The Writing on the...Scraps of Paper

Elina started reading a few months ago, but it wasn't until recently that Elina finally figured out that there are words everywhere and that she now has the ability to try to read them. Now Elina will read signs everywhere we go, she'll try to read books on her own, and she'll write sentences down on every single sheet of paper she can get her hands on.

What I love is all the little notes I find all over the house when I'm cleaning up. She still uses "creative spelling" for now, but that's part of the fun--deciphering what was written.

The first sentence is my favorite..."Once upon a time there was a little girl named Princess Elina." Like I said, she's very into fairy tales right now. Oh, and she's VERY VERY into putting colons in between every word.

Then she wrote about falling into a puddle. I think she asked me how to spell "puddle" so she spelled that correctly.

Then is the word "chocolate." She was writing down my ice cream order when she and L were "selling" ice cream at their "stand."

Then the last one is "Mom, I have a surprise." She left me this note after she had made my birthday card with B.

So now that she's writing everywhere, I'm going to start her on journaling in a notebook. I want to be able to keep all this stuff in one place and I think it'll be good for her.

A Wild, Wild Week

For some reason, last week was filled with lots of wildlife outings.

MONDAY
I took the kids to the zoo. We hadn't gone in awhile because it's been so cold, but the weather's gotten more mild these days so I figured we'd use our season pass. We had a great time visiting the animals. The highlight of the trip was seeing the rhino pee on a wall. The zookeeper just let the rhino back into her enclosure and she walked right over to her "pee spot," lifted her tail, and sprayed what looked like white-colored pee straight back to the wall. Elina was amazed and couldn't stop talking about it.

WEDNESDAYWe went to the Wildlife Orphanage. This place is pretty awesome. They rescue unwanted, neglected, and/or abused wildlife from all over the country. Most of the wildlife are from roadside zoos. They have an unbelievable amount of animals there and you can get so close to them. In those respects, it's better than the zoo. They have 22 tigers (3 white), grizzly bears,

wolves, lions, lots of different monkeys...and...(wait for it)...(hold your breath)...a real LIGER! Some of you might be gasping at this point--I know I was! Some of you are probably scratching your heads wondering what a liger is. A liger is purely man-made (and quite sad) and is produced when you mate a male lion with a female tiger. If it's a male tiger with a female lion, then a tigon is created. It's a really sad union because tigers are solitary animals, while lions are not (they live in big prides). So when you get a liger or a tigon, it doesn't know what to do with itself...it doesn't know how it's supposed to react to things. The liger we saw was a female and her liger mate had passed away, so all she does is lay there. It was a sad scene.

Our visit was lots of fun and really interesting. The employees take you on a 45 minute tour of the orphanage and they tell you how the animals were acquired and what they are like. I had a great time and I think we'll have to go back one day so that B can see the liger for himself. (I think B was secretly jealous that we had seen a liger!)

FRIDAYB took the day off, so we had a Family Fun Day. First we went up to the Wildlife Ranch in New Braunfels (about 45 minutes away) and then we took the kids roller skating (more on this in another post). We went to the Wildlife Ranch last year and had a blast, but B didn't go with us then because Eli was too young to really enjoy it. I was really excited to go back up there, especially with B and the kids.

The drive-thru safari was a lot of fun...and kind of scary at times. The thing is, some of theanimals are a LITTLE too aggressive about getting the food. When we went last year, the zebras didn't come up to our car because there had been 4 cars ahead of us and the zebras had enough food when we pulled up. So we were really looking forward to seeing the zebras. Man, were the zebras scary. They had no shame about sticking their entire heads into our car windows. There was a point when there were 2 zebra heads in our van! Not only would they stick their heads into the car, but they would just have their mouths wide open, waiting for food, with their big teeth in your face. I am still having nightmares about seeing all that grass stuck in between the zebra's big teeth. Yikes! A sight like that definitely inspires you to floss every night. The kids were screaming...Elina was crouching down in the middle of the van and Eli was pulling away from B, trying to get away from the zebras. So at this point, we had to start driving away. The only bummer was that I didn't get good pictures of the entire scene....because it was definitely QUITE the scene. But since we didn't have enough hands, there was no way I could get good pictures of everything that was going on. Too many people screaming and too many zebra heads poking into the car.

Then there were the scary ostrich and emu. Man, are those birds mean! They were constantly fighting over the food we were tossing to them and then they kept poking their heads into the car. It got to the point where we had to just roll up our windows. But then the ostrich started pecking at our windows (and B told the ostrich not to scratch the car)! B was really surprised and kept saying, "Drive, drive!" whenever too many ostrich and emu were around. Then we stopped for some baby ostrich because they weren't as aggressive. As I stopped the car, I looked in the rearview mirrors and saw the emu and ostrich jogging toward our car. They saw that we stopped, so they were running over to get more food! It was totally like Jurassic Park. I saw the emu and ostrich coming so I shouted to Elina, "Hurry, feed the baby ostrich! We don't have time! The emu and ostrich are coming!"

Here is just a short clip of the baby "non-aggressive" ostrich--


And then on our way out a HUGE ostrich was walking right on the road trying to block our way out (or so we thought). It was a funny ending to our safari since we were already "loving" all the other ostrich during the drive. Check it out--
So for whatever reason we had a nice week of wildlife. The kids had a blast (for the most part) and so did we.

I'm 34!

I turned 34 today!

I guess I started my celebration a little early this year because B let me get a massage and have a shopping day to myself last weekend. My shoulder was really bothering me last weekend, so I figured I may as well cash in on the massage when I actually needed it. I got a great massage and even had my brows waxed! Honestly, it was my first time getting my brows waxed. I've never thought about doing it, but the last time my mom visited she told me that my brows were looking way too hairy and thick. (Don't you just love your mom??) I guess taking care of my brows wasn't really at the top of my priority list since I got pregnant. So I figured I'd give it a try and see if it was worth it. It was actually kind of fun having someone else do my brows for me. I mean, the most I ever do is pluck out stray hairs to keep them looking semi-neat, but this lady waxed in between, over and under my brows. And I have to admit (even B has to admit), that my brows definitely look neater these days. Who knew?

After the spa, I just ran some errands and did some window shopping. I ended up having more fun than I thought I would because I was supposed to go grocery shopping and then cook dinner at home that night, but I never made it back. I called B and he immediately said, "You're not coming back ever, are you?" I laughed and told him, "I'm having way too much fun by myself. Can you guys just come out and meet me for dinner somewhere because I'm not going to make it to the grocery store today." B, being the nice guy that he is, agreed to come out and we had a perfect dinner at PJ Changs...the food was yummier than I had remembered and the kids were angels and ate all by themselves the entire time. It was a great ending to a wonderful day!

So this weekend my parents, J, and M came into town to help me celebrate my birthday. Yesterday we had my birthday dinner at Kona Grill. It was our first time there and it was pretty good. Originally I wanted to pick Red Robin because I LOVE eating burgers, but J made me pick a "nicer" establishment since she brought a nice shirt to wear for the event. Kona Grill has Pan-Asian food and it was surprisingly yummy...kinda pricey, but yummy. J and M surprised me by telling the waitress it was my birthday so we got a huge piece of red velvet cake to eat. Yum!
Afterwards we opened gifts at home. Man, I got a lot of gifts related to baking! I didn't realize that people think of me in that way, but I'm glad they do because I got cool cookbooks and gadgets to use so now I can't wait to bake/make something cute soon! I'll have to whip up lots of yummy desserts before this new baby comes.

My actual birthday (today) was rather uneventful. I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned. Sounds fun, right?? And last

night was an awful night for me and B. Eli caught another cold and he was up a lot...so we were up a lot. He didn't sleep from 3:30-5am. THEN, to top things off, one of the smoke detectors in the house started running low on batteries at 5:30am so there was this loud, incessant beeping going on! Why do all these things happen at once on the same night?? So I don't think I was ever fully awake for my birthday today. But we ended the night with a nice, home cooked meal made by my mom and some ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery. What a good ending.

So how does being 34 feel? It doesn't really feel any different than yesterday, when I was 33. I guess things have gotten easier this past year, now that Eli's older, can communicate, and can walk...and now that Elina is more independent. But I've also made my life a little less easy now that I'm almost 7 months pregnant. I feel older, more tired, but that's a given. It's not like I'm going to be any less tired this coming year! But all in all, it's been another great year. I have an understanding, loving husband; 2 cute, well-behaved (for the most part) kids; wonderful family nearby; friends to whine and vent to; and one more baby on the way. I'd be a fool to trade all that for sweet, blissful sleep, wouldn't I?

Special Snack Days

For Elina's school, each kid is asked to provide special snacks 2-3 times during the school year. One of the days should be for the birthday or half-birthday and the rest can be random dates throughout the year. In addition, I'm one of the two room parents for the classroom. One of my duties is to provide snacks and other things for other special occasions (teachers' birthdays, etc.). I kind of like these random little snack days because it gives me an excuse to work on my creativity.

My first special snack day was towards the beginning of the year, so I had made cheesesticks into pencils with bugle/raisin tips and bologna erasers. Then for Mrs. B's baby shower snack, I made cupcakes into sleeping baby faces with bottles in their mouths. Unfortunately, I did not think ahead and take pictures of these cute snacks--if you can believe it!

Unfortunately, I was kind of lazy for Elina's half-birthday and went out and bought a cake and cut it in half. I know, I know, but I was really tired that night and in no mood to bake.

My latest venture was for Mrs. B's half-birthday last week. I made cupcakes look like little red and green apples. I must say that they turned out quite cute and weren't that hard to make. I used half of a pretzel stick for the stem and I cut out leaf shapes from sour apple belts. (I got the idea from one of Martha Stewart's cupcake books.)

Anyway, I just think it's funny because these special snack days create more work for me, but in the end I almost welcome them because it makes me do something fun and creative! Who knew?

We Miss You, A!

My sister, A, just went back to Taiwan last week after visiting the States for 3 months. Well, her original trip was supposed to end earlier, but she ended up staying since she was having way too much fun!

We really enjoyed having her visit because we got to do so many fun things together and she was a big help. Of course the kids absolutely loved having her around because she's just a fun aunt to play with. Elina misses A the most. She and A would tell each other countless fairy tales about Princess Elina. This was especially popular at bedtime since it would drag out the bedtime routine for up to an hour! They also made cookies, went ice skating (for the first time), played dress-up, and had a picnic.

Here is some footage of Elina and A ice skating. Elina had a lot of trouble in the beginning, but after 45 minutes, she had already improved a lot. A said that Elina was being so tough on the ice. A would ask her if she was cold or if she wanted to leave and Elina kept telling her that she wanted to stay and that she was fine. It was really cold in there, but Elina didn't care. She had been wanting to go ice skating ever since she saw "Max and Ruby" (TV characters she loves) do it.

In this video, she's determined to try to skate around by herself.

We really loved having A around. She's silly and fun, which are the best things to a kid. This next video explains exactly why the kids miss her--

We miss you lots, A! Hope you come back soon!

An Imagination Gone Wild

For the past few weeks, Elina's imagination has completely taken off. I think part of it is her age and the other part is that she and A were constantly telling each other creative stories during A's visit from Taiwan. Elina always wants more stories all the time...the more creative, the better. Unfortunately, I really really stink at telling good, creative, descriptive stories. I don't possess that gene. I'm not a storyteller. I can read a storybook really well and with different facial expressions and different voices, but if you ask me to come up with something off the top of my head, you will start to hear crickets in the background. I'm that bad.

This is where Jim Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook comes in. I bought this book when Elina was a baby because I wanted to find ways to raise a reader. I want Elina to love books as much as I do. Trelease is a firm believer in reading aloud to your children from when they are born until they are adults. His book also has some useful lists of books that are good for reading aloud (because not all great books are great read-aloud books) at different ages. So I looked at Trelease's book to see what I should be reading to her at this point--now that she can read on her own and now that her imagination needs to be fed. Elina still likes regular books, but she always wants more of something....something more creative and "out there" that she could never have imagined on her own. This is the kind of stuff that she really appreciates now.

This is the kind of stuff that only Roald Dahl can provide. For those of you who don't know, Dahl was an amazing children's author. I have read almost all his children's books as a child and then a few more times as an adult. He was a great author because his children's books are about children's things, but when you re-read his books as an adult, you realize how he is also referring to the adult world. One of my fave books is The BFG...and if you haven't read it, you need to. I also love James and the Giant Peach (JGP).

So what's the connection between Trelease's book and Roald Dahl? Well, Trelease said that he believes that kindergartners are never too young for short chapter books and high school students are never too old for picture books. He actually starts his kids off with JGP as their first read-aloud chapter books. He would read one chapter a day and he said that they were always dying for the book the next day to find out what happens.

I was kind of doubtful as I flipped through my copy of JGP because there were almost no pictures. How would Elina possibly sit through 39 chapters of this? That's a lot of days. But the chapters were short and I had faith in Dahl, so I started to read JGP to her a few nights ago.

Man, does Dahl understand children or what?? When he was interviewed about writing children's books as opposed to his short stories for adults, this is what he said, "Children's books are harder to write. It's tougher to keep a child interested because the child doesn't have the concentration of an adult. The child knows the television is in the next room. It's tough to hold a child, but it's a lovely thing to try to do." We are on Chapter 8 right now and every night she is dying for me to keep reading. I have to admit that we've already cheated the last 2 nights because I read 2 chapters last night and 2 the night before. It's just because when the chapters end abruptly, her mouth is wide open and her eyes are bugging out of her head and she just can't wait! She says, "I think I need you to read me another chapter." It's so sweet that I can't say no.

When I read Dahl's paragraphs, Elina is always feeling something. She's on the edge of her seat. She grabs my arm. Her mouth drops. She gasps. She laughs hard. She laughs harder. She just can't believe the things that are in this book. She is literally eating up all the juicy details. It's wonderful to watch her reaction while I'm reading. She doesn't care that there are no pictures. She just wants me to read more and more. It's awesome.

Granted, I DO have to make some edits. I take out certain words because they aren't appropriate for her right now or I change the wording because there are too many hard words all together. But all in all, it's been fun reading this book for the past few nights. And Elina is in heaven. She can repeat a lot of the story verbatim, even though I've only read through the chapters once. She just holds onto all the details in her head and she can't let them go. That is why Dahl's writing is so amazing for even the youngest kids.

I just had to write a post about this because I can't believe my child is in love with one of the books that I've always been in love with. It's so great to be able to share this with her. I love it! So thank you, Jim Trelease for advising me to start Elina on chapter books. And thank you, Roald Dahl for giving Elina the creativity she's been craving.

P is for Pajama and Pee

Since the holidays, we've been so busy. We've had family in and out of our house and we've also been to Brownsville a few times. We all love having family around, especially the kids, but sometimes we miss having weekends to ourselves. You know how sometimes it's nice to have some quiet time to lounge around by yourself.

This weekend was one of the first weekends we've been by ourselves as "our own little family," so I thought it'd be nice to start off with a PJ Day. Elina was so excited to spend the entire day at home in our PJs. She deemed it a Valentine's PJ Day because we were going to "stay in our PJs all day, do Valentine's crafts, and go nowhere." Lately, Elina has become even more of a "crafty" girl. She always wants to do crafts, color pictures, and make cards. So when Eli went down for a nap, we started our craft extravaganza. We cut out lots of different colored, different sized hearts. Then she made a picture with all heart-shaped things on it...butterflies, a flower, fireworks (this was Elina's idea), a ladybug, and a fish. I got the idea from a blog I frequent and it came out very cute. (Also note how fancy she makes her name now in the picture above.) After Eli woke up, I made some hearts with the kids' handprints and then they painted whatever they wanted to paint. Elina painted some hearts and Eli did his own thing. After dinner, we just played some games...come to think of it, we could've played some Valentine's Day Bingo, but instead we played the Mickey Mouse version of Yahtzee Jr. If you can believe it, Eli totally won! Then Elina picked her last activity for the night--playing chase with Daddy. So we all had a great, fun-filled day in our PJs and we didn't even go anywhere. (This isn't totally true though because B changed his clothes to get us some burgers for lunch and he also spent a few hours painting our downstairs hallway bathroom a new color. He transformed it from a pale yellow to a beautiful blue gray. Elina said that since B changed his clothes we need to have another PJ Day tomorrow. Ha!)

So how did we spend our morning? Well, that's the part of our day that didn't quite work out the way we had expected. We wanted to see if Eli was ready to be potty trained today....ummmmm, not so much. We did our usual thing--put Eli on the potty frequently, made him drink lots of fluids, made him wear underwear--but Eli just didn't seem to get it. He kept peeing on himself and not telling us about it. We even tried to trick him by letting him touch warm water while we sat him on the potty. It just didn't really look like we were making any progress by lunch, but then Eli actually trickled some pee into the potty! We were so excited and cheered for him, but he looked more afraid than anything else. So we took him off the potty, gave him some treats...and he immediately peed all over B. As we carried him back to the bathroom, he started kicking and screaming and saying, "Don't want!" So after that it was all over. He just refused to go back into the bathroom. We officially lost the battle...for now. Now I think we're going to try again in a few weeks. This is a real blow to our egos since Elina was potty trained in a weekend. But every kid is different and boys and girls are different. Oh well!

So this has definitely been both a humbling and a fun day for all of us.

A Half-Birthday with Some Snow

This past Thursday was quite eventful for Elina at school. First, we celebrated Elina's half-birthday during snack time. If a student has a summer birthday, the teachers let him/her celebrate a half-birthday at school since they can't celebrate with friends during the summer. So I brought in half of a cake and grapes and strawberries cut in half. Elina got to wear a "crown" and everyone sang "Happy Birthday." Elina was so excited that it almost felt like her real birthday. Even Eli was excited to eat the cake! (Well, who wouldn't be excited to eat the cake, right?)

After snack time, Elina's class had a Snow Day. Once a year Elina's school brings in "snow" (ice) for the kids to play with. Elina had so much fun playing in the snow and trying to make a snow angel. Eli, on the other hand, didn't want to touch the stuff. He wanted to play with it, but only from a distance. Elina was so sweet that she brought over a big piece of snow to let Eli touch, but he just kept shaking his head. Oh well.

I ended up staying until the end of school and got to see Closing Circle time. It was so cute. Mrs.

B read them stories and then they did 2 songs. During the first song, they listen to a song to see what to do--snap, clap, tap their knees, and/or tap the floor. They were all listening so attentively...it was really adorable.
Even though it was a long morning for me, I actually had a good time spending so much time at the school and in the classroom. It was fun to chat with the teachers and parents and to see what Elina does at school.

The Penguin Shuffle

Elina just had her second dance recital this past weekend. It was a lot of fun to watch because this time it was up on a stage and the girls got real costumes. Elina's dance was called the Penguin Shuffle and her class was mostly 3-4 year olds (pictured above). Unfortunately, L wasn't in the same class as Elina so she was doing a different dance. In the collage below, Elina is with L, then she's with her teacher Miss M, and then she's just showing off for the camera by herself.Here are the lyrics so you can see what the kids are trying to do in the dance--

I went to the South Pole and what did I see A thousand little penguins just-a-lookin’ at me Suits so black and their vests so white Toes turned out and their feathers just right One birdie said, “I hope you can stay Cus we’re rockin’ and-a-rollin’ the penguin way"

Hey Penguins, shuffle to the left Party Penguins, slide to the right Cool Penguins, hop to the beat Waddling along on your little flat feet

Down to the water went the pen-gu-in pack Sliding on their bellies and lookin’ for a snack Perky little birds in the ice and snow Hoppin’ and a boppin’ at-a-30 below Clappin with the puffins, flappin at the seals Dancin’ on an ice flow and keepin’ it real

Chorus

Ooo, let the penguins rock Ooo, let the penguins roll

It was really cute to watch the dance on a stage. Elina wasn't nervous or anything and she had a lot of fun just showing off her skills. Here are a few clips from her dance--

In the chorus part, first the dancers shuffle to the left and then they slide to the right, but when you watch all of them on the stage it just looks like they're all running to the left and then running back to the right (but just with one of their arms up for the "slide"). And even though they all have a certain place to stand, when it's time to shuffle and slide all the kids clump together to become this mass. It's just hilarious.

This dance class was held at a mom's house and Elina had class once every week. To make things easier, I usually stayed and watched Elina's class. This means that Eli also stayed and watched Elina's class....which also means that Eli knew Elina's dance pretty well. I also helped Elina with the dance at home, so Eli knew it REALLY well. Here are some funny videos of Eli practicing the dance at dance class.

In this first video, there is a little naked girl running around because she is potty training and just had an accident on the floor. So her mom was in the midst of changing her and she ran away to join the dancers. You'll probably end up watching this first clip twice because the first time you are watching the naked bum and the second time you'll actually watch Eli. Eli is doing the first part of the dance where you put your hand on your forehead like you're looking for something because the song goes, "I went to the South Pole and what did I see?"
In this next clip, Eli is just copying some of the other dance movements--
And in this last clip he gets on his belly just like all the other little dancers--

We're so proud of our little dancers! Even though Elina seemed to have fun this past semester, I

think we're going to switch activities for this semester. I asked Elina if she liked dance and she said, "I like it OK." Honestly, I think she enjoyed getting all fancy on the day of the recital more than dance class itself. She was so excited to wear a little lip gloss and blush. So we might switch to gymnastics to see if Elina likes that at all.

Here is one last video of Elina performing a some of her dance at home. The tutu was a little big for her, so I had to use a safety pin to make it tighter. Once we got home I had taken out the pin...so this is what happened when she was trying to hop like a penguin--

In Love

I have totally fallen in love with my Little Green Proheat Deep Cleaner. I've been eyeing this product ever since I caught a glimpse of it at KT's house. I figured every house that has children should own a little steam cleaner. You know, with spit up, "accidents," and spills, it would come in handy.

My parents bought this for me for Christmas and it is definitely one of the best gifts ever. Yesterday we took the Christmas tree out of the house and B accidentally left a watermark (from the bottom of the tree) on the carpet. I figured I would bust out the new Little Green to test it out. It got the stain right out, so I decided to go around the house and test it out on old stains.

Now I have to give you some background info. I HATE my 1st floor carpets. It's a high-traffic area and includes the playroom and living room. I can always see stains everywhere even though I clean the carpets, use Spot Shot, and shampoo them. I can still see these stains. And some of them are old stains from when the house was built. Mind you, our house isn't even old. It was built in 2005 or something. But with kids stains are inevitable. Recently, a lot of my friends and neighbors have been replacing their carpets with laminate wood and their floors look amazing. I was getting really jealous and told B I wanted to replace our floors, too. So...now back to the story...

Well, I'm glad I didn't start tearing out my carpets because the Little Green worked some magic on them. After the Christmas tree stain, I started going around cleaning all the old stains that have bothered me in the past. And the Little Green got them ALL out! I couldn't believe it! So I ended up steam cleaning for an hour last night. I was obsessed. I didn't even bother helping B give the kids a bath. (Aren't I a wonderful wife??) The only reason I stopped cleaning was because I ran out of soap. Now I can't wait to go out and get more soap so I can attack more stains. B says I'm crazy, but I love getting old stains out of things. (Is my life sad, or what?)

Anyway, my 1st floor carpets look awesome now and I'm SO in love with my Little Green!! Now we're prepared when it comes time to potty train Eli. Bring it on!

Pyrotechnics 2010

This year we celebrated New Years in Brownsville again. (In the picture above we are doing our "2010" pose.) We spent a week down there and had lots of fun with family. We missed J down there (she stayed up in Austin), but still managed to have a great time. We started New Years Eve with a nice hot pot. Chinese people love to eat this, especially when it's cold out. There's a big pot of broth simmering on this burner sitting on the table and all around the table are raw or partially cooked pieces of miscellaneous delicious things...shrimp, tofu, fish cake, noodles, spinach, meatballs. It sounds like it would be weird all mixed together, but trust me, it's delicious. It's just this big pot of soup where you can throw in anything you like. Then you take out what you want to eat and dip it in sauce that each person has made for themselves. It consists of raw egg (I know it sounds weird, but it's yummy), soy sauce, Chinese barbeque sauce (sacha sauce), green onions, hot sauce (optional), and maybe a few other things. Anyway, it's definitely a fun way to eat. Elina enjoyed literally throwing her own food into the pot and both kids ate really well that night.

This New Years was definitely all about the fireworks. My cousin, R, decided to go all out this year since we had so much family around. Originally, he spent $1000 on fireworks, but then my dad made him sell some of them to his employees. R wanted to do fireworks for 3 hours straight, but we ended up with 2 hours worth of fireworks instead. I thought R was crazy and kept thinking, "Who would want to be out there for 2 hours??" But actually, it turned out to be super fun! My dad (Ah-Gong), R, B, and 2 more of my cousins were in charge of the fireworks. A dubbed them the "Dream Team." There were some fireworks we could've done without, but for the most part a lot of them were really nice. We learned that it's definitely better not to buy a bunch of the dinky, cheap fireworks and save the money for the nicer, bigger, more expensive fireworks. The dinky ones seemed to have a lot of problems. Some of them flew in the wrong directions and some of them didn't even fly. They were really scary because we weren't sure where they would end up! B said they were all lawsuits waiting to happen.
I have to say that the one firework I can do without is the Saturn. Every time it shoots out something out, there is a high-pitched sound. Here's some video footage of it (to show you how annoying it is)--


And here is one that we enjoyed a lot--


My dad went a little Black Cat crazy though. He LOVES Black Cats and at one point he was just lighting them and tossing them onto the lawn like a robot...one right after the other. Black Cats are a little too loud for me, but they're my dad's favorite.

We had a great night...fireworks, yummy food, and lots of mahjong. We hope everyone has a wonderful 2010!