for breakfast he got his peanut jelly butter sandwich he was asking for last night. :)

yard sale outing

we didn't get out early enough, but we still got some pretty good deals and had lots of fun. nj sometimes said he wanted to look and sometimes didn't. he was a good sport about driving around, stopping and going, getting in and out of the car.

cool camo hat made by grandma!

omlette and pancakes

for breakfast i made a tomato, mushroom, zucchini, and cheese omlette. i also made some unusual pancakes. i didn't want plain pancakes, but there was no fruit to throw in. so i decided to take a risk and dumped a bag of trail mix into the pancake batter. the trail mix had raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and chocolate pieces. it was a little weird, but not horrible. nj seemed to like it, he asked for more. as i was still making breakfast in the morning, nj came out of his room saying, "i want eggs!" how did he know we were having eggs? baba told me he could smell them cooking.

lounging on the couch

haven't seen him do this before, thought it was cute. i hope to find him doing this as he grows. i want him to have as much interest in books as he does now and be a reader (unlike me).

"dotty, see my tigger?"

he wanted to share tigger with dot dot. how nice. but then he started teasing her with it. not so nice. poor dot dot was over it quite quickly.

"peanut jelly butter"

two days in a row he asks for raisins and shrimp chips. an interesting combination. i gave him a piece of celery with peanut butter on it. seeing me pull out the peanut butter, he asked for peanut jelly butter. i told him it's peanut butter, but to him i guess it's all the same. he usually has peanut butter in the form of a peanut butter jelly sandwich. well we know he loves peanut butter, he picked it off and licked his fingers. he even put some on his raisins and chips. strange. he really didn't want the celery, he threw it on the floor for dotty. i was not happy about that at all, we gave him another celery to eat and he got a time out.

while preparing for dinner, i went to check on him playing in the other room. he said, "mama, sit down" as he cleared the couch for me. i told him i'd sit for a second, but i needed to make dinner. i asked him if he wanted to eat soon. he said, "no, i'm not hungry yet." he really wanted to play, i guess. when i was almost done, he came running into the kitchen on his own to sit in his booster. he says to me, "i don't want to play anymore, i want to eat!" well, ok! good thing we were just about done with making our chicken curry salad. yum. we made egg salad for him, though. i made him a little sandwich out of it. seeing the bread, he asked for peanut jelly butter sandwich. not for dinner, baby!

"dotty wants to poo poo"

he also said, "dotty's smelling the doggie poo poo." we came across a huge pile on someone's lawn. eeew. he kept asking to hold dotty's leash, but we told him he's not allowed because he let go too many times last time. we let him hold it only for this picture. it felt great to take a walk while the sun was setting.

on the way out, nj had gotten my slippers for me. but i wanted to wear sneakers. he's been handing us our shoes for a long time, but he's becoming bossy about it. now he says, "mama, wear this one!" never thought i'd have to reason with him as to why i'm wearing certain shoes.

"want to change shirt, it's dirty"

his head is so big, every shirt gets stuck. he also got his arms stuck in the sleeves, so i told him to hold still until i took a picture. his feet are quite big too. we got them measured the other day and they're 9 1/2 wide. supposedly an average 2 year old has size 7 or 8 feet.

stroll around the mall

haven't been to a mall in a really long time. the last time was probably back in december with the girls. it made me think about a lot of things today. how nice it is that we get to spend our days as a family, it won't last much longer. i also wondered when i'd ever be able to go out again just me and nj like we used to, that might still be a while. it also made me think of the last time i was at that mall, sharing a pretzel with auntie ellen and nj's girlfriend (hee, hee). we miss them. and last (but far from least), the mall gives me fond memories of spending time with nj's auntie raechel, and her judah and emiah. this was before nj... i'd go with them to walk around, play with the kids in the play area, get boba, and share a pretzel. hmm, all my mommy-mall buddies have moved away! well today, i'm kind of glad that i haven't been to the mall in a long time... everything seems so expensive and i was so tired just from walking around. at least nj enjoyed riding the escalators and sharing a pretzel with me. he ate most of it!

facetime with wes

auntie becky called and our boys got to talk face to face. last time, nj kept coming and going to show his cars. this time, wes was showing nj his fire truck, tennis ball, baseball, and train table. wes wanted to come over and nj wanted to go over there. too bad we don't live any closer. it's hard to have such distant friends, but great that we can keep in touch (made easy with technology!). normally i don't let nj touch my phone, but in this case i gladly handed it over. he was good about holding it so that his face was also in view. i had to go grab a stool because it was getting hard for me to keep bending down to hold it just right. seeing that he was good with the phone, i also grabbed my camera to take a quick shot of him talking to his buddy.

taiwanese breakfast

thank you auntie tine for bringing breakfast over. nice to share the love of taiwanese breakfast together. and nj is always so happy to see his auntie and didi (little brother). they're kind of cute together.

when nj goes down for a nap or to bed, i usually go around and straighten up and put away toys he missed. a few days ago, there were two pillows on the floor and i was wondering why. today i got my answer. why he decides to make himself comfortable on the floor, i don't know. but he seemed pretty happy.

haircut number five?

baba: "you want a haircut?"

nj: "i want a haircut. i want to watch tv."

i was wondering why getting a haircut would equate to him getting to watch tv. i had to think about that one, but realized that he was talking about how he gets to watch a video/dvd at the haircut place we take him to. he hasn't had his hair cut for a long time, so we didn't realize the prices were raised. it was quite a bit more, which surprised us. as we walked to the car, baba said that he'd be cutting his hair from now on. i was thinking the same thing! that was kind of pricey, we could have bought him some shoes!

undecided over cars and shoes...

baba was nice enough to tell nj to pick out a car. just one car. at first, he was pretty set on getting a cadillac cts. he held it and said no to choice after choice. we were surprised that he actually was so decisive. but then we went to look at shoes. he said he liked the ones that he tried on. when we said we'd get them, he said no. and he continued to say no to every shoe we showed him. ugh. nj also decided that he wanted to change the car that he picked out. back to the cars we went and he chose a ford convertible. it's kind of funny the way he says no these days... very asian. a lot of times i call him a little old taiwanese man because of the way he talks. when he says no, it's not the way he says it, it's his action of waving his hand at you. he waves his hand as he shakes his head. gotta record it before he stops doing it!

thank you for dinner, auntie nah-colt!

great to see you again, nicole... outside of the hospital! nj of coarse really enjoyed your company (as did we). thank you again for bringing everything.

we made some yummy pizza for dinner. nj was so interested, he pulled up a stool just to watch. i told him that he could watch, but no touching. as we prepared the table for dinner, nj made himself at home on a chair. when i told him to sit in his booster he said he didn't want to. so i told him if he wanted to sit there, he had to sit still, sit nicely, and not get out of his seat until he was done with dinner. i also said it was a test and that if he didn't pass, he wouldn't get to sit there anymore. he did pretty good, like he does at restaurants. i don't know why we haven't let him before, i guess it's just habit and convenience that he doesn't mind the booster. sitting on his own at our dinner table for a meal is a first. we only had to warn him twice about reaching for stuff he wasn't supposed to touch. when he finished dinner, he got up to say goodnight. but baba asked him if he asked to be excused. baba said, "say mama, can i be excused?" and he said it, but it sounded so funny and cute that i laughed in his face. so terrible, but it was also just so adorable to hear him say it for the first time.

"i can't"

yes you can! just keep trying. when he gets it... shoes on, cap off, whatever it is, it's satisfying to hear him say, "i can!" with a big smile. sometimes if he really can't, we'll help him by teaching him the best way to do it. but most of the time we just let him figure it out.

"don't want this pajama"

too bad, nj, you're wearing them! now say, cheeeeese...

"i like ah-ma's banana bread"

we gave him a little treat of a slice of grandma's banana bread this morning. he really enjoyed it. thank you, mom!

i caught him doing this today at the store. no, he's not shop lifting, he's trying to put his toy ambulance in his pants. why he decided the way to do it was to put it up his shorts, i don't know! i found him doing something similar at the recent birthday party we went to. he wanted to put his car away in his pants and i caught him trying to stuff it in his fly. i told him just because there's a zipper there, doesn't mean it's a pocket. i then got him to put it in one of his side pockets. today, i got him to properly put it in his actual pocket.

he spotted these vw bugs in the parking lot and asked if he could take a picture with them. so after we walked around the store, we walked out to see them. he happily took photos with the cars. we asked him if he wanted to be a geek... no answer.

wave to the garbage truck driver!

the trash truck came by much later than usual today. we happen to see it up the street as we pulled up to the driveway. nj wanted to see, so we stood with him at the end of the driveway to wait for it to come back down the street. he was so excited, he waved at the driver and he was nice enough to wave back. he must've thought, who are these strange asian people standing around just to wave at me? well it made nj very happy, so that made us happy.

awww, nj and dot dot sitting together nicely. had to catch the moment (it didn't last long).

look at those lips!

giving dot a treat. ah-gong (grandpa) came by with lunch. nj was excited to talk and play cars with him (likewise i'm sure).

prayerful boy

auntie frances was helping in the toddler room today. when baba went to pick him up, she said something that almost made us both cry. she thanked us for teaching our son to pray. they were trying to teach all the kids that today and he was a good help since he knew what to do. how to fold his hands, what to say or ask... that really melted my heart and made us both proud. a compliment like that surpasses any, he's smart or he's cute or he's well behaved. it makes it feel right that he's ours, chosen for us. we just feel so blessed to have him.

"had fun at lunch with auntie becca and uncle dan." that was his response to me asking him about dinner. anytime he sees them, he's talking and talking about them it's so cute. he was well behaved during lunch and ate well. the four of us really got to talk, it's been a while so it was especially nice. i only wish we could do it more often.

"mama's scared of baby lizard"

it started with nj saying, "ma. ma. mama! dotty..." as i get down from my bar stool i see something wiggling and flailing around and i scream. once again, dot has caught a lizard. this one was quite small (maybe the size of my thumb?) and pale and worm looking, yuck! and off to the side is something else wiggling around... the tail that fell off. eeew!! in my panicked scream, nj starts crying. then i felt really bad and tried to calm him down. it was my fault for scaring him, but seeing that lizard really freaked me out. i stepped down from the chair and there it was right at my feet! baba calmly got up, picked up the lizard with a napkin (the tail too) and let the little guy out somewhere in the backyard. he sighed at the crazed commotion i had caused. i tried to tell nj not to cry, sorry for scaring him, and next time please tell us that dotty has a lizard. not sure if that'll actually make my reaction much different, but hopefully I'll have some warning and possibly stay in my chair.

today when nj was riding his trike around in circles, he stopped at dotty and said, "beep, beep! dotty, beep beep!" i turned around and dotty just sat there while nj was pointing the big front wheel right at her. she could care less. i laughed and said, "dotty doesn't understand what beep, beep means! just go around her."