After three flawless performances, I finally wised up and decided to take a video of Brooke singing her ABCs. It’s moments like this that you can’t help but feel…this is what I’ve been working towards up to this point in my life. My kids are such a joy that the daunting task of waiting up at 7am when you went to bed at 3am (I stayed up with Bao and Tina to finish Mommy’s birthday cake) actually feels great.

For Roger’s niece’s 3rd birthday, his mom asked me to make 2 dozen cupcakes. The theme of the birthday was a Sanrio character. A black and white pig called Monoruku Boo. It’s pretty cute and a lot of fun to make. Because Kayla is only 3, I wanted to add a little color so I added pink based off a graphic I found online of the character.

Pound cake cupcakes w/ vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream

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Image I used for inspiration

For mom’s birthday this year, Bao and I joined the oldies (but goodies) at Nhu Y for the best lobster we ever had, ca 8 mon that never disappoints, Vietnamese singing accompanied by CMT, “the best keyboardist in…THE WORLD”, and of course, all the dancing.

It was actually a very fun night. We learned that Cau Nam is a good dancer and I have to have a dormant dancing gene somewhere since both sides of my family can dance. Ca 8 Mon makes delicious House Special lobster. Chu Bon will do anything for his wife…even dance with another man if it means he can learn to dance.

We ended the night with a quote from Anh 2 Doan during the family circle dance during Dad’s singing,
“Gia dinh minh WEIRD qua di!” (loosely translated to “Our family’s hella weird, yo!”) It’s true, but with the weird, comes the fun and cuteness as well.

My parents: Tinh qua di!

More pictures can be found on Mom’s picasa album.

I always give them the empty milk cartons to play with before I discard one. Today I put the empty carton on their little table and proceed to wash dishes.

Aidan comes by and picks it up:

Aidan: “Mommy! Look.”
Me: “Oh yeah. It’s all done. No more.”
Aidan points to the carton and says, “It’s empty.”
Me: …

Schooled by a kid who turns 2 in a few weeks. LOL. I never really had a strong vocabulary.

What a difference a year makes! Last year at Lauren’s 2nd birthday, we were the antisocial ‘babies’ that hung out around the fence since there were not walking yet, just cruising. We went from not walking to jumping in a bounce house this year!

Playing with Daddy

The kids had a great time at Lauren’s birthday party. It was also cheer how great school has been on them. They had to wait patiently for their turn in cake. I have to admit I was starting to get antsy worried about the melt down because cake came pretty slowly. But they were so great. No tears, just waited and ate when the cake came. Brooke even helped clear her spot when she was done!

Cake time!

AB enjoy ice cream cake!

Thank you Lees for a great time and happy birthday, Lauren. Can’t believe you’re already 3…

Cute group photo

I made cookies and creme cupcakes for Lauren’s 3rd birthday. The theme was Disney Princess and because when replicating characters, you need to be spot on otherwise it could just look bad, I got these premade Disney Princess cupcake rings to decorate a a dozen of the 3 dozen Joy asked me to make. I could have gone the abstract route but I figure, these are for kids, so they need to be very obvious. Plus, the little girls LOVED the rings!

My kids are way braver than I was. They’re not even two yet and we trick-or-treated for the first time this year (they weren’t walking last year so we forfeited the idea of taking them around the neighborhood).

Cool Flintstone wagon for Pebbles and BamBam…courtesy of their super cool Dad!

They were super brave, going up to their neighbor’s doors, “ding dong”-ing and “knock knock”-ing all the houses. What joy they got from being able to ring doorbells and knock on doors without Mommy screaming, “no! no!” And as if life wasn’t grand enough, they got candy. Candy that their sweet little lips have yet to touch but substituted for Panda cookies and freeze-dried fruit.

Pebbles & Bam Bam snacking

We had a good time and ended the night with a Laker win!

I’ve always love children and had a soft spot for them, but after having children of my own, that spot just got softer if possible. We added CHOC to one of the organizations we will be donating annually to. Not sure if I ever blogged about this but Mike and I donate to 4 organizations annually around the holidays. We just pick 4 we’d like to contribute to and CHOC was never one of them before now. It’s hard to choose because everybody has a good cause, but this one touches home. Not because our kids were ever patients at CHOC, but heaven forbid of they are, we know they will be in good hands. Plus, walking this walk reminds me how lucky I am my kids are healthy and happy and we did not have to go through some of the tragedies these families we walk among did with their children.

Our friends the Wongs wanted to visit a pumpkin patch with their son, Jaxton, and since we live down the street, we went again! Mike took more great photos of the kids so I had to post them here:
Tanaka Farms take 2

We took our pumpkin photos last year at Irvine Regional. This year we decided to go to Tanaka Farms since we’ve heard a lot about it plus the kids are old enough to probably enough picking a pumpkin. We took the fancy camera since my Sony is waterlogged and it was so worth it!

The Lams at Tanaka Farms

Kids in the corn maze

I highly recommend Tanaka Farms to families. It gives the kids growing up surrounded by city and convenient stores an opportunity to see how things are grown. Mike and I think we will be taking the kids here often so they can pick their own vegetables and just be involved with how food is grown.