Andy and I have decided, we will do family costumes for as long as our kids will let us. We think that buys us another two years, even with Jordan deciding what he wants to be, we can just secretly adapt our costumes to theme up with his. HAHA!
Last year, we were a sushi gang inspired by Pinterest, but this year, our idea came completely Pinterest free (although people who saw us would comment about how Pinterest is alive and well... pshh, go see their costume and ours, we win!). Andy wanted Jordan to be the chubby scout, Russell, from the Disney movie Up, and he would be the old man. I would be the dog who always said squirrel! As Halloween got closer, however, we realized that Andy needed an expensive Scout shirt anyway (he works with two other men teaching the 11 year old Scouts every Wednesday), Jordan already had a bow-tie and really grew to like these lenseless black rimmed glasses my brother gave us, so why not make the switch?!
To pull off our costumes, we made a few items. I made Jordan a grape soda pin (it's all about the details folks!), patches for a sash that was sewn together, and a Wilderness flag just like the one Russell actually sports in the movie for Andy. The dog idea never came to fruition and I ended up wearing a Huggies box turned house that I drew (markers would have shown up better!) and Andy cut me arms and made sure the house was cut at the top of the box. Andy also made a little walker out of PVC pipe, duck tape, and tennis balls!
Jordan already had a white shirt and bow-tie, so we got him some sweet slacks from Nordstrom Rack (which will be great for Church too!) and a corduroy blazer (which came with an attached gray hoodie, but we tucked it in for the costume) from Old Navy, and some temporary white hair color spray to pull off his older Carl self.
Items we didn't make included an orange piece of fabric for Andy's Scout scarf, the Scout shirt we ventured to the local Boy Scouts of America Store for, and helium balloons we picked up from a local party store. And the dog costume never surfaced... though after watching the last episode of The Office, I really wish I could have borrowed Erin's dog costume. Instead, I became the house from the movie.
I'm so thankful my sister-in-law, Tammy, told us this easy and very cheap DIY Starbucks hot cider. We bought our own cinnamon dolce pump from Starbucks for $7.95 last year (ask them for the pump, actually, demand it!) and now that the cold weather has come, we've made good use of it!
Here are the ingredients:
You heat the apple juice, put in two pumps of the cinnamon dolce and then top it off with whip cream and caramel.
After stumbling on the Power of Moms website a few years ago, I couldn't wait for my own child to be old enough to implement some of the ideas. I also couldn't wait to participate in a Learning Circle. After much waiting and anticipation, that time has finally come!
Tonight, I hosted my first Learning Circle with four other moms (all resident wives) in our humble apartment. It was so awesome! I got so many ideas from other veteran moms and also got a chance to realize I'm not alone. This motherhood thing isn't easy and what I sometimes feel is not abnormal. It was a great sense of support, collaboration, and brainstorming. Now, I want to go get a sign made that says "Excuse our mess, we are building a family." We went over two articles from September and October with one about trying to stay sane amidst the mess our children create and how to involve them, and the other about fun traditions to establish in our families. It helps that the stuff we read was amazing, but the conversation to get us thinking and applying what we read was great too. All of us have
I encourage every mom to join the Power of Moms if they haven't already! There are free articles, webcasts, and tools to help you be a more positive and deliberate mother. If you have moms around you and want to start a Learning Circle of your own, do it!
Jordan loves Gangnam Style. If you've heard the song, you can understand why it was so crucial for me to get him into something else.
After a lot of coaxing from Jordan for me to play it, I finally gave up and bought it on iTunes for $1.99
Apparently, this is when he no longer cared. I made a playlist from iCloud (did you know it can pull all the music you've EVER purchased on iTunes?!) on our iPad with these few songs:
Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn and Paul
Impossible - Shout Out Louds (probably one of my all time favorite bands)
Kids - MGMT Young Blood - The Naked and Famous
Naive - The Kooks
DANCE - Justice
PSY - Gangnam Style
Guess what song Mom can skip over without him even caring? Of course the one she bought for $1.99. He'll jam to any of the other songs. It only took $1.99 to get him there.
It's like when you bought him the Cars toy from Costco for $25.99 that he really loved at his buddy Finn's house... but once you got it for him, he could care less at home. Things are always cooler at other people's homes. Songs are always cooler when you don't own them.
There are days when I think how easy it'd be to be back at the Firm instead of at home. Here, I have to be the creative juice, the CEO, COO, executive assistant, administrator, ops manager, disciplinary executor, cook, maid, and housekeeper. At times like these, it helps to reach out to my old buddies at the Firm who had been through the mom thing.
One wise mom and old co-worker gave me the following advice, and I loved it so much.. I just had to share it.
"As far as being a new mom/working mom/stay-at-home mom, it's all pretty challenging, right? Everyday I'm amazed I made it through, and my children seem to be doing all right. Maybe I have substandard expectations :-) My best advice is to stay confident in your choices, whatever they are. Even if you make a mistake, at least you know you've tried it and you had the best of intentions. I know we can be a bowl full of self-doubt and it sometimes doesn't do us any good! People who have worked at [the Firm] are generally passionate, all or nothing die hards. So it's hard to live a life where you have to start compromising your expectations, time, output, etc. But that's what parenting is about - it mellows you out! Or wears you down...whatever."
I love the part about being a bowl of self-doubt, glad I'm not alone. And yes, I'm definitely more mellow now than I was a year ago. I'm confident it has indeed wore me down a bit, and I'm only at one.
Some days, I don't have anything important to blog about or I'm too lazy to pull out photos and recount our fun vacation. Instead, I just want to talk about these three movies I really want to see.
PITCH PERFECT
I have a feeling we should kiss.
I sometimes have a feeling I should do crystal meth, but then I think hmmm better not.
HAHAHA.
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
Be aggressive, passive aggressive!!
I didn't think anyone noticed me.
I cry everytime I watch the trailer!
POST-GRAD
Everyone say, "Overpriced Education!"
This one is from 2009 I'm not sure how I'll get it. We don't Netflix.
Jordan learned how to climb out of his crib the other day which prompted us to remove the front of his crib, catapulting Jordan into toddler bed status at 17 months. This basically means he fights when we put him to bed and then sleeps for about 4-5 hours before walking over to mom and dad's room to spend the rest of the night in our comfortable and large adult bed. But some cute things have happened from his fights.
Yesterday, he would scream and fight and then cross his arms, as if to motion it's time to pray. After I would say a short prayer, he would resume kicking and yelling, pleading to be released. After about three prayers, I refused to say another prayer. At this point in time, Jordan began to say the prayer in his broken jibberish of a language.
Last night, I patted his stomach until he fell asleep. As I began to get up, thinking he was asleep now, his eyes stayed closed, but his hands searched around for mine, grabbed hold of them, and put them back on his stomach as if to communicate he needed that stomach caressing just a bit longer please.
Today, we returned from a fun play date from his favorite little buddy's house (Finn who is two) and exhausted and completely full of grapes, muffins, and chips as well as pooping right before we left, he zonked out in the car, still clutching onto his pretzel stick, and then transferred perfectly to his big boy bed.
I think this is the most excited I have ever been for an election. To say I was politically invested in the past is to lie. To say I was politically indifferent is more like it. Maybe it's the fact that I'm older or that I have a family now (or that my husband's family is into politics), but I can't genuinely say I cared much before. Sure, in college I went to go listen to John Edwards tell us why he was the best and four years prior to that, I witnessed my two good friends (one super liberal, the other super conservative) and the drama with Gore winning, then losing, and baby Bush eventually winning.... but most of those things only happened because when you go to a small liberal arts college where everyone is very politically involved and charged, that's just what you do even if you don't care! Now, I actually do care.
Over the years, my votes have wavered from the Democratic party to no party to the Republican party, and it wasn't recently that I actually felt confident registering as part of the elephant crew. I think it's because despite how many conservatives I know, there's this thing that most (not all) liberals do on facebook and in real life that make me feel like valuing the conservative social and fiscal policies are outrageous. It always feels like when family values are emphasized by the Republican party, they get mocked by the Democratic party. The backlash from liberals about Romney's comments about how he got more women to work for him (by being flexible with them and desires to go home to family) is shocking when it's the truth and personally, as a woman who had to make the decision of family over career, I agree with what he said and praise him for getting it. People are outraged, oh so basically Romney wants to let women go home to cook and clean, is what I heard. Umm.. really?! Figure it out people. The other thing I know I'm up against is all the people who believe I should in fact align myself with the Democrats because I am a minority Asian. Did you know that Stacy Dash (the actress who is famous for playing Cher in Clueless) had people saying she wasn't black and was a traitor to her people because she said Team Romney on Twitter?! Wow.
I know that's not a fair categorization of the left but for the most part, that's how this more middle-ish right person feels. I also do NOT believe in affirmative action (but if you're going to say let's do that, why then do Asians not get the benefit of this when they are in fact a minority?... and why not in sports where it's pretty imbalanced there!). I DO believe in working hard to become part of the upper class and once I'm there, I don't believe that qualifies me to pay more taxes, simply because I made it and you didn't. We are all subject to the same tax rules, have equal opportunity for the same tax loopholes, and unless we have something like a straight 10% that is taxed, people will still find ways to shield their income from being taxed.
I also don't believe the government should run my life, tell me what kind of foods I should eat or tell me I cannot circumcise my son or buy him fast food when I want. I believe I should make that decision as the parent. I should be a good parent who balances his diet and teaches him respect for healthy vegetables and fruits as well as fatty fried foods and over the top desserts. While I think the idea of Planned Parenthood is great for those who do not have parents to educate them, I also believe they should be educating on the value of abstinence instead of seemingly advocating that casual premarital sex is okay by making it a part of their mission statement to help enhance understanding of the societal implications of human sexuality.
Despite all that I believe, I think it's a pretty simple equation when it comes to the elections this time around. Regardless of the fact that I think Romney is more handsome and has better hair than Obama, just looking at their on-paper qualities shows that Obama has failed for four years as a President while Romney has succeeded as a Governor. One can argue that Bush left a mess for Obama to clean up but I remember him having quite a bit of Democrat support those first two years. I also cannot ignore the rising price of gas and wonder what the heck Obama is doing. I'm quite sure Obama is probably just smoking, running on the treadmill, letting his teenager daughters go to Hawaii with friends (unchaperoned), and reminding us how underprivileged he was despite going to one of the most expensive private schools in Hawaii. But then again, Romney put a dog cruelly on the roof of his car for a family trip (so they could take it along with him), and apparently bullied some kid when he was younger and when asked, said he was immature and stupid without as my left friends will complain, a genuine apology to the kid he bullied. Oh wait, and let's not forgot he's Mormon. Shocking! Inexcusable! In all seriousness, I was excited for Obama during the prior elections. I even got an Obama button in the mail. Sadly, he has not lived up to my expectations.
If you're as excited as me.. you should watch this video. It's fun.
We got the unique opportunity to visit the Nike Employee Store while in Portland, Oregon. It's a highly coveted, very insider type of occasion as you can only gain entry if an employee gets you a guest pass (they are given only a few each year). One of my college buddies offered to get us in from his aunt's employment with Nike Taiwan but we never received confirmation. Despite that being the case, we went ahead and planned the detour (our trip was to Canada) in honor of large amazing discounts that simultaneously coincided with Andy's birthday (or an excuse for excessive purchases). Note there are only a few stores that make my husband so school girl bright eyed excited and the Nike Store is one of them. My insider flaked but my father-in-law was so clutch with an insider of his own that he called up very last minute (it pays to know important people like my father-in-law!) He would later jokingly regret this decision (we spent a lot of money there), but man was it exciting. My husband is still dancing silly from it.
At first, only the men went in. The women stayed back with child for the first part, but eventually... we all made our way into the store (technically spouses are allowed but we didn't want to push our luck as we weren't sure if the men even got onto the list so last minute, entering with five people would have been pushing it...) and 2.5 hours later, we left with a lot of Nike loot. That is an understatement. I only left with one very expensive winter jacket that my husband repeatedly convinced me to get, but let it be known I had grand plans to spend a lot more at first. You see, my husband had informed me that everything was 50% off in the store. What he hadn't informed me was the prices were all marked already. So here I was, prancing around the store, thinking work out pants were $15 and running shoes were $26.50. I pulled a TON of stuff into our cart and was so giddy with excitement at all the savings I was going to have. I didn't even need new workout pants (and this wasn't even Lululemon) nor did I need new shoes (my TJMaxx ones for < $20 worked just fine) but still, what a steal... who could pass up this deal? And then as we were going through our things, Andy advised me that the prices marked were 50% off. What?! There's not an additional 50% off of that price?! ... No way Jose!
Shocked, I removed everything from our cart. And then I watched Andy who kept explaining It's just like Christmas! over and over as he walked around the store with way too much energy and excitement. He left with the most loot, mostly for his birthday, some for Christmas and some just purchases he knew would be worth it (like the three pairs of golf gloves he would eventually use). What a time. I learned I can be extremely cheap with stuff I don't care for the same and that my husband, always quite the frugal man, can be quite willing to spend if for the right things. He kept explaining how much we saved versus how much we spent (confessions of a shopaholic) but I'm just glad we balance each other out in the Nike Store. Twas a grand time. Andy is still screaming, "It was awesome!" Over and over again.
I was really looking forward to the New Girl because Zooey D is such a cutie but upon watching her show, I was deeply disappointed. The jokes feel forced, her weirdness is kind of over exaggerated and all they seem to talk about is sex. Granted How I Met Your Mother can be similar, at least I'm already hooked on the characters and feel committed enough to stay onboard to see how Barney and Robin got together.
So I'm super excited that I have a new girl crush, this one probably more for personality than looks (because that's what lasts anyway but that doesn't mean she's ugly, it just means she's not as scorching hot as Zooey). Who could it be but Kelly Kapoor from The Office. Her real name is Mindy Kaling and she is umm amazing! Her new show, The Mindy Kaling Project (also on Fox)is the first thing I watched when Jordan went to take his nap (as I did a goofy freedom dance of joy!). She makes a comment about who really goes the book stores besides to pick up on people, and I couldn't stop laughing. So true. Her observations about life are so keen and I share her penchant for sparkly stuff, even when everyone else is telling me to stay away.
I also just finished reading her book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) which is oh my goodness, laugh out loud fantastic and hilarious. I couldn't put it down and after two days, I was done and am still laughing. I will probably read it again soon. She did make a snide annoying remark about Mormons but I let it go since everything else was so funny and I wanted more, more, and more!!!
I was talking to my BFF about why we are so obsessed with Mindy (she has been raving about the book since it first came out but I only just got around to it) and we concluded that we are narcissists who eerily relate to her. We enjoyed spending time with our family growing up, we didn't want to go clubbing along with our other 16 year old girlfriends (but we lied and said we did and then last minute, said our parents found out and we couldn't go.... we never even asked), and even though we ran within a diverse group of band geeks, show choir team members, cheerleaders, dance team members, homecoming kings and queens, student body officials, and sat in the popular groups' lunch area under the pavilion, we found pure joy in the Speech & Debate Team (when are they going to make a television show about that?!) and focused on getting into college. Whatever, we were just normal says Mindy. Love her to pieces!
It's nice to have talented friends, especially when they're able to immortalize your baby's changing ways at no cost.
We've been so lucky to have our friend Jen do Jordan's 3, 6 and 9 month photos, and then, upon moving to Washington, one of the other resident's wife, Heather, did Jordan's 15 month photos (we meant to do 12, but timing didn't work out).
It's so weird to look back and see how much he's changed in just a year and to realize he's done with that massive-mind-blowing-changes-so-dang-much-baby! stage.
Jordan at 3 months...
Yeah, he pretty much just slept and sometimes opened his mouth
Jordan at 6 months...
You can tell there was a big "open mouth" discovery during this phase of his life...
Jordan at 9 months...
Now he's more interested in things but still easy to get a smile out of
Jordan at 15 months...
The hardest shoot yet, he just wanted to play golf!
Every Wednesday, Andy goes to the Church to help the 11 year old Scouts advance towards their Eagle. He often takes Jordan who enjoys running around the gym with the older kids, but lately, I've been joining as the Young Women also meet for some fun activity in one of the many rooms at Church. Other times, I take the time to swing by the craft store (which is also over that way) with Jordan and then we eventually make our way over to the Church.
On Wednesday night, we made a stop to the local JoAnn Fabric after we dropped Andy off at Church and the moment I stepped out of the car from the passenger side to take position in the driver's side, I felt it. The crisp, cold air and the faint fresh smell of what I believe is Fall. I'm quite sure it's the comfortable night chill of what I'd normally experience in California around November or December, and from the reminders on Instagram from everyone back in Cali, not much has changed as their weather has mostly been scorching hot in the 90's and 100's this week. But in that moment of taking in the cool night air, I continued driving with Jordan in the dark, feeling an immense amount of joy and only what I can describe as pure happiness. I might not know the entire area well yet, but I know this one strip of road quite well and that familiarity reminded me that this is indeed home, even if only for one short year. And yes, it's true, home is where the family is and I love our little apartment (even if I feel like I can never buy too much or risk not having anywhere to put stuff), the fresh smell of the forest out on our balcony (even if I initially imagined horror movies), and enjoying small town life with the family. The more I thought of the content and almost giddy feeling I was experiencing, I sat with Jordan babbling in the background, realizing I can coin this very moment as a "I look dang good in a sweatshirt" moment.
Let me try to explain.
The cold air always bring me back to life in a sweatshirt whether it was in high school running to AP Calculus tutor session or boba runs with friends or ad-hoc craft store shopping trips or in college walking around campus to the computer lab or library. You see, in California, since it only gets cold a few times during the year, the only constant of cold is during the night, most of which is me out and about in a sweatshirt. Post college, my dreadful but still loving job had me working late hours in business casual, leaving the warm office to enter a garage with my car (slightly colder) and then home directly into a garage that would then take me home or into an elevator to an apartment. And as I thought about it more, the reason why I could remember those cold nights is because I always felt good and confident about myself because let's face it - I looked dang good in a sweatshirt.
I still look dang good in a sweatshirt (but does anyone not look dang good in a sweatshirt?!) and I cannot wait to make that my staple outfit this Fall and Winter.
I really want to learn how to use our fancy camera but instead of obsessing over ISO, aperture and shutter speed, I decided to fancy around with the automatic settings of portrait, action, scenery, and automatic. Not bad! Then, to top it off, we finally got around to purchasing a nice tri-pod so I can take photos of Jordan and me! Hooray!
Andy picked Jordan's outfit today, I think he was still mourning the US loss to Europe at the Ryder's Cup this past weekend.
What mom?!
More photos?!
Look at that hair!
The back always gets tangled during naps.
Action shot with Dad...
Collecting balls..
Throwing balls!
Just trying to get him to smile.
Do you like how we're a bit off centered? It's artistic, don't you think?
I always see other people with this shot and I just wanted to be like them.
Walk it off...
I'm number 1!
What's a trip to the putting greens without a tantrum of sorts?!
There's nothing more disturbing to me than bicyclists on the road. I really sincerely admire them and their spandex gear, simultaneously... I cannot stand them for being in my way on a populated street (say downtown) with cars parked and not very much room for them to ride by the parked cars and the moving cars (enter me). Somehow, I always think they must have an expertise in identifying the gap they must reside in between the parked cars and me, but in reality, they probably have no idea and are veering way too close to me and a potential bad accident.
I'm never sure if I'm supposed to stay back, far enough that they have room on the road and face the anger of the cars in back of me as I roam slowly behind them or if my big mom van of a car will fit next to them. The thoughts that enter my head upon seeing a bicyclist, especially if there are two or more of them (though more than five is okay, because then I can legitimately hold back for the entire crew of cyclers) is always.. ugh, great.. stupid bicyclist... can't you find a trail or a bicycle lane? Then, once I am next to them, all I'm thinking is... I'm going to inadvertently kill them, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness!... Most of the time, I change lanes but being the careful driver (okay not the greatest) that I am, if I need to turn right soon, I cannot afford to change lanes now!
When I used to drive a navy Jetta (because let's be real, I thought that would make me the cool Asian girl who drove the white German car and yes, I have since smartened up and loyally returned to the Japanese cars with awesome A/Cs that are not dang lemons), I accidentally almost ran into a bicyclist (but I was only going about 5-10 miles because of West LA traffic trying to get onto the freeway during morning rush hour) and the bicyclist banged on the rear of my car and screamed, "Watch it!" I swear I didn't even see them. Oops. I tried to say sorry (okay, more like motion profusely through my illegally super tinted windows because again, I'm an LA suburb Asian and that's what we do) but I'm sure I just added to the growing stereotype of awful Asian drivers. Oh well. I'm okay with stereotypes that excuse me from stupidities.
Anyway.. the road is not a place for bicyclists. If you are a bicyclist and think so, then we can disagree. Find a trail. Go to the mountains. Just get out of my way.
Thank you.
Best wishes,
Asian Girl who cannot drive at her ultimate best when you are bicycling near me.
At my Church, we all have callings which means we all do something for the Church. None of our clergymen (Bishop and two counselors and a bunch of auxiliary leaders) are paid, our Bishop is a pediatrician and his counselors are both dentists. My calling here in Washington consists of teaching classes almost every Sunday to a group of young women ages 16-18. At first I was really intimidated because these girls were born when I was in high school. That makes me ancient (or so it feels) but man, has it been fun!
When I used to work for the Firm, I was a huge training person. I trained interns, associates, managers, senior managers, and even partners from LA to Chicago. I absolutely loved it! It was a bit nerve wrecking to get up at first, especially when the room was more than 60 people and I needed a microphone to speak, but once I was up, it was great! I'd give anecdotes about the material, teach the material itself, vary my voice for some added fun, and always add in side remarks as I saw fit. And it was also fun preparing for it - I'd always be accumulating more team bonding games, highlighting with four colors different sections of team discussion, instructor lead discussion, exercise, and slides, and using all my Firm provided colored tabs (those things are expensive!). Now that I'm teaching classes almost every week for Church, it's sort of the same thing. I prepare throughout the week, thinking of ways I can structure the lesson, tell stories, or do a group exercise. Andy helps me a lot and I try to draw from ideas already out there and build on them. Though I feel a bit out of the loop having not grown up in the Church, I feel like that perspective gives me added commentary on why the information and teachings are so great. A lot of times I think, wow, I wish someone had shared this with me when I was their age!
For this past Sunday's lesson, I used an extended object lesson about why discipline in waiting or avoiding certain things could bring great rewards and amazing things later. I used an idea that Elder Utchdorf had mentioned in a Conference talk a few years ago about a Stanford study done in 1972 with preschoold children and marshmallows. The test subject children were given marshmallows and told they could have another one if they waited, or they could eat the one in front of them and not have anymore later. They followed the children who waited and those who didn't, and saw significant parallels in later life successes for the children able to wait. I told the girls they'd get something else if they were able to avoid eating their marshmallow until the end of the lesson. I'm sure they had more discipline than preschool kids, but we had our lesson about discipline and had some pretty good discussions about how it can help you do good things and avoid bad things, and then everyone got rice krispie treats for waiting! To add to that, Jordan and I made stickers for them this morning (yes, I have a sticker machine, are you jealous? My sister-in-law, Tammy, got it for me a few Christmases ago).
I had a few extra stickers but of course.. my biggest fans had lots of fun wearing them while watching football.
The stickers say .. "Good things and sweet rewards come to those who wait" (because they got rice krispies treats which are .. duh... sweet!) Yes, I do need a big circle puncher, but I haven't found a good one that doesn't require other parts yet, so I'll patiently wait some more. Good things will surely come to me.
Jordan loves horses. He goes on bike rides with Andy through an area with a big piece of property and about five horses. He'll point and make sounds but hasn't quite figured out how to say horse, ma, or neigh.
So it's only natural that he was in absolute heaven while he rode the ponies at the Harvest House Fall Festival this weekend (think small family owned farm with pumpkin donuts, pumpkins, apple cider, and u-pick apples!).
The only reason he isn't massively smiling from ear to ear is because it's asbout his nap time and he is holding on for dear life to not only the horse, but to stay awake as well.
It's amazing how family centered our weekends have become now that Jordan is old enough to enjoy family fun things like this. There's also not much hesitation when it comes to things your kid will find fascinating - like the $5 we easily forked over for him to ride on this pony for a few minutes (makes me regret us showing up to the Pasadena Stake Fair with free pony rides late and missing the pony ride last year) or the $10 each we paid to enter a huge area with more rides, a corn maze, and bounce houses. We'll definitely need to make a trip to visit our friends, the Boyles, who live on not a few square foot of land, but acres and have farm animals and go hunting, and have a sweet daughter about 8 days younger than Jordan.
