Sisterhood

Isabel loves Alexis and vice versa. They are having fun together. We are here in Brentwood having a picnic after picking fruits at a farm. Isabel loved picking the fruit. Her favorite was the blackberries.

Isabel is a big girl now

Major milestones in the last week
- isabel can sleep on her own now. Daddy usually sleep with her but he was in Boston last week. Before when she wakes up in the middle of the night and found no one with her, she would cry until someone joined her. Last week, she agreed to sleep on her own and did great
- isabel stop wearing a diaper at night. On the same night she slept alone, she also got up to pee and now no more diapers. She actually asked us to stop putting diaper on her. She said she is a big girl now. Amazing
- she is attending ballet camp this week - 3 hours on her own with new people. She didn't cry at all and loved every minutes

She has really grown up overnight. It's kind of amazing to watch.

She can push up

Alexis is getting so big

Look at the way she sucks her thumb. She also loves to stand now.

60 piece puzzle

Isabel got this for her birthday and she just finish it today.

Happy mothers day

It's so nice to see my daughters healthy and happy. That's the perfect present for mothers day. That and a little Spanish tapas + sangria for lunch makes a perfect day. Now we are off to BiRite ice cream. Salted caramel and honey lavender flavored awaits. YUMMY!

Late we plan to watch the muppets and have a picnic dinner in front of the tv with sandwiches and salad. All in all a great day with the family.

Alexis Photo Story

Agnes made this photo story for Alexis. We showed it at Isabel's birthday party. I chose the song as I love the song and I am so glad Alexis came into our lives. enjoy! I think it's a great way to celebrate Mother's day for me.

Alexis Giggles

there is nothing as precious and heart-warming as the giggles of a baby. Well, starting from a few weeks ago, Alexis starts to giggle out of the blue. We are still trying to figure out what would make her giggle and this is one of the few times we were able to capture it on video. enjoy! She is laughing at something Isabel is doing.

abi's 3rd Birthday party photos

Isabel has been attending so many birthdays lately. Most of her friends seem to be born between April and July.

Photos from Isabel's 4th Birthday Party

Thank you everyone for making Isabel's 4th Birthday wonderful. Isabel was so happy with the all the custom made cards, gifts, and gift cards she received. Here are the photos.

5 Major milestones for Alexis

Just as big sister isabel turns 4 years old last week, Alexis who is 4.5 months also showed some major changes

1. She has found her feet and now grabs them all the time. She hasn't started sucking on her toes yet but that will come next month :-)
2. She can clasp her hands together
3. She learned how to turn over and it fascinates her so she does it every time we put her down. Good thing she has good was control now so she doesn't suffocate
4. She recognizes us - she smiles at me a lot now and once on Sunday she actually opened her arms, smiled and lean toward me while sitting on someone else. I wished I could have captured it on film. My heart totally leaped at the sight and of course I picked her up from my friend immediately
5. She is sleeping through the night after 2 weeks of sleep training. She now sleeps 9 or 10 hrs straight. Yeah! More sleep for everyone else.

We are loving every moment of watching Alexis grow and change.

OMG the Fridge was Off

This morning, we were shocked to find out that the fridge is not on. Agnes took out some frozen waffles to toast for Isabel and realized they were defrosted.

You may think well, what’s the big deal? Maybe some food was spoiled but that happens. Well, if you are a breastfeeding mom, you may understand what level of stress I may have experienced the instant I heard this news. You see, I have been working hard for the last 4 months to store up breast milk for LingLing (about 2 oz extra a day). So I had about 30 bags of 5 oz of frozen milk stored in the freezer. Frozen breast milk once thawed must be used with in 24-48 hours. You CANNOT refreeze. What ever you don’t use, you LOSE.

So when I found out the fridge was off, my first thought is OMG, I just lost all the milk I worked 4 months daily to store!

We tried to figure out what happened as we realize the dial on the freezer was turned to off. So immediately we knew what happened but not when. Isabel must have been playing with the knob as any curious little girl and turned it off without knowing what it does. After some questioning, we found out she turned it off around 8pm last night which is about 12 hours before we found out!!!

I was in shocked and luckily Agnes and Jaime were more proactive. Jaime researched online about how long we can keep the milk and Agnes suggested we call Dr Pete as his wife is a lactation consultant and could tell us what we can salvage. Luckily I snapped out a little by then and thought perhaps we can separate the thawed milk from the still frozen part of the milk in the freezer. You see at least the fridge was still cold for awhile after Isabel turned it off so the frozen milk was still about 75% solid.

We were lucky Pete was home and got the advice from his wife. She told us we need to pour out the liquid part of the thawed milk in a container and only keep the frozen part in the freezer. The frozen part should still be ok for Lingling for future consumption (1-3 months). The liquid part we should keep in the back of the fridge where it’s coldest and Lingling should eat it in the next 48 hours.

We also had about 25 oz of fresh milk in the fridge that is now a bit more like room temperature, so we are going to give that to Lingling today and give her the thawed milk (about 20 oz) tomorrow. I will just end up pumping today and tomorrow instead of feeding Alexis directly. Luckily LIngling eats about 25 oz a day so all in all we may end up not losing any milk – hopefully!

I had a long talk with Isabel. I know she didn’t know what she was doing so we didn’t punish her, but I just wanted to make sure she understand that she should NOT do it again and why it’s so serious. As she is a kid, she may still forget, so now we will probably always keep an eye on the fridge dial to make sure she didn’t forget.

Ahhh, life with two kids – some days there is more excitement than I would like, but every moment is still very precious.

Lei

Singing fishes and dancing diva

who could that be? of course, it's Isabel. Enjoy these videos singing fishes singing and dancing to "glad you came" singing and dancing to "party rock"

Eva's first birthday party

how time flies.  Eva is already one.  Isabel and Alexis both had fun attend her party and catching up with uncle Chuong and Auntie Ena

Isabel's Mandarin School - Russian Hills Academy March Photos

Isabel loves this school and so do we. You can see why in these photos. Look how happy she is and all the creative activities they do. Lei

More photos from Mark and Kim's wedding

these are just of Isabel, Alexis, and me :-)

Happy 4th Birthday to Isabel!

Agnes created another fabulous photo story for Isabel's 4th birthday. Thank you Agnes! Isabel is such a big girl now with lots of attitude. Happy Birthday Isabel! Lei

Free Easter Egg Hunt photos