Caught In The Act

Caught in the act. My 9 month old has now discovered opening drawers and cabinet doors and the dryer in the laundry room. She'll pull herself up and reach to get things off of the counters and inside drawers. I have a feeling this one's gonna be a big trouble maker once she starts to walk....which is going to be soon I think because she's already standing on her own at 9 months!



"Nibble nibble little mouse, who is nibbling at my house"

Caught in the Act #2
Reena could spell her name and write it out pretty well. She'll let you know she's been to your things by writing her name there. We've found her writing her name inside my cards, on the risk game box and in various other places. Last Monday we got all dressed and ready to go to dance class and as we were heading out the car I realized my keys were missing. I looked every where and we ended up missing dance class. I continued to look for it and I almost gave up until I decided I ought to look in her little purse. I opened it up and there it was...inside a little pocket zipped up nicely. I should've known. I have a daughter. I have 2. I better watch out I guess. Thankfully we were able to make up for Monday on Thursday with another teacher. She got a butterfly stamp on her hand and was so excited that she told me "I'm never going to wash my hands again. I don't want to wash my butterfly stamp away". Yeah we struggled with hand washing that day. I had to make a deal with her and made marshmallow butterflies. She told me "I want a butterfly and fairies birthday at the Big Red Barn" after she went to 2 of her friends' birthday party, and she wants a bike. I told her she could pay for it all with her own own money. I'm not going to spoil my child so we made many hair clips for her to sell. A couple of moms are already interested in buying from her dance class when they saw her came in with cute ones on her hair. What's cute is thinking of her walking around with a bucket of flowers to sell and paying for the birthday party she wants.




I can't believe the Olympics is over already. Vancouver is only 2 hours away from us but with the event tickets being $200 per person we didn't go up to see anything. However another exciting event from Vancouver for us is in April. We're going up in to see the Vancouver temple open house. Reena is anxiously anticipating this trip because she doesn't understand why the Seattle Temple isn't going to be opened to her until she's 12. She's counting.

Monday of last week I updated our blog with us losing the lot we were looking at. Thursday of last week while out looking at another property we liked we got a call from our real estate agent saying we have it back. Can you believe it?!?#!#%%? After all the craziness we went through, the bank came back to us saying that the people that purchased that lot didn't want to go through with the sale. So now it's back to us? We are glad, sad, and have mixed feelings about it. We're glad it's back in our hands, sad that we've found something else we like even better during the time after we lost the offer, but mixed feelings because of PRICE. The highland lot, which is the one that's back into our hands is only 6000 sq.ft because it's in a new community and all new homes have very small lot unless you want to go a little further out of the city. At first I thought Dan wouldn't be bothered by this because he wants a town home in downtown Seattle but after some deep soul searching he thinks we would be happier in a not so crowded community. What holds us back is that this lots is surrounded by a huge Central park, tennis court, pond, and trail into the mountain. We're not sure we want a bigger lot with more land to play with or all the nice stuff the highland lot offers. Difficult decision. A custom home is a lot of work. Hopefully it will be worth it in the end.

Too cute not to post

Which one is Reena? Which one is Debrie? Same stage. 2 teeth on the bottom, one on the top left. Same smile. Only one difference. Can you tell what it is? We had a good laugh.

The crazy week

Vietnamese New Year fell right on the same day as Valentine's day but we just celebrated Valentine's day first and then celebrated Vietnamese/Chinese New year (but I refuse to call it Chinese New Year). There was a huge celebration on Sunday that my parents even got to see on TV through the Vietnamese channel broadcasting from Seattle, but of course it was on Sunday during our church time so we couldn't go see it. But that's ok, good food makes up for it. We went out to eat and bought some traditional Viet Tet (New Year) food. See
here for pics . It was fun.

That was about the only thing fun this week. We had a stressful week. We lost the land we have been interested in for quite some time to some rich billionaire who came in and bought that piece of land and all the surrounding area with cash. It wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't sign the contract the night before and waited 'til the next morning but we did and we were too late. The bank saw how much more they were getting so they terminated our contract. They have all the power and we couldn't compete with the billionaire so we started again on ground zero in the land searching of our custom building process. That was stressful. As of Friday we thought there is nothing out there. But we're glad this whole thing happened because to be frank, the only reason we loved the lot in the Highlands was because of location. It's less than 5 minutes to the freeway, the view was amazing, the trails into the mountains are 2 minutes away, it's by central park, movie theater and all new developing shops and hospital. Location was beyond perfect, the lot though was small. 6002 sq.ft was a bit smaller than we're hoping. The fees alone to build were so high, not to mention HOA and taxes.

So we started looking for something else and we're pros at land finding now after this last experience. Lakeview, 3/4 of an acre, mountain view on a decent lot on a quiet street are now our choices for about the same amount of money. What's your vote? Too many choices. I'm not complaining though. At least there are other choices besides the one on the highlands. Also spring is here. The trees are blooming flowers and buds. This whole week was clear blue sky and in the high 50's low 60's. I tried to not neglect our children in all this craziness. We went on walks and to the parks and Reena thinks it's warm enough to go to the beach park. We love Seattle.

We got a babysitter and went into town for a night. Kids free! (Pictures from phone. Love you phone!)


While driving around I ran into a huge neighborhood with houses built with stucco. Wild. I felt like I was in the dessert again.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

This Valentine finds me happily married to the man of my dream and 2 beautiful children, the fruits and jewels of our love. We hope everyone is also enjoying your day.

I made Dan a breakfast in bed with heart shaped pears, toasts, and blueberry German pancakes and pink lemonade.
He made me this beautiful flower pot!

Airport Museum, AKA, Flight Museum

Disruptive storms! East getting hit with snow storm again! Over 30 inches of snow fall tonight! All Flights Cancelled!
We watched as these headlines popped out on the news as we anxiously awaited our flight to Philly. We packed just in case we could make it. We wanted to be ready if our flight doesn't get cancelled. But it did. Oh well, we're fine with having a snow free winter. We went on a walk today and saw buds coming out of the trees already. 'til August Philly where you'll be humid and hot!
So we thought, it's no problem. They're refunding us and all is well. Except, we've got a little girl that is in love with airplanes and flights. She counted the days on the calendar and got her stuff packed into her suitcase and even brought her little suitcase downstairs and put on her shoes and was all ready to go. So what do we do now? What is to come next??
Daddy's took a day off. What parent wouldn't? Yes she got her daddy to stay home and take us all to the museum of flight or I should say the "airport museum" because "it's not flight mommy, it's the airport". Needless to say we all had an enjoyable time mostly because we loved seeing her reactions to all the planes she saw, even Debrie had a great time. We both have been to the flight museum twice for the Amazon party but there were thousands of people there so the experience this time was much more pleasant. Ever since Tuesday she has been wanting to go back to the airport museum. We might have to get a pass there as we might not be able to wait 'til the first Thursday of the month where admission is free. We told her when great grandma and grandpa come they'll take her to it again. I don't think she can wait 'til April or May :)

Happenings this week at Sea Stevens

This week has been busy. We've gotten accepted on an offer on the piece of land we've been interested in so we've been looking at different homes. The Pacific Northwest looks is starting to grow on me. Sierra homes especially has many of the plans we like so obviously we've been staying up every night 'til midnight looking at different home plans. Hopefully this will go somewhere.

Another exciting event this week was the ward cake auction and Valentine's swing dance. The YW held this for camp fund - there were several cakes going for $150, one went for $175 (makes me want to start auctioning stuff out of my house. Yeah they got the fund they needed. We dressed up in our 50's clothes. I made poodle skirts for me and the girls. I also sang "Stupid Cupid" by Connie Francis. I sang it country style and it was a fun piece to learn.

Preschool Field Trip

Before I post stuff about Reena's preschool field trip and Debrie's growth, I need to ask everyone a question. Does anyone know of a good 50's song that they can tell me? Words have been spread that I sing now because I sang a Christmas piece and now they want me to sing a 50's song for our Valentine's party. I desperately need help. Not living in the States for half of my life and born in the 80's, I don't know of any 50's songs. Every Wednesday I perform for the homeless in Seattle but we usually sing 70's, 80's, 90's, musicals and occasionally an opera piece but nothing from the 50's. Please help.

Reena had a preschool field trip to the Seattle center and had a blast. She was a little dissappointed she didn't get to go on the merry go round but she had a blast going with the 3 kids in her class. I'm so glad I started this preschool thing because she is really loving it. She is doing well in her dance class and will have a recital in June. After that I hope she won't be too shy so I can take her to do theater with me.

Our camera is big and bulky to bring with me along with my purse and diaper bag. It takes really nice pictures but my phone is a whole lot easier to take around. Here are more pictures from my phone.

Reena and Connor

We managed to get a picture...


Reena, Joseph and Ellie


Debrie is a pro now at crawling. It only took her a day to know that she can crawl and now she is all over the place. She'll pull herself up by holding on to things and then let go of her hands only to fall down on her bum. It's real cute to see her crawling around more, but it also means she's getting hurt more. She's found the stairs so we've got the gate up.
Here is Debrie using her daddy's hand to get up. She got up and let go of her hands and stood there for 2 seconds. Looks like we might get an early walker, too.

This past week has been good here for the Stevens. Dan has been working real hard at backing up all of movies onto the MAC so the kids can scratch the CD's up all they want and we still have the good copies. He and I visited some more homes to get idea for our custom home. Land is so expensive on the East side of Seattle, but we're stubborn and don't want to go any where else. It's the prettiest place any of us had ever seen or lived in. The only downfall to it is home prices are averaging about a half a million so we'll have to cut cost where we can. Though that doesn't stop us from booking our tickets to Philly for the new year. I guess our priority is still "being able to see and do more stuff" rather than purchasing a second home. So that's where we're heading in February.