Today was Amy's birthday celebration with her friends. With the exception of the cake winding upside down on the kitchen floor, it was a good party. We had perfect weather for it, bright, sunny and warm and all the kids were able to play outside on the play set.
As you can see by the pictures we had quite a few kids here - 8 including Amy. But they all had fun and were well behaved, so it was a good time. So much so that it just wore Amy out. She fell asleep by her desk in the livingroom during quiet time. Enjoy the pictures.
Well I had wanted to get this posted closer to our gotcha day anniversary, but that didn't happen. Amy has been on spring break, so we took a trip up to Elkins and Pittsburgh for a few days. We got to visit with Dean's family, and even see a couple of friends in Pittsburgh. Amy got to play in the snow a little bit too. She threw snowballs at both mommy and daddy and thought that was just one of the greatest things.
We celebrated her fourth birthday while we were in Elkins. Uncle Phil even managed to get a cake that looked a lot like the one we had for her first birthday in China.
Since returning to Rome, we've had some wonderful spring weather which has allowed us to spend a lot of time outside.
Amy's imagination really takes off these days. The other evening (one of the nights we were staying at a hotel on our trip) she came up with the word "Imalooooga" and was running around saying that for probably 5 minutes, just cracking herself up. When you would ask her what it meant, she just would say it again and then laugh even more. The next day I tried asking about it again and got the same response. So I'm guessing we'll never know the meaning of that word or why it's so funny. But at least she was having fun.
She loves playing with umbrellas. Her butterfly wings from a couple of halloweens ago have still been a big hit too. She now has two umbrellas that shse likes to play with. I imagine we'll be doing some more puddle jumping this spring and summer too.
Amy's new play set is finished. And when it hasn't been raining, she's been enjoying playing on it. She has already mastered climbing the rock wall, with help she can cross the monkey bars, and is zooming down the slide. It will be a great place to have her birthday party this year - we can decorate it with balloons, all the kids can be outside and there is plenty to do for everyone.
It's hard to believe that in just a couple of weeks, she will be four years old. The time has and continues to fly by. And she continues to amaze us each day.
She saw a bunch of different flags at IHOP the other night - and first pointed out which one was the United States flag. Then she asked which one was Canada. First both Dean and I were amazed that she even knew "Canada". So we showed her the flag. Then she announced to us that Canada is a country. That was our second shock. When we asked her where she learned that, she said, I just knew it in my head. I almost fell out of my chair. Neither Dean nor I have ever said anything that we can recall about Canada or it being a country - and they haven't been teaching anything like that at school either.
She will also tell you that she is from China, and that China is a country too. And now she has decided that she wants to go back to see China - whereas a couple of months ago she never wanted to go back. We read a book about Chinese New Year and she also got a traditional red envelope with money from the owner of our local Chinese restaraunt. It would seem that has been what has inspired her to want to go back now.
She has one more week of school before spring break - then she'll be off for two weeks. Christmas break confused her as it was, I'm sure this will throw her off schedule too. We are going up to West Virginia for a few days over the break, and will see the whole Becker side of the family. It will be a short trip, but at least it will give us a chance to see everyone.
So without further delay - here are the pictures of the completed play set, with Amy demonstrating a bunch of the different features. Enjoy!
