Precious Moment #1

I'm shocked we were able to get a video of our kids at their finest...


Did you also notice Ryan scratching his butt?? haha.

Fall 2011

Wow. Summer went by so fast and the kids grew A LOT in just a few months. Here is a quick catch up blog entry because starting next week things are going to get so busy.

Lauren just turned 17 months. Her favorite phrase for the past 2 months has been "whole thing". She knows what she wants when it comes to food and she insists she must have the "whole thing". Just the other day, I got a Taco Bell crunch wrap for myself and I gave her a bite. Well, that was a mistake because she wanted the WHOLE THING. Give her a chip and she will want the whole bag. And she still has her strange eating habit...where she stuffs her mouth till her cheeks are all puffy, completely overflowing with food, and she chews on it forever until its finished.There was no question that she would either be a "pig" or a "cow" for Halloween and so here she is ... 

Lauren the Cow

And Ryan was "Captain America" ...

But isn't he the prettiest "Captain America" you have ever seen?? He is such a pretty boy!! But he's also such the typical boy because he hates going out shopping and he is not as affectionate anymore. I'm already sad that my little baby is all grown up.

It's a good thing I still have this little baby troublemaker. She is the typical girl, of course, and loves shopping, especially for toys and shoes. And this is why my Target shopping takes FOREVER. haha.

Lauren likes to do her own "shopping"



On a good note, Ryan has really been enjoying his Kindergarten class. He loves his teacher, Mrs. Ricupito, and loves his new friends.

Ryan has accomplished a lot already since summer.

-He is a puzzle genius. Seriously, having a child that likes puzzles is good for your piece of mind.
-He likes to "cook" peanut butter and jam sandwiches and microwaveable mac and cheese.
-He can "study" at Starbucks with Daddy for a good 2 hours now. Any longer, and he will fall apart. Too bad Lauren falls apart at 5 minutes.

Lauren has also accomplished a lot too!
-She knows how to say a lot of words like mulk (milk), yogut (yogurt), gunkle (uncle), banket (blanket), oosh (juice) and tons more.
-She is poo poo trained but not pee pee trained yet.
-She learned to sit still while I do her hair.
-She likes to put things in the trash can after crumpling it up into a ball (like Ryan's schoolwork)!

Below are some pictures from the end of October when we went to PV for my dad's birthday dinner and took a walk near the beach. It's too bad I didn't really appreciate the beautiful beaches in my hometown until after college.

 

Summer Fun!!

The month of July has come and gone so quickly. Ryan is doing good in junior kindergarten as usual and just finished VBS this week at his school. His reading fluency is excellent and he is learning to spell some really hard words. He also loves bible stories, playing games, and writing notes to people. At 4 years old, he's able to do a lot of things on his own which makes mommy's and daddy's life easier. As for his hobbies, he has passed the "Thomas the Train" and "Sesame Street" phases, and is in the "Imagination Mover's" and "Transformer's" phase, although his "Barney" stage has been lingering longer than we'd like with the annoying "I Love You" song. The rest of the family, including Lauren, is also a fan of "Imagination Mover's". Lauren likes to copy her older brother all the time. Actually, it's very endearing to watch them play together for the few minutes before the inevitable fight breaks out. Here they are dancing to a song from "Imagination Mover's" together in the car ...



Lauren also likes to take Ryan's stuff and scream bloody murder when Ryan takes it back, but how can you not love this girl ... she is too adorable. Here she is walking around with Ryan's lunch bag pretending it's her purse ...




On that note, I'm glad I get to experience having a daughter as it's been a very different experience so far. She is already into bags, shoes, and stuffed animals. She loves to put on shoes to go out and whenever we happen to go to a store with purses...she will go over and get a purse for each arm and walk around with a huge smile on her face. Too bad her smile gets replaced with screams when I have to put the purses back.

Here are some cools things we did in the month of July...

For 4th of July, we got tickets to see an Angels game and then watched the fireworks show afterward. The Angel's won the game against the other team which I forget the name of. Obviously, I am no baseball fan. Overpriced food kept the kids happy until the fireworks. This is probably the first year that Ryan saw fireworks without getting scared. Lauren was a bit scared in the beginning, but got used to it.

Waiting for 4th of July fireworks at Angel's Stadium

Summer is also the time when I am always on the lookout for cool water play areas for kids and my favorite so far is at Irvine Spectrum - shopping + fun ... all in one place.

 
We also drove up to Nor Cal to attend Phil and Angela's highly anticipated wedding. Ryan has always been excellent with long car rides ever since he was born.

Happy Ryan

 And this is how Lauren handles long car rides.

Crazy Lauren

We stayed at the Hilton in Pleasanton so I could make a visit to fellow co-workers in the Pleasanton office. Our weekend was too packed to do anything other than wedding stuff. I hope Ryan did a good job walking down the aisle as a ring boy. I wouldn't know because I was too busy occupying Lauren so she wouldn't scream during the ceremony. After the wedding was over, how could we leave the Bay Area without having some Bi-Rite ice-cream?

Lauren eating ice-cream

I really miss the Bay Area!! There were so many things we wanted to do and people we wanted to see, but our trip was too short.

My parents happened to be in Fresno on our way down from Nor Cal so we visited them there. The best part about Fresno is their park, which has an awesome play structure and water splash pad, not to mention there is always an ice-cream truck around.

And as usual, Lauren made a mess in Fresno too. This girl is hilarious. When she is extra quiet you know something is amiss and when you go and take a look you will usually find her hand in toilet water or ripping stuff up into little teeny tiny pieces, like this ...

Lauren's obsession with ripping things

It wasn't too long ago when our favorite thing to do during summers was to go to bookstores to hang out and read, but sadly it looks like all the bookstores are closing down. I guess it is no surprise. Despite the gazillion bookstore trips I made, I rarely ever bought a book at a bookstore. Now this favorite pastime has been replaced by trips to the library instead.

 

We also visited Adventure City (which is a mini amusement park) for the first time.It was a crazy hot day, but we still had a good time there since it wasn't crowded.

Yay for summers! So much to do, but so little time.

Ryan's Wise Sayings Part II

As we were eating fish for dinner: When you eat animals and they are in your mouth they can't talk because when you chew them they die.

As Ryan was feeding Lauren some Cheetos: Lauren likes Cheetos because they are Cheety.

AHAHAHAHA!

Lauren is walking!!

A lot has happened. Namely, my iphone 4 was stolen so I haven't been blogging as much since I don't take pictures everwhere I go like I used to. A blog entry without a picture just doesn't seem complete. Thankfully, Chang has graciously given me his iphone 3gs mainly because I would be literally lost without GPS.

I will have eventually write an entry about how my little precious daughter turned 1 years old and also how Ryan graduated from pre-K, but its late now, so I will just say that today, Lauren went from taking 1 step to 20 steps!! So exciting!! She was getting a kick out of walking ... it's like she all of sudden realized that she could walk. I bet by tomorrow she will be walking everywhere. OK, I know this is my second kid and I've seen this all before, but it's still just as super exciting as if it were my first kid.

Time for Lauren to start wearing those cute shoes!!

Lauren the Screamer!

Lauren is a screamer...she screams when she's upset, she screams when she wants something, she screams when she's tired, and we found that she screams when she's super happy too.



I love how Ryan is getting a kick out of Lauren's screaming. By the way, here is a picture of Ryan's Mother's day card that he made at school.

 

My favorite part: My Mom is smart! She even knows ... how to drive. HAHAHA.

My kids crack me up.

Dancing Queen

Lauren just turned 11 months yesterday on May 4!!

Lauren has been into 2 new things during month 9 and 10. She loves to dance to the slightest beat or song; even the telephone ringing. She bops her head up and down and back and forth and claps and shakes her booty too. It is hilarious. She is also pointing non stop. The cutest is when she points at me when she wants me to hold her. And when I hold her, she likes to put her head down against my shoulder...sweetheart Lauren!

These days Lauren's beautiful black hair is getting so long and the weather is warming up. Chang tells me he wants to just cut off her hair like a boy since I am the only person who can do this squirming girls hair. Literally, if her hair bands come off, her head becomes a faceless, big, black mass like straight out of a horror flick. Next time I'll take a picture. But it's not just her hair growing fast ... she is wearing 18 month old clothes and wearing some of Ryan's old 2T clothes. You're not even 1 years old, you little lady!!

Ryan has been enjoying his new preschool and he went on his first school fieldtrip (not to mention his first school bus ride ever) to Tanaka farms to pick strawberries. Riding on a school bus with a bunch of preschoolers is madness, but it was fun too! Ryan's favorite part of the trip was eating the carrots straight from the field...he says they were delicious.

These days we have been trying to explore the area when we can. We have visited some local parks, the library, Brea Mall, Spectrum at Irvine, and South Coast Plaza. But probably our favorite thing to do is swimming! ... or rather walking in the pool! Ever since we had kids we don't really swim ... we pretty much just walk around inside the pool holding or supervising the kids. It's still fun though. haha.