The Little Prince & Princess

Precious Moment #1

2011-11-13T21:30:00.001-08:00

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

2011-11-09T00:46:00.000-08:00

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!!

2011-08-06T00:03:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

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!!

2011-06-25T01:03:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-05-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-06T01:03:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-04-16T02:47:00.000-07:00

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 ...

2011-03-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

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 ...

2011-02-25T01:42:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-20T23:38:00.000-08:00

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??

2011-02-19T01:11:00.000-08:00

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...

2011-02-16T12:22:00.000-08:00

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...

2011-02-14T14:33:00.000-08:00

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...

2011-02-13T00:16:00.000-08:00

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.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-29T01:47:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!!! What a great time to rejoice in the birth of Jesus and be reminded of the abundant blessings. December was just packed...hanging out with lots of people and eating good food.

Ryan has been doing really well in preschool and always looks forward to going. Lauren has started teething and eating all kinds of solid foods. Her favorite foods are peas, sweet potatoes, winter squash, and rice cereal. Ryan also likes to eat Lauren's baby food as a snack...as a matter of fact, I too, like to eat it for a snack. Only Chang doesn't like baby food...he's the oddball in the family. Lauren's 12 hour nighttime sleep has been interrupted the last 2 weeks due to her teething which is also the reason for my excessive coffee drinking, but things are returning to normal again and she has been sleeping through the night. But she is still teething like crazy and everything goes straight to her mouth.

Anyways, we had a busy month. We started the festivities at the NLMC Christmas party. We had a white elephant gift exchange and ended up with a mini pool table. Great food and fellowship!

Also, look at how long Lauren's hair has gotten.

And also look at how fat her cheeks have gotten too.

On Christmas day, we woke up and opened all the presents under the tree. This was the first year where Ryan actually WANTED to save opening the presents till Christmas day. Lauren in the meanwhile LOVED the wrapping paper and was shoving it all into her mouth. This was good because mommy and daddy did not buy her a present. Haha. We did buy her a cute hat a week later though.

Afterwards, we went to church Christmas service, ate lunch, and then played with all the new toys at home while Chang watched his beloved LA Lakers playing. And for Christmas dinner, we had some yummy food at a friend's place and hung out there.

After a long day, the kids like to sip on some cooooool milk. And then Lauren goes to bed in her favorite crib and Ryan goes to bed with his favorite yellow blanket and his ladybug pillowpet.

Normally, we go to LA to visit family during this season, but we decided to stay up here. The good thing is we got to meet with lots of people that we normally don't see...Esther, Mary, Phil & April, Laurie & Wayne & Lucy, etc.

Meeting Adelynn for the first time

And how can we not end this blog entry without a video? Ryan is very musically inclined and he especially likes drums. We contemplated getting him a drumset and some drum lessons for him, but practically I know the noise would drive us nuts so he'll have to settle for using this baby music set that he got when he was like 1 years old. Even after 4 years, he plays with this toy. Definitely got our money's worth on this one.

We want to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-12-01T00:09:00.000-08:00

November is always a busy month for us. We celebrated our 7th year of marriage on the 22nd! Oh how God has blessed us over the years. This year we had dinner at Spencer's Steakhouse. I got the Eye of Ribeye steak and Chang got the Prime Spencer's Steak...so delicious! And their bread and wine were super good. Despite not being carded (booo!), we had such a good time and got a bit buzzed from the wine. Afterwards, we headed off to see Harry Potter at the theatre. We were so thankful to have Jandre's family babysit BOTH kids for us. It was the best anniversary present ever.

This year, we had 3 Thanksgiving dinners. One at church, one at Jandre's, and one at home.

We had kalbi, chicken, sausage, jabchae, soondae, and lots of other yumminess at Jandre's place. His mom can cook! She is such a diligent mommy. Our stomachs were happy and Ryan got to hang out with Jandre's cousins so he had fun.

Below is our dinner at home. I really liked the turkey this year but it was a mishmash of multiple recipes so I totally mixed things up and lost track of what I was doing so I probably cannot repro this turkey again ever. My fav recipe this year is the cranberry sauce though. I love it so much I've even been putting the leftover cranberry sauce on everything! Cranberry sauce on salad...cranberry sauce on rice...cranberry sauce with cookies. LOL.

Lauren will be 6 months on Dec 4 and these days Lauren is sitting up by herself ... ALMOST. She flaps her arms up and down like a chicken whenever she gets excited or when she wants to keep herself occupied. When Ryan was her age, he used to put his hands together and just stare at them. It's interesting how each kid is so different. Ryan used to sleep with his butt in the air, but Lauren likes to sleep like this. HAHA.

These days Ryan's most favorite thing to do is have a sleepover in the living room. We lay out the futon in front of the big screen and watch a movie with popcorn and snacks and then play in the makeshift blanket tent with a flashlight and sleep there. Oh so fun!! Oh man, I know I'm gonna miss these days sooo much when the kids are older.

Our marriage has been blessed with these two sweet kids. I love them!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kids are so cute!

2010-11-11T22:10:00.000-08:00

During our usual bedtime routine yesterday, Ryan and I were talking about school and how he liked his current preschool teacher and he recalled the names of all his old teachers. I told him that he will have a new teacher next year. Ryan said that after preschool, and then kindergarten, you go to "oneth grade". =) I corrected him and then we talked about all the grades from 1st through 12th grade and then I mentioned that after 12th grade mommy went to college. He replied, "I went to college too!". Well, that's news to me!

And not too long ago when Ryan was sick and coughing he said, "I have too many throat" and "My throat is coming out". What he means to say is that he has too much phlegm. In hindsight, I probably should have told him about phlegm, but I didn't. I just bust out laughing every time he says this.

And tonight as I was helping him get ready for bed, I see that he has 3 band aids on his body. From what I can tell the band aids are for invisible owweees. We must be spending a good amount of our salary on band aids and not just any plain old band aid; they must be Dora, or Sesame Street, or Sponge Bob band aids which apparently have magical powers to make all owwees go away. See the band aid on his middle toe below. On any given day, Ryan will always have at least one band aid on his body.

Lauren also has some quirks.

1. I can always tell when she is sleepy because she will bury her head in my shoulder.

2. Aside from the horrible stink, I can always tell when Lauren has pooped because she will babble non stop afterwards.

3. When we first started rice cereal at 4 months old, she was sooo impatient. She needed a constant stream of rice cereal in her mouth or she got upset. Unfortunately for her, there is no such thing as a funnel spoon so she had no choice but to learn how to be patient.

Now at 5 months she is a good and patient eater.

And of course, Happy Veterans Day today!! To all the veterans and those currently in service - we are grateful for your service to this country.

Sick

2010-11-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

It was inevitable. Lauren got her first cold this past week, most likely from me. She had a runny nose and I'm sure she ate a lot of snot cuz it was dripping like crazy down to her mouth, but she was in good spirits. In a way I'm glad she finally got it because now I don't have to avoid her. I can finally give her hugs and kisses again!

These days Lauren loves taking a bath every night and then getting tucked into her crib for bedtime. She gets all excited and starts kicking and squealing with excitement. I remember Ryan did that too. Lauren and Ryan go to bed around 8:30 and wake up at 8. I'm glad they have synced up their bedtimes. Because of the cold, gloomy mornings, Ryan has a harder time getting up, and he eats his breakfast at a snails pace, so he is always a little late to preschool. Ryan doesn't have time anymore to watch one of his favorite morning shows on TV called "Team Umizoomi". I really should get up earlier to wake him up earlier, but for now, I really love having any amount of extra sleep.

We missed the Reformation Day festivities at church since our family was sick, but if they had gone, Ryan would have dressed up as Thomas and Lauren would have been Belle. Although it's late, I'm going to get them dressed up so we can take pictures at least.

As we were wallowing in our misery last week from being sick, it made us totally appreciate being healthy. How easily we forget to appreciate what we have when we have it. Anyways, I'm looking forward to a much better week and SUPER excited about the upcoming holiday season.

And also, I am super duper excited to watch "MegaMind" screening tonight with Ryan!

Must Have Baby Product

2010-10-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

I must tell all parents to get the Exergen Temporal Thermometer. I love it! We wasted hours of our lives trying to take temperatures of our kids with those dinky little thermometers. Yeah, this thing is a little on the expensive side but definitely worth it.

Also, good news! Lauren likes her new Britax car seat. Her old one was too small for her and Lauren loathed it. So, this is VERY good news. I don't think Ryan's crying stressed me out as much when he was a baby. But when Lauren cries, she sweats from every part of her body until she is dripping wet. It starts with a cute fake crying sound, then gradually the volume increases until it becomes a scream...then it becomes silent all of a sudden where I often wonder if she is still breathing...and then a shriek and then silence for like a second before repeating the whole cycle. I have to give her a shower after her crying spells in the car seat because she is covered in sweat. And her tears are like huge raindrops falling down her face. So so sad and so so stressful. But I think our car seat woes are over now. I hope.

I'm back

2010-10-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

This is Ryan's blog, but mommy and daddy decided to hijack it. It's really a shame that its been over 1.5 years since our last post, but that's what happens when you're busy taking care of a toddler. Ryan turned 4 last month and got a brand spanking new baby sister named Lauren on June 4, 2010! Thankfully, it was an uneventful delivery and Lauren is a very healthy girl. We are desperately hoping it stays that way as everyone in the household has gotten a cold except for Lauren. I feel like Lauren is not the type to just sleep away a cold ... I predict she'll probably fuss and cry and drive everyone bonkers.

Ryan turned 4 on September 12, 2010 and he is an awesome big brother. He doesn't covet his old toys as it comes out of storage and helps mommy and daddy with Lauren. If he is jealous, he doesn't show it very well. He is in his second year of preschool which he loves. His teacher is Mrs. Hewitt, a godly lady who knows how to keep her kids in line. He can read, write the alphabet and numbers and lots of words, knows the Lords Prayer, and is in the process of learning the Children's Catechism. In fact, we told Ryan to write a story for Lauren to give to her on her BIRTHday and this is what he wrote:

Pulitzer prize worthy, eh?

Anyways, what milestone did Lauren reach that I was motivated to revive this blog?? She has discovered her feet!! She can stay quiet for a long time playing with her feet instead of sucking her paci. If only adults were so simply entertained. Chang and I still looove watching movies at the movie theatre and now that the kids go to bed by around 9 we can finally go watch em. Seriously though, we need to find a cheaper form of entertainment...like playing with our feet. haha.

Here is a recap of Lauren's first 4 months:
-Lauren smiled very easily. Don't remember exactly when her fake smile went away and her real smile came but by 2 months she was smiling ALL the time and she has an ADORABLE smile.
-Lauren beat Ryan at sleeping through the night. 8 hours at 6 weeks, 10 hours on her baek-il!! At 4 months and 4 weeks now she sleeps between 10-12 hours. PTL!
-Lauren hasn't rolled over at all and has no interest in doing so.
-Lauren doesn't like radio or CD music, only live guitar music.
-Lauren despises the car seat and in an effort to get rid of her aversion to the car seat we just bought her a new one which will hopefully resolve this very serious problem.
-Lauren is a pig. She gets upset if her next spoonful of rice cereal does not come fast enough into her mouth. She is growing so fast that my friend calls her "Off the Charts" aka OTC!
-Lauren doesn't like strangers. If you can get her to look at your face without crying, you can be our designated baby sitter.
-These days Lauren is learning how to say "umma" and "appa"

-Lauren looks like Ryan. I told Chang to write an ULTIMATE comparison blog entry of our two kids so I am looking forward to that!

Lauren at 4 months

Ryan at around 5 months

**Posted by Young

My Recent Skillz

2008-12-28T00:17:00.000-08:00

I love going through the picture album. It's cool because there are so many pictures of "Yamen" (or sometimes "Ramen"). Appa says "Ramen" is my alter-ego...but I really don't know what that means. Check out the video below.

But why do I really say "Ramen"? This has mystified Umma for some time...but Appa thinks he knows why. Check the video below and see if Appa's theory is right (he calls it the "7-11 Theory")

But you know what's really cool? School time with Appa and Umma! Right now...I'm learning how to read and recognize words. Very cool, huh? Check out my skillz! Guess what my favorite word to read is.

WHY I hate Halloween Costumes

2008-10-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, I love candy. That's probably the only thing I like about Halloween. Last year, Umma and Appa put this dinosaur costume on me. I hated it! Look how I'm using all my strength to take it off (below). Appa said it was the only thing close to a Godzilla costume. Appa used to call me "Son of Destruction" because I used to destroy everything that he organized--especially his DVD collection.

This year was even worse! Umma bought this robot costume, because she says I look cute in it. But look again how I'm using all my might to take it off.

Thankfully, I'm a lot stronger this year.

But then...Appa got mad at me and forced me to put it on. Look how he's holding the mask down so I can't take it off!

Then Umma came and comforted me...

And took off the mask and then...I was happy again. No more Halloween costumes. Please!

Turning Two

2008-10-07T00:19:00.000-07:00

I finally turned two on September 12, 2008.

My 2 year stats:
Weight - 29lbs 6oz (65%)
Height - 37in (100%)

I had a nice simple birthday party with my family. I also went down to LA to attend my cousin's 1st year birthday party and to see my extended family.

Running around...

At the bookstore with Cookie Monster...

My great grandpa's new puppy in LA...

Hanging around with my uncle...

My cool bday present...

Playing around at my cousin's bday party...

Goodnight!

2008-08-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

Everynight, after my usual bedtime routine, as my mom and dad leave the room...

Mommy or Daddy: Goodnight, Ryan.
Me: Bye!!

Bye is easier to say than goodnight.

Trip to Gilroy outlets

2008-08-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I took a little trip to the Gilroy outlets. My mommy and daddy and I went to see if we could get some good deals there. My mommy and I got some great deals on tennis shoes. My feet are growing so fast and I am now wearing a size 8. I got a ked's and also a sneaker. My old shoes will be passed down to a friend from church. On the way home, we stopped by a Central park in San Jose where I had a great time on the playground. We also stopped by the korean market to get some kalbi meat.

I wanted to share some of the new words I've learned recently:
-mall
-tree
-dot coke aka diet coke ... i don't drink dot coke but my mommy and daddy loooove it.

goodnight.

This Weekend

2008-07-27T21:13:00.000-07:00

I did a lot of stuff this weekend.

I went swimming on Friday, and went to two birthday parties on Saturday and then went to church on Sunday. I had a lot of fun at Moriah's birthday party ... we played a fish catching game, and hot potatoes, and ate some good corn dogs. Later that night, I barted to the city for Tiffany's birthday party. I ate delicious korean food and watched the adults play Mafia and just hung around. Today I went to church to worship God. It was a good weekend.

Another HOT summer!!

2008-07-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Summer is my favorite time of the year because ... I love to play in the water. There are so many things to do in the summer. My usual hangout spots are:
-"booksto" aka Barnes and Nobles
-Starbucks (I like to sip on some chocolate milk and read a book from the library)
-"Chu Chee Chee" aka Chuck E Cheese
-any park
-Pleasanton Library
-Club Sport

My mommy has been taking me to Club Sport all the time to swim. Its great exercise for my body. =)
My daddy has been taking me to Starbucks all the time to read quietly. It's great exercise for my brain. =)

I am growing big and strong too...
At 21 months I was 35.5 inches tall (95%) and weighed 27lb9oz (55%). I've been losing my baby fat.

Here are some videos. Hope you enjoy them.

Thanks Auntie Sarah ... for making me laugh!

2008-02-12T23:39:00.000-08:00

My favorite DVD - Celtic Women

2008-01-25T22:54:00.000-08:00

Have you heard of Celtic Woman? They always show them singing on the PBS channel. Anyways, I am in love with them. I don't watch TV ... nothing really interests me ... including cartoons. But when my parents put the Celtic Woman DVD on, I will sit quietly and watch for a looooong time. My parents would like to take me to a live concert, unfortunately, the tickets are crazy expensive. Oh well.

My Growing Vocabulary

2008-01-24T23:53:00.000-08:00

These are the words I can say so far:

Umma (Mommy in korean)
Appa (Daddy in korean)
Choo-Choo
Ka (Sock)
Chee (Cheese)
Ggeutt (The End in korean)
Ddo (More in korean)
Mmmmen (Amen)

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-23T23:35:00.000-08:00

We are driving down to LA at 5 in the morning tomorrow. Eek! Can mommy and daddy get up early enough? We shall see.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!!!

Here are some videos to make you laugh.

What could be making me laugh so hard?

My mommy is throwing grapes at my daddy and he is trying to catch it with his mouth and vice versa. =)

Also, I would like to say a few words of wisdom...

Lots to be thankful for...

2007-12-22T20:51:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone.

This is sorta late, but here is a small sampling (sorry if i missed u, couldn't get everyones pic in cuz my mommy doesn't have time to upload everything) of my first birthday celebration along with the lyrics of the song that my daddy made and sang to me during my birthday partay!

First Birthday Party By Daddy aka Chang Yuon

Ryan, it's your first birthday partay
We are here to celebrate your partay today
We are here to celebrate the life that God has given
And we are thankful Lord, for your covenant faithfulness

And we are thankful Lord, your all sustaining grace
And Ryan's round face
Give Him strength to run the race

Ryan, do not lean upon, your own understanding
But trust in the Lord, giving Him the glory
Ryan, it's your first birthday, lets partay
We are here to celebrate your partay today

Friends and family make me smile.

What else has been goin on since the last time I blogged? Lots of stuff.

My parents had their 4th Anniversary!! Their anniversary was on Thanksgiving day and 4th year anniversary theme is fruit/flowers so instead of the usual Thanksgiving dinner at home, we all went out to the San Francisco Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park. The weather was just perfect and it was really beautiful there. We had an elegant Thanksgiving buffet at a place called Turtle Bay.

My mommy and daddy say that I have grown a lot. Here is a list of some things that I enjoy doing these days...
I looooove to brush my teeth. I like to sleep with my butt in the air. I like it when my mom sings itsy bitsy spider. I like to sit in the car and listen to my celtic woman cd. I love playing with cell phones and laptops and my mommys wallet. I like to wiggle my body when my parents put me in my crib to go to bed. I loooove my pillow and pooh bear and blue bear and sleepy. I like to play with thomas trains at barnes and noble. I love to read goodnight moon. I like it when my parents read to me and pray with me and sing to me and tuck me into bed. I like to say Ahhhhm (Amen) right before bedtime. I like the guitar. I like food, especially blueberries, raspberries, soy milk and cheese. I like to talk to strangers. I like to babble a lot...sometimes it sounds like chinese...sometimes vietnamese....and I like to do my special "raise the roof" dance when I listen to Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal song. I am also starting to walk.

Today my mommy, and daddy, Phil and I walked around Jack London.

Don't worry I didn't fall hard or get hurt at all...it just seems like that cuz my my mommy was flinging the camera around when she picked me up and also my daddy always makes sound effects everytime i fall. haha.

Yo, Yo, Yo!! Guess, who's 1?

2007-09-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

I turned 1 years old on September 12, 2007. But don't I look so much more mature??

Thanks to everyone who celebrated with me. What a blast!! Stay tuned for more pics.

My New Skills

2007-08-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

Ok. I must tell you about my new skill. When mommy or daddy say "hug" and put their arms out, I do the same thing. My parents hug me and kiss me a little too much though. I also learned how to clap my hands. I'm still not quite walking yet...its scary. Another thing that is scary is when my mom and dad leave me in the room by mahself. I am very attached to my mom these days...I cling onto her for dear life sometimes. If I can't be near mommy the next best thing is daddy...if daddy is gone too...o man.

My favorite things to do these days are:
-Playing with the choo choo trains at Barnes and Nobles
-Taking a bath
-Going to the park
-Taking a walk
-Banging on the keyboard
-Eating fresh fruits
-Crawling on the grass
-Causing destruction (i keep hearing my mommy and daddy mumble something about me being the "son of destruction")

My goal is to learn to walk before my first birthday.

My Wonderful Summer

2007-07-09T00:27:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I am just soooo busy...busy having fun!! Here are some pics from my wonderful summer so far.

I especially enjoyed the San Jose Children's Museum...

and I love to go "swimming"...I'm a bit frightened when I first get into the pool but, boy oh boy, playing with water is one of my favoritest things to do...

I also ran into some cool creatures...

I hung out near the bay and at lots of parks...

and got front row seats to see 4th of July fireworks in the city...as you can see they were a bit too loud for me...

That is it for now. Back to doing what I do best...having fun!!

Happy Birthday

2007-05-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my dearest daddy!! He is the bestest daddy ... he loves me even though I am a bad boy sometimes. He feeds me and changes my smelly diapers. One day when I am all grown up I need to remember to thank daddy for all the sacrifices he makes for me.

The tips of my two bottom teeth are officially out. I hope I get to eat more grown up food. I get really happy when I am eating.

My top ten foods in order:

10. Oranges
9. Sweet Potato
8. Vegetable Beef
7. Green Beans
6. Peas
5. Carrots
4. Rice Cereal
3. Sweet Potato Puffs
2, Rice with water
1. Enfamil baby formula

Actually, you know what? I basically like everything that my parents put in my mouth. My mom and dad think I eat too much, but I can't help it. I am a big boy. Last time I checked at 6 months I was 20 lbs. I wear 2-3 year old clothes. Even my hair grows fast...I have had 4 haircuts already. Last time my hair got so long my grandma put it up in a ponytail on the top of my head. I looked exactly like mommy when she was a little kid.

My mommy and daddy really really want to see the pirates of the caribbean movie coming out soon WITHOUT ME. Anyone want to babysit me? =) Last time I went to a movie with them was when I was in mommys tummy. They took me to "hear" Superman Returns on IMAX. I was kicking mommys tummy like crazy during the loud explosion scenes.

Life So Far

2007-05-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Ahem...testing...testing...123. Anyone there? Over.

Hello. My name is Ryan and I will be 8 months old in 2 days. My wonderful mommy and daddy thought that I should start a blog. I can't really talk or write yet, but mommy and daddy will try to decipher (ooo...thats a hard word for me) what I am thinking and write it down on this blog. I also do lots of funny things that I want to share.

I came into this world on September 12, 2006 and my parents named me Ryan, which means "little prince". My family prays for me a lot ... that I would grow up in righteousness and one day inherit the kingdom of God (thus, the name).

I'm going to list some of my milestones so that one day I can look back on this blog and see how much I have grown:
-My first REAL smile was at 3 months. Now I smile all the time when someone smiles at me. It melts my parents' hearts when I do that.
-I slept through the night at 3 months!! Actually, the first day I slept 8 hours straight was on my baek-il. It was my present to mommy and daddy. Now I can sleep 11 hours straight...my parents are VERY happy about this.
-At 3 months, I rolled from my tummy to my back like 2 times and then I NEVER did it again. To this day I refuse to do it. But at 6 months I kept rolling from my back to my tummy. This is my favorite acrobatic move.
-At 7 months I sat really well...although I toppled over a couple times. Sometimes I cried, not because it hurts, but because I wanted some attention and be picked up...but my parents are too smart for me.
-I lifted my butt off the ground 1 week ago in an attempt to crawl. Gosh, my butt is so big. It was a big accomplishment.
-My tips of my bottom teeth are coming out now. That is why I have been a drooling machine the past few days.
-My first word was "umma" which means mommy in korean.
-My favorite word these days is "appa" which means daddy in korean.
-The past few weeks I have been imitating mommy and daddy when they talk.
-My favorite things to do these days are eating, sleeping, banging on the piano keyboard and the computer keyboard, listening to music (especially guitar), going to restaurants and sitting in a highchair and schmoozing with the adults, taking a stroll on the beach (but the beach is too far from where I live so I can't go often), playing with the toys at Target cuz my parents are too cheap to buy me toys, watching water fountains and ceiling fans, and did I mention EATING and SLEEPING??

Today, my mommy went to a bridal shower for someone at church named Linda. I was with daddy for a while and then I crashed the partay. There were lots of ladies there and I was the only MAN. I think they all liked me. =) I was getting very tired at the shower though because it was past my bedtime of 9 o clock.

My mommy decided to give me a shower after the shower (get it?? another shower...ahahaha) Anyways, I had my shower and got dressed and decided to lay on the bed while mommy showered...and the next thing I knew I was on the floor. My mom came out of the shower and almost had a heartattack. She picked me up off the ground and checked me for bumps and comforted me...after that I smiled at her. Normally I sleep in my crib, but today I get to sleep with mommy and daddy because of this accident. My mommy gave me a very confused look ... she's probably wondering how I fell off the bed. I have some secret powers that she does not know about. Muahahaha!

That was a long first entry. Signing out for today. Goodnight.