Mommy, don't eat my baby!

Notice the matching skirts. I took an old long skirt that I used to wear that is no longer the trend and cut it up to make a skirt for me and for Reena and of course I still have enough for Debrie but I haven't had time to make it yet. We got a tons of compliments at church on Sunday so we took these pictures.

Todays' post: Mostly about Reena Dao
BTW it's been sunny today and yesterday and it stays lighter later now which makes for a nice week already but this, this makes for a good laugh.

This is why I blog. Today Reena and I were talking about a picture on our wall that we took last year in our backyard. She asked me "Where's Debrie mamma?" (yeah I need to put current pictures up). I told her, Debrie was in mommy's stomach. She then looked at me with the saddest little face almost to tears and said "Mommy, don't ever eat my baby again! I like my baby and I don't want you to ever eat her again in your tummy" I laughed but she held a very serious face and so I assured her that I won't ever do that again and she proceeded to tell me that Debrie is not in our family picture. Ok, so it is time to act. I've gottten frames for our pictures but have not had time to print them out yet. We just barely took down our Christmas Tree on Saturday! It was so nice that we didn't have the heart to take it down. It also kept our house smelling really nice and the bonus for buying it freshly cut that day is that it stayed fresh for a LONG time. Also, we wanted to milk it for all it's worth. Next year, we're going up to the Christmas Tree farms (And Jeff by that we don't mean Home Depot, lol:) because apparently it is a lot cheaper. I guess we paid for the labor also and not just freshness this last time.
Speaking more of Christmas trees, Dan took ours out to the garage and with his saw cut off the branches and kept the remains for a walking stick when we go hiking. Let just say that Reena is the saddest that "her" Christmas tree is now looking like a stick. We think it's a great idea and one of the best ways to recycle (yeah we're all about recycling around here), but every time we go out to the garage she asks "what happened to my Christmas tree?" It's gonna be a long year for her.

The other thing about Reena is she LOVES singing and dancing. I can't wait 'til she's a bit older and I can take her to do theater with me. She's still singing Christmas songs and she sings them pretty well. I should've had her in our Tri Ward choir over Christmas. We only had 4 women in the whole choir (again this was Tri Ward) Thankfully and interestingly enough each of us were former BYU Women's Chorus singers and could sing loud enough to match with the 10 men we had (unusual). Our chorister got her directing degree from BYU and was in University Singers when she was there so her amazing voice contributed. But I should've brought Reena because she LOVES Christmas songs and still sings them so often that it made it hard to take down Christmas stuff. We still have the garland and Christmas candle up. lol. Maybe some times this week we'll take it down.

Pictures from phone

We went to the Woodland Zoo yesterday to see the rest of the stuff we haven't seen for the third time. It's a big zoo. The weather has been wonderfully warm and sunny this week, thanks to El Nino, not weather.com, which always seem tohave a default of rainy and cloudy (I don't believe in it anymore). We also did some driving around to look at some nice homes. The scary thing is I'm starting to get real comfortable to the point of really liking this home we're living in. Maybe we should've just stayed in a small apartment on the Highlands so I feel more cramped and want to get out. Talk about getting out, it's so nice to see more people get out this winter. This week the weather got up to the 60's. And so far, no snow. A big up from Utah's winter. It's always green here and we LOVE it.
Here are the uploads from my phone:


Hey let me have a piece of that!
African Safari Hut
The lot we hope to build on
Reena' dance class. Can you tell which one is she?

Seattle in January

Our Crawler!

It's a bright and beautiful Monday morning. The sun is shining and clear blue sky. We took a drive to go pick up some 25 or 30 mason jars that a nonmember lady in the ward gave to me. She is so nice and I hope we can give her some goodies when it' all done.

I'm excited to blog this entry in because it's exciting! Debrie had started to crawl. Friday when her daddy came home, she saw him and reached out so he could pick her up. He gave her a big kiss and then headed to his usual routine - to the bathroom. Well she didn't like that and wanted more time with daddy so she fussed and followed him into the bathroom. Previous to this she had been scooting backward and taken maybe 3 steps max, but this time it was a beginning of a new era. She crawled! It's only been since Friday but she is now a pro. It's great news! Now comes the baby proofing. She's into everything!!!! But she's a sweetheart with a doll face and gorgeous smile. We adore her!

Motel Stevens

Check the ending. Here's the story behind our second to latest visit. Thao and Alan's visit:
I was so excited and was so ready to take them around town and to the peninsula to go out to Forks and LaPush as we're both Twilight fans. We did as much as we can with them but unfortunately my sister got so sick the day she came and was sick with a nasty cough that lasted forever and that pretty much took the energy out of her for 2-3 days. Thankfully with Lysol spray (amen) and Halls vitamin C we were all able to stay healthy. The kids and I picked up a tiny cough but thank goodness it didn't get worst at all. I got her cough medicines and with some rest she pulled through the tireness enough so we could do some things together.
Here are some pictures from our camera and Thao's camera. Enjoy!

"I'm still shy around you"

"Ah you're talking to my sister? Ok I'm your friend now"

I love this picture! If they make heels like these, they'll be closer in height!




Typical 3 year old right? She was carrying her puzzles down the stairs and took a tumble. Why did it have to happen while we have guests in our home??

Besides playing with her double blade light sabers, puzzles, watching UP and the Bee movie (all her favorites!), Reena is fascinated with butterflies and fairies. So we took her to PACSCI and they have a section with real butterflies. She was in heaven! She couldn't take her eyes off of them.




Debrie had a huge blow out that soaked through her pants and I had to change her in the car of the parking lot and she went pantless into the art museum. When we got in we saw this! I texted Dan and he told me I should've just saved the blown up diaper and donated it to the art museum. Minutes later we saw this! Ironic and funny!

We told Alan to stop taking a dump here but...


PACSCI









So, we went to Pike, got $20 of live Dungeonous crabs (they were still swimming - her favorite food), PacSci (we now have a year pass to this place), 5th Ave theater for a spotlight night where we got to hear from different composers and hear famous songs sung by broadway singers from different musicals (Free), Seattle art museum (Free), Snoqualmie Falls/train museum, went to Mount Si, Lake Sammamish, Alki and around town for some sight seeings. The whole month of December and into January was very eventful for us and we LOVED it but especially what we love is that there are so many free things to do here. Seattle is really good at making it so that people love living here. The Flight museum and other museums such as the Seattle Art Museum are free on the first Thursday of every month whereas they're normally about $15 per person for admission. So if you come here at the right time, you'll walk away seeing a tons of stuff and not spend a penny. It's WONDERFUL! PacSci is full of fun stuff to do, including an iMAX theater and we're so excited to use our pass in the near future.

And this is Debrie everyday, especially when being tickled by her sister and in front of a camera. She was a fantastic baby the whole time everyone was here. Need I say more?

What a crazy but fun 2 weeks we just had. Seriously it has been crazy but seriously we LOVED it! Since Thanksgiving our house has been a motel. We greeted the holiday with our friends, the Frasers from Walla Walla (currently living though Seattle is what they would call their home) and my sister Thanh for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. We did a lot of fun things with them and then 3 days after they all left, my dad came to visit us to see Debrie and helped us decorated the Christmas tree. Then we had 2 weeks to clean up the house, washed the sheets and bought presents and wrapped gifts and Christmas came and we greeted the kids grandparents, Nama and Papa. We had so much fun with them and Reena still talkS about Nama reading to her and riding on Papa's shoulders. Then 3 days after Nama and Papa left my sister Thao and her husband Alan came for a visit. A day after Thao and Alan left, the Frasers came (stay tuned for more on the next blog). All I can say again is, WE LOVED IT ALL!