Slopestyle

Two golds and a silver today. J 's the one who brought home the silver. There were actually two other 30-somethings that showed up today. #1 and Zippy both got firsts. Zippy's first gold ever and he was soooo excited.

This was taken last weekend or before because he still has all his pink hair which has since been shaved mostly off. Mostly off because it now looks polka-dotted from the spots where the dye was closer to his scalp than the rest. Won't take long for that to grow out though.


Here's a shot of Zippy in the air in the competition today:

And here's #1 airing into the photo on one of his competition runs:

Cold Saturday

It has maybe gotten up to 9 degrees today. But The Spark has been bitten by the snowboarding bug and opted to go with the boys to the mountain today. It doesn't look or sound like she has done many runs however. J sent me this photo from his phone and The Spark is sitting in the restaurant that is up the mountain a ways so she at least got there and back.

The two littles and I are trying not to go stir crazy at home in the meantime. I think Cupcake has cried probably 90% of the day so far because I don't feel like giving in on everything today, and that's how she rolls. No wonder The Spark opted to ride in the bitter cold! Here she is mad because I won't let her finish the entire bag of Pirate Booty. Not that she doesn't need the calories but because she first demanded applesauce which I opened and then she didn't eat it because she decided she wanted Pirate Booty. And also because her sister who feels the need to eat if anyone else in the house is hungry, does not need to eat half a bag of Booty after she did finish her applesauce, yogurt, blueberries, and turkey.

Happy 10th!

Happy tenth birthday, #1! This was him seconds after we met. I remember the relief of that moment. Relief that he was perfect and relief that 29 hours of labor was over. There is certainly nothing like the birth of a first child. And this morning in all his bouncing excitment to be TEN and open presents he crawled in bed with us at 6:10 and tried to lay still and wait until a reasonable time to try waking me again. When this kid is happy, his joy permeates and fills the whole house.

Here he is with his BFF waiting for carrot cake last weekend:

And at 7am this a.m. SO excited about his new bindings:

And snowboarding jacket:

We figured since he's landing 540's now, he might as well have a real snowboarding outfit.

HAPPY TENTH BIRTHDAY, Baby Boy!

Before the rain

They say it is going to rain tonight and tomorrow. 100% chance, so I thought I'd post some winter fun photos from the past week. Princess Eee's arm is healing VERY well, so two more weeks and she can do everything again, ie: ski. She'll still have a cast but a shorter one so maybe we can even fit a regular long sleeved shirt over it. She's not happy about wearing her big brother's clothes which are roomy enough to fit over her arm and keep her warm too. She is not the tomboy that her little sister is, so the oversized boy clothes are a bummer for her. The dr. took off the ace bandage that was around the bottom of her cast and replaced it with more hard cast material so now we can draw on it. Princess Eee is more than happy to let people sign it or draw pictures. Except Cupcake. Cupcake was allowed one tiny mark and no more.

The boys all had a halfpipe competition today. Our home mtn did not have the pipe ready yet so they had no practice time before heading to a different mtn this morning to compete. They came home with two golds and a silver. If anyone would like to help her child (or mate!) with any self esteem issues, bring 'em to compete in snowboarding in NH. If you are the only guy in your age group (Jason), then you win! And if there is one other kid (Zippy!) who is way better than your kid, he'll still get second. And if your kid misses the age cut-off to move up a group by three weeks (#1) and therefore is competing against kids who are all younger, he'll have a darn good shot at gold too. Okay, in all fairness, Zippy rode great for his 3rd time EVER in a halfpipe, and J did some spinny tricks which most "old" guys don't try too much of b/c the falling part really hurts when you're old and have already broken almost every bone along the way, and #1 rode beautifully I heard. He was so excited about his run when he got home. Lots of air and a 360 too. Best of all they all had fun and didn't get hurt.

Yesterday we all went to the mountain. J and The Spark went for a little snowshoe with Princess Eee pulled behind in a sled while Cupcake and I went skiing. She took her first (and second, third and fourth ride up the high speed quad and skied down the rather long run for someone her size very happily. She's definitely getting the hang of it. My favorite part is when she realizes there is someone she doesn't know on the lift next to her, and she has to turn her head and shoulders all the way to the side to see around her helmet and goggles to check out who's sitting there. Then she'll give a mittened wave and a quiet "hi." The Spark also took her first non-parent snowboarding lesson and had a great time. She's getting hooked and now wants to ride more than ski. :) Three down, two to go!

Here I am with The Spark and Cupcake at the sledding party last weekend. Princess Eee was over on the bigger hill with friends b/c the little hill wasn't thrilling enough for her. And she didn't break her arm until a few hours later at home.

This is #1 accepting his gold medal today:

At lunch yesterday on the mountain:

Cast signage. Notice the princess dress over the bulky sweater:

Zippy riding a rail:

#1 on the lift. Ten years old tomorrow!

The Spark and best friend riding to school together after ski lessons last week:

I will post birthday pics soon since #1 will reach double digits tomorrow. We're just going out for a family dinner after his hip-hop class. He either wants stuffed shells if the Italian restaurant is a) open on Mondays and b) has stuffed shells, or he wants Thai so he can eat a zillion orders of their beef satay sticks. I just want a good drink to celebrate a decade of parenthood and especially surviving the first ten years parenting this one! Can't wait to know what the next ten have in store for us.

From last week...

At the Children's Museum last week with bio sis:

5 years ago already?!

Really!?! Five years already?!?! January 2005: I was in China with Gramma Ramma getting to know The Spark. Next Tuesday will be the anniverasry of her arriving home in NH. Last Sunday was the five year anniversary of meeting my beautiful girl. This time of year brings to mind so many thoughts about The Spark and her life thus far and the people in China who loved her. I wonder if her foster mother thinks about the day she had to leave The Spark in my lap and walk out being pulled by the SWI staff leaving the round little baby she'd obviously loved for those eleven months. I cannot believe that special trip was five years ago.

Checking documents, translating her schedule, stealing a few precious moments with The Spark's foster mother:

"Oh my! You are my daughter!"

"Oh my! You are my mommy!"

One ER visit in 10 years!

After ten years (next week) of parenting, we had our very first ER visit last night. Broken arm. It'd be great if we can keep the once-every-ten-years thing going and not go again 'til the kids are all teenagers. They might not cry quite as much then. So who was it? Not one of the boys who spent their day at a Rail Jam (for all you non-snowboarders that's when they ride through a park full of wooden and metal features, ie. rails and boxes). How did it happen? Not sledding like crazy on a steep and bumpy hill at a birthday party with big kids. It happened doing just about nothing in our playroom. It happened to Princess Eee. She jumped off the gymnastics mats, she and Zippy collided, she fell down on the carpeting. She fell really wrong because she came upstairs screaming in a higher pitch than usual, and when J pulled up the sleeve of her dress, we saw that her arm was obviously broken. It was bent sideways a couple inches above her wrist.

J got ready to take her to the hospital, and she tried to stop crying once she realize she was going to have to go somewhere. She said, "All done, Mommy." Once she understood that J was going to stay with her the whole time the doctors looked at her arm, and that I would be here waiting with her pajamas when she got home, she was fine about going. Luckily it was a Saturday in winter which means the orthopedic doc on call was already there dealing with several ski injuries, so their wait time wasn't too bad. They arrived a little after 6pm, and they were home by 9pm. BUT, they came home without having it set. She broke her ulna and radius clean across, so to set her arm meant she had to be sedated which meant she had to have an empty stomach. We'd just had dinner before the kids went to play in the playroom. Bit of a rough night tossing and turning with her in between us waiting for it to be time to take her back to the hospital. J took her at 6:30 to be there for a 7am appointment. I met them there at 8:30 and brought Ali home by 9:30. She was pretty miserable for awhile. And she threw up the little bit she managed to eat after we got home. It is several hours later now, and we have not had a repeat performance of that. But, if Princess Eee says, "Yo sick" it means she might be about to throw up.

She has a cast from her hand to above her elbow for three weeks and then a shorter cast for another three weeks. No skiing for the first three weeks, then she can do everything she normally does. She asked J last night while they were waiting for her Xray if she could still go skiing today. Extra bummer because it was 38 degrees and sunny most of the day and everyone we know played outside in some fun way today. Instead the girls and I stayed inside, watched two movies, played with Leapsters, and had lots of snacks (after the throwing up part of the day seemed to have passed).

Here's the dress I made for Princess Eee during the second movie since her normal dresses and long sleeved shirts won't fit for the next six weeks. It's made from old T-shirts that I had around the house and it has bell sleeves so it should fit over her cast.


And here's the patient:

A Day in the City

We all went to Boston yesterday. The kids skipped school to spend the day at the Children's Museum with our friends, the Whites. They are in New England from AZ this week and meeting at the museum was a great midway point. This is Princess Eee's biological sister's family so it was all well worth missing a day of school. After a few minutes of shyness from all the kids, the girls were off and running, holding hands, and calling each other's names throughout the museum. Princess Eee definitely knows that Bertali is her "other" sister, but I don't think she understands the specifics of their connection right now. Bertali does though and every time they caught each other's eye, they both had ear-to-ear grins. Not only did the kids all have a blast together (they have 4 + our 5 + their 2 cousins that came along = 11 kids under ten!) but the musem was wonderful. We spent six hours there and missed a handful of exhibits completely. Going on a school day was a beautiful thing too since there wer so few other people there.

Then we all had dinner (minus their 2 cousins, aunt, & grandparents) at a great kid friendly restaurant in Cambridge that not only had good food but a nice play area, train table, play kitchen, etc. and all other diners obviously had kids too. Phew. After dinner we had to part ways which was sad for all. Princess Eee kept asking, "Bertali my house?" And The Spark was so bummed that she'll have to wait 'til summer to play with Bertali and sib's again. I will add the whole group photo when I get it from Shari since I did not have my camera in the restaurant. But here are a few from the museum...

#1 trying to hug a giant bubble (it popped before the camera clicked):

My girls + Princess Eee's bio sis:

#1 hanging out on top of the coolest three story climbing structure we've ever seen:

Giant tubs of soap = heaven for Cupcake:

Busy stylists at work:

Creating kid power:

More kid power:

Hermanas. Yep, they look a bit alike!

Chinese in northern NH, etc.

Catching up on chores today since it looks beautiful outside, but is maybe 10 degrees. The girls all helped me clean and then got their nails painted as a reward. The boys are, of course, at the mountain. Princess Eee had her first real ski lesson yesterday with her pre-school, and she's in the fast group! Here are some random shots of Cupcake and Spark...

Zippy took this picture with his new digital camera that Santa brought him:
My friend Jessie took this one since Cupcake won't smile nicely for me behind a camera:

Here's the Black Forest Torte I made for X-mas Eve dinner and The Spark in Cousin E's hand-me-down X-mas dress:

Another fun thing that started this week is a new Chinese Mentor group for The Spark and Cupcake. We used to drive 40 minutes to a boarding school just north of us that has a large Asian student population, but now the boarding school right in our area has a big group of Chinese students this year. And many people adopting internationally claim you just can't raise these kids in a rural area, Hah! We have a decent sized group of fellow adoptees from China and a great group of high school kids who are excited to hang out with our little ones and tell them all about growing up in China.

The students have organized a sort of playgroup for the adopted Chinese kids around here every Friday afternoon for the winter. They'll teach the younger kids some basic Mandarin- like yesterday they had the little kids trace their bodies on giant paper, and then they labeled the body parts in Chinese while trying to get us to remember some of the words. Without much luck. The Spark loved it and before we had even driven off of the campus, she asked if we can go back every Friday. There is one female student from Hunan Province where The Spark was born and another whose mother was raised in Jiangsu Province where Cupcake was born. Cupcake had fun too; there were markers and snacks so what's not to love?! But I don't think she had any understanding whatsoever that all the people around us were Chinese like her.

We have started talking with Cupcake more about her early days like we have always talked a lot about with The Spark. We have talked about how Cupcake got her belly button in China and now whenever she lifts her shirt and shows her belly, she points to her belly button and says, "I-nah" which is Cupcake for "China." She also likes to point to her bottom and say, "I-nah bum." Hopefully she will be as excited about China and learning Mandarin and returning for visits as The Spark is b/c she will be coming along for the ride when we go back for a homeland tour.

Speaking of my daughters growing up here in the middle of nowhere with very minimal diversity, when we were on vacation last week, there were more Asian visitors to the mountain where we were staying/skiing/riding, etc than I have ever seen in NH at any given time. All the kids were speaking unaccented english and the parents and grandparents were not, so we guessed they were up for the X-mas weekend from nearby urban hubs like Boston & New York. That Sunday poured down rain so we, like most everyone else with kids on vacation that weekend, went to the indoor skating rink. Most of the people on vacation there that weekend were Asian, so we were among maybe four or five other families at the very crowded ice rink who were not Asian. The funny thing about the experience was that I asked The Spark if she had noticed how many Chinese looking people were skating with us (because really 90 percent of the folks in the rink were Asian), and she said, "No. What do you mean?"

holiday update

We did not fall off the face of the earth, but did spend a week in a ski condo without internet access. Christmas was relatively smooth, no big, gift related tantrums, nice lazy day in jammies. Then the next morning we headed to the mountain bright and early for the week. Zippy has joined the snowboarding program that #1 is in, so now both boys are off and running with coaches and buddies every day that they are not in school until April. They have both made some really great friends, and we had sleepovers and playdates throughout the vacation. And the best part is that Princess Eee and Cupcake spent enough time on the snow that they can both really ski now. Couple more years of that and hopefully they'll both be on boards too. The Spark tried the alpine program one day because she made a friend (a fellow China adoptee even) in the clubhouse and wanted to ski with the new friend who is in the program. She liked it while she did it, but it's a little too intense for her liking and so far she is opting out. It will conflict next year anyway if The Spark decides to continue with gymnastics since meets are also on weekends.

So some of us are home now with tons of fresh snow on the ground and still falling. I will post pictures later when the boys get home with the camera. Just to give y'all a heads up before the pictures are addded: Zippy has pink hair. He has been wanting to dye it for a long time, so Santa brought hot pink hair dye, and we dyed it on Christmas. He looks totally punkrock and gets lots of compliments and high fives. When he's sick of it, we'll buzz it off like we always do for his haircuts.


UPDATE: here are some photos... Yes, it's pitch black here at 6:30 in the morning.


Here's Cupcake in an outfit of her own choosing playing with her Hello Kitty calculator phone:

A hot cocoa break with Zippy after an afternoon on the slopes:

"Mo kee, Mommy! Mo kee!" (More ski)

Waiting for the shuttle bus, brothers long gone:

Getting ready for our sleigh ride on New Year's Day:

In front of the two HUGE horses, King and Leroy, that pulled the sleigh: