A Sunny January Afternoon

Early in January, we spent a day with our good friends Rita and Ninh.  It was a beautifully sunny day, although chilly, so we bundled up and took the kids for a walk along the riverfront in Fort Langley.

Look at these beautiful views of the river with Mount Baker in the background.

And look at our beautiful children!

After a long walk during which both kids napped in their strollers (something Molly has only done ONCE before!), we were frozen and starving.  So we thawed out at a local cafe and had dinner.

And Molly fell asleep in the car on the way home.  What a wonderful day!

Applesauces

A Year Ago Today

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the day I first met Molly!  You can read my posts about that day here and here. 

Today Molly and I had a leisurely morning, ate our favorite breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast dipped in "applesauces".  We spent some time looking at our pictures from Vietnam, and I did a little crying(!).  Molly loves looking at those pictures and videos from when she was a baby.  I don't know how much she understands yet about why we were there with Nhan and the others, but her Vietnamese family will always be familiar to her as she grows up.  We went to our favorite coffee shop to share a scone together while she read books and I sipped a coffee.  Then afterwards, we went shopping!

We had been given a giftcard as a shower gift for Molly, and decided to spend it at Ikea.  What fun!  We were able to get a tea set, toy fruits, vegetables and breakfast food.  We picked up a set of ice cream cones with cups, a scoop and an ice cream bucket, plus a baking set, all of which we can take to the beach next summer.  And we found a bed for Molly's baby which comes complete with bedding, and needs to be assembled just like any other Ikea furniture!  With what was leftover on the giftcard, we bought a clothes hamper for her bedroom, a roll of paper to color on, some towels to use as doll blankets and a couple of picture frames to save the memories from this special day. 

In the last couple of months, Molly's personality has just blossomed.  I've noticed a big change in the way she is playing, and have watched her imagination start to soar.  She is "making eat, Mama"  with toys that double as a bowl and spoon.  She stirs and blows on the hot 'food', then pretends to eat it, feed it to me, and/or feed it to her dolls.  She has learned to hold her finger to her lips (sideways) and 'shhh' me to say that her baby is sleeping.  She's started putting her dolls to bed, covering them up with blankets.  She's also started to play this way for much longer periods of time without needing me, which makes it easier to cook or do chores during the day.  So getting these types of toys is just so appropriate for the stage that she is at right now.  She certainly doesn't need any more toys - we just got tons of new ones at Christmas - but the toys we bought today will bring both of us lots of enjoyment for a long time.  I can't wait to see what she does with them next!

In the afternoon, Molly laid in bed for 2 hours WITHOUT sleeping, but gave me enough time to get myself ready for our dinner plans.  We got dressed up and went out to a Vietnamese restaurant with some of our favorite people.  My first thought was to share the evening with David, Peter and Chloe, who were with me the moment I met Molly, and David took pictures of the big event for me.  But a few days ago was also the anniversary of when I was with Susan when she adopted Quan, and I wanted to celebrate with them too.  And Merel, Nathan and Nhan were a huge part of my time at the orphanage, so they were invited (but sadly had other committments).  We had to invite Uncle Ron, simply because he is such a big part of our lives, and there was no way we would celebrate without Rita and Ninh either, so the evening was a big, lovely party. 

Thank you to our friends who celebrated with us tonight - for your generosity, your love and friendship, and your continued presence in our lives.  And thank you too, to all the other friends and family in our lives who couldn't join us this evening.  We have had an incredible year together - Molly and I love you all.

Wrapping up the Tet Celebrations

Here is the last (and late) posting of our Tet celebrations.  We ended up missing the Chinese New Year's parade, as Molly and I were both under the weather, and it was a rainy day.  So we stayed inside, pretty much in our pajamas all day.

However, the following weekend Lesia and Mylan and Mylan's grandmother, Ruth, came over so we could all celebrate Tet with other families with children from Vietnam.  A Vietnamese woman opens up her home every year, and with the participation of some of the other parents, they bring the community of families together to celebrate and honor the heritage of our children.  Over the years, it has grown from a core group of families, to include the few of us who were waiting, and more recently to all the boom of families bringing babies home through two adoption agencies in BC.  It was a very large group this year!

There was a dragon dance, where the group of us followed the dragon and the drummers through the neighborhood.  The dragon dances at the door of some of the neighbors, which brings luck and honor to the home.  There was lots of good Vietnamese food, a cake, and many people handed out red envelopes to the children.  It was a wonderful chance to reconnect with other families that we don't see very often.

After eating and visiting indoors, our children needed to get outside again, and there were lots of toys to play with in the yard.  The three of them decided to be a train and play choo-choo.  Nhan made a great caboose:

The rest of the weekend was all about spending as much time visiting with Lesia, Ruth and Mylan as possible.  

Group hugs:

Brunch at our favorite kid-friendly cafe:

And photo-ops as our children run rampant through the restaurant:

Could they be any cuter?

Celebrating Tet in Pictures

Here are some of the promised pictures from our Tet celebrations so far:

The parade:

From our potluck dinner:

Chuc Mung Nam Moi! (Happy New Year!)

Today is Tet Nguyen Dan, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.  It is the biggest cultural celebration of the year in Vietnam, and Molly and I will celebrate it every year from now on.

As it is our first Tet together, I have made a lot of effort to learn what it is about, and 'how' to celebrate it.  I know I will always fall short of 'authentic', but instead will create our own style over the years.  Perhaps sometime in the future we can travel to Vietnam to celebrate it there.

Last weekend Molly, Uncle Ron and I took part in the very first Vietnamese parade held in Vancouver!  It was a very small and short parade, but at one point, we actually joined the parade and walked a couple of blocks together with other families with Vietnamese children.  It was great to be part of the grassroots event.  Ron's pictures will follow later in a separate posting.

This afternoon, the Fab Five kids and their families (sadly, with the exception of Lesia and Mylan who were not able to come over from Victoria) are coming over for a potluck dinner.  Vietnamese food, of course!  I have cleaned and decorated the house, as is the custom, prepared lucky money in red envelopes for all the kids, bought 'banh chung' - a special rice cake cooked especially for Tet, and made a five-fruit plate to put on display.  Again, details and pictures will follow later.

On the weekend, we will also join the larger community of families with Vietnamese children, and watch the big Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown.  China, Vietnam and Korea all celebrate the same new year, and of course, the Chinese community here has been celebrating in a big way for many years.  Wish for good weather!

Finally, the following weekend, for the 3rd time, we have been invited to join a group of families to celebrate Tet together.  This group has a dragon dance that goes to houses in the neighborhood, the children perform traditional Vietnamese dancing, and there is a cultural martial arts demonstration.  Plus a huge buffet of Vietnamese food, a warm and welcoming atmosphere, and red envelopes for the children.  I am so excited to be able to bring Molly to this celebration this year.  We are really looking forward to it.

Welcome to the Year of the Cat!

New Year's at the Cabin

For many years, I have gone to a cabin with a group of close friends to celebrate New Year's together.  This is the 12 or 13th year in a row we have been together.  Since the beginning, there have been marriages and births and/or adoptions of children.  Up until this year, I was the only one who had not yet become a parent.

So I was looking forward to celebrating with Molly this year!  We went to a lodge in Port Alberni for a week, and had a great holiday.  There were just 3 families for the first couple of days, then the rest of the gang joined us in time to ring in the new year.  Molly has never had such a sustained social life since she left the orphanage.  The older kids played with her, dressed her up, pulled her around in her wagon, taught her to run, and I also noticed that her speech development took great leaps forward during the week. 

Quiet time

Playing with the big boys

Group coloring project

Lots of cuddling

Flying paper airplanes

A couple of cuties!

the girls

Dressing up Molly like a doll

Party girl on New Year's Eve

Lighting sparklers outside

A quiet New Year's Day afternoon

Eating noodles