Girl Scout Cookies

Big sister K is making her debut sale of Girl Scout cookies this year!  If anyone is interested in supporting her, please let me know!  Cookies are $4 per box, with eight options to choose from: http://www.gscsnj.org/cookies/pinformation.html

If you live in the tri-state area, we will make delivery arrangements with you after the cookies arrive (should be some time in March).  Thank you!

Girl Scouts

It was by chance that big sister K got involved in Girl Scouts.  The room parent in her class (who coordinates the special events for the class like Halloween and Christmas parties, gift for the teacher, etc) had called me back in September to confirm our contact information, and somehow we got to talking about Girl Scouts.  I found out she was the troop leader for the 1st graders, and oddly enough, just the day before our phone conversation, big sister K had told me she wanted to join Girl Scouts (she heard about it from her friends in school).  Since they meet inside their school every other week and big sister K is already there for after-school care (it wouldn't take any additional time out of our already-busy schedules), I agreed to it not really having any expectations of what she would get out of it.

During one of their meetings in December, the girls made Christmas cards for some soldiers stationed overseas.  It was mailed to them and just recently, the Girl Scouts troop leader forwarded us a letter from the Major she sent the cards to.  Here is an excerpt of it (I took out a paragraph where he mentions the names of each Girl Scout member):

The girls received thank you cards signed by each soldier that had a personalized Christmas card on their desk, and big sister K brought hers home yesterday after her Girl Scouts meeting.  It makes me so proud of my little girl that she's doing something good to benefit others.

In their next meeting, the girls will be preparing meals to be delivered to the Ronald McDonald house.  Another community outreach activity!  Love it!  :)

Winter Break - Part 2

I dropped baby M off at school and brought big sister K into the office with me on Tuesday and Wednesday since many people were off and I figured she wouldn't be too much of a nuisance.  She spent most of the morning on Tuesday drawing and coloring before I made her practice writing her Chinese words.  For lunch, our choices at the cafeteria were limited, so we took a short drive to the mall for some shopping and pizza.  When we got back, she practiced her Chinese for the rest of the afternoon, and before we knew it, it was time to go home.

On Wednesday, big sister K spent the morning drawing and playing with my calculator (it's amazing how much time she spends amusing herself with that gadget).  I packed us some peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, so we ate those in the cafeteria before heading off to Barnes and Noble (needed to break up the monotony so that she wouldn't be stuck in the office all day).  The rest of the afternoon flew by that I don't even remember what we did.  When we got home, I gave them a rare treat and let them watch Planes: Fire and Rescue.  The kids went to sleep at their usual time that night (M and I didn't bother trying to keep them up).  I however, had good intentions of staying up until midnight myself, but exhaustion took over and I fell asleep after putting the kids to bed... when I woke up, it was 12:48am already.  Missed the ball drop, so I went back to sleep.

Thursday was New Year's Day.  We kept it low-key and just went shopping at Target to take advantage of some after-Christmas sales.  We had to buy some Christmas lights to replace the ones that were chewed through by some annoying outdoor pests (we suspect squirrels).  Hopefully these will fare better than the last ones did.

The G family made the trek into the burbs on Friday to visit us.  We had lunch at Olive Garden, followed by two hours of fun at a bounce house, and then spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at our place.  As always, it was nice catching up with my "ah jah."

What a great shot of the kids here... too bad we're missing baby M.  Ironically, he was the one who spent all his time throwing footballs/basketballs (too chicken to bounce) while the other kids enjoyed all the other apparatuses there.

 Posing in front of baby M's huge gift.  He couldn't wait to tear it open.

Kids all smiles!  Again, missing baby M here!

Winter Break - Part 1

This is big sister K's first year in public school, so for the first time ever, we now have to follow the school schedule instead of being able to take off whenever we want (work permitting).  Big sister K has been off since Christmas Eve, and for most of those days, I've been fortunate enough that I could take off with her.  Thank goodness for my abundance of vacation days left over!

I scheduled a play-date with one of her classmates on Christmas Eve.  We dropped baby M off at daycare and headed over there in the morning.  I probably had just as good of a time chatting with the mom as big sister K had playing with her friend.  It was a struggle, but I eventually managed to tear her away so that we could met up with M for lunch.  In the midst of enjoying our waffle fries at Chick-fil-a, big sister K lost her very first tooth!  She was playing with the straw while drinking her milk, and the next thing you know, there's a tiny tooth in her hand and blood coming out of her mouth.  She was so excited for the the tooth fairy to come that that was the only thing she talked about the rest of the day.  She told me it's $5 for the first tooth, and $10 for the second.  Man, talk about inflation!

Big sister K was the first to wake up Christmas morning (which is a rarity).  You'd think she couldn't wait to get up so that she could open up her presents... but no... bright and early at 6:30 in the morning, she comes running into my room exclaiming she got something from the tooth fairy.  I had her open up the envelope and read the letter that accompanied a $5 bill (I gave into her wishes on the $5, contrary to M suggesting a buck, but I have to set expectations so that she won't be expecting $10 for the next one).  Big sister K was so thrilled with the tooth fairy's visit that it totally trumped Christmas morning (despite it truly being Christmas morning).

The kids opened up their presents after breakfast.  Loved seeing their happy faces.

On Friday post-Christmas, we went to Adventure Aquarium with the S family.  I didn't want baby M to miss out on the fun, so he played hooky from school that day and we all clambered into P's mini-van for the long drive there.  It was our first time to Adventure Aquarium and the kids had a blast.

Monday was another play-date, this time to the Liberty Science Center with the H family.  It was our second time carpooling in four days and I am becoming a pro at uninstalling/ reinstalling car seats.  Though I would probably never get one myself, I must admit, mini-vans do come in pretty handy.

 Who knew rice could be so much fun??

Four hungry kids anxiously awaiting lunch.

Rock climbing!

Baby M having his own fun.

The Infinity Climber was probably big sister K's favorite exhibit.

About halfway done with winter break!  More to come on the rest of big sister K's days off!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing all of you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year!

Rockefeller Center

We went to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center after church on Sunday.  While the kids didn't particularly mind going, I don't think they really appreciated it as much as we had hoped.  Baby M had more fun going on the subway than seeing the tree itself and big sister K kept asking what we were going to do next and why we were there.  Someone recently asked if we were going to make this an annual family tradition.  After seeing the kids' lack of interest, I'd have to say no for now.

Baby M's second time on the MTA... he loved it.  Big sister K had her hair flying all over the place when she took off her hat.

Family photo by the tree.  It was too crowded to get a decent one with the top of the tree, so this was the best we could do. 

Kids had more fun playing with their McDonald's Happy Meal toy than enjoying the sights of Manhattan.

Freshly Squeezed OJ

A few days ago, when I went to pick baby M up from school, his teacher told me that the kids were served oranges during snack time.  Rather than eating it, baby M took his and squeezed the liquid into a cup to make orange juice (and apparently, this isn't the first time he's done this... don't know where he got it from since he doesn't do this at home).  All the kids saw what he was doing and started copying him... soon enough, the whole class was making orange juice!  LOL!

November Birthdays

November is always a busy month for us, filled with what seems like endless birthday celebrations.  There was so much going on (big sister K had a few birthday parties to attend plus her normal extracurricular activities on Saturday) that we decided not to hold a birthday party with friends.  We just had family come over and celebrated both baby M and big sister K's birthdays together.

Cupcakes on baby M's actual birthday (had it right after dinner and silly us didn't bother to wipe his pasta sauce mouth):

Birthday gathering with family... there was so much food/dessert left over that we ended up throwing away more than 3/4 of both cakes:

 Ice cream on big sister K's actual birthday:

Cupcakes at big sister K's Girl Scouts meeting (we did it backwards and took a picture of the cupcake with a candle after the girls already ate theirs):