The art of conversation ... HEWWO??

I felt it was my parental duty to show my kids what a "real" phone looks like.  And this is what they had to say.

Laughing and crying

It's pretty rare that I'm able to smile or laugh when my kids are crying.  My mommy instinct checks into high gear and I try my hardest to smooth things over for them.

Over the last few days, both Malina and Luke have come down with a cold.  Luke got hit with a triple whammy: major teething + a low grade fever from an MMR vaccine + Malina's cold = House of Pain.

But today, while in the car, amidst all the crying and whining, I laughed out loud when this song came on the radio.

Malina and Luke's Anthem

We love the park!!

Now that the weather is starting to get better, we've been venturing out to the park almost everyday this week.  Hurray!

As you know, I love taking pictures of our growing, beautiful kids.  Most of the time I take pictures of the kids separately because I can never get them to do the same thing at the same time (unless you consider looking off in different directions, doing the same thing at the same time).  

Well, not today!!  This shot was like a miracle for me...  getting both kids to actually look at the camera AND smile AT THE SAME TIME??  You might be seeing this picture on our Christmas card!  :)

Hilton Head preview

We had a wonderful time down in Hilton Head!  And the kids were amazing in the car* (thank you Malina and Luke for being total saints!).  Here is a little video of what happens after about the 8th hour or so -- everyone goes a little bonkers, even the little guy.

*It's a 14 hour drive, in case you're curious.

Feeling chatty

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Malina!!

Malina, you are THREE years old!!  We love you so much!!

A picture is worth a thousand words

So what about these videos?

I commend Luke for his determination to stand up.

A moment of sibling rivalry that had me laughing behind the camera.

There are no words for this video...

The big dump!

Yes!  The big dump!  It's an appropriate title for three reasons...

1.  It's snowing like crazy here
2.  It's been a while since I've posted
3.  Malina can do #2 in the potty!!  Hurray!!  (Sorry if that it too much information)

Here's a little of what we've been up to around here...

While Luke naps in the morning, Malina and I have been doing some baking.  Look at how careful she is with the batter!  

We also enjoyed eating them.  Delish!  

Sundays are for relaxing, reading the paper and making silly faces.

And while Big Sister was at school, Luke and I checked out Groove!  He LOVED it!  

Then one day, we all went for a story and some tunes at the library.  

Malina has become quite the big sister, checking his heart with her stethoscope and giving Luke lots of snuggles and kisses even in front of the 2/$20 pants at Costco.

Although, I'm not sure taping her brother counts as true affection...  Luke doesn't seem to mind.

I can understand why Malina might want to tape her brother up.  He's been hiding her favorite things!!  

First was Malina's Doc McStuffins pretend shot.  We literally spent DAYS looking for it.  Last person we saw playing with it was this guy...

Lo and behold, we found it in the crisper (where all food goes to die).  Oh look, there's the salad dressing!  I wonder who put that there.

And the worst was when we couldn't find Malina's FAVORITE shoes which she asks to wear EVERYDAY.  We eventually found them...  But where??

Poor Big Sister...

For all that she puts up with, I let her ride shotgun in the shopping cart at Stop and Shop.  

At the end of the day, we all managed to have a good laugh!

What's missing?

Can you guess what Malina's NOT wearing??

DIAPERS!!!  WOO HOO!!!  That's a shot from last night where we just loaded her up with a ton of liquids so we could run her to the potty as often as we could.  She probably had ONE tiny accident last night when she was figuring it out.  But then today, no accidents!!

To celebrate, we all went out for dinner where she stayed totally dry.  When we came home, she let us know she had some business to take care of... and there you have it.  I was so excited I almost peed in my pants (no sticker for me).

GO Malina!!!  We are so proud of you and we love you so much!!

"Yesh" and "no"

More from Luke's birthday

As I mentioned, Luke's first birthday, (his "dol") was a really great celebration with our immediate family.  We were so lucky to have our family come in for Luke's big day (thank you Harlmoni, Harlabogi, Amma, Papa and Samchoon for traveling all the way up to NY!  And the celebration will continue when Aunt Renee comes in just a couple of weeks -- hurray!).

Here are some fun pictures I wanted to share.  

And for the fun "fortune telling" tradition part of the celebration, Luke was presented with four items: a book and pencil for "a scholarly future", a long sting for long life and money for well, you know... Guess what he picked??  Thataboy!!  He picked the money!!

And since everyone was cheering, he decided to pick more stuff.  What do you think the orange signifies??

What a fun celebration!  Thank you again to our wonderful family.  And a big thank you to Luke -- for having the best little smile that makes his mama's heart swell.  We love you!

Catching up...

Now that I'm taking a bit of a "sabbatical," to be a stay at home mom, I'm not sure if I'll have more or less time to blog.  We shall see!!

The holidays were pretty good, but with Bryan coming down with bronchitis (poor guy... waking up at 2 in the morning for a month is not human) right around Christmas and me, with a sinus infection on New Year's, I know we can do better next year!  Regardless, the kids had a good time which is more than half the battle. 

Anyway, here are some photos of the kids to bring you up to speed.

One day we decided to get super messy and finger paint all over the kitchen table, which was a lot of fun!

But then we decided to make the mess super fun by dancing to the band, fun(period).  Every time the beginning of this song comes on, Luke claps -- how awesome is that?  And yes, that's finger paint on his forehead.

Like I mentioned, Christmas was pretty low key since we were a bit under the weather, but we still managed to sneak in some fun presents!

Malina got this awesome princess dress which she absolutely loves.  Thanks, Samchoon!

As you might have seen, we had Luke's first birthday (his "dol") earlier this week.  Here's a cute picture of him and his harlmoni...  so sweet, he's such a lover.  

And today, I got this cute shot of the kids in the back seat on our way to dropping Malina off at school.

Just a few for today

I had this post saved and even though it's almost two months old, I thought you'd still enjoy!

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We had a really wonderful time in Ohio over the Thanksgiving holiday.  The kids did so well on the flights but more importantly they had so much fun with all their family.  Here are a few pictures.