Funny Kids

These kids are so hilarious. Olin is becoming increasingly more difficult and is reaching the Terrible Two's. He still does his silent rage, and now he's just all around cranky. If he wants something, it's not like we can tell him to wait - He wants it yesterday, thank you very much.  Conversely, Leelee is becoming easier every day. Today in the car Dae asked him to add 3 + 2 and he added it with ease. We tried some subtraction and that was a bit more challenging, but doable.

I was thinking back to last year when we moved, and it was hard for me to stay at home with them. Now, with every day, I find it much easier.

Olin and his best bud Adrienne on top of the karoake machine

Baby Olin was very put off by this new baby (6 month old guy). He wanted to get right in on the action. 

Pretending to be a baby

 

The girls loved putting him in the Bjorn

Front-facing as well.

I am very proud

Christian and Olin have been sitting on the floor drawing while I've been on the computer. I turn around and Christian has come up with this (pretty much on his own):

Several things to note here:

1) He wrote Mom and Baba and Hor completely by himself. Huh? We did not teach him any of that! I was amazed at what he's learning. He was trying to spell Share and came up with Hor :)
2) He crossed out the N in Olin in order to re-draw it with the little tail on the end, like they are taught in Montessori.

And a few disclaimers:

1) He could not get the I in Olin until I told him. He thought it was an E when he sounded it out.
2) He asked me to write in his name and draw the hearts and he attached each heart to somebody's name. The Hor (share) was because Baba and I were going to share the artwork.

And here is baby's masterpiece:

Date Day with Christian

Leelee and I had a Date Day this afternoon. This was the line-up of activities:

12:30pm: Lunch at Mandarin House

1:30pm: Trip to US Bank to get a Cashier's Check (for our down payment!)

2:05pm: Pediatrician appointment at Dr. Matta's office. Two shots - no crying!
             
              Height: 3' 4"
              Weight: 35 1/2 pounds
              BMI: 15.5

Vision check. Right eye is better than left.

Hilarious paper shorts he's required to wear for the check-up.

No tears. Tough little guy. He said it hurt afterward and almost started crying, but didn't.

2:45pm: Flu shot for mom

3:00pm: Target trip. Leelee gets to pick out a toy, as promised during our "Date"

Bullet train. Why he picks out the same toys over and over I have no idea!

4:00pm: Swim lessons for Leelee

5:00pm: Date day ends. 

Light-amin Aqueen

Lightning McQueen is "light-amin aqueen" according to Leelee. He will be the Lightning McQueen racecar driver this year for Halloween, his request. For anyone keeping record, this will be his third straight year as Lightning McQueen, for which my pocketbook is eternally grateful. :)

This morning the kid cuteness was in full force. Olin copied Christian laying his head in his hands.

Funny...we probably couldn't get Leelee's hair to stick up anywhere near as high as Baby's, and we probably couldn't get Baby's hair to lay down anywhere near as close to his head as Leelee's.

All 3 kids are asleep

All three* of my kids are asleep (* including Dae)

So I'll continue with my almost-daily blogging. It's funny how I carve out whatever time I need to to update the blog and take random daily photos of the kids, but I put off so many to-do items around the house, such as: 1) organizing my closet - it's a total mess and it's way too small 2) organizing the kids' clothes. There are lots of clothes and shoes that they have outgrown but I need to sit down and go through them all 3) cleaning up our kitchen countertop. There is tons of miscellanea on our countertop. I don't have a good storage system for random things like Chuck E. Cheese tokens and tickets, manufacturer's boxes for things like Bose earphones and iPhones which I don't want to throw away in case I have to return them, a stack of photo CD's, stacks of old greeting cards, and many, many more.

In other news:

1) I still have a cold and it's been one week and it sucks. I wish it would just go away.

2) Sausage fest was yesterday and it was fun, although I am getting the sneaking suspicion that it's just a ploy to fill the kids with all sorts of candy and sweets so they'll beg to return every year.

Olin fishing at the Sausage fest

Sausage on a stick at the Sausage fest

3) Dae and I had date night last night and watched "We're the Millers". It was terrible! (the movie, not date night in general)

4) Leelee horsing around today...

Tupperware

I got all this new Tupperware that I'm really excited about (the life of a stay-at-home mom I guess). I stored all my Tupperware away in a drawer, and baby found a nice little perch for his new Tupperware filled with mixed nuts...(look at him clamping onto that thing)

Eastern Washington Storms

We came across this house on our jog this morning in Richland near the coffee shop.

These wind and rain storms are no joke over here! The latest was two days ago. Dae, Olin and I were sitting inside the house watching the craziness outside and me thinking our house was going to blow over (Leelee was asleep). The dust storm started first, and was so severe we couldn't see anything outside except dust (like zero visibility) and Dae said it was almost like a little tornado was happening. Then the rainstorm, all accompanied by some fierce winds. So this poor house above didn't quite make it out in one piece. I feel so badly for the owners.

Oh, Boy

Olin says "Oh, boy" very, very clearly. Of all the phrases for him to nail!

He still refuses to say "Please" and instead prefers to sign language it.

He says "moo-ey" for moon.


I try to Vitamix every day or every other day, and this is what we look like when we Vitamix. Have to protect those delicate little eardrums!

Leelee the goof, and that baby's smile.

We went to sushi last night and then JCPenney to pick up portraits that I had purchased with a coupon. They ended up costing $7.98 total.  haha!

They got dum-dums at Sushi. My anxiety increases every time a piece of sugar enters their mouth, and with the sickness this past week there have been lots of juice and sweets. Ugh.

Bug's Got a Bug

I posted about Olin's vaccines and a fever for 2 days. Well the fever has come and gone but he is really irritable. Crying and hollering for about half the time he's awake. He's hoarse and has the croup-sounding cough now. I just don't know how this is all seemingly a coincidence with vaccine, but Dae thought his immune system was down after the fever so he perhaps caught something else in the meantime. I can't wait for this irritability to be over. He is not himself.

I think the rest of the family might have caught whatever he had. Dae and I aren't feeling well and Leelee is on his second nap today. Great!

Jo Jo spent the night Friday night while Kelly was out of town at a soccer tournament with the older two girls. She was very easy to take care of and we had a great time!

Pasco Farmer's Market.  This was the only successful wagon configuration where they could all comfortably fit. 

Belated birthday celebration with my office. Wine tasting and glass pendant making at Barnard Griffin today. It was great!

My 6 glass pendants. I realized I'm very literal, tidy and uncreative with my 'art'. Most other people were doing lots of abstract pieces, if you will. The W is for the huskies. Go dawgs!

Evening Conversations in Bed

Conversation #1:

Leelee, do you want go to Sagebrush Montessori forever?

No, I don't think so.

Where do you want to go?

Um...maybe Mandarin House and stuff.

(Mandarin House is a restaurant  :)


Conversation #2:

Leelee, do you want to sleep in the guest bedroom or baby's room tonight? Baby is sick.

Is it stinky over there?

I had no idea baby had taken this series of self portraits while I was talking to some parents outside school.

At Mandarin House for lunch. The place Leelee would rather be than school. 

This boy loves his nuts.

Olin's 2 Year Stats

Height: 32.6 inches (10th %)
Weight: 25 lbs (15th %)
Head: 19.5 inches (75th %)

BMI: (funny that they measure this now) 16.5

The past few weeks I've noticed my kids are getting easier to take care of.  Last year when we moved here and I was mostly staying at home with them I thought it was so hard, and I took it upon myself to complain to anyone who would listen! Now they play together a little more and I can tell them to go do something, even Olin, and a lot of the time they will go do it. It's really nice! I still avoid Target and the grocery store like the plague if I have both of them because they can go wild in those stores, but changes are definitely in the air. Last year I thought maybe it would be a good idea to go back to work a few more days a week...now I am perfectly content with my 1-2 days a week (and I really max out at 2 days per week!) I still feel so lucky that I can pick and choose if I want to stay home or work.

Olin got two vaccines at the doctor's office yesterday and did not make one sound. Last night, however, he had a good fever going and he's still quite warm this morning. Poor thing.

Sleep

When I come home from work and pull into the garage Leelee will often be in there directing my car in with arm motions. It's really cute.

Olin's cute sleep positioning...

Sleepovers!

Bubbles and Badgers

1. Olin calls apples "bubbles". No matter how many times I correct him he says Bubbles.

2. We saw lots of horse-drawn carriages in Montreal and Olin would always shout "Bluey!". Either he thinks horses are an Australian shepherd dog, or he's confused because in his book the horse is called a Blue Horse. Very confusing.

3. This morning, Leelee came in and asked:

    Mom, where's my Badger?
    Huh?
    Where's my Badger?
    What?
    Where is my BADGER? (He's getting really frustrated at this point) You know, just like Baba's
    Oh, the pager! (From their new tool set)

The pager has been the big ticket item around here...

4. Dae loves to clean out these kids' ears. I walked into the office yesterday and saw a very cooperative Olin and Dae in deep concentration! He takes a lot of pride in what he can get out of those ears.

Leelee's First Day - Pre-K

Happy 2nd Birthday, Dear Olin!

Happy 2nd birthday Olin!!!

We love you and your quirky, hedge-hoggy, smiley self. Without further ado, here is a compiled Top 10, give or take, list of your funnies:

1) You wake up from your naps and sleeps in a good mood. You're usually smiling. And you are still using a paci for sleep :)
2) You dance and make the funniest, strangest moves. Where did you learn those?
3) Your "Silent Rage"
4) You lay down on the floor anywhere - in the middle of the street, on the dirty floor of a grocery store, in an airport, and just lay quietly and happily.
5) Your fuzzy, high hair. Dae said you woke up this morning and "your hair was at an all-time high". Must have been in celebration of your birthday!
6) You are thoughtful. When asked to point to something in a book that you're not sure of, you will think for a loooong time before pointing. You don't give up, and don't ask for help.
7) You love piggyback rides
8) You love all nuts (walnuts, peanuts, almonds) just like an old man.
9) It took you so long to talk. You say 'Noe' for nose and generally like to leave out a lot of the last consonants in words
10) You love to say "poo poo" and point to your butt. Most of the time it has nothing to do with when you are actually going to poo poo.
11) You make friends everywhere. All kids seem to love to play with you.
12) You look so Korean, and we think it is the cutest thing ever.
13) Your definition of playing on the iPad is frantically scrolling through App icons, clicking on one, staying on it for 5 seconds and pressing the Home button at the first signs of an obstacle (for instance if it asks you to purchase something).

Well I wish we could have offered Olin a better birthday celebration but his second birthday, in all its glory, was made up of 3 flights home from Montreal and a lot of screaming and junk food on the airplane, courtesy of birthday boy. Nobody was telling us "you have such well-behaved kids"! We made it home though. Yahoo!

We had a Mandarin house take-out dinner, BR cake, and gifts: 1) Cameras from Halmoni and Haraboji, 2) Recorder from Puo puo as well as an always generous contribution to college fund and 3) sing-along CD player with two microphones from us.

1. Cameras

2. Recorder

Sing-along CD player

They forgot to write his name on the cake! 

I'm obsessing over this meal we had yesterday at the Atwater open-air market in Montreal. This one stand was all natural foods so I had this quinoa taco and corn soup and greens juice and it felt SO good to eat healthy after eating random airport and restaurant food for a week. I need to get into cooking really healthy.

This was Dae's bao from the Thai stand. Very good.

I can't stop thinking about this fresh meal. I am going to try to reproduce some healthy fixin's

And of course we negated all of the healthiness with some macarons immediately afterward. The lemon is my favorite.