Amélie's 4th Birthday!

Amélie turned 4 today!! Here is a summary of the festivities!

We went to her classroom for cake and fruit - these are the same kids as she has been celebrating with for the last 3 years! See the previous parties here and here.

Here is the video from their birthday song:


The main splurge was this over the top 'Princess and the Frog' cake:




She had been consistently asking for it since December, so we gave in and I must say that this cake was absolutely beautiful!

Amélie received a number of gifts that will be featured on future posts, including a Princess Presto and the Paper Bag Princess - princess themes all around, but at least all the princesses featured are strong women that take charge of their own lives :)!

What is it like to have a 4-year old kid? Parenthood remains a big roller coaster - but hey cats don't make dogs!!!

Amélie' First Taekwondo Tournament!

This morning, Amélie went to her first Taekwondo tournament! It was organized by our ATA Bloomington Club, and most of her friends from the club were there. In fact, over 200 people were there, ranging from Amélie's age to retirees, all coming to compete in various tracks: forms, sparring, and weapons. It was pretty impressive to see them all line up by belt level, and hear all of them recite the ATA oath.

I must say that seeing Amélie as part of this ocean of people was pretty impressive!


Amélie had to follow an instructor for a series of movement called 'Songham Il-Jang 2'... For the state-of-the-art way to do this series of movements, see here.

Here is part of the 3 year old version at the tournament:


Amélie received a big trophee for her efforts:


Pop corn was the reward that Amélie chose, so she received it right after she was done with her form:


Amélie also found lots of gummy animals, and other candy available only to tournament participants, she was thrilled about her loot, and can't wait to go to the next tournament!

On my way to writing...

Trying to get some sanity in our lives, we have been asking Amélie to either nap or stay in her room for at least 20 minutes of quiet time. She can choose whether she wants to read, play with her toys, listen to music, or sleep, but she has to stay in her room... Hard to implement but we are getting there...

On Saturday, Amélie asked for her Barbapapa drawing kit (genius gift, many thanks tata susu!), she generally likes to flip through it and sometimes finds the patience to complete a few of the activities in it.

Amélie was pretty quiet for some time, which I thought meant that she had fallen asleep.

When I went to pick her up, I discovered that Amélie had done a pretty cool thing - here is the cover of the barbapapa book:



Here is what Amélie did:



We were amazed that Amélie did not only write the letters but also made sure that all the colors matched! So excited that our little Amélie is on her way to learn how to write!!!