Camping at Lake Anna State park - Day one

Labor day weekend: Antoine was busy but agreed to go camping for one night. last minute organization, all camp grounds in Blue Ridge parkway were booked, we went to Lake Anna instead, rented most equipments from UVA and borrowed a few items from Tom and Ashley.
Ming Ming was quite thrilled with the new experience: slept in the tent without any problem (wanted to sleep in the tent everynight at one moment and wanted to go home to her bed the next), love helping setting up the tent and fire...

sleeping on the way

arrived at camp site... Ming Ming helped papa setting up the tent .... trying the bed....waking up the next morning... (a very good night's sleep for everyone: no visit from animals, no waking up at midnight)

going to the lake

setting up the fire for BBQ, had very good steak and veggis for dinner, but did not take pics because it got dark and we were really hungry.

Big girl bed

recognizing people in the photos

very excited about her big girl bed after seeing Julien's big boy bed. She still insisted that hers was a big boy bed too. Falls asleep in her bed (with me on her bedside) pretty easily, but there were a few times I found her sleeping on the floor (after rolled off her bed). Still wakes up at the middle of the night, and I just brought her to my bed (too tired to do otherwise).

On the potty training front: We started potty training about two months ago. She started peeing in the potty pretty quickly. First success after one week, since then she has been peeing in the potty quite well (I have to remember to remind her every hour or so). And her teachers told me that she demonstrated how to pee in the potty for other children! But lately she has been having accidents quite frequently, wet herself so bad during naptime that her teacher needs to change her outfit completely.

but no pooping in the potty so far, she is constipated because of potty training I suppose, and now she only poops in her sleep, which is very annoying as it wakes her up. I have been telling her for more than two weeks that if she pooped in the potty she would have a brand new Elmo (of course, Elmo is her favorite. Not my fault, she recognized Elmo and Dora very quickly after starting preschool). Last night I finally gave her the Elmo doll, and told her she could have Elmo only when she sleeped in her own bed or when she went to the potty. She stayed on her potty for quite a while last night, and stayed in her bed until 3:30 this morning. We will see if Elmo really helps!

Food again

animal shaped pancake - with the cookie cutters from MoMo

自帶筷子上餐館...

早餐是蜜糖乳酪, grapes, cherry tomatos, soy milk.

lying /大話王

hugging Jennifer before saying goodbye
Jennifer came to play with MM today. MM was totally thrilled, copied everything she did and said; having a bigger kid to model after seemed to be one of the most satisfactory things..

MM broke two of the cups from the tea set this afternoon, I asked Jennifer, who was playing besides her, if she knew what happened. MM seized that chance and said immediately that it was Jennifer who broke the cups, J said it wasnot her. Then tonight she played the tea set again, and ran to the kitchen to tell me that one more was broken, and "Jennifer broke it!" I knew she was lying because I have gone through the whole set to make sure there were no more borken ones. She laughed when I told her she was lying, then told me that"明明是個小傻瓜", which has become her cute excuse these days when I pointed out something she did wrong.

this is the first time i caught her lying consciously, hope that it won't become a habit.

The last time she almost lied to me was when we were in HK Feb 2010:

MM asked for her second chocolate, I said you had already eaten one. she whinned. I gave her a second one but asked her to keep it in her pocket and ate it later (this was not a fairy tale, she was able to keep a chocolate just the night before until the next morning, though woke up a few times that night to ask me about her chocolate). I was folding clothes besides her and when I looked at her again, she was like this.

Me: 明明你在干甚麼? (Ming Ming, what are u doing?)

MM: (顧左右而言他) 在騎馬馬.... (riding a horse)

Me: 甚麼? (What?)

MM: au galope au galope (騎馬的聲音)

Me: 明明你的巧克力呢? (where is your chocolate)

MM: 笑 (starts laughing)

火腿青豆蛋炒飯

very yummy...

drawing

MM ran to the kitchen, full of excitment, and told me that this was a whale that she had drawn.

dinning with Julien

dinning with Julien... Julien come spent an evening with us while his parents attended his school preparation meeting.

dinner served: tuna steak, broccoli, fried tomato with eggs, and rice... but they did not eat much... got too distracted by each other...

麻油醉雞面線

playing with Julien

copy each other

cheers!

smile!

sharing a stool and eating Tom's home-made ice-cream.. yum yum..

hugging before saying goodbye

童謠

Ming Ming's favorite meal: pasta salad (with roasted turkey, tomato, apple, corn, cheese)

"大姆哥、二姆弟、中指頭、四小弟、小妹妹、去看戲, 手心, 手背, 手心, 手背, 心肝, 寶貝."
關於手指頭的童謠...

playdate with Jennyfer

感謝婆婆和Momo

popo's dress

momo's skirt

papa's arms

chez micheal

country fair

Peaches, again!

delicious yellow peaches...

walking backwards!