Trail and Planet Zork

Good  thing we cleaned the house last night. Woke up to a trail of stuff the kids made. Yay. This wrapped all the way from our room, through the hall, to the kitchen, play room, dining room, living room and back again.
I pretended I was an alien from planet Zork chasing them around the trail trying to get their clothes on in the morning. Gotta keep it fun. Running out of ideas! I imagine this will be one of our go to imaginary plays. They were cracking up and running away! Have to admit, it was actually pretty fun :)

Where's my missing tooth?

Over the weekend of the two first day of kindergarden, syona went through another first. The kids were making their pillow gym (scattering all the pillows in a particular room to literally jump into). Syona then ran out and said- "i think i lost my tooth. is the toothfairy coming?". Lo and behold, there was a missing spot on the bottom right where there was a bit of blood in the tooth area. But where was her tooth? How was the tooth fairy going to make the trade? So we had the kids retrace their steps. Syona explained that she was transporting a pillow in her teeth and that she was moving it from "mommy and daddy"'s room to the living room.  That's when the four of us went on our tooth treasure hunt. Kyran started picking up random of pieces of trash like items on the floor and started asking is this Syona's tooth. We started thinking that she may have swallowed it...After a while, I went to get the tractor flashlight (thanks gou gou) and got on my knees to systematically comb the room inch by inch. Finally, after some time though, we were finally able to help out the tooth fairy by recovering the loot under mommy's make up table. That's when Syona decided to go look in the mirror at the missing spot and saw some blood and realized that losing a tooth actually hurt.   Good thing that tooth fairy was coming to mark this rite of passage

Syona starts Kindergarden

She made it! And so did we..

It has been an exhausting last few weeks getting Syona queued up for the big K.G. We spent the last few months filling out forms, taking her to pre-attendance testing, doing TB tests, printing out proof of residency. Honestly, I think buying a house was an easier process, or maybe that's because houses come and go.

Many people asked me if I cried sending Syona off to KG. I didn't cry BUT I did randomly cry the weekend before.

So Syona started at San Jose Unified school district. Good scores, OK school. We were not thrilled about the teacher student ratio 1:30. The school was good, and had a lot of school spirit, but just wasn't as organized as we would have liked it. We had a few months back, filled out a transfer application to union school district. We snuck in to the orientation.

The school was amazing. The teachers were great, the principal was really good, ipad minis in the KG class, 1:24 ratios with a SCU TA. Amazing.

Paul called everyday for a week. We found out the night before that she got in. We knew nothing the first day, and showed up at 7:30AM as a family to get her teacher assignment and send her off.

It was fantastic how I had to get 2 sets of completely different things for both these schools. Unforms, backpacks, school supplies for one school. Tote bags and other school supplies for the other school. HAHA. It was a crazy two weeks, but we told Syona not to worry about starting KG again, because she is an expert experiences Kinder.

She was slightly nervous about starting at Guadalupe the night before and morning of, but I took her out to get a new dress and new pink sneakers that night. I think that made her feel special and get a little excited. I was like yay no uniforms, let's indulge, startinf KG twice is OK! hahahaa

She she cried a little at home in the AM, and then we made her laugh after 10 minutes or so and she was good to go. She did amazing at the Champions before and after school care and ran around with Kyran which I think made her feel comfortable that she had a buddy for 20 minutes while we got situated.

We found out her teacher was Warpole, but then later got a call that it was now Miss O'Brien. I met Syona right before her PM KG told her about the teacher change lol, she was confused but was a trooper. Walked right in with a bye mommy. A turn of the head, and off.

I couldn't be more proud at how well she handled it all. Starting at Los Alamitos with a uniform, not knowing anyone, getting assimilated in 4 days and then starting again at a whole new school, and loving it so much the first day, that I had to wait for her to finish playing Battleship in the afterschool care for 45 minutes. She didn't want to go home.

Miss O'Brien is the best teacher. I could tell her value system fits hand in hand with ours. This school's objective is to expose Syona to as much as they can. Whether she masters it or not is not the question, that is what first grade is for. They want to teach these children to be human, which is what I think our society needs so much of.

All in all, I feel SO BLESSED to have gotten this school. I intend to volunteer and dontate $ and do as much as I can to give back and pay it forward.

Syona and her Sofia Back-Pack

Back to School shopping with Syona. We got this before Los Alamitos first day of school! Since she goes to guadalupe, where they use totes, this is now her Chinese School Backpack :) Nevertheless, it was seriously super fun for me to take her back to school shopping, What a rite of passage!

We have some work ahead

Syona's little doll. Come on, if they play trucks together, isn't it only fair? P.S. that isn't an old picture of Syona, that is a new picture of Kyran.

Syona's 5th Birthday!

Little baby girl turned 5! And we celebrated Princess style!

We had a little girls glamour shop come and makeover the little darlings! They did hair and nails! Syona invited all the girls in her class to celebrate! The theme was princess! I think one of the best moments of this party was Syona and I making the invitations together! Syona did a great job sticking on the little diamonds for the necklace and cutting the pink strings! She and I also made streamer decorations and she was very good and precise about the gluing.

The party was fun, the girls totally gravitated towards the hair and nails station and the ladies did a great job letting them select their hairstyle and then getting it done. They all got their nails painted and then put on a princess dress. It was truly a fun 5 year birthday day of pampering- and as much as we do not want her to grow up too fast, we knew this is what she would truly enjoy for her birthday. She put on her princess dress and they all had to do the catwalk outside. During games, they also had to each stand up and introduce themselves. I think what Paul and I quickly talked about is that this is a good experience for maintaining self esteem, standing tall, and feeling good about yourself. The boys had a great time too, getting their hair gelled and spray painted. We also did sticker tattoos!

The cake was fun, we just put on her castle and princess toys and made it 3D. We gave out these little art holder with crayons for each kid. It was fun fun fun!

Xmas 2013

For xmas we have been trying to instill the qualities of family and togetherness over all material items. As a result, we have asked our family to wrap each of their presents in one box, in case there are multiple gifts, so the kids do not keep asking, "Where's my next one." I guess it's, worked, kind of. They still made out like bandits. At least Kyran is 2 and big enough to open his own gifts so Syona isn't do double time.

We had the usual knuclehead party, followed by presents from santa and mom & dad and then presents with ba and dadu and then xmas with nainai.

It was great having Kelvin and baby Addison over from Texas. Logan and our kids had a blast setting up all the new fun car and flying fairy games, and I think uncle greg had fun too.

The kids woke up to santa presents as asked: a cars vacuum for kyran (:/) and princess tattoos, a magic wand, and a princess sofia dress from santa. Paul and I got the kids shiny new bikes that we assembled and place under the tree. Mid-morning, ba and dadu stopped by, got the kids a fun little car racer for the outdoors and a frozen doll and dress. We got ba and dadu some movie tickets to join us for an 11:30AM or so viewing of Frozen.

Nainai got Syona some roller skates, which Kyran was very envious of. We had fun opening presents with Paul's family at night with alarm clocks from uncle roi and kevin and princess and cars embroidered blankies from gou gou.