The Kos

Korean Traditions

2012-01-27T13:44:00.000-08:00

In the Korean culture, one of the biggest holidays is New Year's Day. There is a certain meal you eat, a certain way you address your elders/love ones, and a little ceremony of children bowing to their elder relatives and receiving money. We thought this year would be the year to start Timo and Cameron celebrating this part of their Korean heritage.

Young started teaching them how to say Happy New Year in Korean a few days earlier, seh heh bok mahn ee bahd euh sae yo, which translates to "Receive a lot of new year's blessing". We called Young's parents, Harmony and Habachi, to wish them a new year...here are the kids saying Happy New Year in Korean.

The next step was to say the same thing to Young while bowing down and they would receive money. If you are with your whole family then the children get all dressed up in their hanbok (traditional Korean outfit) then bow to their parents, grandparents, and uncles, saying seh heh bok mahn ee bahd euh sae yo. It's a whole big ceremony and the children all make out like bandits! Grown children (like Young and myself) still do this to their parents if you are with them...maybe next year. Cameron did really well, if you can see, she bows all the way down...she really wanted the money!

They rushed to put their money in their piggy banks!
Later that day I made our Korean dinner...a soup called Dook Guk, or beef rib soup with rice cakes. We typically go out for the new years day feast but decided after our NYE dinner, it would be wise to eat at home. It turned out super yummy, thanks to some pointers from the Korean ladies at the Korean market! I'm turning into such the Korean wife and mommy!! Seh heh bok mahn ee bahd euh sae yo!

New Year Eve!

2012-01-25T10:17:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! We're only a month late...but better late than never, huh? This year Young and I decided we wanted to really celebrate the new year with Timo and Cameron. They are just coming into the realization of "holidays" and we wanted to mark the beginning of a new year as a family. The past few years consisted of us putting the kids to be early and falling asleep on the sofa in exhaustion. But now, with a little more understanding, we thought they would enjoy making a special evening of it. We knew exactly where we wanted to ring in the new year...Four Seasons, downtown San Francisco! We opened with a toast to the new year! (lemonade for the kiddos!)
We love the Four Season because it's a nice restaurant, totally kid friendly and has really good food! The kids get these sticky sticks to build, cups with straws, coloring books and crayons. Both Timo and Cameron love the sticky sticks!
Timo tried Young's caviar and loved it! That's make this chef Mommy very proud!
Cameron decided her last meal of 2011 would be a PB&J while my foody son wanted steak...which Cameron ended up eating half of anyway...
Dessert! (the most important part of a meal as far as I'm concerned) The desserts all around were so much fun! Timo wanted fruit which he specially requested honeydew, Cameron requested white ice cream with chocolate sauce and we adults got some super yummy 2012 sweet treats. My fav was the white chocolate/raspberry/almond cake dessert.

Finishing up dinner with chocolate covered strawberries and a Thomas the Train story from Daddy.

A little New Year's Eve dancing by Timo!

The whole restaurant was decorated for NYE and the staff was so nice to let the children have a balloon. It was a wonderful end of 2011!! A huge thank you to the staff at the Season for making our dinner so special and accommodating two 3 year olds on one of the busiest nights of the year!

Holiday Randomness

2012-01-24T13:34:00.000-08:00

Here are just a few activities we did while the kids were out of school on Christmas break. I hope this is the last of the Christmas pictures...

Decorating cookies with our friend Lucia!
Going to the Academy of Sciences with our friends Sophie Grace, Caleb and Evan. There was a snow machine inside and reindeer outside! Oh, and the fish, of course...

Some days were spent at home...building forts and jumping into the "swimming pool".
The kids got some money for Christmas from their Great Grandma Cameron, so sweet! Timo asked one day to go to the Dollar Store to spend his money...I've trained them so well! Cameron was having a blast cruising the isles seeing what she could see...

They didn't really see anything there they wanted so we headed over to Target to the "Dollar Spot"....but got a little sidetracked in the toy dept...uh, oh.
We managed to make a clean exit thanks to the promise of pizza for lunch!
And let's not forget all the new Christmas toys...thank goodness for new toys to keep them entertained! Cameron LOVES her new spin art.

And the super hero capes were a hit!

I kinda forgot how long the days are when they are home all day, everyday...but I also remembered how much fun it is watching them see and do new things all day, everyday! I'm already looking forward to their week vacation in Feb!

Discovery Museum

2012-01-22T14:26:00.000-08:00

The kids Christmas vacation allowed us time to hit all our favorite museums we have been missing out on. The first one we made sure we went to was the Discovery Museum....or the "paint on the window" museum, as the kids call it. So, of course, painting on the window was the first thing we did!

Cameron so proud of her snowman made from the moon dough table...
The boys at the train table...and Cameron not to be left out.
Ah, the gravel pit...just what a dump truck loving little boy needs!

Lunch on the rocks with a view!
They were all trying their best to take turns ringing the bell...but it was just so much fun, some (Timo) forgot they just had a turn and butted in line again!
The giant Tinker Toys were back! They all worked together really well to build a river!?
We love Discovery Museum! Can't wait to come back on our next school break!!

Zoo Lights

2012-01-19T19:26:00.000-08:00

These are a set of pictures I'm so thankful Young was able to save...our trip out to the Oakland Zoo for Zoo Lights. Ana and I took the kids out to the zoo one day over the holiday break and planned on staying into the evening for the light show. Only when we drove all the way out there (30min away) we found out they close the zoo at 4pm, clear it out and reopen at 5:30 for the light show. AND you have to pay to get in the zoo and pay again for the Zoo Lights! Ugh! Oh well, we were already out there, the kids were all so excited so we chalked it up to experience and charged forward with out day/evening out at the zoo!

I'm so thankful they let us hang out in the cafe, after we ordered some food, for an hour between closing and reopening...it was cold outside! But then the lights came on!
We took the train ride around the park and saw all the animal lights, great views of SF, and some sleeping animals. (I had way more pictures but they all turned out blurry...)
We walked back over to the children's area to watch the light show of music and motion lights. It was a little hard for the kids to hear and catch all that was going on so they took off for the play area again...just as much fun in the dark as in the day..
The only snowflakes we saw this Christmas...
Bye Zoo Lights...see you next Christmas!

When it Rains it Pours

2012-01-18T12:42:00.000-08:00

The other huge issue we had last week, in addition to the l.i.c.e., was our computer crashed. While researching birthday cakes styles for the twins upcoming bday, I inadvertently clicked on a picture that sent a virus and fried our hard drive. It took about four days for Young to rebuild the hard drive and make it user ready again...my amazing husband! But what makes him even more amazing is he managed to retrieve some photos that I thought were lost forever. He was able to find a "back door" to save the pictures...but we lost all the other information....bummer!

But look at what he was able to save...worth more than any documents we lost! Yeah for having a tech geek daddy!

Lice!

2012-01-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

So this is what we have been dealing with this past week...no, it's wasn't as much fun as Timo is making it out to be...
We got the email from the school earlier in the week about one reported case of head lice in a different class than the twins' class. I kinda dismissed it and knew the chances of my kids getting it were slim. Then we got a second email the next day of a second case in the that same class. As a result, the school had called in a nurse that would be checking all the kids heads the next day but for us, as parents, to take an active roll and check out children's heads at home. That night I thought, "I'll just check to see..." Uh oh, on no!!! On Timo's head I saw a few of the eggs or "nits" and what I thought was a bug or two...so gross!! Cameron seemed to be clear but I wasn't taking any chances. We went to school the next morning, after a very sleepless night of constant lice dreams, to get the kids checked. The nurse was there and checked Timo first...confirmed, a moderate case of head lice...ugh! Cameron was clean which isn't surprising considering she tends to play by herself. But Timo is always with other kids playing and it seems all the boys in his "gang of friends" had it.

We were sent home, no school for the "contaminated" that day, with a head medication, a lice comb and a long list of instruction to be lice-free in two days. All family members had to be checked too. The hair treatment and combing wasn't the hardest part...it was all the laundry and cleaning I had to do! All sheets, pillows, clothes, bed toys had to be changes, washed and cleaned for three days in a row. Do you know how many loads of laundry that is??? And how long it takes to change all the beds everyday, vacuum three days, and live in constant fear that one little bugger got away and will reek havoc in our home again? Needless to day, it's been a very busy past 5 days!

I'm happy to report, we are lice-free for 5 days now!! We go back tomorrow for our head check but I keep checking everyday and haven't seen anything suspicious yet...oh the joys of childhood!!

October Photos

2012-01-06T20:17:00.000-08:00

I was backing up all our pics last night and came across some from October that never got posted...how did that happen??! Especially these ones of the kids at our fav store, Target! I remember this trip because I let the kids get down and play in the toy isle...something I typically don't do b/c it ends in meltdown when it's time to go.

But we made it out without a scene and tried out our climbing abilities on the Target circle.

We can find fun in anything...

Timo just being Timo...silly as ever.

Ice cream in the park one Sunday after a long balance bike ride. Keep in mind these were all in October...such beautiful weather!

Cameron's Camera

2012-01-05T16:08:00.000-08:00

And here is what I found on Cameron's camera. She took more pictures of other people and objects than Timo did. I think a little more practice and she'll be a pretty good photographer.

Here are her videos...this one was her trying to figure out how to take the video but had her finger in the way for some of it.

Funny girl...

This one is so funny because she is running through the house while singing! It gets a little long, as most of her video are, but it's worth the whole watch...you get a rendition of "Go Tell It On the Mountain" at the end!

Timo's Camera

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

Granny and Grandpa gave the twins these "kid tough" cameras, which are really cameras that take pictures and videos, that you can then upload to your computer. Both children have been playing with them non stop, taking all kinds of pictures and video. The lense rotates around so they can take pictures of objects or pictures of themselves. I took the sd cards out to see what they had captured on film so far and was rolling in the floor laughing at some of the pictures and video they have taken!! So far pictures of themselves have been the biggest hit! I'm splitting this post into two...one for Timo and I'll do Cameron's tomorrow. Here are a few of his pics...pretty good I think...

He does love his Lightening McQueen!

You can see his is just loving video taping himself and watching himself on the screen! Just a funny boy! Young and I always say we have a class clown on our hands and this is proof...

Trying to sing the theme song from his favorite show...the Backyardigans.

This is my favorite!! Such a sweet little boy. He was trying to make a video like the ones we take of them..

One thing I found out was they were taking videos sometimes and we didn't realize it, so there were some things going on in the back ground that shouldn't be heard by others...such as me threatening to take way all their toys if they didn't clean up the toys all over the living room floor! Better watch ourselves...I see blackmail in my kids' futures..

2012-01-03T20:41:00.000-08:00

Just a few holiday shots before we took down the Christmas tree...

Day After Christmas...Presents!

2011-12-29T19:50:00.000-08:00

The kids didn't really open a lot of presents on Christmas because of church and having the Busbees over most of the day to play with. They each had several presents from Santa that kept them busy so we decided to save the gifts from parents, Grandparents and various other family until the next day. As soon as Cameron woke up that morning she asked "is it wake up time? Time to open presents?" I think they really liked spreading Christmas out over two days!

Uncle Kevin and Aunt Angie sent Timo a dancing Happy Feet which he just loves. He hasn't even seen the movie but somehow has made a connection to these penguins. And Cameron got her beloved Buzz Lightyear or Light Earbuds as she says. Buzz is her fav Toy Story character and she had been asking for one for a while now so I'm glad Uncle Kevin and Aunt Angie hooked her up! My sister-in-law feels it's her duty to send her niece and nephew talking/battery operated toys! Here is Cameron checking out her new Light Earbuds...

Kid cameras from Granny and Grandpa! We love them!!

Christmas Day pt. 2

2011-12-28T08:26:00.000-08:00

It wasn't an easy task but we all managed to get ready and to church on time Christmas morning! We needed to make a few compromises to get the kids out the door...Cameron got to take a toy in the car and Timo got to wear his hat!
I love going to church Christmas morning! Worshiping together, celebrating the birth of Christ and being surrounded by our church family made Christmas even more special. The family service was short, only 45min long and had a special children's story given by our pastor. He really got the children's attention when he climbed on the ladder to show how Jesus was God in heaven and came down to earth as a baby. (Timo came back to his seat with lots of questions "how did Jesus get from heaven to earth?", "I thought Joseph was His daddy, not God?")
We came home and let the kids open a few more gifts before our guests arrived.

Our dear friends, the Busbee ladies, came over to spend Christmas Day with us. We had such a great, relaxing day together, enjoying good food, good friends and a few gifts for the kiddies....monkey slippers!

Young did such a good job on our prime rib! Soooo yummy! We lingered at the lunch table nibbling every last bite!

We were so blessed by having Claudia and the girls with us all day. I gain such wisdom and insight form Claudia in even the smallest of things. Alexis and Ashley just love the kids and played with them most of the day, allowing us to get lunch cooked. We had a wonderful day together...such a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day 2011 pt. 1

2011-12-27T16:59:00.000-08:00

"We have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.." Matthew 2:2

I have always loved celebrating Jesus birthday, even when I was little, singing "Happy Birthday Jesus." As with most parents, I really want our children to understand the real meaning of Christmas, aside from all the gifts. This year we started a series of nightly Advent devotions the trace the telling of Christ's birthday from Old Testament to New. I feel like they understood mostly except when we went over the different names of Jesus..."Wonderful, Savior, Everlasting Father, Might God...", oh and "He shall be called Emanuel." Cameron said "Why don't they just call him Jesus?" Things are so simple to a 3 year old! They got the biggest kick out of shouting "Glory to God in the Highest" when we were studying about the angles appearing to the shepherd! We also had a countdown calender with a treat for them each night...which was a little more exciting to them than the bible study, I must say.
Christmas Eve brought me so much excitement as we set out their gifts. I was thinking how excited they would be so see everything and thinking this is how our Heavenly Father feels when he give us gifts! Here is what Santa left for each...
As par the course for Christmas morning, the kids slept late! They never really sleep past 7 or 7:15 normally, but this year we had to start making noise around 8pm to wake them up. We would have let them sleep but we had to start getting ready for church. I will say it was nice to have them sleep late because Young and I got to have a quiet Christmas morning together, opening gifts from one another and enjoying the silence for a little while. Here is Young opening his big gift...a Thomas Moser clock. He had no idea he was getting it and he tried his best to figure it out!
After enjoying ourselves and our gifts we decided we need to get the kids going if we were going to get the church on time...so we turned on a few lights and banged some pots and pans around, he, he, he.

Timo was super easy to buy for, he wanted everything he saw. Cameron was so hard to buy for, she wanted nothing really. Everything I would ask her about she "claimed" she already had it...in one form of another. All she really asked for was a horse, croquet set and a race track. I couldn't bring myself to buy her a race track (we just don't have the space to keep it set up) so I settled on trying Barbie out on her...I should have stuck with the race tack. She was way more into Timo's toys than her own...except her art supplies...she loves art!

Timo liked his hockey table and remote control car but fell in love with his new automatic Thomas and train set! (complete with his Thomas conductor hat)

What an exciting morning! The kids were having so much fun and it was REALLY difficult to get them to switch gears and focus on getting ready for church..but we managed with the promise of opening gifts when we got home! Stay tuned...

Christmas Eve

2011-12-25T09:34:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas Eve started out with decorating cookies for Santa!

I wanted to reorganized some of the kids' toys, making room for the new stuff Santa was bringing, which made for new interest in some forgotten toys. They built this balancing building themselves! And snack time in the bucket the blocks go in....

I was a little blown away by the them making a Potato Head Nativity scene...guess all our Advent devotions have been sinking in! Notice Mary is kissing baby Jesus at the very beginning of the video.

Young's boss and good friend, Michael, invited us over for Christmas Eve dinner party...kids allowed! It was so nice to be at an adult party but have children around. The kids had no problem fitting in and enjoying themselves. Michael lives on the top of a hill in Potrero Hill with amazing views of SF so we talked a lot about sky scrapers...
The children had just received these cute "Happy Nappers" (kinda like pillow pets but comes with blankets too) from our neighbors that day and they just had to bring them. They were enjoying Michael's deck with Happy Nappers and a little cheese plate.
Cameron LOVED the little lamb chops appetizers. I think she ate about three of them...looks like I need to get the recipe.
When dinner was served Young gave a toss to the host. We all clinked our glasses and the children wanted in on the toast fun, clinking their sippy cups and saying "Merry Christmas!" too.
They were having a white elephant gift exchange and Timo helped Daddy play the game while Cameron decided dessert was much more exciting.
We had a wonderful time at the party. Thank you so much Michael and Sally for inviting us into your home for Christmas! But as much fun as it was, it was time to head home and get the kiddies to bed so Santa could come. All nestled in while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads...

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...

Almost Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T12:24:00.001-08:00

Our traditional Christmas Eve activities were moved up one day this year, to the 23rd. We typically go downtown, see all the Christmas decorations in the big hotels, eat a nice lunch, watch ice skating and finish up any last minute shopping. And typically it's not very crowed, being Christmas Eve, but this year it was pack downtown because it was two days before Christmas. But we made the most of it, trying to squeeze in all our activities and then some!
The children were mesmerised by the turning gingerbread castle and train in the St. Francis

Checking out all the Christmas trees...
A little last minute shopping...we stopped at William Sonoma and caught a cooking demo! And Timo wants to add this massage chair from Brookstone to his Christmas list!
The San Francisco Shopping Center had a really cool light show under the dome. I caught everyone enjoying the show...
It was on to lunch at our traditional Scala's restaurant. We've been going there for the past four years and it's nice when they remember you when you walk in the door. My friend, Tim, is also the pastry chef here and it's always nice to see him too!
The kids love this place, they have paper on the table so they get to color their color sheets AND on top of the table. Add a little pizza, ice cream and hot chocolate, the kids were in heaven!

We had to skip the skating rink, closed for cleaning, and strolled around taking in the sights while we waited for the sun to set and the Christmas lights to light up.
After sunset we drove down to see the lights in south San Francisco. One neighborhood really comes together and puts on an amazing show!

Sacked out after a full day of Christmas time! Both Timo and Cameron feel asleep while driving around so Young and I took the opportunity to continue driving and looking at the city lit up for Christmas. It was so nice driving and having uninterrupted conversation...

Box Fun!

2011-12-23T22:29:00.000-08:00

Tis the season for boxes to be arriving at the house, and yes, some of them are somewhat large...large enough for a 3 year old's imagination! We got four full days of entertainment out of these two boxes...here is their evolution. Day 1, we have an airplane and a rocket ship!
They decided they needed to decorate their planes by adding some wheels on the outside and controls on the inside.

Day 2...a pirate ship! Two pirates looking for treasure!
Day 3...Timo's plane becomes a kayak. I have no idea where he has learned what a kayak is but he seemed to know exactly what to do with wrapping paper tube.

Day 4...an artiest's canvas. Nothing like markers and a wide open pallet to draw on! Seems like the perfect way to send these boxes out to the recycling...with rainbows and race cars all over them.

Magical Christmas Time

2011-12-22T20:23:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday Young was out town so I took the kids out for some Christmas time cheer! We started our day at Grace Cathedral for the Christmas Family Sing-a-long followed by a Magical Tea at Top of the Mark. We had so much fun, I think we'll be making this an annual family outing...and make sure Daddy comes next year!
The sing-a-long was a lot of fun. The actual show was short (about 45mins), and we sang all the song the kids knew. Cameron sang along...Timo decided to just listen. The basic story was all these toys searching for the true meaning of Christmas. So all the characters were constantly walking back and forth in front of us. Timo's favorite was the Ninja and Cameron just adored the Princess.

A mom always comes prepared with snacks just in case things run a little long...the show wasn't long but there was along wait after the show to meet characters and sit on Santa's lap. We had snacks and walked around to look at the beautiful stain glass windows in the church.

And of course we waiting all that time, finally walked up the characters and the kids got shy! Cameron did give Santa a high-five but no lap this time.
I'm sure if you ask the kids what they like most about Grace Cathedral they would say the steps! They walked all the way up and down at least 10 times.

Ah, to be a kid again and find fun in anything that you do...
The Fairmont Hotel is right next to where we were having tea so we walked inside to check out the Christmas decorations. Wow, they had a life size gingerbread house!
We stopped in at the Santa station and wrote our letters and dropped them in the box.

Then we walked across the street the Top of the Mark for our Magical Tea! Top of the Mark is a hotel at the very top of Nob Hill, such amazing views of San Francisco outside and inside...especially to a 3 year old!

Once we were seated, we hit the buffet (mac n cheese, pigs in blankets, grilled cheese) and the kids ordered pink lemonade!
They came around and told us the magic show was about to begin so we had to go find some seats! The magician was soooo good. Totally kid friendly, nothing scary and he did some really cool tricks.
We went back for some more lunch and dessert and then headed over to the face painting. Timo had seen a bat man mask on another little boy and just had to have it...even though he has no idea who bat man is. I just saw a whole lot of black paint on his face!
Cameron had princess on the brain from the sing-a-long so she asked for a princess. Hers took a while to do and I was impressed by how still she sat...except for talking. She was a little chatter box to the woman painting, telling her what she wanted for Christmas, how old she was, when her birthday was, on and on and on!
The second magic show started and Timo was especially happy he was picked as a volunteer to help with a trick...he got to examine a rope before it got tied in a knot. (look close, see the rope in his hands?)
Back at our table they brought around a present for each of the children...a magic kit...oh my! Luckily they didn't need our table so we could camp out and try out our new magic tricks!

As much fun as we were having, it was eventually time for us to go...we needed to go pick Daddy up from the airport. One last pink marshmallow and one last look from Top of the Mark!

Oh, one last pic from that day...here is Timo in the bath as we try to wash all that black paint off! (we won't talk about the temper tantrum Cameron had over not wanting to wash hers off.)

Holiday Baking

2011-12-21T13:04:00.000-08:00

This year the kids wanted to bake goodies as presents for their teachers. So each day after school we came home and made something new...complete with Cameron's chef hat and apron. The baking festivites started on Saturday while my brother was in town (he flew to cater a special dinner our church hosted for it's volunteers). He made Christmas wreaths with the children...basically corn flakes, marshmallows, green food coloring and little red hots. One of our neighbors growing up, Jean Beavers, used to make these every year. Kevin and I certainly ate our fair share!
Each taking a turn adding the green food coloring...lots of green coloring...and then everything else.

And of course, a little tasting for quality control!
The most important thing about cooking is cleaning up and I have two great dish dryers!

Making gingerbread dough for our cookie project the next night.
The next night was gingerbread men...or, um, gingerbread snowmen and penguins.
The following evening we made white chocolate hay stacks...white chocolate, pretzels and raisins (my holiday favorite!)

We wrapped up our baking extravaganza with no bake cookies...the easiest of them all. I rolled the balls and the kids rolled them in powdered sugar. Notice how neat and clean everything was in the beginning...
And this was toward the end...powdered sugar everywhere...but at least we all had fun!
I had visions of getting such cute pictures of them giving the goodie baskets to their teachers but apparently I wasn't the only one waiting till the last day of school to give gifts. It was a zoo with all the kids arriving, gifts being passed around and the ever looming thrill of the playground just waiting to be climbed on. Let's just say their teachers got the gifts but I didn't get any pics...what's that saying, "sometimes it's not the destination but the journey that matters!" I love baking with my two little chefs!

Christmas Season begins

2011-12-20T14:14:00.000-08:00

We started off December with seeing Santa and our 9th Annual Christmas Ornament party! But first we had to go scout out the perfect tree at our local nursery.
Cameron thought this was the perfect tree...just her size.
Timo came outside with his toy saw to help daddy get it all trimmed up for the Christmas tree stand.

We got the tree up, lights on and all ready for our annual Christmas party! This year theme was Silver and Gold. The winning ornament went to Claudia Busbee with this beautiful ornament she made herself.
This was a few of our honorable mentions...the Prospector from "Rudolpf", he was looking for gold..ha, ha. And these beautiful Chinese coins that were actually brought from Texas by our friend Linda Kittletz.
We found a little time that weekend to sneak in a trip to see Santa too. Timo and Cameron were actually excited to see Santa this year and had their lists all ready...but as soon as we walked up, they froze. They each stood behind me and told Santa what they wanted...Timo an air hockey table, remote control car, and a race car that he can build...while Cameron asked for a horse that she could brush it's hair and a croquet set (no idea where she got that one from??). Santa was so sweet to even answer Timo when he asked where Santa's reindeer were...of course Timo would ask that! The kids agreed to a picture as long as Young and I were sitting with them...Santa 2011!

Our house was in full swing of Christmas after that weekend. We were playing Christmas carols non-stop for a few days, getting into the spirit. I guess "Jingle Bell Rock" was one song that stuck with Timo. He can't help but sing it while he works on his train track masterpiece.

Singing at City Hall

2011-12-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

The weekend after Thanksgiving the children's pre-k class was asked to sing at the lighting of the Christmas tree in City Hall. The event was meant to be an example of the diversity of cultures in SF so their class was asked to sign a Christmas song in Chinese. I could hear the class learning the song each day when I picked them up from school and the kids practiced it constantly while at home. They were all set for their big performance...uh, until we got there. Timo got a little overwhelmed by the whole thing and decided to sit this one out. You can see him looking up at how big the rotunda is inside city hall, trying to take it all in.

We arrived and everything seemed to be going great. The kids saw all their classmates and Timo was so excited. The teacher was lining them up off to the side, getting them ready to go on stage, I walked away to get a good seat to video it, the mayor got up to speak and then I saw a group of drag queens walk up next to the kids. They were full on make up, kinda scary looking to a 3 year old, and then I heard Timo crying. I just knew what had happened before I even saw him. He got scared and didn't want to go anywhere near the stage. I made my way through the kids to get him and didn't feel so bad once I saw a few other kids crying for their moms too. But Cameron was heading on stage so the show must go on! I lost my good seat when I went to rescue Timo but was able to slide on the floor and get a decent video of her singing. She was way more distracted by everyone else singing than by the audience!

I'm so proud of her! I was a little teary eyed...my baby girl's first school performance. I love this shot of her waving goodbye to the audience after the performance.

When it was all done they ushered the kids into another room to take a group photo. The kids ran over for the picture while I was talking to another mom...then I heard Timo crying again. His teacher was bringing him to me saying he didn't want to have his picture taken. I guess he thought they were going to go out and sing again?? Oh well, my little sensitive boy. But Cameron had so much fun posing for her pictures...

Timo was feeling a little left out and asked me to take a picture of just he and Cameron as we were about to leave.

As we were walking outside, their teacher, Fu Lao Shui, came up to say what a great job Cameron did and gave Timo encouragement. Timo asked to have his picture taken with his teacher...so sweet. Teachers are such amazing people, especially preschool teachers!

So just to show you that Timo does know the song, he wanted me to video tape him singing it after he watched the video of Cameron singing...so here they are, singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in Chinese.

Thanksgiving Day

2011-12-16T10:59:00.001-08:00

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We were able to serve the homeless at our church that morning and have some great friends over in the afternoon for turkey and all the trimmings! Since we were having quite a few friends over, I had lots of cooking to do, Young took the kids down to the church that morning to help with the feeding festivities. He said they did such a good job serving and were such a blessing the folks with smiles.

After all that work, they got to pull the wishbone and have a piece of pie.

I was able to get most of the cooking done, table finished and even browsed the Black Friday ads while the kids were gone, but once they got home, we had little time left till our guests arrived. I really wanted to get a family picture infront of the table this year...which we did, only I was still in my cooking t-shirt. Oh well!

Good food and good time with friends. Cameron and Anjali tackled the fire truck puzzle while Timo and Jonathan played games on the ipod...such girls and boys!

At one point, we were all distracted and our pastor's son, Brady (2 years), decided to open all the puzzle boxes and dump them out. Poor Pastor Ryan, he insisted on putting all the right pieces back in the right box...all 10 puzzles!

Pumpkin whoopie pies for dessert...yum!

So many things to be thankful for this year...my cup overflows...

School Sweet Potato Pie Project

2011-12-14T14:01:00.000-08:00

The twins school (CAIS) did a pie project...sweet potato pie. They asked for parent volunteers to help the students make the pies and of course I signed right up. I LOVE teaching kids how to cook and bake! Unfortuantly, the way the parents were divided up, I didn't get to teach Timo and Cameron's class. They stationed me in the kitchen scaling out the ingredients and keeping watch over the baking pies. But thankfully another mom, who was in their class, took some pics for me. Here they are with their best buds Christian and Mia.

The next day was a half day release (the day before Thanksgiving) and the parents were invited to come in for a slice of pie. Cameron really loved the whipped cream...Yummy!

We also got the "I'm thankful for..." art work the kids did. Cameron drew a nice picture of me on a road, taking her to school. And Timo is thankful for Rainbows...an all blue rainbow aparently.

I am thankful for these two little monkeys!

Operation Christmas Child

2011-12-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

We participated in Operation Christmas Child again this year and Timo and Cameron had a blast packing boxes! I took them to the Dollar Store the day before to pick out things to pack in their little boy and girl's box...oh boy, what a treat! Timo picked up almost every toy in the store and wanted to put it in his boy's box. "I want my boy to have this!" And Cameron felt her little girl only need puzzles so it took a little talking to her about other things the girl might want to play with. (No pictures of this...one adult and two kids in a toy store...not good odds)

In addition to our boxes, our church supplied boxes and fillings for 50 more boxes and had a "packing party" where the children got to pack the boxes. Timo and Cameron were picking out toys and packing like old pros...

After all the boxes were packed, we stacked them up, hoping to collect at least 200. Our church had over 230 boxes donated, woo hoo! I think next year I'll track our boxes so the children can see where they end up.

Head, Sholders, Knees and Toes

2011-12-12T13:37:00.000-08:00

I tried to get them to sing together...Guess it's harder to sing and point to the right body part than I thought!

Big Church

2011-12-12T13:22:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago we kept the kids in big church to watch their first baptism. One of their older friends (9years old) was getting baptised and I thought they would like to see it. We sat up in the balcony to have a good view! I can't tell you how amazing it was for Timo and Cameron to see Abigail get baptized. They asked a million questions about what it means and why you have to get in water. The only part that scared Cameron was maybe getting water in her eyes...
We all got to praise the Lord together for Abigail's decision. After the baptism Timo was ready to go to his class but Cameron wanted to say with me to keep singing and clapping to worship songs. Oh how she loves to sing! Now, of course, she asked to sing in worship every Sunday...

Time with Granny and Grandpa

2011-12-07T21:19:00.000-08:00

Since it's obviously going to take me a really long time to post all our vacation pics, I thought I would at least get some pics of the kids' a activities while we were gone. They had so much fun with Granny and Grandpa!

Of course there were haircuts by Granny...we love Granny haircuts!!

My Dad remodeled our closet while we were gone (Thanks you Daddy, we love it!) and he had two little helpers.
A few days before Young and I left, my mom took Cameron and me out for an afternoon tea time. This little tea house, The Secret Garden, did such a great job with little ones. Complete with lemonade "tea" and little teddy bear toast!
My Dad spent lots of time outside with the kids...riding balance bikes and flying like witches on their brooms! (it was close to Halloween)
Mom always has the kids helping her out in the kitchen (no wonder I became a chef, huh)...this was twiced bakes potatoes, yummy!
According to mom and dad, the kids were perfect little angles the whole time we were gone! Hum, wonder who's kids they had?? Ha, Ha! I guess it is hard to fuss and fight when you're giving hugs and kisses all day long...and I hear there were lots and lots of hugs and kisses!! We so grateful that my parents could come out watch the kids...we loved it and I know Timo and Cameron did too!

Cameron Writes Her Name!

2011-12-02T21:49:00.001-08:00

I'm so behind in my posting, I know. "Tis the season"...as they say.

I had to interup my paris blogging to post Cameron's big accomplishment. She can write her name! She still doesn't know how to spell it, she has to ask "what letter is next mommy?" but she can write them all. Good job my little Punkin!!

(Timo had to show how he can write his big, full name...)

Paris, Day 2

2011-11-28T12:30:00.001-08:00

The second day we decided to explore the Le Madeleine area and tour the Louvre. One of the first things that came to our attentions was Christmas decorations were already up around town, this was the first week in November. It occurred to us that France doesn't have Thanksgiving so they really don't have a "mark" of when to decorate, I guess they just wait for Halloween to be over.
The first pastry shop we visited this day was Fauchon....oh boy! We were lucky they allowed us to take photos, so I took a lot! I was so excited to go to Fauchon, up there way above the Louvre or Eiffel Tower.
After looking over every single thing they offered with a fine toothed eye, I finally make my choice, we ordered and sat down to some of the most tasty treats and amazing chocolat chaud (hot chocolate)ever. The hot chocolate in Paris is more like chocolate with a little cream in it...so thick, so chocolaty, so rich and soooo yummy....

We moved on to pass the Place de Concord and over to Michel Cluizel's chocolate shop...wow!
And here is another chocolate shop I can't remember the name...but the caramels here were outstanding!
On to the Louvre! The line wasn't as long as I thought it would be and we were in in no time. Why is everything in Paris blowing my mind! It was one of the most beautiful museums I've ever been to.
I won't go overboard with all the art pics I took, just a few highlights.
Mona Lisa herself...and just look at the enormity of this painting. I had Young stand next to it to show proportion.

After a few hours of educating ourselves in art that I won't ever be able to remember, we had an early dinner at the museum cafe, Cafe Marly. On our walk back to the hotel, along the Seine River, the Eiffel Tower started it's "sparkle show". It has sparkly lights for 5 mins every hour on the hour...so sparkly! A beautiful way to end our evening.

Paris, Day 1--First Full Day

2011-11-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

Believe or not, our first full day was the best weather we had the whole 10 days! I woke up so excited to get out and see Paris, I was like a kid at Christmas!! After breakfast we headed out. A few blocks from our hotel was the Arch de Triomphe.
I have to first say, I love the history of this city...or rather how historic Paris is. Everything seems to have a story dating back to 15th century or beyond. This Arc is a tribute to the French revolution and the Napoleon wars and also contains the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

We had lunch reservations at Pierre Gagnaire, not far from the Arc, so we wandered the streets as we walked over...seeing one of the many food/candy art displays around the city.
Our 3 1/2 hour lunch at Pierre Gagnaire was AMAZING. Easily in our top 5 best meals! All together we had 23 courses!! I'll spare you all 23 photos but here are some highlights...One is the two different butters they served with the bread (salted and a Normandy butter) and the other is the 5 course amuse, after the three course amuse we had already had.

Chef Gagnaire sighting in the dining room...I was so star stuck! There is a two month waiting list for reservations here. I contacted our concierge at our hotel a few months out from our stay and ask him to make reservations for us and he was able to secure us a spot...so lucky!
My appetizer, a tasting of "farmyard" consisting of pheasant, duck, pork, etc... And our waiter deboning Young's lamb entree. Really, the amount of food was unbelievable but so good...intricate and detailed. The whole meal, top to bottom, was perfect. Not one detail left out.
This was the pre-dessert before our five different desserts arrived on the table. Some desserts got eaten before I could snap a pic but here are a few...

After lunch we need a nice walk around so we headed over to the Eiffel Tower..arriving just at sunset, perfect timing.
The line was WAY too long to ride to the top, we decided to just walk around and enjoy the view from below.
The view was so beautiful, we must have taken 25 pictures of the same view...but this one stands out most.

It was nearing dinner time but we were still so full from lunch, we decided to stop at a small patissier for a snack...the first of 10000 patissiers we walked into...Dalloyau.
One last look of the Eiffel Tower as we walk back over Pont des Invalides toward our hotel. Guess this is why Paris is known as the "city of lights".

Paris, Day 1

2011-11-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

When my big 4-0 birthday was approaching, Young asked what I would like to do...have a big party, nice dinner with my friends, a small get together at a wine bar? I thought of a few options but then decided for my 40th that I wanted to do something/go somewhere I've never been...Paris! Paris is every chef/pastry chef's "mother land" and I had yet to go. My amazing husband quickly sprang into action and had the trip planed in a matter of days...what a guy! We were able to use his hotel points for our entire stay and airline miles to upgrade our seats!

The plan was to have my parents come out to watch the kids while we took the birthday trip. We had to do a little rearranging to fit with my parents schedule, Young's work schedule and of course, my actual birthday. We were so wrapped up in the planning and scheduling, it didn't occur to me, until about two weeks before we left, that we would be leaving our 3 year old children for 10 whole days!! What were we thinking?? All my worry was for nothing...the kids did great, my parents loved every minute with them and we had an amazing trip...the trip of a lifetime!

So, here we go...I have about 300 pics from the trip but I'll try to edit that number down for the blog (lucky you). Just be prepared for a lot of food photos!

We left on my actual birthday (Nov. 2) and Young had us booked First Class on this sweet double decker airplane. (As hard as it is that Young travels so much, the benefits sure are nice...)
Our seats were upstairs and we basically had our own stewardess the whole time. I think there were 10 of us upstairs. They greeted us with champagne and we settled in for our 9 hour overnight flight. We had a full dinner, able to catch some zzzzs in the fully reclining seats and awoke to a wonderful breakfast the next morning. Happy Birthday to Me!!

We flew non-stop to London and then took the Chunnel over to Paris. We owe a million thank-yous to our stewardess...she gave us so many pointers on how to get to the train station from the airport, we would have been so lost! The train ride was so lovely. We had a nice lunch on the train and saw so much of the French countryside. But after traveling for almost 24hours, we were ready to get to our hotel, shower and rest!

Once we got to Paris it was pouring down rain, dark outside and packed with rush hour traffic. We finally made it to our hotel, Marriott on the Champs-Elysees, and they had us in a horrible hotel room. After calling various managers, they found another room for us but wouldn't be ready until the following day. Even thought my Paris experience was a little dampened to start off with, we made our way to dinner and I remembered why I wanted to come to Paris...the food!

Our fist meal was at a bistro called JosAphine "Chez Dumonet". It. Was. Amazing! Such simple, great bistro food, everything I had expected and more. The pate and foie gras apps we had were huge...I've never seen a foie torchon cut so thick! Young couldn't even finish it all...and that's saying alot. And my steak with sauce bearnaise was cooked perfect with the most yummy garlic roasted potatoes on the side. Perfection!
We were so full by the end but we just had to order dessert. The Grand Marnier souffle was the obvious choice and it did not disappoint. Eating it just took me back to my early pastry chef days in NYC, whipping up souffles ever so carefully...ahhhh. Young could only eat a bite or two while I finished off the whole thing! It was so good. What an amazing first meal in Paris and what a standard it set for our entire trip!

Halloween 2011

2011-11-18T20:12:00.000-08:00

This year my parents were here for Halloween and it was great to have a few extra hands keeping everyone together and on agenda! Timo was just happy being in his costume and didn't want any candy. I kept asking him over and over to take his bucket and he kept saying I don't want candy, Mommy! But once he saw his buddies getting candy, he wanted his bucket ASAP. We met our friends Caleb and Evan on the corer and off we went..
We picked up two more friends along the way...Lucia (Heidi) and Jasper (policeman)
We had a hard time teaching trick or treating "edict"...Saying "Trick or Treat", waiting till they give you candy and then make sure to say thank you. But somehow, once the door was opened and the kids saw the candy..all manners went out the door! I felt sorry for some of the folks opening the door. It was a frenzy of toddlers snatching candy! And Timo would just walk into houses!!
But a good time was being had by all...

It was starting to get dark and we were about to call it a night when we came upon this one house that was really scary for the kids. They had a big black cat blow up, scary noise that played as you walked up the steps and skeletons in the yard. Cameron and Jasper were too scared to go, Timo was kinda frozen with fear yet wanted to know how it all worked, and the others were trying to get the cat to move...
We tried to get a group picture but the scary house upset most of the kids and no one was happy at this point...
I let the kids eat once piece of candy on the way home...and of course Cameron chose the full-sized Kit Kat bar she got...and she ate almost every bite! That's my girl!

Trunk or Treat!

2011-11-17T19:57:00.000-08:00

The Saturday before Halloween our church had a Fall Family Fest and Trunk or Treat. This was our first experience at Trunk or Treat and I must say I LOVE it! If you're not familiar (as I was), it's where participating folks back their cars in the parking lot, open their trunks and decorate the trunk as if it were their house. Then the children all walk around from car to car trick or treating! It's so much safer than house to house and much more approachable for the little ones. Timo and Cameron got all dressed up in their costumes and had a blast...not to mention loaded up on the candy! Cameron wanted to be a pink super hero from day 1 of talking about costumes. Timo went back and forth between space man or race car driver...race car driver won out once he saw this one with the headset (that only lasted about 30sec before it hurt his ear).
Once we got to church the kids saw all the cars lined up and wanted to get right to work collecting the goods...we are definitely signing up to be a trunk next year!

After the trick or treating there were lots of activities for the kids. Cameron was especially happy about winning a round of the "cupcake" Cake Walk!

There was also pumpkin painting, bouncy houses, games, balloon animals....Timo LOVES Rolo the clown, and I mean LOVES. He gets so excited when he see him and always runs up, stands next to him the whole time watching his every move.

Hot dogs with our fav friends Jonathan and Anjali...or should I say Mr. Policeman and Woody...
And somehow Cameron talked/walked herself to another cupcake to finish off the evening!

Catching Up & Hallowen pt 1

2011-11-16T12:45:00.000-08:00

We are finally back from our trip to Europe and trying to catch up on everything. Young and I had the most amazing trip but missed the kids like crazy! My parents just left yesterday which now gives me time to sit down and load up all our pictures and attempt to organize them into a million different posts...not really, but that's how many pics I took!

But before I can move on to our vacation, I need to get our Halloween weekend out of the way first. The first of our Festivities was carving the jack-o-lanterns. Even though we visited numerous pumpkin patches, being as cheap as I am, we go to Safeway to get our pumpkins the day before when they are on clearance! The kids each wanted a shopping cart car and made sure their pumpkins were nice and safe...

Then home, change clothes and head to the back yard to do the cleaning and carving. Young and I have unknowing settled into our own roles for Halloween...Young does the pumpkin carving and I do the costumes...works for us. Daddy had to lay down the ground rules first...pumpkins stay on the plastic bag area, no playing with the knife and kids clean out the seedy guts inside!

Cameron wanted a happy face on hers and Timo wanted a little bit scary face on his.

Cheese! The finished product...luckily Daddy is the artist in the family!

Be Back Soon...

2011-11-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't been blogging in a while...needless to say, things have been busy in the Ko household. I just wanted to touch base and let you know I haven't forgotten about our blog...just away for a while. Here is a little taste of the pictures to come, once we get back in town...:)

Michael's Crafts

2011-10-26T12:36:00.001-07:00

The past month we've gone to Michael's store to do some Halloween crafts. I love these craft days because you can use all their craft supplies for free...and they clean up after you! One Saturday they had decorate your own pumpkin. We just had to purchase the pumpkin, $3 each...the rest was FREE! Thank goodness they do the clean up because Timo was all about the glitter glue!
Cameron decided hers need feathers...and glitter glue too...
A few weeks later we went back to make Halloween T-shirts. Again, we just had to buy the shirts (2/$5) and they had the rest of the supplies. The shirts were a little different in that the kids wanted me to draw the spider web on they they would do everything else.
I thought it would be fun to put the kids' hand prints on the shirts...little did I know the shirt paint doesn't wash off very well, oops! We had to scrub and scrub and scrub. Cameron ended up drawing a spider and a ghost on hers while Timo painted a mommy spider, daddy spider and two twin spiders...all of which are "friendly".

I'm all signed up for their emails so I can plan on the Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts too!

Can I Get Some Help, Please??

2011-10-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

So the word G.U.N. has made it's way into our house...much to my strong, strong disapproval. It started so innocently this summer while playing with water guns with their older cousins. Then seeing some older boys play "combat" at the playground, running around shooting with fake guns...that really didn't help much. Timo had found a whole new world of boy toys. I managed to get him to start calling them "shooters" instead of "guns"...just hearing my little boy say that word made me cringe! Now Timo has taken to "shooting" in a big way and has been obsessed with them. He can turn anything into a shooter....he was playing with his Lego's and figured out how to piece together a gun and how to hold a Lincoln log like a shooter...ACK!

I really worked overtime to talk to Timo about shooters being for grown ups, not very fun to play with, there are lots of other toys that are more fun to play with...so on and so on. And luckily, like most things, it was a phase and now he hardly says anything about guns...until last week when he opened his policeman safety coloring book a very nice policeman gave them. Looks innocent enough, huh?
He opened it up and got so excited to see this...ugh! Come one, can I get a little help, please!!!

Cameron Sleeps

2011-10-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Cameron has always been a crazy sleeper. Each night we go in and check, cover up and give kisses to the kids before we go to bed...and typically find Cameron in the funniest positions that leave us wondering what she was doing before she fell asleep? This one was when she had bronchitus and the doctor really wanted her to sleep sitting up and drink lots of fluids..as well as warm liquids helped sooth her throat and cough. I would make warm milk for her to sip in bed and this night she fell asleep holding the cup...she just couldn't put it down...
One night I came in and found her on the floor sleeping...what on earth?? Did she just not like her bed? Did she sleep walk and get out of bed? Was she playing with toys before sleep overcame her??
I love when I find her sleeping backwards, almost like she was sitting up, getting sleepy and just fell over into slumber.
And this one?? Did she fall asleep, then wake up, sit on the edge of her bed and fall backwards? Or was she having deep conversations with froggy and wowsie and fell asleep mid conversations?? Crazy girl...

One thing that is constant in all these pictures is Cameron's blankie...wherever or however she sleeps, blankie is right there with her!

Pirate Imagination

2011-10-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

Here is an older video I came across when I was backing up files before the new hard drive installation. This was one day during "nap time"...instead of sleeping they were sailing the high seas raising pirate flags and dropping anchors! I snuck in the room hoping not to get seen but those sneaky pirates spotted me right away...

Clancy Pumpkin Patch

2011-10-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

The kids had a school holiday along with their buddies Caleb and Evan, so we decided to do trip to another pumpkin patch...you can never visit too many pumpkin patches! And we don't get to hang out with Caleb much these days because everyone is in school so this play date was a really long one!

You got a free tractor/hay ride if you purchased a pumpkin so we picked out a $3 pumpkin (cost of the hay ride) for each child and then then loaded them in the car.
After the pumpkin pickin' we took the kids to the park. No more playing in the playground..it's all about the balance bikes now. Caleb, Timo and Cameron did races all afternoon. Ana and I heard "on your mark, get set, go!" at least a million times that day!

Ardenwood Farms

2011-10-17T19:37:00.000-07:00

We hit our first pumpkin patch a few weeks ago down at Ardenwood Farm's annual harvest festival. We didn't actually make it into the "farm" because the line was sooo unbelievably long to get in. We hung out in the pumpkin patch waiting for the line to die down, but after an hour it was still over a 30min wait to get in, so we decided we didn't really need to see the cows and pet the sheep. The kids didn't really know the difference either, they had a blast in "the patch".
Some highlights...the hay mountain and hay maze...

Each of the kids found a "pumpkin seat" that they wanted their picture taken sitting on.
I found this picture from last year...and compared it to the kids growth this year. Look how they have grown!

We had a very educational hay ride through the veggie fields. Our driver stopped a few time to show different veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, carrots, etc. He even passed some around the trailer for all the kids to touch and see. Well worth the $3 ride.

"The driver on the bus goes beep, beep, beep..."
We finished off our morning with the yummy picnic lunch I packed. Since my plan of a picnic "on the farm" was out, we had to regroup and spread our blanket under the shade of a tree in the parking lot. But hey, at least Timo found a lady bug in the grass! A successful morning to kick off the 2011 pumpkin patch season!

Magic Trick

2011-10-16T13:11:00.001-07:00

So our has been acting up the past few months, freezing up and then shutting down. Young dug a little deeper and figured out it was our hard drive...which was great because that meant it was covered under the warranty. The bad news is we had to replace the hard drive, basically giving us a brand new computer with nothing on it...like pictures. We had to back everything up and now reload it back on the computer. But I'm so thankful to have an amazing husband that spent 4 hours working on it to make it good as new.

Long story short, I haven't had a chance to reload photos yet so you're getting a recent video from online...Timo the Magician! Young has been doing simple magic tricks with the kids like penny behind the ear and the dissappearing quarter. Here is is Timo's version of that trick...

(fyi, the "monkey munch" is actually Gorilla Munch cereal)

Bye Double Stroller

2011-10-14T21:53:00.001-07:00

This was the last trip in the double stroller...it has moved on to a new family that will love it just as much. And as you can see, not a minute too soon either. The kids were getting too crowded riding, fighting over arm and foot space and we were getting TIRED of pushing upwards of 60 pounds of toddlers uphill! So bye-bye stroller, you were a good and trusted friend...you will be missed. Just another sign that our babies are no longer babies...

Balance Bikes!

2011-10-12T07:55:00.000-07:00

I can't think of any other toy that the kids have asked for over and over and over than a balance bike. We have a few friends that have one and it's all they want to do when we see them, ride the balance bike. We were thinking of maybe getting them for Christmas but when I saw them come up on Zulily.com for 50% off, I had to jump at the chance. And holding on to them for 4 months was just way too long to keep it a secret. And now life is all about their balance bikes. Everyday they ask if they can ride their bikes after school, when we head to a park/playground they ask if we can take their bikes and even are asking if they can ride them to go Trick or Treating!

We put them together and headed out to the park. I was so suprised to see how well they were already balancing on them...

We took a little break to check the map and see where we wanted to have our snack...and enjoy the view of the roses in the Rose Garden.

Big Brother

2011-10-11T13:54:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to mention a little tidbit about Timo today...Cameron was having a hard time saying goodbye to Mommy this morning for school and Timo came up and said to her, "don't worry Cameron, I'm here with you. I'll protect you." Oh, melt my heart! What a great big brother he is...even if he is only one minute older...

Timo Writes His Name

2011-10-10T19:16:00.000-07:00

One of the traits my son got from me is his sense of perfectionism...not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. In most cases it causes him extreme frustration because he can't do something perfect. This leads to a lot of melt downs and tears over not being able to replicate exactly what he sees in his mind. On the other hand, I have to give him credit for keeping at something over and over until he can do it...perfectly. (This also includes not singing a song out loud until he knows all the words.)

Each day at their school the parents have to sign out their children on a sign out sheet. The teacher made one for the kids to sign out too because they are always wanting to write on the parent's sheet. Once Timo saw some of the 4 year olds writing their name, he absolutely HAD to learn how to write his name. I'll admit, we've had our share of tears and crying "I can't, it doesn't look right..." but it was all worth it today when he sat down and wrote his name perfectly for the first time! I was so proud of him and you could tell he was proud of himself. He has been practicing and practicing for weeks now, most days at his art easel....here are his stages.

Almost as soon as he wrote "Timo" tonight he was asking how to spell "Timothy Ko" so I helped him write his big full name for a little extra credit...

New Update on Timo

2011-10-06T21:12:00.001-07:00

So turns out Timo wasn't getting as better as we thought...he had a set back Monday and was back in the doctors office Tuesday morning with fever and difficult breathing again. Turns out the first antibiotic they prescribed wasn't working and the super duper liquid steroid they gave him in the ER had worn off...creating the perfect storm. So we switched antibiotics and were sent home with four days of the liquid steroid. Young also flew out to NYC Tues. morning before the kids woke up, but luckily was on a flight that had wi-fi so I could email him updates. He also was able to contact our pastor, family and friends for me to ask for prayer for our little boy...all from the plane!

I'm so happy to report that Timo seems to be on the mend now, finally. I think the new meds are working but we'll know for sure tomorrow when the steroids wear off. He is certainly back to his same energy level and no longer having coughing fits. He hasn't been to school this week and each day has wanted to sit in the car while I take Cameron in or pick her up, except for today. He wanted to go in to pick her up and was so excited to see his teachers and friends. I think he is ready to go back to school. And I must say, I'm ready for him to go back. I'm totally spoiled having twins...they always play with each other. With just one child, they expect 100% of your attention 100% of the time! So exhausting...
(Cameron had a really hard time going to school without Timo. She typically run right off when we get there with barely a kiss goodbye...but not while Timo has been gone. Lots "one last hug", "don't go", "I'm sick too Mommy". Seems someone is more attached to her brother than she lets on...)

And like they say, when it rains, it pours...Cameron woke up Monday night crying and crying that her skin burned. I lifted up her jammes to find hives all over her legs, arms, back and face. Apparently she had an allergic reaction to a new soap I used for them in the bath that night. Ugh. She missed one day of school and has been on Benedryl for the past 3 days. Happy to report, she is now is hive free...yay!!

I hope we're done for the year of sickness...

Runaway Pumpkin

2011-10-05T21:44:00.000-07:00

The kids have a new book, The Runaway Pumpkin, that they love. I really like the author Kevin Lewis. We have a few other books by him, Chugga Chugga Choo Choo and My Truck is Stuck. He has a great way of writing with rhyming and rhythm. Young somehow always turns the book into these songs, which up front sound like so much fun, but in reality, it's a nightmare for me! Somehow I never "read" the books right according to the kids...I always hear "that's not how Daddy reads it!" So now I'm video taping and learning how to sing the books!

Timo Upate

2011-10-03T16:24:00.000-07:00

Thank you all so much for your prayers for Timo. As some of you may not know, Timo was diagnosed with pneumonia this weekend that quickly got worse, ending us up in the ER on Saturday for over 6 hours. But we praise and rejoice our healing Father for His mighty work over our little boy.

It all started with this little girl....she had bronchitis about two weeks ago and we had to go in for her to have an albuterol treatment. She was never that sick, no fever, runny nose, crankiness, nothing...just a cough that lasted two weeks so we finally took her in and found out bronchitis.
We tried and tried out best to keep Timo from getting it. With his asthma history, a respiratory virus is bad news for him. But as lass, he caught the cough, which at first was slight and we though we could keep it under control with his inhaler. After a few days I could tell it was getting worse and took him in last Friday. Our doctor listened to his chest and immediately said he had pneumonia. She prescribed antibiotic and said if he got worse to bring him right in. Like Cameron, he wasn't even really running a fever or showing an other signs of being sick, just a cough. Saturday morning he woke up with a fever and the cough sounded a lot worse. Throughout the day he just got worse and worse. We couldn't break his fever, he was really inactive, fell asleep just sitting on the sofa and his breathing was sound rapid and shallow. Finally at 5pm we made the call to take him to the ER. They took one look at him and immediately whisked him away, hooking him up to oxygen, heart monitor, and ordered an xray to look at his chest. He was not a happy camper.
Everything was happening so fast, with such speed, nothing like ER experiences I've had in the past. (They later told me when you have a child in breathing distress you get bumped to the top of the list.) The ER doctor came in immediately, check him out and told us we would be admitted over night, he would be fine was wasn't doing very well at the moment. His heart rate was over 155, normal is around 90, and his blood oxygen was around 90, normal being 96-100. And his fever was hoovering around 102. Oh boy! Timo was crying and crying, he hated the oxygen tub in his nose and the heart rate pad on him. My heart was absolutely breaking. I was trying by best to distract him and remembered Young had let him play Angry Birds on his phone this summer while we were flying. I got my phone out and loaded up Angry Birds...perfect! It totally distracted him so the doctors could do the albuterol treatments on him.
The bad thing about giving Timo my phone to play with is I couldn't use it to call Young to keep him updated and the game drained my battery. I tried to get my phone back but Timo got so upset which made him start coughing which made his heart rate go up....so it was just best to use the room phone. I'm so thankful this was a weekend and Young wasn't traveling. He stayed at home with Cameron. And I'm so thankful we grabbed Timo's Papi on our way out the door...Timo would have been a wreck without his Papi. And the nurses even "hooked" Papi up to the heart monitor too...so sweet.
The pediatric doctor came in and told me they would do three albuterol treatments and one super powerful steroid liquid dose to help open his airways up and see how he was doing. After each albuterol they turned off his oxygen and his stats began to fall...didn't look good. They kept preparing me for him to stay the night, even though he was starting to perk up a little. So in a quiet moment in our room, Timo and I prayed together, thanking Jesus for the great doctors that were helping him, giving thanks for his improvements so far (his fever was breaking) and asking Jesus to continue healing him. Then after his third and final treatment of albuterol his oxygen level held steady. But the doctor still weren't convinced and wanted to see if he cold hold it steady for two hours...so we had to wait and wait and wait. Our nurse was awesome. She blew up gloves for us, brought stickers and printed out coloring pages for Timo to color. He was starting to look and act so much better...all praises!

She even made sure Papi was taken care of...
Timo was holding his own breathing, not as high as they like to see, but at least holding his own without the oxgyen. The ER doctor said he was "the bad side of good" holding around 94/95 blood oxygen. But since we are experienced with inhalers they let us go home...with the promise we would bring him back first thing in the morning to check his stats! Praise the Lord! They made him walk a few laps around the ER to make sure he was stable and then we were let go...6 hours later, around 10:30pm. I soooo did not want Timo to spend the night at the hospital. This was the barrage of medicine they sent us home with...two different inhalers, another dose of liquid super powerful steroid, Tylenol, Motrin and antibiotics. (the Advil in the back was for me...talk about a stress headach)
But it's was all worth it. 24 hours later Timo was doing better, eating (he hadn't eaten much at all the whole day before) and hanging with his sister watching his fav movie...Cars.
And here we are two days later and he continues to get better. He's been living like a king the past few days so I know he isn't complaining :)

Acro Sports

2011-09-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

We had the pleasure of going to a birthday party of one of our new preschool friends, Julia, at Acro Sports. They teach gymnastics with a focus on circus arts...what fun! Timo and Cameron loved all the swinging, jumping and riding. Sorry most of the pics are blurry...the little tumblers were in constant motion!

They had a little swing ride there too...kids sit in the "boat" and get raised up by a big bungee cord, then the teacher would swing and bounce them around. All the kids loved it! Timo is riding with his new friend Sammy...and I can't remember who Cameron is riding with...oops.
The most exciting thing was the zip line! The kids would repel from the very top of the gym down to the bottom. Timo was so excited to ride but once he got up there he decided not to...until he saw Cameron do it! Yay...they were both so brave!
Cameron really, really enjoyed the gym...and she seemed right at home there. She ran the trampoline almost non-stop, tumbling and somersaulting. I'm wondering if we should sign her up for some gymnastics class?? She's already telling me she wants her birthday party at the gym too...oh boy.

Monkey Bars

2011-09-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I noticed these calluses in Cameron's hands. I couldn't think of anything she could be doing at home that would cause it so I was at a loss. Then I started thinking about what she could be doing at school...holding a pencil, crayons, using scissors...then it hit me! She runs to the monkey bars every morning when I drop them off...the monkey bars. But to actually have calluses? How many times does she go across to get calluses?? I decided to hang around one morning to see how far she had actually come in learning how to go across and was so surprised that she made it all the way!! Now mind you, she couldn't even move to one bar by herself 3 weeks ago...now she can go the whole distance! She sure did earn those little spots of tough skin...

Summer Corn!

2011-09-27T13:04:00.000-07:00

We had the last of the yummy summer corn a few nights ago. Looks like my summer of teaching them how to shuck and clean up has paid off. They shucked all six ears AND cleaned by themselves!! Kinda made the corn taste even sweeter...

Labor Day Weekend Pt 2

2011-09-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

We woke up on Labor Day and hung around the hotel room for a little while...trying to touch the sky and pretending to be race car drivers in our pillow race car!

Then we packed up and headed over to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. I was excited to go since the last time we were there was about 8 years ago when Young and I were dating! What I was most excited about was there were lots of ride for the kids to ride. Cameron is a little on the small size for her age so she often isn't tall enough for most rides...but not at the Boardwalk! We rode rides for four solid hours. These are only half the rides we did...the other half we were riding with them and couldn't snap pics.

There were a few bigger rides that Timo was tall enough for and wanted to try out...he was a little scared riding them but was asking to go again once they were done! Guess we have a thrill seeker...

This one was a little too scary. He really wanted to ride it with his daddy and even made fast friends with the little boy next to him...but he didn't want to ride this one again...
We made sure to make time for some corn dogs and ice cream!
Timo kept asking and asking to play an arcade game so we gave in and let them play a game each. The good thing was they won tickets that we turned in for shark tattoos!
Our last hurrah was the sky ride! I must say this ride seem totally harmless while we were waiting in line but once we were up in the air...oh boy, it was high.

We finally left after a long day of fun. The kids fell asleep before we even got out of the parking lot! Young decided to take advantage of the quiet to do a little scenic drive through Santa Cruz...so beautiful.
On the way home we stopped for dinner at one of our favorite places, Half Moon Bay. We got a beautiful sunset before the fog rolled in. Yay for family time!

Labor Day Weekend Pt 1

2011-09-24T13:32:00.001-07:00

Labor Day weekend we took a little overnight trip down south for some fun and change of scenery. I've been trying to plan a trip to our fourth and final AAA baseball game for the season down to the San Jose Giants and lucked out with them playing at home that weekend! We headed down after church on Sunday (about and hour drive) and met our good friends, the Hertzels, for the game.
Timo is starting to really get into the baseball games. He asks which team is "ours" and then stands to cheer and shout for our team. He also like to sing the "Take me out to the ball game.." song.

But the games do get long, so thank goodness there are always kid's activities to do. Young took Timo and Cameron walking around to play...Timo had to hit the batting cage and Cameron had to do the big slide!

Our friends Matthew and his baby sister, Noelle enjoying the game...or each other...
Churrios! Luckily Timo didn't like his so I got to eat it...he, he, he...
After the game we went to our hotel to get checked in, baths and ready for our day in Santa Cruz the next day!! Nothing like new furniture to jump and play on !

Timo Talks

2011-09-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

Timo likes to talk to people. Not just talking but he likes to get face to face and have conversation. (unlike Cameron who just talks and talks non-stop about nothing and everything) I've mentioned before, he asks a ton of questions about everything but also like to tell you things he knows. He was telling me all about his day this particular day so I thought I would catch a little of it on video.

I do love my little boy!

School Update

2011-09-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

I realized that I posted all this excitement over Timo and Cameron starting school but haven't really followed up with how it's been going. In one word "AWESOME!" We just had our first parent/teacher conference last Friday so now I have some tangible things to say instead of what I think is going on.

It was a little more difficult on Timo saying "good-bye" in the mornings the first week but thankfully, now he just runs right in. I guess the promise of a popsicle after school if he was a big boy didn't hurt either. Cameron...she never really had a problem say good-bye :( NO really, I'm happy that she loves it so much...really, I am...

What I do LOVE is hearing them scream "Mommy!!" when I come to pick them up in the afternoons. I, by far, have the most enthusiastic kids in the class when it comes to pick up time :)

This is their class room...the Chinese class. They spend 1/2 the day in Chinese class and 1/2 the day in English class.
Snack time corner...they can help themselves to a light snack at snack time...and encouraged to use chop sticks to eat with.
The ever exciting potty! This is the most exciting feature, according to the kids, at the school. Everything is little and just their size. Cameron actually will hold her pee-pee in the mornings now until we get the school...it's the first thing she does as soon as we get there. And Timo loves the automatic soap dispenser.
This is some art work from the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. Timo's moon cake and Cameron's flower garden.
In their English class they are learning about outer space right now. This is the art wall with the kids drawings on it. The teacher really liked Cameron's. She drew an astronaut, the space ship and the moon...I think it's pretty good too! (Timo's is the one to the lower right of the sign...the one with all the shooting stars and planets)

While Cameron tends to be more artistic, Timo is the most outgoing. After our teacher conferences, both teachers confirmed Timo and Cameron are pretty much the same at school as they are at home. They both said Timo plays with the other children well, tends to engage in conversations and seek out others to play with and always has to have the right answer. Cameron doesn't have a problem working by herself, she is little more reserved when it comes to making friends and loves to sing...a lot. Yup, that pretty much sums up my two monkeys! The good news is, while they both were joined at the hip the first week, even having to go to the potty together, they are now working/playing more independent of each other. They still eat together and nap next to each other but that's about it. Yeah for school!! More updates to follow...

Bedtime Craziness

2011-09-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

I took a video of Cameron putting on her jammies a while back and she loved watching it over and over and over again. Now every time she puts on her zip up jammies she asks me to take a video. I typically will video her, let her watch it and then delete it...or else we would have about 20 videos by now. I decided to save this one because it shows the craziness of our bedtime routine with two kids!

Back To School Shopping

2011-09-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

A few days before school started I took Timo and Cameron out shopping for lunch boxes and backpacks, new shoes and back to school hair cuts. It was one of those days where in my mind it all sounded so hectic in my head, I was dreading it, but in the end, it was one of the most fun and memorable days I've had with the my children.

First we went for hair cuts. The kids actually look forward to this because they sit in cars while their hair is being cut, get to play with tons of toys while they wait and a lollipop at the end...who wouldn't love that? And our hair dresser is the only one Cameron will let put a bow in her hair!
This was the first time they used the buzz clippers on Timo's hair...he was captivated. She cut Timo's hair a little too short for me, somewhat like a buzz cut, but hey, at least hair grows back!

We then headed to CitiKids to pick up some lunchboxes and backpacks...Cameron wanted this very specific fox lunchbox/backpack that she had seen before and Timo pick out a rocket/astronaut lunchbox with a monkey backpack. I don't have any pictures of this phase of our day...as you can imagine, having two kids in a "toy & kid's gear" store wasn't the most relaxing. Timo and Cameron were all over the place, into everything (hence, why we don't take them to toy stores). After Timo laboring over which lunchbox and backpack he wanted for at least 20min, we finally had our purchases and were out the door.

Just across the street from CitiKids is Giorgios Pizza...lunch! I love Giorgios. It's the total classic pizzeria with white/red check table clothes, drinks in red cups, plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling and totally family friendly! They even give the kids pizza dough to play with while you wait for your pizza. Genius!
And then of course, pizza! We always get the same, cheese and salami pizza...and a little extra cheese before we eat it, yum!
Our next stop was Payless Shoes for some new sneakers. Again, no pics here either for the same reasons...Timo and Cameron were all over the store picking out shoes. This was the first time I've taken them to a shoe store to pick out shoes they wanted. I only did this because I wanted to officially measure their feet to make sure I was getting the right size. Timo did really well, he went straight to these Lightning McQueen blinking shoes and that was it. Cameron on the other hand, took a painfully long time to pick out her shoes. She kept picking out crocs, winter boots, rain boots, flip flops, ballet shoes...everything but a pair of sneakers. At last, Timo found her a pair of pink shinny blinking shoes and she was sold! Whew, finally! I used my 20% coupon and we were done!

After an hour of shoe shopping, we all needed a snack! Ice cream for the kids and a nice cup of hot tea for me...ahhhh.
Our little dessert place had this big mechanical horse...as a child I loved these, as a parent, I loath these little machines. I know stores us these rides and other candy/gumball/toy machines to make money but ugh! It really irritates me to take my children out on a fun day and then have a total melt down because I won't give them money to put in the various machines. We really try not to make it a habit of every time they see a vending machine, they get money. So these stores can really ruin a great time out. But nonetheless, I'll step off my soapbox...I did give in this one time and let them take a horse ride. They both had been really good all day and I made sure they knew it was a special treat! It was an exciting end to a great day!

Lost and Found

2011-09-18T18:56:00.001-07:00

We loose sippy cups all over the house all time. Most most times I can find them within a reasonable amount of time...like 30min or so. But twice I have looked for a sippy cup of milk for a few days and couldn't find it. I knew they were somewhere in the house, looked all over, the usual spots...under the bed, under the sofa, behind the sofa, in their toy box, in the car...but nothing. Then it always dawns on me out of no where...ahhh, I bet I know where it is...

This was Cameron's cup last month. I looked and looked all over for it, even asking her where she put it. She kept saying "I put it in the refrigerator Mommy." Knowing she can't possibly open the doors by herself, I still checked the fridge over and over...nothing. About the fourth day I asked one more time and she still said the refrigerator...then ah ha! it finally occurred to me, maybe it was in HER refrigerator! Yup, right there it was...four day old milk...mmmmm.
Timo's was a few weeks ago, again, I knew there was a sippy of milk among us but couldn't find it. After 3 days of it being missing and with Timo having no idea where he left it, I retraced his steps of that day. I remembered him asking to ride Daddy's exercise bike...then "bing", a light went off in my head and I looked at the water bottle holder...there it sat...nice, think, chunky milk!

It feels like a big Easter Egg hunt sometimes, with spoiled milk being my prize. I wish sippy cups, and some of their favorite toys for that matter, had a tracking device on them. I so want to call them when they are lost like I do when I can't find my cell phone!

Hot and Sweaty!

2011-09-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Young tried to work out every morning by jogging or riding his exercise bike in the house. Most days when he is done he takes off his t-shirt and walks around the house drinking water tying to cool off. Of course, when he is all hot and sweaty is when the kids want to jump all over him. Young always says, "not right now, Daddy is all hot and sweaty." Then what quickly follows is probably to be expected...they in turn take off their shirts and walk around the house saying they are "hot and sweaty"...especially Cameron. It's funny because I can remember being really young, like 3 or 4, and refusing to wear my shirt too because I saw my dad and brother walking around with no shirt on. Fair was fair! My mom would beg me to put a shirt on, "ladies wear shirts"...but not me, nope, no way. Seems the apple doesn't fall far from the tree..

Summer Fun!

2011-09-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

We tried to pack in as much fun as we could before school started for the twins. Cameron got really comfortable in the water by the end summer. She practiced her kicking with a kick board and a floaty.
While Timo is still a little shy in the water, he perfected his water shooter aim!
Finishing off a day of swimming with mini ice cream cones!
Another one of our favorite summer activities is going to the farmers market. We typically hit the Wednesday market downtown, snack on all the free samples and then go to story time at the library.

And we wanted one last play date with all our friends so I planned a big "Back to School" bash at Giant's Stadium. The stadium is open during the day for kids to come play in the "kid zone" which consists of the Coke bottle slides, t-ball field, giant baseball glove and cable car. Understandable, the t-ball field was the most popular!

We got to sit in the stadium seats for lunch and cupcakes...so much fun!
About the time we started sliding, a huge group of YMCA summer camp teens showed up and basically took over the place, bummer. But the kids did get in a few good slides before they were muscled out...
Luckily the cable car was on the way out so it was a good way to usher the kids away from the field...most didn't want to leave. But they all hopped aboard the cable car and Timo insisted on being the driver...telling everyone to side down because we were going up a big hill...love their imagination!(side note: we really, really tried to get a group picture but none of the kids were sitting still or cooperating...it's to be expected with seven 3 year olds)

Silly Singing

2011-09-09T19:25:00.001-07:00

This proves it's all about timing and getting something on the first take. The first video is the first take when it was new and exciting...

Do Your Ears Hang Low from Sara ko on Vimeo.

This was the 4th take...no so new but just as exciting and awfully silly...

Discovery Museum with Friends

2011-09-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Before school started, one of our good friends called with a major conflict and asked if I could watch her two children, age 9 & 11, for the day. Being that it was the same day I had planed to take the twins to the Discovery museum to check out the new Curious George exhibit, I absolutely said "YES!" Two extra pair of eyes to watch the twins in a museum full of kids...could not have been more perfect! Conner, 9, and Jillian, 11, were such a great help and I think they actually enjoyed themselves too...

We spent the first hour in the giant tinker toy square...what a great toy concept! Everyone loved it. Conner and Timo eventually had a really cool race car track going but I missed getting a picture of it.
The Curious George exhibit was really great. It's no secret that my kids are big fans of George, TV show and the books, so it was fun to see them run around pointing out all the characters they recognized and being able to play with things they see on the show.
I was impressed with Timo working on his shadow shapes and using his logic to figure out how to get all the windmill to turn at once.
We spent a great deal of time outside because it was such a nice, sunny day...no fog! Timo and Connor tackled the rock quarry, ringing the bell at the top of the nature trail and a picnic lunch.

It was so helpful having Jillian and Connor with us! Jillian kept track of Cameron and played whatever she wanted to play...which involved almost an hour at the moon dough table.
Connor kept Timo busy all day, showing him the ropes of being a "big boy". I can't even begin to tell you how much Timo talks about playing with Connor now...
So in the end, my friend was doing me a favor by giving me her children for the day...not the other way around. Cameron chose to draw how much fun she had with Connor and Jillian. She drew everything on her smiley face...notice the eye brows, eye lashes, ears and legs! A true Picasso in the making!

Bones

2011-09-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

The topic of bones has become very big around our house. It all started back in July when a friend of the twins broke her leg and had a cast on. Little Ann was in a bouncy house with some other kids when one of the older kids fell on her breaking her leg. Timo had a million questions as to how it happened, what an xray is, what the doctor did, how the bone broke, and on and on and on. Once Timo gets something in his head he has to know EVERYTHING there is to know about it. Then he was watching Curious George and the topic was fossils...so he wanted to know all he could about fossil. Then he made the connection of fossils to bones to Ann's broken bone and the questions went on and on about bones. Hence the bone jammies...
I know what you're thinking...scary skeleton jammies for a 3 year old? No, no, no, these are our bone jammies that help us see and learn all the bones under our skin. Timo went nuts over these when he saw them in the store, asking a ton of questions about the bones. I couldn't help but get them, plus the glow in the dark! Here is Timo telling us what he knows about bones.

Bones! from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Happy 7 Year Anniversary to Us!

2011-09-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago Young and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I love the anniversaries, not because of the celebration, but it's a time to, at least for me, to reflect on the gift God has blessed me with. This year our anniversary was on a Sunday (8/21) and I got a little teary eyed sitting in church that morning remembering our wedding day...sweet memories.
Young and I were able to find a sitter and go out the night before our anniversary, but if you know my husband, he has to do everything in grand style. Dinner wasn't enough for him...so he booked us a last minute night at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay on our anniversary night using his hotel points. The only problem...what to do with the kids...hmmm. After tossing around many ideas/options, we decided to load them up and take them with us...and I'm so glad we did, we all had so much fun! It's always nice to have a change of secenary.The kids were super excited about being in a hotel and the Ritz is an extremely family friendly hotel. As we arrived, the receptionist gave the kids a treasure map of the hotel in which they had to collect signatures of different people that worked there...ie bellman, restaurant waiter, gift shop clerk. Here they are waiting patiently for the bell man to unload the luggage so they could get him to sign their maps. Then downstairs for lunch where they collected a signature from our waiter and got coloring books and crayons.

After lunch we got the kids scooters our and hit the trails around the hotel and down to the beach.

Young taught Timo how to skip rocks...

They tried and tried to climb this little mountain but kept sliding back down on their bums...ah, to be a kid again!

Young got a phone call on our walk back so he walked a little behind us while we walked ahead. The kids thought it would be funny to "hide" in the grass then jump out to scare Daddy. As you can see, they aren't very hidden but they thought they were being so cleaver and sneaky!
The children needed a bath once we got back, before dinner, and it's a good thing I brought their goggles...they literally could go swimming in the giant bath tub! Then we caught the shuttle to downtown Half Moon Bay for a great pizza supper.
Our room came with this fun outdoor fire pit for, I'm guessing, romance and ambiance, but it turned into a fun family night of toasting marshmallows and smores!

Timo doesn't really like marshmallows, just the act of roasting them. So he catches them on fire then blows them out. I think he was getting little tired of how long it took to actually catch fire. But not Cameron, she could hardly wait to eat hers, she just wanted it warmed a little and then gobbled them right up!

The kids were exhausted! We put them to bed and enjoyed some quite time to ourselves out by the fire, it was our anniversary after all. This is how we found Timo and Cameron once we came in...so sweet holding hands while sleeping.
The next morning we took the kids down, in their jammies, to the breakfast buffet and then out to see the giant fire pit in the courtyard.
We finally finished up their treasure maps and turned them in for a little treasure out of the treasure chest.
Then Daddy took the kids out riding scooters again while Mommy got a little down time in the spa. Young and I are so blessed to have each other and so unbelievably blessed to have our amazing children! What a lovely little anniversary trip we had.

Cameron's Shiner

2011-09-03T19:09:00.000-07:00

Timo gave his sister a little shiner, completely by accident. They were playing baseball and Cameron came in contact with the baseball bat Timo was swinging. It's hard to say who's fault it was...did Timo swing knowing Cameron was too close or did Cameron get too close know Timo was swinging?? It dosent' really matter who's fault it was, the pain was just the same, poor Cameron. But now that the dust has settled and everyone is OK, Cameron is left with this pretty impressive little black eye. These two pics were taken three days apart...the night of the accident and three days later as it was healing. We just thank the Lord that it wasn't worse considering it's location!!

Random NC photos

2011-09-02T09:18:00.000-07:00

I've been doing lots of organizing the past week...with all my free time...and came across some photos and videos from our NC trip that I didn't post. They must have been lost in the shuffle.

The first is a set of videos of Cameron doing flips. My niece Kaylee had been showing off her moves from tumbling class. Various things like head stands, flips, cartwheels, and roll overs were right up Cameron's alley. Cameron would get all the pillows and spread them out on the floor and start tumbling.

summersaults from Sara ko on Vimeo.

Poor Timo just couldn't get the hang of doing a flip but it's so sweet how Cameron was there to encourage him..."you just got to keep practicing..."

Untitled from Sara ko on Vimeo.

One of the best things about going back home to NC is seeing a lot of my old friends. I actually got to see my best friend from high school, Lisa Yemma. She was home from her two year teaching gig in Bolivia, headed to her next two years of teaching in the Dominican Republic. We spent a day together, gabbing like a bunch of school girls and both completely forgot to get a picture made. Can you believe that??!! But it was awesome to see her and catch up like no time had passed at all.

Another day I got to catch up with another old friend, Leigh Anne, and her two daughters Emilie and Rebekah. We met up for lunch at our fav place, Chick-Fil-A!

I got to hold baby Rebekah for a little while and Cameron didn't seem so sure about me holding another baby...

One of my other friends, Debbie Roberson, is the mom of 8 year old triplets. On top of being amazing parents, they have an annual fundraiser for their son Kirby, who has autism. They started this golf benefit called Hit It Farr for Kirby that raises money for autism research. My brother does the BBQ dinner each year so we stopped by to help out and I got to see Debbie and another friend Wendy. (Wendy, on the right, and I grew up next door to each other and I consider her like my sister). Working the event kept everyone busy so I didn't have time to take pics of all the other old friends I saw there too..but it was just so amazing at all the friends, 20+ years of friendships, that come together this one time a year to help out.

I think I forgot to mention that Young and I got to slip away for one night while we were all vacationing at the beach. My parents were so gracious to watch the kids over night and we went up the road to the Marriott Beach Resort. It was fantastic! Our room was ocean view, we had some relaxing time by the pool and a super fun and yummy dinner out! Such benefits of being close to the grandparents!

And last but not least, some of the beauties of North Carolina, the sunsets. I didn't realize how many sunset pictures I took, over 15...but don't worry, I'll only put a few up here. Makes me so homesick...

Our Buddy Caleb

2011-09-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

We tried to finish off our summer in true kid fashion...lots and lots of fun. It seems the last month before school started just flew by! I think my friend Ana and I were trying to pack in as much fun as we could before all the kids went their separate ways in various preschools. Caleb even told his mommy that he didn't need to make new friends at his preschool, he had Timo and Cameron! So sweet!

Here is a run down of our recent outings...Habitot in Berkeley. This is a great children's museum.

We had some missionary friends in town from India with their 2 1/2 year old son, Sammie...so we all took a double decker bus tour around the city. The only problem was my two were too scared to ride up top, so we had in the bottom of the bus...not at all as much fun, but oh well, we did get to see some beautiful sights in SF.

Cameron worked all summer to try and master Caleb's balance bike...she wouldn't even give it up during a snack!

While the boys did more important things like digging and dumping and digging!
And we even took a field trip up to the Jelly Belly Factory! So. Much. Fun!

I have to say, as much trouble as it was loading and unloading car seats, I'm gonna miss piling all the kids into Ana's van and heading off on an adventure...and having quiet conversation with her on the way home as the kiddies all slept . I guess there's always school breaks and vacations!

First Day of Pre-K

2011-08-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

We made it, Yay!! The first day of school is behind us and I think we can consider it a success...Timo is already asking to go back tomorrow. This is what it was like this morning walking out the door.

First Day of School! from Sara ko on Vimeo.

I told Young he was not allowed to travel on their first day of school because I was gonna need all the help I could get getting them dressed, ready and out the door on time. It worked! We were 15mins early...giving us lots of time for pictures and to leasurly walk to school. (plus, it was just fun having Daddy with us...he makes everything more fun!)
"Here is our school, woo hoo!" They were so excited, they ran in..I had to call them back out to snap this picture really quick.

They ran right in, put their bags in their little cubby and Timo caught sight of the little bathroom, just his size! He was so excited over the little potty, little sink, low soap and paper towels he could reach...I guess it's the little things, huh? Anyway, after Timo's little detour, they started playing and barely gave us a kiss and hug goodbye...it was that easy, praise the Lord!

Pick up was just as uneventful...again, praise the Lord! Both children were in the same clothes they left the house in, which meant no "accidents." I was really nervous about them telling someone new that they needed to potty but I guess all went well. And I noticed they barely touched their lunch so I'm guessing they were way too distracted by everything to really eat. I'm sure that will get better. When I asked "how was your day?", all I could get out of both of them was, "we played!" Cameron did tell me she put a puzzle together, no surprise there. And Timo told me his pants got wet playing in the water, no surprise there either. So all in all I'd say the first day of Pre-K was successful. I can let out a big sigh of relief now...Ahhhhhh....