Aerobics Day at School

On Friday, Natalie's school hosted parents and students during "Aerobics Day". Parents had to accompany the children to attend and it was sooo cute and fun to spend the day with the students at school. It was especially cute when we arrived and Natalie's classmates call out to her and waved and said "Hi Natalie!" and she replied, calling her classmates by name. I was super tired afterward, but it was absolutely worth it! Below are videos and photos of the day.

Watch Video 275 - the beginning of "aerobics day" at Natalie's school. Parents were allowed to participate and watch a show put on by the students. Here is the first video of their performance. They are just getting ready for the big show! Natalie is standing at the front of the line to the very left.

Watch Video 276 - this is the second video of their performance. They have started the show and Natalie is super cute as she dances along with her classmates and teachers. Can you find her? She is the 3rd child in the row furthest from the camera, with the little pigtails.

Here is Video 277 of the "free dance" period. Natalie and 3 of her classmates are dancing together holding hands. It looks like fun!

Here is Video 278 of Natalie dancing by herself during the free dance period. She is energetically moving around and taking her dancing very seriously.

Watch Video 279 - Out comes the parachute... all the students loved jumping and playing beneath it as the adults waved it up and down.

Here is Video 280 - the 6th and last video of Natalie's school aerobics day. Actually, the day has finished. Natalie was sooo tired she didn't want to walk. I have already carried her down the stairs and down the hill and now, being 4 months pregnant, I can't go any further so we take a break. You can see how tired Natalie is after so much exercise!

Here are photos from the day:

Natalie with her extremely adorable friend from class, Annabel.


Here we are going up the stairs and heading into the auditorium.


Once inside, the teachers organized all the students while the parents behaved worse than paparazzi, stepping over each other to take photos and videos.


There were three nursery classes participating in the day. All students are 3 years old and super cute.



Natalie was really happy to have me visiting her school with her. She introduced me to her classmates and teachers and was very well behaved (at least in the beginning, closer to the end she became grumpier and more tired).

Natalie hugging her friend Mia.

More hugging. So cute!

Natalie with her friend Kiara (whom I called "Clara" for a long time before realizing I had her name wrong).

Natalie with her friends Kelly and Kiara.

Natalie with me! I really, really enjoyed myself.

During snack time, Natalie very generously shared her cinnamon-toast-crunch cereal with her classmates.

And they shared their snacks in return, too. They are all such great friends!

Growing imagination

Natalie's imagination is fully active now. She often plays make-believe with her toys and sometimes even with nothing! For example, a few times now, she has given me "flowers" she grew by herself in her "garden", but there's really nothing in her hand. I have to pretend to take the flower from her and tell her how beautiful it is, which makes her happy. We find it really funny!

Watch Video 273 and listen to Natalie pretending to talk on the phone with her daddy. She calls him Ba-Ba. She tells him she misses him and she asks 'you're not home? Ok!' and hangs up. Then she gets upset when I try to call Clark (for real) on my telephone. She insists I call him with her telephone.

Also watch Video 274 where Natalie has her "baby" (actually, her Elmo doll) in a sling (actually my scarf) and the baby is sleeping. This may be good practice for when her sibling arrives :)

At Megan and Angus' Wedding

The whole Wang Gang turned out in our wedding best to attend Megan and Angus' wedding. Ba-ba Clark was one of the groomsmen. Here are some pics (courtesy of Serena yee-yee). Thanks, Serena!

Natalie with pigtails in her "day dress" with (left and right) Serena yee-yee, Marian yee-yee, and me.


During the wedding ceremony at the church, I had to bribe Natalie to keep quiet with an egg tart hidden in my purse.


After the ceremony as we waited while the photos were taken in front of the church, Natalie gets a very sweet kiss from uncle Zhi while drinking her lychee juice.


Later, we went to dim sum where Natalie met and was instantly enchanted and mesmerized with Ashley, a 6-year old girl who was very nice to her and who commented that, "Natalie's hands are sooo soft!" It's true, Natalie has really soft skin still.

Ashley willingly shared her toys with Natalie and later, Natalie kept asking "Where's Ashley?" (for the rest of the night).

Much much later (after we unsuccessfully tried to get Natalie to sleep), Natalie decided she wanted to dance on the stage to the band... by herself! She was turning and swaying to the music and climbing up and down from the stage for over 10 minutes.

Whenever our friends tried to join her, Natalie would insist that it was HER stage and all adults must stand to the side. Only other children (including Ashley) were allowed to dance with her. Here uncle Edwin tries to out-insist Natalie (but of course, nobody can out-insist Natalie).

When the bride and groom return to the stage, Natalie decides it's time to come down and go home. We didn't get home until after midnight... quite a long night for Natalie!

Shower fun with hair

Now that Natalie has a little bit more hair (although still not growing at the front for some reason!), her daddy Clark likes to shape it into various shapes and Natalie likes it, too. Here are some photos from a recent bath.

Oompa-Loompa.


We had a little mirror to show her the "crazy hair". She liked this style.


The flash on the camera was a little bright.


Natalie with "really crazy hair"!

"Do I look crazy, Ba-ba?". She loves bathtime. It take some coaxing to get her out.

The two horns look. Although we think Natalie is actually a little angel.

We're really happy she likes to take baths. She will stay in so long her little fingers and toes become wrinkled and she will proudly tell us she has "raisins".

Smile! "But it's too bright, Mommy!"

Hanging with cousin Nicholas

On Saturday, while the apartment was being painted (finishing touches on minor renovations to the "kids room"), we spent time hanging with Natalie's cousin, Nicholas. Here are some photos stolen from Nicholas' blog http://thechenden.blogspot.com. Thanks Chen Den!

Natalie and Nicholas holding hands while waiting for the elevator. Nicholas LOVED holding hands with his older cousin Natalie. It was really cute every time he reached out to take her hand. By the way, he's not sneering at the camera, this is the way Nicholas "smiles" at the camera... by scrunching his little nose!


Natalie and Nicholas playing in the tube together at the park. Gorgeous day for being outside.


Natalie crying when I wouldn't hold her hand (after she wouldn't hold Nicholas' hand). Poor Nat, I'm a mean mum! She has a really sad crying face and big tears. Don't worry, I made it up to her later :)


Nicholas so cute while playing peek-a-boo with his mommy, Carol.

Where did all the posts go?

The past few months have been busy ones for the Wang Gang in Hong Kong. As some of you may know (or have guessed) the reason for the silence is ... we are expecting another baby! Tracy has been plagued with morning sickness (up until a couple weeks ago) and we have also both recently changed jobs . On top of this, we are also renovating our apartment (small updates to prepare for the baby).

Natalie knows that there is a baby inside mommy's belly and has been such a sweet girl being very careful around mommy's belly, but we don't think she understands the significance of what this means or how it will change her life. After every meal, she says, "Look at my BIG BELLY! Just like mommy!"

It's quite cute! But, because she is still young and time passes very slowly for toddlers, we'll wait a few more months before we break the news to her :)

Here are images taken from the last doctor's appointment. The baby is due in October.

Birthdays Birthdays Birthdays!

Since our Mommies' Group is "April to June 2007 babies", we have suddenly hit birthday season! Natalie has been attending lots of birthdays beginning in April and of course she LOVES it. She loves to sing the birthday song and she loves to blow out candles on the cake (even if it's not her birthday cake).

We are also busy planning Natalie's own birthday party for June 6, 2010 in Hong Kong. Hard to believe but she is turning the big OH-THREE this year! We hope all our family and friends can join us at her party :) If you haven't received email from us, please email me for details.

Natalie and I love this picture taken (and stolen) from Summer's birthday party. Summer is hilarious and Natalie laughs every time she looks at this photo! Natalie is a little shell-shocked because we had just arrived at the party and she usually needs a few minutes to get used to new people and places.

Exciting toilet training update

Natalie has been a superstar with day-time toilet training. She's really got the hang of it now (zero accidents over the past couple weeks!) and she's even learned to do a "wee-wee dance" where she hops up and down and stamps her feet whenever she has to wee-wee. (It's really, really cute, but hard to catch on film.)

Last night, we had another big break-through. At around 2:00am, Natalie woke me up with her whimpering and tossing and turning. She kept scissoring her legs and shaking her left foot and sounding very uncomfortable. When I finally roused enough to ask her, "Natalie, are you ok? Do you want anything?", she said, "I have to wee-wee!" I was so impressed because this means her control is getting much better! Here's hoping this is the beginning of the end of diapers for Natalie :)

Even more school pics!

While surfing facebook, I came across even more school photos of Natalie. She really loves school which makes us very happy :)

Can you find her?


Making a big "O" with her mouth.


Posing with their teachers.


The week before Easter, the students had an easter egg hunt in the classroom. Natalie was very excited to show me the egg she found.

The students are becoming much more interactive. Everyone seems very happy and settled and you can even see that some of the (older) students are interacting with each other. Natalie is also starting to "socialize" with other children.

Can you find Natalie? She's half-hidden :)

Park on the Peak

On Friday, on my last free day, I brought Natalie up to the park at the peak (I was there for doctor's visit). We had a delicious lunch of baked potatoes and beans (Oliver's) and hung out for a couple hours at the play area just outside the peak mall. No surprise, Natalie needed some encouragement to go on the slides and up on the equipment, but she loved to run around and explore the other fun and games by herself.

She really liked this turning wheel. She kept going back to this and turning the wheel to watch the little balls roll around behind the plastic circle.


Here she is explaining to me what's happening.


Natalie running around the park. She literally ran circles around the entire play area by herself. She would run back for a bite of food or sip of drink and then take off again. It was funny!


Natalie liked to sit on the friendly giraffe park bench. However, she did not want to sit on the crocodile bench because it would "eat her".

When inside buying food, Natalie insisted on taking a picture with these giraffes. She counted them out loud and said, "There are five giraffes!"

There's the 5th one hiding on the side. She's a very energetic and enthusiastic little girl now.

I took a series of close-up shots. Here is Natalie smiling for the camera.

More smiling... (kind of).

There, that's a nice smile!

"Is it enough?" She asked.

Natalie loves riding the springy animals. She climbs up and down and up and down.

Natalie is very expressive now, too, with lots of different expressions to express how much fun (or little fun!) she's having.

What a great view of the peak, too!