Gong Gong Hat

Here are a few shots of Ethan in his "Gong Gong" hat. It is also a style of hat that I remember my grandfather wearing and now my dad wears them too. Ethan's not a Gong Gong yet, but I think he looks so cute in it!

Josh's Birthday

We also celebrated Josh's birthday this weekend. It was packed weekend but we also managed to fill in some birthday celebrations for Papa. On Sunday evening Gong Gong and Po Po came over for dinner and cake before we went out to celebrate with just adults. It was also nice to have some time with Josh's sister Lyn and be able to chat with her without any interruptions!

I just had to sneak this picture in. Look at his face. Pure Joy!

A little dancing performance for the birthday boy after dinner. Please excuse the 'daifu' (underwear). This is just how we roll nowadays.

Happy birthday babe. We love you! XOXO

Gymnastics Fun at Nora's Birthday

This Saturday was our friend Nora's 4th birthday and she invited us to celebrate with her at Pheonix Gymnastics. It's been a long time since we've been to gymnastics. Maddy's last gymnastics class was when Ethan was about 6 months old. Since then we've been busy pursuing other activities. Maddy took to it with no problems, but Ethan preferred to sit and watch at the beginning of the party until he felt comfortable enough to join in. I wonder where he gets that from?!?! :)

Ethan looked so cute watching intently while sitting beside Auntie Lyn.


After all that jumping, the kids were ready for cupcakes and snacks.


After snack it was back to the foam pit to burn off all the treats.

Happy birthday Nora, thanks for a great party!

Aquarium

The Vancouver Aquarium has had a facelift! The biggest change for us is that the Clownfish Cove (children's area of the Aquarium) is now down in the underwater viewing area of the dolphin tank. They have the usual seal stuffies that you can care for and now also some dolphin stuffies. If you hold the dolphin stuffie up to the window of the tank, the dolphins will come to the window and hang out for a LONG time. It's like they want to play with the new friend. (Or I guess they could also be searching for a long lost relative, in which case I guess that'd be pretty sad) Anyway, I was able to get a lot of great shots with Maddy and the dolphins.




The Aquarium is also home to the only 4D movie experience of western North America. It is also included in the price of admission which is great. Since I don't plan to renew my membership once this runs out in May, I've been trying to get the kids to go and see the movie. Last time it was a "Planet Earth" show. It was pretty intense. Had to leave with Ethan screaming "Scary! All done, me all done!" I have to admit, watching the killer whale jump out of the water to catch a seal in mid air was pretty frightening. Add to that the scary music, water splashing in your face, the seat vibrating and the rest of the audience screaming in surprise, it was no wonder. This time however, it was as short clip of the movie "Happy Feet". I thought for sure cartoon penguins dancing to upbeat music would be a better hit. Unfortunately, the audience still screams in surprise and that kinda scared the kids. I also think that the memories from last time were still fresh. So again, we did the walk of shame out the exit only 3 mins. into the show. Too bad they don't have childminding while the parents go to see the show. I have a feeling it'll be a long time before I get to see a movie in full!

Waiting in line for the movie with Gavin and Aly

You can tell that Ethan already wasn't too impressed.

The rest of the day was a lot of fun. This was the first trip to the Aquarium WITHOUT a stroller for me. Everyone had a little backpack and carried his/her own lunch. What a wonderful feeling that was! It's too bad that we won't be getting another membership, but after 4 years, I think we're ready to move on to Science World instead.

Maddy (almost) 4.5

The updates for Maddy are a little harder to write mainly because her skills and interests are generally the same as six months ago. I do have a conversations that I'd like to remember for the future.

"Ontid Houses and Illtons"
This conversation happened in the car ride home from daycare between Maddy and Josh. Just to set the stage, it's Spring Break so the older 'school aged' kids are back during the day.

M: Papa, guess what today I went to a ontid house!
J: Where did you go Maddy?
M: A ontid house.
J: Maddy, what's a ontid house?
M: Papa, repeat after me...Ontid... House. Get it?
J: What is at a ontid house?
M: You know people dying, ghosts and illtons.
J: Oh you mean a haunted house?
M: Yes papa, a ontid house.

Later on in the conversation...
M: Papa, when you die do your eye balls fall out of your head?
J: ???????? (Josh is at a loss for words and at first start talking about about animals coming to eat you....then quickly realizes that's a huge mistake so he back tracks. He said in his defense he only mentioned animals because he thought the idea of bugs eating your body was too much. We later just used the word 'decompose' like turning back into soil, much like our compost waste. She was ok with that. Thank god.)
M: Like the illtons right?
J: The what?!?
M: Ill...tons. Papa, when your eye balls fall out and all your skin falls off.
J: Oh, skeletons!
M: Yes, papa illtons!

(Turns out they were at the park we used to live across from. There is a hospice there and Nicole, an older girl, told her that people that there are ghosts etc. there)

Oh, my word. Is this what's going to happen as she goes off to 'big kid' school? Her world is definitely opening up and we can see the wheels turning in her head as she puts everything in order. Not necessarily the correct order, but one that makes sense to her for now! So in the end, that evening we had a chat a about what we believe happens when you die, kept it very matter of fact and that it was part of the natural process. At one point she she exclaimed, "Papa if everyone dies, then one day there will be nobody left!!!!" Still a work in progress.

"Love is..."
This morning I had just finished getting ready, hair done, clothes on, make up...
M: Mama, I love you because you are so pretty.
Mom: Aww, thanks Maddy, I love you too, but remember it's more important to love what a person is like on the inside. Like having a good, kind heart and not just because they are pretty.
M: Yes, mama I know like how I love Papa.
Mom: (Trying not to laugh)
Josh: (Pulling the fake knife out of his chest)

"Certainly"
M: Mama I have the hiccups.
Mom: Oh ya? That's ok, we all get the hiccups sometimes. It's normal.
M: Yes, and most certainly when I'm sick.

I don't know where she's learned to use the word "certainly". It's always used correctly for the most part, it's just odd to hear her say it especially because we don't use it much ourselves.

We're having a great time over here with all these new parts of the world opening up for Maddy. Another reminder of how quickly they are growing up. I'm sure that once she's in full time school, it'll feel like we've gotten on the high speed bullet train. :(

Ethan 2.5

Ethan has grown so much since my last update at 2 years. I can hardly believe that he's signed up for preschool this fall. It's crazy to think that both of them will be in school this fall. Anyway, our little guy is definitely growing up.

Food: His favourites are still fruits. The juicier the better according to Ethan. I've been eating the yummy ruby grapefruits recently and he's even into those. He especially loves the juice at the end, to which he'll drink, give a little shudder and then exclaim, "Souwaar!"

He continues to have a low tolerance to waiting for food. We cannot let him know that we are boiling eggs, otherwise he'll be crying the whole time we boil and cool the eggs enough for him to eat. Often, when I'm cooking peas and corn for dinner, he'll be so 'hungry' that he'll insist on having a scoopful of peas and corn...STILL FROZEN! Today I was cooking in the day and had a bowl of frozen peas and corn just sitting on the counter, waiting for the water to boil. Suddenly, I see this little arm reach up and into the bowl. I look down and there he is with a sheepish little grin on his face. He runs away eating, so happy that he 'got away with it'.

Another thing about food is that you can't throw his food away. He likes to have the option of coming back to finish the rest off at a later time. Many tears have been shed the times I accidently thought he was finished and chucked it in the garbage. The other day he got down from the table and said, "No dump me food. I come back, otaaayy?

Potty: For a while there, we hit a big snag with the pottying front. Ethan went through a pretty big defiance stage and so pottying went out the window. I grew tired of trying to convince him to go, and also tired of cleaning up messes. Lately he's gotten a lot better. He spends most of the day at Lucy's in underwear and for the last week, he's been doing really well at home too. The odd time, he'll even go by himself to the potty we leave sitting in the room. Today we went to pick Maddy up from preschool in his underwear. He was pretty happy about that. Unfortunately, when we got home, I was so busy with getting lunch ready that I forgot to ask him to try, so he had an accident. My bad!

Sleep: Sleep is something that I'll never understand. For a while Ethan was having a harder and harder time falling asleep at night. We'd put him in at about 8pm and he'd read, play, sing and then resort to every tactic in the book to get our attention. Then finally at about 10pm he'd fall asleep. We took this as a sign to drop his nap. So we did that for a week. Somedays no nap, somedays a short nap. That was a huge mistake. He ended getting wildly overtired and started waking at crazy early times in the morning. Then we got back on track and he again started to stay up late. Finally in a crazy bid to just try something we put him to bed earlier. That seemed to do the trick. Today for example he took a 1.5hrs nap and still went down with little fuss at 7:30pm. Go figure.

Play: His favourite is still Woa Woa (his dog). Today I was reading a book called "No Dragons for Tea". It's about fire safety. In it, there's a part where the dragon realizes that he left his teddy in the house and tries to go back in to get it. Luckily the little girl stops him in time. During the first reading I explained to him that you can't go back in to get anything. That all 'things' can be replaced etc. On the second reading, later in the afternoon, he started telling me that you can't go back in to get teddy, except his eyes started to well up with tears. I could tell that it was killing him, the idea of leaving your favourite toy inside the burning house, but he wanted to show me that he knew the right thing to do. My poor little sensitive guy! I could just see him picturing Woa Woa up in flames as he stood outside. Haha!

Speech: He's now using sentences and getting better and better at telling us what he wants. I've even noticed that the way Ethan and Maddy play together has gotten better because of it. Not perfect, but better. With other people Ethan does not say much. He usually takes a long while to warm up to people before he opens up, but when he's comfortable he'll talk quite a bit. It's so funny to hear him lay down the rules so that there's no confusion. Things like, "Mama, after nap, then eat choclat snack time. Otaaay???" Ethan is also getting better at singing along to songs in the car. Right now one of his favourites is a reading of the book, "Pete the Cat". He loves to 'sing' along and has the expression down pat.

Brother and Sister: Maddy and Ethan are the best of friends at times. They play really well together and mostly Ethan just loves to do what his big sister is doing. However, they both ALSO know how to push each others buttons. Lucy told us that the day Maddy stayed home from daycare, Ethan was very sad and a little lost without her. :(

I'm sure that in another 6 months he'll be a completely different boy again. My gosh is it ever going by quickly. We're so proud of our little guy. xoxo

We're still here!

Hi everyone! We're still here, I just haven't had the energy to post much. This post will likely be a huge mish-mash of all things since January.

I can hardly believe that Spring is just around the corner. This weekend we change the clocks and I love this time of year. It's getting dark much later and I'm already looking forward to the summer. We've been busy since January. We started taking family Mandarin lesson each Saturday. The lessons are very different from the traditional Chinese School lessons I remember taking. The class size is very small (5 other kids in the class) and the parents stay and learn at the same time. The class consists mostly of games and songs that we play in order to learn phrases. I like that it's 'fun' and a very natural way for kids to learn language. The difficult part for Josh and I is that we have to be more diligent in practicing and using the phrases with the kids at home.

Since the Mandarin classes are in Richmond, we head over to my parents house after class each week. I love that we can spend more time with Gong Gong and Po Po. Seeing them every week has sure made a difference with the kids and how they interact with their grandparents. It's great to have the regular visit and the kids are feeling totally at home. This Sunday we dropped the kids off while Josh and I went to Richmond Centre for a mid-afternoon date! Actually, Josh needed to get some new clothes so we had lunch together and did some shopping. Just like the old days!

Saturday afternoons are also swimming lessons, so as you can guess, we are dead tired by the end of the day. The kids love swimming so at least it's easy to get them there. The nice thing is that we end up spending a full family day out. Usually we'll drive for a quick nap and then head to a coffee shop or Granville Island for a snack. Ethan is still in the Parent and Tot lessons until he turns 3 and he just loves the water. Maddy is also doing well in her lessons and learning to glide and kick more for distance. Soon, they'll be so good, that I'll have to go back for adult lessons in order to catch up!

Since Jaunary we've also been busy with birthday parties, Chinese New Year, Valentines and even some adult only get-togethers. I'm loving this stage because it's way easier to leave the kids with sitters and have some date nights for Josh and I. This year we were able to go to several Dine Out Vancouver dinners. It was awesome! I think I enjoyed the food and dining experience even more now that we know what it's like to not be able to go out as easily as we used to!

I promise to be back soon with some updates on the kids. It's been a really long time!