Practice Preschool

I've been running out of stuff to do with Malia at home. There's only so much play-doh, floam, coloring and painting that I can do with her. Additionally, Taede is proving to be a true Mai Kid with his napping issues: waking up every 10 minutes or so. I'm constantly running up the stairs to coax another 10 minute nap out of him and then back down to Malia, hoping that she hadn't eaten any play-doh or painted the walls with her finger paints.

She's ready for school but I couldn't enroll her at Kael's school because she was too young. Instead I enrolled her at a Practice Preschool class provided by the city of Yorba Linda. I did this with Kael and he seemed to really enjoy it. It prepares the kids for Circle Time, sitting on your carpet square, playing with other kids. It's a parent participation class so Taede comes along for the ride.

The first day of class, after breakfast, I asked her if she wanted to go to school. She was so excited that she immediately ran to the car and threw out a "Bye Daddy! Bye Kael!" as she ran past them. Then she added: "I'm going to school to make some new friends!"

It was hilarious. I couldn't believe that came out of her mouth. Then I thought: "Boy, is she really that bored at home with me?!"

We get to the school and we wait outside until the class door opens. I purposefully arrive early knowing that Taede will most likely need a diaper change and a feeding. In the middle of nursing him outside on the bench, the teacher Mrs. Karla opens the door and invites everyone in. I obviously couldn't go in as I had a baby stuck on me. Malia however, could hardly wait and kept nagging me to "Hurry up Mommy! Let's go to school! All my friends are in school!" It was really cute. It also started making me feel like I was keeping her a prisoner at home.

We get in and she starts to play. We move onto storytime then crafts. More playtime then a final circle time. At the last circle time Mrs. Karla tried to get the kids to interact a bit. She had a large board with pieces of colored felt attached on it. She hid Cookie Monster behind a piece of felt and the kids were supposed to call out the color of the piece they thought Cookie Monster was hiding behind.

At first no one said a thing. I heard some parents trying to encourage their kid to call out a color. So I encouraged Malia to name a color. She quietly named one and Mrs. Karla whipped off the felt and announced "Oops! No monster here! Where do you think he is?"

Malia quietly named another color -- "Oops! No monster here!"

Then the game clicked. She started shouting out the colors: Yellow! Green! Pink! Brown! She was the only kid naming colors. It was funny as heck. Linda said something about it being the first day of school and already she's the teacher's pet. So academically, I'm pretty confident Malia can hang. It's the seperation part that we're going to have issues with.


Story time next to her buddy Megan.


Making her very own Monster.


The backside of her Monster. That's how she shows me something to take a picture of: always facing her.


Playing with Audrey. It's a Love-Hate relationship with these two.


Not quite sure what's going on here but it's a cute picture of the three girls.


Here she is yelling out the colors. She's even got her little finger out, pointing the way.


Music time. She's looking for me. I kept sneaking away to snap pictures. This is why I think we're going to have separation issues once we head to real preschool.

We are enrolling to start January 2009, Tuesday and Thursday, 8:30am - 11:30am. I've got a teacher that I plan on requesting (and actually just found out today the teacher already put in the request for Malia to be in her class) so we're all set.

I just have to let her go. That's the hardest part of all.

Wedding Weekend: Day 1 & 2

Yesterday marked Day 1 of Trieu and Ingrid's Wedding Weekend. Our plans are to spend some time with my family before traveling to Santa Cruz Friday morning for the wedding. Halloween will be spent in Santa Cruz and then we'll go to the wedding site Friday afternoon. We check into the main house Friday night (non-family wedding goers will stay in canvas cabins, yurts or camp out in tents), the wedding is Saturday and we head back home Sunday.

Heading up, we took a chance and traveled after Malia's preschool practice at 11:00am. Taede sleeps well during the day so we opted to travel during his good sleeping time rather than have a screaming baby in the car for 6 hours. I had no idea what to expect and actually geared myself up for the worst as the older kids were horrible travelers at this age (5 weeks). Much to my surprise, Taede did great, sleeping the entire way there with just 2 nursing sessions. Kael and Malia did not nap at all so they were pretty wired come 8pm. We made great time to San Jose (arrived at 5pm) -- just in time for the kids to get a second wind and go totally bonkers late into the night. At least they slept in the next morning - 7:30am.

Day 2 (today) was spent at San Francisco's Academy of Natural Science. This is a very cool place to visit. We visited everything there except the Planetarium but plan on coming back for another visit for Thanksgiving and Christmas. My sister let Amelie hook from school because she wanted to spend the day with Kael so we met them in Mountain View to take Amelie with us. It was so cute to see Amelie and Kael hold hands going through the museum. If they weren't holding hands, then Amelie was hugging and kissing Malia. It makes me happy to see the cousins so loving and caring to each other despite seeing each other only 4 or 5 times a year. My sister and the rest of her family (her boys, Jarod and Collin, and her husband) met us at my parents' house for dinner and that's when the real ruckus started. Between my 2 kids and her 3, the house was deafening. The kids had a great time playing together -- so great that Truong and I discussed the option of moving closer to home so the kids could live closer to family and grow up together.

Wherever Malia went, I was sure to find Jarod and Amelie. Those two are so in love with her. I would usually find Malia sandwiched between the two of them on the couch or in the papasan, hugging and kissing her. Malia gets so spoiled here, being the littlest girl. Out of 11 grandkids, she's the youngest girl so you can imagine the amount of attention that's lavished on her.

Tomorrow will be our last day in San Jose before heading to Santa Cruz. Before leaving OC (where it was in the low 90's), we got an email from Trieu telling us to bring rainslickers and umbrellas -- for possible rain.

Great.

2 kids + (rain + campsite) = 2 aggravated parents

4 week stats

TAEDE
Birth: 5 lbs, 12 oz / 19"
4 weeks: 8 lbs, 2 oz / 20.25"

MALIA
Birth: 5 lbs, 7 oz / 17"
4 weeks: 7 lbs, 14 oz / 20.25"

KAEL
Birth: 5 lbs, 14 oz / 20"
8 weeks: 11 lbs, 4 oz / 22.25"
I didn't have Kael's 4 week stats but he's way bigger than both Malia and Taede.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I'm so pleased with Taede's weight gain! After 2 years of worrying about Malia's growth, it's such a relief to not have to worry about Taede's. Sure he's on the small side but he's getting a good start so far. Kael started small too but he's either caught up heightwise or is even taller than his peers. He'll never bulk up but then it's not as if Truong and I are heavyweights either.

Taede is still yellow from jaundice (his initial level was 20.5, going down to 19.8 a couple of days later). He's a champion nurser so hopefully he won't be yellow for too much longer. He's actually got some cheeks you can pinch now!

5 min. Chocolate Cake in a Mug

Here's a new recipe that I've heard is pretty good (from all the reviews) but have yet to try it out myself. It's for a chocolate cake that you make in a coffee mug. As you can see, the recipe name is pretty self-explanatory.

1 Coffee Mug
4 Tbsp Flour
4 Tbsp Sugar
2 Tbsp Cocoa
1 egg (can be substituted with 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce for a super moist cake)
Dash of Baking Powder (optional)

Mix up real good then add:

3 Tbsp Veg. Oil
3 Tbsp Milk
Splash of Vanilla

Mix again.

Last optional add in:
3 Tbsp of Mini-Chocolate chips. Gently fold in, not too much otherwise they sink to the bottom.

Set the microwave for 3 minutes but stay and watch. Once the cake reaches maximum height and starts to sink back down, it's DONE! Let cool (while you grab some milk or ice cream) then eat away.

As I mentioned before, I haven't tried this yet. I need to get cocoa powder. But knowing what a chocolate fiend Erin is, I'm sure she'll try it soon and send me feedback.

Catching up on randomness

I know I haven't been posting much and for that I apologize. It's not as if we don't have anything going on. I actually have lots to post and share -- it's finding the time to sit at the computer to upload pictures and think of semi-witty things to write that's causing the road block. I usually am nursing Taede so I've been finger pecking the keyboard. It's a very slow, painful process but I'm happy to say that I'm getting to be a pretty good pecker.

Anyway here are some random pictures for the month of October so far:


We went to Tanaka Farms to pick some pumpkins. We're actually going to be spending Halloween up north in San Jose and Santa Cruz but I wanted the kids to have the pumpkin experience at home.

And yes, Truong and I firmly believe in Child Labor.


Not the best picture but it was really hard to get them to look up at the same time. Add Taede screaming his head off because he was hungry, me trying to nurse discreetly in the sling in a pumpkin patch with 100 other families and their children milling around, and Truong who's not the best photographer in the world... I'm just happy to have some kind of documentation that we were even at a pumpkin patch at all.


Kael taking off in the Corn Maze. I thought he'd freak out a little because it was pretty curvy and it didn't take much to lose track of us but he loved it.


Malia's favorite mode of transportation.


I took Kael to Whole Foods and he wanted to get Malia a present: a tomato.


It was a HUGE tomato. And she loved it.


I went to get a knife to cut it into wedges but clearly she couldn't wait.


Carving his ghost pumpkin.


Cousin Thai with his pumpkin.

SMILE THAI!! (I don't think I've ever seen Thai smile in a picture.)


Kael whacking away at his pumpkin. His pumpkin was 100% Kael designed.


Malia and her polka dot pumpkin. Looking at this picture makes me want to cut Malia's hair but I can't. I'm trying to grow out her bangs.


Kael and his penchant for silly faces.


My attempt to keep her hair out of her face. It was my first time ever doing pig tails. I know they are crooked. It's not as easy as you would think.

I will post pictures of our annual Apple Picking Trip. No promise of when but for sure before the end of the year...