11.25.07
Posted in Misc at 10:49 pm by tina
Since we all went back to TN for Thanksgiving, I thought the least we could do is help my parents get a few things done. I sent the two guys (Joe, the husband and Andy, the brother) out with a clear instruction: Can you two go to Home Depot/Sears to order whatever mom/dad need and make arrangement for the delivery/setup?
I smell trouble when the two came back with the stove range in hand, and the husband annouced that all will be done within one to two hours. Of couse, they had picked out a model which did not quite fit right in the counter space, not to mention the extra backing the husband did not notice of having. Of course, the shower fixture did not fit althought it resemables closely to the original one according to uncle Andy.
Fast forward a few hours with lots of busy work but no real productivity done, auntie Betty decided that it is time to take the matter into the right hands. They went back to the store(with another story of the husband, again, almost ordered another wrong stove range, one without a backing but has a incorrect depth). Auntie Betty, the nice sister-in-law, made a kind comment saying “at least he is moving towards the right direction this time”
We called the professionals, and they came early afternoon to fix the major damage. There is still some mess to be cleaned up and the new stove won’t come in until next week.
Ah-ma tried to comfort the husband “Don’t worry Joe. You tried your best”, (which is just about the feedback you don’t ever want to get in any profession in my opinion).
So the golden rule still stands: The husband is still banned from fixing anything in the house, although I will continue to love the man he is not. 
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Posted in Livy at 10:09 pm by tina
Livy is on a roll learning how to say new words. I won’t be able to remember every new word she picks up very soon. She has mastered in saying a few things:
Brownie (Not just Braw braw)
bau bau (carry me)
read
moo
ma (horse)
mery mery (as in merrily merrily in the row row row song)
ku ku (pants); wa wa (socks); shea shea (shoes)
And two other words she learned which pretty much got herself whatever she wanted this past weekend in TN:
ah-goon
ah-ma
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Posted in Maddy at 10:00 pm by tina
Upon arrival at Ah-goon/ah-ma’s house in TN, the girl got some snacks she loves (Chinese bean curd and red bean soup)
Mommy: Madison, are you sure it is good to have so many snacks in one day? You know you got some gummy bears during the car ride already.
Maddy: Today is really my lucky day!!
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11.20.07
Posted in Maddy at 10:49 pm by tina
I’ve always maintained my stance that I will not force Maddy to learn Chinese (although I am trying to be more active on exposing her with the language). People sometimes comment on how I should really make the girls learn Chinese because ‘they are Chinese’, and I often answer that if speaking Chinese is such a must-have value for me, I wouldn’t have married Joe.
Since ah-goon/ah-ma won’t be moving here until next school year, I finally signed the girl up for Chinese dance and Chinese school (for the Chinese as second language kids). The only reason I signed her up was because her two good girl friends C & K are also signed up, and I thought the girl would be more open to the idea (She had already rejected the idea two months back when I couldn’t find another ballet replacement).
Unfortunately, the conversation did not look bright and the girl might be a future Chinese School Dropout:
Mommy: Guess what Maddy. You and C and K are going to take classes together.
Maddy: What classes?
Mommy: DANCE and chinese… First Chinese Dance then a Chinese class… And A too. Remember A who went to the beach trip with us. It’ll be fun.. all four girls together… (I made a big deal with as much excitement I can squeeze out about Chinese school)
Maddy: No. I don’t want to. I like my school.
Mommy: No. It’s only on Sat. I know you like your school. You still go to your school
Maddy: No. I think I’ll just stay home on Sat.
Daddy: I wish I can go to the Chinese school. It’ll be so much fun, and I get to hang out with C, K, A.. blah blah blah
And here comes the punch line from the girl:
Maddy: Daddy, I will walk you to Chinese school, ok? Mommy, I just need a map, and I can walk daddy there so daddy can go to class.
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11.18.07
Posted in Life with my girls at 11:36 pm by tina
One of the reasons we moved back east was for the kids to be closer to their grandparents, and it has really been a blessing to have the girls hang out with all three sets of grandparents on a regular basis.
Grandma and grandpa Junneck came down this past week for a early Thanksgiving visit!!
Grandpa Junneck, our free handyman on command, fixed a long list of things Joe so shamelessly emailed him way before they came down. Grandma, another amazing cook (mommy loves it when she doesn’t have to lift a finger in the kitchen), whipped up meals in no time and even got us into the brand-new-not-yet-open IHOP during their ‘invitation only Sat’ just because “grandma knows what to say”.
They witnessed the little baby’s stubborness, and grandpa Junneck confirmed that the baby has definitely gotten the genes from DADDY’S SIDE. The baby charmed them to no end anyway.. so typical. The girl bonded with grandpa, carried the drawing book grandma gave her everywhere, and totally showed off her piano skill (she insisted on playing all 5 current pieces instead of just one).
Thanks for visiting, grandma and grandpa Junneck!!
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Posted in Maddy at 11:07 pm by tina
The girl has been feeling a bit jealous lately, passing comments about how mommy loves to snuggle with mei-mei but not her and such. I have to admit that sometimes the charming baby gets all the oh’s and ah’s, and it is something I need to be more careful about.
And it is decided that the girl and mommy is to have a special girly date, and we went to my stylist. The girl was quite thrilled to have her hair washed/styled by a professional (usually the haircut at the kiddy places don’t include the wash/style parts), and most importantly now mommy and daughter have the same haircut, long layers with shaggy bangs:
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11.16.07
Posted in Livy at 11:28 pm by tina
Livy is picking up lots of words this month, and she can carry on conversations Livy-style:
Livy: [whining whining whing]
Mommy: What happened, Livy?
Livy: JIA-JIA!!
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Trying to be lazy while getting Livy ready for Brownie walk, I put socks on the baby and wanted to put her in the stroller-
Mommy: Ok, Livy. Mommy bau-bau. Let’s go.
Livy: [look at her feet] xie-xie
Mommy: You don’t need xie-xie. You are just going to sit in the stroller.
Livy: XIE-XIE
======================
In the car-
“mommy”
“Yes, Maddy?”
“I didn’t say mommy, Livy did”
“no she didn’t. She doesn’t know how to say mommy yet”
Maddy: “mommy”
mommy: “see, you said it. I knew it”
Maddy: “no, Livy said it the first time”
mommy: “you said it. she didn’t say it”
mommy: “Livy, can you say mommy?”
Livy: looking confused…
mommy: “see. I knew it was you. Maddy”
Livy: “mommy”
mommy: “you sound just like jiejie. you know how to say mommy. Say mommy”
Livy: “mommy”
Livy: [pointing to daddy] “daddy”
Livy: [poing to herself] “mei-mei”
What do you know.. She has them all down
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My favorite: Right before we walked into school:
mommy: who is going to open the door for us?
Livy: ME ME ME
My little 5-pound pre-mature baby is now an undenyable toddler, as adorable as she can be.. love love love that baby.
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Posted in Maddy at 11:14 pm by tina
The girl is starting to explore free drawing lately. Her visible improvement is quite impressive. If I didn’t watch her personally, I could have sworn that she must have had some help from a grownup:
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Posted in Life with my girls at 10:37 pm by tina
Watching a movie is not exactly the thing to do on our family activity list, so the girls were pleasantly surprised and happily abided when we announced the family movie night the other day.
Maddy was thrilled to actually watch the movie, but Livy was totally into her little bowl of popcorn. Daddy enjoyed both the movie and popcorn (although we have yet to finish the movie since we only watched the first 30 mins); mommy was too busy taking pictures of the girls looking like couch potatos.
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11.10.07
Posted in Life with my girls at 10:18 pm by tina
Today is the first time in 6 weeks that we didn’t have out of towners visiting us over the weekend, and the only planned activities we had were an early afternoon baby shower and the hosting of our fellowship meeting/potluck.
All the extra free time we had in the morning seem luxurious. Although it was too cold to go to any park for any outing, the girls did not miss any beat.
They cleaned the rooms, practiced the piano, put on a puppet show for us, and made teepees. It was a perfect quality time!
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11.06.07
Posted in Life with my girls at 11:13 pm by tina
Two really good college friends flew in this past weekend to visit us: Matt and I ran the City of Oaks half-marathon while Karen cheered us on. It was the most bizzare thing to watch, but the slow-to-warmup girl immediately bonded with both of them as if they had known each other for years. She is silly with them, laughing and giggling the whole time (totally out of her character to do so even with grown-ups she knows). She introduced auntie Karen to everyone in school and mourned when she found out that uncle Matt was leaving (she totally ‘fell in love’ with uncle Matt when he broke out the puzzles and did three of them in a row with her)
We had a blast!! It was wonderful to spend the weekend together even though it was way too short.
The half-marathon, a distance run we promised to do with each other (well, more like Matt owed me) that was delayed many times due to various reasons, was finally completed with respectable times. Matt finished with 2:04:56 and mine as 2:15:19.
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Posted in Maddy at 10:25 pm by tina
Maddy took the Bracken pre-assessment test at the end of September in school. The Bracken School Readiness Assessment (BSRA) is a nationally normed and developmentally appropriate assessment, which is directly related to early childhood education and predicts readiness for more formal education.
The girl is reported with 97.7 percentile rank in advanced classification. Her strength areas (not all that surprising) are colors and numbers/countings.
I like to point out that I did not prepare her ahead of the time. She scored with flying color all on her own:
Needtheless to say, I am awefully proud of her!!
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