The artist formerly known as...

I met with some mommy friends from church yesterday and I noticed something about myself. I can speak a little bit more coherently than before. These GRE words are flying out of my mouth and my eyes grow big with glee realizing that I thunk up such big words on the fly. Words like juxtaposition, laconic, fo' shizzle. And I think it has do to with the fact that I have been blogging. Prior to this, I have only written emails and some Arbonne trainings since I left the work world. I do have a mommy journal that has some ramblings about Joey and Elysha as babies. But that is about it.

I kept saying last night that I believe everyone has one good novel in them. I have always wanted to write mine. I have no delusions that I can actually make a living by being a scribe. Or that Angelina Jolie will play me in the movie, that is based on the book, that is based on my life. But I just know that at the very least, I have a good short story that I can cook up and some periodical will want to publish it (maybe Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Our Family Newsletter--only the distinguished journals).

I used to write all the time--mostly poems. But my poetry came from a very melancholic heart--which is why I LOVED foreign poets. Aside from Edgar Allen Poe, I found that foreign poets were the most passionate, yearning-filled, and unrequited. And I identified with them so profoundly. But then God healed my heart and my life fell into place. Then there was silence. From time to time, the silence was deafening. But I always felt that I could not let myself get to that emotional state, that for me, is my creative state.

These days, however, there is a yearning to write again...I guess we'll just have to see...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

"Lady, why do you keep screaming "NO!" at me when I am trying to reach a developmental milestone?"
Elysha unwilling to let Sam steal her thunder...

Sam figured out how to propel his body forward. It is kind of funny. He uses a few different methods to move forward:

1) Frog crawl--He gets up on both knees and jumps with both feet. But his arms can't keep up so he does a face plant. But mission accomplished, he has moved about 6 inches.

2) Monkey crawl--He gets up on one knee and one foot and pushes himself forward with his foot. Again, his arms can't keep up so he does a face plant and then rolls over on his back because of the momentum. But, mission accomplished, he has moved about 8 inches.

3) Baby crawl--He can't go more than one or two lengths before falling back onto his stomach.

He has already bonked his head once with the monkey crawl since he has the least control with this movement. I think he has been the most determined to move out of the three kids because I don't remember such clumsy movement with Joey and Elysha. Joey did the commando crawl at 6 months so she was the fastest in terms of figuring out how to move forward. Sam is second at 7 months with his weird methods of crawling, and Elysha just did the normal baby crawl at 8 months--she didn't monkey around with anything else.

As much as I think this latest development really stinks for me, he has the biggest smile on his face when he realizes that he was able to propel himself forward. So I suppose it is not so bad...

My garden

So my pride and joy (aside from my kids) has been my garden. I finally took a few photos...

tomatoes

cucumber

zucchini

cantelope

roses

I still need to landscape the front and there is so much more cleanup I need to do in the back. Once Elysha goes to school with Joey, I plan on gardening more and exercising too. I can't wait!

Elysha is THREE!

Elysha turned three on Saturday, which coincidentally was the day of her party. We had a small party for her at our house. Nowadays, if we invite 10 families, it is 40 people! So we had to limit the invite list (so sorry if you are local and reading about the party!)

Anyhow, I tried to get my female ego to kick in and be Martha Stewarty (yup, that's a real word folks). I sat down for about two hours one night and created some spreadsheets--guest lists so I can keep track of how many favors, crafts, etc I would need; how many adults vs kids were coming so I could cook age appropriate foods. Then I created another workbook of shopping lists, to-do's for each day the week leading up to the party, and then an exact list of to-do's the day of the party. This helped me so much! Chang also took half of Friday off to set up all the shades and canopies since we expected it to be 100 degrees. So we were actually on time in setting up for the party--food table was all set, decorations up, and we were just waiting for our guests to arrive. Wohoo!

In terms of my "creative contributions" I made crispy treats that looked like lei's:

...Okay, if you cross your eyes and turn your head sideways, it will look like a lei, I swear...

I cut out different colored hibiscus flowers and spelled out Aloha (Joey and Elysha helped make some of the flowers):

The amoebae (plural form of amoeba--learned something new today) flowers are courtesy of Joey. She has to do whatever I am doing, and for a four-year old, she is quite competent.

And I photoshopped the following photo to hang up:

Chang did not appreciate the coconut shells on "Joey" or that I used his body for "Sam." He doesn't like to show off his rock hard abs. Yup, back off ladies, that Brad Pitt body double is mine!

I also made little favor tags with a picture of Elysha on the back and tied it onto the favors with raffia. Why did I take photos of my creative stuff and post it? Because this is so not me and I am very proud of myself! Maybe that female gene exists in me somewhere!

Sam is SEVEN months! Already!

Like, OMG! Sam is already more than 1/2 a year old! How did time go by so fast? This past weekend, people kept saying to me that he is less "blob"by and more developed. =( He will always be my cuddle bunny to me.

Anyhow, unfortunately, mobility appears to be just around the corner for us. He already can scoot backwards so he pretty much gets into everything in the play room. He is also able to pick himself up onto his knees and feet for seconds at a time, and sometimes he rocks back and forth. Today he tried to move forward on his knees but just took a nose dive. I know I'm a bad mom but I just watch him and silently freak out.

Look at his determination!

This does not bode well for us, folks...

She's growin' up so fast but it is about time!

I know I am posting a lot today but I am making up for my long silence. I was trying to remember when I could do things by myself...you know...like take a shower by myself, brush my teeth by myself, wipe my butt by myself...you get the picture. I am fairly certain that I could do most things by myself by the time I turned 5. Probably because my parents were too busy working to do a lot of things for me--so it was for survival.


Chang and I are guilty of doing things for the girls that they can do for themselves because it is easier, for example, to put their shoes on for them, than to yell at them for 5 minutes to put their shoes on while they pretend they can't hear us. But we've started to realize that perhaps we aren't making them grow up enough. Hearing the girls yell,"Doooooooooone!" when they are done using the potty so we can wipe their butts for them is getting more than a little irritating. Even if we yell back, "Do it yourself. You can do it." They just yell back, "I don't want to. You do it!" So Chang and I have been making a concerted effort to make the girls more independent.


This evening, Joey almost gave herself a bath from head to toe. She missed some of her hair when shampooing and couldn't get her back when soaping her body, but she did alright. She and Elysha also put away their own laundry as I was folding it the other day. And, Joey even fed Elysha some of her dinner tonight because Elysha is the laziest, slowest eater around--unless it is the good stuff like chocolate chip cookies--then she's very diligent and quite quick! ha ha

Joey holding her hair because we are going to donate it to locks of love.

Elysha holding Joey's hair because she has to do everything her sister is doing--including taking a picture with her sister's hair.

Ramblings, rants about being a mom...

I made dinner tonight with zucchini that I grew in my garden. It was almost ridiculous how happy it made me to be able to put my own organically grown veggie into my meal. As I stirred my Trader Joe's organic pasta sauce, with my free range chicken and homegrown zucchini, I thought, I am a housewife. And I should have fun with it. Be the best damn housewife out there! I've been doing pretty well with making healthy, minimally processed meals meals. Okay, I confess that my aunt has been cooking for me for three days a week and we used to eat out every weekend. But now I only have my aunt for a day and I have been cooking our meals on the weekends too. So cooking, gardening...I would like to try and make a dress for Joey and Elysha. I think it would be fun and a good memory for us. So we'll see how that turns out...to be continued...

I have also been working out because I am about 15 lbs heavier than normal. Not to brag but with Joey, I was back in a size 0 by 4 months. With Elysha, I was back to a size 0 by 8 months. Granted, things shifted, shrunk, and jiggled, but it happened, with little to no effort. But this time...dude...I don't know if it's cuz I am over 30 or if it is child number 3, but this is so haaaard!!!! I have reduced my food intake (which for those who know me, is like shooting myself in the foot. Scratch that, it is like giving birth without drugs--yup, that difficult and painful). I have succumbed to exercising which is even harder than reducing my food intake. Exercising is so painful that for a month, I couldn't bring myself to do it more than once a week. But after a month of less food and a little exercise, I honestly thought I would just get back into my old clothes. So I was shocked when I jumped on the scale for the first time and saw that I was about the same weight as when I was 38 weeks pregnant!

My one consolation with each workout is an ice cream sandwich. It used to be Diddy Reese each time, but clearly, I need to downgrade to skinny cows. I already have a list of foods that I am going to celebrate with when I put on my pair of skinny jeans when Sam turns one. Yup, I am going to look even better than before because this time, I am going to be toned, muscular, and fabulous!



Picture of us when Elysha was 8 months...and our surrogate son for the day Ryan Kang. Sigh...if only I could squeeze into those jeans today...

Tea for two, two for tea...

Joey asked me to invite her friends over on Thursday for a tea party. I thought, you know, why not? Well, not this Thursday since we're having a small party for Elysha on Saturday (she's turning three!). So in the meantime, I set up a little tea party for the girls. They put on their Korean dresses (hanbok) and poured each other "tea." I even cut a rose from my garden to make their setup fancier (they LOVE Fancy Nancy).

Sam-centered blog?

Okay, so maybe I gush too much about Sam and not enough about the girls. But they have been fighting so much and whining so much these days that I am ready to ship them away.

So, I am going to try to do devotionals with them everyday and see if it helps. First of all, focus on them a little bit more and spend quality time with them. Secondly, that the fruit of the spirit would grow in them...I need it too! Especially patience...

Sam can get his groove on

Sam started clapping the other day and it is soo cute! He get so excited by my excitement that starts flailing his arms like he's trying to take flight.

He also started to say "umma" which just melts my heart of course. When he first wakes up, instead of crying, he just lies in his crib and says, "umma, umma." (umma is mommy in Korean). Everytime I try to record him saying it, he just smiles and babbles. But the moment I put the camera away, he can't stop saying it.

Joey and Elysha didn't seem to have much trouble teething. With Joey, she would open up her mouth and I would see another tooth come out. So easy. But Sam seems to be teething forever and just today, I finally see a tooth break through the gums. Hallelujah!

Aside from his teething though, Sam is definitely the sweetest baby ever.

Elysha's new haircut

Ever since I cut Joey's hair, Elysha has been begging me to cut her hair too. I cut off about 7 inches since we have realized how much easier it is to manage short hair. I can hardly recognize my own little girl in this picture.

I wanted to take a picture of Elysha and Sam--this picture cracks me up. It's like I asked them to look as miserable as possible.

Chang and I took some pictures with Sam. We have no pictures of us holding Sam. It is usually Sam with his sisters. So, whom does Sam look more like?

Daddy or Mommy?