Play House and More

We had a play date with the kids buddy, Jasper, at this great indoor play space called The Play House. It's this huge castle inside with all sorts of tunnels, slides, climbing ropes, balls, a bouncy room, etc. The challenge is making it all the way to the top and then sliding the big slide down. Timo and Young made it to the top while Cameron enjoyed the lower level activities.

There was this little motorized bus, like the kind you see outside super markets, that ran all the time...no quarters needed. Cameron stayed in the bus for at least 30min. I had to keep taking her out so other kids could have a turn and then she would climb right back in.
We did climb a little way up into the castle but there were so many kids around, I think Cameron was a little intimidated. She would just "park" for a while and take forever to move on to the next obstacle. But she did make it though a little of the castle.

Then we found Timo and Jasper in the bouncy house!

Cameron ended up staying in the bouncy house with Daddy for a long time while I took Timo over to the ball pit. Oh, how he loved jumping in over and over again...

Cameron finally joined and they spent the rest of the time in the ball pit. They kept burring themselves in the balls and saying "where go bruder?", "Where go sister?" and then look all around like they had lost each other...so cute.

We were all set the go and almost made our escape when the Timo found the music station...another 15min on the drums and piano...

Once we had lunch, I knew the kids were so worn out and would never make it the 20min ride home. We decided to take a nice drive around the Bay Area while they napped in the car and ended up in Palo Alto at the outdoor Stanford Mall. This mall will now and forever have special place in my heart because it's the place Cameron threw her first unbelievable temper tantrum. Yes, we had "one of those" kids that everyone was looking at. So....while I took her out to the car and try to defuse the situation, Young took Timo all around the mall...and from the pics, it looks like they were having a blast! They ran all through the courtyard, played in the fountain and hit the Sony store for some playstation fun.

Cameron finally calmed down and we enjoyed the rest of our day but boy, I hope that wasn't just a taste of what the terrible twos are going to be like...ugh!

Strong Willed

Cameron, so I'm told, is very much like her mommy in that she has a mighty strong will. When she gets it in her mind to do something, not much will stop her from following through. We have really learned the art of compromise and picking battles with our little girl. She gets very attached to things and has a hard time giving them up...such as changing her clothes, she has melt downs when we take off her shirt, crying "shirt, shirt" and trying to put it back on. Or when she finds some new thing to utilize...point in case, last Saturday night....

While I was making the kid's dinner, Cameron was rummaging through the top kitchen drawers which she can now reach. She pulled out the salad tongs and figured out how to pull them apart. She was so happy to have a "poon and pork (fork)". It was time to eat and I tried to get the tongs out of her hands but she was insistent on eating with the giant fork. I tried holding her food back until she gave them to me, taking her down from her seat, trading her the tongs for a Mommy fork (adult fork) and even promising a cookie after dinner. No such luck. So I decided to just let her see for herself that she couldn't eat with the giant fork. Boy did she prove me wrong! She sat there and ate almost her whole bowl of Korean noodles with the big plastic salad tong fork.

It's times like these I want to tell her "don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something...follow your dreams..." but I don't want that to come back and bit me in the back side one day...

Ocean Beach, New Year's Eve

I honestly can't remember if this was New Years Eve or the day before...I took all these with my camera phone so there are no dates. But nonetheless, one of those days we were having super nice weather and decided to take the kids to the beach at sunset. Most of the time it's really windy at the beach but this day it was super calm and delightful.

Timo loves the water and will run right up to it. The only problem is the waves are unpredictable and sometimes the surf comes up really far and sneaks up on you....which it did while Daddy and Timo were squatting down looking at the waves. This is Young trying to back up as fast as he can and the other is of the water that came all the way back where we were standing. You can see the one girl in the first picture didn't get out of the way fast enough...

You will notice Cameron has her snack trap (never leave home without it!)....her new favorite snack is sliced ham so I cut some up and put in her snack trap, innocent enough I thought. She was almost attacked by a dog running on the beach who apparently smelled the ham and run up to her trying to get into her snack trap! Her Daddy scooped her up when he saw the dog become aggressive and the dog owner ran right over, no harm done, plus it was a small dog...but Cameron was so scared...poor baby.
But she calmed down and the kids enjoyed their time at the beach watching the water and playing in the sand. We stayed on the beach a long time, all the way until the sun went down and saw all kinds of birds, bugs and big boats going by. What a beautiful way to close out an amazing year!

The Way a Toddler Thinks...

We were watching "Sunrise Earth" the other morning and seeing beautiful waterfalls in Peru. The kids kept saying "water", "water" so I spoke up and said "yes, it's a waterfall." To that, Cameron shouted "oh no, water...be careful water, don't fall...."

Cracked me up. Oh, how that little mind works...

Golden Gate Express

We took the kids to the Conservatory of Flowers to see the Golden Gate Express...a model train set in the back drop of San Francisco. I know, it's an odd place to have a giant model train but as I hope you can see in the pictures, everything in the city is made from recycled materials. They even had a model Thomas Train that Timo went nuts went over.

The Conservatory is long building that you enter in the middle. The train was at one end and of course we went the wrong way and walked the whole building before we found the train. Timo really enjoyed all the crazy flowers, water pools, fish and water puddles, but Cameron was scared the whole time. She wouldn't get out of her daddy's arms, not even to splash in the puddles. The one time we did get her down for a group picture, it was so humid, the camera lens fogged up!

Then we hit the jackpot, the train! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...


This one of the Ferry Building was my favorite. And while you're enjoying the amazing exhibit, there are all sorts of sound effects. We heard fog horns, a snippet of a Giants game, had an earthquake, and saw the fog roll in under the GG Bridge.

They also had a big wheel there to spin and find the recycled material...of course Timo had to take a turn at spinning...and spinning, and spinning, and spinning...
Then the hard part came...it was EXTREMELY difficult to get Timo away from the trains. We tried a lot of distractions and the one that worked was promising him he could go running outside. He loves to just run and run without being told to stop. So we headed outside to the beautiful gardens to let the kids run all around. But they especially loved the big clock! They don't know their numbers in order yet but love shouting out random numbers as if they are counting.
There are posters all over town of the Golden Gate Express...I would love to steal one and have it framed for Timo's room one day...let me know if anyone has one they want to give away...

Ouch!

Our first mishap of the Christmas toys. These little trikes are much lighter and actually have steering on them, as oposed to their plastic ride on cars that the wheels didn't turn. Timo was scooting around the house and wasn't used to how sharp to take the corners and rolled over, hitting the hard kitchen floor. Ouch! Poor Timo! But no worries, he was right back up a minute later. I think he was more surprised by the fall than being hurt. (I know, we took a picture rather than pick him up...but he was so pitiful laying there, we had to capture the moment. We quickly scooped him up and kissed all his boo-boos)

Christmas 2009

I'm going to wrap up Christmas...ha, ha, ha...on this post so we can move on to our post Christmas activities.

The kids happen to sleep late Christmas morning, of all mornings, but it was such a blessing for Young and myself. We woke up early and just enjoyed our morning coffee together, talking and enjoying the quiet. But of course, it didn't last. The kids started stirring and we were up and running!It was so much fun watching the kids go crazy over their new toys....and to see them enjoy toys that I had pain stackenly agonized over wether they would enjoy them or not. Cameron didn't know what to go to first, she just kept shouting the name of different things she saw. Timo saw one thing and would play with it for a while and then move on. Needless to say, it took him a long time to work this way through his Christmas.

The big winners were the new cars/scooters, the vacuum, flashlights and the piano.






After all the unwapping and a short nap, we had a lovely dinner with our friends Liz and Salvador. The kids really wanted to sit at the big table so we brought their chairs out they had dinner with us. I think they are much better eaters socially than alone...they gobbled up their butternut squash soup and asked for more!

...and then it was back to the toys...

A little later we had some more friends stop by for dessert...our friend Sharona is back in town from London and came over with her friend Alan, who is visiting from London, and his sister Alison, who lives here in SF.

Then it was back to more toys....I got 2 Tickle me Elmo off of Criagslist for the kids Christmas and they have been a huge hit. I'll have to post some video sometime of these crazy toys!
So all in all we had a fantastic day...tiring, but great. We just sat on the sofa after everyone left and reflected on our many blessings and all we have to be thankful for. We tried to read the Christmas story to the kids but they were way too tired. (I think we'll start that as a Christmas Eve tradition next year)
I leave you with a video of Cameron playing with her new tea set and Timo with his new trains.

Piano Man

I know I have been slacking with our blog this past week but our family has been in vacation mode! Young has been off work and we've made the most of having no plans at all. That's one great thing about new toys at Christmas, the kids have been completely occupied playing with all the new stuff. Then there was total relaxation while the kids napped each day. I think Young and I watched one or two movies each day. I can't remember the last time we vegged out so much...and it was wonderful.

But alas...we must get back to the grind. I'm organizing pictures and videos today so I thought I would post a video of Christmas morning. The kids got a great little piano/music toy that they love. Timo calls it his "songs" because it can play songs as well as being used as a piano. Here they are testing out all the features...

Say Cheese!

So Young was taking pictures of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve when all of a sudden, completely out of the blue, Timo jumped in front of the camera and said "CHEESE"...with the biggest smile on his face. I laughed so hard and Young snapped the picture. And because Timo got attention doing it, Cameron had to do the exact same thing. She stood in front of the camera and yelled "CHEESE" while her Daddy took her picture.
I think they picked up the "say cheese" part from the night before when we asked some people to take our picture in front of the Union Square Christmas tree. The very kind lady took about 6 or 7 pictures of us and always said "say cheese" just before she snapped a picture. I guess Timo remembered because I can't really think of a time I've asked them to say cheese when I have taken their picture. But I'm glad it's a new skill they have learned...makes for much better pictures.

Christmas Eve

Young and I started the tradition of eating a nice lunch out on Christmas Eve years ago when I used to work all nighters Christmas Eve at Citizen Cake. I would get home in the morning, sleep for a few hours and then we would go have a large lunch. We tried to carry on this tradition last year with the kids and again this year. The only exception is our restaurant of choice is now a low key, kid friendly place.

We tried to find a place that had other activities in the area...like a park and maybe some festive activity for the kids. We decided on North Beach (Italian town) because of the park, playground and best of all...the Cable Car Museum!
When you walk into the museum you are overwhelmed by the noise. It's the actually hub of where all the cables run from that run all the cable cars in the city. There are these huge wheels turning and engines running that were perfect for Timo but not for Cameron. But once she saw the the cable cars to climb on the bells to ring, she warmed right up.


We headed over to lunch next to fill our bellies with pasta! We had a hard time getting Timo to leave the museum so it was way past their lunch time before we got to the restaurant. Timo knows how to eat with his fork...but he was so hungry, he started shoveling it in as soon as it was put in front of him! Once he had a little, he went back to his fork...

And Cameron was all about seeing how much pasta she could twirl on her fork!



Luckily the park was right across the street so the kids could run off their lunch. It was a gorgeous day with perfect weather for outdoor play.

We headed home so EVERYONE could take a nap. After we put the kids down, Young and I crashed on the sofa and I think we all slept for 2+hours! It's been so long since I've taken a long afternoon nap like that...a little early Christmas present! Then it was time to change and go to church for our Christmas Eve service. There was no child care so some of the kids all sat together...making for a somewhat rowdy service...
Once we got home we tucked the kids in "for a long winter's nap..." so Santa could get busy...good thing we took a long nap earlier that day!