As promised...

Our Disneyland slideshow/video!

Joe did an amazing job as always, and Kai loves this! We've watched it about 10 times a day (no joke) since Joe finished it. Kai cannot get enough of the Happiest Place on Earth! It's a little long, but we did lots of fun stuff and have the pictures to prove it! :-)

(Sorry about the repeat text...Joe stole it from here)

Disneyland Video

Disneyland!!!

We just got back yesterday, and we had a BLAST! My whole family went to celebrate my Dad's big 6-0 in style! Actually, we've been discussing a trip like this for a long time, and decided about a year and a half ago that we'd do it for Dad's 60th, since he'd never been. We spent 3 fun filled (exhausting) days at the California Disney parks with my parents, brother, sister-in-law and their kids. In all... 6 adults and 5 kids. Everyone behaved themselves very nicely, and there were minimal melt-downs by the 5 very tired kids. Experiencing Disney through a child's eyes was an interesting experience. I realized that most rides are way scarier for a small child (although for ours the scariest parts were dark and loud...not fast and curvy!), and for the "Happiest Place on Earth", there sure were a lot of crying kids around! (Not ours so much, thank goodness) We are actually very proud of Kai and how he conducted himself there. He was totally mellow and had a great laid back attitude (at home he can tend to be a bit stubborn). He was in "cousin heaven", and loved spending time with his family.

I could probably fill a whole website with all the gory details of our journey, but I won't bore you with all that. Lucky for you, I'm short on time. :-) So, I'll just give you the highlights.

1. Kai LOVED meeting the characters. I'm not sure why I thought my friendly, outgoing son might be frightened by them. He was NOT! He ran up to each one and hugged the heck out of 'em! Here is just one example:

2. Joe and I got stuck on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This is my absolute favorite ride, and I can't imagine going to Disneyland without going on this one. Thanks to the rest of the fam taking our little guy for a while, we got to go on it not once, but twice...well three times, I guess. Our second time through, the ride came to a screeching halt as we were ascending a large hill. There we sat, and sat, and sat. Finally the announcement was made that the ride was being suspended, and we would all be evacuated. The ride lost it's magic as the mood lighting was turned off and the service lights went on. Not to worry, we were all evacuated safely. More importantly, the ride resumed operations later that evening and we were able to complete our ride, while watching the fireworks. It was great!

3. Kai did not freak out about any rides, and we pressed our luck with some pretty crazy ones. The most roller-coastery one he went on was the Matterhorn. He covered his eyes with my hand the whole time, but gave it two thumbs up at the end. I think his favorites were the Astro Orbitor (the only one he asked to go on again), Pirates of the Carribean, and the Toy Story rides.

4. It was way hotter and busier than we expected. Apparently, Halloween is a big deal there. It was decorated amazingly, but did draw the crowds. We could not imagine going there in the height of vacation season, when both would have been worse.

5. Last time we went to Disneyland, we were deep in the throws of the infertility battle. Just being there with our miraculous child was more magical than I could have ever imagined. I kept telling him how happy I was to be at Disneyland with him. His response was, "Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho... a pirate's life for me!!"

As you can probably imagine, we took way more photos than I've displayed here. Sorry...the rest will have to wait. I hope to get some on FB soon, but as for here... it'll probably have to wait until Joe completes his Disney slideshow. :-)

Foto Finish Friday

Not afraid of a little lion...

sleeping in

If you want to call it that...

Early this past summer Kai decided he was going to become an early riser. We're talking 5-5:15 AM here, folks. We typically get up pretty early, but having to be coherent at that hour is another matter entirely. We tried everything from shorter naps to later bedtimes...nothing changed it, and all we had in the end was a grumpy, over tired child. So, we conceded that he is just an early riser and there's nothing we can do about it (except making his bedtime earlier). One habit that started out of this is him crawling into bed with us. At least this way we could wake up a little before having to help him with anything, or worse yet, pick him up. (Not sure how many of you have tried picking up a 35 lb child right after waking from a deep sleep...not pretty.) He never went to sleep, he'd just lay in our bed, wiggling around until the wiggling turned to poking or tickling and things got so rowdy one of us had to get up with him....

Until Monday...

He crawled into bed with us and fell right back to sleep! And slept for almost another hour!! I never thought I'd call waking up at 6AM sleeping in, but it's fabulous! The past 2 days he's done the same thing. I know it's probably not the best habit to get him into, but we're just so happy for a few extra minutes of sleep (for him and us), which, I am certain he needs.

And we're hoping if going back to sleep in our bed becomes habit, perhaps eventually he'll just fall back to sleep in his bed...or this could just be wishful thinking.

Mowin'

"Someone's got to mow this yard!"

We planted (laid) new grass in our backyard about a month ago. As you can tell, it's growing beautifully. When we went out to play this morning, I mentioned how it needs to be mowed. K promptly grabbed his bubble mower and went to town; even using the same pattern that Daddy uses to mow!

The first time Joe cut this grass, we made a big deal of it. K and I sat in the patio chairs watching Daddy work and cheering him on. Of course K wanted the same treatment Daddy got, so he told me I had to sit in the chair and clap for him. It was pretty stinkin' cute!

**Might I add...Joe is fabulous about keeping up the yard, and the only reason it's gotten so long is that I had him out of town all last weekend celebrating my birthday. Oh, and I'm not allowed to touch the real mower. :-)

Fall is Here!!

Yay!!

I've come to realize over the past few years that fall is definitely my favorite time of year. Around here we have crisp, cool mornings (a runner's dream come true) followed by warm, sunny afternoons. It's absolutely fabulous. I love the rich colors of fall, and watching the leaves change. I love that college football starts, and the spirit of it in our community is just amazing. I don't actually like (or care) about the actual football too much, but I love that you can feel the excitement of it in the air. Our family fondly refers to fall as "birthday season", as we celebrate 5 close family birthdays starting in early October (mine :-o) until the middle of November, and this means lots of family time, which I very much enjoy. I love that fall contains what I'm pretty sure is becoming my favorite holiday. As an adult, I've come to really enjoy Thanksgiving for it's true meaning, and love that when we gather with family, being together is not overshadowed by other things (such as gift-giving on Christmas).

And now, a few pictures from our afternoon jaunt at the arboretum last Friday:

Happy Fall Everyone!

Foto Finish Friday

A few pics from last weekend, and a visit from

Grandma Sue and Grandpa Tom...

The first meal Kai has EVER slept through!

He fell asleep in the car on the way to the restaurant...

Never mind that it was nap time.

I thought for sure he'd wake up getting out of the car...

He slept for nearly an hour while we enjoyed a nice, relaxing lunch!

The proper way to eat gelato!

He thought it was pretty funny!!

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Silly bath boy

This is huge from the kid who HATES to lay back in the tub! He did this all himself, not even a nag from me to lay back and rinse his hair. Doesn't he look angelic?

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A visit to our favorite farm

Feeding goats with Grandpa

Hmmm...the chocolatey goodness of it all

In his very own words: "Yum, chockite ite team my fabite".

(Translation: Yum, chocolate ice cream my favorite)

Foto Finish Friday...a few days late...

I've been a bad blogger, missed my Friday post by a few days. We've been busy entertaining Grandma and Grandpa this weekend! Here is Kai watching the clock, waiting for the time that G&G would arrive. He asked where the clock would be when they got to our house, and he sat and watched for the time to come...

When he decided it was not moving fast enough, he gave it a little nudge. :-) He couldn't wait for Grandma and Grandpa to get there!

Foto Finish Friday

What kind of mother am I? This is the only picture we have from this week. I meant to take one of his new haircut he got today, but it didn't happen before bed. Maybe next week...

Doing Nothing...almost

When I found out a few months ago that I was going to be having 5 days off (our day care provider took a long weekend for her birthday), I decided it would be perfect timing to give potty training another go. "They" say summer is the optimal time for potty training...I'm sure you can guess why, and we had no exciting or out of town plans. This, combined with the fact that he was showing more signs of training readiness; namely hiding from us to produce a #2, then not listening or coming to us when asked to after said production, being more able to dress himself, and more importantly able to undress himself. I was bound and determined to go into it this time with more knowledge and feel more prepared to handle toilet aversion and other potty disasters. I started researching and reading up on the latest and greatest potty training (or to be PC...potty learning) techniques. With each approach I read or heard about, I could find at least 5 reasons why it would NOT work for us. Having attempted this feat once before, I sort of knew what I was up against in terms of cooperation from the little guy. The more I researched, the more I learned how NOT easy it was going to be to potty train a brilliant, stubborn, head strong child. With D-day (or P-day, if you must) growing closer, I splurged on a book, which has given me to most insight into the process. After reading through the pros and cons of the different approaches outlined in the book, I decided to go with the one that I thought would work best for us. The "Do Nothing" approach. Basically, you just let the kid figure it out for himself, on his time, when he's ready. The runner up was the "Have someone else do it" approach (self explanatory).

So now, I've got this time off work in which I would LOVE to train K to use the toilet, but how can I accomplish this in 5 days by doing nothing?? I couldn't exactly just do nothing, but I tried to do very little. If you're interested, here is what I did do:

--A few days of prep work in which we spent long periods of time outside, nakey from the waist down and downing tons of fluids (who knew he'd LOVE grape gatorade?), and talking about what is going on when things start flowing.

--When he "goes", mention how it felt just before and how he should listen to his body when it says it's time to go potty. Only mention, not repeated a million times and tattooed across his forehead.

--Try not to ask him every 10 minutes if he has to "go". This is probably the hardest of all. My tongue is scarred from biting it all weekend, but I think this might have been the best piece of advice gained from reading an entire book about potty training.

--Wait patiently for him say those sweet little words, "I have to go potty".

--Make a potty sticker incentive chart for success in the toilet. (My outdoor prep work got me closer to housebreaking than potty training and K told me that going on the toilet was "not fun", so I had to up the ante for going in the toilet.)

--Stock up on cleaning supplies and laundry detergent...

Now, we're at the end of our 5 day weekend, and I think things are going in the right direction. He's definitely putting it all together, we've only been having about one flooding accident per day. He really has a stronger bladder than I would have ever imagined; yesterday he held it for almost 3.5 hours...before making his deposit in the proper location.

Foto Finish Friday

Givin' the Love Bug some lovin'.

This car belongs to our church's high school group and is on display at our mall during a Back to School Denim drive. It usually sits outside our church and Kai loves to say "HI" to it every Sunday. We happened to be at the mall earlier this week and saw it there, so we just had to say "HI"! I had totally forgotten it was there. (Sorry for the poor picture quality, I took it with my cell phone)

Two years ago today...

We saw this sweet face for the first time...

...And we've been in love ever since.

Foto Finish Friday- Vacation edition

Playing in the beautiful (and not too cold) Pacific Ocean

Walking the cranberry bogs with Grandma and Cousin

Carousel with Daddy

We found a beach we could actually drive our car onto!

It was awesome, and one of the highlights (for me) of our trip.

(I may be a little too easily entertained)

More ocean playing...

No, he's not surrounded by birds...that's sand he was throwing.

Watch out world, he's got a chainsaw!

Being an eagle in the nest at the zoo.

Horsey riding

Train watching

Cupcake eating

I won't go into how hard it was to get a picture

before he tore into that thing. :-)

My son the elephant

They say an elephant never forgets...

We just got back from a fun week on our mini- roadtrip/ "staycation" in Portland. A few conversations between us and our little guy I wanted to share. Sorry if you're tired of hearing me say how amazingly brilliant our son is, but if it bothers you, too bad. It's the honest truth and here's proof:

While in Portland we went to the Oregon Zoo. The last time we were there was in March, I think (so, nearly 5 months ago). On that last trip, Kai fell in love with the foot massage chairs. They're a big plastic bench (like a log maybe?) and you put your feet into areas which massage them. Anyway... we could not keep him off those things. We have not seen or talked about such things since. The second we walk through the front entrance of the zoo, he spots those chairs (from at least 100 feet away, might I add) and starts talking about them and wants to go sit on them. We are totally convinced that he remembered them...from 5 months ago! I didn't even remember them!

Driving around Portland, it's impossible to miss the MAX trains running throughout the city. Of course, Kai noticed these right away because he loves trains. We casually mentioned how we had taken the train out to the airport, but we did not talk about why. (It was last December, for our Family Day celebration). Out of nowhere and completely on his own, Kai says, "Mommy Daddy pick up me at airport". Of course, we have told him his story over and over. How he was born in Korea and we met him at the airport. This is the first time he's repeated it back, without any prompts from us.

This kid has got an amazing brain...I am really getting frightened for what we're up against in 10 years...

Foto Finish Friday

Learning Chinese dancing at the annual agency picnic last weekend.

He was really into this and danced with the girls for a good 15 minutes!

(Which is like a lifetime in 2 yr old time!)

Foto Finish Friday

"Mommy's cooking is so scary I have to wear my helmet to dinner!!"

BIG weekend FUN!

Last weekend was our annual celebratory weekend (well, celebratory 2 days and this year it happened on the weekend...even better!). Friday was Joe's big 3-2! He took the day off work at the last minute and treated himself to a few luxuries (all well deserved, might I add), including a massage, a car wash and a yummy cheesecake! Friday afternoon we spiffed up our bikes, and splurged a long talked- about buggy for Kai (and helmet, of course). Saturday was our 11 year Wedding Anniversary! We spent the day having family time, including a nice long bike ride, breakfast at a restaurant, and swimming in our pool. In the evening, we had a date! Just Joe and I!! We had a great time; had a nice, relaxing dinner then a movie. Amazing that that was something we used to do all the time, nearly every weekend; but over the past year and a half have only done twice. Wouldn't change it for anything, though. :-) As if that wasn't enough, on Sunday Kai moved up to the next class at church...the 2 1/2 year old class. (sniff, sniff...where has my baby gone?) We had checked it out the previous Sunday after church and he loved it, he was so proud to be going to the "big boy class".

And of course, a few pics of our fun!

Bungees with Daddy at gymnastics on Friday.

He's getting pretty daring with this,

and was going so high that my tummy was doing flip-flops!

Helping Daddy blow out the candles.

Between the two of them, they managed to get all 8 out on one try.

Kai was shocked and amazed that he got a birthday treat. Not that we never give him sweets, but we definitely try to limit it, and we don't really eat them at home. You should have seen his face when we told him he got his own piece of cheesecake! And this Momma was thankful that he only ate about 2 bites, then just smooshed the rest around his plate.

Riding in the buggy.

OK, not the prettiest part of our city, but nice in it's own way...

Being silly with Mommy at the restaurant.

Foto Finish Friday

First "rock climbing" lesson with Grandpa Tom