Yearly Archives: 2010

San Francisco

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Lam family in San Francisco

SATURDAY: We decided a few months back that it’s time we visited our good friend, Anne Eurose and her family. We woke up at 3am on Saturday morning and was on the road by 3:40am. Brooke wasn’t too happy about this but Aidan woke up alert and naming all the things he sees (Stars! Moon! Light!). They were both up until 4am and fell asleep until 7:30am. We stopped at Harris Ranch for the exotic McDonald’s breakfast, changed the kids out of their PJs and were on our way. On the road, the kids amused themselves with ‘trees’ and ‘mooooos’ (aka cows). We didn’t really need to use the DVD player until the last hour of our drive.

We reached Tracy around 10:30am and Mike took a nap while Eurose and I entertain our kids. They LOVED their Ate Eurose’s house. I have since they coined it as “Abris Daycare”. Completely stocked from a beautiful yard with a playground and toy cars/bikes to a toy room downstairs (of course, well organized). They were super comfortable there. Brooke kept asking to go outside. Once outside, she wanted to go in to watch Nemo. We had lunch and George came by to visit and we caught up and talked about old times until the kids’ nap time. Around 1:30-2pm we left Tracy to continue our adventure to San Francisco.
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Aidan’s New Do

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Mike cut Aidan’s hair again…and again, he was a teary, snotty mess. I can hear him screaming “Mommmy!!! Mommmy!!!” the entire time. (It’s just a haircut, son.)

The plan: Use the #2 guide for the sides and #4 on top…just a trim.
What actually happened: Mike forgot the #2 guide and ended up zeroing the side of Aidan head! After that, the entire hair cut was just, “How can I fix this!”

Good thing for Mike Aidan has a cute head shape, because it turned out okay. Perfect for summer! =P

Aidan's six-head

I

DiSC Results: Peacemaker

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Work asked us all to take the DiSC assessment and here are my results (I’m boring). I took something like this back in my Smarthome days and I don’t remember what I was assessed to be, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t “Peacemaker” which just means I’ve changed. For the better or worse? Not sure, just changed. I’m a lot older now and my priorities are definitely different from what they were back then. Either way, it’s pretty accurate of how I feel these days..about work at least!

Peacemaker

Thi values close, personal relationships, and she will often put the needs and desires of those who are loyal friends ahead of her own needs. She is an even-paced individual who thrives in a peaceful, harmonious environment. Thi will work to avoid conflict and sudden changes in her lifestyle and finds joy in keeping tradition.

Systematic and detailed, Thi focuses on the process. Others see her as practical and logical. She tends to be sensitive to criticism, but prefers to internalize her emotions rather than expose them. Thi likes to clarify expectations before undertaking new projects, because she works hard to meet the standards that are set for her.

Thi prefers a rational and moderate approach when first entering new situations and tries to avoid extremes. She likes the company of others, but Thi is equally comfortable spending a quiet evening alone. She is a realist who will always weigh her options before she makes a decision to move ahead.

Because she cares about how others feel, Thi may feel uncomfortable making decisions that strongly affect others. She typically encourages others to be involved in the decision making process and prefers to work in a team role. Others tend to see Thi as agreeable and humble.

Circus with the kids

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I love my job! On Tuesday, all the bosses told me to take the day off to take my kids to the circus…completely free, on them…and in the Orange County Register suite at the Honda Center! We even got reserved parking. It was so much fun. The kids loved it, Mike loved it and the Nguyen sisters were able to join us as well. I never been to the circus and it’s not the greatest thing I’ve ever been to but the happy faces on my kids (and husband…and mother in law…lol) was priceless.

Four tickets to the Circus!
Aidan modeling the tickets.

Amazing hat trick
Amazing hat tricks…

Aidan's parents gone mad...
This is where I went crazy…

King of the Jungle cupcakes

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My good friend, Anne Eurose, threw her cousin, Deejay, who is also a good family friend of mine a baby shower for the soon-to-be arrival of their baby boy! I was thrilled when she asked me to make cupcakes for Deejay’s shower. The theme was really cute and easy to do…if anything, it was difficult for me to narrow down all the ideas!

King of the Jungle cupcakes
Red velvet with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream

King of the Jungle cupcake displayKing of the Jungle Cake

Deejay’s Baby Shower

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It feels like yesterday sometimes…and sometimes it feels like a whole different life, but I’ve known Deejay and her family for a very, very long time. Actually, our families have known each other for a very long time. Deejay is one of the sweetest people I know…not a mean bone in that little body and she is going to be a fabulous mother….she kind is one…to DX. LOL.

Her equally amazing cousin, Anne Eurose, one of my BFFs drove to Southern California with three kids (the oldest being 3 years old) to throw her a party. She really is super mom. She took care of her three kids, had time to go to Disneyland with us AND threw an amazing shower with some of the cutest personal touches I’ve ever seen! She even asked me to help w/ the cupcakes. It was fun and I’m always willing to go eat some delicious Filipino food!

Giraffee diaper cake
Cute diaper cake Eurose made.

Exponential Work

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Everybody always told me having twins, or triplets, or any higher order multiple birth is exponential in work load compare to the n-1. I will never know if this is true since I had the twins and don’t plan on having anymore. However, a vendor called me at work today regarding some work and asked how I am. I told him I’ve been in and out of the office since my twins are taking out all the people around them with their cold and he says he has twins too! Actually, he has 4 kids. Wow.

He says his kids are 20, 15 and the twins are 12. Continued to tell me he knows why people who have twins first don’t ever have anymore. He told me firsthand, through experience, that the workload is indeed exponential. “Having twins is like having 6 kids!” He even told me it will get easier once they are 3 years old and says that his wife and him had a celebration when the last kid was potty-trained. How cute is that.

They are amazing people because the reason why he has 4 kids is because his wife is just baby crazy. After deciding that the twins will be their last, his wife signed them up to be kind of like foster parents but only for babies of teenage mothers who loses custody from the state due to whatever circumstances they are in. He says it’s very sad when babies addicted to crack comes into their care. Those babies take longer to place but he says they always end up placed somewhere. The list of people wanting babies is very long and there is always a home waiting for them. That’s just beautiful to me. I admire people like this.

Sleep

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My mother-in-law has been sick since Monday. Mike and I took turns taking off days to take care of them. I took yesterday…today he’s home. I heard this story and just had to share how cute and easy my kids are.

On Monday, my mother-in-law was already sick but didn’t know the extent of it so she did not tell us. She was so sick she didn’t take the kids out and told them she’s going to nap and play among themselves. At one point, she woke up to find Brooke fast asleep on her leg. She just decided to nap on her own. It’s 3pm and the kids usually nap at noon. She looks at Aidan who was still up and said, “Sleep”. He repeated his grandma, “Sleep” and laid down and took a nap. Too sweet for words.

Spontaneous Disneyland trip

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Me Anne and the kids
Childhood friends with our children

Anne Eurose and the Abris trio are in town for Deejay’s baby shower this weekend. We were suppose to meet up on Tuesday but Bao and Van had this fabulous idea to go to Disneyland with 4 adults and 5 kids ranging from 4 months to 3 years old. I don’t know why we listened to the ‘ones who don’t have children’ but we did and went to Disneyland! Super chaotic from helping Eurose with the kids and Bao parking her car to super fun of Jaden’s reaction to Woody in It’s a Small World and Brooke’s discovery of “hot dog” in Toon Town (“Hot dog” is Mickey Mouse because of the Hot Dog Dance at the end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse).

It was pretty much crazy but so much fun. The kids were such troopers! We met up with a very pregnant Deejay at Downtown Disney, went to DCA to visit Bug’s Life where the two older Abris really had a good time on rides with Van. Watched a glimpse of World of Color and tried to get on Toy Story Mania but it was a 40 minute wait so unfortunately the kids had to miss that. We all stayed out until 11pm (Yes, we’re nuts)

Hopefully we can do this again next summer and spend an entire day so the kids can do everything they want to.