Halloween festivities

The kids got dressed up for a couple of outdoor neighborhood events in the morning but it was so hot we had to undress them and ended up taking some glass pumpkin pictures instead. Fortunately, our friend's indoor party had the AC on so they got to stay in character for a little while before active Katrina got too warm in her extra cozy costume. Enjoy the album:

Halloween 2008

Mini pumpkin patch

This year we went with the Au family - we picked a smaller patch at a nursery 'cause both families have very young kids who can be easily overwhelmed. At first I worried it might not be as fun as those mega farms but the kids still had fun, thanks to the unexpected "play" patch and a train show that happened to be there also.

There was this cool pony ride where the ponies weren't harnassed to a merry-go-round type structure but were allowed to roam around. We were going to let Marcus and Katrina ride along together but our kids got up late that morning and we had to meet other families for dim sum so they missed out this time, but there's always next year !

Katrina did try a stunt she hadn't tried before though - check out the album:

Pumpkin Patch 2008

Charisse's B-day party

It was a fun outdoor party for everyone

Enjoy the album:

Charisse's 3rd B-day

Love is....

Katrina started saying "I love you" to us a lot recently. Jonathan wasn't exceptionally excited because he thought it's not very meaningful when they say it at this age thinking she probably didn't know what she's saying or was just saying it for fun. One day I asked her if she knew what "I love you" meant, she said "即係好鍾意你囉 !" I went "係嘞 !" and felt it validated my mommy instinct that knew she meant what she said even before she answered.

A few days later, Katrina said "I love you" while she and Nathan were having breakfast together. Nathan the copycat then went "I LUB YOU" loudly too. I turned from packing lunch and noticed a big pool of milk on the floor right in front of his seat (he had intentionally "spooned" milk from his cup to the floor, a favorite stunt performed often whenever I turned my back for just a moment) With a sigh, I commented while I was wiping off the spill, "如果你知道'I love you"點解, 你就唔會特登倒啲奶落地下啦, 咁你知唔知道 'I love you' 點解呀?" While Nathan just looked at me with his big round eyes, Katrina answered wisely "即係唔叫你做辛苦嘅嘢 !"

啟蒙喇

Being the younger one, Nathan is of course always mimicking Katrina and has picked up a lot of the nuances of her speech like 係咪? 吖嘛, 喇, 呀,喎, 咁. I had wondered if they might reverse the leader and follower roles at some point.

He's finally shown that he's his own little person when one day he was playing with his fingers and had a revelation and exclaimed happily "爸爸 ! 好多triangle !" Katrina thought it was interesting and did the same hand gesture and chimed in with the "好多triangle" saying for a few blocks.

It's probably a silly thing to blog about but Katrina's grown so fast that I really don't remember how she went from barely babbling to thinking and speaking so maturely now. I really have to work less and relish spending them with these kids more before they grow taller than me....

大力小BB

After a long hiatus, (flus, computer trouble, ridiculous work hours etc.) we're finally back online. This video was actually taken before Nathan's birthday so it was right around the time he got really sick, otherwise he's actually a lot stronger ! He wasn't 2 yet so techically still a baby, but he sure looks quite big and is pulling about 1.25 times his own weight

31 in 17

I took this video to show my sister how much Katrina loves the Bible she got her (thanks sis !)

In this video, Katrina named 31 major Biblical characters in 17 seconds. (She's done it faster but I don't always have a camera around.) Katrina's one of those who likes to flip to the end of a book before reading the first page. She quickly found this page and made me name 'em them all for her. She memorized all of it flawlessly after reading through them maybe 3-4 times.

She even has all the faces matched up to the names so well that she would happily announce the name of the new character ("yay, Solomon !") as soon as she sees a picture as we flip to a new page.

I'm sure her love of this Bible has a lot to do with the extremely well done artwork (it's really very cute), but this girl still amazes me all the time. (I'll be very happy if my memory is half as good as hers nowadays)

Speed Reading

Words of wisdom

When Katrina was learning to speak in Chinese, she picked up everything so fast that we never had to teach her anything word by word. With Nathan, (the experts are right when they say boys's language skills emerge a little slower), we had to teach him '唔' and '該' separately.

In hearing us teach Nathan, Katrina realizes that some of the 'compound' Chinese words she's been using forever as 'one word' can actually be 'broken apart' and each character can have its only meaning.

Here are her words of wisdom to Nathan: 淨係講個唔字就曳喇,如果加埋個該字,咁就唔曳喇. (即係唔著襪, 唔食嘢, 唔瞓覺 就曳, 但係講唔該就乖喇)

Baby Breann is here

Little Breann arrived on Feb 17th. My brother-in-law is so organized, emailing baby photos and calling everyone just hours after the birth from the hospital.
Besides sharing the same birth month, Katrina and Breann also weighed about the same (6 lb 14oz. vs. 6 lb 10 oz.). They also have the same last name even though only their moms are related. I thought Breann looks quite a bit like Katrina when she was also a few hours old.
Of course kids look different everyday and only time will tell if they end up looking alike. Hopefully they'll get to see each other more and become friends when they grow up.

Katrina's Birthday Party

The timing of Katrina's birthday means it'll always fall right around Superbowl weekend - fortunately none of her young friends have become football fans yet But her birthday also will always be around 農曆新年 (Chinese New Year). In fact, her birthday falls exactly on 農曆新年 this year ! She was bummed a few of her friends were out-of-town for CNY festivities and couldn't make it to her party, but she still managed to have a pretty good time. Enjoy the pictures:

Katrina's 4th B-day

Marcus' Birthday Party

Marcus and Katrina are only a few weeks apart in age so they've been friends for a long time. It's fun to watch them grow together as lose their baby fat and gain their oval faces and tall lean builds together.

As usual, it's always hard to capture kids' photos but here are our attempts:

Marcus' 4th B-day