Loving Lydia

Video about Zhuang ethnic minority

Lydia is a member of this ethnic minority. If you ever find information on the Zhuang, please forward it to us.

Completely "Charmed"

On our way home from visiting my parents in Virginia we took what was suppossed to be a slightly out of the way side trip to Baltimore to see the aquarium and to go to Charm City Cakes. The 3 hour drive took us almost 7 hours due to extremely bad traffic so no aquarium. But the real goal was always to get our pictures in front of the famed bakery. I'm a huge fan of Ace of Cakes on The Food Network...so imagine my delight when we got there and they were loading a wedding cake for delivery. We asked Ben (Ben Turner one of their uber talented cake artists) if it was okay to take pictures and he said sure and chatted with me and Lydia for a short while. He even offered to be in a picture! He was a great guy who was very sweet to Lydia--who, like most four year olds--wanted to know everything. Suddenly that bumper to bumper traffic seemed like a piece of cake!

Facepaint

See Mom...

...I toldja I wouldn't forget to bring Lydia to Virginia with us! We're all packed and ready to go!!

One for the road

We are on our way to see Grandma and Grandpa...so this will likely be our last post until we arrive. Not much longer M&D...then you get to see your baby. Both of them.

Which way did he go???

Lydia loves to write and draw. She goes through paper like crazy. One of her favourite things to do these days is to try to write words. She can write some...like her name and my name and the names of people/pets who are important to her. The thing is, if she is writing on her own/without a teacher or myself etc. it's mirror image. Like perfect mirror image. Just about every time. We've been trying to teach her left and right but try as we might she's directionally challenged. (She puts her shoes on the wrong feet and her clothes on backwards etc.) This is called directionality and according to her doctor it's a common problem 4-6 year olds have and isn't something we should be concerned about unless she's 6 or 7 and having problems. Dr. Tara (famous for doing battle with the "bad bunnies" to be found in preschoolers ears and tummies) prescribed a Leapster for our girl. Now I know what you're thinking, aren't parents suppossed to keep their children away from video games that rot their minds and muscles? Well maybe, but Lydia gets plenty of body work out and Leapster does anything but rot the mind as the games are all educational. So far Lydia loves it. She gets frustrated with up and down and left and right...she wants me to do that part...but I say no and make her. Hopefully it'll help with her directional problem and hopefully we won't have to be selling the house to buy the AA batteries she's bound to burn. :-)

He loves me!

As Russell was eating Good & Fruity's tonight he'd hand me all orange ones (my favourite) without my having to ask...TRUE LOVE!!

Yaya's Island fun

Recently a new fun center opened up in town. We liked it okay, but had some problems with it...no security system being one major flaw. The new place was based upon a fun center in a nearby city called Yaya's Island. We'd never been there as it's out of town, but when we needed to get some work done on the car we decided to "give it a whirl". We were so enamoured of the place we've since decided to schedule our Family Day celebration there. Lots of inflatables, rides, games, junge gyms and activities are in store for our July celebration of our four years as a family.