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.

A temper tantrum worth blogging about

Today Ryan had a meltdown and screamed his head off because of this ...

He drew a stick figure.
First he cut around the head ... unfortunately, it fell off as he cut around it.
Then he cut the rest of the body.
Then the screaming started "It doesn't come out!!!!! It doesn't come out!!"

Daddy came along, explained what happened, and appeased him with a cooler drawing.

We had a good laugh.

We Moved!

Well...there goes my new years resolution to update my blog more frequently.

But we have a good excuse. It was truly the end of an era as we moved from Northern California back to Southern California. Ever since our CAL days we have been living in the Bay Area ... got married, had 2 kids. Collectively, we've lived in Berkeley, Richmond, Emeryville, Pleasanton, Dublin, and Santa Clara. So, why did we move down? Mainly because our family was ready for a change and felt like things were coming together so that we were able to make this move. I guess we could have moved anywhere but moving to SoCal makes sense for two reasons. 1. Both our families live in LA and 2. LA Lakers are here. I kid about #2, but maybe not Chang.

Our move down was an ordeal mainly because our kids slowed us down a lot and we had accumulated too much stuff over the years. I finally threw out my old college notes and books, clothes that have hung around since junior high, and lots of useless kid's junk, like those Mcdonald's happy meal toys. McDonald's has made bank off of me! Even after a gazillion visits to the Salvation Army we still had too much stuff. Our move was pretty disorganized and hectic so we didn't even get to properly say bye to a lot of people ... so sorry. But I'm sure we will see you again sometime soon. We will totally miss Norcal and all our friends up there!!

So, now here we are at what is seemingly such a random city called Anaheim Hills, which is not even that close to my hometown and extended family (it is a 40 minute drive from PV without traffic and I don't want to know what it is with traffic). God has a purpose for bringing us here so I am really excited about this place. So, what is so great about this place so far ... there is a market, Costco, Target, etc ... all really close by. When you are single, who cares about that? But once you have a family, dull, quiet, suburbia is really the best place to live. The only thing we are missing here is the beach, but I figure I can drive out to PV or Laguna Beach.

Here are some random pics from the past month ...

Lauren's favorite baby sitter - Thank You Mrs. Kong!

Ryan's Favorite Hyung - Thanks Jandre!

Ryan is into making silly faces these days!

Trip to Target - our favorite place to shop

Oh Lauren - You are such a handful but oh so cute!

Ryan is such a big boy now.

Ryan secretly likes you a lot Sarah!

Who is this silly girl?!!

OK. That's better.

But Lauren, I think we need to work on improving our behavior...
Please stop playing with and/or eating mommy and daddy and ryan's dirty shoes.
Please stop trying to put your hands in toilet water.
Please stop stealing everyone's food.
Please stop bothering Ryan.
And please stop screaming your head off.

But even still, you are so lovable...
You like to dance everytime there is music
You eat food with happiness and delight
You love to hug daddy, and big brother, and me
You don't need toys to be entertained, just people

Lauren just recently started standing...a whole 3 seconds!! Yay!

Ryan, on the other hand, is starting his new preschool on Monday. It's called Independence Christian Preschool. Prayer Request: Please help Ryan to love his new school, new teachers, and new friends.

Have a good weekend!

Ryan's Wise Sayings ...

Ryan's Wise Saying #1: (Whilst playing a game on my iPhone even though it was past his bedtime...)  I'm only tired in one eye. I'm not tired in two eyes so I don't have to go to bed.

Ryan's Wise Saying #2: (At a restaurant in a really LOUD voice...) It smells in here. I think its like daddy fart.

Ryan's Wise Saying #3: (After pooping...) My poop is medium size and it didn't hurt. It's because I ate all of my hot dog.

Indeed, he is a wise boy.

Another masterpiece ...

Ryan's latest masterpiece...that he wrote by himself with no help.

He spelled my name right this time.
Why does he only like me "a little bit"?!
The rest -  I can't quite decipher it but I THINK he is saying that I count "good" since I can count to 100 and I love how he always converts 100 to look like eyes.

Another milestone

I forgot to mention that Lauren reached a milestone. Crawling at 8 months old!! It is so exciting to watch her develop. Did I mention that she is also very clingy? She craves attention from people, especially mommy and daddy. But since mommy and daddy can't be next to her all the time, she starts crying and then she continues crying while she starts crawling to us, following us around everywhere we go. It's a crawl and cry fest every day. But this is where Ryan comes in handy. We just sit her next to Ryan and then she is content for a while. He is the next best thing to mommy and daddy.

But putting Lauren next to Ryan is not always the best idea, when all Lauren wants to do is destroy whatever Ryan is working on, like an elaborate building made of blocks or his mousetrap game setup. Ryan always says, "Mommy, can you put Lauren away?" Before she could crawl this wasn't really a problem because I could just separate her from Ryan just enough so Ryan can play with his toys in peace. But now Lauren will crawl over to Ryan's toy and try to knock everything over but Ryan will block her with his leg and then Lauren will SHRIEK at the top of her lungs at him. Poor Ryan!! Don't let the cuteness fool you...

Where did all the pacifiers go??

OK. So, the most important item for Lauren besides her food is her pacifier for nap/bed time. And the unthinkable happened last night where ALL our pacifiers went missing!! The flailing and screaming happened for at least 20 minutes. Now, unlike her brother, who was generally content with any material thing we gave him, Lauren, on the other hand, is very particular. She MUST have the Learning Curve brand Soothie paci plus she MUST not have it hanging on a pacifier leash. Despite her daddy having gone numerous times to the store just to get her new pacifiers, somehow they have all disappeared. I am pretty sure that if we cleaned out our place we would find at least 10 lying around somewhere, but WHERE? Luckily we found one today in the car under the seat. Both mommy and daddy jump for joy whenever we find a pacifier. Is that pathetic or what? LOL.

Thankful for family...

I just had to write a quick entry so that I can look back and remember this.

Chang is so funny! For Valentine's day, he made this dinner. It looks like a steak, huh? But its layers of rosegui and pamucheem on top. And dwenjangjeegeh on the side. So creative and good.

And yesterday, we all went out to celebrate my birthday at a nice restaurant, Vic Stewart in Walnut Creek....WITH both kids. Nice restaurants + kids is always a scary thought. Imagine Ryan and Lauren throwing a screaming fit while prim and proper dinner guests stare you down for ruining their meal (and I wouldn't blame them). I imagined this and was prepared throughout the meal to grab a screaming kid and sprint out of the restaurant at any moment. But we can all breathe a sigh of relief because this didn't happen. Ryan got to enjoy his first Shirley Temple while we kept Lauren busy munching on bread.

We especially enjoyed our peaceful drive back to Santa Clara listening to the theme song from Inception on repeat. Ryan enjoys music and likes to point out all the instruments that are playing in a song ... this is why I REALLY want to take him to a symphony. I think he will love it so I must plan this soon. And why was our drive peaceful?? Because Lauren was sleeping. Peaceful car rides are a rarity with Lauren.*Sigh*

But do you know what really made my day. Ryan's birthday card to me!! Yes, he spelled my name wrong. And why is he using my first name instead of mommy? I have no idea. But seriously, I am going to treasure this forever.

 

Initially, I was afraid this might have been a picture of me (haha) ... but he says this is a picture of a silly sun.

Ryan keeps his word...

Ryan did say "AhnYoungHaSehYoh" at church. FINALLY!!

Funny thing is he did this also with potty training:

Although he was potty trained in the day, he still wet his pull ups at night. But one morning when taking off his wet pull up he said "Mommy, I will not pee in my pull ups again" and then he stopped peeing in his pull ups at night.

A New Year and lots to look forward to...

Where does the time go? Seriously, once you have kids, the days are jam packed!

Lauren is growing up to be such a sweet little girl with the most endearing qualities. She loves company and loves to be held. She will automatically smile whenever mommy, or daddy, or big brother enter the room. Oh yes, she has LOTS of moments where she turns into a screaming little monster...but from looking at her pictures you would never know.

On her 8 month birthday...

She developed her fine motor skills so much faster than Ryan...ever since 6 or 7 months she has been eyeing the smallest particles and the tiniest crumbs on our carpet...unfortunately, to eat it! She wants to eat adult food all the time instead of her baby food. She still doesn't roll over but she is starting to crawl. She is also excellent at doing situps...and I see this is probably due to the fact that she doesn't roll over. She will do her famous V shaped pilates move by trying to sit up from a laying down position without rolling over. Toys are generally wasted on her ... she is more interested in juice boxes, storage bins, and food. But the cutest thing she does is tilt her head to the side to smile at you .... ahhh... it just melts our heart!!

Now on to the older brother ... and I must say, Ryan is an excellent older brother to Lauren. He puts up with all her crazy antics like pulling his hair, scratching his face, destroying his legos, etc. Just excellent.

Also, Ryan has been having many epiphanies lately...

Epiphany #1: He has realized (with the assistance of a globe that he got last Christmas) that he is just a little speck in this big universe and that he lives in California which is a state in North America and that there are lots of other places like Australia, China, etc. He likes to see all the other countries on the globe and asks questions like:

"Are there people in Russia?"
"My friend's mommy and daddy went to China. Remember that time you left me with halmoni (grandma) by myself ... did you go to China too?" [Apparently, he thinks you can go to China in just a couple hours]
"Kangaroos live in Australia. Do kangaroos live in Russia?"

For some reason, he always likes to talk about Russia, Australia, and China.


Epiphany #2: He figured out how to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the keyboard by himself through trial and error. He shocked me with this one.

Epiphany #3: He understands the concept of languages and has started asking how to say things in various languages. We can thank "Dora the Explorer" for teaching him Spanish and "Ni Hao Kai Lan" for teaching him Chinese. He probably knows Korean the least because both mommy and daddy are horribly inadequate in the subject. I was sure he didn't even know how to say "Hello" in Korean because every time we made him bow and say "AhnYoungHaSehYoh" at church he would never do it. But yesterday he told me: "I know how to say hi in korean. It's AhnYoungHaSehYoh." So, he knew this whole time and he is purposely refusing to say it. The upside is that he says he will say it from now on. Well, we shall see if this is true at church tomorrow.

This month some of the things we did include visiting California Academy of Sciences, which was way cool. We attended a baby shower and 2 birthday parties and also had a short weekend trip to LA.

Here is a clip from a birthday party ...

And here is Lauren and Ryan being silly. I need to figure out how to flip this video.