Jump Ladies, Jump!!

Part of the girls' assessment skills include jumping--something which they need more work on.  Though jump ropes are still a little bit beyond their skills, they always want to play with them and well......if it encourages more jumping, great!  They see the older girls using them and want to try too!  Emma wonders "Now what was I supposed to do with this?!"

Mollie thinks she's got it figured out.

You just sling it all around, right Mollie?!  

Elizabeth attempts to show them how to use it another way.

How About A Ride Lady?!

While watching the girls playing outside one warm afternoon, Mollie---who isn't shy in the least--see's a neighbor lady getting out her cool cart. She boldly asks the lady for a ride and it was quickly granted!  Who could resist that charming face?!!  Not many!

Bubble Video's

Bubbles! We Just Like 'em!!

Wands??  Who needs 'em?!!

Elizabeth likes to blow bubbles with her hands.  She's pretty good at it. That's a BIG bubble Lizzie!!

Elise too!  Who doesn't like bubbles?!

Spoons with a hole in the center works too!

You really have to look close to see this one. 

We were trying something new. Something Shawna had seen on the internet when she searched on giant bubbles.  We used their instructions and hoped for some giant bubbles like they showed with some sticks and string.  Alas, ours didn't work quite that way--even though it was easy enough an 8-10 year old child could do it :)  At least according to the video.  We are thinking our ingredients here just aren't as good as the ones you get in the states--which is usually true for many things here.  The bubbles would just pop before the left the "wand".  So.......we added a bunch more and got this one big bubble but still isn't working like theirs.  However, that is what Elise and Lizzie used for the above bubbles they blew with their hands.  You're supposed to let the solution set for several days or even 2 weeks. So, since we added a bit more ingredients, we'll give it another shot perhaps on the weekend.  If we get it to work, you'll see some cool giant bubble pictures :)  If not, well........you won't!

A Ritz Anyone?!

Everything tastes better on a Ritz, right?!

I actually put the crackers on the table to have with the sardines, but Elizabeth, who doesn't like fish, had other ideas for the crackers :)  I look over and she's putting some of her noodles on the crackers.  I had to laugh and then said "Well....everything does taste better on a Ritz, right?!"  Then I went and got the camera for a cute blog post I thought you guys might enjoy. 

What kinds of things does your family eat on a Ritz?  I have to admit this was a new one for ours :)

Noodles.....on a cracker....that's different, huh?!

Emma, who pretty much dislikes any kind of green vegetable (and we eat plenty of them here!), decided perhaps she might like to try some of her shredded cucumbers on the cracker since everything tastes better on a Ritz! Maybe this was a new way to get her to more easily eat her green vegetables.  Nah, you can see her reaction in the next photo.

Emma thinks "No, everything does not taste better on a Ritz---especially green vegetables!!"

She takes her fork and spoon and begins to separate the green vegetables from the noodles!  In her eyes, they clearly don't belong together!  In fact, she says they don't belong ANYWHERE ON HER PLATE!!!

Then.....the most horrid thing happened!  One of the cucumbers ATTACKED HER!!  She was lucky to even get away unhurt :))

Apparently, judging by her next moves, the yucky green vegetables were not far enough away on the other side of her plate.  NO!! She had to move them much farther away on the table!

We LOVE Emma's cute little antics!!  She often keeps us entertained!

Also Anxiously Waiting

Anxiously Waiting

The "Littles'" Performances

Mollie does a "Happy Dance", then Emma does some of her ballet type moves, and Mollie decides to try and make baba say "ready" to get something--only he doesn't really know that is what Mollie is requiring of him.  It's something they do in preschool at New Day, but not what we do here in the home setting.

Skinamarinkadink, Skinamarinkadink, I LOVE YOU!!!  This is probably Mollie and Emma's favorite song--they sing it all the time!  Then Mollie sings the ABC's again.  Apparently they can only be sung while wildly waving your arms and doing a fast march!!

Not sure what this song is, but Emma gets a little pushy!

It's the Itsy Bitsy Spider song!

Mollie Sings Her ABC's

Most our girls LOVE music and likes to sing along with many of the nursery rhyme songs.  As you can see, Mollie gets a  little lot excited when we put on the music cd.  She can sing along pretty well too.

Trampoline Time!

Emma's Outdoor Fun

A Little Outdoor Fun

Time For Some Cotton Candy!

More Wii Fun

It's Wii Time!

Come Take A Ride With Us

See Elly Walk!!

Five Lovely Girls

Special Request

Hi Guys, I know we don't often do this--ask for things, but sometimes we feel that the need overrides our feelings of not wanting to ask.  As you know, we have older girls here at the Forever Home. Most of them come straight from orphanages and are behind developmentally in many areas. One of them being social skills.  Recently, an occupational therapist has suggested that we get a couple of books to help in the area of social skills and communication skills.  While it is an area we already work on utilizing our assessment, we could use the extra help of these books to help our girls gain more skills.  If you'd be interested in helping us purchase these books, please contact me,  rita@newdaycreations.com    for more details on purchasing these books for the Forever Home.  The two or three books together cost approximately $130-210  plus shipping, then would need to be shipped here to China.  Perhaps we could find someone coming here to bring them as well.  Any one of these books would be helpful.  If you'd like to purchase one or all, or make a tax deductible donation towards these, just let me know if you are interested in helping with this project.

The Books:

Every Child Wants to Play by Annie Baktazar  $80

Social Thinking by Michelle Garcia Winners

(Thinking About YOU Thinking About ME, 2nd Edition$48)

(Think Social! A social thinking curriculum for school aged students $84)

I Wanna Help!

While I was washing dishes one day, Elly came up to me and asked to help.  Before she helped dry dishes, but this time she got to wash them. She was very happy and proud of herself. Now she wants to wash dishes all the time.

Posted by Shawna

It's A Dog Pile!

 As you can see, Mollie is enjoying her little horse back riding a lot.  To be honest, I thought it was really funny how she enjoyed riding on my back as I was painting Holly's finger nails.

 Mollie is an airplane!! See how how straight her legs are?

 Giddy-up horsey, let's ride like the wind!  Yeehaw!!

Here comes the dog pile!! (thus the name of this post).  Oh, and just in case you guys are wondering, her nails turned out pretty good.

Posted by Elise

Warm Days---Soon Ending :((

Check Out Emma's Moves

Posted by Shawna