This week I had a nice lunch with my friend Yoko at Tokyo Table. We had been trying to get together for my birthday and ended up meeting up on HER birthday! Her daughter Harmony is 2 days younger than Katelyn and are in the same class at school. What I considered a cute coincidence at first (wow! only 2 days apart!) has now made me a little concerned since I can see us battling over the same weekends for their birthday parties in the future! I have, however, decided that I will not be doing any over-the-top parties for Katelyn. Her parties are going to be about quality and not quantity; whereas for Tyler I had really tried to do emphasize both. Anyway, Yoko and I get along great - despite the fact that she is a high powered senior attorney for Home Depot and I am a bum now. Sigh. We had lunch at Tokyo Table (still the best Lychee Saketinis I've ever had) and then enjoyed a reflexology massage afterward at Majestic Spa. Yay to taking a Friday off (for Yoko that is, since then I have someone to do stuff with!).
I am horrible at doing Katelyn's hair. I wonder if this is a skill that one would pick up if they had a younger sister? I don't even know how to french braid. Katelyn's hair used to be so short that a simple clip in the front would suffice. No more. Her bangs are always in her eyes, so much that I am starting to worry that her eyesight is becoming compromised. I usually tie those long bangs into a little waterfall on the top of her head. It's not too exciting but at least she can see. Plus she's quite squirmy and it's all I can do. At school, however, it's like a visit to a hair salon! She comes home with the cutest / interesting hairdos. Like this one... I think she even had corn rows one week!
On Saturday morning we headed over to Fairview Park in Costa Mesa to ride their model trains (free to the public the 3rd weekend of each month). We've taken Tyler a few times before when he was obsessed with trains, but this was going to be Katelyn's first time. It's important to get there early since the line really gets long as soon as they open. We got there at 10am (which is when they open) and already the queue was starting to fill up. The kids were pretty patient waiting for their turn, and Katelyn seemed to really enjoy the train ride around the park. It's worth the wait though, since the ride lasts ~15 minutes. Katelyn would point out birds and tree and bridges. She is such a talker now!
Afterward they were pretty pooped but we managed to squeeze in a quick Ikea trip (including lunch) before the kids knocked out on the drive home.
That evening we had dinner with Will's parents in Woodbury. I've started to bring more items over to their house so that the kids are more comfortable there. Tyler's room has his blowup Thomas bed as well as Cars posters. Katelyn's room has her rocking chair now also. Most recently I had brought over this stuffed rocking elephant. Tyler had outgrown it but Katelyn hadn't really played with it yet. She loved it!
Here's a short video of Katelyn playing on the elephant. After a while she gets bored; and her and Tyler switch (she comes to play with me while Will records Tyler on the elephant). The funniest part is when Katelyn finally notices that Tyler is on the elephant, and runs screaming "NOOOOOO!!!!" to get him off. My goodness. Katelyn definitely does not get a star for her sharing ability - we'll need to keep working with her on that.
Sunday morning was Katelyn's first ever Katelyn-only playdate. We've had a couple before but Tyler always tagged along. He did not enjoy these playdates as much. We decided to drop Tyler off in the morning with Will's parents so that Katelyn could have some mommy/daddy & me time (very rare) and give her a chance to play with her friend instead of playing with Tyler. We met the other family (the Gagnes) at Northwood Park. Ann/Dan have a son Grayson that is the same age as Katelyn and also goes to ICDC. He is VERY shy though, and didn't particularly enjoy his time with us. Whenever Katelyn got close, he'd point to her and look pleadingly at his mom. Aww! Hopefully he'll warm up to her as time goes on. It was probably more of a playdate for myself and Ann - we got along quite nicely which is great, since I am always happy to meet other parents that we can click with.
Tuesday. ICDC's Irvine Park Railroad Pumpkin Patch field trip. Tyler was very excited to ride the bus. The field trip was for both Pre-3 and Pre-4 class, and with all the kids and the chaperones we had quite a tight squeeze on the bus to the Pumpkin Patch. There were quite a few activities for the kids to do - we started with a hay ride, then a train ride, panned for some "gold", went through a haunted house (not too scary), a hay maze, and then chose pumpkins before sitting down for lunch. Whew, it was quite exhausting for the adults. Tyler took a little persuading to enter the haunted house but decided to do it after seeing all his friends go in multiple times. I held him as we walked through and I doubt that he even saw anything since his eyes were buried into my neck pretty much the whole time. But at least he did it! The hay maze was the favorite activity of the day - the kids were so energetic and kept running through the maze!
The bus took us back to school just in time for all the kids to crash for their naps. Even I needed a nap after the festivities of that morning. That night we carved Tyler's pumpkin. Tyler was very specific about how he wanted his pumpkin to look. We later found out that at school the kids had written their names next to 1 of 4 pumpkin face patterns and Tyler had picked one and tried to carve his just like that one. I thoroughly enjoyed baking and eating the pumpkin seeds. :) YUM!
Wednesday. In an effort to become a better (temporary) housewife, I headed up to Rowland Heights to get some cooking lessons from my mom (and see my little baby nephew Landon of course). Lately my baby hormones have been full on revving - to a point that it's getting a little ridiculous. I can only rationalize that this is happening since Katelyn has become so independent and her own little person. I miss tiny little babies. Not that Landon is tiny though, he's quite a hefty fellow (and I speak from experience - remember buddha baby Tyler?). Anyway, it was nice to spend the day with my mom and my sister-in-law picking up some cooking tips, as well as bringing home some home made dinner to my family.
And lastly, my future violin virtuoso! She's faking it pretty well, yes?
Here's a video of Tyler at TKD doing some mock sparring. His sparring partner was an older kid also named Tyler. Their teacher even commented that "little Tyler" had a firm handshake. He makes me proud! At the end, they're sparring with their teacher and Tyler reminds me of a little annoying mosquito that just won't stop or quit. Heehee
No comments:
Post a Comment