2008

Dear friends,

Year 2008 is ending tonight. We wish everyone a happy, peaceful, and prosperous 2009!
新年好！祝大家迎来一个快乐，祥和，成功的一年！

Katie has been growing so quickly, physcically and mentally. Katie is a 5 ft (153 cm) tall 4th grader. I love to tease with her and make friends with her. She has managed her time very well since I went to law school, despite of the larger amount of homework and more time in activities. Katie got accepted into the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) program and became a leader and popular student in the group of 4th and 5th grades students. Katie's idea to become a popular girl is to be nice, smart, having some humor, and wearing Aeropostle :-) Katie is also recognized as one of the best students in Chinese school. Here is a list of her extra-curriculum activities:
Piano: Junior B winner of MMTA (Minnesota Music Teacher Association) honor concert; SPPTA (St. Paul Piano Teacher Association) honor awardee (only one student is selected for the age group each time)（弹琴）: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjMyODEwNTI=.html, http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDEyNzQ2MTY=.html.
Skating: Third place in ISI 2 (Ice Skating Institute), and Forth place in ISI 4（滑冰）: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTgwNjY4NDg=.html
Drawing: First Prize in Minnesota Art Exhibition dedicated to Olympics 2008. Third Prize in Minnesota State Fair.

Minkai and Minda were held for another year to go to Kindergarten. They got to play one more year! One of Minkai's favorate activities is doing math. Minda is also a big helper at school, just like Katie. According to Katie, Minda is sassy, which means that she usually does not compromise and talks to people in a bossy way. Minkai and Minda have become good friends at home. They chatted with each other, played with each other, and fell to sleep hand-in-hand. On the other side, they have different friends group at school. They have been enjoying little gym, piano, swimming, and skating. The twins' skin condition is much better, but they are still super sensitive. However, Minda's athma has become more frequent. Life is always a challenge.

Fuming has spent a lot of time teaching Minkai and Minda piano and swimming. Here is his and the twins' accomplishments （旻恺与旻达）: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjMxMzgxNzI=.html, http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDE5MTE3MTY=.html

More detail stories were posted on my blog（博客）: http://xchuang.blogspot.com/

I have been working very hard to fit my schedule for family, study, and work. I have been trained well when Minkai and Minda were babies, so life is actually easier to me as I get my sleep! Fuming is much more involved in kids' activities and house works. Eventually, we got to relax at Los Cabos in Mexico （拉斯卡波丝）: http://photoshow.comcast.net/xchuang/2008

I really like one sentence in Minkai & Minda's Thanksgiving song, "I am thankful for to be me."

Be thankful and keep in touch, my friends.

Xiao/Christina

Los Cabos

Christmas Piano

Minkai & Minda: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjMxMzgxNzI=.html
Katie: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjMxNDEyNDg=.html

Katie Skating for ISI 4

Responsible Kid

As late as last August, or even this August, I was still training Katie to be responsible. All of sudden, she becomes a responsible kid!

- She gets up at 6:30AM and plays one hour piano from 7-8 AM.
- She finishes her tasks, such as school homework, piano, Chinese homework, by 8:30PM although she has more homework than last year. Last school year she could not finish less amount of homework by 10:30 PM.
- She knows the task to stay on and gently remind classmates, commented by her teacher.
- She reminds her father of her schedule and makes sure her skates and backpacks are prepared.
- She asked her father not to drive on the road with a deep hill and sharp turn in the winter. She was almost too worrisome.

This is the power of ten years old?! Or having a mother who is too busy and studies every night until 12?

Thanksgiving Song

This is what Minkai remembered for the Thanksgiving song. Minkai and Minda's friends sang the song togther for us, I like "I'm thankful for to be me":

There are many things that we are thankful for,
we can find them near and far,
there are many things that we are thankful for,
let me tell you what they are
I'm thankful for the earth
I'm thankful for the sea
I'm thankful for my friends
and I'm thankful for to be me

There are many things that we are thankful for,
we can find them near and far,
there are many things that we are thankful for,
let me tell you what they are
I'm thankful for the sun
I'm thankful for the tree
I'm thankful for my house
and I'm thankful for to be me

There are many things that we are thankful for,
we can find them near and far,
there are many things that we are thankful for,
let me tell you what they are
I'm thankful for the food
I'm thankful to be free
I'm thankful for the stars
and I'm thankful for to be me

Big Helper

Minda has been a big helper in school, commented by her teacher.

One day, I asked Katie to hang her three coats laying on the bench when she got home in the afternoon, as we were hurry out of the door.
"You have to remind me." Katie said.
"No, it's your responsibility to hang them and remember to do that. I have told you about this last night." I was not very happy to see a croweded mud room.
"Katie, I will remind you." Minda offered help, with her sweet voice.
"Yeah... if you could remember." Katie could not rely on Minda's help, as the girls all have short term memories according to Katie.

表演欲

这是孩子爸提供的故事：
钢琴老师说,“旻恺，你这个星期的钢琴弹得很好呀。”
旻恺高兴地点点头，他拿了不少Sticker。
“旻恺，你好好弹，圣诞节去表演。”
“很多人看的吗？”旻恺满怀喜悦地问。
“是呀。”钢琴老师忍不住摸了摸他的脑袋。

Kids' Talk

Minda called Minkai at downstairs, "Minkai, it is your turn to play piano!"
"I am coming." Minkai went down from his bedroom.
"Minda, could you sharpen the pencils? There are many." Minkai probably found a box of 12 un-sharpened pencils.
"Yes. I will do it." Minda liked the job. We got a big Mickey Mouse sharpener from China.
"They are on the bookshelves in my bedroom." Minkai directed.
"OK."
"You promise?"
"I promise"
"Pinky swear?"
"Pinky swear!" Minda came upstairs and started to work.
What a deal!

I was in the study room for only ten minutes and heard all kinds of noise from downstairs. It seemed that Minda took or misplaced some stuff when Katie was playing piano. After a while, Minda came into the study room, crying, "Mommy, Katie hit me!"
"Oh, did you tell Katie that she should not hit you?" Minda climbed up to sit on my laps.
Minda put her finger in her mouth, which meant that she was nervous.
"Mommy, did Katie lose a chance?" I have a house rule for losing the privilege to sleep with me on one of the weekends after losing a number of chances.
I laughed. My little girl knew how to negotiate now!

孩子的思考

今天早上，霭琳问我，“中国也像美国一样失业率很高吗？”
“没有吧。”
“如果你们俩都没工作了，我会让你们回中国工作。”
霭琳曾经说过，回中国读书会让她失去对学习的兴趣。现在可得到她的批准了。

上星期，旻恺对我说，“我会给你带一个南瓜回来的。”一副当家作主的样子。他的班要去农场郊游。

感觉良好的琳儿

Katie小朋友是很会鼓励和称赞自己的：

这个星期一，她八点钟就已经把学校作业，阅读，弹琴，中文学校的数学作业，都完成了。我建议她把这个星期的中文字都认会了。鉴于周末有跳舞表演，她勉强同意了。二十分钟后，她把四十八个字的字经都念下来了。她激动地告诉我，这是她第一次这么高效率， 可不可以看电视作为奖励，我同意了。

星期三了，做完其他作业后，我建议Katie把这四十八个字的字卡都认一认。
“这怎么可能？这是我第一天认字卡。”
“认70%就可以了。”
“那我可以错十五个字。”她这会儿四舍五入学得不错。
过了一会儿，她又很激动地告诉我，“我把字卡都认下来了！”
“噢。”
"You should be proud of me!" （“你应该为我感到自豪！”）
“是吗？”我很好笑地看着她。

教育孩子

最近突然有了说出自己的想法的欲望：
1）孩子是没有错的。孩子的行为是父母，学校，社会，教育的结果。如果孩子的行为让你不满意，想办法帮他改变。如果这是他性格的一部分，帮助他尽可能地控制自己。
2）保护孩子的自尊心，帮助他建立自信心。
3）期望值不要太高，这样大家都会高兴的。事先告诉孩子你的期望与要求，不要只是事后责怪。
4）孩子最重要的是成为一个完整的，健康的，快乐的，能承担责任的人。
5）教给孩子学习的能力，学习生活，学习知识，完善自己。
6）犯错误是超越自我的前奏。
7）不要让孩子只会听话，而是要讲道理。

Katie Swimming

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDE5MDk5NzI=.html

Playing Piano

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDEyNzQ2MTY=.html

Being Strong

Minkai, as a boy, loves to show us his muscle. He was proudly talking about that he was so strong that I could not even carry him. I followed his implication. I could only lift him up a few inches from the ground but I could not hold him.

Now, we have walked half of an hour on the street of Chicago to find a decent restaurant, after a full day's visit of museums. Minda felt to sleep on her Dad's shoulder twenty minutes ago. Minkai was still walking by himself with a painful look.

"Do you want me to hold you? You are still very strong because you have walked for so long." I suggested.
"Yes. Minda did not even walk." Minkai was so relieved...

Swimming

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDEyNTIwNTY=.html

Minkai & Minda Swimming

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDE5MTE3MTY=.html

Minkai & Minda Chorous

Playing Piano

Practicing Piano - Different Style

At the age of five, Minkai and Minda start to learn piano. At the very beginning, their little hand can hardly make sounds on the piano, well the black keys.

Now I keep thinking a comment from a friend, "No matter how good or how bad the kids are doing, I keep on encouraging them!" That's exactly what I am doing. Even a song with a few notes wrong, I will say, "that's pretty good!", "that's better!"...

Here are their totally different styles:
Once Minkai knows how to play a piece, he will continue practicing the piece for five times (my requirement) non-stop, no changing on speed, no following the accompanied music. He will just try to finish his practice time...

Minda will wander from a few pages before the practice song to look at the sticker that they got to pages back of new songs so that she could randomly hit keys. Once I start to count 'One, two, three, go!' she usually will start to play the piece. She will follow my instruction for the practicing though...

Hei, Bike!

Minda is riding on a two wheels bike! The first day her Dad took off the training wheels, I bent myself holding to her bike all the way to a place with no cars around. My back was hurting, because Minda and her bike were always leaning toward me. Sudenly, an idea came to my mind.
"Minda, you shall pendal faster!"
That's it, she is on the road by herself since then. It's early June.

Minda is a cautious kid. She got very nervous when Minkai was behind her and passing her. She will keep calling, "Hei, Minkai! Hei, Minkai!"

Today we went on a new trail. Minda was nervous of the hills, the narrow trails, etc. When she was wiggling the bike on the trail, she started to shout, "Hei, Bike! Hei, Bike!" Hopefulling the bike will listen to her better when she is calling it.

Being Grateful

This morning, I was looking at Minda and said, 'we shall cut your bang.'
Minda said,'Katie told me that I should grow my hair long.'
'We are only cutting the hair in the front, not the back.'

All of sudden, I realized that Minda could grow her hair! Since she was one, she need ointment on her whole body several times a day and her hair and clothes were all greasy because of that, unless her hair was really short and not touching her neck. She has short hair since then. Now her skin condition is really good and she does not need ointment as often.

I am grateful for this change.

Being Adaptive

Today is the first day of summer section of Paidea. When I picked up Minkai and Minda, they were very excited to tell me about their new teacher and new group. It's a dramatic change for them to adapt to the new environment so quickly. I felt much relaxed. One day, I could send them anywhere by just dropping them off.

A little less than three years ago, when they just started in Paidea, the only teacher that they would feel comfortable with was Angie. They would cry and cry if another teacher was their teacher. Minkai has cried into Carol's ears, his last year favorite teacher, for thirty minutes when she came to the toddler room to read them a story. Lynn, their director would call me if Angie was leaving early or taking vacation. I was extremely grateful for their caring to Minda and Minkai's feelings.

Minkai's Reasoning

We bought a box of Gold Fish crackers in the evening. As Minda and Minkai had pasta for dinner, I told them not to open the crackers until tomorrow to limit the amount of wheat that they consumed.

While we were driving home, Minkai told me that he was very hot.

Then, he said, "Mommy, do you know that eating crackers will help me cool down?"

Katie as a Learner and a Leader

Katie is learning from how other people do things.
- Katie will remember the number of kids when taking a group of kids out to playground. She will count the number of kids at each stop point. She will even pair a older kid with a younger kid as a buddy group not to lose any kid.
- The way that she treats Minda and Minkai is like the way that a school teacher will do. She is proud to be able to make Minkai or Minda to do things, such as, help her cleaning her room. She uses persuasive ways instead of forcing.
- She composed a series of dances and songs and practiced them with Minda and Minkai. She probably learned dance choregraphy from her dance teachers.

Being a Considerate Kid

Yesterday's dinner, I baked a piece of quesadilla and cut it to three but one piece was much smaller. Katie came in and picked out a bigger piece. However, she stopped for a second and put it down and picked up the smaller piece. When Minda and Minkai sat at the dinner table, Katie served each of them a bigger piece of quesadilla.

Alergy & Alergy

Yesterday I took Minda and Minkai to see their allergy doctor. The doctor told me that they will probably never out-grow nuts and seafood allergy as their IgE numbers were still so high, they are literally out of chart.

I have learned from their allergies to manage an unperfect life and to appreciate what one is having. However, I am disappointed with this outcome...

Can we still repeat this conversation:
"Minkai, what is this?"
"It's fish."
"Can you have fish?"
"No. But I can have it when I grow up."

Learning Shall Be Fun

Katie was compaining about her dance classes -- the teacher was too strict now.
"That's because your dance recital is only two weeks away." I told her.
"But my skating coach was always nice..."
"If you spent more time on details of your free skating program and you might get a better score in the competition."
"Why it's all about winning? Learning shall be fun."

Conflict Solving - Ear Plug

Minda and Minkai are working on their conflicts solving skills...

The other day, I picked them up from Paidea. While we were on the road back home, Minda thought of a doll that she forgot to bring. I told her that she could have the doll the next day. She started crying and screaming.

Minkai asked me, 'Do you have an ear plug?'

I Passed

Katie just called me, 'Mommy, I passed.'
'You did!'

Katie passed the USFS (United States Figure Skating) Pre-preliminary Move. See how many 'pre's there are. But it is a big first step for her.

Katie Is Making Money!

Katie is proud to be the winner of the Saint Paul Piano Teacher Association Honors and Awards Audition in the 4th Grade and under group. She not only won the honor but also won the award of $50. For her age group, there were three honor winners and one award winner.

Katie asks me to open a bank account for her and she is going to save money for her college.

Katie as a Model

领奖

Katie又有一次滑冰比赛。我们全家都去看了。提前一小时到那儿签到。过了一会儿，旻恺提出要照相，还说要告诉我们在那儿照。我让他爸去给他照。过了一会儿，旻恺哭着被抱回来了。原来他找到了领奖台，在第一名的台子上照好像后，满心欢喜地等着别人给他一个奖牌。结果未能如愿。

这次Katie得了个第三名。她希望下次拿个更好的名次。

洗澡

旻达小朋友会自己洗澡了！她是这样洗的。
1. 先拿好衣服和毛巾。
2 我给她把水打开，调好温度。
3 她进去关好门，冲澡。
4 她抹上洗发液后，旻恺在外面看着，告诉她头上还有泡泡没有。
5 冲干净后，出来裹上毛巾，擦油，穿衣服。

大功告成。

Too Many Medals for Katie

Sunday morning, I wore my jacket and was zipping my boots.
Minkai came up and asked me, "where are you going?"
I told him, "I am sending Katie for a piano recital."
"Don't let her win." Minkai said.
"Why?!" I was surprised.
"Katie has too many medals! I want to have more medals than Katie." Minkai declaimed.
"Well, you will have to work hard ..."
"I want to play soccer. I know how to kick a ball."

One Minute Show

On Sunday, I took Katie to see the US Figure Skating Championship Spectacular. Minda wanted to go with me. I told her that the show was not for a kid as little as her. "Then you have to come back in one minute," she said. "I will come back soon." I told her.

At 10:30 PM, I opened the garage door and stepped out of car. Minda opened the door and asked, "What time did you come back? （你几点回来的呀？）" After a while, she added, "I told you to come back in one minute!"

Katie's Work Plan

As I am going back to school in Fall, Katie complained, "I won't be able to see you as much."
"I will be at home." I said.
"Yeah, if I am sick, I will be at home with you."
"No, during the day I will be working."
"Why you need to work?"
"Otherwise, who will pay for your skating lesson, piano lessons, and so on?"
"I can baby sit, mow the lawn for others to earn money."
"Well, you may earn $20 for those service each week. Your skating lessons cost close to $300 per month, and piano lessons cost close to $200."
"OK, I can open a Chinese school and teach little kids, like Minda and Minkai, Chinese. Of course, I won't charge Minda and Minkai but I will charge other kids. I can also offer tutoring for math, ...." Katie proudly announces her plan.

爱漂亮的小姑娘

这个星期天，我一早送Katie去学画画和跳舞。 旻达旻恺还没起床。我中午回来时，发现旻达穿了一件白底小熊的毛衣，一条黑裙子，一双黑长袜。她过来问我，‘今天我们去别人家，还是别人来我们家？’怪不得小姑娘打扮得那么漂亮。

旻恺的自我意识

旻恺的自我意识比霭琳与旻达都来得早。他近来时常提出不同意见，让我很是头痛。

“你要给我买一个东西，否则我不把饭吃完。"

"你早上要叫我起来一起吃早饭，否则我不亲你。”

“你要把所有的字都写一遍，否则我不去睡觉。”经过一番讨价还价，我把二十六个字母的大小写和十个数字都写了一遍，勉强交了差。偏偏有他的好朋友，他爸爸的同事，John, 在一张纸上为他写了从1到350，令我汗颜。

Growing Up – Kate, Minkai, and Minda in 2006

January
One day at 10:30 PM, Minkai and Minda finally sat down on the floor together and start eating crackers. It has way passed their bed time, but they were not sleepy. They made some funny sound, and mimicked each other, then started to giggle.
Minda and Minkai can use "I and You" properly.
Minda and Minkai become the movers in the house. They moved their clothes to another room. They moved all bottles of water from the main floor to second floor. They moved all their toys from one room to another. They moved the comforter (King Size comforter) and pillows to Kate's bedroom.
They can watch Barney for 45 minutes, probably everyday. Minkai will say "Barney is found" at certain place in the movie. Then I found that he just needs Barney to be visible. He will be sad/mad when Barney is not in the scene.

February
Minkai drinks out of a bottle and says "I am having a cold." means that Minda shall not drink out of the same bottle.

March
We went to Orlando. Kids love it. Parents tired of the crowd. Minkai is the copy cat, copying every word that Kate said.

Kate is one of the winners of Minnesota Music Teacher Association contest in her age group. We are very excited and happy for her. It takes her a lot of effort and she certainly does not enjoy the whole process for re-working and fine-tuning her piece for a million times.

April
The twins chatted with each other and laughed with each other a lot. They do not need Barney any more when I am cooking.
When Kate heard that I am going to have a three days two nights business trip in May, she commented, "this is your shortest business trip in my life." Her life?

May
I taught another session in Kelly Management School and Kate complained not being able to see me until 10:30 PM on Wednesday nights. She could not control herself and cried at school at the end of May and her teacher asked to write little poem to express herself such as "Roses are red vilots are blue and I'm so glad to be here with you. Mommy, I will love you when your near and when your far. XoXo means love". She is a sweet girl and I decide not to teach any more until they are older.
June
Kate performed in the Northrop theater in the University of Minnesota with the other MMTA contest winners. She is wearing a white dress and she is fairly confident.
Minda said that she is a little bunny. Minkai admitted that he is a little doggy.
Minkai and Minda are three years old!

August
Minda rides on tricycle! She is paddling happily and energetically. Minkai uses his feet to move the tricycle instead of paddling.
With the Barney movie, Minda wiggles and Minkai shakes his head. Minda and Minkai started to say: "Mom, listen to me...." with a short song or some interesting sound.
At the end of Aug, Kate's drawing is showing in the Minnesota State Fair as first prize winner.

September
Minda and Minkai started to use scissors.

October
Katie is learning how to solve conflicts with her friends by talking out. Her teacher sensed that she has some kind of possessor feeling toward friendship and it is typical for her age. Of course, it smells familiar to me.

One Sunday after I came back from Katie's drawing class, I found that Katie's room looks like after a disaster. There is card snippets, beads, hangers, and clothes everywhere. Minkai and Minda must be very busy for a couple hours! Katie spent about one hour to clean up the mess. I helped her to hang the clothes. It is time to set up a stationary for Minda and Minkai to freely explore crayons and pencils, scissors, papers, tapes, and beads, just like in their day care. So I put out a three drawl box with one for crayon, one for paper, one for scissor. The second day, our little Minda broke every crayon into two.

Halloween! We visited the fire station at the Halloween night. However, Minda and Minkai can not eat most of the candies that have soy, corn syrup, nuts, etc.

November
Minkai and Minda do not want to miss any field trip! They are very excited for visits of apple orchard, horse barn; Pump it up, and many more. They also started to write letters, such as T for Tucker, H for Henry, A for Angela, and etc. Their favorite place to stay in the classroom is the Construction. With paper, scissors, pen, tapes, they have exercised their fine motor skills.

We bought a doll house bunk bed for the girls, as Katie loves it. I hope that the girls have sweet dreams in the doll house. Katie wants to be a little mother to take care of Minda to go to bed. She has been successful for two nights with lots of tears and sweats.

One Sunday, Minda decided to go with her dad to send Katie to drawing class and Minkai stayed with me. Half of an hour later, Minkai complained, "no one played with me." when I am in the laundry room. After ten minutes, Minkai asked, "where is Minda?" Another ten minutes later, Minkai asked, "when will Minda be back?" And he wanted to talk to Minda on the phone. It was a great pleasure for him to see Minda when she came back!
Minkai Putting Earring on Minda

December
Kate passed Gamma and Delta lesson in skating and felt ready to be more involved in figure skating. I am trying to move the responsibility of practicing piano, skating, doing homework back to Kate. It is somewhat un-successful and will be on-going.

We have some fun classes in parents night at my twins daycare about being successful with each one's personality. Their teacher rated both of them slow to adapt (need time to warm up) and being mild (for Minda?!). This is very very interesting for the outgoing and loud girl Minda at home but behaving soft and following direction at school.

Minkai talked about "People at school" (学校人). "People at school" shall not put back food if they take it because there is germ. "People at school" shall say "Excuse me" if they burp. "People at school" shall wash hand after going to restroom. He is trying to figure out the meaning of "nice". Sharing things is nice.

Christmas is the favorite time of the year. Katie, Minkai, and Minda are all looking forward to Santa to come, well, with their wish lists.

The Year of 2005

My dear friends, The bell of 2006 is coming. I recall what happened this year ...

Kate, she prefers to this name as she is older, becomes a leader in the small team of three. She will say firmly to her younger sister or brother, "You can not push/hit/bite." Just like me. She can give her brother and sister breakfast, pick their clothes, and put Vaseline on them. She is a strong learner in all academic areas in her regular school and she is working above grade level. She completes from learning the phoenix to chapter book reading within one year. She wants to write chapter book by herself now. I am glad that she does not have fear in trying new things. For improvement, she is working on selecting a suitable place to study so that no being interrupted :-) "She has really taken on leadership role this year.", as a first grader in the K/1 group, commented by her teacher. I do not push her in learning because I believe that knowledge and ability are different. She likes Chinese school now as she becomes more comfortable in studying it. The effort in being bilingual is tremendous both for kids and parents. But it worth the effort. She has good potential in piano because she has big hands and she is quick in memorizing pieces of music. On the sport side, it was funny to see such a tall girl not moving much in the soccer field in the first session. However, in the second session, her coach distinguished her as the girl who covered the whole ground, from back to front, and still remembered to say, 'Coach, tie my shoe please!' Where, the later part is the slipping portion of busy parents. She is planning to play soccer again next year. Kate's teacher told us that she is such a delight to have in class, and we are very proud of her.

Minkai and Minda are in daycare now. They love their teachers and make many new friends. Two weeks after being there, they started to clean up their toys with the ever-famous Barney song. Minkai is the whining baby and Minda is still the loud girl. Minkai expresses himself very well in both Chinese and English. He is very curious and often asks 'what is this?' （这是什么呀？）. On the first snowing day, he fell on ground. He got up and pointed to the ground madly, "Milk!" (牛奶！） He loves to watch airplanes on the sky. Then one day when we are driving on the highway, he said, 'there are lots of airplanes in front of us', pointing to the street lights at the sides. He likes pointing out things that he knows. Minda has her favorite nuks/pacifiers and blanket. Her blanket is embarrassingly dirty and she still wants the only one. She likes to sing and she starts to talk when Minkai is quiet. She will hug Minkai, hold his hands, and pat him when he cries in the daycare. They are very close to each other. Minda will reach for Minkai's hands if she did something purposely wrong. She is fairly athletic -- she probably can climb up to the ceiling if we let her. She can climb the robes of the ladder in the playground all by herself, while I need to put Minkai to the last two steps and push his bottom when he working on those two steps. The twins' job is to test the limit and my job is to define the limit. I started the discipline part, and made progress slowly.

Their allergy is still bad and literlerly they are allergic to every protein including wheat except milk is marginal. They are still itchy at night so parents are still sleep-depressed. When they will grow out of it? We do not know.

Fuming likes to keep busy. He painted the house from outside to inside, and remodeled the kitchen by changing to hard wood floor, upgrade the counter top, and etc. The consequence is that we have a ten years new house. He has agreed to terminate the house projects and focus on raising the kids.

Xiao/I has rejected an offer from Target Corporation and decided to stay in 3M, so that our family is really stable. However, I am into the mood of adventuring. I will teach in the Keller Management School on eight-week section basis as a part time hobby.

Happy holidays! Happy New Year to every one of you and your family!

Be well, do good work and keep in touch! I have put some pictures on http://home.comcast.net/~xhuang4420/Album/PictureAlbum.htm.This server does not have big capacity. So if the link fails, please try again later.

Xiao

The Year of 2007

The year of 2007 is an eventful year. For more little stories, please visit my blog: http://xchuang.blogspot.com/, and family album: http://photoshow.comcast.net/xchuang/2007.

Katie starts to take private lessons in figure skating and completes her ISI (Ice Skating Institute) Free Style I as a first place winner for her age group, luckily. Her painting of blue jay was awarded First Place in State Fair in August. Into her forth years' of study in piano, she has greatly improved control of her fingers and is able to express herself with music. Her favorite songs are Beethoven Symphony V, Fur Elise, Allegro in Eine Kleine Nachtmusi by Mozart, and Sonata in F Major by Anton Diabelli. Her school teacher has identified leadership as one of things that she is good at. We are working on clarifying her responsibility.

Minkai is a great example of learning for fun. Drawing and writing are his hobby. He takes some old Kumon exercises that we got several years ago and starts to play with numbers. He will take his workbooks and pens everywhere he is going – bed, floor, friends' house, and restaurants. He is a perfectionist, that is, he will ask older kids to color his precious wax paper sea animals instead of himself and he will ask others to draw dots for him to write letters because he is afraid of screwing up. He is a good listener, so he remembers that both his teacher and I encourage him to try new things and to practice to reach perfection. On the other side, no longer a shy boy, he is growing into a great speaker with a lot of hand gestures and voice changes, however, fairly exaggerating. I wonder if he learns that from Disney channel.

Minda is a quick action and fast thinking young lady. She runs not only on ground but also on ice. She likes playing puzzles and has a good sense of it. In gymnastic class, she can hold herself on a bar and swing a little bit. She can swim like a little fish for three feet. When we were praising Minda's performance and Minkai told us that he IS swimming very well too, with floaters. Minda experienced teacher changes in the summer and she cried when she saw her former teacher in another classroom. She is sweet and sits on every one's lap comfortably. She sits on every teacher's lap in her classroom, in her gym class, even a two-years old girl's father's lap until the girl pushed her off.

Katie and I went back to China for two and a half weeks in March. Everything was working out well or even better as Minda and Minkai were listening to their father very well. Besides one day, Minda cried and repeatedly told me to come back for five minutes and I had to hang up the phone. After I came back, the biggest change for the twins was that they can entertain themselves. All of sudden, they do not need my involvement and I have to ask them to play with me. We are very lucky that Katie, Minkai, and Minda are good friends. They care about each other. When Minda cries, Katie will hold her and Minkai may pat her back. Katie has a lot of ideas for games, and Minda and Minkai have to listen to her if they want to be part of the game. Minkai and Minda have many silly baby talks that do not make sense to me but they laugh together loudly.

We went to Washington DC, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania for a two weeks' vacation. We rented an eight bedroom house at Outer Bank in NC with three other families. It is really relaxing. With the energy getting back from vacation, I prepared LSAT (Law School Admission Test) and applied for William Mitchell College of Law. Just before Christmas, I got the admission letter with full scholarship. It looks like that life is changing in 2008.

Fuming is doing very well on his projects and his systems are possibly going into production lines in 2008. This will have impact on millions of dollars. Other than that, he starts exercising regularly and is working hard to live healthily.

Wish everyone a joyful, memorable, prosperous, and peaceful New Year!