Fiona Cultivates Better Communities

This morning was Fiona's first Day of Peace. Four times a year, the nonprofit I work for, Project Peace East Bay , holds a Saturday community service day; today we had over 100 people packaging food at the Alameda County Food Bank and working on the buildings & grounds of Claremont Middle School. Our family was at the middle school. Fiona did a great job of welcoming the volunteers.
Then she and her buddy Constance got right down to work, filling plastic containers with dirt and mulch in the student garden. Very helpful.
It was hard work, and sometimes a girl needs to take a break! Fiona had some chill-out time with friends (l. to r. Cameron, Constance, and Eli).

Then she decided that relaxing was more fun than working. Ample distractions were provided, one of which was the arrival of Trout, the dog of our friends Kelly & Dani. (You might remember Trout from back in June).
All in all, Fiona seemed to consider serving the community a worthwhile way to spend the morning. She's now taking a marathon nap, after which we need to scrub the dirt out from under her fingers!

Future Fashionista?

If any of you have seen Erick or me lately, you know that fashion is not a high priority in the Gong household. Our unofficial family philosophy is to wear our clothes and accessories until they wear out (although we do have slightly different standards on the size of hole that constitutes "worn out!"). Therefore, it has come as a huge surprise that over the past week, Fiona has become, in the words of a friend, "A shoes and purse girl."

Fiona has two pairs of shoes: sneakers and Mary Janes. The latter we refer to as her "fancy-pants shoes," and she only wears them for special occasions. This week, Fiona has made very clear that she prefers to wear her fancy-pants shoes, and she wants to wear them as soon as she wakes up. Before she even has her pants on for the day. Our past few mornings have involved Fiona strutting around the house, half-dressed, proudly displaying her fine footwear.

Of course, any fashionista could tell you that fancy shoes need a fancy purse to go along with them. Although for the past 15 months, my "purse" has been a diaper bag, Fiona somehow managed to dig an ancient purse of mine out of storage. The purse now accompanies her everywhere.
And we are left to wonder: Where did this come from? When will it end? Are we in big trouble?

NOTE TO GRANDPARENTS: PLEASE don't see this as a call to send Fiona more shoes/purses! She's doing just fine with what she's got!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Well, I suppose it's only appropriate, given my glacial posting speed of late, I should be posting about Fiona's Chinese New Year only after New Year has come and gone! In any event, Fiona enjoyed a festive New Year's celebration at Grandmommy & Grandaddy's house last weekend, along with her great-aunt, great-uncle, and second cousins. She got to break out her traditional Chinese dress (gift from Grandmommy) for the event, but was most excited by the envelopes of "lucky money" that were given to her!
So excited, in fact, that the dress didn't stay on for very long! Lots of wiggling....

Once she'd raked in the big bucks, Fiona enjoyed a delicious hot pot meal prepared by Grandmommy. Actually, we were all a little bit surprised by just HOW MUCH she enjoyed it, to the point of demanding food off of our plates. The girl can EAT won-tons!

Grandmommy and Granddaddy were properly thanked.
Dinner over, Fiona moved on to other entertainments, like playing with her Daddy's old stuffed animals....
....and Miko, of course. She was very enthusiastic about feeding Miko with her second cousin Maria!

Happy Year of the Ox!