A Rodeo with Rides

So we finally got around to checking out the rodeo grounds last weekend and had a great time.  The kids loved the petting zoo...although Evie wasn't sure about all the animals in there.  The coolest thing was watching the wallabies hop around!

The kids also picked fruits/veggies and "milked" a cow in the HEB area.  Evie loved following her siblings around with a bucket of her own.

After that, the kids were ready for the carnival rides.  It was awesome that Eli could ride most everything this year.  Last year he was so sad because he was rejected from a few rides.  Evie was an innocent bystander (yet again), but she still had fun.  She managed to get on 2 rides, so it wasn't all bad.  I don't even think Evie has a chance of riding any more rides next year either.  Gotta love the Asian "shortness" gene.

B rode a few rides with the kids...including the caterpillar roller coaster.  It was a small roller coaster, but the kids were still scared and did not enjoy themselves AT ALL.  The ride is short, so it loops around the course twice.  We didn't know that.  When the caterpillar came back to the beginning and then started pulling out to go the second time around, Eli started shouting, "Nooo...nooo...NOOOO!"  Poor things.  Needless to say, they didn't go back to ride this one.  

The kids' fave rides were the hot air balloon ride and the "Dumbo" ride.  Evie actually got to ride the Dumbo one with B and she was in heaven!  She was just so excited!

It's always interesting to look at the food signs at the rodeo.  It's really Texas at its best, folks.  Where else can you get a side of chicken fried bacon...

...with your fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich??  

Seriously.  I also saw signs for fried candy bars, like Snickers and Milky Way.  We didn't get to try any of the fried fare...maybe next year I'll be more adventurous.  

We love it when the rodeo comes to town...can't wait for next year!

Auntie S Brings the Rain--AGAIN

Auntie S just visited for the long weekend and we sure had a lot of fun...despite the rainy weather and Auntie S's cold.

Here are the top 10 things we did (not in any particular order)--

1. We ate a delicious lunch at La Gloria.  This is the place that Auntie S always needs to eat at...and then she always needs to stop by again on the way to the airport to take a torta home to NYC.  We had guacamole, a sope, and street tacos.  Heaven.  'Nuff said.

2. We took a walk along the San Antonio River....actually, a WET walk.  Initially it was only drizzling, so we thought we'd just brave it.  I mean, look at the picture to the right...there's really no rain.  Little did we know that it would soon become heavy rain!  Auntie S carried Eli and I carried Evie and we jogged back to the car through the rain.  By the time we got back to the car, we were all soaked.  Sad to say that I actually had 2 umbrellas in my trunk!  I just honestly didn't think the rain would get harder.  Oh well.  Definitely a memorable adventure!

3. We did Family Movie Night with Auntie S.  The kids ate breakfast food while we all watched "Kung Fu Panda 2."  Auntie S wasn't feeling well, so she didn't mind staying in at all.

4. We also took an overnight trip to Austin since Auntie S was running in the Austin Half-Marathon on Sunday.  She finished in the time she wanted (2:15) and even with a cold!  Go, Auntie S!

5. We had yummy food in Austin. (Why does it always come back to food?)  Hula Hut one night and Taco Deli the next day.  Yum!!

6. We visited Mission San Jose.  Auntie S loves architecture, so Elina gave her the tour of the mission and told her the sad story about Rosa's Window.

This picture below was one of our fave pics...Elina found a heart-shaped nut, so she wanted a picture of it.  Auntie S made the kids point to it and Eli came up with this "wow" face on his own.  Awesome!

7. We helped Auntie S find her first letterbox.  She said that she wanted to try it out, so we took her to the Mission San Jose box since it's such a beautiful handcarved stamp.

8. Auntie S let the kids play "hair salon" with her hair...AND she promised to wear it home to NYC later that day!  Luckily, Elina made these 2 lovely braids in the back of her hair, so that part was great.  Eli did some twisty things with lots of clips and hair accessories on the sides...which were creative.  =)
9. We made chocolate chip cookies together.  Elina and Eli were very helpful, while Evie just managed to stuff her mouth with all the fallen chocolate chips on the counter.  She was in heaven!

10. The kids got lots of playtime with Auntie S.  She was up every morning when they were and didn't mind entertaining them.  Elina and Eli also drew and colored a million pictures for her as well.

The weather was rainy and cold most of the time (just like last year), so we couldn't do as many outdoor things (for example, we missed the rodeo).  Plus, since Auntie S wasn't feeling well, she was going to bed pretty early every night...AND she wasn't eating as much (which was a bummer because usually Auntie S is ALL about food!).  But despite these things, it was such a fun, relaxing long weekend.  We all can't wait for her to visit again.  Eli was so cute after she left...he said, "Auntie S has to go to work for a little bit, but she'll be RIGHT back."  Awwwww...the kids definitely miss having her around.  We all do!  Come back soon, Auntie S!!!

A Fun Concert

Kids love Joe McDermott.  He's a well-known children's songwriter who lives in Austin and he visits Discovery School every year.  The kids definitely look forward to his annual appearance!  Who doesn't look forward to screaming, jumping, and dancing?

Here is Eli dancing like a crazy boy.  He LOVES to dance to loud music! (Can you tell?)

And here are the kids jumping like certain animals.  Even Evie got in on the action.  She was fearless and just walked right to the front of the crowd to do her dancing and jumping.  She had a blast!

What a fun day at school!

Water Off!

Elina has really come a long way with swimming.  At the beginning of the school year, she was afraid to have water in her face...now, she can actually take a breath by herself.  

See, in order for her to move up to the next level, she had to be able to take one independent breath.  Just last week I was telling B that I didn't think she'd ever get there.  When she's in the pool, she's constantly wiping the water off of her face.  I always ask her why she bothers doing that since she just has to get her face wet again anyway.  Well, I was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to take a breath on her own and I was sad that she had to stay at the same level for swim class.  

Then 'lo and behold, she starts taking a breath by herself in the pool!  Her coach and I were both in shock when we saw her do this!  She just magically got it last week.  Not only that, she's starting to look more comfortable in the water.  Instead of freaking out if she misses a stroke or if there's water in her face, she laughs about it now.  Plus, she actually started saying, "I love swimming!" and, "I want to get back into the water!"  I was floored!!  Who is this kid?!?  I'm just so excited for her!  

In this video, she's doing her "big arms" and then "turning the water off" by flipping onto her back to take a breath.  This video doesn't do her as much justice because I totally forgot the kids' goggles last week, so I'm partly to blame as to why she doesn't look as relaxed in the water.  But I thought she looked pretty good considering... 

I am so proud of Elina!  I'm just ecstatic that she's finally enjoying being in the water!

[Eli, on the other hand, has kinda sorta not improved.  Remember when I posted about him doing his own sit-dive?  Well, after doing sit-dives a thousand times, he decided that they're too scary to do now.  So...we're back to the beginning with that one.  I don't know WHAT happened.  All I know is that I get pretty frustrated when he refuses to do it on his own when we all know that he did it before.  I'm at the point where I'm just bribing him...and the sad thing is that it's NOT EVEN WORKING!!  I don't know what to do with this kid.  Any suggestions??  I need help, people....I'm about to "gently" nudge him into the pool myself.  Maybe I need to show him his sit-dive video footage over and over again so that he can believe that he can do it. Worth a try...]

Kids Get All the Fun

Sometimes I wish this kind of fun was a part of my day...

Would anyone be kind enough to pull me around on a scooter??

Valentine's Fun

Here are some fun things we did for Valentine's Day...

1. made Valentine playdough with red food coloring and lots of glitter.  I really need to do this more because the kids were amazed at the ingredients that go into making playdough.  Then we used gems, sequins, and popsicle sticks to pretend to make sugar cookies and heart lollipops with it.

2. marble heart painting.  This was lots of fun for Evie because I let her squirt the paint, put in the hearts and marbles, and then shake around the plastic container.  Actually, both Evie and Eli thought the shaking part was awesome.  Then I let them glue on their own messy hearts onto a sheet of paper.  Cute and quick fun!

3. heart-themed meals.  For Valentine's breakfast, the kids got heart-shaped waffles with some red fruit.  For dinner, we had a romantic candle-light dinner complete with a heart-shaped pizza with strawberry milk and a heart-shaped Cold Stone cake.  Delicious!!  Definitely easy meals this year.

4. Valentine's Day parties at school.  I was in charge of Eli's party this year so the kids colored Valentine's bookmarks and used heart-shaped stickers to make creatures and insects.  The latter was Eli's fave activity and he was actually really good at it!  Then the kids ate heart-shaped sandwiches, red fruit, and red/pink layered jello with Cool Whip.  [Side note: After making my red/pink layered jello for 4 years, I still managed to mess it up!  For some reason I forgot to follow the Jiggler recipe and on the day of the party, I realized it was too soft to cut into hearts.  That's when I realized I made a dire mistake!  I was so upset about it, but in the end, the 3-4 years olds didn't even care.  I cut the jello into squares and put Cool Whip on the top and it made no difference to them.  Funny how I care about the details a little too much!  THAT'S where Elina gets it from!!]

(You can see that Evie discovered Cool Whip in one of the above pictures...she was in heaven!!)

At Elina's party, each kid got to paint on their own big heart-shaped magnetic board (made by one of the mom's).  Elina painted the school logo on hers and it turned out beautifully.  The top right picture of the collage is the real logo and the bottom right picture is Elina's version.

5. make Valentine's Day cards.  I finally got to make my lollipop photo cards!  I've been wanting to make them since last year, but it was too late by the time I had discovered them.  They turned out so cute and they are WAY easy to make. All of the kids' friends loved the cards, so  I think I will do something similar next year as well, but with a different pose.  The kids still worked on the cards by writing their friends' names on the backs of each card...even Eli wrote everyone's names.  I was so proud of his hard work!

Elina also made origami hearts for her friends and family and even little Evie decorated a heart on her own.

6. Valentine's Day hair.  I finally got around to making Elina's hair festive (only because she was home sick last week and I was looking for something to do with her...sad, but true).  I have to admit that I am not one to look up cute girls' hairstyles for Elina.  I'm pretty lazy about her hair.  I think the options I always give her  are (a) do you want your hair in pigtails or a ponytail (on PE days) and (b) do you want a hairclip or not?  I'm pretty boring when it comes to hair.  (Hmmm...that's the same attitude I have with my own hair!  How terrible!)  I remember KT doing a heart in her daughter's hair, so I googled it and came up with this site.  The hairdo came out great and everyone at school loved it.  What I loved the best was Elina's hair AFTERWARDS.  The minute she took out her braids, she seriously looked like Diana Ross!  It was awesome...because our Asian hair never ever ever gets to look like that!!  By the time she let me take a picture of it (and after bribing her with a one dollar bill), it was already a little flat from her trying to brush it out and putting water on it.  It was the best picture I could get. Unfortunately, I promised her I would only show family that picture, so I can't post it.  But, trust me, it looked really funky!

7. Valentine's mailboxes.  This year we continued the tradition of having daily scavenger hunts to find little prizes/treats.  The kids looked forward to finding their first clues in their Valentine's mailboxes every day.  I think they were looking forward to this part of our Valentine's Day traditions more than anything else.  Who doesn't love scavenger hunts?

Definitely a fun Valentine's Day this year!  Now I just have to take all the decorations down.  I feel like, as a parent, I really live from holiday to holiday.  You spend time building it all up to one day and then after that, you have to clean it all up and build up to the next one.  Luckily, there's a little lull right now since on St. Patty's Day we just eat green food and wear green.  I guess the next big holiday is Easter....but for now I'm going to take it easy.  We hope everyone had a Happy Valentine's Day with their loved ones!!

Yee-Haw!

This past week was Western Week at school.  Initially, Eli wasn't too into it.  He said things like, "I don't like cowboys," and "I don't want to wear boots."  After reading a few library books on cowboys and seeing Elina all dressed up, he was converted by the end of the week.  It also helped that he stamped a cute bandana and made a cowboy hat at school.

Western Week is just full of fun at school.  Kids play on the hay bales in the playground, search for gold nuggets hidden in the sand, milk a "cow," and eat a "cowboy breakfast" (egg and bean burritos).  The highlight of Western Week is watching the 1st grade class perform a square dance.  Elina was SO excited to be performing it this year!  

The kids looked great out there, but it was a funny square dance because the same steps just repeated over and over again about 8 times.  So...it was pretty simple for them to learn and to perform.  With that being said, they still did a great job performing their 2 dances.  

At the end everyone was asked to join the 1st graders to do a "mass square dance."  It was just chaos, but the little kids had fun. Elina, on the other hand, was not into the chaos.  She just kept looking around with this weird face as if she were saying, "Where is the 'square' in this square dance???"  She definitely loves order and structure!

Now we just have to find a day to hit the rodeo grounds to make our Western experience complete!  Yee-haw!

Talking, Singing, and Dancing

I know I haven't posted anything about our little Evie in awhile, so I figured it was time to give her her own post.

Evie recently got a haircut from Ah-Ma.  Ah-Ma couldn't stand how scraggly the ends of her hair looked, so she took it upon herself to make it all even in the back.  And, actually, we all love it.  Now she doesn't look so dirty/messy--just cuter.

Evie is also obsessed with shoes.  She loves walking around the house in shoes that are too big for her feet.  

Evie is now talking non-stop.  She loves loves loves singing.  Here is her short rendition of "Happy Birthday to You," with a fake candle-blow-out...

Here she is singing "ABC"...this is one of her favorite songs right now...

She also loves "Skip to My Lou," "Where is Thumbkin?" and "Bingo."  She especially likes to walk around the house while belting a song into the toy microphone.  It's very entertaining.  

To go along with the singing, Evie also loves to dance.  This girl can't stop moving when she hears good music.  It's hard to get video of this because by the time we grab the camera, she's already calming down...but this just shows how excited she gets with songs.

Of course, Evie also watches some TV with her older siblings.  Her fave show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but Elina and Eli rarely vote for that show nowadays because they've outgrown it.  So now, Evie has become a fan of Go, Diego, Go, just like her older brother and sister.  

Evie is also very into babydolls and cats these days.  She's usually carrying Elina's old Cabbage Patch Doll around the house or Elina's old little cat doll (Sally).  These days, she's more in love with Sally and even takes Sally to bed with her.  But she doesn't call the cat Sally, she calls her "Meows"...as in, that's what a cat says.  It's weird.  She rarely calls cats by their name...she just says, "Meows."  

Here is Evie with a babydoll...she was holding it funny and it banged its head on the wall, Evie tends to her "boo-boo."  It's pretty cute.  Then she rocks the baby.  

Obviously, Evie's vocabulary has expanded a great deal.  She loves to say, "Do that," when she wants to do something by herself.  Sometimes I'll ask her if she needs help and she usually responds with a resounding, "No!"  The minute she comes downstairs in the morning, she says, "Morning, Jie Jie...Morning, Eli."  She's so polite.  She also says, "Bless you" if she hears someone cough or sneeze...and she always says, "Mank you" when we give her something.  If she's looking for the other kids, she says, "Guys!"  She's learning her colors...although she really only likes "yellow bus"...which she points out everywhere we go.

She is definitely our feisty little girl who has a mind of her own.  Her new thing is taking off her pants and diaper while she's in her crib.  We have a webcam so we take pictures of her little bum whenever this happens because it's SO funny...but the pics probably aren't appropriate for the web.  You'll just have to take our word for it that it's hilarious!

Don't you just love our little girl??