Dinosaurs and ponies

This past weekend, we celebrated Sora and Liam's birthdays with a proper birthday party. And even though it's December and freezing, we let Sora wear whatever she wanted to that day, and she decided to wear her sparkly blue dress. Yukari did a great job planning and coordinating everything, and all that we were responsible for was ordering and picking up the food (thank you, Shaws!). The kids enjoyed decorating explorer hats and the dinosaur egg hunt in the backyard. For me and Jad, this party marked the emergence from our sequestration and it felt great to go out and hang out with friends again.

Birthday kids!

Since Evelyn's pony-themed birthday party, Sora has had a thing for ponies and unicorns, so she absolutely loves the stuffed Fluttershy that she got as a gift.. it's replaced baby penguin (who had replaced blue kitty) as her favorite stuffed friend.

Love the Sora-sized kitty chair!

Nik took the kids to the dentist last week and both kids reportedly did great (although we heard that Sora may need to have braces because of her tiny jaw). I love the goofy sunglasses!

We're also starting to get our act together and managed to take a couple of decent pictures of the three kids together.

Sora's cheese face, tho..

.. and here it is again

A picture of the band

I think Sora's sleep has finally gotten better. Tonight she didn't come out of her room at all and putting her to bed isn't a fight anymore. On the other hand, sleep with Jad hasn't gotten any better and I'm co-sleeping with him just so I can get some rest (I know.. bad NICU nurse). Next week, Nik and I are planning to do some rudimentary sleep training with him since things can't continue this way and Nik is going to return to work soon. Fingers crossed!

Hard to be mad with a face like this..

Pancake Syrup

Somehow in the midst of all the busyness of having two young children and a newborn, we ended up agreeing to watch a neighbor's cat. Amusingly the cat's name is Pancake Syrup (can you tell that a toddler came up with the name?). The kids are head over heels in love and are having a great time with it. PS has been a fun addition to the family so far, but I think Nik and I are happy this is not a permanent situation (and Skinnay the chinchilla would agree). Both of the kids, but Kai in particular, can be overeager with showing their affection, i.e., chasing the PS around and aggressively pursuing play when he's clearly not interested, but I think it's gotten better as the novelty of having a cat in the house has worn off.

Sleep is still a challenge. Sora has been getting better.. she doesn't leave her room as much as she used to and she seems to be falling asleep more quickly. However, Jad has been waking up, bright eyed and bushy tailed, in the middle of night and refusing to sleep. It's pretty horrible when it happens at 5 am and even worse when it's 2 am. Nik tells me to not worry too much since Jad's only a month old, but I am already dreading Nik's return to work in January and anticipating being horribly sleep deprived while having to care for Kai and Sora. Perhaps the only saving grace is that the kids' preschool is all day, Monday through Friday.

Jad loves staring at the lamp on my nightstand at night

Since we didn't have a good picture of the five of us (the only one that I had had before was a silly selfie), we had Matt take a family picture for us. As usual, it was impossible to get a decent shot and this is the picture we ended up using on the Christmas card:

Trying to get a good family picture.. the struggle is real

Nik purchased a gingerbread house kit that the kids assembled last night. They promptly started eating it once the were done. The kids have been having so much fun with Nik while he's on paternity leave that they will undoubtedly miss him when he returns to work.

Way more fun than Mama

Since Jad is now a little over a month old, we're gradually emerging from our sequestration (although Nik still wary of having the baby out too much until he's at least six weeks old). Since Nik has been paternity leave, he's used some of the extra time to start going back to the gym (and patch the holes in our walls). I haven't been as good at keeping up with my fitness, but I've started taking Jad out on walks and Nik and I recently went on a lunch date.

Woo hoo! Lunch date with the baby!

We still go to my parents' house every week. For the past few weeks Matt has been at home and the kids have loved spending time with him. He had to return to San Diego to complete a bit of coursework, but he'll be back again soon!

"See you soon, Uncle Matt-Matt!"

Halloween rewind, birthdays, and Thanksgiving

Our last pumpkin patch visit of the Halloween season was Kai's school field trip. Kai had been looking forward to it for weeks but on the day of the field trip, he had a very slight temperature. Since we were expecting to have a baby soon, I didn't want Kai to have a full-blown illness. However, I didn't want to take the pumpkin patch experience away from him, so I decided to take him to school for the field trip and then take him home immediately afterward. Unlike Sora, who needed a warming up period before she was truly comfortable with the inflatables, Kai (literally) jumped right into it. He immediately made a beeline for the slides and had a great time until he got a friction burn on the big slide (nothing a Minion bandaid couldn't fix, thank goodness other mommies carry bandaids on them!) and eventually he got tired as his illness caught up with him.

Fortunately, Kai's illness didn't knock him out for too long: we were back at it the next day, and went to Ian and Maxine's Halloween party and small group the next evening. The kids were frightened, but enjoyed the spooky Halloween decorations and Sora loved the gummy worm infused punch. The kids have undoubtedly inherited our penchant for cleanliness and were put off by the slimy pumpkin innards, they were more apprehensive about pumpkin carving than I had thought they would be.

Nik ended up carving the pumpkin and the rest of the pumpkins we acquired over the season were painted. The painted pumpkins ended up looking as messy as last year's, but at least the kids had fun and the satisfaction of decorating their own pumpkins.

This year, Halloween was on a Tuesday night so we weren't sure if Holly Drive would be as packed and bustling as last year, but it was. The Kongs and Ngs accompanied us and the kids had fun running around in their costumes and ringing doorbells. The kids promptly broke into their haul once we got back home, but just like last year, they completely forgot about their Halloween candy a few days after the fact.

Preschool dress up!

When we asked the kids what they wanted to dress up as this year, they said, "Kwazii and Peso!" The kids haven't grown much since last year so we didn't have to get new costumes!

The Kongs joined us for some trick or treating

Aside from the obvious birthday celebration for Baby Jad, we've celebrated a number of birthdays recently. One Saturday at the very end my pregnancy, Nik had 12 hour shift at work. I had dreaded figuring out what to do with the kids for an entire day, but lucky for me, the Halls were celebrating Owen's birthday that day. It was an all-day event with plenty of food, beginning with brunch and going all the way through until dinner. I was so grateful that the kids were entertained and I didn't have to plan any meals.. score!

Kai's always standing at the ready to help blow out candles

Kids' birthday parties are always the best diversions. This past weekend, Nik took Kai and Sora out to celebrate Liora's birthday. It was a welcome respite for me since that the two older kids could get out of the house, while I took care of Jad at home.

Hangin' around

My birthday is also now sandwiched between Jad and Sora's birthdays (which means that I won't have a proper birthday celebration of my own for a while). This year, I didn't want to spend my birthday on my own with Jad at home, so I took my one week old newborn out to a small group mixer (only for a half hour!).. perhaps a bit selfish of me and I probably wouldn't have done it with our firstborn, but everything turned out okay and no harm was done!

A few days later, we had family and friends over the celebrate Sora and my birthdays, and David made homemade pizzas for everyone.

"Hi, Uncle Chris and Auntie April!"

Sora, Jad, and I will undoubtedly share many birthday cakes in the years to come

With Jad's birth, we didn't have the capacity to have a proper birthday party for Sora on the actual date, but she had been talking about "my birthday" for months, so we decided to bring in cupcakes to her preschool on her birthday so she could have a party at school. We'll have a joint birthday celebration for Sora and Liam in December hosted by the Shaws.

My little three-nager

Since I've been caring for Jad, Nik has been managing Kai and Sora on his own. Never one to hunker down at home, Nik passes time with the kids by taking them out and about: Costco, Target, the library, church and small group, and walks around the neighborhood and to the creek. When the kids wake up in the mornings, they usually will ask, "where are we going today?" as if going out all the time is the norm.. I tell Nik that that's undoubtedly his influence. :P

Costco during Thanksgiving week, what a madhouse!

It's hard to get outside since the days are colder and shorter, so the library's always a good option

Small group.. AKA TV zombie time

Packing boxes for Operation Christmas Child

Dancing at the creek.. why? Why not??

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents'. As usual, there was way too much food. Sunny outdid himself, making a turkey and four turkey-infused side dishes, and David (ever the gourmand) made sous vide ribeye, seared over charcoal. Thanksgiving also so happened to be my parents' 43rd wedding anniversary.. happy anniversary Mom and Dad!

Kai continues to dote upon Jad. I wonder if part of Kai's fascination with Jad is that Sora is more and more becoming the annoying little sister who likes to annoy her big brother on purpose. Kai and Sora will play well together on occasion, but also fight a lot these days. Usually, the progression of their fights goes something like this:

1. Sora will start bothering Kai (I think she has a bit of a Napoleon complex)
2. Kai will get worked up
3. Kai acts out by hitting or chasing Sora
4. Sora plays the victim

Parenting in this situation and striking just the right balance so that both kids feel that "justice is served," so to speak, is challenging since both kids are usually in the wrong. We'll see how adding Jad to the mix will effect sibling relations.. I have a feeling that things may get harder before they get easier.

Kai in "helpful big brother mode"

If it was always like this, parenting would be easy

Kai's handwriting is steadily improving and he's still working on phonics at school, but I think the bulk of the words that he can read is pure memorization. Kai's usually not the instigator, but he's easily excitable and loves to "go crazy" with friends.. Nik had to have a talk to him about it this morning at school drop off.

He can be helpful.. sometimes

This is what I get when I ask him to pose for the camera

Sora can write many letters and numbers, though many of them end up backward. She loves everything girly: pink and purple, princesses and unicorns, skirts and twirling, and anything with sparkles. The other day, she asked me to paint her nails since she had seen Elysia's painted nails.. I relented, but told her toenails only. I'm not sure if it's hardwired into them or imposed by society, but both Kai and Sora are very aware of and adhere to gender stereotypes these days.

Since we took crib railing down, sleep has been a challenge for Sora, but over the past two weeks it's gotten ridiculous. We put her to bed around 9 pm and she won't actually fall asleep until 11 pm. One of us has to guard her doorway to make sure she doesn't come out of her room (because she will wander into Kai's room and wake him up) and when she's in her room, she's playing or talking and singing to herself. We've been trying to be firm and consistent, and yesterday, she was actually asleep by 10 pm, so maybe it's getting better? Here's hoping.

Nik put up Christmas lights in her room hoping that it would help

Jad is rapidly gaining weight and our little guy is now about 10 pounds, Nik and I affectionately refer to him as "our little butterball." He eats almost every two hours throughout the day and night, but I think that his sleep intervals are finally starting to stretch out.. thank goodness, because I don't think I can handle this schedule for much longer!

Ninja baby!

We're grateful to have hosted many visitors who have wanted to meet Jad, and many friends have brought our family food and gifts during this busy time. Nik and I feel very fortunate indeed.

"Nice to meet you, Nathan!" One of many baby meetups

Finally, it's December and we're officially in the Christmas season. We got the Christmas tree up and decorated the day after Thanksgiving and the lights are up on our house.. though we still have yet to make our cards and send them out!

"Ta-da!"