2016 Round-Up

Top Three things I am thankful for this year!

1. My family
2. My friends
3. Health of all my loved ones

Funny Stuff

1) I got "The Wright Brothers" from the library to read to the kids at bedtime. Another mom had said she read it to her kids and they liked it, even though the book is long and adult-like. Dae started reading it to Christian the other night and seriously 15 seconds later Christian comes over to our room and says "I don't like it, and baba doesn't like it either". I told him it had been 15 seconds and they barely had read one sentence, and they needed to give it 15 minutes. 15 minutes later he comes over and says "the book is terrible" and Dae comes over and says "the book is no good, too wordy". I'm like 'Dae! you need to be telling the kids the books are good!'

2) Olin was rattling off the Baltic countries last night and said 'Estonia, Laffia, and Awainia'. hahaha!

3)

Just hangin in the closet

4)

Example of Leelee's worksheet. "I don't know" makes me laugh.

Olin's worksheet. Leelee helped him and wrote out a huge explanation as to why they removed the staple.

Merry Christmas 2016!

Dae looks like a huge Korean here. He is standing on the step, and he's enormo compared to his parents! All three of them are wearing their new Christmas apparel.

Christmas morning the kids got up at 5:30am I think. I think we made them wait until 6am to open gifts. Christian got: Lego Ninjago, books, remote controlled monster truck, Melissa & Doug puzzle, Octonauts Uno, science kit. Olin got: Lego deep sea explorer, Marvel superheroes action figures, Paw Patrol book, slime kit, and I can't quite remember what else.

Christmas morning walk. It was cold and really sunny and perfect weather for a walk.

Christmas Day mandu. They were slaving away over these things!

Christmas evening dinner of Lasagna and mandu and we always like to taste test things. This time we taste tested 5 different whiskeys and 3 different rums. Kirkland signature rum won out!

Riding the girls' new skateboard-type thing.

Christian put this band-aid on himself when he got scratched. I am surprised he was not self-conscious about having it on. He didn't really go out in public with it though.

Olin made this nice tray for us for Christmas at art class at school.

Sleepover at parents' bedroom.

Oh my goodness the cuteness of this Crew Cuts blazer from cousin Jocelyn. Even though I tried to bribe him, he didn't wear it to his piano recital. He said it was too tight and too hot. I loved it - it is the perfect fit right now!

This was the kids' lunch on the way home from Costco the other day. French bread and seaweed packs.

Kelly's friend Ericka nicely hosted us to teach us how to make pork tamales. It's quite a process and really delicious.

Final product.

Vegas, Advent, and Holiday Programs

Olin's Christmas Program. Dae says "nice pic. can't see a thing" and I told them that's just the way I like it. I prefer to see nothing (clearly) rather than see a poor resolution zoomed in photo. (However, after scrolling through this post I noticed several very poor resolution photos. Oh well.)

Speaking of poor resolution photos. Christian's Holiday program. His group did a nice report on Winter Solstice and Leelee wrote his entire monologue out in nice cursive handwriting on the board.

Delivering his monologue.

S'mores for advent. Olin does not like marshmallows. He also randomly does not like caramel. Crazy cat.

Cookie making and decorating for Advent. They get a lot of advent treats, but I have also inserted some "say something nice to haraboji and halmoni!" and "Donate $1 to those less fortunate" which Leelee bartered down to 50 cents. 

I fell asleep first, then he fell asleep with me, and then I took this picture. I think it has been at least a year or two since either of my kids have napped with me and it's glorious :)

When I got up to leave, he promptly sat up and moved himself to this perch and fell back asleep. Just like a little dog.

Olin frequently looks out of the sides of his eyes when he's watching something or talking. It's pretty funny. This photo captures it a little bit but not in its full extent.

These were the notes the kids wrote to their teachers. Christian wrote "thank you for typing everything" to the administrative assistant at his school. I guess that's fairly accurate! Olin inserted his Love, Olin part near the top of his messages to his teachers.

Las Vegas for a 3 night getaway! This was the view from our room at the Bellagio. I love the fountains...

...so much so that I got a schedule from the front desk so I wouldn't miss Con Te Partiro, my favorite.  As  it turns out, there were so many good songs on the line-up I told Dae I'd barely be able to squeeze in any other Vegas activities between my fountain shows! hahah! We (finally) heard my song and I told Dae he didn't have to hear the word fountain again.

Selfie at, you guessed it, the fountains. :)

Selfie at the indoor flower gardens at Bellagio. These polar bears were made of flowers and they were cool.

Michael Jackson One. I absolutely loved it. Dae thought Absinthe show from April was better and I think he is crazy.

Heart Attack Cafe on the Strip. If you weigh 350 I guess your meal is free. Only in Vegas! Dae needs to double his weight. (Can't tell, but it says 183.)

Snow!

The talk of snow and sub-zero temps have monopolized conversation around these parts. The week of snow has been so fun!

Sledding down Snyder hill by the boat launch. School got canceled on Monday.

I call this photo "Ebony and Ivory". hahaha! We cannot figure out why Dae is a good 5 shades darker. We even took another photo to confirm and he is indeed way darker. Dae thinks it's the Korean sheet masks but I don't agree - they're not whitening masks.

Finally - the show was packable enough for a snowman! The rake arms were Dae's idea. As were the cucumber eyes that scare me. The Husky hat was my idea.

Brrr. I can't recall ever seeing a negative number on Richland's forecast. 

Advent glow-stick bath. Still a favorite. So easy.

Wintry Harris Avenue

Olin took this photo. I have no idea why Christian was sitting on the keys.

They slept like this in the guest bedroom a couple times this past week. Makes me laugh.

Well I don't know what to make of this, but Christian came up with this get-up at the Indian restaurant on Sunday and called it "Ninja" which is better than what I was thinking it resembled!

Annual cookie decorating at AJ's house. They last longer and longer every year, thankfully. They played outside and talked to Heather's horses and, after a while, I saw the kids running over to the play structure and eventually Heather pointed out to me that there was Olin, alone, staring at the horses for a while longer by himself. Lover of animals (and he's pretty much the only one of those in our family. ha!)

  

This is how they decorate Christmas cookies. It's pretty cute. These are Christian's. 

They got spoiled this weekend - they got to decorate gingerbread houses at home the next day. The decorating left a lot to be desired this year. Christian put like 3 pieces of candy on his house and a couple strips of frosting and called it good. He still gets excited to do it though so I guess that's all that matters!

Seriously this was pretty much Christian's finished product. He may have added a few more frosting strips and candy pieces, but not much.