our big girl

i have been meaning to do a post about emma for a while now. she has just gotten so big and so independent! we've been really busy so i haven't done a great job capturing all that she has learned and accomplished lately, but here's a peek at two of her recent big "moments." i love this girl to pieces!

our local library has a rule that you have to be able to write your first and last name in order to get your library card. emma has reached that accomplishment! last friday, after story time, we headed over to the counter and applied for emma's own library card. she did such a great job!

getting ready for the headshot. don't you love her with her little purse?

cheese...

the librarian was super nice and didn't mind the kids crowding around behind the counter to see the picture

waiting for the card to print out (not sure what elise is looking at)

here you go, emma!

an official library card holder!

emma is also playing soccer for the first time, through the ymca. her very first practice was a bit rocky in the beginning. she didn't want to be out on the field without either me or allan, but now she just runs out there and does her thing. can't wait for her first game this thursday!

and this is just a cute picture of emma holding up her letter cookies. she was so excited that two of them got stuck together and spelled 'hi!'

family time!

my parents and aunt from hong kong came to visit us last week and the kids had such a great time with them that they barely slept a wink. as soon as morning came, they jumped out of bed ready for another fun and adventurous day. my aunt does tai chi every morning so the kids watched her intriguingly while she did it in our yard. the kids also couldn't get enough of gong-gong and po-po (grandpa and grandma). my mom said that each morning she would find the kids sitting on the floor in her room staring at her until she woke up. they are so silly! we went on many walks, played at the park many times, had lots of great food, went to toys 'r us to pick out goodies (spoiled!), and us girls got to go shopping sans kids one night! the best part for me was getting to sleep in because my mom and aunt took care of the kids and fed them breakfast in the morning...yah! the last time i saw my aunt was 4 years ago. so glad she was able to come with my parents to visit us again!

my three little turkeys

lucas and gong-gong

the whole gang, but separately b/c we needed a photographer

my sweet girls

my aunt (my mom's sister), me, and my mom

fast friends

last summer i got to spend a weekend in seattle with a gal from my church who is originally from hong kong. it was neat and refreshing to spend time chatting in cantonese with her, which is something i don't get to do very often now that i'm away from home. she was able to teach all three of her kids to speak cantonese even though her husband is caucasian and speaks zero chinese. it makes me really, really want to teach my kids chinese! anyway, we became fast friends and my kids have come to ADORE her daughter and son even though they are way older. they came over for a visit the other night and after lily and riley played some cool tunes on the piano for me (they are both phenomenal pianists!) riley captivated lucas and emma with a bedtime story. the next day, i took my parents over to their house for a visit and here are some pictures of the kids with their newfound friends. pretty sweet.

siblings

elise & elisa

lucas, emma, and riley

doing the robot

a simple room for e&e

a while ago i posted about elise moving into a big girl bed and the two girls moving into the same room together. i promised to show a picture of their new digs, so here it is. it's pretty simple, just like the rest of our house, but that's the way i like it!

kfp and baby boo-boo

we had a full 3 days of going from birthday parties to a fun bbq get-together with good friends this memorial day weekend, all the while grateful for the freedom to do so because of the men and women who serve(d) our country. a big THANK YOU.

allan took lucas and emma to see kung fu panda 2 this afternoon, so i headed out with elise to do some galavanting around town. our last stop was to craft warehouse where i happened on a great sale on beads (thinking about getting into jewelry-making). just as i was finishing up on my selection and heading to the counter to pay, elise turned her head and bumped into the corner of a table causing a nasty little gash on her forehead. it took her a second, but she started wailing and didn't stop until we got out of the store and into the car. after that, she was fine and asked about getting an ice pack when she got home. poor thing.

surprise!

back in march we took a road trip with my sister and her boyfriend to visit my parents because my mom was having some health issues. (she's fine now, praise God!) it was a complete surprise to my mom and, boy, did we surprise her. my dad was really cute, too. he's usually terrible at keeping secrets. he just can't stand the excitement and blurts things out or likes to tell others that he knows something they don't. stinker. well, this time, he did a fabulous job of not saying a thing to my mom. every time he called during our drive he would talk to me in a whisper, which, if you know my dad, is almost impossible. anyway, we left really early in the morning and arrived late at night because we didn't want to spend the night anywhere. when we got to my parents' street, i called my mom and asked how she was doing. (she had friends over and was playing mah-jong with them.) i pretended like i was at home and even had lucas say hi to her. while this was going on, everyone filed out of the car and my dad let us in. emma was the first to see my mom and she didn't recognize her because my mom had zero expectation of seeing us. it was so fun! needless to say, she was ecstatic about us visiting and we had a great time seeing her, my dad, and my grandma. here are just a few pictures of our trip. the rest are on my parents' and allan's cameras.

we were spoiled and ate a ton of awesome food that we can't find here in the tri-cities. we had a delicious chinese dinner to celebrate my mom and dad's 35th wedding anniversary, we had dim sum a couple of times, we had authentic shanghai cuisine (yum!), and we also had awesome japanese food. here we are at the japanese restaurant where emma tried sushi for the first time. she loved it!

here's my mom with a fish eyeball that she's about to devour!

we went into oakland's chinatown and i got to see my preschool! yes, i remember it. :)

this is a sad, sad picture. it's a picture of the family room of my childhood home. our old neighbors (who my parents are still friends with) told us that our old house (the house next to theirs) was raided by the police because they were growing marijuana in it. we couldn't believe it. my jaw dropped when we saw this, literally. so SAD. ugh.

water fun!

a cool new water park (think sprinklers, not slides) recently opened up close to our house. they had a grand opening on thursday that we weren't planning on participating in, but in the end we were so glad we did! they had invited a bunch of important people to take part in the grand opening - the mayor, some city of richland peeps, donators, and even big top the clown! the most well-received of these was, of course, big top! he had a loooong line of kids waiting for him to create a balloon animal for them. elise got a butterfly and lucas and emma got swords. he is one talented guy. my cousin had her concession trailer there and gave away free popcorn to everyone, which was also a huge hit! the park is amazing...something like 5,000 square feet of play. wow! and, the best part...it's only minutes away from my house! the kids had a lot of fun even though they weren't dressed for the occasion, and a snapshot of us ended up in our local paper. (check out pages 2 and 6. if you're wondering, the thing on my neck is probably a bug or a piece of food. i checked and there is nothing on my neck anymore. and, elise looks grumpy because she was scared of the guy-in-a-bunny costume that came to visit.) can't wait to go again!

a day in the life of "daddy"

lucas has been dying to visit allan's office for a couple of years now. he is still too young to participate in "bring your child to work day," but allan was able to get us all visitors badges so that the kids could see where he spends a majority of his day. they LOVED roaming through the halls of their daddy's "work," seeing the big conference rooms with the fun drop-down screens and lights, seeing where aunty vicky's office is, where my old office was, and the biggest kick they got out of their visit was the ice machine in the lunchroom. check them out!

deal of the week

once we moved elise into a regular bed, i realized i had to get her a new comforter. i had already picked out a duvet for her (same one as emma, just to make things easier all around), so i just needed a plain-jane comforter. i really didn't care what it looked like since i was going to cover it with a duvet anyway. i had checked several stores (tj maxx, bb&b, target), but for some reason i couldn't find anything under $25 (at the least). so, i went back to target last weekend determined to find a deal. i was in luck because some employees were working on re-shelving one of the aisles of the bedding department. they were getting rid of the old stuff and getting ready to stock the shelves with new inventory. i walked past one of their carts and saw an extra-long twin size comforter for $9. yeah! i picked it up and figured that i could just cut and sew it to fit a normal twin-sized bed. so that is just what i did last night. it didn't take me long. needless to say, i was excited that it worked out in the end and i didn't botch up a brand new, perfectly good comforter. i love it when blogs have tutorials. even though this project doesn't require a tutorial, i thought it would be cool to include some pictures. i am just thankful the idea came to mind.

all pinned and ready to sew........done!