eating!). Here is a photo of her first 'meatball lesson' with Daddy and another one of her making play dough pastries. She has incredible endurance when playing with play dough as you can see, she has a lineup of plates and is even pretending to use a tool from her doctor kit to decorate with. Tea parties are a regular event and always have been, in this photo she has invited Nick, our kitty, to have some milk which he was happy about. I also have a cute photo of her carrying wood in for our wood stove, she was so very proud to be able to lift 3 at once. Another is of her with her new baby doll.
Lately she has been talking about China little bit. A woman at a store recently asked her her name and she said "Laina, but my China name is Lai Fu Na". She often says to me when I am kissing her goodnight, "China kids are in the day now and I am going to sleep, and when I have wake-up time they go to bed". I showed her a nice photo book about her province and we saw some beautiful ladies and she said "I look like them, I am beautiful too, right Mommy?" I agreed wholeheartedly! She has finally made a breakthough with her potty training and has worn undies(Princess ones of course!) all of this week, except for sleeping. Yippee!!

OOh look at her

Here we are again at last. I find it very difficult to keep up the blog right now, Laina is so fast and independent. She won't let me take her picture if she doesn't feel like it, and the photo opportunities are trumped by my need to watch her. Here is a cute photo of her with her Grampa at Christmas, relaxing on the couch. She adores him and especially likes when he reads her stories. Another one is of her with a new Birthday Cake toy she loves, wearing a new nightie, both from her Auntie Pam and Uncle Paul. Another is of her with her new "puter" from Santa and wearing another new nightie that Grandma made. This one she has been putting on after school just to hang around and be comfy, she likes to twirl in it too.I somehow ended up with a "girlie Girl"; I am a woman who lives in jeans and sweatshirts and works as a housepainter. The last one is of her in some dress-ups, very sparkly. I try and remember funny things she says, there are so many everyday. I recently had my appendix out and tried to simplify my explanation to her but she was still wondering about it a few days later. She said "Mommy, did the doctor take out your stomach?" I said No, of course not Honey. I really need that to eat. Then she said "Did he take out your heart?" I said "OH no, sweetie, just the appendix which I didn't need." Then she finished with "Then you still love me and we can get some chocolate, right?" WOW, she really has a way of working things out. Her mind is on overtime and we really have to stay alert to avoid being tricked by her roundabout ways to get what she wants. Her ego is very healthy too. She gets all dressed up and then asks if we will say "Ooh, look at her!She must be a Princess, for real!" when she walks by. She also asks us to say "Bravo!" when she does a pretend show or a trick. I guess all 3 year olds are self-centered though so we are not worrying....yet.

Monkey Business

We are here, we are here! What can I say? Laina keeps us busy and life in general just seems to fly by so quickly. I find it difficult to spend time at the computer. Laina is a lot of fun at three years old, she has an extremely active imagination, it's hard to keep up. She invents a lot of things and we really have to try and remember them, because she does and they come up in our everyday play. For instance, she starts all her pretend games with "How about..., one day she said "How about you see a Hatzig bird", and I replied "What's a Hatzig bird?, her answer was "Hatzig birds are born with hats on so it is fun to see them and their different hats". A cool concept. This was about a month ago, and this morning she said, "Mommy, how about some Hatzig birds are lost and want to come in our house and live with us.." You really have to pay attention! She was a very cute monkey on Halloween, so there's a picture of her in her monkey hat. She helped her dad make applesauce, and of course wore her kitchen clothes...dressups are very important these days. There's another photo of her just hanging out in her favorite dancing attire. I am also including one of her with her training chopsticks, showing us that she can pick up a single pea, and another of her hiding in a recycling bag. One evening I heard Jimmy laughing to himself and asked him what was so funny. He just pointed and there on the telephone table was Laina's Little Mermaid phone, in our phone charger! It wasn't beeping very well and I had told her earlier in the day that it probably was running out of batteries. She obviously "gets it ". That's all for now, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Flower Girl

This post is one of 2 I intend to post today. Our neice, Sarah, recently got married and asked Laina to be the Flower Girl. She was very proud and excited to do it. I helped her prepare by telling her about her "Princess" dress and how special she will be to be in the wedding party.It was all I could do to keep her clean for the hour before the ceremony that they were taking pictures of the bride, her and the bridesmaids. There was a frog pond and she so-o-o wanted to pick one up. They gave her a "magic wand" made of real flowers and glitter and she walked down the aisle with her cousin, Jacob, who is just a little older and was the Ring Bearer. They held hands and rang all the bells and whistles on the Cute-ometer! The Groom and Ushers wore kilts, as did Jacob, which made him even cuter. Laina felt so important that when thy were giving the vows she stood RIGHT THERE and couldn't be cajoled back to us. She turned around and wagged her finger and whispered "No, Daddy, they're getting married!" and pointed to them. She wanted to hear every word. At the Reception, she was anxious to dance and kept asking me, "when can we dance? Can we dance now? ", eventually of course, they let us and she started by trying a slow dance with Jake. She held him tight but he kept his arms straight down, I think she was a little too enthusiastic! And then, "Mommy, I need to take off this hairband, and these shoes, and these tights, so I can DANCE! Oh, and can I change into a dancing dress?", she was so funny. I luckily had predicted this and had another, loose dress so she could show off all her moves. She and her Dad really rocked the house and I have a funny picture of them, standing in front of the fans, cooling off. All in all, she was a beautiful Flower Girl and a good girl and we all had a fantastic time. Congratulations to Sarah and Bill! And special thanks to John and Betsy for sharing their photos with me.

Happy Third Birthday

Laina just turned 3 years old on August 12, it's hard to believe.She woke up that day and looked at her self and then said "Look Mommy, I'm enormous!" Yesterday she got out of bed and went to the potty by herself, she wants to choose all her clothes, and is basically wanting to do everything all by herself all the time. It's a challenge to encourage her but at the same time educate her on how things should be done. I have a lot of photos, we had a fun backyard party for her on Saturday the 15th and invited about 10 other toddlers. They had a great time in our 2 kiddie pools. We also had cupcakes at home on the 12th and gave her a new tricycle. She got a cool "make your own "saxaphone game from our friends, Robin and Hollis and she and Jimmy had fun making a double one.We had a lobster Feast and I have a picture of her with her Uncle Paul. There's a funny picture of her in a very small plastic bowl that I had given to her to play with on a hot day out on the deck. I found her sitting in it and then jumping out and sitting on the deck. When I asked her what she was doing, she said "making butt prints". Sure enough, there were some cute little, heart-shaped butt marks.She even got everyone to play this game at the Day Care. We also recently went to a Fair and took a couple of pictures of her on some rides with her friend, Ivy. There's a shot of her trying on some grownup sunglasses and maybe more...

Laina Marie-About to be 3

Hi everyone; We are still here, just busy busy. We are having a fun summer,the weather finally feels right. Laina is so very busy, it is exhausting just watching her. She is climbing everywhere, learning to skip and gallop. She has to do everything herself, like pick out her clothes and getting into her car seat, etc. We are constantly challenged by her unique ideas for playing pretend. I recently had to be a "scorpion named Jose', a zebra who lives under water and a carrot that talks when somebody tries to pick it. I am posting a bunch of photos for you: Laina and her Day Caregiver, Nancy at Fourth of July, a tea party with her little friend Brooklyn, painting at her easel, crabbing with Daddy, posing with both of us before going to a wedding, and riding on a boogie board. Maybe even more! Her third birthday is next wednesday and we'll be having a kids' party next weekend. We are doing kiddie pools, bubbles and water play. Laina can entertain herself with our hose for a whole afternoon lately. Last year she wanted nothing to do with the water so that's a new world for her. She blows bubbles and tries to swim in the tub or pool too. We are still working on potty training, getting rid of the pacifier, and big-girl manners. She has told me that she wants a big-girl bed now. She also informed me the other day that "I don't want to be an animal doctor anymore, I want to be a fairy". I told her that maybe she could be both, heal the animals with her wand...not sure about the fairy business, but a magic wand could sure come in handy!