Housewarming at Wendy's

Our friend Wendy just had her second house warming with us, but it's the same house.  Why?  Because they expanded their house and added one more floor!  Their house is just gorgeous.  I wish we have a house as big and comfy as theirs!  There were a lot of toddlers running around and they would not be bored at all.  I have never seen this elsewhere, but they have four play areas.  FOUR!  Like really??  They even have a slide in one of the rooms!!!  OMG!

Ali and her friends were just ecstatic seeing this place and none of the girls want to leave.  Can I blame them?

Here is the lucky girl who gets all these cool toys.  But little Sammy needs to learn to share since she will be a big sister very soon!

Ali and Sammy just loved playing the doctor game...with me.  I am their favourite "doctor".  LOL.

Kaley checking out Sammy's toys.
K:  What else do you have?
S:  Oh, you will see!

Ali wanted me to play with her while the other two girls play in their kitchen.

Thanks Wendy and Darryl for inviting us over.  Your place is gorgeous!!!  Playdate next week?

Baking time

Taking care of two kids at home turned out to be less crazy than I anticipated.  I was totally stressed out over this back in December.  But after spending two weeks with the kids over Christmas break, I was less worried.  The past two weeks with the two was not that bad.  Well, I do feel really bad for ignoring my baby boy on Ali's day off.  I tried to make it up to him by spending more quality time with him on the other days.  I find the real challenge is to think of things to do to engage Ali.  To be honest, I don't think I am doing a good job, but it's the best I can do at the moment.  Hopefully, things get a little better when Nate sleeps for longer stretches at night.

On Ali's day off, we usually go to music or dance class.  Library is another one of our favourite hang out spot.  Can't wait until it is a little warmer when we can all go to the park (still a bit cold for Nate).  One of our favourite past time is baking.  Ali loves being a little chef and helps out in the kitchen whenever she can.  This time I solicit her help to make oatmeal raisin cookies and banana bread.

Ali mashing the bananas:

A:  "Hmmm....still too chunky, gotta work on it a bit more."

After we finished baking, Ali offered to be my QC.  She gave the cookies thumbs-up!!  =)  Cookies and milk, you just can't beat this dynamite duo!!!

Ali's BF

If you ever ask Ali who is her boyfriend, she will definitely say the name Sebastian.  Her teacher told me once she asked Ali who her bf was and she said Sebastian even though she was holding hand with another boy!  What a player!  So who is this fellow?  He is one of Ali's old classmates and really handsome!!  I fell in love with young man when I first met him too!   His parents and us always joke about that we just might be in-laws one day!  LOL

Ever since Sebastian left Ali's school, she really really wanted to see him again.  With mommy's help, we invited a few of her school friends over for a playdate.  

Sebastian, Isla, Ali and Mason having a morning snack together:

The kids still don't really know how to play together just yet, but they sure enjoyed each other's company!

My future son-in-law is definitely gonna be a good husband.  Just look at him, vacuum in one hand and broom & dustpan in the other!

Isla with her rubber gloves:

A very excited and happy Ali!

The very smart Mason.  Mark my words, this kid is gonna be super smart!

Ali taking pictures of her friends:

Bonnie, Nate, Sebastian, Teacher Brenda and Ali:

It was really great seeing everyone outside of school.  I do really hope that they can maintain their friendship over time.  Wouldn't it great to say to someone that, "yeah, I know him/her since 1 year old"?  Everybody had such a great time that we vouch to have a playdate once a month!  Woo hoo!!!

All dressed up!

We went to baby Luca's 100-day celebration last weekend.  It gave us an excuse to dress up the kids (which I often failed to do, sorry kids!!)  

Look at my stylish little girl!

A:  Do you like my hair??  I brushed it myself!

My little boy completely passed out on the change pad.  hahahhaa....cute!

Here is a proper picture of my boy!

The food was awesome and the company was delightful!  It was nice to go out to see our friends.  But everyone knows Chinese banquets are super long!!!  Thank goodness I brought tons of toys to keep my girl busy, otherwise I wouldn't have a chance to enjoy my food at all!  Thanks King and Virge for the invite!  =)

Nate's baptism

Again, we wanted to fit in as many celebrations as we could while my eldest brother was in town.  The next day we celebrated Nate's baptism.  We are so so so fortunate that our good friends, Maria and Ron, agreed to be his Godparents.  We hoped that if he ever is in trouble in the future, he would at least talk to his cool godparents (and they would of course, secretly shared his news with us too).  Guys, dinner is on us! 

Before the ceremony, Ali climbed all over the place.   

Uncle Peter finally caught the monkey for us and our little girl is pretending to pray:

Nate, his godparents and our priest:

Gotta do a family pic!

Group photo!

It is such a rare moment to see my family.  Gotta seize the moment!

A big thank you to Aunt Marie and her family for joining Nate's big event.  I have a sense of relief now that my whole family is baptized and have become children of God.  I hope God will continue to watch over our family!

Nate's moon yuet

From our experience with Ali's moon yuet (1-month) banquet, we think it would be much better if we do the 100-day celebration instead.  But since one of my brothers is visiting in mid Jan, we thought it might be better to do it a little bit earlier (10 week celebration).  We felt bad that we didn't invite many of our friends last time (and they all invited us to their child's moon yuet), so this time we had two times as many tables.  Nate is super chill and he only cried for a little bit. I remember Ali cried pretty much the whole night!  

Kai por por and Nate:

Ali checking out the balloon station with her goo-ma and goo-cheung:

Do you like her red dress?  Courtesy of her kai mama ;)

Hubby and his best man and the babies:

The grandmas had a lot of fun taking pictures of the baby boy:

Gung gung is super excited to play with Nate too!

Family pic with the hubby's side of the family:

My side of the family:

We had a lot of fun.  Too bad my other brother couldn't make it to Vancouver this time.  And of course, we missed our kai family as well!  You guys missed out a good dinner (and of course great company)!

Happy Year of Dragon!

This post is a bit late, but still, wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous Chinese New Year!

My eldest brother came back to visit during this time and of course, we had to go to Thomas Haas for their yummy coffee, hot cocoa and pastries!

Ali LOVED it!

And Dai Dai quite enjoyed the pastries too!

A picture with my dai-lo, mom and two kids:

A happy family picture!

Wishing everyone the absolute best in this upcoming year!

One Saturday afternoon

So here is the question for you.  If you give a sleep deprived mommy with some crazy Chinese herbs (soup), what do you think will happen?  The answer is...a sick mommy!  I came down with the flu three weeks ago and it took forever for me to get better.  I am sick, but a bit better.  My cough just won't go away.  And of course, when one gets sick, everyone gets sick in the family.  First is Ali, then Nate.  Thank goodness, hubby stays strong and he is still okay.

The weekend Ali was sick, there was lots of snow.  That morning, my MIL called and wanted help fixing her computer.  My mom usually go hiking on Saturday.  Since the snowfall warning is still in effect, silly mommy thought it would be a good idea for daddy to go to fix the computer in the daytime.  This turned out to be one of the most horrible mommy experience I ever had.  Lesson learned?  Do not leave a sick mommy with two kids.

Daddy went out to shovel snow after putting the girl to bed.  I was holding the baby.  As soon as daddy stepped out the door, I heard the girl crying in her room.  In panic mode, I ran downstairs with the baby trying to stop her daddy.  As soon as I opened the door, I saw the garage door coming down.  I waved hysterically, trying to catch his attention.  Failed.  I quickly went back upstairs to call him to come back, but his line was busy.   The girl was crying bloody murder at this time, so I put baby in the crib and went to Ali's room.

After she has calmed down, I heard baby crying in his room.  Fantastic.  As I was about to leave Ali's room, she started crying.  Okay great.  So I strapped Nate in the baby carrier and sat in Ali's room.  Baby started to fuss.  I had to stand up and rock him to sleep.  Apparently, Ali thought it was amusing to see mommy move around in the room and refused to sleep.  Bloody hell.  After Nate fell asleep, I sat on the floor (thank God for the foam mats!) pretended to be asleep so Ali could sleep too.  Crap, the heat of the baby triggered my cough.  And of course that woke her up.  After it seemed like an eternity, she finally fell asleep.  Then baby started to fuss - crap, it's feeding time.  I tried to sneak out, but failed.  Ali was awake and started crying again.

What can a sick mommy do at this point?  I am thankful that my girl is usually pretty reasonable.  At least she was willing to let me feed the baby in a different room.  After the feed, I went back and an eternity later, Ali finally fell asleep.  Daddy came to rescue an hour later (I swear it felt like 5 hours).  Bottom line?  Tough to be sick.  Really tough when you are sick and had to take care of a sick toddler.  Mission impossible kind of tough when you have two children.  So how do people take care of 3 or 4 kids?  I hope it is something I will never find out.