She kicks, she scores!!!!

Jia had her first soccer game of the season and scored the only goal for her team! She also was able to keep the other team from scoring a goal and kicked the ball away from the goal. She was very excited to make the score, even though the points do not count at this level. For those of you who know Jia she has a lot of enthusiasm and is also very serious about whatever she does. I could see her talking to the coach prior to the game and he told me that she asked him to put her on "depense" he got a big kick out of it. Jia is also very outspoken and on the last play of the game the ball hit her in the chest. She came running over to me and said (loudly I might ad) that the "ball hit her in the boob!!"". We are going to have to work with her to not be so aggressive on the field though, a few times it looked like she was playing roller derby instead of 1st grade soccer.

Her KCAP (Kids China Arts Program) classes started on Saturday and she was happy to see many of her friends. She is taking Chinese first grade, dance, calligraphy and choir and loves all of the classes and her teachers.

I am on the board of our FCC (Families with Children from China) chapter and we had a board meeting while the kids were in class. The board had a surprise "shower" for me and Schwen received many new outfits, a book about Chinese New Year, a few gift cards (one to Claire's which will be great fun) and an awesome Hello Kitty fortune cookie maker. It was a total surprise to me and at first I wasn't quite sure of what was going on as I've been in such a fog the last week. I'm putting everything back in the gift bags and will let Schwen open them. Adam said she does like clothes! He is going to have to get a second job for clothing for two girls!!

Waiting to hear from Adam yet today. I did speak to him yesterday and he said that Schwen really enjoys it when he reads books to her and she turned off the television and took one of the books over and indicated that she wanted him to read to her. Her favorite of the ones I sent was "D is for Dragon" by Grace Lin. We have many Grace Lin books so it will be interesting to see if she is drawn towards them. Jia and I set up the hallway upstairs with a book case filled with children's books, a small couch and small rocking chair-her Raggedy Ann doll currently sits in the chair and is the "library lady".

Our friend Julia is coming over today to paint Schwen's chinese characters on the wall in the girls room. Julia painted a fantastic mural in Jia's room 3 years ago and put Jia's chinese characters on the wall so we thought we'd add Schwens. I'll post a pic once Adam returns with the camera.

Jia and I are headed to the horse parade today. No motorized vehicles-only horses and mules, musical groups and the "pooper scoopers" from OWU who are alway entertaining if you are at the end of the parade! The horse parade is held the week before the Delaware County Fair and draws a big crowd. Jia's friend Reagan will be riding in the parade so Jia is very excited.