Our good friends the Pearsons have always taken the most amazing holiday photos. Junie has been telling me for a while that I need to try their guy. In the past, we tried to take them ourselves and use family and friends who have taken photography classes and the results have been wonderful. But this year, the kids are older and I felt bad soliciting family and friends so I bit the bullet and booked Oliver.

Oliver is super affordable, super chill and SO good with kids. We shot the photos at Irvine Regional. I see Brooke’s face as Oliver approaches us and thinks, “Here we go.” I asked her, “Brooke, can you say hi to Mr. Oliver? He’s going to take pictures of us today.” Nothing. Just that Brooke stare. Then the magic happened. He said hello to her and did an impression of Donald Duck. Oh how quickly we changed! She smiled instantly to which Bao and I exclaimed, “That’s it?! That’s way too easy. It hasn’t even been a minute!”

The photoshoot was very relaxed. We were just hanging out while Oliver took pictures of us. After about an hour and a half, we were done. Mike and I left thinking, that wasn’t a lot of photos. We realized after he sent us the proofs that he’s just a very good and non-intrusive photographer because we had about 200 good shots! I am in love with our photos this year and will be using Oliver for as long as he’s willing to shoot my family.

3×5 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Just ordered cute thank you cards for the twins’ birthday.

One of Brooke’s favorite things are jump houses. Mid-summer, this type A mom decided to book their birthday party. (My justification – there are only so many Saturdays in a year, alright?!) So a good friend of mine recommended Partyopolis in Lake Forest, California…and this place ROCKED! We had around 23 kids and their parents show up. They let everybody jump here. The parents were having more fun than the kids! Haha.

Happy birthday to my perfect children…I could not be happier or more proud to be your mom. I can’t believe you’ve been in my life for 3 years already…and at the same time, I can’t remember how I felt any happiness before you both…

For their third birthday, we’ve promised since the CHOC Walk that we will take them to Disneyland. Tina, Bao, Linh, Mike and I all took the day off and all ended up getting passes (Linh & Bao already had them).

Brooke was so star-struck when she saw Mickey Mouse. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen and I was so happy for her. She was hugging him, kissing him. We even got a picture of him dipping her with more kisses. Aidan, not so interested. He was not fooled by the costume. He knows there’s something fishy going on there. Haha.

The kids also rode their first roller coaster and were so brave. We thought for sure they would be freaked out. When the ride ended, both kids said, “MORE! More PLEASE!” So we did it again! Haha.

We watched the Aladdin show last and I was surprised by how engaged my children were. Aidan laughed and clapped along with the audience. When Aladdin and Jasmine kissed, he said “OoOOoo” with the crowd. He’s so funny.

We stayed until 8pm (to be honest, I was tired at 1pm). Brooke was so afraid to go home, she skipped her nap. Poor girl didn’t trust us enough to fall asleep in the stroller. She was worried if she closed her eyes, she’ll wake up in her bed at home. Hahaha.

I was going to blog about all the memories made this past weekend. But current events had made me realized something. It’s not important to remember facts like: witnessing a restaurant patron choking and saved right in front of our table, or drunken mishaps that will be joked about before the end of time. What’s most important for me to remember is the sense of friendship and family these people in my life have given me.

We’ve talked in the past before that our friendship is so shallow, so one-note. We don’t talk about the deep dark skeletons we have in our closets – everybody has them. And it made me feel for quite some time that, maybe, our friendship isn’t as “valuable” as other relationships.

But I learned over the weekend. What we give each other is something so special. We give each other an escape. For 48 hours, we were back to being the 5 of us…just laughing (non-stop), making stupid jokes only we think are funny (similar to those high school projects where we are the only ones laughing), “dancing it out” (got problems? dance it out! puck!), and more laughing. (Hurt cheeks and all!)

So in a way, this relationship is my safe haven. Somewhere I can get away from the real, the sometimes mean, the sometimes ugly. Nothing can be as pure as a childhood friendship. That’s what I have with you guys and that’s RARE.

Not to say, if any time you need to talk to me, I won’t listen. Not to say, if I ever needed your support from the ugly reals of life, I wouldn’t come to you for support. But just because I haven’t, it doesn’t devalue the relationship we have.

It’s funny. Sometimes people can’t see when they have a good thing. Not as clearly at least than the people around you. We are so lucky to all be married to people who get it – they get this strange relationship we have. Our spouses are so supportive of this friendship that they gave us not just the blessing but practically a demand to “go big or go home” with this trip. (Too bad we didn’t listen and ended up flying Allegiant and staying at Ti) LOL.

When I posted “20 years” of friendship on Facebook, so many people reacted. (Mostly, YOU’RE OLD, THI!…LOL) A lot of people said, “How special is that. Not many friendships last 20 years.”

So I’ve concluded our friendship isn’t shallow…it isn’t one-note. There’s no way anything this special can be described with words like that. The best word for our friendship to me is simple. Life is so complicated, we need to cherish the simple.

Koo love you (until we are buried together in ceramic hands soap dishes…)

So…when I found out I was having twins, one thought I had was, “One day, they will team up against me.” This thought was usually accompanied with an image of two teenagers – one drunk and the other picking them up from who knows where. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would happen now…when they’re almost 3 years old..

It happened last week. I made dinner for them. Part of their dinner was half a banana each. Aidan ate his banana first and asked for more. I wanted him to eat the main part of his dinner so I said, “No, Aidan, eat your food first. No more banana.” Then I watched as Brooke broke her half into two pieces, handed one to Aidan and said, “Here Caucau. I share with you, okay?” He says, “Thank you, Meimei!” followed by “You’re welcome” from Brooke. I just sat there. Dumbfounded. I can’t say “Don’t share with your brother!” That kind of love should be rewarded…but I just told Aidan he can’t have anymore banana…what is a mother to do now?

I just sat there. Defeated…proud, but defeated nevertheless.
SCORE: Toddler twins – 1 Mommy – 0

Down, down, down
The dark, dark street they came!
Quiet as mice
Stealthy as shadows

Up, up, up
The dark, dark house they climbed!
Stealthy as shadows
Quiet as mice

Only the moon was watching when they arrived
Only the moon was watching when they left
Only the moon…and one little boy.

Tom was a nice little boy.
Tom was a brave little boy.
Tom was a boy about to have an adventure!

Bao and I have a weird, weird relationship. We are 6 years apart in age, and we’re pretty close considering how much older and wiser I am to her (If you ask her, she’ll say she’s that much younger and cooler than me, of course). Here’s a sample of a ridiculous conversation we had today. I am cracking up because we are so weird. But weird works for us.

(Talking about Riley & Brooke getting cradle cap):
Bao Ngo: wait
Bao Ngo: its not crib cap
Bao Ngo: ??
Bao Ngo: i totally thought thats what its called
Bao Ngo: chi ba’s laughing at me
Thi Ngo: cradle cap
Bao Ngo: LOLL
Thi Ngo: YOU called it crib cap
Thi Ngo: remember?!
Thi Ngo: OMG
Bao Ngo: why do i think its crib cap?
Bao Ngo: i even told myself “remember, its crib cap”
Thi Ngo: You just call it that
Bao Ngo: LOL
Thi Ngo: all the freaken time
Bao Ngo: so weird
Bao Ngo: LOl
Thi Ngo: I got tired of correcting you
Bao Ngo: LOL
Thi Ngo: LOL
Bao Ngo: why chi hai?!?
Bao Ngo: you owe me this much
Thi Ngo: Because
Bao Ngo: you are the “WORST” (Note: Making fun of the way I use ‘worse’ and ‘worst’ wrong)
Thi Ngo: I owe you NOTHING, OrangINA (Note: She told me how to pronounce this drink incorectly)
Thi Ngo: LOL
Bao Ngo: HAHAH
Bao Ngo: true

Aidan and Brooke’s 3rd birthday is coming up. Invitations are already in the mail but last week when I asked them who they wanted to invite to their party, the conversation went like this:

Me: “Who do you want to come to your party?”
Aidan: “Hinry (Henry), Joshua, Kai”
Me: “How about you, Brooke, do you have friends you want to come?”
Brooke: “Um…mommy and daddy.”