Star Wars

In my rush to publish and post yesterday's post, I forgot to mention that Nik and I snuck out last week to catch a late-night showing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Nik had been paranoid that he would inevitably get spoiled if he didn't see the movie within the first week of its release. Unfortunately, Nik was a bit underwhelmed and although I was entertained at the time, in retrospect I have to agree with him. We're hopeful that the series will get better as it progresses. We were surprised when randomly ran into a group of guys from our church catching the exact same showing of Star Wars. Thanks to Chris for hanging out with our sleeping kiddos at home!

Blue Steel. Nik's still got it.

I also forgot to post these two pictures of Kai yesterday. Kai loves playing with his friends from church.

We lock the toddlers up when they misbehave at church. J/K!!

When we send Kai off to daycare in the morning he usually has to take a toy with him, sometimes it's cars or trains. The other day, it was a stuffed panda and Kai insisted that "panda buckle," so Nik strapped it into Sora's infant carseat.

This afternoon, Nik took Kai out to explore the creek near our house. Last week, we had had a lot of rain and it had become quite the torrent, but this week, it's back to being a quiet little creek.

This evening, we saw my Auntie Loretta and Uncle Graham visiting from Canada. Sora had never met them before but took to Uncle Graham almost immediately.

And one bonus picture from the LSCC's Christmas party "photo booth". Sora is such a cutie! (my husband ain't too bad, either :P)

The holiday hangover

There really hasn't been much of a lull between Christmas and New Year's for us. We hosted Joe and his family over the Christmas holiday and welcomed Grandma Udom back, and Harsha came to visit us for a couple of days as well. Nik has been working every day since Christmas and with daycare closed, that means a lot of babysitting for me and Grandma Udom.

It was fun to have Joe, Michelle and Ryan over for a couple of days. Ryan enjoyed having a little follower and Kai enjoyed trying to do everything that Ryan did. There was a lot of running around and running amok. Of course this led to Kai getting a bloody nose and torn frenulum (the little bit of tissue between the upper lip and gum line).. we were a little taken aback by the bleeding at first, but this is where having an ER doctor as a papa comes in handy. Then Kai got a big bruise and bump on his forehead. I guess he can't quite hang with the four/five year old's yet.

Kai: "Kai-Kai chasing!"

Even Sora wanted to join in on the fun: Kai would chase Ryan and then Sora would try to crawl to follow the boys. Not quite there yet, little girl.. give it a year. Fortunately, there was a lot of injury-free play as well and the kids seemed to genuinely enjoy seeing each other.

If you look closely, you can see Kai's bloody nose :P

Sora exploring Ryan's couch cushion fort

And of course there were quiet moments watching Peppa Pig and Thomas and Friends on TV.

Kai has also really enjoyed having Uncle Harsha over and Harsha has been trying to indoctrinate Kai on the virtues of being a "yes man". Hopefully this will have an effect on our contrarian toddler!

You know you've been accepted into the fold when Kai insists you sit in the backseat with him.

On Christmas morning, Kai and Sora both enjoyed tearing into their gifts. Sora has already figured out wrapping paper and was tearing the paper off with gusto. Kai really loves the trains and tracks he received, and he also got a pair of Thomas pajamas from Popo. He loves the pajamas, but the only problem is that now he doesn't want to change clothes in the morning! And since Christmas, Kai keeps asking about presents when he wakes up in the morning. My parents hosted Christmas dinner and it was fun to have all the family gathered together.

Sora continues to love feeding herself. She's pretty good at using a spoon and will demand that we give her one if we don't give it to her initially. I'm starting to wish that she learns to speak soon, because her ear-piercing screams are just too much.

"What're you lookin' at?"

Lately when we've visited my parents' house, Sora has gravitated towards the piano. We've always known that she loves music, but she seems to be genuinely interested in the piano. Of course, Kai will see her and then try to shove her out of the way. Nik even took a couple of pictures of her looking like a miniature virtuoso. In spite of my memories of hating piano practice as a tween and teenager (it was still fun when I was a kid), I'm sorely tempted to see if Sora takes to piano/music lessons.

I have to say that I feel like the kids are beginning to get better at playing together independently. The other day they were coloring together (although there was a lot of crying over stolen crayons) and thumbing through books together.

We still try to avoid having the kids watch TV, but the other day, I was at my parents' and I was so exhausted that I gave up and just let the kids watch Thomas and Friends.

We're pretty exhausted with all the holiday activities and no daycare. Are the holidays over yet?

Christmas in the Park

Since Christmas is next week (!!) and Nik and I thought that it might be insanely crowded next week because of the last minute holiday rush and with most kids on winter break, we decided to go out to Christmas in the Park this past evening. We fit it in between picking up Kai from daycare and Nik going to work, so it was a bit rushed, but Kai and Sora enjoyed seeing "so many Christmas light".

Midweek, we went to Kailea's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. Nik was sorely disappointed that they didn't have a ball pit to toss Kai into, but let's face it: it probably would've been a germ cesspool. :P Kai still enjoyed the games and the trading in tickets for little prizes.

It's been raining lately and we caught a break in the rain today to take the kids to the playground this afternoon. Although it was sunny, it was still really chilly. Kai enjoyed splashing around in the puddles until he fell headlong into one of them!

"Kai-Kai all wet!"

Matthew then came by and we went for a quick run up at Alum Rock Park with the kids. They both fell asleep during the ride and were leaning up against each other. It was absolutely adorable, but Kai woke up as soon as I tried to take the covering away to get a clear picture.

"Sora, wake up!"

Kai's Thomas and Friends engine collection has grown exponentially over the course of the Christmas season. Our old neighbors gave us some gently used engines and then two of our church friends gave Kai engines as Christmas gifts. Nik and I were initially planning to not give him all the engines at once and to spread it out over time, but we're afraid that Kai's Thomas fascination is fading, so we figured that it's best to strike while the iron is hot. Christmas day will undoubtedly be a Thomas bonanza. It's fun watching him play with his engines and pretend that they're talking to one another.

Sora is getting really good at stacking blocks and can make a two-block tower. And although it was a fluke, she once made it to three; she was so proud of herself, smiling, squealing and clapping.

Christmas is almost here! Hard to believe it's less than a week away. We just got our annual Christmas ornament and our holiday cards are finally printed (although we still need to mail them out!).

Monkey see, monkey do

We went over to Sunny's for dinner mid-week. Good times and good food with family. Kai and Sora love their menagerie of pets, and had a great time feeding one of the bunnies a carrot (although I think Sora was just trying to grab the carrot so she could take a bite herself).

We also visited the Milpitas library for the first time (in search of new Thomas and Friends books) and caught the library's Christmas program. Though we didn't stay for all the festivities, Kai loved the cookie decorating station, which basically involved slathering a sugar cookie with frosting and then topping it with oodles of sprinkles.

"Hm, I like the Milpitas library."

Speaking of libraries, Sora has adopted Kai's bookish ways, and if she gets a hold of a book these days, she'll start flipping through the pages.

For better or worse, Sora imitates Kai a lot and the other day they were drinking "tea" together.

Sora remains an enthusiastic eater (though possibly through Kai's influence, her enthusiasm seems to be limited meat and carbs). She likes spoon feeding herself, so we typically load up the spoon, hand it to her and then she will hand it back to us when she's ready. In fact, she'll get upset if we try to spoon feed her ourselves.

Miss Independent

Kai is actually more difficult when it comes to feeding himself. Lately, we've been trying to be better about not reading books to him during mealtime and not spoon feeding him. It's been challenging, but I think he's slowly getting better. He certainly has no problem feeding himself when it comes to dessert!

It's been raining lately, but we caught a break in the weather the other day to venture out on a family walk and Kai roamed the trail next to our house. He was having so much fun that he didn't want to come back inside even though it was getting dark and cold.

Now that Sora is a year old, we've begun dropping her off at the church nursery.. she's not doing well with it and cries a lot. During this week's small group, even though Nik was on childcare duty, she hovered next to the baby gate looking for me while everyone else was glued to the TV. Honestly, I have no idea how I'm going to wean her because she's really attached to me and nursing. But on the bright side, I think we can definitively say that Sora's first word is "mama". :)

TV zombies

And two more cute pictures.. no narration required.