Thursday, April 24, 2014

Simon’s lunch of mango pudding, strawberries, noodles, and chicken wings. Grandma Tam made the mango pudding yesterday while she was at our house but unfortunately Simon did not want to try it. Mango is one of his favorite fruits but for some reason he did not care to try the pudding. I ended up feeding some of it Iris and even offered Simon some while feeding her and he still did not want to try it. Oh well, more for Iris! She loved to munch on the cut up mango pieces.

When I showed the picture to my Dad of Iris sitting on the grass at the Easter egg hunt, he reminded me I had a similar picture sitting on grass when I was about 8 months old. I definitely did not like the lawn, Iris seemed pretty happy.
This is me in 1979:

This is Iris in 2014:

Maybe because the lawn she sat on was greener and therefore, softer. Or she’s just less of a complainer. 😀

Little Iris loves getting into everything though. Either taking Simon’s books or his toys.

Simon chillin’.

Iris, “whatcha doin’?”

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Simon’s lunch of pizza rolls, fries, mango, and a fortune cookie. So Simon only ate the “beak” and the “butt” (that’s what he said) of the Peep. I guess he doesn’t like it which I’m surprised because he loves regular marshmallows. Well, more for me!

This evening we had a dinner in Oakland Chinatown that Grandpa Tam invited us to. Grandma Tam had come to our house during the day to watch Iris so I left work early to pick up Simon and pick up Grandma Tam to bring them both to the dinner. Iris all dressed up pretty in purple.

Iris and Simon were both well behaved during the dinner. Simon just got a little bored near the end so he watched a movie on my phone.

We stayed out quite late and didn’t get home until almost 10pm. Both kids were exhausted so we quickly put them to bed.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Simon’s lunch of salmon and carrot sushi, strawberries, clementines, Whopper eggs, and Peep. For some reason he didn’t eat the Peep yesterday but he wouldn’t tell me why so I packed it again just in case. He might not want to eat it because it’s cute or because he doesn’t like it. Those are usually the reasons he won’t try something but he wouldn’t/couldn’t tell me when I asked.

Simon’s favorite thing to draw these days is Skipper from Disney’s Planes. This is his interpretation which he incorporated into his artwork at school today.

Iris playing the drum.

Iris excitedly climbing towards me.

Simon playing with LEGOS in his room.

Grandpa Chung bought him a large LEGO set to build a plane so Ron and Simon have been working on it almost every night after bath time before going to bed. It’s been good to teach Simon patience for looking for certain pieces and also that sometimes not everything can be done right away, that it takes time to build something so complicated.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Simon’s lunch of apple pear, salmon and cucumber English muffin sandwich, a chocolate covered Peep marshmallow, and Whopper eggs. The candy was in his Easter bag yesterday but he didn’t get a chance to try them so I said I would pack it for lunch today.

I was exhausted last night after my long walk so my “brain was not firing on all pistons” and I left my pump at home so had to drive home at lunchtime to pump. It might not have been too big of a deal if I just didn’t pump at all during the day but it would have been uncomfortable. This is the home stretch, I’m almost at my goal of breastfeeding until Iris turns 1 years old. I still have some stored in the freezer so she will have breast milk for > 1 year but I will be done with pumping additional milk for her after she turns 1 year. The only good thing about having to rush home is seeing my sweet baby. She was napping when I got back though.

I hope her fascination with phones doesn’t translate to her teenage years.

Simon is all about “mei mei, no!” (mei mei = little sister). She’s always getting into his stuff.

But he gets over it pretty quickly and tries to help out when he can.

“Hello?”

Sunday, April 20, 2014

One of the best things in life is waking up next to this beautiful girl every morning.

Iris opening her Easter present at breakfast time.

“Hmm… what is inside?”

“Oh, a bunny sippy cup!”

“What else is there?”

“Why can’t I take it out?”

“Wow, a plush giraffe that goes ‘boing!’ when I drop it”

Simon enjoyed opening his Easter presents too. He liked his boingy zebra.

After breakfast, we headed out to the Berkeley Marina to fly kites. There was a group there that were flying fish and jellyfish kites.

Simon and Ron setting up a box-style kite.

Kite flying high!

Me with the kiddos.

Ron tied the box-style kite to a tree and had this other kite that Simon helped to launch into the air.

Simon so happy.

After flying kites, we went for lunch at Sea Breeze Market & Deli. We’ve driven by so many times but never stopped to try it until today.

They have a variety of seafood like clams, crab, prawns, oysters, fish, etc. We ended up getting fried seafood items. Ron with the fried prawn sandwich, Simon with fried fish, and mine is the fried oyster sandwich (picture below).

Simon ate all his fried cod fish (and of course, french fries).

Overall pretty yummy. I liked the oyster sandwich except that the bread was a little tough. Next time I want to try the clam strips. I read on Yelp that those were really yummy too. Iris really liked the bread though so I guess if I don’t like it, at least she will eat it for me.

After lunch, we headed out to check out a few open houses in Berkeley to see what type of homes are available in our area and at what price. We are not quite ready to buy yet so we will keep looking for now. The housing market in Berkeley is tough though, the really nice homes get multiple offers and at way over asking price. Last month, I saw a house was listed for $817,000 and was sold for over $1.1 million. It all depends on location of course so I think we’ll be looking at “growing” areas versus staying in the Berkeley Hills.

Although, the Berkeley Hills are good for exercise. After we got home, I went for a walk with Iris to a nearby park. She fell asleep and I ended up walking a total of 1.5 miles carrying her in the Baby Ergo carrier. It was warm and sunny too. I was exhausted after our walk and I am sure my legs will hurt in the next few days. But, Iris had a nice, long nap and was very happy the rest of the evening.

I hope everyone had a happy Easter!