A Day at the Mall

Mom and I took the boys to the outlet today to do some shopping. They behaved very well dispite all the distractions (rides in the mall and toys in the stores.) We got some shoes and clothes for fall. Before leaving, we had dippin'dots. I never had it before, and it was surprisingly good and refreshing. Elias and Micah liked it, too...well, it's ice cream right? what's not to like? :)

How could we pass looking at the red car on display!

They even carried their own bags. They love their crocs :)

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It was a tiring day for them. Nap time got pushed back, and I had to wake them up before they were done napping so they would sleep when bedtime came. Oh my...was Micah a cranky boy (he NEEDS his sleep like his mommy. :P) Every little thing triggered him, and when he refused to give yi yi a goodbye kiss, he cried hysterically after she had left. I finally got him to settle down by calling my sister to let him say goodbye to her. Afterward, Micah told me that, "Micah sad yi yi no kiss." awww...he's still so cute :)

Transitioning

Elias still wants his underpants today, but not interested in sitting on the potty. I let him wear his underpants, but I put a diaper back on at nap time, and we're back to square one again. Oh well, at least he's this much more interested than last time right? All is well.

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I couldn't remember when nor how they started sleeping with "tents" (a blanket over the side reel of their crib.) Micah usually pulled it down after we put them to bed. Elias however, would wake up crying in the middle of the night sometimes if his "tent" fell off. Preston and I both had been thinking that it's time to get rid of the tents, but just didn't want to deal with it knowing how much Elias would fuss about it. After explaining to them last night, especially to Elias, they went to bed without it and slept through the night :)

He cried hard tonight, but only lasted about half an hour, which was really good.

God is so good to me!

Happy Day

Elias asked to sit on the potty after breakfast and to put on his big boy underpants! He patiently sat on the potty and waited as many of the small increments of pee pee came. He seemed very proud of himself, and so did I :) I took a picture of him and his pee. (Yes...I did.) I would keep the picture to myself and spared you all who read the blog from looking at it. LOL. He improved a lot this time by staying dry for a longer period of time.

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Elias and Micah wanted to go to the water park (=splash pad, we hadn't make it to a real water park yet,) which is rare. I suggested many times that we should go throughout the summer, and Micah usually changed his mind about going after his nap. So out we went despite that Elias was wearing his underpants. Brave or just crazy? I put a diaper on his car seat just in case, but he kept dry both ways!!! The one in Woodridge was closed due to the storm from the weekend I believed, and we had to go to the one in Glen Ellyn. They had a blast and didn't want to go home.

I was supposed to meet my mom and my sister at IKEA afterward for dinner because they needed to look at furniture and I needed to return something, but they didn't make it from the other store. Oh well, that didn't spoil the trip because Elias and Micah liked IKEA and usually ate well there anyway.

Elias was such a chatter box the moment we got home, telling daddy all about his day. He just went on and on about everything after that. He got so excited about Christmas tree, making snow angels, and even remembered mommy pulling them on the sled. Definitely a December baby :) I was kind of surprise that he remembered so much.

It's time for me to accept the fact that my baby had become a little boy...so sad, yet happy.

Molar Molar Go Away

The boys woke up not looking well, and soon they were throwing up. Micah's general condition seemed better than Elias. I got a blanket out for all of us to lay on while we watching TV. I made some congee and they were able to eat some, but Elias threw most of it out.

They seemed to be feeling better and had their appetite back after they napped. But drama was about to happen! They wanted bagel with jam, but started screaming bagel "tong tong" (hurt) as they were eating. I was just about to cry with them as I had no idea was going on and couldn't help them. It was good to have someone else's opinion, aka their daddy, who's not here and were definitely not panicking like me. We switched the bagels to bread, and that seemed to solve the problem.

I looked at their gums. No molar in sight, but gums looked swollen. I guess they're teething after all.

The Lord's Prayer

We have been saying the Lord's Prayer with Elias and Micah at night before bedtime for several months now. They've been trying to follow from time to time. Yesterday, they were saying the whole prayer after us! With a little help from us, they can recite the whole prayer by themselves now...okay, it's not very clear but you can make out most of it :)

Preston and I are so proud!

A Productive Day

We went to the library this morning, and spent about 40 mins reading books. After that was time for the boys to "claim" their prizes for the reading program. They couldn't wait to put the wooden beads into the Bead Box. They could drop a bead into the box for every book they read. And then they got to pick 4 C prizes, which if you asked me it's junk toys, but you also got the option to pick a Toys for Tots token to donate in place of picking a prize. The boys were thrilled to drop anything into any boxes, so that's what we did instead. It made all of us happy!

Next stop was IKEA with Yi Yi (what they called my sister). Yi Yi was late as usual :P, but the boys behaved well while waiting. We had lunch at the restaurant, and they boys picked their own lunch and ate well on their own. Mommy was very happy because I actually got to enjoy my lunch when I didn't have to feed them :) They had a blast playing at Children's IKEA. They were cooking at the kitchen, crawling the tunnel between tents, and sleeping from toddler bed to toddler bed while Yi Yi did her shopping. They did well for not getting their nap in, but it got rough toward the end. Elias was throwing a fit as we were about to leave and lost his ice cream privilege. Oh well, all was fair. It was probably an embarrassing moment, but it was least of my concern at the moment.

They napped for an hour after we got home. Drew on the new easel we bought at IKEA and watched a DVD after nap. Could you guess what was it about? That's right, TRUCKS! After dinner, we read more truck books borrowed from the library, and drew some more on the easel before bath time.

Sound like a fun and productive day, right? Right, it was, but it was also very rough because they were not very good listeners today. Yet I was in a good mood.

Praise the Lord!

Missing Percy Found!

Last December, I bought the boys some characters from Thomas & Friends for their birthday and Christmas. Thomas and Percy went missing fairly soon. Took me awhile to find Thomas, but Percy had been missing for months and months that I almost forgot that we had him. Today, while the boys were watching their Thomas video, they asked for Percy. I had look everywhere in this house, the only place that I hadn't look was inside the diaper champ. Yes, the diaper champ! Thankfully, I hadn't use it for awhile now, and it had been sitting in the corner of their room behind the glider. So I opened the diaper champ, and sure enough, there he was. Poor Percy~

Mirror Confusion

I was washing Elias' hands after snack time.

Elias(pointing at the mirror): "two mommy! Micah."
I asked him again who's in the mirror.
Elias: "Micah."
So I pointed at him and asked him, "who are you?"
Elias: "Elias."

I was not the only one who got them confused in the mirror. LOL

Venturing Out

Went to Chinatown today with the Howards today. It was a great time with friends and good food to say the least. I was so proud of the boys as they tried many new things like sesame ball (micah), baby octopus (elias), shrimp dumpling (both), sui mei (elias), lotus bun (both), and rice dumpling wrapped in lotus leaf (both.) They liked some and not the others, but the fact that they will put all these things in their mouth was awesome! Usually, all they eat were BBQ pork bun minus the BBQ pork and sauce. They would not touch it if they saw the red BBQ sauce on the bun.

We walked and looked around Chinatown. The Howards tried their very first Joy Yee's famous bubble tea/drink! Micah and Elias shared the mango freeze with daddy, who hardly drank any of it. One of these days, I would let them try it with bubbles.

Family Fun Day

Took the kids to grandparents' house for Railroad Days Parade. Watched the World Cup Final. Grilled out for dinner. Fun, fun, fun! Elias and Micah loved all the firetrucks, police cars, tractors, and all the fun stuff at the parade. They helped picked up the candies, but they just handed them to us to put away. Yay! Really don't want them to eat candy yet. They each got a toy cars from General Mills float, which kept them very happy for the rest of the evening :) Hooray to toy cars!

Tired tired day for everyone!!!

I'm calling it a night and heading to bed. Pictures later :)