'Bout time we two were livin' out a lovely dream come true.

Friday afternoon: Leaf jumping, leaf throwing, and a little bit of leaf raking.

Friday night: Opening night for A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theatre.  So amazing.

Saturday: The raking of a billion leaves

Not pictured: A trip to Costco, a couple of trips to Home Depot, changing kitchen light fixtures(which kept us up until 3 AM), and watching The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band.


I had never seen that movie before, but I'm a huge fan.  Mei Li is the biggest fan.  She's been pretending that Joe Carder has been writing her love notes, and she gets embarrassed when I ask her about it.  I'm trying to act like it doesn't bug me.


I learned on Friday that a girl in Stephen's class wants to marry him because "he's cute and he likes my shoes."  He doesn't seem to notice that she like-likes him.


This week is going to be so busy and great.  Stephen's turning four, we've got family coming into town, and I'm going to make my first turkey.  Last week, I started panicking about all there is to do, but I calmed down when I remembered that it's all happy stress.


I'm not sure what young people envision their life to be after they are married and have kids, but I would guess they don't understand completely all the hard work that is involved.  But it's this hard, important, and happy work that has made our dreams come true.  I'm so grateful for all of it.


  

It's just Wednesday.

It's been a good day.  Since I completed my last long run (a 10-miler) on Monday, the rest of the week will be easy until the half marathon on Saturday.  I ran 3 miles this morning and it was freezing.  I thought it would be cold the rest of the day too, but it was actually just perfect.

All three kids were dressed well before it was time to catch the school bus, which is kind of amazing for me.  Mi Na's usually in her pajamas all day long.  I guess I was feeling particularly ambitious today. ;)

We headed to the bus stop, Stephen on his bike, Mei Li and me on foot, and Mi Na in my arms.

 After Mei Li caught the bus, we went to the tot lot to play.  I couldn't get over the perfect blue sky and bright orange leaves.  It's the kind of sight that fills me with faith and gratitude.

 

 Mi Na was loving the slide.  She climbed up the stairs and slid down the slide over and over again while giggling.  She is delightful.

 

This tot lot clearly didn't offer enough conventional fun for an almost 4-year-old boy, but it's a good thing he's creative.

 
You know, having Mei Li go to kindergarten has been a great thing for Stephen.  He gets more time with me and less time to torment Mei Li, which he does often and with great pleasure.

 
I feel like today was Mi Na's first day as a real toddler, complete with running-away-from-Mommy-while-laughing, and the tantrum after leaving the park.  This should be a fun couple of years.

The rest of the day was pleasant and relatively calm. Although, unfortunately for Steve, I was kind of grumpy in the evening.  Come to think of it, I've been grumpy every evening this week.  I'm blaming it on the time change or hormones.  Whatever it is, it's definitely not my fault. :)

November 2 News.

 Today, Stephen and Mei Li learned to ride two-wheel pedal bikes, not to be confused with two-wheel gliders, which they have comfortably been riding for some time now.  Our neighborhood has a very loose bike-borrowing system.  Our glider bikes are quite popular with all the neighborhood kids.  So Stephen grabbed Nathan's two wheel bike and I encouraged him to pedal.  It took him about five minutes to master.  

When Mei Li saw Stephen outdoing her, she grabbed Sayed's bike and learned just as fast.  It was pretty awesome.  Don't let Stephen's serious facial expression fool you.  He was pretty darn excited about it all, telling every neighbor he saw that he can ride a two-wheeler.

 Today Mei Li revealed to me that a boy named "S" told her he wanted to marry her, but that he wanted to wait.  Um, hello?  Why did I send my daughter to school?  Not for boys, that's for sure.  I must say, though, that the boy has excellent taste, and Mei Li assured me that he believed in Jesus.  :)  Mei Li asked me how she would find "S" when she was older.  Then she asked about how I found Dad.  I told her that we met in middle school, but emphasized that we didn't love each other until after Steve came home from his mission.

We went to a beautiful park this evening for some football and a snack picnic.  Stephen is the biggest sports fanatic.  He's fun to play catch with because he throws the ball straight to me.

Mi Na fed herself chips dipped in hummus.  I had to surrender cleanliness control so I could play football with Stephen.  Oh well.

Steve was home when we got back, and he had dinner ready for us.  We were all so happy to see him and eat food.  It was a pretty great day.  I love you, fall.

Saturday's Fall Drive

Since Steve is right on schedule for half marathon training and ran eight miles last week, he only had to run a 5k on Saturday.  But since I ran just seven last week, I had to run eight this week.

Our plan was for Steve to go running around 6, me go running at 7, and to be ready by 9:30 to go on our fall drive.  Well, Steve went running around 7:30, and I went running around 8:45.  After stretching, eating, showering, and dressing, we were ready to leave by 1:00!  Everything takes so much longer than I think it will.  And, we have been horrible about waking up to our alarm.

So we drove to Winchester instead of Edinburg.  The drive was pretty, but the colors haven't peaked yet.  We stopped at a big park there to climb trees, play football, and rest on our picnic blanket.

 

 

It was really lovely.  The weather was perfect and the kids were (mostly) happy.  We headed back home, stopped to buy a "Dutch Crumb Apple Pie" from a farmers' market for the ward trunk or treat and made it home.

I hope we get to go on at least one more fall drive before the leaves turn brown.  Fall just comes and goes too quickly, in my opinion.  Fall, won't you stay awhile?

Apple Picking 10/5/11

 Michi took a day off from sightseeing last Wednesday, so we decided to go apple picking.  We had the best time.  Michi brought her awesome camera and took some pictures of the kids and me.  Then she asked me how I would feel if she took some pictures of just me.  This next picture sums up how I felt about that:

I could never be or desire to be a model.  Aside from the fact that I have short Asian legs, I feel pretty silly posing by myself, with no one to hug or hold.

Michiko did get some great shots to help us remember our really great day in the orchard.

 

I feel really blessed to have the sisters and sisters-in-law that I have.  I love how comfortable it feels for Michiko to come visit without my brother, Jeremy.  Or how I can go visit Annee in North Carolina without Steve.  With twenty-six (plus Sarah's one on the way) on Steve's side, and twenty-six on my side, we have so many people to love and be loved by.  It makes life kind of amazing.

First Field Trip

I volunteered to be a chaperone for Mei Li's field trip to the farm.  Interestingly, if you volunteer, that does not guarantee that you will get chosen as they do a lottery to fill the limited chaperone spots.  I felt really lucky that they chose my name.

I was responsible for four adorable girls, including Mei.  Two of the other girls' mothers were there to tag-along, which made my job pretty easy, certainly easier than taking my own three children to the farm.

We took a little tour of the farm.  We all received yummy apples and the kids got to feed the animals.  Mei Li really didn't want the animal tongues to touch her hand, so she did a lot of food sprinkling.

Then it was time for the hay ride to the pumpkin patch.  It started sprinkling on the hay ride, and once at the pumpkin patch, we really wished we had our rain boots.  Mei Li started walking through the mud to find a pumpkin, but was discouraged when the mud sucked one of her shoes off of her feet and her sock got all wet and muddy.

My little Korean friend didn't want to go in the mud either, so I forged through the mud in my Sperrys to find them both pumpkins.  One of the teachers assistants sheltered them with an umbrella while they waited for me.  I picked out two very ugly pumpkins.  The selection wasn't very good where I could walk.

Then we ate lunch in the barn.  Mei Li looked exhausted as she ate nearly every last bite of food that I packed.  The girls wanted to go on the jumping pillow for their free time.  They jumped and they jumped and they jumped until it was time to go back to the bus.

I couldn't find my camera so I had to use my flip phone camera.  Does anyone else still have a flip phone?

Back at school, I signed Mei Li out for the rest of the day.  Steve was waiting for us back at home with our kids.  Thanks to Steve for making this day possible.  It was a really easy and wonderful day.

Welcome, fall.

I love fall.  I love it for its colors, sweaters, cooler temps, and pumpkin everything.  But mostly, I love fall because it holds promise for happy times.  Fall has always been good to us.

In the fall of '03, I saw Steve for the first time in over two years, outside of the SWKT at BYU.  He was wearing the plaid shirt and happy-go-lucky smile I remembered from high school.  I was with my friend, Heather, and we talked for a few minutes with him.  He asked me out a few days later. 

We went to a concert at Thanksgiving Point for our first date.  We went out for hot chocolate at Leatherby's on our second.  A movie and Korean food for our third.  A magic show on a snowy Halloween night for our fourth.  And this whole time, he never tried to hold my hand or kiss me.  I had to wait until winter for that.

In the fall of '04, we were engaged.  We settled into this beautiful routine of being together all the time.  Steve used to make two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches each day, and we'd eat them for lunch on campus.  We studied in the library together during the day, and come back to my place for some sad, poor college-student dinner (canned soup comes to mind) in the evening.  We squeezed in kissing whenever we could. And at curfew, we hated saying goodbye.

I was newly pregnant with Mei Li in the fall of '05.  Fall of '07 brought me baby Stephen.  Pregnant again, fall '09.  And every fall, after September 15, we enjoy togetherness and a slower pace.  Tax season is over and Steve just returned from training, so that means that our season of joy has officially begun.  Welcome, fall.  Feel free to stay a while.

October 11-17

On Monday, we went apple picking.

I took my three kids to an apple orchard and met Tiana and her family there. I had Mi Na in the Baby Bjorn so bending over to pick the dropped apples was slow going. We ended up with half a bucket, which I later turned into a large container of applesauce. It was an experiment that turned out really well. I will have to make lots of applesauce next year.

Tuesday was the first day of preschool. We were on time.

Mei Li is loving preschool, but I am not. It's in the afternoon and it is messing up Stephen and Mi Na's naps, which is no fun. I need to figure out how to make this work.

Wednesday was the day I lost track of time.

But it didn't matter because we had no plans other than our picnic. I packed our picnic basket with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carrots, oranges, and water. I packed the stroller with a picnic blanket, library books, and children. I packed Mi Na into my baby wrap.

We walked to the field, but realized that we left Stephen's football at home. So we went back home, then back to the field. Mei pretended to be a fairy, Stephen a football player. We ate our lunch on a blanket out in the sun. Sandy, who lives right by the field saw us and came out to sit with us. She brought her cute granddaughter with her.

It got hot so we moved into the shade of a tree, where Mi Na napped covered by a crocheted blanket. It seems nice to be a baby sometimes.

We read our library books on the blanket and talked. I forgot my cell phone, like I usually do, so I didn't know what time it was.

We walked to the library, where I learned that we had been at the field for nearly three hours. We returned old books and checked out new ones and then walked home. I will always remember that day, but hopefully there will be many more like it.

I hardly remember Thursday.
I remember that we were late to Mei Li's second day of preschool and that it messed up naps again. It appears that I took this picture on Thursday.

Friday was busy.
Steve took Friday off and we spent the morning packing for a weekend trip to North Carolina. Mei Li went to Lilly's birthday party in the afternoon and it was a joyous reunion for these two pals.


We hit lots of traffic on our way to North Carolina, but we did finally make it by midnight. We were there to watch Annee and Darin's kids while they went on a short getaway.

Mei Li climbed up a huge wall on Saturday.

We didn't have a set plan for Saturday activities with the Earnest kids, but we solved that problem when we discovered a free climbing wall set up just across the street by the park. Mei Li was totally into it. She went up that thing about eight times. She made it up higher and higher with each turn and finally she made it to the very top. I was impressed. Steve and I each took a turn climbing the wall too. I must do it again soon.

On Sunday, we took seven kids to stake conference.
I do not write that to seem heroic at all because there was actually not much to it. All of the kids were well-behaved and sweet.

Annee and Darin came home shortly after we did. We had a nice meal together and we said our goodbyes.


The four Earnest kids were so kind to our kids, especially Mi Na.
It's fun that they'll be just a drive away for the next three years.

This and That

Mei Li doesn't start preschool until next week so we haven't had any place we needed to be. I've been relishing it. We've instead just been walking to the park or the library whenever we can.

Our favorite library book in our current batch is A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry.



It's a Caldecott winner for obvious reasons. Those illustrations are so sweet.

We purchased The Lower Lights album. We all love it. Mei Li loves to sing along and does so with a slight twang. My favorites are "Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me" and "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy." Good job, Scott and Sarah!



Our kitchen looks different these days. My sister-in-law, Sarah, helped me come up with ideas and she found the fabric for the window pelmet boxes. My sister-in-law, Christine, came by and to help me make the pelmet boxes, but ended up making them while I helped. Thank you both.

General Conference weekend was lovely. It was relaxing and uplifting. Steve made sailboats for the kids out of empty Costco milk cartons, straws, hot glue, paper and tape. Brilliant. He then made a little castle out of a cardboard box for Mei Li at her request/demand.


Mi Na is cute and still holding onto her blue eyes.

Steve and I started watching the TV series, Lost. We are going to need to set some limits for ourselves because going to bed at midnight can't become a habit.

Grandma Z. came to town on Tuesday night. She took the kids to the library and a fall festival on Wednesday. Today she took them to Target, McDonald's, and the park. It's been a nice break and a good opportunity to go to some stores where I wouldn't normally take all three kids.

More family is coming to town for Mi Na's baby blessing. It will be a fun weekend. My mom and I are going to make a feast!