Playing Dress Up

Another rainy day today. So David and Christiana from next door came over to play with Hannah in her room. They wanted me to take a picture once they were in their dress up clothes, and I also got a couple shots of the big Candyland game.







And, of course, the obligatory cute kid and puppy photo (Hannah with Melvin):

More Pictures from Preschool

Here are some more pictures of the Preschool "end of the year" party:

Hannah and Cassidy:



Some photos of Hannah with the teachers:

Hannah with Mrs. Diehl:


Hannah with Ms. Fox:


Hannah, Cassidy and Logan with Mrs. Murray:

Rainy Sunday

Today started out sunny and warm, so Lindsey really got a lot of work done in the yard...he's destroying the weeds that are slowly taking over. Also he did a poop patrol out there. It's amazing how much two puppies can poop! And in case you were
wondering, there is really no point in having nice landscaping if you're going to have Labs. Mel is now 32.5 pounds and Jazz is 27.8 pounds, and they're only 2 and a half months old - I'm still thinking they're going to be pretty big as adults. We bought "Marley and Me" yesterday and watched it last night. I was a mess when it was done - I think it really brought back the memories of when Molly and Abby died. It's amazing how attached you can get to these little creatures!

This afternoon we went shopping for some shoes for Hannah and summer clothes for me. After lunch the weather turned kind of nasty - rainy and cooler. Good thing we never really have big plans for holiday weekends! I took a couple of pictures of Hannah and Lindsey at Border's and when we took a break for a drink in the food court. I read off some of the menu choices to Hannah at Orange Julius and asked her if she wanted an Orange Julius, Berry Julius or Pina Colada Julius. She thought about it and then told me, in all seriousness, that she wanted a "Penis Coladus". After we recovered and stopped laughing, I told her the right way to pronounce it.

End of Preschool

Yes, Hannah is finished with Preschool, and next year she will be in Kindergarten. I know it's a cliche, but I really can't believe it! Remember the words from that song, "Turn around and you're two, turn around and you're four, turn around and you're a young girl going out of the door."

They had their end of year program at Hannah's preschool on Thursday, followed by an ice cream social. I took a video with my digital camera of a couple of their songs. It's not the greatest quality - sorry! I'm also posting some pictures taken at the ice cream social. My camera batteries decided to die right in the middle of the ice cream social, so Cassidy's mom (Cassidy is Hannah's best friend at preschool) promised to email me copies of some of her photos. We intend to get Cassidy and Hannah (and some of the other girls) together over the summer for swimming and play dates. Hannah and Cassidy have been together for two years in preschool, but they won't be going to the same school next year. They're all really sweet girls, not a stinker in the bunch!

Cassidy, Hannah and Chloe:


All the girls in Hannah's class:


Video: "The No Song" (accompanied by They Might Be Giants), followed by the three year old class singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" (doesn't include Hannah, but added due to cuteness...and notice, they all have bluebirds on their shoulders, just like the song says).

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One of the things Hannah made for the end of the school year was a little "All About Me" booklet. Here are some of the answers she gave to some questions:

Favorite Restaurant:
"Chik-Fil-A"

What do you want to be when you grow up:
"A waitress"

What is your favorite thing your Mom cooks:
"Banana bread"

What is your favorite thing your Dad cooks:
"Popcorn with butter"

What is your favorite thing to do with your Mom:
"Spend time with me"

What is your favorite thing to do with your Dad:
"Listen to jazz music"

Chinese School Picnic

Sunday was the end of the year picnic for Chinese School. Hannah had a great time playing with all the kids. She got an A+ for the year. Her teacher said she was doing great in speaking and understanding Chinese, but writing characters was hard for her. Join the club, Hannah! Writing characters is the hardest part about learning Chinese. Hannah can actually read Chinese better than she can read English - at her level, it's just memorizing the character. So she can easily read the words for mommy, daddy, and other family members. She doesn't find the pronunciation particularly hard, either - even the tones. She has trouble writing English letters too, so I guess we will be practicing that over the summer. She does great in identifying letters and reading simple words.

As far as my progress in Chinese, I'm doing well, but I have resigned myself to studying Chinese forever! It's just not the same as French and Spanish, and I don't know if I'll ever be fluent.

Hannah with her Chinese teacher:


Hannah eating an eggroll:


A video of Hannah (in the blue top and jeans) and her friends trying to ride the merry-go-round at the park:

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Temple Preschool Shabbat Dinner

Friday night, Temple Shalom preschool (where Hannah has been going on Fridays) had their end of year Shabbat Dinner. The kids sang the blessings for lighting the Shabbat candles and "helped" the principal light the candles. Very cute! I got a video of that. The kids all decorated their own yarmulkes for the dinner. Hannah got a certificate for "graduating" from the preschool. She and her friend Nate are the oldest kids and the only ones going on to Kindergarten next year, so they had to do something to commemorate it. I'm glad they didn't wear caps and gowns!

I don't think we'll be putting Hannah in Sunday School at the Temple this year. She'll have enough to do getting used to Kindergarten five days a week. They have a nice program, but Lindsey has PTSD or something from going to Sunday School there as a kid - to hear him talk, they made the kids swallow nails or something!

After the dinner Hannah and I stayed for the Friday night service, but she really conked out about halfway through, so we ended up leaving early. She didn't get her nap yesterday! She's in that transition time between napping every day and "I don't need a nap!", so most of the time she conks out after dinner. I can't wait to get past this "transition". I don't get it - I LOVE to take naps, what's her problem?

Hannah and friends before the service:


Lighting the Shabbat candles (sorry, you get to hear my singing along):

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Hannah and Daddy with some of Hannah's artwork:


Hannah getting her certificate:

Hannah and the Puppies

Here are some pictures and a short video of Hannah with the dogs. I took these a few days ago.

The first three are all of Hannah and Melvin. Mel wasn't too into posing for a photo op with Hannah, so I decided to post all three pictures I took of the two of them, including the one after Mel decided he had had enough (in that split second between the time I clicked and the time the camera actually took the picture).






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Hannah and David

Well, the weather cleared up a bit. It's cloudy and cool but it's not raining anymore, so Hannah and her friend David from next door are outside playing on the deck. Unfortunately David and his family will be moving away in a few weeks, and I know Hannah will miss them all (there are six other kids in the family besides David). They're only moving a few miles away, but it will be too far for them to just go next door to play every day.

Hannah just asked me to take pictures of them:




And here's a video:


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Hannah's Pictures! 妹妹的画！

这是一些妹妹的画。
第一是妈妈，丽萍阿姨，和妹妹。
第二是妹妹唱歌。
第三是妹妹，爸爸，妈妈，和我们的两只小狗。






OK, I hope that says in Chinese what I wanted it to say, which is:
These are some of Hannah's (Mei-Mei's) drawings. The first one is Mommy, Lì Píng āyí (Auntie Li Ping, Hannah's foster mom) and Hannah. The second one is Hannah singing. The third one is Hannah, Daddy, Mommy and our two puppies.

I wanted to try to write a little in Chinese because I want Hannah's āyí (auntie) to understand some of the blog. And I want to practice my Chinese. If you speak Chinese and you want to make corrections, please do so in the comments. But be kind!

Today is a yucky day out, so Hannah and I will be playing indoors. Well, Hannah will be playing, anyway! Tomorrow is Hannah's "un-birthday party" at preschool (birthday for those kids whose birthdays are in the summer), so we have to make some cupcakes today to bring to school. Devil's food with chocolate icing...and sprinkles, of course - you have to have sprinkles!

Tomorrow night Lindsey and I are going to a Kindergarten information meeting at Hannah's school for next year. I can't believe it - Kindergarten! But she actually is old enough (she'll be five this summer), and she certainly seems ready socially. And her teachers all say she knows how to listen, take turns and focus on what she's doing. That comes as a bit of a surprise to anyone who knows her outside of school, especially the "listening" part! But really she does - she just already knows how to listen selectively! As in "not when Mom wants me to do something I don't want to do".

The puppies are still having trouble figuring out where they are supposed to go potty. So now they are confined to the living room if we are in there, and to their kennels or outside if we're not in the living room with them. They are getting so big - Mel weighs 26.8 pounds and Jazz weighs 24.5 - that it's easy to forget they're still babies. They will be 13 weeks old tomorrow! Here's a picture I took of them sleeping outside the door on the deck. They love to sleep all curled up together - I wonder if they will still do that when they're adults? As you can see, the glass is filthy - I actually did clean it only a couple weeks ago, but puppy paws can really mess up a sliding glass door! In the picture, they are actually just waking up. They had been sleeping peacefully for a while, and only when I aimed the camera at them did they start to wake up.

Happy Mother's Day!

Hannah was so excited about Mother's Day this morning, she kept going in our bedroom and waking up Lindsey, even before he was quite ready to be up. I told her I couldn't open my presents until Daddy was out of bed. (Hannah wakes up every morning at 6:00 AM, and doesn't see any reason to let the fact that it's Sunday get in her way!)

Once Daddy was up, Hannah FINALLY got to give me her Mother's Day gift...it was a little paper cup with grass planted in it, and a face attached to the front, so it looked like a guy with green hair. (You have to see it to appreciate it.) She also gave me some marigolds in a mug that she planted at Shabbat preschool on Friday. And from Hannah AND Lindsey, I got a gift certificate for a whole day at Mateo's day spa: massage or salt glow, facial, "spa lunch" (whatever that is), manicure & pedicure...actually I can get whatever I want as long as it falls in the same price range. I can't wait for a whole day of pampering!

Hannah and I both had our customary Sunday nap (I always take a nap on Sundays because I get my Avonex shot every Saturday night and I need the sleep). And then we went to Texas Roadhouse for an early Mother's Day dinner....yum, yum!! I took a couple of pictures and a video when we stopped by a park to let the puppies go potty and let Hannah play on the swings.

What a great day...I love my family! I must have the best family in the world. I know everybody says that, but in my case it's true!



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Muffin Party at Preschool

Today Hannah's Friday preschool (at Temple Shalom) had a special muffin party to celebrate Mother's Day. All the mothers got to come and have muffins with the kids, AND we all got Mother's Day presents!

Here are Hannah and her friend Finn at the muffin party. One is an actual photo, the other is an artist's rendering (Hannah's) of Hannah and Finn:

It's a Sunshine Day

It was a beautiful afternoon yesterday. It felt more like summer than spring, the sun was shining and the temperature was in the 70's. Lindsey called and suggested that he leave work early and we have a family outing. Actually, we wanted to go to the Zoo, but Lindsey couldn't leave before 3:00 and the last entrance to the Zoo is 4:00. So we decided to just take the dogs and Hannah to Manitou Springs, which is a great little town nearby.

First we took a short walk with the dogs by Bear Creek, and Mel was trying so hard to lean down and get a drink from the creek that he fell in! Then we walked through Manitou with the dogs. Lindsey has always said that puppies are "chick magnets", and sure enough, as he was getting the dogs out of the car and on the leashes a pretty young woman came up and "oooh'd" and "aaah'd" and wanted to pet the pups. Poor Lindsey, he finally has one of those fabled "chick magnet", and he's with his wife and daughter! Timing is everything, I guess.

After Manitou we went to Front Range Barbeque for dinner. It's a great restaurant that has outdoor seating and welcomes dogs. We'd love to be able to bring these dogs to outdoor restaurants and relax with them, instead of wondering if they're OK in the car or at home. I think eventually they will be pretty good at this, but Mel, as I've said before, is a very vocal dog, and he started barking. Not because he's sad or mad or wants to chase something. He just barks. (We're going to have to work on that one!) So we decided to take them back to the car, which was parked in the shade. We didn't want to wait until the other restaurant patrons were really annoyed with us. People around here are really tolerant when it comes to thinks like that, though. Colorado is a "live and let live" kind of place, and it's full of dog lovers. It's turning out to be another beautiful day today...what should Hannah and I do when she gets home from school??

Here are some more pictures, starting with Mel and Jazz just before Mel fell into Bear Creek:

Hannah and Aunt Sharon

This is an old video (from last Thanksgiving), but I think it's really cute. Also I was having a lot of trouble posting videos here until I finally figured it out! So I may be posting some old videos from time to time.

We managed to visit quite a few people around Thanksgiving time before Lindsey was temporarily felled by pneumonia - including my sister Sharon in Ann Arbor, Michigan.


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Hannah and Jenna at Red Robin

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Puppy School and Dance School

The dogs (and the three humans) have been in puppy school every Saturday. Just learning some basic commands (sit, walking on a loose leash), nothing fancy yet. We are doing "clicker" training. (For those former Catholic school kids out there, the clickers we use are exactly like the ones the nuns used to use in church - when we lined up next to the pews before we entered the pew and knelt down, and the nuns had to "click" to let us know when to genuflect so we could all do it in perfect unison.) Well, with clicker training, the idea is to "pair" the click with a treat, so the dogs always know when the hear the "click", they will get a treat. Then eventually, we should just be able to "click" when they are doing well, so we won't overload them on treats.

At first, we were amazed at how smart Jazz was (she learned to "sit" on command the very first time I tried it, and has been doing it perfectly ever since), and how poor Melvin was kinda dumb. But this past Saturday, Mel really did well in class. So maybe he won't be the slowest one in the class, after all. He is definitely a sweet dog. Hannah and I took the dogs to the vet this morning to get more shots. Mel was such a baby, when they took his temperature, he started whining and crying. I'm sure it's not fun to have a thermometer stuck up their butts, but Jazz was as calm as can be. I think Mel is going to be our sweet, sensitive, dumb dog, and Jazz will be clever. She can be sweet, too, of course, but Mel would be content to just lie on the couch with his head in our laps forever, and Jazz will do it for a while, and then she sort of says, "OK, that's enough," and gets down. For Mel, it's never enough! At the vet appointment today we found out that Mel now weighs 24.8 pounds and Jazz weighs 21.6. Three weeks ago Mel weighed 18.3 and Jazz weighed 15. I think they are going to be big dogs!

Housetraining is going slow, but they're catching on, and so are we. Last night they both pooped right near the front door. But before each of them did it, I think they tried to tell me. Mel was lying on the floor and just started whining for no reason. Then he walked off and did it. I put Mel out and cleaned it up. About a half hour later Jazz came right up to where I was sitting and just sat in front of me gazing at me. Then she went off and did it. Just goes to show we really need to learn their signals! Training is not just for the dogs - most of the training is for the people!

Hannah is enjoying the dogs, but she really wants to take them for a walk, and it's hard for her. Even as puppies, they're hard for her to control. We bought these Gentle Leader harness things to put on them to make it easier to control them, so maybe that will help her. She loves to give them dog biscuits but hates when they get too excited and snap at her fingers when they take the treats.

Saturday Hannah had dance class, as usual. They are practicing their dance for the recital and it should be pretty cute. After class we went out to lunch at Red Robin with little Jenna and her parents. Jenna is almost a year younger than Hannah, but they play well together. Here are some pictures, and a short video: