How does your garden grow?

On Saturday night Taipan and I went to Target, and while we were there we saw flower headbands in the dollar section. We decided to get a couple. When we got home, we spent an hour or two playing with them.

Here are the kids (and me) trying on the headbands:



Then Taisim had an idea of growing flowers, so we all took turns being the gardener and the flowers. We used a pool noodle light saber as our shovel, and as soon as a hole was dug by the gardener, the flower got into the hole with their seed (the ball is the seed).

Here's Yuta getting ready to be planted, and then Taisim watering him, and giving him some sunlight (the olive pillow is the sun), and finally our beautiful Papa-flower is blooming (I think that pic looks a bit like the statue of liberty too):



Now it's Yuta's turn to be the gardener, and Taisim is the flower:


Taipan wanted to be our photographer and videographer while we were growing flowers. He took some of the ones above, and also had fun taking pictures with Yuta's iPhone. I did grab him for a mother-son picture:


Two great pictures of Yuta and Taisim:


And this is one of the pictures taken by Taipan - we've got about five of these where he took a picture of himself, and Yuta jumped in a couple:

Hopscotch and other fun

I decided to take Friday off of work ... I've had a lot of long days lately, and wanted to have some extra time with Taipan & Taisim. As luck would have it, it was a warm day. A bit overcast and windy, but not cold. So around noon the kids and I went to the park - it was so nice to be there after so many months!

Here they are at a picnic table, eating some of the many snacks we brought with us. In the first picture Taisim is helping get Taipan's hair our of his eyes, which was sweet.


After the park we stopped at the library to pick up a DVD we had on hold, and stayed there to play for about 30 mins, and then some friends were waiting for us in our neighborhood (they beat us there by about 10 mins). We did a lot of "adventure" sword and pirate play that afternon, but we also did a bit of hopscotch, and that's what I caught pictures of.

We ended up with three hopscotch ... um, boards? areas? ... anyway, our routine is to draw them, and then deocrate each of the squares. Here's the first hopscotch, before I decorated the squares:


And here's the third one (again before we decorated the boxes) - Taipan helped me draw this one. The "8" is intentionally a sideways rectangle, and when you jump on that one you're supposed to jump sideways.


The rain washed them away already .... but we're already talking about doing more once it's drier (and warmer again).

Making soap

On Sunday we made glycerin soap - it was a lot of fun, and we'll probably make more once we're out.

I put pictures on Facebook ... so instead of posting them here too, visit this link to see the pictures.  Supposedly anyone can see the pics, even if you're not on facebook.  Let me know if that's not so.

Our Valentine's Day

Even though I've titled this post "valentine's day", we didn't do a whole lot around the holiday.  We gave each of the kids some chocolate and told them how much we love them ... but that's an every day occurrence around here :-)

Anyway, Yuta was working, so the kids and I played at home all day.  We were invited to a friends' house, but we declined.   When Yuta got home from work around 7:30 I ran out to the store to get some errands done so that I could have all day Sunday to hang out at the house and not rush around.

A while back we picked up Doodle Tops at the thrift store - tops that are pens and make spirals and such.  We bring them out every few weeks - this weekend Taisim had fun with them, along with the cat.  I didn't get a good photo with Cooper, but he loved batting them around the table.

While we were doing this, Taipan had been playing Lord of the Rings on the XBox, and right about the time Taisim & I finished up, Taipan was ready for a battle.  This picture is pre-battle smiles!

I was trying to get a shot of Taipan battling, and Taisim wanted to get in the picture and smile, so here she is smiling, and Taipan is behind her with either a sword or a staff (some of our pool noodles are staffs now).  And the next one is Taipan being an archer .... we use our nerf guns as bows.

Mid-battle Taisim decided to play with Barbies, and then she wanted to be a pricess with her tiara, wand and shoes:

Princess Taisim hiding from her attacker, and Taipan poised to attack:

Taisim is 3

Our original plan for Taisim's birthday was to go to Chuck E Cheese with some friends, however we ended up not going because Taipan was sick (he's better now).  Fortunately it didn't damper anyone's spirits, and we had a great day.

In the late morning we did gifts, and then Yuta and Taisim went to pick up the cake.  She had requested a princess cake, and one with a  castle if possible.  I looked up some ideas for how to do a castle cake on my own, but the thought of it was too daunting.  Instead we went to the grocery store, and she picked a princess cake from the book.  She was so happy to have that cake, and we now have three new princesses to add to our collection.  And you'll see in the pictures below that Taisim graciously allowed Taipan to help her blow the candles.

Later in the afternoon Ama and Akon stopped by with birthday wishes.  Taisim and Taipan were happy to see them, though right around that time Taisim fell asleep, so her time with them was pretty short.

I love love love my kids' birthdays.  I appreciate and enjoy them every day, but I like having a whole day where it's foremost in my mind how important their presence is in my life.

On to the pictures:

Taisim's Birth Day (2/10/2006)

Taisim's third birthday is tomorrow, and one of my favorite things to do around the kids' birthdays is to go back and look at pictures from the day they were born.  Since I don't have these on a blog anywhere, I thought I'd put them here now.  

This is a picture taken during the last month of my pregnancy.  I was good at being pregnant (meaning I wasn't uncomfortable or waiting for it to end or not liking the way I looked) - even though I was sick sick sick during the first five months of my pregnancy with Taisim, it's not even close to being one of the first things I remember.  I remember mostly feeling good, and a little bit apprehensive about how a second child would affect us.

For those that don't know, Taisim was born at home.  Our original plan was to go to a birth center, but about two months before she was born I changed my mind.  I wasn't in love with the midwives at the birth center, and was starting to wonder why we should bother driving all the way there when we could just have her at home, so we found a wonderful midwife and had she and our doula at the birth.  

My first contraction was right around 4:30pm, and she was born at 8:49pm ... up until the first contraction I hadn't expected that day would be the day that she was born.

Here's Yuta holding her for the first time, and our first picture with her together (well, I should say the first posed picture):

Yuta and our midwife weighing her (8lbs 10oz I think ... maybe 11oz):

The next day, cleaned up a bit:

Taipan with his new baby sister - he was with my sister while she was born, and she brought him home around midnight.  He fell asleep on his way home, and went right to bed, but was glad to meet her the next day.  This picture was when she was 3 days old:

That's my trip down memory lane today.  She has brought such joy to all of our lives - her smiles, her kisses, her stories and imagination light up my life every day.  And, to be honest, I wasn't sure if she would be a good or bad thing for Taipan ... I was nervous that he wouldn't get enough attention once she was born, but I can't imagine him not having her in his life.  They enjoy each other so much, and she brings out a side of him that I don't know that we would've seen otherwise.

January Update

I can't believe that January is almost over - it's flown right by, and all without any blog updates!

Our year started off great, with some friends of mine from college coming to visit on New Year's Day. One friend, Jo, stayed with us for almost a week, while the others drove to DC, and then back through to get Jo and head back to Chicago. I loved having Jo here - she was just about the perfect house guest. And it was nice to have an adult around while Yuta was working. It almost makes me wish we had a bigger house so we could rent a room or something.

Taisim also started going to a gymnastics class once a week. Taipan isn't interested, but if the timing works out he goes along and plays with other kids that aren't in the class, but go along because of siblings, and then a good number of folks meet up at McDonalds afterwards to play. No one was interested in going this week, so it may fade out ... we'll have to see. Luckily it's paid by the month, so there's not a huge up-front financial investment.

Other than gymnastics we've been sticking pretty close to home. Fortunately we've got some great friends that we love to have visit, and who don't seem to mind coming to our house, so we get to stay out of the cold, and be social too!

Speaking of cold ... um, it's been cold. And snowy. We've been out to play in the snow a little bit. I hope we get to go out a bit tomorrow, as it's snowing right now and we're supposed to get up to 10 inches of snow. We now have snow pants for Taipan and Taisim, and it made such a big difference for Taipan to have them on. Taisim declined to wear them, but I'm hoping she'll give them a try the next time we go out.

In the next day or so I'm going to post a bunch of pictures, and caption them as time allows. My Mac was out of commission a bit this past month, so it's been harder to upload pictures.

And we're going to UWWG on Sunday - the event lasts through next Friday, but we're only planning on staying thru Wednesday, partly due to work schedule, and partly out of respect to Taipan's preference for home over hotels. He's on-board with going, but I think anything more than three nights might be pushing his tolerance.

Finally, Happy Year of the Ox! Unforunately we missed out on New Year's Eve dinner at my in-laws' this past Sunday - both kids woke up surprisingly early that morning and were taking marathon naps through the late afternoon and evening hours. Taisim was the first awake at 7:30, and that alone would have been too late to go, but Taipan hadn't even woken up at that point.

Now I'm off to watch some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog!

Playing on 12/28/08

Taipan had two new computer games in his stocking - one was an Incredible Machines game, and the other was Zoombini's Logical Journey.  We were all anxious to checkout the Incredible Machines game ... and we quickly realized that there are not many similarities between it and the one we have.  Both Taipan and I were expecting something different, and he didn't seem to enjoy it too much, and quickly tired of it.  And he hasn't asked for it sense Christmas Day - I think we'll stash it away for a while and bring it out in a year or so.

The Zoombinis game, on the other hand, is a big hit.  We are all enjoying it.  And we even played a game of "Zoombini Duck Duck Goose", where we had to state which zoombini characteristics we had.  If you had skates, you had to skate as you were being chased, etc.

Both kids really enjoy creating the Zoombinis at the beginning of the game.  It's a great game for us all to do together.  

The instruments in the photos below are not new, but they formed another band, and I wanted to get some pictures of it.  They chose a guitar and the accordion this time so they could be like Jack and Mary from Jack's Big Music Show.

Lastly, a nice shot of Taisim with her new hat.  She loves it - it's not only a hat, but it's served as a popcorn bowl (with pretend popcorn, not real), and a swimming pool for one of her dolls.

A warm day in December

The Saturday after Christmas we had an unusually warm day here - it hit almost 60!  It was a very nice surprise.  Taipan slept most of the day, and while he and Yuta were sleeping, Taisim and I played on the swingset for a bit and ran around the yard.

A couple of hours after Taipan woke up the sun came out, and it was just like a spring day.  The morning had been very overcast and windy, but for an hour in the afternoon it was just beautiful.  So we decided to go outside and play with our new balls - the soccer ball was a gift Taipan had wanted for his birthday, and the basketball is a gift he wanted for Christmas.  

The kids through the balls down the driveway and then chase them ... Yuta or I are stationed at the bottom of the driveway to kick the balls back up if they're not caught before they get to the bottom.