the tyrannical threes (aka happy 3rd b-day ms. spicy-girl!)

Last Thursday the 4th Autumn turned 3yrs old. wow. hard to believe our little baby-girl has grown up already. *laughs* well, okay...what I mean is that it doesn't seem that long ago we were holding this little 15month old girl in our arms. Then I think about it and realise that in alittle less than three months (short months too) it'll be 2yrs since we were in China meeting her for the first time.

Anyways, Thursday came and we took her out to eat (a family tradition of ours that birthday people get to go to where ever they want) and she received one of her gifts from us. She also got what I called the "fake" card. I'll tell the story in a bit....

Saturday we had our first day of class at the JCCC (Joyous Chinese Cutural Centre) where Autumn and I learned a few words in Mandarin, sang a couple of songs, and made a yellow sun with a smiley face on one side and "Zao Shang Hao!" (good morning!) on the other. It is now hanging from the ceiling in our living room. :) Autumn and I both agreed that going to our "Chinese Class" will be fun and we'll learn alot.

After stopping to eat lunch and grocery shop, AR and I got home and we did some stuff around the house with mama before we headed down to G's dad's place for a birthday party. Autumn made a good haul of gifts, had ALOT of fun, and surprised me a bit by perfectly blowing out all three candles on her birthday cookie/cake while we sang to her. It was a busy day, but she did really well and loved every minute of it.

Sunday we did some quick shopping for 3T clothes better suited for the cool fall and cold winter temps which are right around the corner. In fact, fall here has already started to appear and in another week or two we'll be enjoying the gold and yellow aspen leaves along with some orange and the occasional reds from the other trees.

This Saturday we're visiting with our friends to celebrate Mid-Autumn (or Moon) Festival. We had a nice get-together last year, but this time some of our families can't make it so it'll be three families with a 33month, 3yr old, and a 5year old running around. can't wait! (seriously!)

Now for the story. Starting several months ago, Autumn started making the transition from the Terrible Twos to what I'm calling the Tyrannical Threes. Why, you may ask? Well, ms. Spicy-Girl has been showing us her demanding, authoritative, and "tyrannical" side. Intelligent, strong-willed, and strong physically mixed with ChongQing spicy-girl makes for an interesting time. Plus, throw in a wicked sense of humour and we don't know whether to laugh or tell her to "straighten-up or it's chill-out time in the chair".

Mama has been telling her that sometimes she's just "bad to the bone". This gets an immediate reaction of Autumn replying in a sad almost whimpering voice..."i am not bad to da boneeeee". We've told her that we're not being mean that it's a song...plus she just has that attitude about her sometimes. So skip to me looking for a musical card for her...she loves the cards that have a song or make noise. I found one I thought was great for her...then I found one that has alittle cartoon skull with a party hat on under the words "be bad on your birthday..." On the inside it says "be very bad." with said party-hatted skull guy smiling and then the opening riff for "Bad to the Bone" begins. It plays the first verse and chorus. Awesome. Now that Autumn has heard part of the song via the card, she digs it. She had a big smile on her face as she listened to it a couple times.


Good stuff. Now for pics!