Happy Halloween!

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy halloween!


When I was talking to friends at Elysha's halloween parade at her school, I was dressed like I normally was. A couple friends asked me about my costume (or lack thereof) and I said that I was "scary mom." Someone replied, "but isn't that what you are everyday?" Glad to know that I don't deceive anyone on being mom of the year...

I Totally Thought Wrong...

With the economy and our own (let's not kid ourselves anymore) financial situation, we've realized that we need to cut back on our expenses. Not that we are extravagant people, but we haven't really denied ourselves anything in the last few years. But we decided to get back on track and go on a semi-shopping fast. This includes Halloween costumes for the kids. Frankly, the girls have more dress up clothes than they know what to do with them. So even though I had to endure whining for an afternoon, I told the girls that I wasn't buying them a new costume. Elysha lucked out because she can wear Joey's old Cinderella costume from three years ago. Joey has to wear a repeat from a previous year (gasp! fashion faux pas for sure!). And for Sam, I thought he could wear the Pooh costume that I bought Joey when she was not quite one. It is 18-24 months in size so I thought it would fit Sam this year, even though he also wore it last year. Well, we went to the Brick or Treat party at Legoland this past Saturday and put Sam into the Pooh costume...

What do you think? Can he pull off the capri pants look???

A Visit from the Tooth Fairy

Joey lost her two front bottom teeth on Monday night. She lost one while she was eating dinner and I had to search the kitchen floor for it. I was so afraid she somehow swallowed it. So we wiggled the other loose tooth until it came out. She was so excited about the impending visit from the tooth fairy.

Later that night, Chang and I were already in bed when he suddenly remembered Joey's teeth in a bowl next to her bed (she was going to put it under her pillow but that kind of grosses me out. I convinced her to leave it in a bowl). Chang was going to go out and buy something for her but I didn't want to set a precedent for grand gifts from the tooth fairy. I kept arguing that a quarter per tooth was more than enough but Chang is a lot nicer than I am. So he made her an origami piano and gave her a dollar coin and a quarter.


I know that I said it before but I love that the kids believe in this stuff. For Christmas, we made gingerbread cookies and left out milk for Santa. Before we went to bed, Chang and I took bites of the three cookies and drank the milk. The next morning we could hear them running over to the plate, seeing the missing cookies and milk, and then bounding over to our room with mad excitement. "Santa came and ate the cookies and drank the milk!!!"

Elysha

I was thinking about Elysha while I was gone (I'm back now). Chang and I were laughing about how funny she is and I thought I would write about what makes her an individual person so different from Joey.

One of my all-time favorite photos--the day we brought Elysha home from the hospital, Joey was so excited.

This is when she was about six months old. Her eyes and cheeks grew the most.

And then her hair kept growing taller instead of longer...

Halloween 2006--Hard to believe that was just three years ago...

Elysha loved Sam immediately. He was two months old here and she is reading him a book.

Elysha with her precious desserts.

Happy 4th birthday...

As I said before, the only thing Elysha focuses on with any sort of tenacity is the consumption of dessert or any other treat. I guess she gets that from me. Otherwise, the girl gets distracted so easily. It takes her at least 30 minutes to put on her clothes in the morning. While I am trying to get their lunches together, feed them breakfast and put away the dishes, I'll run to the room to see what progress the girls have made in getting themselves ready. More often than not, I'll find Elysha sitting in her underwear (on a good day), playing with a toy, or reading a book, with her selected clothes strewn on the ground around her.

Me: Elysha! Get dressed!
Elysha: Huh? Oh yeah, I am getting dressed.
Me: Then put the book away.
Elysha: What book? I didn't take it out. Unni (Joey) took it out. It was already open so I was just looking at it while I was getting dressed.

I guess she gets that from her dad. She thinks she can talk her way in or out of anything. And then cocks her head and flashes her dimpled smile.

If the girl had it her way, she would be carried or strolled from point A to point B, always. We were at Legoland walking through mini-land. When we were ready to move on, I said, "Alright, let's go!" However, Chang and I couldn't see Elysha so we started to yell for her. Apparently, the moment I mentioned that we would be going to the next display, she jumped into the stroller but neither of us saw her do that. When Chang started pushing the stroller, he could feel her dead weight and turned to me and said, "where do you think she is?"

Usually when we walk anywhere and we force her to walk, she trails behind us 100 feet, as if to punish us. "If you are going to make me walk, I'm going to walk as slowly as possible." As we were leaving Legoland, Sam was squirming in the stroller so we let him get out. An unexpected opportunity! Suddenly, Elysha comes barreling out of nowhere and starts gunning toward the stroller. I swear I never saw her run so fast in her life.

I know that there are so many ways that Elysha and Joey are similar aside from their looks (we always get the "Are they twins?" question when one is clearly a head taller than the other). But we always feel like our kids are so different, and that's what makes it all so crazy and fun.

Monica Geller to the Rescue!

Wow! I didn't realize it has already been a week! I am in the east coast right now. Just me. Helping out my sister in law with her new baby. She and baby boy are doing great. So aside from cooking, I am helping her organize. She moved in with her hubby about two years ago and their first floor looks like they just moved in. Boxes and no furniture. The Monica Geller in me got excited at helping her get organized. We've finished the clean up, purchased furniture courtesy of my PB discount, and I am hanging up mirrors and pictures. I even got to use power tools which I haven't used in forever since Chang takes care of all those sorts of things. Let's just hope that everything doesn't fall off the walls when someone closes a door.

The in-laws have no tv and no junk food in the house. I had to buy my own chips and chocolate. I finished reading Jane Eyre last night and I am planning on reading the first two Twilight books again in anticipation of the movie. I thought I would be going through tv withdrawal but since I don't have my kids to wear me out each day, I don't need vegging time in the evenings.

I really do miss my babies though. Sam is so adorable these days and the girls have been pretty cute and less irritating ever since I implemented the 1-2-3 magic system. I'm enjoying my time off but I can't wait to get back home.

1-2-3 Magic!

So we were going through a period in which the kids were acting up and I was yelling at them so much that my throat would be sore by the end of the day. I would essentially throw my own tantrums whenever the kids threw theirs. I would like to say that I was trying to give them a taste of their own medicine but honestly, I was just losing it. I'm talking head-spinning, projectile vomiting losing it--me, not the kids, me.

One day, I realized that my ranting and raving was doing absolutely no good to correct my kids' behavior. Frankly, I was sick of hearing myself too. So I decided that I wasn't going to yell at the kids anymore. A mommy friend whose oldest is two years older than Joey, recommended this discipline book called 1-2-3 Magic years ago. I bought it maybe three years ago, flipped through it and then decided that the time wasn't right to implement it. The tenants of this books flashed before me recently and I realized that now is the time.

The premise of the book is that kids already know what they are doing wrong and parents tend to over-explain themselves. When your kid is acting up or doing something wrong, you look at them and tell your child, "that's one." You give your child another chance to correct their behavior and if they don't, then you say, "that's two." If you child continues to misbehave, then you say, "that's three, take five" (or however many minutes for time out).

It's been working for Joey and Elysha. Sam is too young so I haven't even bothered trying but Lord Almighty, the boy is definitely ready to be whooped soon.

My kids...masking their true insolent identity...