7, really?

Happy 7th Birthday Helaina.  My oh my, where have the last five years gone?  At this time 5 years ago we were waiting for our travel approval.  On February 27, 2008 we celebrated little Men Ying's 2nd birthday with a ladybug cake and popped the rest in the freezer for when our daughter came home.  Little did we know that the very next morning on the 28th we'd get the call saying our travel approval had arrived and 8 quick days later, we were on the plane to China.

Sleepyhead still in bed.  "How old are you today?"  7 fingers old.  Warm and snug under her new Monster High comforter.  As a surprise, I put it on her bed last night while she was still downstairs.  When she went upstairs to go to sleep she opened her bedroom door and there it was.  Squeal, hug and happiness.

"Can I have turkey sausages and toast for breakfast?  It is my birthday so I should have sausages."  I put a candle in her toast and sang happy birthday to her.

Absolutely have to get dressed up for school when it's your birthday.

We had Helaina's family party on Sunday.  She came downstairs to Monster High balloons, Monster High tablecloth and Monster High paper streamers decorating the house.  Shrieks of delight.

Nothing like getting presents when it isn't even your birthday yet.

So, what else could possibly have been put on the cake but Monster High.  We wouldn't tell Helaina what design was on her cake and made her wait until it was time to sing Happy Birthday on Sunday.  She suspected Monster High and was right.

Singing Happy Birthday with her cousin at her side.  Never saw 2 little girls more anxious to get their hands on those frosting balloons.

Ah, time for teary eyed reminiscing.  Here's our princess 4 days after we brought her home in 2008 on Easter.  She was 2 years and 24 days old, so sweet and so accepting.  Even though she was a hefty 27 pounds, she looks so small to me.

Fast forward 5 years later and here she is - an energetic bundle of excitement that never ends.

I could look at pictures of Helaina when she was younger for hours.  I remember this moment so well.  Easter Sunday 2008, we sat her on the kitchen table, put a plate of snacks in front of her and she chowed down with both hands and demanded more (notice she's got a cracker in her right hand waiting to stuff in her mouth).  To this day I think that she took to us so well in China because we fed her!  Happy Birthday Helaina Marie.  Love you more than anything.

Valentine's Day

On Valentine's Day morning, Helaina was up early from excitement (anything and everything excites this child during the month of February).  Jim left for work and Helaina was eating breakfast.  About 15 minutes after he left, the doorbell rings.  I'm thinking to myself "What the heck?" and go peak out the living room window to see who's ringing the doorbell this early.  I see Jim's car in the driveway.  "Delivery".  He has 2 vases full of flowers - one for me and one for Helaina.  Every year I tell him not to get flowers on Valentine's Day because they are too expensive.  Never listens.  Helaina, of course, is thrilled.  Flowers are a favorite of hers.

Helaina, of course, is thrilled.  Flowers are a favorite, as well as balloons.  Happy sweet little child.

Home from school with her Valentine's Day hat on while checking out her oodles of cards and candy from her school party, which included ice cream sundaes.

The card she made for me in school.  "I love you. real love has gon in my hart."  Ahhhh.  She thought of that herself, little sweetie pie.  Real love is in my heart too.

But the Valentine kangaroo (?huh?) tells it all.  Fill in the blank:  I love you because ... "you feed me"!!!!!!  So very true.  Cracked us up completely. 

Heart shaped pink sprinkled cake.  Yum yum yum.  She actually gasped when she saw it.

Helaina had a good President's week off from school.  We did tons of stuff with her all week long.  One of her requests was bowling.  She'd get so excited if she got lots of pins down.

Nice way to end one of her games.  Strike in the 9th, split in the 10th which she unbelievably made by sliding a pin across the alley, then 8 pins to end up with a score over 100.  "Hey, my score is close to Daddy's score!"  Yuppers.

Jim and Helaina went to the boat show Sunday afternoon while I stayed home and worked on birthday stuff.  She had a blast climbing in and out of the boats.  She was super impressed with the boats that had sinks, beds and pottys in them.  Jim said she kept saying "Can we buy this boat?"

It's exhausting driving all those boats.

Not too bad if you've got thousands and thousands of dollars.

We hit the mall one day so Helaina could use her Disney Store gift card.  She also ended up with something small from Build A Bear, 2 new shirts and lunch at the mall.

These pics are from WonderWorks which is new at the mall as of last November (we went in January).  Helaina had been asking to go forever and we finally caved.  She had a blast and wants to go again, but with a $63 admission price for the 3 of us, it's only an occasional adventure. 

This is what she's sitting in above.  She saw it from across the room and went running screaming "Can I go, please, please, pleeeeeeez!"  We watched the thing spin round and round, upside down, twist sideways and said "I don't know".   But obviously since she's sitting in it in the picture, we gave in.  They strapped her in around the waist, ankles and wrists then pulled the safety bar over her head.  The guy gives it a good starting spin with his hand then hits the button and it goes round and round like crazy.  Our insane daughter is laughing like a maniac the entire time.  Daredevil to say the least.

They do have lots of cool exhibits and hands-on things for the kiddos, and adults too.

The bed of nails, and I mean real nails, not fake ones.

Helaina begged to go in this roller coaster simulator.  You climb into a small pod-like thing, buckle yourself in, pull the bar down over your head, the operator shows you the red button in between the two seats and says "If you want the ride to stop at any time, hit the red button.", then he closes the lid on the thing.  You're sitting completely enclosed, in the dark, with a movie screen in front of you playing the roller coaster ride while the pod tilts sideways, back and forth to mimic a real coaster ride.  I like coasters but being enclosed is a whole different ball game.  It was fun at first but by the end of the long ride we were both ready to hit the button, but we stuck it out. 

Spelled her name out on the giant Light Bright.  Fun place, WonderWorks.  For an extra fee you can strap on a harness, tether yourself to an overhead pulley system and go through their rope course.  Helaina's also anxious to do that but that's something she's got to be a little taller to enjoy and she also will need her brother to go with her because Jim and I aren't tackling that thing any time soon.

 

Father Daughter Dance

Helaina and Jim attended the Father Daughter dance again this year.  It's a fundraiser for Golisano Children's Hospital so it's a fun time for daughter and Daddy and a good cause to support (especially since Helaina will soon be a patient there for yet another upcoming surgery).

She was so excited about going since she had such a blast last year.  We did her hair in french braids, picked out special jewelry, wore her shimmery sequined outfit that she absolutely loves, strapped on her "shoes with the heel" and finally slipped on her wrist corsage that I got from the florist.  She was a hot pink shimmery beauty.

I made them pose for a few pictures but Helaina was so anxious to get going that she growled at me every time I said "Wait, one more shot."

Awww, thought this would be a cute shot, and it is.

Yah, there's a balloon guy there and check out this insane balloon hat - while holding a bouquet of balloons.  She also came home with a pink balloon doggie.  Yup, still balloon obsessed.

 

Busting a move.  She loves twirling in that skirt because of the way it moves as she twirls.

FINALLY, tooth number 4 was pulled.  We tried 4 different times over the last few weeks to pull it but it was a stubborn tooth.  Helaina was SO anxious to get it out, more so than any other tooth that was looset, probably because it is her first upper tooth she'd lose and she wanted to see the big "gap".

President's Day was the day.  Jim was off from work and she woke up that morning and as usual "Check my tooth.  Is it ready yet, is it ready, can we pull it?"  Yup, it was dangling darn good.  Jim had first whack at it.  He grabbed the tooth with a tissue and gave it a yank but no dice (I think he was afraid of hurting her).  Helaina tried next with no success either.  "Oh for Pete's sake" I said as I grabbed the tissue.  "It's hanging below the gum line by a few threads.  Are you ready?  One, two, three!" and with one good tug it was out and in the tissue.

Excitement beyond belief.  She's very proud of her new gap.  The other front tooth is loose too but if it's anything like the other one, it will still be in there for a while.

Busy, busy month

February is always a busy month that flies by, with the biggest event closing out the month - Helaina's birthday.  Prior to that there's Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year, the annual father daughter dance, mid-winter break from school - it's hectic, tons of fun for Helaina and exhausting for Jim and I.  This year we threw another event into the mix - Helaina's first snowmobile ride.

Let's just say that the smile on her face says it all.  We knew that we had a daredevil on our hands and that she'd probably love snowmobiling, and we were so right.  Three rides in all and she wanted
more.

So excited just before her first ride.  I was a bit nervous though.  I had been on a snowmobile once in my life (in my earlier more reckless years) and it didn't end well.  The driver went up a hill and tipped the snowmobile backwards over on us.  I walked back to the house and that was it.  First and last time on one ever.

She went around the trails twice with her first rider.  Loved, loved, loved it.  We went in for a drink and cookies then she went for another ride.

This time the local fire department drover her around in their sled and she got to sit down during the ride.  She said she liked this ride because they "went in the forest".

 

Helaina picked this snowmobile for her third ride.  Liked it because it had the word "Viper" on it and she loves snakes.  Snazzy red helmet too.

This driver was told by a volunteer that  "she likes to ride" so he took her through the forest on a longer ride.  Helaina told us on the car ride home:  "I was thinking in my own mind 'Is this guy crazy?' he's going so fast!"

Helaina got to climb up into a fire engine and got lots of goodies from the fire fighters.

Our little speed demon sporting her pink fire helmet.  Pretty in pink.

 

Helaina loves books and going to the library.  We read to her a lot and it's pretty cool that she can now read to us.  Her reading ability is remarkable and amazes us more every day.  I was in the kitchen the other day and I heard Helaina talking to her baby doll so I stopped what I was doing and watched.  She got a book and a blanket and got comfortable on the couch with her arm around her doll then started reading the book to her.

Helaina's learning about frogs in Science class so we checked out a book from the library on frogs and she is fascinated with it.  Guess she thought her dolly would like to learn about frogs too.  "And the Daddy frog holds on to the Mommy frog  real close when she lays her 4,000 eggs.  See the picture?"  Oh boy.....

Next day, same thing - only this time it was her Ice Age Continental Drift book.  She's a funny kid for sure.
 

Gung Hay Fat Choy, I think

Welcome Year of the Snake, which just happens to be one of Helaina's favorite critters.  She even sleeps with her purple and black rattlesnake plushie every night.  It lies right along side her and even gets tucked in under the covers next to her.  We celebrated as we always do by going out to dinner at  a Chinese restaurant, of course.

Decked out in luck red for our outing.  She slammed down wonton soup and a combo plate of chicken lo mein and rice.  Like the blog says, noodle girl gone wild.

We made goodie bags for Helaina to give her classmates.  I dipped fortune cookies in chocolate, decorated them with sprinkles and tied each one individually with a piece of red yarn.  By the time I made enough for family, friends, teachers, school office workers and her classmates, I think I did about 60 cookies in all.

Besides the fortune cookie, the bags included noisemakers, red envelopes with chocolate coins, little toy snakes (that I couldn't believe I found), and a small notepad.

Along with a book about Chinese New Year to read to the class, Helaina brought in some Chinese money, her Year of the Dog silk scarf and her Chinese drum to show.  She wore her beautiful pink silk outfit to school too.

Meet the newest members of our family - Peaches and Ellie (named after the wooley mamoths in the Ice Age movies).  About 3 weeks ago we told Helaina that she could get a goldfish - thought it would keep her from hounding us about a puppy (we were wrong).  We went to the petstore with our over-excited child and found that the goldfish were so small that we could get 2 for our gallon-sized bowl (more squeals and shrieks).  15cents a fish - now that's a cheap pet.  The bowl set-up cost more than that.  Notice the "Welcome home Peaches" sign Helaina made and taped to the back of the bowl.

The funniest thing was when Zoey noticed the bowl with the fishies swimming around.

As you can see, she was VERY interested.  Still is, somewhat.  For at least a few weeks after we got the fish you'd find her jumping up on the table or counter, staring them down and even trying to bat at them with her paw through the bowl.  She's since lost most interest in them but I still put a lid on the bowl when we leave the house or go to bed.  Cats, you know - can't trust them a bit.