Dan Zanes concert

In early February we went to a Dan Zanes concert with the Johnson's. For those of you not in-the-know, he is a famous for performing children's concerts, with many songs asking for the kids to participate, either in movement or singing. Cecilia had a ton of fun dancing with Jasper and Bronwyn, and of course Mommy and Daddy too.

Random pics from February

At Aaron and Jacob's house wearing the policeman uniform:


Wearing every single piece of jewelry that she owns:


Playing with Kiki:

Eating a humongous piece of chocolate cake at Faneuil Hall:


This is what happens when we try to go without family nap one day (falls asleep on mommy at 6pm):

Making up songs

Cecilia has a habit of making up funny songs that are a conglomeration of what she's thinking, books she's read recently, other songs she knows, etc. Here is one song she made up while "reading" one of Daddy's books:



In case you're wondering why part of her song is "if you laugh I don't love you", that comes from an old nursery rhyme in one of her books:

Tee Hee tickle my knee
If you laugh you don't love me

Chinese New Year

At the end of January, we went to dim sum with Johnson's and then stayed for the annual Chinese New Year parade. Cecilia loved this last year, talked about dancing dragons and lions all year, and this year was just as good. They block off all the streets in Chinatown for the parade and set up a stage for shows in the middle.

First we watched the lion dances on the stage.



I also had to videotape this kung-fu demonstration because it was so awesome. The smallest kid right in front in the middle is the best one, which is amazing because he looks like he's 3 years old. He later did a solo demo where he used a staff and swung it around like a pro.



After their demonstrations onstage, the lions parade off and generally make their way around to all the storefronts, where they receive gifts of cabbage and oranges and they celebrate with firecrackers. The lions also receive a lay-see (a red envelope with a money gift inside) from the store owners. All of this is supposed to bring the store owners good luck for the upcoming year.



We stayed and watched for a couple hours, at Cecilia's insistence. It was only because that she was obviously getting tired and it was almost time for family nap that we had to pull her away. For days afterward, when we asked what was her favorite part, she said the fireworks!

Swim class at Cambridge War Memorial Pool

Grandma's birthday!

In January, we celebrated city Grandma's 75th birthday!! We had a nice dinner at Ben and Jen's house, and Jerry, Arlene, and Laurel all came up for the occasion.



The best part of the evening was probably Aaron and Jacob's gift to Grandma - it was a homemade book entitled something like "75 ways to have fun with Grandma". They had drawn (almost) 75 ways to spend time with Grandma, such as going to the hippo playground, going to Grandma's basement, going to the Natural History Museum, etc.

Boston Children's Museum

We took advantage of another Christmas gift we received and went to the Boston Children's Museum in January, on one really really cold day. There were sooo many activities for her to do there, including playing with huge bubbles and a music wall. We went to a puppet show where members of the audience participated and helped play the parts of the wolf and pigs in the 3 Little Pigs.

We spent a lot of time playing with these light squares and triangles, which you are supposed to fit on these plastic see-through mats:


We played with water for a little bit:

And there was a whole truck and construction room, where she pretended to be a construction worker:


There was also a market area, where there were a lot of different shops to go into, such as a barber shop, and hairstylist, mercantile that sells more ethnic foods, coffee shop, etc. Here she is playing in the grocery store/mercantile:



There about a bazillion more activites we did there, but I didn't take pictures of them all.