Christmas Party

This is our first time attending a company Christmas party. The money we spend on a sitter is well worth it. There are four buffet areas with different themes. Thanh and I have much fun playing at the Casino (with fake money, of course). I wish I have eaten more crab legs. We are really blessed to work for this company which takes good care of its employees. Who knows, we may just stay in Houston forever!

Let's Go Camping

Blame on the weather. It's December and almost 9:30 pm, and we decide to go camping outside. In our backyard. See, it's such a lovely weather here in Houston, and kids have been wanting to go camping. With their mommy's vote, daddy finally agrees. It is a pure family fun until daddy bails out after kids fall asleep.

Winnie Tagged Me

When can I let my hair down ( I had a bad hair cut)?
Hi Winnie, I am doing this for you. You are probably one of the five people (including my parents) that know about my blog. This game really got me to think how weird I am. So here it comes!
Rules:
A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning
B. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves them a comment letting them know that they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog for game rules/details

1. Habit: It's normal not to wear outside shoes into a Chinese household, but I take this habit to an extreme. ANYBODY who comes to my house has to take his/her shoes off. If somebody objects, I make him/her put on plastic bags wrapping around the shoes. I just did that to our cable guy. One time two furniture guys refused to put the bags on, and what did I do? I laid the old bedding sheets on the carpet for them to walk on.

2. Fact: Having a shoe-in-house- phobia doesn't mean my house is spot clean. It may just appear so. I hardly vacuum the carpets or mop the tiles. I just constantly pick up little pieces of things like trash, hair, toy, dust...etc.

3. Habit: When I am hungry, I grave SUGAR. Nothing else can do until I get light headed from overdosing. When I was waiting to have my blood sugar tested as part of pregnancy routing, I got really hungry, and vending machine was the only thing in sight. I just had to eat right away, so I had two chocolate bars, one muffin, and a soda to ease my hunger. Needless to say, I had to do a second follow up blood test. Sugar is my bad eating habit.

4. Fact: It was hard to gain weight before the kids, now it is harder to fight off that last five pounds. I had let myself go for the longest time for being a mom of two young kids. You see, I just lost about 20 pounds from exercising and not overeating this year. ( I still eat well, just not right before I go to bed.) It all started with a Banana Republic size S t-shirt with a bargaining price of $2.97. I want to buy it, and be able to wear it, and I made it happen. I know the last five pounds will eventually come off as soon as I stop eating the sweets.

5. Habit: I make everyone wash his/her hands when entering my household. It goes with the same line of #1.

6. Fact: I still sleep with my kids on our King size bed. Thanh doesn't like it but there is nothing he can do about it. He tries to stay in bed as long as he can until Timothy kicks him out. I just love my not-so-typical life!

Wow, I haven't typed this much since my 50 pages final paper back at BYU days. Now the harder part is to tag 6 other people. Winnie, I will try to do it later.

Family Portraits 2007

Family pictures taken right before Halloween 2007. With our first child, we took family portraits religiously about every 3 months. With the second one, once a year is just right. We are just getting too comfortable with the whole parenthood thing.

Samantha's Preschool

This is Samantha's preschool class picture. It's an extreme popular preschool program. Under the supervision of a certified teacher, high school students are being trained to be early childhood teachers. I got Samantha in before the words got out. Parents put infants' names on the waiting list already! The teacher to student ratio is normally 2 to 1. And the best part is the tuition: only $85 for the whole semester. Timothy will automatically get in next year, let's cross finger that he will be potty trained by then.

BYU Won!

Did you watch the Utah vs. BYU game yesterday? It was an awesome roller coaster ride. Just when we thought we were going to lose it with a minute and half left in the fourth quarter (and it was 4th and 18), we had a huge comeback. I was jumping up and down like a monkey along with bunch other BYU alumni. (The similar scene happened back in the year 2001). And this Leslie writing, not Thanh. Many thanks to Thanh who taught me all (ok, almost all) the rules about football. No offense to other ball games fans, Football is the greatest. I am hoping, if not both, at least one of our kids will go to BYU years down the road, so we can go back to visit BYU again. Go cougars!

Wood Sign

My friend, Melissa, asked me to make this wood sign for her sons' room. The colors goes with the room, and the scripture in Matthew 5:16 she picked out was just right for the theme. I have done many wood signs for my friends, and even ebayed some. Maybe it's time for me to make my kids some cool signs, too. Any request and comments?

Wet/Dry Silde

Thanh got this Splash N' Slide inflated pool in mid hot summer and we had really good use of it. Just when I thought I needed to pack it away for the winter, Samantha nicely suggested that we can play it without the water. Ok, why not? It was just as fun. Thanh rarely buys toys (it's mommy's job) for kids, and this impulsive buy of his has really paid itself. We highly recommended it.

Timothy L's Bithday Party

Timothy #1 and Timothy #2 painting the house.


Samantha doesn't have preschool on Mondays, so she gets to come to the party and show the boys how to behave.

Timothy got invited to his first official birthday party, and the birthday boy happened to be Timothy, too. The theme is about "Bob, the builder," and my friend, Michelle, did a great job hosting. It really inspired me to want to have birthday parties next year for my kids.

Playgroup explores the fire station

For playgroup this week, we visited a local fire station, and I think I was more excited than most of the kids. It was just so cool to see all the gear up and close. Samantha was ready for the "real" playgroup after we were done visiting. I just consider my kids to be lucky to have this kind of experience here in the States, when in Taiwan, it's not even allowed to have female firefighters.

Flying the kite

Our newest outdoor obsession is flying the kite. The weather here is just perfect, windy but not cold. If you want to wear out your kids after their nap, before dinner time, I highly recommend this "sport." By the way, the one-dollar- store- kites will do.

Silly Timmy

Timothy is a natural comedian. When he does something silly, Thanhs always says that it's from my side of gene. It was just a simple breakfast--Bao Zi, and Timmy made the scene a little bit more interesting.

Finding Nemo

Thanks to our newly subscribed Houston Chronicles, we found out about the Disney on Ice show-"Finding Nemo" just in time to take the kids to their first disney show. The Reliant Center was packed despite it was a Friday. Samantha was old enough to appreciate the talents on the stage, while Timmy was more concerned about the snack time.

Broccoli Bouquet

As Thanh is getting the lunch ready (yummy steaks and nutritious broccoli), Samantha got hold of the broccoli and pretended to be bride walking down the isle. Don't ask me where she got her idea from. Just don't grow up too fast, baby! Timothy thought it was funny, too.

Truck-or-Treat

It is pretty unusually to celebrate Halloween after the fact. Tonight at church, we have chill (also bread) cookout contests and also truck-or treat activity going on. We didn't cook anything but brought 100 pieces chicken McNuggets to share, and we were kids' #1 choice. I think we really got our money worth on buying the costumes and bags. I lost count on how many Halloween parties we've gone to this year!

Trick-or-Treat

The long anticipated night has finally arrived. Some friends join us for trick-or-treat extravaganza. Almost every house has its porch lights on, and it means welcoming. Timothy's bag gets so full that he has to drag it home. We got pretty popular for giving out Costco size candy bars. This year we also give out glowing sticks. Thanh divides the candies we like in three bags, one for her, one for him, and one for us. The rest will go to the late Halloween trunk-or-treat party this Friday at the Church. Yeah, I can do this every year.

Halloween Party #2

We have playgroup every Wednesday. It's consist of bunch of stay-at-home moms and bunch of playful kids. Today happens to be Halloween, so we have a potluck lunch at the park, and a trick-or-treat rehearse. The weather is just perfect and I seem to forget how hot it was just two weeks ago. Earlier today, Samantha wore her Mulan costume to her preschool, and I didn't take a picture in time. Timothy's little girl friend, Kathryn, loves to hang out with him.

Halloween Party #1

We attended our neighbor's annual Halloween party tonight. Samantha is a ladybug, and Timothy is a monkey. Thanh put on his antique Kung-Fu outfit and believed it or not, it still fits. We had some "standard" American food and hang out with some nice neighbors. Kids were just as shy as ever. Samantha wasn't feeling well, so we left the party quite early. One party down, two more to come.

Go Fishing

In a sunny high 70's weather, we went fishing by the lake in our subdivision. It was my first time to join the more experienced crowd. We got two functional kids' fishing poles and were ready to roll! We didn't catch any catfish this time, but had a very relaxing afternoon. We then headed to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner.
Pho noodle soup always do the tricks for the family, and the lollicups finished up the day nicely.

Knock Knock

I try to spend some quality time with Timothy in the morning while Samantha is at her preschool. He and I were just "chatting" on the stairway. He knocked on my shoulder, and said "knock, knock." I asked, "Who is it?" He said, "Mama." I then replied, "Mama who?" He answered, "Orange Banana." I just bursted out laughing. Thanh had played this game with him sometime before. And he surely caught the essence of the joke. I tried to call Thanh to tell him this funny joke, but he wasn't in his office. So I asked Timmy where daddy went. He said, "em, Mall."
I am posting some current pictures of Samantha and Timothy. They are so adorable! And yap, they are napping right now.

Pumpkin Patch

When I browse other people's blogs, I like to see some pictures. Here are some most current family pictures. The date should be 10/13/2007. The camera setting was wrong. We went to a pumpkin patch nearby our house a couple weekends ago. The temperature here in Houston was still in its high 80'. We rode on the choo choo train look alike, picked some pumpkins, and had some snow cones which were kids' highlights of the day. We will be back next year. Hopefully next year it won't charge $3.00 admission fee per person anymore.
That was me nagging. The smiles on kids' faces are priceless!

It is happening!

Here I am. Nervously typing up my first blog. Why do I want to start my own family's blog? Because my two kids still take naps in the afternoon most of time (ok, if I make them), and for the past two hours, I'd watched more youtube than I should have. Also because my scrapbooks are almost up to date. Enough being said--I HAVE TIME TO KILL! Besides, I think this is the best way to keep in touch with our families in Taiwan and Virginia, also with many friends whom we are not currently keeping in touch with.

How should I start? Here is a quick catchup. Thanh and I have been happily married for more than 6 years. Our first born, Samantha, is 4 1/2 years old. She is attending her second year of preschool. Timothy, the son, is an energetic 2-year-old. We are living in Houston suburban area. Thanh is working for an oil company nearby as a reservoir engineer. We meet up for lunch all the time. The mall is right next to his company (big plus). I am "working" as a very content stay-at-home mom (who would think?).

Timothy just woke up and just wants to a mama's boy. I will try to catch up with you all later. Now I got all excited about this blog thing! I should have started it when Samantha was first born ( it seems like having baby is when everyone first started their blogs).