December 27th was our 4th anniversary. I know, already 4 years!! Well, considering we have a three year old boy, I guess it makes sense that we would be celebrating our 4th anniversary, but it seems like the last 4 years have gone by so fast! It's been a blast, of course, and time just flies.
My parents were nice enough to babysit for us, so we got to go on a date. I wasn't feeling so good with morning sickness and all, so we kept it low key, but it was still fun to go out just the two of us and enjoy the time together. Ever since I started having morning sickness and cravings, Joe had been asking me, "Are you craving burgers?"So far, I hadn't. So we decided to go eat out at Burger Supreme for lunch.
We each had a cheese burger meal and got really, really full. Although, in retrospect, we probably should've gotten a pastrami burger, since that was the first time Joe took me out to eat. :D
After lunch, we went strolling at the mall to digest and to wait for our movie to start. Then we went to watch Contagion (during the movie, he kept telling me, "remind me to wash my hands."). After the movie, we shared a salad at Cafe Rio. Joe said the salad was surprisingly good and said it was nice to share it because that would probably be the only time he'd get to eat it since he doesn't want to order one for himself (men and their manly image to keep up). We decided to go home after dinner since I wasn't feeling too well, but it was a lot of fun to go on a date. :D We're looking forward to the next 4 years!
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Christmas Vacation
Okay.. so this post is so long overdue, so I'll try to write as much as I remember.. Ha ha. I don't have a good memory, so Joe may have to edit this post a little bit later or something.
My parents wanted to go down to Vegas on a family vacation this year, and they had it planned for December 27-30 since early this year. Well, Jamie decided to get married on the 28th, and we thought we wouldn't be able to make it to the trip. Well, it turns out, there was a vacancy during the week before, and my parents got a really good deal on a two-bedroom condo (instead of one-bedroom for the week after), so we were so excited to go. Since we had extra room, we could invite Joe's mom to come with us as well (we had been talking about going to Vegas to go to the Korean sauna for a while).
Well, Joe had the 22-28 off from work for the vacation/anniversary/wedding, but his company was actually acquired by another company on the 21st. So his "vacation" got extended indefinitely, and it was nice to have him home for the rest of the break. :D (Joe wants me to emphasize that the company was "successfully" acquired and that you need not worry about us. This is actually a good opportunity for us since he gets a month off to just focus on the GMAT full-time and also look at other job opportunities later on and still get paid -- as part of the severance -- to be home with us.)
Anyway, Joe, Joe's mom, Alden, Ellie, and I rode in our car, and the ride actually wasn't too bad. Ellie had fun riding in the back with grandma, and she did really well (except for the last 10 minutes before Vegas). She enjoyed eating snack and watching Pororo on the dvd player. Alden had a blast since he got to play on the nintendo ds with very little restrictions almost the whole way. I also put some primary songs on a CD and promised him a certain type of candy for each word he caught (like Jesus, Heavenly Father, etc.). Well, the "music game" didn't last very long, but I think it was a good try. We'll have to try it again on our next road trip. We made a few stops on the way, at Beaver, St. George (just for gas), and then all the way to Vegas (the kids were asleep majority of the time between St. George and Vegas). However, we had to pull over a few times to clean our windshield because it was snowing pretty badly and after that the salt on the road made it impossible to see anything out the car.
Once we got to Vegas, we headed straight to our condo. We got to relax and have dinner. After dinner, it was pretty cold and the kids were still sick, so swimming was out of question. My parents offered to babysit, so Joe and I went out on a mission to find me a Christmas present (I had already shopped for everyone else, and Joe, well, he had other things going on.. lol.). We went to the big outlet mall and made it through the whole outlet mall with 140 shops in less than an hour (we are not big shoppers), and the only stop we made was at Aeropostale, where I found another shirt for Joe, and luckily, I found a shirt that I liked that Joe agreed to wrap for me. :) We also made a stop at Carter's. Alden had been saying this whole time that Santa was going to bring "yellow monkey pajamas" for him, and I was unsuccessful in locating anything in Utah. We found the perfect one, but they didn't have one Al's size, so they called the other outlet on the North side (all the way across town) and put it on reserve for us. Well, since we were done with the outlet within an hour and still had plenty of time left until bedtime, we decided to drive up to the North mall. We picked up Al's pajamas, and finished looking around the North mall in less than 20 minutes (it was cold, and most of the stores, I had never heard of...) That night, Joe, Alden, and I shared the King size bed, and Ellie slept in her playpen. The bed was so comfortable and we all slept pretty well.
The next day, we went over to Mandalay Bay. We heard that they had sharks. Well, turns out, they had a full scale aquarium ($18 a person!), so only Joe and I decided to take the kids in, and my parents and Joe's mom stayed outside to wait for us. It was pretty small, compared to others we'd been to, but it was REALLY nice.. Each tank had its own theme and was decorated to look like the real sea (minus the pollution). Al and Ellie enjoyed looking at the fish, and we even got a free picture with Santa. The kids refused to sit on Santa's lap (or even get near him), so we got an awkward picture with Santa in the middle and all of us packed into a corner of the picture.
After Mandalay Bay, we met up with the rest of the crew (my brother and his wife, and Chloe and Dan, the exchange students) at Woo-Chae. Woo Chae is a Korean style all-you-can-eat barbecue, and we LOVED it. Joe and I really wanted to go for dinner since they were serving beef Kalbi at dinner, but my mom said it was out of her budget, so we went for lunch. It was still delicious and we stuffed ourselves with meat (yum).
After lunch, we headed over to the Korean sauna (imperial health spa). We had been to a few while we were in Korea, so we were excited to go again. Alden loved the pools (even though they were pretty hot) and kept saying "swimming." In the sauna part, they had several heated themed rooms, and one of them had several King-size "tubs" full of marbles made of mud clay. It was so nice to relax in there (even though it got pretty hot for the pregnant woman), and Alden and Ellie just LOVED playing with all the marbles. :D
After the sauna, we went over to the Korean market. It is a huge supermarket with small shops and a food court. Joe and I had dinner (beef Kalbi, of course, and black noodles), and we bought some stuff to take home with. (In retrospect, I should've shopped there more thoroughly than I did because I keep having cravings for these Korean foods that are pretty difficult to find here or are expensive to get). Joe also bought me some 팥빙수 (shaved ice with fruits and red bean paste).
The next day, we decided to go tour some of the hotels since Joe hadn't seen them before, and I also wanted to take Al to go see things. We went to the Bellagio gardens and missed the water fountain show by 10 minutes on the way out. We also headed to the Caesar's Palace because I remebered seeing a really big toy store there. Turns out, it was turned into a very weird style clothing shop, so I was really disappointed... Anyway, to make up for that, we found a McDonald's with a playplace. We were probably there for like an hour and a half, and Al had so much fun with big kids going on the slide and running around. For the rest of the day, we just came home to relax.
Next morning was Christmas, and we wanted to go to church at 9. So we woke up really early to open presents (we even took a Christmas tree there so we could put presents under it). Alden and Ellie were pretty tired, but they were stoked to open presents and find treats inside the stocking. The church was only about 40 minutes long, and we headed home after that. The kids didn't have any problems with the drive back, except for when Al asked to go poop. We had to tell him to hold it for a few minutes so we could find an exit (Beaver), and even then, all the convenient stores and even McDonald's were closed! We had to go to Travelodge and asked at the front desk if we could use the bathroom. Well, by then, it was already too late, and Al didn't have the urge to go anymore, so we drove straight home after that.
When we got home, we made a big dinner with ham and dumplings and had a big family dinner with Yeagi and Jonathan too. We opened presents and also got to talk to Yearim who's on her mission.
The next day, we drove up to Bountiful to see Joe's family. We went to Joe's dad's house to open presents, and then went over to Joe's mom's for lunch. We had wonderful lunch (courtesy of the Korean store in Vegas) with 삼겹살 and 갈비. After presents, we went to visit Joe's grandpa at the rehab center where he was recovering from his hip surgery. Then we went back to Joe's dad's to spend more time with him since we only got to stay for a few minutes before lunch.
It was a really good Christmas, and we loved spending time with the family. Only if it involved less driving, it would've been just perfect! Ha ha.
My parents wanted to go down to Vegas on a family vacation this year, and they had it planned for December 27-30 since early this year. Well, Jamie decided to get married on the 28th, and we thought we wouldn't be able to make it to the trip. Well, it turns out, there was a vacancy during the week before, and my parents got a really good deal on a two-bedroom condo (instead of one-bedroom for the week after), so we were so excited to go. Since we had extra room, we could invite Joe's mom to come with us as well (we had been talking about going to Vegas to go to the Korean sauna for a while).
Well, Joe had the 22-28 off from work for the vacation/anniversary/wedding, but his company was actually acquired by another company on the 21st. So his "vacation" got extended indefinitely, and it was nice to have him home for the rest of the break. :D (Joe wants me to emphasize that the company was "successfully" acquired and that you need not worry about us. This is actually a good opportunity for us since he gets a month off to just focus on the GMAT full-time and also look at other job opportunities later on and still get paid -- as part of the severance -- to be home with us.)
Anyway, Joe, Joe's mom, Alden, Ellie, and I rode in our car, and the ride actually wasn't too bad. Ellie had fun riding in the back with grandma, and she did really well (except for the last 10 minutes before Vegas). She enjoyed eating snack and watching Pororo on the dvd player. Alden had a blast since he got to play on the nintendo ds with very little restrictions almost the whole way. I also put some primary songs on a CD and promised him a certain type of candy for each word he caught (like Jesus, Heavenly Father, etc.). Well, the "music game" didn't last very long, but I think it was a good try. We'll have to try it again on our next road trip. We made a few stops on the way, at Beaver, St. George (just for gas), and then all the way to Vegas (the kids were asleep majority of the time between St. George and Vegas). However, we had to pull over a few times to clean our windshield because it was snowing pretty badly and after that the salt on the road made it impossible to see anything out the car.
Once we got to Vegas, we headed straight to our condo. We got to relax and have dinner. After dinner, it was pretty cold and the kids were still sick, so swimming was out of question. My parents offered to babysit, so Joe and I went out on a mission to find me a Christmas present (I had already shopped for everyone else, and Joe, well, he had other things going on.. lol.). We went to the big outlet mall and made it through the whole outlet mall with 140 shops in less than an hour (we are not big shoppers), and the only stop we made was at Aeropostale, where I found another shirt for Joe, and luckily, I found a shirt that I liked that Joe agreed to wrap for me. :) We also made a stop at Carter's. Alden had been saying this whole time that Santa was going to bring "yellow monkey pajamas" for him, and I was unsuccessful in locating anything in Utah. We found the perfect one, but they didn't have one Al's size, so they called the other outlet on the North side (all the way across town) and put it on reserve for us. Well, since we were done with the outlet within an hour and still had plenty of time left until bedtime, we decided to drive up to the North mall. We picked up Al's pajamas, and finished looking around the North mall in less than 20 minutes (it was cold, and most of the stores, I had never heard of...) That night, Joe, Alden, and I shared the King size bed, and Ellie slept in her playpen. The bed was so comfortable and we all slept pretty well.
The next day, we went over to Mandalay Bay. We heard that they had sharks. Well, turns out, they had a full scale aquarium ($18 a person!), so only Joe and I decided to take the kids in, and my parents and Joe's mom stayed outside to wait for us. It was pretty small, compared to others we'd been to, but it was REALLY nice.. Each tank had its own theme and was decorated to look like the real sea (minus the pollution). Al and Ellie enjoyed looking at the fish, and we even got a free picture with Santa. The kids refused to sit on Santa's lap (or even get near him), so we got an awkward picture with Santa in the middle and all of us packed into a corner of the picture.
Touching sting rays
Al's favorite, jelly fish
Ellie trying to eat the candy from Santa
After Mandalay Bay, we met up with the rest of the crew (my brother and his wife, and Chloe and Dan, the exchange students) at Woo-Chae. Woo Chae is a Korean style all-you-can-eat barbecue, and we LOVED it. Joe and I really wanted to go for dinner since they were serving beef Kalbi at dinner, but my mom said it was out of her budget, so we went for lunch. It was still delicious and we stuffed ourselves with meat (yum).
After lunch, we headed over to the Korean sauna (imperial health spa). We had been to a few while we were in Korea, so we were excited to go again. Alden loved the pools (even though they were pretty hot) and kept saying "swimming." In the sauna part, they had several heated themed rooms, and one of them had several King-size "tubs" full of marbles made of mud clay. It was so nice to relax in there (even though it got pretty hot for the pregnant woman), and Alden and Ellie just LOVED playing with all the marbles. :D
After the sauna, we went over to the Korean market. It is a huge supermarket with small shops and a food court. Joe and I had dinner (beef Kalbi, of course, and black noodles), and we bought some stuff to take home with. (In retrospect, I should've shopped there more thoroughly than I did because I keep having cravings for these Korean foods that are pretty difficult to find here or are expensive to get). Joe also bought me some 팥빙수 (shaved ice with fruits and red bean paste).
The next day, we decided to go tour some of the hotels since Joe hadn't seen them before, and I also wanted to take Al to go see things. We went to the Bellagio gardens and missed the water fountain show by 10 minutes on the way out. We also headed to the Caesar's Palace because I remebered seeing a really big toy store there. Turns out, it was turned into a very weird style clothing shop, so I was really disappointed... Anyway, to make up for that, we found a McDonald's with a playplace. We were probably there for like an hour and a half, and Al had so much fun with big kids going on the slide and running around. For the rest of the day, we just came home to relax.
Bellagio garden
Found this on the way back from McDonald's
Next morning was Christmas, and we wanted to go to church at 9. So we woke up really early to open presents (we even took a Christmas tree there so we could put presents under it). Alden and Ellie were pretty tired, but they were stoked to open presents and find treats inside the stocking. The church was only about 40 minutes long, and we headed home after that. The kids didn't have any problems with the drive back, except for when Al asked to go poop. We had to tell him to hold it for a few minutes so we could find an exit (Beaver), and even then, all the convenient stores and even McDonald's were closed! We had to go to Travelodge and asked at the front desk if we could use the bathroom. Well, by then, it was already too late, and Al didn't have the urge to go anymore, so we drove straight home after that.
Our Christmas tree with presents
Al, showing off presents with his name on. He looks pretty tired..
Ellie, showing off the treats from the stocking
Opening presents
Our speedometer got stuck on the way home...
When we got home, we made a big dinner with ham and dumplings and had a big family dinner with Yeagi and Jonathan too. We opened presents and also got to talk to Yearim who's on her mission.
Opening presents at home. Al gathered up all the presents with his name on (he had been counting them everyday) and put them in this box. Then he got inside too.
The next day, we drove up to Bountiful to see Joe's family. We went to Joe's dad's house to open presents, and then went over to Joe's mom's for lunch. We had wonderful lunch (courtesy of the Korean store in Vegas) with 삼겹살 and 갈비. After presents, we went to visit Joe's grandpa at the rehab center where he was recovering from his hip surgery. Then we went back to Joe's dad's to spend more time with him since we only got to stay for a few minutes before lunch.
It was a really good Christmas, and we loved spending time with the family. Only if it involved less driving, it would've been just perfect! Ha ha.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Silly kids
So every night, we play this game called, "Here comes daddy!" Alden and I (sometimes Ellie too) run downstairs to our room and hide under the covers, and Joe and Ellie come looking for us downstairs. It usually takes Joe "a few tries" before he finds us under the covers, but lately, he's gotten more clever. So today, I was hiding with both kids, and he walks into the room and says, "Alden's not here either! Where could he be? He must be in the other room." and shut the door. So Al out his guard down and listed up the covers to wait for Joe to come back into the room. And all of a sudden, Joe jumped out from behind the bed and yelled, "I found you!" It made all of us jump, and Al said, "Daddy! You scared all the family!!!" Joe and I were laughing so hard, we couldn't breathe. We are always so surprised at Al saying funny things, it always makes us laugh too.
The other day, Al and Ellie were sharing a juice box, and Ellie has a habit of biting down on the straw so hard that the juice down't come out anymore. She was doing it again, and Al couldn't drink, so we told her to stop biting down. She smiled, looked right at us, and started clenching her teeth so hard with her shoulders raised up that she was shaking. She kept doing that whenever we told her not to bite. al thought it was so funny.
Oh good news, Ellie can walk now. She can stand up on her own without any support. She gets on all fours first and slowly pushes herself up. She's taken quite a few steps to walk before she falls over. She's taken about 7 steps now, and we're waiting for her to start running around the house, chasing after Alden.
Ellie loves to share her food, even if it's already been in her mouth sometimes. She always gives me some to take a bite first and then puts it in her mouth (almost as if to see if the food is poisoned). Now when she hands me things (mostly toys and sometimes food), she says "자!" which means "Here you go" in Korean. Today she also said, "Ah~" while she was putting something in my mouth, and also said "boo!" to ask for a book. She also loves to "read" books, and she would turn pages while babbling so it sounds like she's reading the book. She also sings with me when I sing...
Alden's reading skills have been improved drastically, and he can also do simple addition and subtraction now with the help of his fingers and some pictures (1+3, 5-2, etc.). He can also read any number up to 100, and he also weighs himself every night and read the number out loud (thirty one point four!). Sometimes he can read a whole sentence, depending on the words, and one of the sentences he read today was "Two hippos, one rhino, and one piano on your trunk are very, very heavy" (I Broke My Trunk from the series Elepahnt and Piggie by Mo Williams). Although it's not the first time he's read the book, we still think it's pretty impressive for him to recognize the words enough to remember what the sentence was. If he was actually reciting what he memorized, then that would still be impressive cuz that would mean he memorized the whole 50+ pages of that book... Anyway, we are very proud of him. I need to tach him more Korean though. He knows about half the alphabet now...
Ellie and Alden still adore each other, and it's so cute to see each other give love. They are always giving each other hugs and kisses, and Ellie always likes to tough Al's face or head or lean into him and rest her head on him. Alden also loves to stroke Ellie's cheeks and says, "I love you!" or "Baby's so pretty!" (Sometimes, he tells me I'm pretty too. Hee Hee...)
This post is getting to be longer than I planned, but I keep remembering more stuff to write down so I don't forget in the future... This acts as the family journal a lot of the time so... Forgive me.. Ha ha.
The kids have been sick for a few weeks now, and Al had a fever for a couple days and he's now feeling better. Ellie's taking that course now, and she has really bad runny nose and fever at night. Last night, she wasn't feeling good at all and was crying on bed after we out her to sleep. She doesn't usually cry for longer than 2 minutes after we leave her but that day, she had been crying for more than 10 minutes. Al usually sings to calm her down or says "울지마" (don't cry) but last night, we started hearing him cry too. So we went into their room, and Al told me that Ellie was crying because of monsters in the room and that he was scared too... So we had to turn on the lights and go through the room and fight the monsters. Al loves to pretend to use the lasso (thanks to Diego) so I told him to grab the lasso and fight the monsters off. He got rid of the monsters under his and Ellie's bed, inside the closet, and behind the rocking chair, and after that, he was able to peacefully go to sleep.... (and the whole time, his Buzz plush doll was too scared of the monsters and was hiding in bed, according to Alden).
An update in the new baby. By the way, we call the baby, the new baby, because we keep calling Ellie the baby... Anyway, I went to see the OBGYN the other day, and he couldn't be sure of the "age" of the baby because I was breastfeeding when I got pregnant. So they did a quick ultrasound, and determined that the baby was at 13 weeks (it was 14 weeks according to my first day of last period). The new due date is July 12th. We'll keep updates coming!
P.s.: I'll add pictures when I get in the laptop later. It's taken me long enough to type this much on the iPad... And I still have to post about our Christmas vacation and Jamie's wedding too...
Here are the pictures that I promised!
The other day, Al and Ellie were sharing a juice box, and Ellie has a habit of biting down on the straw so hard that the juice down't come out anymore. She was doing it again, and Al couldn't drink, so we told her to stop biting down. She smiled, looked right at us, and started clenching her teeth so hard with her shoulders raised up that she was shaking. She kept doing that whenever we told her not to bite. al thought it was so funny.
Oh good news, Ellie can walk now. She can stand up on her own without any support. She gets on all fours first and slowly pushes herself up. She's taken quite a few steps to walk before she falls over. She's taken about 7 steps now, and we're waiting for her to start running around the house, chasing after Alden.
Ellie loves to share her food, even if it's already been in her mouth sometimes. She always gives me some to take a bite first and then puts it in her mouth (almost as if to see if the food is poisoned). Now when she hands me things (mostly toys and sometimes food), she says "자!" which means "Here you go" in Korean. Today she also said, "Ah~" while she was putting something in my mouth, and also said "boo!" to ask for a book. She also loves to "read" books, and she would turn pages while babbling so it sounds like she's reading the book. She also sings with me when I sing...
Alden's reading skills have been improved drastically, and he can also do simple addition and subtraction now with the help of his fingers and some pictures (1+3, 5-2, etc.). He can also read any number up to 100, and he also weighs himself every night and read the number out loud (thirty one point four!). Sometimes he can read a whole sentence, depending on the words, and one of the sentences he read today was "Two hippos, one rhino, and one piano on your trunk are very, very heavy" (I Broke My Trunk from the series Elepahnt and Piggie by Mo Williams). Although it's not the first time he's read the book, we still think it's pretty impressive for him to recognize the words enough to remember what the sentence was. If he was actually reciting what he memorized, then that would still be impressive cuz that would mean he memorized the whole 50+ pages of that book... Anyway, we are very proud of him. I need to tach him more Korean though. He knows about half the alphabet now...
Ellie and Alden still adore each other, and it's so cute to see each other give love. They are always giving each other hugs and kisses, and Ellie always likes to tough Al's face or head or lean into him and rest her head on him. Alden also loves to stroke Ellie's cheeks and says, "I love you!" or "Baby's so pretty!" (Sometimes, he tells me I'm pretty too. Hee Hee...)
This post is getting to be longer than I planned, but I keep remembering more stuff to write down so I don't forget in the future... This acts as the family journal a lot of the time so... Forgive me.. Ha ha.
The kids have been sick for a few weeks now, and Al had a fever for a couple days and he's now feeling better. Ellie's taking that course now, and she has really bad runny nose and fever at night. Last night, she wasn't feeling good at all and was crying on bed after we out her to sleep. She doesn't usually cry for longer than 2 minutes after we leave her but that day, she had been crying for more than 10 minutes. Al usually sings to calm her down or says "울지마" (don't cry) but last night, we started hearing him cry too. So we went into their room, and Al told me that Ellie was crying because of monsters in the room and that he was scared too... So we had to turn on the lights and go through the room and fight the monsters. Al loves to pretend to use the lasso (thanks to Diego) so I told him to grab the lasso and fight the monsters off. He got rid of the monsters under his and Ellie's bed, inside the closet, and behind the rocking chair, and after that, he was able to peacefully go to sleep.... (and the whole time, his Buzz plush doll was too scared of the monsters and was hiding in bed, according to Alden).
An update in the new baby. By the way, we call the baby, the new baby, because we keep calling Ellie the baby... Anyway, I went to see the OBGYN the other day, and he couldn't be sure of the "age" of the baby because I was breastfeeding when I got pregnant. So they did a quick ultrasound, and determined that the baby was at 13 weeks (it was 14 weeks according to my first day of last period). The new due date is July 12th. We'll keep updates coming!
P.s.: I'll add pictures when I get in the laptop later. It's taken me long enough to type this much on the iPad... And I still have to post about our Christmas vacation and Jamie's wedding too...
Here are the pictures that I promised!
Ellie on her birthday
Familiy Picture
Ellie pretending to blow out the candles that Al already got to as soon as we said, "you."
Al and Ellie playing in the library basket
Al putting the Christmas "stocking" to good use...
Sunday, December 18, 2011
1 year update
Okay... so I think it's about time I did the 1 year update on Ellie. Ha ha. She turned 1 on November 30th, and we had a nice birthday party for her with family and friends on December 4th. It was nice to have everyone there, and a lot of people helped out with the food so it didn't take too much work to prepare for it. I made Bulgogi and teriyaki chicken, and my friend Moa brought shrimp noodle salad, Kyra brought broccoli salad, Joe's mom brought the cake, and my mom's friends two Sister Kim's made potato pancakes and red bean bread. Joe, Chloe, and Dan helped me make a balloon arch to decorate the birthday table with, and we also had a slideshow going in the background of pictures of her growing up and also of her 1-year pictures I had a chance to take
All in all, we had a great party with great company. Well, now moving on to how she's doing.
She's a chatter box. She can say a few words already. Her favorite word is 밥 (Bop), which means food. She can also say 물 (moole), meaning water, but she actually says it more like "boo." She can sometimes say 엄마 (mom) and Daddy. She also likes to try to follow and repeat what we say, especially what Alden says. She can also sign "all done," "more," "please," "I love you," "hello," "yes," and "no." She loves to point at things, and she can really express what she wants and she doesn't want. She loves to eat, and she poops like four times a day too. I don't know why she's not bigger. Ha ha ha. She loves to smile at people, and she knows how to act "cute" so that everyone goes "aw......." with a slight head tilt and a smile.
She's very competitive, and she doesn't like to lose to her brother. She also get very jealous (i think typical of a girl), and if Al acts like a baby and cuddles up to me, she crawls over, yells at him, and tries to push him off. (She's pretty good with other kids though). She loves babies, and whenever she sees babies, she point at them and likes to get close and touch thier faces/heads. Unlike Al, she never took to a binky, but she loves her blankets. She doesn't just have one blanket she likes, but she loves a particular fabric type (the receiving blankets). I guess I used to carry around a blanket too when I was little (something I had no idea i did) but my parents keep saying she looks like me and also takes after me.
She's also very smart. When I teach her a sign language, she remembers to use it only after a couple times, and she remembers how to use a toy after we try playing with it once. She also loves it when Alden plays games (wii or nintendo), and one day, I discovered her pointing and shaking the wii remote AT the TV. Ha ha. We also have the super nintendo upstairs next to the TV, and when she wants to play, she turns on the TV, grabs the controller, and sits down facing the TV and starts pushing the buttons. So far, she hasn't figured out how to turn on the Super Nintendo yet, but I've also seen her with her hand on the "on" button, so it probably wouldn't be too long before she figures that out... Ha ha. My guess is she's gonna be better at games than Al is by the time she's Al's age. She also loves the laptop and anything electronic (cell phones, etc.). We're planning to teach her how to program later (it'd make a good stay home mom job).
She's has a very mild personality. We love putting her to bed. When she seems tired, we just ask her if she's tired and if she wants to go to sleep. She just nods her head, and after brushing her teeth and changing her, we just put her in her bed with her blanket, say good night, and leave the room. Then she just lies there and puts herself to sleep. When she wakes up, she rarely cries (only when she is woken up), and she just sits in her bed and waits for us to come and get her.
We just love our baby girl, and can't wait for her to develop more fun skills and personality.
All in all, we had a great party with great company. Well, now moving on to how she's doing.
She's a chatter box. She can say a few words already. Her favorite word is 밥 (Bop), which means food. She can also say 물 (moole), meaning water, but she actually says it more like "boo." She can sometimes say 엄마 (mom) and Daddy. She also likes to try to follow and repeat what we say, especially what Alden says. She can also sign "all done," "more," "please," "I love you," "hello," "yes," and "no." She loves to point at things, and she can really express what she wants and she doesn't want. She loves to eat, and she poops like four times a day too. I don't know why she's not bigger. Ha ha ha. She loves to smile at people, and she knows how to act "cute" so that everyone goes "aw......." with a slight head tilt and a smile.
She's very competitive, and she doesn't like to lose to her brother. She also get very jealous (i think typical of a girl), and if Al acts like a baby and cuddles up to me, she crawls over, yells at him, and tries to push him off. (She's pretty good with other kids though). She loves babies, and whenever she sees babies, she point at them and likes to get close and touch thier faces/heads. Unlike Al, she never took to a binky, but she loves her blankets. She doesn't just have one blanket she likes, but she loves a particular fabric type (the receiving blankets). I guess I used to carry around a blanket too when I was little (something I had no idea i did) but my parents keep saying she looks like me and also takes after me.
She's also very smart. When I teach her a sign language, she remembers to use it only after a couple times, and she remembers how to use a toy after we try playing with it once. She also loves it when Alden plays games (wii or nintendo), and one day, I discovered her pointing and shaking the wii remote AT the TV. Ha ha. We also have the super nintendo upstairs next to the TV, and when she wants to play, she turns on the TV, grabs the controller, and sits down facing the TV and starts pushing the buttons. So far, she hasn't figured out how to turn on the Super Nintendo yet, but I've also seen her with her hand on the "on" button, so it probably wouldn't be too long before she figures that out... Ha ha. My guess is she's gonna be better at games than Al is by the time she's Al's age. She also loves the laptop and anything electronic (cell phones, etc.). We're planning to teach her how to program later (it'd make a good stay home mom job).
She's has a very mild personality. We love putting her to bed. When she seems tired, we just ask her if she's tired and if she wants to go to sleep. She just nods her head, and after brushing her teeth and changing her, we just put her in her bed with her blanket, say good night, and leave the room. Then she just lies there and puts herself to sleep. When she wakes up, she rarely cries (only when she is woken up), and she just sits in her bed and waits for us to come and get her.
We just love our baby girl, and can't wait for her to develop more fun skills and personality.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Happy Halloween!
This year for Halloween, i wanted us to have a Super Mario theme. I started planning and preparing for it more than a month early, visiting the DI and internet blogs for ideas. Slowly, i put the costumes together, and i'm proud to say that it turned out really well, and we got a lot of compliments!
Mario: I bought Joe and Al's overalls from the DI. I made the yellow buttons out of felt. I also bought Al's red shirt from the DI, and Joe wore a red shirt that he already had. I bought a couple of red caps from the DI that I modified to make it look like Mario's, and I also got them some white gloves from Walmart.
Princess Peach: For Ellie's costume, I found the perfect pink dress from the DI. I found a pink shirt for myself from the DI and also some light and dark pink fabric that I used to make my skirt and the additions to Ellie's dress. I bought my wig and our tiaras. For Ellie's wig, the wasn't any baby size wig, so I bought a Bratz hair doll and cut up her hair and glued it to a baby size beanie with a hot glue. Ellie's wig took the longest to make, about 3 hours.
Thursday before Halloween, our ward had a Halloween Party, so that's where we showed off our costumes for the first time. We had really yummy chili and cornbread for dinner, and Alden got to hang out with his babysitters and join some activities that the youth prepared for the primary. After. The ward party, Joe's friend Invited us to another party at her gallery just two doors down from T-Splines. We went and enjoyed her paintings (she's incredibly talented).
On Friday, Joe's high a hook friend Austin and his wife Jlisa invited us to a group date they prepared called the Amazing Race. It was a scavenger hunt type of date with lots of driving involved, and one of the rules was that you cannot contact anyone for help, and you can only access google on your phone! Anyway, long story short, we had to give up early because, it turns out, we were the only ones without smartphones, and they didn't expect anyone to NOT have a smartphone... Joe's dad was babysitting for us, so we went to Nielson's custard to have our own date night.
On Saturday, we slept in, and Joe's mom and I had lunch, went to the playground, and went to tjmaxx while Joe fixed the lights in our car with his dad (we got pulled over the night before, because we were missing the left brake light, left blinker light, and the license plate light to to mention the left headlight that the officer didn't catch). We went and visited Joe's grandparents too but the kids were too cranky is we had to leave early.
We had a relaxing day Sunday, and on Monday, I took the kids to Thanksgiving Point Farmland with my friend Lara, her husband, and her kids, Yumi and Yuri. Yumi is Al's age, and they always play really well together. We got to see lots if farm animals, and even feed some sheep, goats, and llama some leaves. Alden also got on a pony, and he really enjoyed being on the horse. We also went on a "wagon" ride, except a tractor was pulling the wagon, and the horses were tied to the back of the wagon... Lara and Michael bought us a really nice lunch, and Alden and Yumi really had fun playing together and eating lunch. They wer eating spaghetti noodles, and we're competing to see who could make the noodles disappear into their mouths faster. Ha ha. We decided to go trick-or-treating together later. Yumi went home, and I wanted to go to the mall where they were supposed to have Halloween activities, I thought Al would fall asleep in the carm but he stayed wide awake, so we went to the Provo Towne Centre. They weren't supposed to start the trick-or-treating until 5, but they had small activities like coloring and candies and stuff. But it wasn't too exciting, so we went and played at the playground for a minute. I was gonna head home around 4:30 so Al could get at least an hour of sleep before heading out again with Yumi, but I also noticed that some of the stores had already started handing out candy. So we went around to several stores and stayed there until 5. Alden did a really good job, walking up to the store person and saying, "trick-or-treat!" he was really getting into it, and he kept saying, "more candy!"
After we got ready, Yumi came over with her sister and mom (they go to the Korean ward, so they didn't really have a neiborhood to go to), so we went and visited the families in our ward. Yumi got a little scared of some of the decorations, but Al kept saying, "Halloween not scared!" he really enjoyed going out with Yumi, and Ellie even got some candy! (although we had to go through and take about half of the candy out and send them off with Joe to work the next day since they had peanut warnings).
It was a good Halloween, and I had fun getting the costumes ready. I don't know what next year will bring yet, but I think i'll have fun again on a new project!
Mario: I bought Joe and Al's overalls from the DI. I made the yellow buttons out of felt. I also bought Al's red shirt from the DI, and Joe wore a red shirt that he already had. I bought a couple of red caps from the DI that I modified to make it look like Mario's, and I also got them some white gloves from Walmart.
Princess Peach: For Ellie's costume, I found the perfect pink dress from the DI. I found a pink shirt for myself from the DI and also some light and dark pink fabric that I used to make my skirt and the additions to Ellie's dress. I bought my wig and our tiaras. For Ellie's wig, the wasn't any baby size wig, so I bought a Bratz hair doll and cut up her hair and glued it to a baby size beanie with a hot glue. Ellie's wig took the longest to make, about 3 hours.
Thursday before Halloween, our ward had a Halloween Party, so that's where we showed off our costumes for the first time. We had really yummy chili and cornbread for dinner, and Alden got to hang out with his babysitters and join some activities that the youth prepared for the primary. After. The ward party, Joe's friend Invited us to another party at her gallery just two doors down from T-Splines. We went and enjoyed her paintings (she's incredibly talented).
On Friday, Joe's high a hook friend Austin and his wife Jlisa invited us to a group date they prepared called the Amazing Race. It was a scavenger hunt type of date with lots of driving involved, and one of the rules was that you cannot contact anyone for help, and you can only access google on your phone! Anyway, long story short, we had to give up early because, it turns out, we were the only ones without smartphones, and they didn't expect anyone to NOT have a smartphone... Joe's dad was babysitting for us, so we went to Nielson's custard to have our own date night.
On Saturday, we slept in, and Joe's mom and I had lunch, went to the playground, and went to tjmaxx while Joe fixed the lights in our car with his dad (we got pulled over the night before, because we were missing the left brake light, left blinker light, and the license plate light to to mention the left headlight that the officer didn't catch). We went and visited Joe's grandparents too but the kids were too cranky is we had to leave early.
After we got ready, Yumi came over with her sister and mom (they go to the Korean ward, so they didn't really have a neiborhood to go to), so we went and visited the families in our ward. Yumi got a little scared of some of the decorations, but Al kept saying, "Halloween not scared!" he really enjoyed going out with Yumi, and Ellie even got some candy! (although we had to go through and take about half of the candy out and send them off with Joe to work the next day since they had peanut warnings).
It was a good Halloween, and I had fun getting the costumes ready. I don't know what next year will bring yet, but I think i'll have fun again on a new project!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Jamie's Football Game
Yesterday, we went to see Jamie's football game. We were actually planning to go last week, but Alden got sick and was throwing up, so we couldn't make it. For lunch, we met up with our friends Moa and Yohan at 장수장 (Korean restaurant in Salt Lake) for lunch. The food was soooooo good (Joe said it was the best Korean food he'd had since Korea), and everyone, including Al and even Ellie, ate a LOT.
Then we dropped by the distribution center and the DI in Bountiful. After that, we picked up Joe's mom and drove up to Ogden. We got there close to the end of first quarter. Jamie was playing on the special team, so we didn't get to see him play that much, but I was able to take some close-up pictures of Jamie using my super 250mm lens.
Ellie and Alden were being so good, and they were clapping and cheering with us. :) Mom bought us ICEEs, and that got Alden through the first half of the game. During half time, we met up with Joe's dad, Faye, and Jon, who were sitting across the field in the family section (we had general admissions so we couldn't sit with them). Alden discovered the track field and the shotput field, and he was running around and making sand (rock) castles. He got really bored during the second half, so Joe took him down back to the shotput field. He ran and ran and ran around with new friends he made (other kids who didn't really care for football but were there because of their parents. lol), and he even tried long jumping with big kids.
Weber State ended up losing, but we had a fun time, and we were glad that we could make it out to Jamie's game. :D
Then we dropped by the distribution center and the DI in Bountiful. After that, we picked up Joe's mom and drove up to Ogden. We got there close to the end of first quarter. Jamie was playing on the special team, so we didn't get to see him play that much, but I was able to take some close-up pictures of Jamie using my super 250mm lens.
Ellie and Alden were being so good, and they were clapping and cheering with us. :) Mom bought us ICEEs, and that got Alden through the first half of the game. During half time, we met up with Joe's dad, Faye, and Jon, who were sitting across the field in the family section (we had general admissions so we couldn't sit with them). Alden discovered the track field and the shotput field, and he was running around and making sand (rock) castles. He got really bored during the second half, so Joe took him down back to the shotput field. He ran and ran and ran around with new friends he made (other kids who didn't really care for football but were there because of their parents. lol), and he even tried long jumping with big kids.
Weber State ended up losing, but we had a fun time, and we were glad that we could make it out to Jamie's game. :D
Al and I making a sand castle. [I made my shirt last week (Joe's as well) by cutting up white fabric and hot gluing it to the shirt. I used iron-on for Alden's shirt.] As we were leaving to go to the bathroom, he kept telling Joe, "Don't break the mountain! Don't break the mountain!"
Ellie visiting with Dad and Faye
Ellie fell asleep on Joe's shoulders... lol. As we headed back to our seats, everyone stared, pointed, and said, "Look. Aw... The baby's asleep..."
Monday, October 10, 2011
Happy Birthday Alden!
Alden is now "Kree." We had a week-long celebration, and I'm sure he enjoyed being able to say that it's HIS birthday. (He gets to blow out candles on other people's birthdays. lol) His birthday was on a Monday this year, so we decided to have separate parties up in Bountiful and down in Provo so people wouldn't have to travel long distances. On Saturday, while Joe went to the priesthood session, the kids and I hung out with Joe's mom. We went to McDonald's to celebrate then went to Walmart. We bought some clothes for the kids and some cupcakes and a birthday cake. After Joe got back, we lit some candles on the transformers cupcakes (and of course, he picked out yellow candles to blow out).
On Sunday, we went to Joe's grandparents' to watch the morning session with them. We spent some time together having lunch and looking through old mission pictures, then went over to Joe's dad's house to watch the afternoon session. Joe and I both fell asleep during the session, and Dad, Faye, and Jon watched the kids for us (thank you!). Jamie and Sam, and Tom, Laura, and Sophie, and grandma and grandpa came over later so we could celebrate Jamie's engagement and Al's birthday. We watched the video of Jamie's engagement, and sang Happy Birthday to Al. This time, we had a bigger transformers cake and Joe almost dropped it on my lap trying to angle it better for a picture!! Dad and Faye got Alden a "monkey pajamas (Alden asked for it)" and Tom and Laura got Al a cool cape and a mask with an "A" sewn on the back. :) Sophie and Al played very nicely and enjoyed their time together as always!
Monday was just like any other day. Even though it was Al's birthday, we didn't really do anything special since his party was on Saturday. Well, he seemed like he was started to get sick, so I did spoil him by letting him eat whatever he wanted (consisted of juice, crackers, plain macaroni noodles, and popsicles) and played the wii together. In fact, he got to play as much game as he wanted the whole week because he really was sick, and we wanted him to get better by Saturday when we were scheduled to go to the Kangaroo Zoo for his party. He got to play a lot of Super Mario Bros. and he got really really good at it. lol.
For his birthday, I wanted to try making a red mushroom and 1-up mushroom cupcakes. I had never tried using fondant before, so this was an adventure. I stayed up until 3 in the morning, kneading fondant and adding food coloring to the fondant....
Starting Saturday morning at 9 until about 2 pm, I finished making the cupcakes and made the "star" cookies for the party. I also had a round cake made from left over cake mix, so I made a mario world cake with pipes and a block with coins (Joe's idea). It took a loooooooong time to bake everything, but I think it turned out okay. (And thank goodness, Joe had the energy and will power to do all the clean up after I made all the mess in the kitchen. I don't think I could've done it.)
At 3, we played some super nintendo mario world to celebrate the birthday theme, and then sang a song and blew out candles and opened presents. Then we headed to the Kangaroo Zoo. It's basically a warehouse full of bouncy houses, and the kids (Kelly, Anna, Ben, Alden, & Sophie) just LOVED it. They found this round bouncy house with a mushroom looking thing in the middle and spent almost an hour just jumping on and off the mushroom!
Anyway... All in all, it turned out to be a great birthday, and I think I'm going to try making those sugar cookies again (they tasted pretty good, kinda like those danish cookies you get during the Christmas season). :D
He picked out YELLOW candles to blow out
Ellie was sad it wasn't her birthday
Blowing out candles..
Yummy icing!
On Sunday, we went to Joe's grandparents' to watch the morning session with them. We spent some time together having lunch and looking through old mission pictures, then went over to Joe's dad's house to watch the afternoon session. Joe and I both fell asleep during the session, and Dad, Faye, and Jon watched the kids for us (thank you!). Jamie and Sam, and Tom, Laura, and Sophie, and grandma and grandpa came over later so we could celebrate Jamie's engagement and Al's birthday. We watched the video of Jamie's engagement, and sang Happy Birthday to Al. This time, we had a bigger transformers cake and Joe almost dropped it on my lap trying to angle it better for a picture!! Dad and Faye got Alden a "monkey pajamas (Alden asked for it)" and Tom and Laura got Al a cool cape and a mask with an "A" sewn on the back. :) Sophie and Al played very nicely and enjoyed their time together as always!
Monday was just like any other day. Even though it was Al's birthday, we didn't really do anything special since his party was on Saturday. Well, he seemed like he was started to get sick, so I did spoil him by letting him eat whatever he wanted (consisted of juice, crackers, plain macaroni noodles, and popsicles) and played the wii together. In fact, he got to play as much game as he wanted the whole week because he really was sick, and we wanted him to get better by Saturday when we were scheduled to go to the Kangaroo Zoo for his party. He got to play a lot of Super Mario Bros. and he got really really good at it. lol.
Alden got these as a birthday present!
For his birthday, I wanted to try making a red mushroom and 1-up mushroom cupcakes. I had never tried using fondant before, so this was an adventure. I stayed up until 3 in the morning, kneading fondant and adding food coloring to the fondant....
Starting Saturday morning at 9 until about 2 pm, I finished making the cupcakes and made the "star" cookies for the party. I also had a round cake made from left over cake mix, so I made a mario world cake with pipes and a block with coins (Joe's idea). It took a loooooooong time to bake everything, but I think it turned out okay. (And thank goodness, Joe had the energy and will power to do all the clean up after I made all the mess in the kitchen. I don't think I could've done it.)
I made the shirt he is wearing (half of mario overalls)
At 3, we played some super nintendo mario world to celebrate the birthday theme, and then sang a song and blew out candles and opened presents. Then we headed to the Kangaroo Zoo. It's basically a warehouse full of bouncy houses, and the kids (Kelly, Anna, Ben, Alden, & Sophie) just LOVED it. They found this round bouncy house with a mushroom looking thing in the middle and spent almost an hour just jumping on and off the mushroom!
Anyway... All in all, it turned out to be a great birthday, and I think I'm going to try making those sugar cookies again (they tasted pretty good, kinda like those danish cookies you get during the Christmas season). :D
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)














































