January 2016

Ok I'm not going to let myself be 3 months behind anymore.  Baby is napping, it's 70 degrees and sunny outside, very tempting, but here is January.
 January, a bit lonely.  There's a bit of sadness in the picture below.  It shows the day we took Thuyen and Josh to the airport so they could go back to Manhattan.  There were tears in our children's eyes.  They loved their aunt and uncle.  They slept in their bedroom but every morning they would end up in the same bed as their aunt and uncle.  They adore Thuyen and Josh.  We were all very sad when they left. 

So I'll just be drinkin' my butterbeer to cheer me up

Seattle is beautiful, no doubt the prettiest place we've ever lived in.  But it is far, very far up north.  My family wants to move here, it's just difficult to get everyone closer due to jobs taking you wherever there is availability.  My parents kept saying "next year" because my dad does not want to retire yet.  He's already gifted me their town home so I'm ready to offer them a room in my house and work to take care of them while they help me take care of my children.  But that plan is not ideal yet.  I've finished my finance class and passed my State's Life Producer Licensing Exam so I could dedicate more time to work on building up a client base but would need my parent's help to watch over our children when I meet with client.  It's Real Estate all over for me.  Heck, it's counseling psychology all over.  A Master's Degree but no time to practice.  Of course having the education does brighten my mind up so there's that.  And what an example it is to have these beautiful children of mine see how much their mom and dad value education. 

 While depressing as it was to have a house full of people and then having them all disappear into their own abode, I focused my thoughts on my children and how beautiful they are.  I think mixed children are absolutely blessed as they get the best of both worlds.  I admire their beauty every day.

 I love my chunky and smiley baby Darion.  He had his 8 weeks visit and he was in the 95% -100% all around. I visited my OB for the 6 weeks post partum and she praised my uterus, literally, I kid you not.  I really don't quite know how to feel when she said "you have the right body for carrying babies".  OK, I thought.  'Thanks' I said hesitantly.  She said, you're back to normal and how amazing that you were able to carry and deliver an 11 lbs baby.  Maybe all OB's are supposed to give out lots of praises to moms so to cut down post partum depression, but she continued on with her praises.  I did feel pretty good about ME.  I had my 4 children just like my mother from conception to birth, everything was smooth.  I don't think it was me so much as it was the Lord who blessed us with so much.  Many people around us struggle with having babies and loosing many in the process and somehow we got lucky. The Lord is good and to him I give all my praises.

 Next, I would like to talk about my curly hair boy.  I never thought I would have a curly hair boy, as curly as his hair anyway. Both Dan and I have waves but we don't know what to do to keep his curls neat. But he is so so cute.  He talks a tons now and half of what he says we're still trying to figure out. He's always the first to come to me and tell me "Darion's sad mom, go get him" when Darion makes even the smallest fuss.  He's bossy around his sisters like the other day when we were in the car and the girls were loud and he shouted to them "Girls, be quiet".  He knows his alphabet and his colors, especially yellow.  He's so smart around electronics just like his daddy.  He's still our little monkey, climbing and jumping off of everything.  He likes to take things apart and then putting them back together...just like his daddy.

Then there's my Debrie, or "Bebrie" if Ronin is calling out her name.  She is the most loving little girl out there and very expressive.  She tells me all the time "I have the cutest and sweetest little brothers" even though Ronin bosses her around.  She and Reena are like peanut butter and jelly in that when they are facing the right direction, they get along really really well.  But when the jelly and peanut butter are facing the opposite direction, you better watch out.  They get feisty.  She reminds me of myself.  You better not get on my wrong side or else I'll get my feisty on you!  But I have my sweet side and if you know how to get on my sweet side, you'll see how sweet I can be.  Debrie is the exact same way.  I love her.  She makes friends very easily, also a characteristic that is like me.  She has some friends that always asks me for playdate. She is spunky and she is my little super star. 

Next, my Reena.  She is peachy, just like her middle says so.  She's got a beautiful smile, her braces helped.  It's about time those thousands of dollars paid off!  She adores her brothers with kisses everyday after school.  She is tall and we are sharing shirts now.  A few more years before pants can be shared but I can wait.  Time is moving too quickly and looking at her baby pictures always bring tears to my eyes.  I want her to continue to grow, I just want to freeze time.  I want to savor every moment with my baby girl and slow time down.  She talks like a teenager sometime but I'm not scared of her as a teenager.  She is so sweet and will quietly cries if you say something that really you don't mean for it to come out so angrily at her.  She makes you love her in a very natural and delicate way.  She makes very yummy scramble eggs for her and her siblings many mornings.  She is a beautiful artist. She is my natural star singer and she picks up on music very quickly.  She passes on all her recorder songs in much shorter time then the teacher's expectation. I have high hopes for her.

I WAS PRETTY DESPERATE TO HAVE FRIENDS VISIT BY THE TIME MID JANUARY CAME AROUND

I had my neighbors joined me for some yummy coffee cake I made.  Then my friend JoLyn came from Walla Walla

Roro and I had a mother son date and it was...going to his friend Clara's birthday party at a very fun place called Wiggle Works

It was inside of a mall so I was excited about that.  He was excited about the cars in the hallway

He was a very tired boy after all that fun

We decided to move some toys into the girls room. I made a bean bag to give their daddy some sitting room while they read Harry Potter together

Roro loves being a big boy at the library

Dan has become an expert in shrimp and mushroom Alfredo

It's nice to have a quieter month where I can take some time to build up my team and shake hands with a few friends and tell them what I do.  Financial counseling and educating isn't easy because it is a continue learning process.  Dan is much better at it than me.  He is investing, saving, working hard on retiring before 60, at least that is his goal.  I just want to have lots of money to vacay.  Dan does, too but he wants to have adventurous vacations for a long extended periods of time.  He has become quite adventurous I would say.  He wants to take the family to live in Vietnam because well if you're going to spend $10,000 each time you go, you should go for a year, not a month like we have in the past.  I just wish it doesn't cost so much so I could go more often, but unfortunately it does cost that much when tickets are $1400 a piece for 6 people and that doesn't include food and entertainment.  We just went to California and we calculated our trip cost us $1500+ but that was for everyone.  That would barely cover for one person if Vietnam was the destination.

The highlight for me in January was to be named "Volunteer of the month" in our community.  This is contributed to the community Playgroup I run.  We regularly get about 40 moms, dads, caretakers, and kids.  I love going every Wednesday and singing and dancing my heart out.  It is a very fun group.  Me and my partner Katie got our pictures taken for the Newspaper.  But more on that later.