Kate's 1st Haircut

As you may be aware, Kate's been a reluctant potty-trainee.

Or maybe we should say she's got a toilet phobia. 

Imagine crying about not wearing a diaper.

And screaming about the idea of sitting on the toilet.

But at school, she'll relent to sitting on the kiddie-sized toilets for 5 seconds before proclaiming, "I can't get the pee out!"

Around the end of June Keanu was due for a haircut and Kate expressed her interest in a haircut, too.  My response:  "Ok, when you pee in the potty, you can get your haircut!"   Next day, no such luck.  Nor the next day, or the day after that.

About 3 weeks later, she proudly proclaimed upon my arrival at school "Mommy, I peed in the potty!"  Of course we made a trip to the hair salon on our way home from school to get the reward.  And here are some pics of the process and the result.

Look at where the curls start. 
Can you tell why I was reluctant about cutting off those baby curls?

Almost done!

Finished!

It turned out a bit shorter than I'd thought, but still, we're all happy with the result.

She loves the shorter hair.  It's so much easier to maintain and tons cooler, I'm sure.  Even though it happened about a month ago, she still looks in the mirror and says "Oh, I still have my new haircut!"

Look, Mommy, my baby!

"Look, Mommy, I found it he mommy!" explained

Obviously no one is figuring this one out. I have to admit, it's pretty tricky.

If you look carefully at the picture, you can see a few pairs: Xx, Tt, Uu and hidden behind her hand there's Ii. She's matching upper and lower case letters together, thus the "mommy" and the "baby"!

Isn't she creative?!

Wordless Wednesday

It's a girl -

and she's wearing a dress!

It doesn't happen often, so we've got to document it when it does!

Best Buddies

Keanu: Mommy, Kate's playing with my computer!
Me: That's OK. Why don't you play with her?
Keanu: Oh, OK. Kate, can I play, too?
Kate: Yayyyy!

If only this weren't the rare exception to the rule...

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Valentine's Day!

Kate had a great time making valentines on Friday. When Keanu got home from school, he helped add the finishing touches. Watch your mailbox!

I Did It!

Grandma brought Keanu a great floor puzzle for his birthday. He loves it, but he also loves to have his sister help. The other day he did Lighting McQueen, she and I did Mater, and the kids did Sherrif together. Keanu finished his his part and was patiently waiting for his sister. You can see why he needed to wait so long. She had to take a break every time she got a piece in.

First haircut!

Our little tomboy doesn't like to keep barrettes or anything in her hair, so to keep it out of her eyes, we decided she should have a bang trim. She went to the same place Keanu had his first haircut and really enjoyed driving her car and watching TV while she got her first haircut. I was amazed at how well she sat through the whole ordeal! Stay tuned for further pictures of the end result!

Look who's playing tennis!

Merry Christmas!

Finally, I'm getting around to posting about Christmas! When the kids came downstairs on Christmas morning, they saw that the tree was piled with gifts and Kate found one with her name on it even without reading! She couldn't be bothered by anything else under the tree or in her pile of gifts on the couch later. She just wanted to play with that stroller!

Keanu loved opening all of his. By noon, we were ready to go on our next adventure - the Lakeshore Hotel in Hsin Chu. Kevin had made reservations to spend the night there and we had a great time.

First of all, there's heat in the hotel rooms.

Second, there was a pool with a fabulously warm kid's pool.

Third, the kids had a great time with their new toys. This is what they looked like everywhere we went: Hope you all had a great Christmas, too!

Look what the post man delivered!

Ok, so he just brought be box. The original contents were placed under the Christmas tree and replaced by a busy toddler.

Happy Birthday, Kate, part 2

One day in the week leading up to Christmas, Keanu and I stopped at the department store after school to do some last minute shopping. We got home kind of late, but rather than heading straight to bed, we had to have some birthday cake first. Little did I know that I'd choosen Kate's Lunar birthday to go shopping with her brother instead of spend the evening with her! She was evidently quite happy about the event anyway, wasn't she?

Happy Birthday, Kate

Last Sunday we celebrated Kate's birthday with a dinner at TGIFriday's.

There were aunts and cousins:And Ahma:And puzzles to solve while waiting for dinner:And Dora books and stickers:

And Dora Play-Doh:And of course there was the "Happy Birthday" song:And ice cream: And cake:

Pippi Longstocking

What's for dinner?

Three things I love about this picture:

1. Broccoli tastes better if it is growing in sweet potatoes.
2. Little sisters sit better at the dinner table if they can share a chair with someone else.
3. There are no "victory/peace" fingers next to the big brother's face!
   

Mini Muffins on Monday Morning

Having Monday mornings off, Kate and I get to spend a bit of extra Mommy-daughter time.

Last week we made birthday brownies and this week we made muffins. While looking for the mixing bowl, I came across some mini silicone baking cups that I'd picked up at the Japanese dollar store a while back. We decided to try them out and had pretty good luck. We each took a measuring spoon to ladel the batter into the mini cups and had a great time getting sticky. --Sorry no photos as we were too sticky to grab a camera of this process -- We made 5 circles and 7 hearts. Then we used the leftover batter to make regular-sized ones. The kids both love the mini ones since they're about 2 or 3 kid-sized bites. Aren't they cute?
As I was wiping off the counter, Kate grabbed the camera to take a picture of her new Dora shoes, too. I guess she wanted you to see how cute they are, too.

Wordless Wednesday

Kate's new look

Kate has a favorite shirt that she wears 3 or 4 times a week, meaning we wash it 3 or 4 times a week, too. When we went to the zoo, she got a Dora hat which she insists on wearing backwards. Here she is at the zoo on Wednesday:

This is what she looked like before swimming today:

Bet you thought they were taken on the same day, didn't you? Any bets as to how many more times I can take pictures of the same outfit?