Baby Time

INTRODUCING

Emma Lai-Sin

Born Monday, April 23rd at 7:14 pm

7 lbs 6 oz, 20 inches

Emma gets her first name from a great great grandmother on dad’s side and her middle name (Cantonese for beautiful fairy) from a great grandmother on mom’s side.

Emma is a darling angel baby.  She smiles at Neal.  She is our quietest baby.  She is well loved by her big brother and sister.  She is loving all the attention she is getting from grandma this week.

 

By far the best birthing and recovery experience so far.  Will get back to sharing the details soon, just after I go snuggle princess #2 some more…

The Official 1st Blogiversary

I don’t know what possessed me to start this blog on February 29th, 2008.  It was probably not intentional.  So, while it has been around for a handful of years, now I can officially say, Happy 1st Blogiversary to me!

Seemed like a good time to come out of hibernation. You laugh but I really do hibernate….

So since this only happens once every four years, I’ll give you four updates about each one of us.

LILY:

1. Is pretty much potty trained! Well, 95% but still, hooray! She has the funniest i-need-to-go-potty dance, reminds me of Elvis.
2. She is a talker.  She likes to lay on compliments to others but gets mad when you return the compliment (um, girl?).  She will say to you, “I got to tell you a question” and you say what? and she will say “What is your favorite color?” to which you will reply and most likely you would be wrong, it is always the color you are currently wearing.  She also likes to tell made-up stories, usually involving a pony named Fluttershy who wants someone to play Angry Birds with her.  All the ponies seem to be too busy doing more important stuff like making cupcakes and laughing. Finally Spike the dragon agrees to play Angry Birds with her and saves the day. Hear it for yourself:
   
3. She is almost 2 1/2 yrs old, she knows how to navigate my phone pretty well, she loves Disney Princesses, My Little Ponies, Little “Ein Skeins” (Einsteins), and Dora.  She can read most of the alphabet too, and loves going to the library and kids museum.
4. Still has curly red hair.  And two cowlicks which make styling it all the more difficult.  Her hair is growing out funny in back and a few sections look almost mullet-esque so I think I’m going to have to chop it to even it out.  She has discovered that she likes to play with mom’s hair.  She loves to brush it and put clips in it and try to braid it… It has been funny because Aedan has wanted to get in on the action too and now knows how to braid my hair…

AEDAN:

1. This boy got so many Lego sets at Christmas and of course no sooner than when he finished building them all he starts getting excited about Star Wars and Star Wars Lego stuff.

Aedan in the Robots exhibit, Rockford Children’s Discovery Center Museum.

2. He is a great reader.  He is so funny with his writing and drawing lately.  Apparantly he was fed up with our rules so he made up some of his own:

Rules: 1) never close my door 2) don’t distroy my legos 3) keep hands and feet to self 4) never mess up my bed

3. He plays really well with Lily but knows how to get her to do things he knows she shouldn’t do.  And of course she is just thrilled that he is giving her attention so she happily obliges.  He has accepted the fact that he will have another little sister and tells me he is so excited.  He’s been super helpful.

4. We still have a hard time getting him to eat most meats and foods that are mixed.  He is SO SLOW too.  It doesn’t help that Lily is super fast and eats just about anything, makes him even crabbier.

Aedan fussing about eating his food and Lily’s impression of Aedan fussing about eating his food.

JACKIE:

1. 33 weeks now.  Still a girl.  Baby has been breech for a while now and is VERY active so of course my bladder is loving it.  I sure hope she turns.  Had some contractions yesterday but if she is like my other two, she will be fashionably late.  Is it crazy to say I almost hope I can schedule an induction again?  It is so nice to be able to plan it and I honestly don’t know what I’d do if I went into labor on my own.  Oh well, looking forward to that epidural! Below is me sometime early January. That jade bracelet I put on in my first month of pregnancy and my wrists got swollen quick and could never get it off.  Had to break it off shortly after this picture.
2. I usually get a burst of energy now but sadly it doesn’t seem to be happening.  I’m slowing down, physically and definitely mentally.  My short term memory is shot. I’ve been trying to get things ready despite myself, mostly worried about freezing meals and getting kids ready for Spring and such, not so much about gather baby stuff.  I hate the term nesting.  I’ve also become hateful of undeserving things.
3. Being creative seems to take a lot of brain power but I do have my moments.  Aedan once commented that he wished I could come to his Kindergarten holiday parties so I decided I would find a sitter for Lily and surprise him by coming to his Valentines Party.  I signed up to do a game and thought a VDay game of twister would be silly.  So going for minimum cost and effort, I cut out paper hearts and machine stitched them onto a unused white shower curtain of ours and made a spinner out of cardboard.  It was fun.  I also made Neal a VDay present, again low $/effort, and decorated some recycled jars to make personalized snack containers for his desk at work.  Gotta push my mind somehow people.
4. Things have been busy for me in my church assignments these last few months.  Inspite of my swollen fingers, I decided to play my cello for Christmas Day and it went ok.  It was more for me and my kids, forcing myself to not forget how to play and my kids needed to know that it is ok to be brave and do  things that make you nervous (or maybe in my case, embarassed).  There have been some Sundays where I’ve found myself playing the organ, teaching a Primary class, teaching Sharing Time, and teaching Singing Time, all back to back.  It has been crazy. 

NEAL:

1. He’s been travelling a lot.  He just got back from a trip to Japan, Korea, and China.  He goes to Colorado, Wisconsin, and I think Chicago this month.  We survive without him but barely.  He is so busy with this new position and seems like he is constantly having work added on to him.  But we are so thankful for this position and will be even more thankful once we can cash in on all the flight and hotel rewards racking up….
2. He is busy with doing school part time too.  My mushbrain can’t even comprehend doing all he does now.  He is doing well there too.
3. He’s been spending some good quality time with Aedan these last few months.  Before Christmas he made a goal to build every one of Aedan’s lego sets with Aedan before Christmas came.  That turned out to be a hard goal to meet.  Since Christmas they’ve been busy playing Lego Star Wars together and they’ve started reading Hugo together.  They even got to go on a Daddy/Son outing to see Star Wars I in 3D in the theaters opening day. 
4. He’s had a bit of a break from doing major home improvements these past few months which has been nice.  We are far from done with this place but that is ok for now.  He decided recently that it would be good to refinance our home with rates being so very low now and so we just got an appraisal done.  It feels weird to refinance after only 2 years of being in the home but rates have dropped enough that it was very worth it.  Next on his honey-to-do list is put the crib back together.

Right Now

Right Now the kids are downstairs wrapping Christmas presents for me and Neal.  Aedan’s is apparently something he made at school today (his last day of the year) and Lily just “shops” around the house for things and wraps them.  There is a large assortment of boxed pudding and cake mixes wrapped with “snappy tape” and “oh so beautiful” bows from her under the tree, each carefully labeled by mom for their intended recipient (one even says To: Lily, From: Lily).

Can I just say this is the kindest looking Santa ever? Love Lily’s Santa Phobia. Our little village has a BIG Christmas party.

Right Now the baby is kicking me a lot.  I have to go back for another ultrasound in two weeks because the baby was positioned in such a way that they couldn’t get all their measurements.  We are a bit worried that I am getting a fair amount of swelling at this point in pregnancy, having low iron and such, and I am just hoping and praying I don’t wind up on complete bed rest. 

Neal and Lily on the Holiday Train at the Illinois Railroad Museum

Right Now Lily’s pants are riding low as we have been working on potty training this month and she is out of diapers.  She is not quite 2 1/2 yrs and if I was feeling up for it she might have been trained earlier but my goal was by the end of the year so not too bad.  My limited experience doing potty training has led me to believe that potty training is more training for the parent than the kid.  We just go straight to underwear, no diapers (except overnight) and while there are accidents, it works pretty well and quick.  I am THRILLED to have a handful of months without diapers!

Right Now the house is a mess.  What’s new.

Right Now Neal is working hard so that he can take time off  for the rest of the year (starting tomorrow!).  We are looking forward to a quiet Christmas at home.  I can honestly say I am so thankful to not have to be dealing with the stress, money, time, and more stress of travelling for the holidays.  But we do miss family.

Daddy is good for making the kids smile when they don’t want to.

Right Now I am organizing my to-do list for the weekend.  We have two sets of missionaries here for Christmas Dinner (so much for quiet) and we are trying to figure out menu.  So far Vichyssoise Soup, Beef Wellington, roasted veggies, rolls, salad, homemade applesauce, and maybe some pie. Most can be prepped ahead of time. What are you having for dinner?

The kids perusing the toy catalogs, marking up what they want for Christmas.  We used to do this as kids, it was kind of funny to watch them do it.

Mom’s Graduation–Then and Now

Missing Summer already.  Just before school started we went to Utah for my mom’s graduation.  Since I was at her last graduation I figured it was only fitting that I came to her next one.

Obviously the dress code in Hawaii was a little more lax…

Don’t worry, I didn’t wear the same thing to her latest graduation. As if!

Congrats Grandma!  A Masters in Public Administration, just because!  Wow! 

Lily’s Birthday

I can’t believe she is already two!  In many ways she has felt two for a while but now it is official.  Many many months ago a mom at Lily’s library group time said to me, “I hate to tell you this but she has gone from baby to little girl in the last week.”  It was so true. 

Last year her birthday was kind of crazy.  We had a concrete truck pull up to our place so Neal and his dad could make steps, walkways, fix existing porch, etc. and we also were in charge of a luau so Lily’s birthday was sadly the last thing on my list.  I made a disaster of a cake for her birthday and ended up sending Neal’s mom to Sams club to pick up a premade cake.  Oh well.  I suppose the guilt had to be worked out in this year’s birthday.

It was a close contest between Dora, Tangled, and My Little Pony for a theme.  I went the pony route.  She loves the  newer generation show, My Little Pony/Friendship is Magic series and I’ve got to admit that they are way better than the older versions.  Ponies look different but oh well. 

I have a long ways to go in my cake decorating skills but it turned out fun regardless.  I made marshmallow fondant which is kind of yummy and cheap. 

Lily caught the tail end of the decorating process and kept exclaiming, “Ooooo! So beautiful!”

She was very excited about the inside.

She loves rainbows.

Ponies and Princesses.  She loved them all.

 

We had to celebrate a day early as Neal was supposed to have class the night of her birthday.  On her birthday, we felt the need for a little mani/pedi, just mom and Lily for some good girl time while Aedan was away at school. 

She loves her “pretty nails”

We also went to our local children’s museum for some fun. 

We had a fun little birthday just me and the kids and later daddy joined in. 

Lily has been a true joy.  She can be so sweet most of the time and she is so kind to tell my that I’m “beautiful” particularly on days when I haven’t bothered getting myself fully ready for the day!  She is always wanting to do things “by myself” and she has even tried the toilet a handful of times so yay, maybe early toilet training?  Either way, I am in no rush for this little girl to grow up!

We love you Lily Cakes!

The Vandal Strikes Back

You know this is going to be good.  I mean, when has the Vandal ever failed you?

It all began with a pregnant mom with a cold trying to get some quick shut-eye and a dry erase marker just begging to be used….

And so we see how markers became banished from the Kitchen household for life or 30 days, whichever comes first.