First trip to the snow this season

The family made it up to Tahoe this past weekend. It was a little foolish to go given the weather forecast but it was our only option timing-wise to get our 'stuff' up to the ski house before we have to take the grandparents up for Christmas (when we know that the car is going to be full of LOTS of presents!)
I've been doing a weekly snow dance since July and apparently it paid off: there was 44 inches of snow over the weekend! We had to dig ourselves out of the house on Sunday morning and the power went off some time on Saturday night so we had no heating. It was still a great weekend. Olivia had fun sledding down the street outside the house. Monty was more happy than I've seen him since we came back from China. Carl and I were just happy to be up in the mountains and the snow. It's going to be a great season.

Make up makes it all better

I bought kids face paint to turn Olivia into cat for her school play. She was a big fan and decided that she needed a make-over herself. Take a look at the results! She kept peeking in the mirror and then going back to put some more colours on.
I carefully bought kid safe make up but still, it wasn't that easy to get off. It's now hidden in the cupboard but it's only a matter of time before she decided that either Daddy or Monty also need some make up!

Holiday Pageant at school

Olivia's school puts on a performance in December each year. The teachers at school had given us a copy of a DVD with an English song (Three little kittens) and a Chinese song (no idea what it is about but I am reliably informed it is something to do with love being the best thing in the world). I am unclear if all her classmates got a DVD or whether we were special parents who needed their child to have a little at-home coaching! Certainly Olivia was less than cooperative at home with the songs, and from what I could see she wasn't much better when practicing at school. Luckily the school director took the opportunity to tell me that it wasn't about the result but all about taking part and being part of a group (phwew).
Anyway, on the night, Carl and I managed to get seats right at the back (the auditorium was already full of keen parents) and i felt quite inadequate with my little compact camera. Other parents had monster giant cameras with enormous lenses and tripods! Luckily one dad took pity on me and made me point out our little cherub and he took photos of her for me! She wasn't that hard to spot.
Olivia did a good job singing the English song, although somehow she decided to take off her clothes after only a few minutes. A nearby teacher managed to avoid a complete strip tease. Then Olivia discovered the same thing as puppies and kittens worldwide - a tail! She seemed to be in her own little world, twirling and twirling up on stage. Every other child on stage was standing perfectly still. No idea what was going on there. She looked a little bemused during the Chinese song and was then led off stage by the teachers.
When questioned by mummy as to what her favourite bit was, she replied "eating the candy cane teacher gave me". I don't think that we have a stage performer on our hands but the whole thing was very cute and the teachers had worked so hard to pull it off.

Thanksgiving in Miami

We had a fabulous time over Thanksgiving courtesy of Auntie B, Uncle Neil and Cousin Kaess in Miami (also known as Yourami and Herami, although apparently never as Hisami.) After all, who wouldn't like going to somewhere warm and sunny with built in family, powerboat and swimming pool?
Olivia thought this new place was really quite special. Her favourites were:

• Getting everyone, individually, to 'fly' along the balcony and back pretending to be a fairy. Uncle Neil was particularly good at this.
• Going on the boat was considered a good 'benture' although she typically fell asleep not long after the engines started.
• Cousin Kaess was fun to jump on and was considered a good friend because he laughed when she licked him (yuk).
• Building a 'cake' on South Beach complete with sticks and shells.

Thank you to the family for letting us stay at your fab pad and for letting us pretend that we actually lived there. And apologies for horribly early departure. When can we come back?

Crab feast

Crab season is here! Yup, this weekend was the first weekend of crab season in Half Moon Bay. A great excuse to have people over for a crab feast (hopefully the first of many). Olivia, Monty and Carl bought crabs off the boat and Olivia remembered us eating lobster in Maine back in July (boy that girl has a good memory).
Part of the crab feast includes eating Carl's home made bread (recipe from Granny). Olivia was keen to help and even made a mini loaf all for herself.
Note that she discovered my pile of clothes for Miami and decided that even though it is mid November, cooking in little strappy t shirt and shorts (plus skirt) was appropriate.
The crab (and bread) was delicious and I'm looking to get some more friends over next weekend so we can eat some more. Mmmmmmm......

Peanut skier

Carl and I went to a ski show in San Jose on Saturday. We were hunting for good deals on lift passes and seeing if there was any last season's outerwear for Olivia. We managed to find a few helmets that Olivia liked, eventually we chose a white one with pink and purple spots. Very cute.
Finding salopettes was more of a challenge; she was ADAMANT that she was not wearing some nice pink ones that we found. Trying to shove a wriggling 2 year old into these to see if they fit was a challenge. She was shouting "No, no, no. I DON'T WANT THOSE" at the top of her voice. Instead she decided that there were some nice blue ones. She hopped right into them and would not take them off. I had to pass her over the counter for in order to scan them at the checkout! She then wore them for the next few hours (complete with helmet and goggles). Lets hope that she gets to use them in Tahoe. Being that she is a little cautious makes me wonder if we'll actually get her on the slopes. Lets hope so.

Hat and mitts

In anticipation of a winter in Tahoe, I bought Olivia a warm hat and mittens. They have pink, purple, and hearts on them. Individually that would be good but in combination that means that the present went down a treat and had to be worn immediately!
The mitts are actually gloves which also act as mitts, it does take a while to get each finger into the right place so that could be an issue. But right now it's all good.

Halloween frenzy

As Carl was somewhere in a hotel room in Asia, I decided to take Olivia to a friend's house for Halloween. We drove to Alameda which is near Oakland about 45 minutes from our house and Olivia decided that she was going to be a black cat. My friend, Jo, has an adorable 18 month old daughter and she had warned us that it might be a little crazy during the evening.
When we walked in the door to their house, Olivia's eyes nearly popped out of her head as there were SACKS of candy just inside the door. She (and I!) have never seen so much candy even in a supermarket. Jo mentioned that it probably wouldn't be enough for the kids who would come visiting! She was right; I've never seen anything like it. There probably were 400-500 kids who came visiting while we were there, and they were still lining up at the door when we left at around 8pm. Queue to get up to the front door and a queue to get back to the street. Jo even had to queue to get back into her own house having gone trick-or-treating round the block!
Olivia LOVED it. She spent all the time either loading candy from the sacks into her own little pumpkin or helping hand out the candy to the kids coming to the door. It was very cute to watch except that she was probably a little over generous and gave more than one candy per kid. I have a sneaky feeling that Jo ran out of candy before the night was over - oops, sorry Jo.
We did go to a few houses near Jo's and Olivia knocked on the door while I hid to one side. She said "Trick or Treat", held out her pumpkin for a candy, then said "Happy Halloween" and "Thank you" with only a little prompting. I was quite proud.
It was a fun evening, and should we be invited back near year, I'll have to make sure that we'll bring our own sacks of candy for them so they don't run out. The problem is now I'm having to hide it all as we have so much candy that Olivia will be on sugar overload for months.

Halloween parade

School held a Halloween parade yesterday. All the kids turned up in outfits (school requested nothing scary please!). Olivia chose between her five princess dresses and ended up in one passed down from one of the twins, I'd hazard a guess that it was Elizabeth's. Turns out EVERY girl in her class was a princess or fairy, the boys were a little more original.
The class paraded around the courtyard twice, voted for their favourite pumpkin, and then had a picnic lunch together. It was great to see her doing what she was told. Mealtime with 24 kids was very impressive, all the kids sitting and eating nicely. Maybe I need to invite her 23 classmates over for mealtime at our house! More Halloween events tonight. I think that Olivia will be a cat since she hasn't been out of the outfit since I showed it to her last night, she even slept in the headband and tail!

Pumpkin festival

The Pumpkin festival in Half Moon Bay is a big deal and normally we avoid it like the plague. Traffic is terrible and there's bad art and lots of glass pumpkins for sale. However, we have discovered that little people have different priorities so we invited Olivia's best friend Juliette and her parents over and went on our adventure.
The girls had their faces painted, made frisbees and got balloons. Carl and Cam found the kids game zone and took over, after all they're little boys at heart. We went home, all of us had a nap except for Juliette! Our friends stayed the night and Juliette passed out first on a mattress on the floor, Olivia was dying to sleep right next to her but couldn't get comfy as there wasn't much room. It was very cute to see her try and sleep together, Juliette was out for the count but Olivia was trying so share covers and snuggle. Too cute. The first of many slumber parties I am sure.

Princess

Olivia is a big fan of princess. We have quite a selection of dresses, one green, the rest pink. The wand is another favourite accessory. Here she is in our front garden with Monty just doing what all little girls do.

Salon d'Olivia

Olivia's newest phase is being obsessed with nail polish. She LOVES it and demands new polish daily on fingers and twice a week on toes. It HAS to be purple on one hand and pink on the other. Luckily I make her sit down quietly for 10 minutes until it has dried so at least she gets 10 minutes of quiet time per day! Here she is working in our 'salon' on daddy. He is currently on a business trip in China, Hong Kong and Singapore and wanted to take the polish off before he left, was was VERY unamused when I hid the polish remover and told him we had run out. I personally think it would have been funny, especially when I know he is bound to have at least one foot rub while he is away!
Now, who else for pink and purple pedicure?

Diva? Surely not.

Who knew someone aged two could have so many opinions about what to wear? She's definitely a girl and goodness knows what will happen in a few years, let alone when she is a teenager. I'm already considering sending her to a school which only has a school uniform. We might need to move back to the UK just for that reason. Her pre-school here has already commented on the fact that she has such a fabulous extensive wardrobe.
Anyway, we're very lucky to have received so many hand-downs from the twins plus generous gifts from both sets of grandparents and all aunties. Here are some of Olivia's poses including Wimbledon tennis outfit (designed for 5 year olds!), hand knitted sweater from England, sheep backpack all the way from New Zealand plus many other outfits. Note that she picked ALL these outfits herself and generally we get through about 3 outfits on a school day and probably 8 on a non-school day! She could be a model for the Joules or John Lewis stores in England; at least I think so. Yesterday was portrait day at school and I put here in the pretty blue lighthouse dress, washed hair and everything was looking perfect; that is until I went to pick her up and school told me that she absolutely refused to have her photo taken (one of three kids in the whole school). Grrrr, that was going to be grandparents chistmas presents. Now I'll have to find something better. The school director was also disappointed because she likes to promote the fact that there are non-Chinese kids in the Chinese class and Olivia is the only blonde kid in the class. Never mind, there'll be another one in Spring.