Champions!!!

So...February was a little while ago.  I got a little carried away in playing with my baby.  Who can blame me right?  He's too cute!  Now he is asleep.  My other daughter is asleep also and my other other daughter is AT A SLUMBER PARTY!!!!  Ahhhh!!!  I'm nervous.  She's growing up too fast.  She is sleeping over at a classmate's house with 9 other kids.  CRAZY!  I'm...yeah, nervous.  So what do I do after I checked up on her (taking pictures, etc...), I blog.  It takes away some anxiety.  lol.  I shall see her in the morning.

 

The conversations in our house nowadays go like this:  "Can I roll up the diaper?"  "Can I throw it away?" "YES, yes you may" "Yay"  "Why does Reena get to roll it up again?"  "Why does Reena get to throw it away?"  "BECAUSE, you're home most of the day and you get to roll up the diapers and throw them away more than her, Brie".  Cracks me up.  So much love!

OK I'm in love.  Just purely in love with this cutie little pie.  My gosh can you get any cuter than this.  Big round brown eyes and those lips!  OMG I just love my sweet little baby.  I can not believe how happy I am.  This little guy!  I adore every minute with him.  My fb statuses and tweets nowadays are like this.  Yes kiss those cheeks!  Missing a minute of it?  Are you kidding?!  No way.  I'm seriously in love.  I can't get enough of him.  #happiestmomoutthere! 

Since Ronin was born we saw a big change in the girls.  They have more tantrums and meltdowns.  This was probably a result of the lack of attention we are giving them.  They adore their little brother, almost a little too much.  We started paying them to do big girl chores around the house. 

February started with Seahawks winning their last game against the 49ers in a sore game with the Seahawks walking away with 23 and 49ers 17.  Their winning delayed us in our quest to Philly/New York/Pittsburg.  Troy, Dan's brother was telling him about cheap homes in Pittsburg where he used to live for a year and that got Dan looking at investment homes there.  Being investors, mostly in Vietnam beach properties as that is where my dad would like to retire, my parents decided they would go check out the Pittsburg area for me since they were close.  Long story short we didn't go back East at the end of January like my dad was hoping since Vietnamese New Year, my brother's birthday, my new nephew was going to be blessed on the same weekend.  We found tickets for $220 per person and should've jumped on that bc that is real cheap compared to $500 per person that we paid last year.  We were still finalizing plans when the Seahawks beat the 49ers and got in the SUPERBOWL!!!  That night, tickets went up to $350 and then $400 within minutes of them winning so our plans are on hold.  Instead we are HEADING TO....can you tell by this status below?

Got our flights booked!!! Anyone want to join us?

• Joey White, Kara Lea Pyper, Kimberly Kunz and 19 others like this.
  Harmony Silveria Yes! But i cant! Have fuuun!!!
  Melanie McLean Kennedy One of our favorite places on the planet! Have fun!
  Shellee Woods Sounds like fun! How long is your trip?
  Wendy Hansen Strobell I wish!
  Jessica Cox Gibson You payin'? Ha. Have fun! When are you going?
  Jenny Sauer What? You are endless energy. Hats off to you!
  DT Stevens We're going for a week!!
  Leanne Irwin so excited you will be there for our wedding!!
  Christie Lloyd Evans In the SNOW?
  David Christensen Jones are the kids going too? Save your energy.
  DT Stevens Oh yeah! It's 55 degrees in Seattle today. We're not going yet. Not 'til beginning of April Jess.
  John Norma Coldesina I'll go. . John
  Chheang Wheeler Fun! We went there a few years ago. Kids loved it.
  Joey White I wish
  February 14 at 1:04pm · Like
  

TO DISNEYWORLD!!!!  We got my family to join us as well.  Our kids loved Disneyland last year so we are taking them to something bigger.  We're creating memories that hopefully will last a long time.  People around here go to Disneyland on a regular basis.  Disney world though is more rare. 

So yeah the Super bowl.  Seattle went crazy wild that the Seahawks were going to the Super Bowl.  Talk about the 12th man.  Wow!  I visited Reena's school and just about every other kid had some kind of Seahawks gear on.  We started small, with a home-made hairclip with their colors and then onto painting our nails neon green.  But Reena would come home from school and say things like "mommy I don't have any Seahawks jersey or sweatshirts or t-shirts of anything"  So we started out on our journey in collecting some more Seahawks stuff to fit in because there were flags on peoples' doors, on peoples' car, at night the city would light up making number 12 and there was no space for any Broncos fan to shine.  To be honest you might as well convert after that game anyway if you haven't already.

 

The girls worked really hard to make a superbowl cake cheering the 12th man.


Crush those Broncos with an orange smoothie  (carrots, pineapple, tomatoes, bananas, yogurt = awesome smoothie!)  We also had a green smoothie the day after we won.

On the day of the big bowl game we got together with some friends and I went out and bought summer sausages, cheese of several variety and lots of chips and crackers and banana bread.  Our friends, the Strobells, made pulled pork and hosted. 

 Asian Cultural Fair
   Our mission leader came to me and asked me to help organize an Asian Cultural Fair for the ward to enjoy since I'm a part of the ward missionary committee.  I love being a ward missionary more than I thought I would.

I love parties, especially because I love FOOD!!!  Especially international food.  There is a lot of great international food out there.  If all you cook is one kind, you are missing out!!!

 Ultimate challenge.  Boiled Pig's feet.  No flavor no salt.  Talk about rubbery.

I was the MC, Dan was the photographer

Games I had to entertain the kids.  The bean in the jar game was a hit.  Can you do it?  Get  a pair of chopsticks, some beans and go!

 Birthday Bash

 Reena and Debrie's best friend Phoebe had a birthday this month.  They had a great time getting together with the girls in the neighborhood.  My friend hired a professional balloon artist and face painter 

The lady my friend hired charges $150/hr.  Way too expensive for me but how cool is her bag.  Hmmm...maybe I should take up face painting.

Living on the East side of Seattle is sort of like living in Scotsdale, AZ according to Dan.  Except here in Seattle people have fresh milk, eggs, and freshly baked goods delivered to their house.  We tried the luxury East side's PCC fresh local store.  Everything was doubled in prices and organic galore.  Fun to join the craze.  Not sure it was worth it for all the shopping but fun for an occasional day that you feel like living healthy.

My new addiction!!  Our neighbors invited us over and they had a cheese tasting appetizer.  I became addicted. #livingfancyeverynowandthen





We decided together that the experiences we give our kids the next several weeks will have to be fairly cheap since we are going to Disneyworld.  It's not easy because we live around million dollar homes and people around here go on cruises every few months and glamorous getaways twice in a season.  But gymnastics for both kids, dance for both kids, and ice skating for both kids are not cheap either, not to mention museum memberships.  Giving them these as well as local experiences is far more than I ever had growing up. Nicole, Dan's cousin has been living in the Philippines for the past several weeks and have been posting some pictures on Facebook of people she met on her mission and it has been so humbling to see. Their living spaces consist of a few rags hung up to shelter them from wind and their house frames are made up of bamboo.  It is very humbling to see and it makes me feel totally vain having what we have.  Our next big experience we want to take our kids to is Vietnam.  It's expensive to take them, about $1000 per ticket but what an experience that will be for them.  Every time my parents go there, it's not just $1000 per ticket they have to save up for, it's about $10,000 they save up for as they walk down the street handing out money to the poor.  My parents live in a town home which they have already gifted to Dan and I.  Humbling.  We want to give our kids the best of course and hence we have such a beautiful home to house them in, but we want to travel a lot to show them gratitude, which is a hard thing to teach kids if all you do is tell them rather than show them.

MID WINTER BREAK
    If you're wondering what the heck is a mid winter break, here is an explanation.  Most people just have winter break, which is usually around the Christmas time.  Well here we have that plus another week in February and then a week in April for Spring break.  I love it because it gives us more time to travel and break up school time a bit.  Last year we were in Disneyland together as a family and then we took off for Europe for 2 whole weeks so the kids got to spend time with their grandmas.  This year I had to be creative since we are saving up for Disneyworld so everyday we did something.
Sunday:  We had a visit and sleepover with our besties the Frasers.  The kids always love it when they get to have friends over for a sleepover.
Monday:  We had 8 kids at our house playing games like battleship, Wii games, DDR, Dance 2, Mario cart etc...Then we went to TCBY/Mrs. Fields for frozen yogurt and yummy cookies.  Similan Thai Cuisine with the 2 sets of besties, Frasers and Strobells
Tuesday: Kidzbounce where they got to be with 3 sets of friends from church and bounced away
Wednesday: Swimming with besties at Samamish Club poolhouse
Thursday:  Bounce house at Arena Sports
Friday: Ice skating at SnoKing with some friends from church who also have 2 girls.  These girls are girls of both high soprano singers and you can tell.  They get together and sing songs from Frozen.  Our girls are taking ice skating lessons now, not because of the olympics like you think but from the movie Frozen.  "LET IT GO" yeah it's an everyday thing since they saw it on the week it came out.

 

 
Valentine's Day
   On Valentine's day we went to the gym and worked out. No joke! We got ourselves a 24 hr fitness membership as part of the New Year resolution to be not just thin but fit!  We take turns going to the gym but we thought we could have our friends who don't celebrate Valentine's day to watch the kids for us.  We had an hour long work out and then celebrated by going to FIVE GUYS.  Dan has gone on several guys night out to Five Guys but that was my first time.  I thought I wouldn't like it but it turns out to be one of my favorite burger places now.

 I took the kids shopping for Valentines gifts.  So vain but ah!  the sales

 A few preschoolers joined me in baking cookies and exchanging gifts.  I have 8 preschool kids if all of them show up.

 

The kids thought Valentine was awesome because we had chocolate dipped strawberries, pink smoothie and a heart shaped pizza.  I went to Reena's school to help out with Valentine's letters.  She and the kids in her school wrote letters to each other and they got to play post office and stamped them and delivered them to different classrooms.

My favorite treat for Valentine.  Little Dan jr.  Gosh he's so dang cute!

 Ronin is now 5 1/2 months.  He is almost able to crawl according to Dan.  I still think he has a while but he is able to lift himself onto his knees.  But that's March stuff so let's just talked about his 4th month visit.  He had a good report.  90% for height and 75% for weight.  So he dropped 10% on weight but increased 10% in height so that's what he spent his time doing, growing tall like daddy.   Ronin started eating solids and he is a good little eater. 

Debrie continues to be that stylish rambunctious girl of mine.  This girl makes me want to pull my hair out at times and melts my heart at others.  She is energetic, fearless, stubborn and sweet all at the same time.  No seriously, we love her.

We enjoyed a fun little winter harvest of brussel sprouts from our garden and started indoor seeding to get our spring gardening going.  Our carrots continued to grow during the winter.  Can't wait to harvest that as well.

...And that's us.  Most days we just hang out and chill.  We ride bikes, play at the park in front of our house and watch hang gliders come down.  Every sunny day we get hang gliders gliding over our house and landing on the park since it's a huge open field.  The kids still find it absolutely amazing and to be honest it is.  March has been super friendly in weather and so has February.  Our rhodies have bloomed and the peach and pear trees also.  They think it's spring already because we've been in the high 50's low 60's lately.  A lot of days it would rain in the morning and the sun would come out bringing a rainbow.  My favorite part of Seattle.  I call it water vapor magic or fresh air!!!