Merry Christmas

These past few weeks have been hectic for the whole family. We have been shopping for the kids and family, cleaning the house and attending the various Christmas parties with the boys.

We did manage to fit in Andrew's annual tradition of decorating his mini tree (albeit fake) that he keeps in his bed room. This year's theme, "Cars"!!! McQueen, Sally, the King, Chick Hicks and the rest of the gang adorned the tree.

They had fun tonight, and then off to bed. Everyone knows that Santa doesn't come until you are asleep.

Coco

Caleb is showing his independence more and more these days as he is now wanting to sit in a regular chair during meal time. He has found a new use for the booster seat, a place now for his friend Coco to sit in. My husband got Caleb this stuffed animal during one of his business trips a couple of years ago; our son has really latched onto it since day one.

Caleb is serving Coco a doughnut just before they are off to bed; obviously nobody told Coco that we don't eat sweets just before bed time!!!

Bowling

Andrew was invited to a birthday bowling party over the weekend. Going from left to right:

Photo 1: Great form, albeit two hands. But note the ball going straight down the alley.

Photo 2: A little body english to guide the ball to the desired spot

Photo 3: A look of "not quite where I wanted it to go"

Andrew's number one fan is watching his every move!

Hope for the Steelheads

Another disasterous start of by the Steelheads has given Andrew hope that he may be able to crack his uncle's hockey team line-up this year.

Their "pylon-like" defence will be bolstered by the agility of our son. He will quarter-back their inept power play and provide leadership both on the bench and in the dressing room. He will hold everyone accountable and everyone will show-up to play each and every night! No more floating around the ice. That means you....Sophie's dad!!!!

McQueen

The kids just love going to the mall. They could have played on McQueen for hours.

Back Blogging

It has been awhile since we last posted. Andrew recently had a week off from school for a reading break. He enjoys reading and will regularly help me out by reading to Caleb at nights. It is wonderful that the two of them get along. My husband suggested that we put them in the same bedroom next year. I am sure the "boys" would love that: Andrew and Caleb would play until the wee hours of the morning and the other "boy" would get his home office back (nice try!!).

Andrew and Caleb have really learned to appreciate music. Caleb is watching with great intensity "Funnuculi, Funnucula" and will hum the tune around the house. He literally stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it.

Andrew is slowly trying to teach himself piano. He will see the pianist, and says "it looks easy". He quickly learnt that it wasn't so.

Finally, one day I was wondering what happened to all the paper that was in the recycle bin. The "boys" are really into airplanes and my husband was teaching them how to fold an F-14. Believe it or not, Andrew and Caleb had more fun flying them around the house than if we had bought them a toy airplane. It reminds us that they do appreciate the simple things.

Caleb's Day

We got a nice surprise from Auntie Edith today. We received a cd full of pictures of Caleb. Caleb does a couple of days with her during the week at her daycare. Its good for Caleb as he gets to interact with kids his own age; also it gives my wife a chance to take a break from the kids to have some time for herself!

Halloween

For the last few years, our halloweens have been spent with our friends at church. It is a lot of fun and the church provides a save, warm and dry enviornment for everyone. The theme of the evening was "Knights of the Round Table".

We were struggling to outfit the kids when we saw a "knight" out fit for Andrew. It was inexpensive and it solved the problem of sewing a costume for Andrew.

I left Caleb's outfit in the hands of my husband; "I'll take care of it" he reminded me. Up until three days ago, he assured me that things were being taken care of. This has a literal translation of "On Oct 31st, I'll pop by the department store for his costume". Thursday night, he starts work on Caleb's costume. He used an old box to make his armor and shield, made a cape from some scape cloth in the closet. Caleb looked great and actually won a prize for best costume last night. My husband was gloating all night; rightfully so as he did do a great job. Now if he would only learn to fold laundry.

A Helping Hand

I recently re-discovered this video that was taken during the summer that I wanted to share with you.

We were on holidays and in the mornings, Caleb and Andrew were running around the hotel room. I wondered, how does Caleb get out of his crib in the morning? One day, I woke up early to solve this mystery.

I couldn't believe my eyes!

Weekend of Discovery

We had another wonderful weekend of discovery with the boys. Andrew was able to lift himself up with a pulley system; he thought he was so strong. Next the boys saw the dinosaur exhibit; they skelatons were so, so big. The next exhibit was a real live space craft. It was left here by aliens....can you believe it. Finally, onto the train remote controls...choo, choo! Needless to say, the parents were exhausted by the end of the day.

Espaňol

Andrew has a Spanish recital next week. We need to practice, practice and practice.

I have no idea what he is saying. He could be planning a revolution and reciting the teachings of Geronimo Stilton for all I know!!!

Homework

Our son really enjoys school; really he does. Andrew is at a stage where he is beginning to read. Learning new words really excites him. His favorite books, the Geronimo Stilton series. His classmate Claudia introduced him to these books. They are quite well written, even my husband and I enjoy reading the adventures of Geronimo, his sister Thea, cousin Trap and, his nephew Benjamin.

Caleb just loves Dora and her gang. He can now name all the characters. With a little prompting, Caleb can even say a few spanish words (not that he understands them). It is fun to watch Caleb as he interacts with the Dora DVD as she says "jump". Caleb will follow the commands and jump, or raise his hands, or clap, or other things she is telling him to do. We think Caleb has been conditioned by Andrew to follow commands, "Caleb, clean my room", "Caleb, get me the TV remote control" or "Caleb, put this away for me".

Andrew had a friend come over this weekend. He was only allowed to invite her over only when he had completed his chores (which he sub-contracts to Caleb whenever he can) and, finished his homework. I have never seen Andrew finish his homework so fast. At times working with him when he doesn't want to do the homework, can be like pulling teeth. My husband magically disappears when it comes to chinese homework, and you can bet he's not doing the laundry.

Chinese Food

The blog today is about me.

There something to be said about tradition. Thanksgiving and Christmas are two days when I really enjoy a good feast. A feast where after the meal, you need to go lie on the couch, turn on the TV and, take a short nap. The meal is of course turkey, and turkey means cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, carrots, pumpkin pie and, lots and lots of gravy!!! This is a tradition that marks the beginning of fall, the "fall feast" I call it! Vegetarians come at their own risk.

This year was a little different, on my wife's suggestion, we went out to eat….a chinese restaurant of all places. Somehow eating rice, honey garlic pork, tofu, crab and some unknown fish is not what I pictured the pilgrams eating during their time of giving thanks. I mean, did the pilgrams become lazy and ordered take-out from Manchu Wok? Were they thankful for T&T opening up? I looked and looked for a turkey item on the menu, the closest thing they had was chicken....and it was steamed (gross).

Let’s remind ourselves that rice is not a substitute for mashed potatoes, pork is not turkey, tofu is definitely not turkey, crab is not pumpkin pie and, the pilgrams would have packed it up and gone home if they were served fish.

In the end, my wife went to Safeway and bought me a pumpkin pie that night, so all was not lost.

Happy Thanksgiving

We went over to my sister's place for dinner the other night. The boys just love it when we go over as my sister has toys that the kids just love to play with. They spent about an hour playing with this air hockey table....they had so much fun.

The highlight of the night? My sisters finding a source to buy frozen croissaants! What would they do without "Google"?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!

Good Night

Just before Andrew goes to sleep, Caleb gives him a peck on the cheek, and wishes him sweet dreams.

They are each other's best friends....most of the time.

Weekend Trip

We took a little ferry trip this weekend with the boys. Both of them are quite fascinated with the various modes of public transit. We think the novelty of not being strapped into a car seat while moving, plays a big part in the fun they have riding the buses, the trains or the ferry system.

Weekends are normally quite busy for us. With church, hockey (for both dad and Andrew), grocery shopping, laundry and the odd family get together, it can be quite overwhelming. It's moments like this little getaway where we enjoy being together as a family that makes the weekends very special....now if we can only remember to ditch the cellphones before we leave.

We have been doing a purge of the kid's clothes over the past few days. It is amazing to see how they have grown so much since the beginning of summer. T-shirts that fit them only a few months ago, are now too small. My husband's storage system (motto) of shoving it in a box and sorting it out later has really proven its worth (to him at least)......especially since I am the one now doing the sorting. Two years ago, in a momentary lack of judgement for no more than a nano-second, I agreed to HIS system. The other day, he pulled the storage totes of Andrew's old clothes out of the crawl space. Much to my horror, he had literally taken the clothes from the dirty laundry bins and threw them into the totes. I was horrified when I saw the tangled mess of fermenting laundry!!!! If it wasn't for the shrimp and artichoke salad he made me the other night, he would be doing the laundry right now (wait a second, he does a terrible job on the laundry and I end up redoing it anyways!!!).

His Hope, His Dream!

Those familiar with us know that our family enjoys hockey. My husband plays and is eagerly waiting for the day when Andrew and Caleb can play ice hockey with him. He is a goalie and although he always says he plays the sport for the fun of it, he can get quite competitive. If he had a shutout going, I am pretty sure that he would not let either one of the boys score on him just to make them feel good about themselves - he wouldn't be able to resist saying he managed to shut them out.

My husband also has a secret dream that Caleb (who seems to have really good hand-eye coordination) will be the next Roberto Luongo. In the unlikely event that Caleb did manage to make it into the NHL, his dad would undoubtedly justify his cause to buy season tickets! We'll just all nod and let him keep dreaming!

Another Item for the Freezer

We went grocery shopping with the kids over the weekend. This is something that we really enjoy doing as a family. For the kids, they love lining up for samples given out at the market. It's nice to see them wanting to try new things.

One of the items we sampled were these frozen dumplings that you cook on your stove top. You add a little water and oil, cover with a lid and steam them. When the water has evaporated, the dumplings are done - idiot proof and fast (a little over 10 minutes). The kids loved the teeny, tiny morsels that were given out as samples. For us, if the kids like the samples, our question to the person doing the demo is "can we get a discount if we buy bulk?" Besides, doesn't the picture on the bag look yummy?

Well, tonight we cooked the dumblings for Andrew and Caleb as a little snack just before bed time as they both were a little hungry. When we cooked the dumplings, they turned out a little soggy (probably added a bit too much water). Isn't it funny how at the demo at the market, the samples always come out perfectly? We figured, "No problem, just a little extra water... more juicy, right?" We put the dumplings in front of Andrew who looked at them and said "you've got to be kidding!" We encouraged him to try it, and after putting one in his mouth, he spat it out and had this look of utter disgust on his face. Caleb spat his out too and refused to eat them, just like his big brother.

Well, we thought about the best approach to get them to eat the dumplings and realized that our options included 1) lecture them on how difficult it is to make money to buy these expensive dumplings, 2) tell them how there are poor people in the world who don't get to eat even one meal a day, or 3) remind them that they were the ones that wanted to buy these damn things in the first place. Eventually we decided on the tried and tested method for getting kids to eat Chinese food.....add more soy sauce and beg them to eat.

After much pleading and numerous threats, we managed to get them to finish a few more dumplings. We promised that we would make it better the next time. Andrew immediately retorted, "Better next time? I don't ever want to eat this stuff again!"

The dumplings are now stacked nicely away in the freezer and in about six months when we do our semi annual freezer purge, the remaining 11 bags will be rediscovered and tossed into the garbage can.

Why I Like School

I asked Andrew the other day what it is about school that he really likes. Do you like P.E. the best? What do you enjoy about music or reading time? He says that he likes to hang around his friends and they are all fun to be with. One of his best friends is Olivia. At home he refers to her as O-L-I-V-I-A. He literally spells her name out. They were in the same class last year, but were assigned to different classes this year.

Aza is his other good friend. He comes home some days and tells us, "Aza did this and Aza did that. She is soooooo cool!" At this age, he's having the time of his life and is not worried about global warming, the collapse of US housing market, inflation and all the other things that we adults think about. All Andrew is concerned about is whether he has to finish his Mandarin homework by the weekend so he can watch TV.

The Little One

Caleb is really an amazing individual. As Andrew's little brother, he gets taken advantage of (see last blog) by him, but he takes it all in stride. It's a nice reminder to us that life can be quite comical if you don't get stressed out over the little things.

He has just started going to day-care, twice a week. I think part of the novelty for Caleb is that in the morning, Andrew is going somewhere and he wants to be part of it. Caleb just loves day-care and has created a nice bond with "Auntie Edith". She is very caring and is great with kids. He has played with one of the kids already there (from church), so the transition was quite easy for him.

The Big Brother

It is quite amazing watching the two of them interact. Almost everything that Andrew does, Caleb wants to do the same. Over the weekend, Andrew gave Caleb a hat to wear. Because his older brother was wearing it backwards, Caleb had to do the same.

At times though, the relationship between the two of them just cracks me up. We had told Andrew to clean up his room. A few minutes later we hear the sound of toys being put away. Much to our surprise, Andrew had gotten Caleb to clean up his room for him while Andrew sat reading a book. In Andrew's words, "I'm learning to supervise and I'm teaching Caleb to be obedient."

Here we go

We're now into cybering and we have now set up a blog.

We're not sure where this will lead, or how many entries we will add, but we were inspired by Yetta's blog and how wonderful it is to read about the activities of someone's daily life.

Check her blog out at:
http://www.langlangcreations.blogspot.com/

The stars of our show....Andrew and Caleb.