round-like-a-circle painting

Since there was a wild snow storm and we were housebound all day today, we decided to do a little bit of painting. Baba has been asking for a painting for his work office wall for awhile now. So I gave Lilah four pots of paint and she got right to it. This painting is unlike any of the previous ones she's done, this one actually has some logic to it. While she was painting, she was rhyming to herself, "Round and round like a circle". And indeed she did paint a few (fairly recognizable) circles!

Needless to say Baba is very impressed with his piece of art, by our very own, Lilah van Gogh!

She's known some of her shapes for several months now and I take no credit for it. In fact the ever delightful Dora-the-Explorer has taught her all the shapes she currently knows, which are: Circle, Star, Triangle, Square and Diamond. She says rectangle, but I don't think she's quite figured out what shape it is yet.

first snow fall

It's beginning to look a lot like winter, here in Ottawa. Yesterday evening we got our first light coating of snow this season. And there's a bit more than a light coating due tomorrow, in fact they're calling it a 'big snowstorm', with up to 20cms of white fluff.

I guess the mild weather (we were experiencing ...and loving) could only last so long!

Anyway, it must be the nice ease into winter that has helped Lilah this year. I took her out last night to experience the first snowfall of the season and gave her the little snow shovel I bought her at the dollar store. She had so much fun. Can you believe it, she laughed so hard when I threw a snowball at her, aiming just for her jacket of course! She kept saying, "Do it again, do it again"! Funny girl. I think we're going to have a lot more fun this winter!

she cracks herself up

She loves making faces, she cracks herself up all the time!

[ more pictures here ]

christmas cards

Our Christmas Cards were all posted today. Check.

They're really lovely this year. Which isn't even a question since Lilah Grace is, well, gracing them! We took a stroll down to the Post Office and Lilah posted them, one by one. Did I mention there were seventy altogether?! A few hours and a bag of penny chews later, we arrived home! Oh yes, we went to Starbucks too and a few other shops! It's 5°C and raining here today, really mild weather for this time of year. Definitely no complaints here!

The hat and scarf was handmade with love by Aunt Marion. Lilah's first Christmas pressie.
[ all our pictures from today are here ]

i am who i was born to be

I asked my hubby last night for Susan Boyle's latest 'I Dreamed A Dream' CD for Christmas.

Have you heard of Susan Boyle? Silly question I guess! Some of the songs on this CD are absolutely amazing. My all time favourites are 'Who I Was Born To Be' and 'Amazing Grace'.

Her voice is just fabulous, it gives me goosebumps.

"i'm tross"

In a recent post I mentioned Lilah's 'Tross Face'. She's learning a lot of emotions at the moment. I must admit, even though she has books with emotions in them, it seems this development has only recently been realized by watching "Ni Hao Kai-Lan". At least, that's who I'm blaming! Not in a bad way though, I really like Kai-Lan's little 'life lesson' movies. Anyway, Lilah turned to me in the grocery isle about three weeks ago and said "I'm TROSS". Me, in a dumbfound voice says, "What? You're cross?". She immediately falls into laughter and I think to myself, this is the beginning of the end! Well, it has to be the funniest thing, she now does it all the time, puts on this cross face and says, I'm tross, meanwhile, underneath that cross face, she is just dying to burst into giggles. It cracks us up every time.

Now lets see if we can keep the cross thing as happy as it is right now! She's going to be so confused about emotions when this is all over. Welcome to my life!

Lilah also comes out with Kai-Lan's little saying now and again, 'you make my heart so happy', and it's the sweetest thing ever. On top of that she has caught onto Rintoo's 'tiger tiger ROAR". We hear a lot of roaring around our house at the moment!

two and a half

Wow, was it six months ago that we celebrated our girl's second birthday. It was indeed and our beautiful little two year old is now two and a half. She's been saying the half part now for over a week, don't even try and say JUST two now, you'll stand to be corrected!

Happy two and a half Lilah Grace. We love you so very very much our sweet girl, you're growing and growing and learning every day. It is truly precious to watch.

santa claus

To Lilah, he's a man called Santa. But more importantly, if you sit on his knee and smile really really nice, even if it's fake, he'll give you a sweetie! And he came through. Life is good.

Yesterday we met Colin for lunch at a local shopping mall. I had it in my mind that I would take Lilah to see Santa sometime in December, because really, who goes to see Santa in November?! Obviously nobody. He was sitting all by his lonesome self and gave Lilah a big wave as we were walking by, yep, he totally sucked us in. I didn't even have my own camera to get a few shots. Oh well, this one turned out as nice as we're going to get. Her fake smile even reached her eyes which is unusual, maybe it wasn't really fake or maybe the basket of red and white striped Candy Canes sitting close by helped!

Lilah told Santa she was going to "irnand at trismas see nono papie".

She was as brave as I knew she would be.

caterpillar eyebrows

I can still remember the first time we saw the frown, which seems like forever ago. We declared it 'The Caterpillar Eyebrow Look'. Those little eyebrows, all furrowed up and wrinkly. They get like that when she's concentrating, when something goes wrong and now when she's making her 'tross (cross) face'. They are so darn cute and I don't think she's going to lose them or that name any day soon!

animals of all kinds

I'm being a very proud Mama here and I apologize up front for it.

I bought Lilah a 54 pack of animal flash cards for her second birthday. They are for ages 4 and up and each card has lots of animal facts on the back that we aren't too bothered about right now. The cards were ignored for a long time, that was until about five weeks ago when I added the pack to her 'Church bag'. At which point they started getting a lot of attention! Lilah now knows 39 out of 54 animals. She recognizes them and can say each of their names. Amazing I say, amazing.

does know:
moose, kangaroo, alligator, birds, pig, giraffe, owl, butterfly, rabbit, ducks, cows, fish, sheep, penguins, spider, chickens, tiger, zebra, wolf, koalas, turtle, fox, monkey, elephant, bees, squirrel, panda, deer, ants, snake, camel, dogs, mouse, frog, horse, lions, bear, goat, cats.

the leftovers:
raccoon, octopus, dolphin, rhinoceros, jaguar, chipmunks, gorilla, toucan, skunk, whale, grasshoppers, armadillo, ostrich, seal, walrus.

panda pinafore

My fellow blogger and sweet friend Tiffany, passed this adorable little panda pinafore on to our little Lilah about a year ago. (It's hard to believe that this time last year we were gearing up for our travel to China.) Tiffany also sent me pictures of her absolutely beautiful daughter Lily, who is from the same orphanage as Lilah, to give to the staff at Yangdong SWI. Here and here are pictures of the staff excitedly looking through the beautiful scrapbook style card she sent. To say the staff were thrilled would have been an understatement. It was obvious from their excitement that they were just so happy to see Lily FeiFei growing up and so full of life!

So last week I pulled out the beautiful pinafore that was so kindly sent by this family, hoping it would fit. It's plain to see it does, it fits her just perfect, in fact, it's gorgeous on her - she suits red so well. Indeed, if I remember correctly, this little dress was made by red thread stitches, might I add, another excellent shop to spend your money in! Thank you so much Tiffany and family. I hope Lily and Ty are having a fabulous time with Mickey & Minnie Mouse right now!

[ more pictures here ]

our little foody

I don't think Lilah has ever turned down any food we've offered her. However, when we first met her in China she wasn't eating well because she was still drinking thickened milk formula, even though she was 18 months old. Obviously because of that she hadn't mastered the chewing and swallowing technique and the slightest lump made her gag. We've also had a few teething episodes since she came home and they were also times that she was totally thrown off her food. However, thankfully those days are long gone.

From the second she landed in Canada and for another ten long months Lilah had the same thing every morning for breakfast, Weetabix. Then early one morning about a month ago we decided to bring on a change. That change was porridge. I'm so glad she gets this healthy start to her day. I personally can't stomach porridge, but I'm truly thrilled that she loves it.

For lunch, she gets a variety of whatever is left over, however she ADORES noodles. She could eat them 'til the cows come home. Really loves them. Being the health nut that I am (not), I don't mind her eating noodles. I just add peas, sweetcorn and red pepper to make it colourful and the veggies also give it a healthy look! She also loves shepherds pie and pasta with sauce. I make a variety of sauces including curry, chili, garlic, etc. I generally add a little extra milk or cream to Lilah's, just to tone it down a notch.

Every day after lunch Lilah gets her special glass of 'nana juice'. I've been making a banana juice for her almost every day since the month of August. 'Nana Juice' consists of a glass of milk and a banana whizzed up in the blender. She REALLY loves it. In fact, just this past Monday she kept asking for more and more and more. I should have seen this coming, two glasses later she said to me, 'Belly hurts, tiss it'. So I being the ever loving Mama kissed her belly and then I saw it coming, we ran to the sink and she lost one of those glasses of banana juice, along with a few peas. Seriously, does anyone throw up without some kind of vegetable in there? Anyway, that was a first, she's never thrown up before. And literally within the minute after throwing up, she said "Feel better Mama". Phew! Now she warns me before I pour her banana juice, "Not too much Mama". Lesson learned - times two!

Just this week I bought pomegranate (from Costco) for the first time this season. I love this tarty sour fruit, however I never imagined Lilah would. Well I should have known better since this same girl loves loves loves bitter grapefruit. Lilah loves fruit: apples, bananas, mango, grapes, plums, oranges, pomegranate, grapefruit, pears and peaches. They all get her two thumbs up. Strawberries and blueberries on the other hand, she will tolerate them, but still doesn't show as much love for either.

She definitely loves to eat, just like us! We're all about the food! One evening last week at supper time we were eating turnip and I was saying how much Baba loves turnip, in fact I said, it's starting to be one of Mama's favourite vegetables too. Lilah was sitting in her little booster seat, chewing away, taking it all in. A few minutes later her little voice piped up "Lilah's favit too". Oh the cuteness!

Lilah currently weighs 24lbs. Hard to believe for a girl that can eat so much. I think she has maybe put on one or two pounds since we became a family 11 months ago. I get the odd 'gasp' when I'm asked her weight! She has always been in a very low percentile regarding her weight, but honestly, when you look at her, the first thing that comes to mind is definitely not how thin she is! Those cheeks are as healthy as I've ever seen! On the other hand, she is definitely growing upwards. I measured her height last week and she is now 36 inches, that's 3 feet tall!

Oh, did I forget to mention that she loves ice-cream and candy and chocolate and ice-cream and chocolate and candy and ice-cream?? Oh my, we have a sweet tooth in our house. Or maybe even three, including Mama and Baba!

We love our little sweet tooth foodie and we bond while brushing our teeth...lots!

swine flu vaccination

Lilah got her H1N1 flu shot today, part 1 of 2. She did great, not even a wimper. Honestly, I've debated this over and over, but I'm not willing to risk anything happening to our little Lilah. And this Christmas we are travelling overseas. In fact Lilah and I are staying in Ireland for 6 weeks - very exciting! But the thought of being on a plane and through a few airports makes me a little wary, which led to the decision.

sun catcher craft

We picked up this fun sun catcher craft in Michaels last week. Lilah really enjoyed painting them and now they're all hanging on the window, creating a beautiful Christmas glow around our dining room. I love how they turned out. All our pictures are here.

personalized pigtails

I love her hair in pigtails and these elastics, they just make me grin!