Leaving On A Jet Plane

Thursday, September 03, 2009

So, I'm a little behind on my posts. Let's go back to the end of August. We took a trip back east and took the kids on a plane for the first time. On the way out we took a red-eye and took a morning flight on the way back. OMG, I will only take red-eyes with the kids from now on. They didn't sleep long on the flight at night; however, they were quiet and tame. On the morning flight back...we were "that" family. The Virgin America flight attendants were so nice to come over to entertain and distract Isabella. BTW, boarding Virgin America was like entering a club. It's such a different flight experience with the dark vibe and purple lights. All the seats were white leather, though they only reclined one inch, we each had private TVs with free satellite feed, another saving grace with small kids.




The trip started out in Stamford, Connecticut where we stayed with Ed's parents, Leo and Eva (and we can't forget the little hot dog eating Dachshund, Charlie). It was hot and HUMID in CT. Yuck. But the green trees were breathtaking. You don't see a lot of those in LA.










Then we headed for what was supposed to be a two-hour trip to Northborough, MA. After a little fussiness between the two kids, they finally fell fast asleep. It ended up taking five hours to get to Susan and Michael's house.




The first thing we had to do was jump in the pool...that is everyone but the moms.





Asher's a great swimmer.




A little Michael and Izzy love.




It looks like Isabella's a giant, but she's actually sitting on Asher a little (though I think she stands about four inches taller than Asher).


After swimming the kids got dry. There were two red chairs that were about 5 feet apart. The kids gradually brought them closer and closer together so they were right next to each other. The kids were so stinkin' cute together.






Isabella and Asher had a great time together. Asher is three weeks older than Isabella. So, it was perfect seeing the two cousins play together. They got along well for the most part with a few sharing battles here and there.

The main reason for the trip was to see the newest member of the family, Eviana (Evie). She's a little cutie. Some how my sister Susan must have stronger genes as both kids actually look Asian. Though Evie looks more like Michael's side of the family. She's so sweet and chubby. She's a lot more like Ethan...watch out Susan.




Ethan was a good little boy just crawling around the house and getting close to the dog. The poor dog, Raven. Isabella is suddenly scared of all dogs and poor old Raven got kicked out of her own home to the hot, humid outdoors.



We made it out to the park to let out a little energy, but mostly we stayed at the house. It's a bit much to get out of the house with two preschoolers, a crawler and an infant. We had to take two cars just to get out of the house for the park!





We did manage to get out for an afternoon at Davis' Farmland. It was great fun for us all. We fed all goats, lamas, bulls and sheep. At lunch we found a perfect spot near the water park. Isabella had to get in right away before eating. We wish we had a place like this back home.














And then they had lunch. I love this picture of Asher and Izzy. I look at Izzy and think how grown up she looks and then I look at the expression on Asher's face and it cracks me up. Asher is the little man of many expressions. He may just grow up to be an actor or something...




We headed back to Connecticut and then back to California. The trip back was just awful. We left on a morning flight. Neither of the kids slept. Izzy had a meltdown. And when we finally arrived in LA, it was only noon. We still had a full day of the kids! We were exhausted and needed a vacation from our "vacation."

Message to Christine

Tuesday, September 01, 2009



It cooled down for about two days so I put Isabella in a cute outfit auntie Christine bought. And as I was dressing her I told her who gave her the nice outfit and asked her what she would say to Christine. So she said, "tank you, Christine". It was so cute. So I made her say it again in front of the camera. Unfortunately anytime I take out the camera she instantly wants to watch what is on the camera. So it took a few tries, but here it is.




Rewind

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Where did August go? We've been keeping busy this month. August kicks off the family birthday chain. It goes something like this:

August 2 - Ed
August 17 - Ethan
August 28 - Asher
August 31 - Susan
September 2 - Jack
September 12 - Isabella
October 1 - Ann
October 8 - Michael

And somewhere in there are our and Ed's parent's wedding anniversaries. But, I suppose now the birthday chain will start in July with the newest member of the family, Eviana. Hmm...I guess January-March are popular months to conceive.


Ed's Birthday at Disneyland
We celebrated Ed's birthday by taking the kids to Disneyland for the first time. The good news, Ed was free. The bad news, his birthday was the first day of the new pricing increase. It costs $72!!! How insane! It was a bit crowded and hotter than we'd like, but all-in-all it was a good day. Some of the rides were a bit too scary for Isabella. She's going through a phase of being scared of the dark. Her favorite were Dumbo, It's a Small World and seeing all the characters dance and sing at the parade.






I had to take a picture of my people from Korea. I didn't have my camera out to take a photo of Ed's people.


Isabella patiently waiting for the parade to start. It was so hot her hair rubber band melted!







Hollywood Children's Festival of Arts
We went to the Hollywood Children's Festival of Arts on the lot of Paramount Studios. We barely made it to the end of the festival. I guess that's what happens when you have a little one who still is on a nap schedule. It was a lot of fun. We missed some of the cultural performances, but we did make it to the Russian performance. They had a few Jewish songs and dances and asked the kids to come up. Isabella was shy at first, but then asked to join the kids in the Hava Nagila dance. Since then, she breaks out into song.

Isabella stood in line to take a picture with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.


But when we got up there, she freaked out! I guess she's still not into larger-than-life characters.





Ethan's 1st Birthday
Happy birthday to my baby boy! We meant to host a low-key family lunch for Ethan's birthday, but August turns out to be a busy month for everyone. With so many birthdays, we'll be doing a joint birthday luncheon. Instead we celebrated Ethan's 1st birthday at daycare. I made some vanilla cupcakes from my Magnolia bakery recipe. It was fantastic! So moist and delicious. Although I used cake flour for the whole thing so my measurements came out something like this:

3 1/4 cups cake flour
3 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar (I like to use baker's sugar; it's super fine and great for baking)
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

I also tried making Italian meringue buttercream for the first time and it was devine! I found the buttercream recipe accidentally on YouTube, watch it here or get the recipe here, from Sue McMahon of Women's Weekly magazine. I didn't attempt doing the beautiful decorating like she does mainly because I wanted something simple for Ethan, but of course, it was also because it looked darn difficult and tedious. Maybe for another special occasion. The cupcakes came out pretty cute. Though I have to admit, I did run out of steam. And in case you were wondering, I put lions on the cupcake for Ethan's astrological sign. He and daddy are both leos.











After school we took the kids to the park for a little swing time.


Izzy's First Boy-Friend

Friday, July 31, 2009

Isabella's been at the same Russian family daycare for a little more than a year now. Being that she is half Russian, we really liked the idea of her picking up on Russian at a early age. But we wonder how much good this environment is for her. She speaks less Russian than she speaks as a Russian FOB! But I digress.

From the very first day she made friends with a Russian boy named Sacha. They are the same age, but developmentally quite a but apart. He's still not speaking coherently in either English or Russian. Everyday I ask Isabella about her day and who she played with. Our conversation goes something like this:

Me: How was your day?
Isabella: Good

Me: What did you do today?
Isabella: I play with Sachik, Wiolet (Violet), Ben...who else? Uh...teacher, Noya, and Ethan. Ethan is brown skin.
(Ethan is a cute African-American boy in her class. She has never before remarked about the color of his skin until recently. Sacha's Russian nickname is Sachik, like Ed's is Edik. Isabella's is Isabelka or Isabelitchka. And I think mine would be Lyditchka.)

Me: What else did you do?
Isabella: Noya cry. She get time-out.

Me: Why did she get a time-out?
Isabella: Because she hit me she get time-out.

And so goes our daily conversation. On Wednesday when I dropped off the kids, Sacha and his mom pulled up behind me. Isabella gets out of the car and screams, "Sachik, I like Sachik!" She runs out and they run to each other an both ye out each other's name. When they meet they hug and kiss. It was the most adorable thing ever! His mom and I laughed as they embraced.

She's too young to understand the concept of boyfriend/girlfriend. So Sacha is just a boy-friend.

Video: Ethan Crawls?

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

It finally happened. Ethan has decided it was time to crawl. He sort of scoots and drags.







PS. Don't you just love his army fatigues, especially with the fist. It's like he's a poster child for some army recruitment ad.

Trip to the Beach

A few weekends ago we took the kids to Washington Beach, near Marina del Ray. It was crowded, but the weather was perfect. At home it was around 100 degrees, but the beach was a nice 77 degrees with a great breeze. It was an absolute perfect beach day.

I can already tell that Ethan will be much more of a water-loving kid than Isabella. Not to make comparisons, but Ethan loved sticking his feet in the cold ocean. He was laughing and screaming for more. Isabella stayed on the sand as if she were chained to go only so far. We all had a great time.




4th of July

Tuesday, July 21, 2009



Unlike most people, we went to the desert to spend our 4th of July. It was a sweltering 108 degrees of extreme dry heat, but we were happy as can be. We rented a great house in the Twin Palms area of Palm Springs. It had the best amenities to make us happy all day long. We found them through Craigslist, but they also list through VRBO and all the other vacation rental sites. I would recommend this house to anyone.

pool - check
misters - check
air conditioning - check
sound system - check
privacy - check

We had so much fun all day in the pool. And believe it or not, we even used the jacuzzi with the heat set at 98 degrees. It was a nice vacay.









We kept Isabella up for the fireworks, which we were able to see from the deck of the house. Isabella was too scared to come outside to watch, but she cheered on.

We just started feeding Ethan Cheerios and Isabella loves being the helpful big sis by feeding Ethan. Of course, Ethan never rejects her many, many offerings.