Choo choo.....

This was Yoshi's 3rd birthday party, and for the first time, I can tell he really understand it's his special day. He had so much fun with all his great friends. Choo choo....

Yoshi is 3 years old

Yoshi has just turned 3 years old yesterday. I just can't believe 3 years have gone by so fast. Since Kiharu was born, Yoshi has almost grown up to be a big brother over night. He's really a great brother. People say "terrible two" was the toughest, but I think if u keep in mind that everything they did are out of curiousity, things will be much easier to accept and handle. 3 years old marks the beginning of a conversational relationship to us. He is able to combine his volcabularies into sentence, expressing himself, and we have a two way conversation finally...the fun has just began.

At 3 years old, Yoshi........
- is able to sing the whole birthday song...
- is able to recognize his friends and remembering their names...
- is in love with shinkansen trains (toys and videos), and remembering each models....
- is still enjoying music, singing and dancing...
- is a very caring brother to little sister Kiharu, he would ask me to hold her whenever she cries..
- likes given options to pick from (apples or banana; indoor or outdoor; truck or train toy)
- gets so excited when Nori is home or even a phone call, he would want to talk to him...
- favorite food-chicken, yogurt, gold fish crackers....

p.s- the other day, he was looking at the toys in a store. He kept pointing out a truck, and indicating he wanted that. He even said "好啦， 俾錢啦" (ok, let's pay...) (I was suprised). After seeing how much he wanted that truck, I got a bit persuaded, especially the next day was his birthday.

However, I was debating in the store if it's right to buy it for him. Not about the toy, but more of the thought process. I had noticed he's now into toys (who doesn't), sometimes little car for $1, why not. But as it happened more often, perhaps he thought it's ok on everything else. At the end, I told him, let's come back some other time with Nori, and show daddy the truck. I made sure he understood what I meant by having him repeated what I said.

At one point, he pretended rubbing his eyes hoping to gain some sympathy perhaps....I caught it right away, so I had to pull him aside and repeated what I said. When we walked out the door, I told him he's a good boy saying goodbye to the truck and not fuzz at all. He's actually very proud of himself too.... It's really interesting to see how he behaved and knowing what's in his mind. He's not a baby anymore, he sure understood what we want to teach him. I can't believe he's 3 already.....

3 days garage sale

These past 3 days, we were being invited to participatee at my friend's multi family garage sale. It's been a year since we did it at our house. So I had pulled out a bunch of things from the basement. It's a fun 3 days event, except with the challenge of Kiharu's nap. She couldn't take any good naps, so I had to carry her most of the time. Yoshi had lots of fun playing inside the house with other kids who are all Japanese, which he had picked up even more Japanese languages. After the long 3 days of work (yes, I called it 'work'), 3 of us had earned $115 in total, which is pretty good, considering I got rid of a bunch of stuff (ranging from $0.25 to $4 marking), and we already spent 1/3 of the earning treating daddy to dinner last night. ^_^ As the old saying "someone's junk is someone else's treasure".

Daddy's Buddies

"Mommy's boy & Daddy's girl"...but in our house, it's more like "Daddy's boy & Daddy's girl". When Nori's home, happiness and laugh are filled in the air. They are buddies!!

Schedule adjustment

As Yoshi gets older, we used to find it much easier to go out. Like in the weekends, instead of a fix nap time, we would just plan on having him taking naps in the car, in between our store to store visits. We would go out in a much longer period of time.

But with Kiharu now, I found it very challenging to do so, not only I have to plan around the 3 hrs feeding intervals (constantly debating when or where I should feed her when we are outside), also the in and out the car with car seat/stroller, it's just a lot of work. And without a good long nap in the morning or afternoon, she tends to be much crankier and harder to calm down. (of course, everyone feels the same way). With so many restrains, there were days which I felt like it's easier to just stay at home (including the crying situation)....but that's just not me, I can't be stuck at home.. I guess in some way, we just have to re-adjust our schedules, putting baby's (sleeping) need back into priority.......Zzzzzz

Only mom (& grandma) will do that...

Only mom & grandma will peel grape skin for their kids. ....... thanks to my friend, Poki's little gadget, I have decided to give it a try (while the kids were napping). Normally I don't peel grape skin, but I know back in my mind, it's better to do so if possible (if I have time and mood). After spending 15 mins peeling little grapes, then I realized I bought the wrong grape....I misread the word "seed" as "seedless..."....huh.....well, these are "grapes of love" for sure. Seeing how HAPPY Yoshi was eating these grapes, all the effort are well spent.

While I was reading my cook book planning for dinner, she was in great mood, being cute.....then few mins later, she was tired of sitting on the chair and getting sleepy, then she opened her mouth and cry... no, it's more of scream.......

Just another day

Yoshi is recovering from his cold, he still has running nose, plus the weather was bad, so we stayed home 2 days in a row.....

I gave him the egg foam container, he decided to use it as the train tunnel...

(on the phone with grandparents this morning...........)

鬼のパンツ (Japanese song)

Happy Mother/Grandma's Day

Happy Mother/ Grandma's Day. It's been few days since I updated the blog. Lately, I've been using my little free moments digging out items around the house for upcoming garage sale. I told Nori, if I can sell all those stuff, Yoshi can go to college for free....^_^ And I'm also starting to prepare for Yoshi's 3rd birthday party. There are still few weeks to go, but if I don't start now, it will never happen, can't believe he's almost 3.....

Today we had dim sum lunch at Chinese restaurant, then followed by grocery shopping at Asian store...both places were full of PEOPLE.....I never felt the need to take nap in the weekend, but I did afterwards. Are u kidding? N-A-P?? yeah right. Once we got home,, Kiharu decided she's hungry, then followed by poppy business, then fully awake.... so my nap was more like 10 mins eyes shut.... I guess mother's day is still mother's (working) day......but at least we got to eat at Japanese restaurant for dinner, one less meal to cook. (Nori, arigato)

Here is part of an article my friend sent me~~~
The joy of Motherhood...........
Before I was a Mom, I had never been puked on. Pooped on. Chewed on. Peed on. I had complete control of my mind and my thoughts. I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom, I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn't stop the hurt. I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much.

Before I was a Mom, I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay. I had never known the warmth, the joy, the love, the heartache, the wonderment or the satisfaction of being a Mom. I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much.............
.............and before I was a mom, I never knew EXACTLY how much grandma(s) have done for me/us.....THANK YOU 婆婆 & Obaachan.

Dandelion wishes

These past 2 days, weather had turned from rainy weekend to sunny weekdays, so I had been busy packing picnic lunches. Yesterday, Nori even able to join us for lunch, Yoshi was SUPER excited seeing Otousan. Though with the hot weather, I'm so exhausted arriving home, but it's well worth seeing how much fun Yoshi had. Can't wait for Kiharu to be old enough to run around with her big brother.