Playing outside

The weather has been warm the past few days, so Gianna has ventured outdoors. This morning she was quite impressed by the local wildlife, a gray squirrel tangling with the neighbor's cat. She actually took to the grass and chased Bruno around the yard--hooray! We've been spending some quality time splashing in puddles, digging up worms, and looking for salamanders in the flower beds before the weather turns cold again this week.
This afternoon we watched some Xuan Mai DVD's. Apparently Xuan Mai has a monopoly on Vietnamese kids music because every random DVD I ordered featured Xuan Mai in some way or another. Gianna loses interest in English kids programs like The Wiggles, Sesame Street, Veggie Tales (the worst), but will sit through an entire Xuan Mai DVD singing and dancing along. We're not trying to encourage a lot of TV watching, but its nice to see she has some sort of attention span and we want to make her feel comfortable. Hearing a little Vietnamese every day helps make things easier for all of us. We also got two CD's for her to sing along--starring Xuan Mai.

Late in the afternoon, bà and ông Schmidt came to visit along with chị Cori. They brought lots of presents and we got some Indian take-out for dinner. They threw ball and played blocks with Gianna for a while. She was interested in them, but a little overwhelmed by three new people in the house. She's making advances one little step at a time, but is still very shy.