Lily's Garden X'mas Performance 2008

This year's Christmas performance is extra special. It was Sarah's debut and Darren get to perform more. Enough said...Enjoy!

Halloween 2008

This year's Halloween was on a Friday and the weather is still warm. Our kids wore their costumes to school and had Halloween parties. It is family tradition to get together for dinner at Doug's parents house. All cousins, except for the 2 "BIG" boys, went trick or treating. Sarah was dressed as Minnie Mouse and Darren as Power Ranger. In the morning Sarah was reluctant to wear the "Mouse Ears" but by nighttime she was fine with it. Darren, the brat, wanted to the first to ring the doorbell and ask for candy. After returning to their grandparents', the kids tossed all the candy on the floor, sorted the ones to keep and the ones to re-give. At home, Doug hid all the leftover candies to avoid the kids asking for more.

Pumpkin Festival 2008

Last weekend was the Annual Pumpkin Festival at Kidspace Museum in Pasadena. This was the 2nd year we attended it. Darren and Sarah can better appreciate the activities such as bouncers, pumpkin decorating, face painting. Here are pictures of their painted faces. These were taken with my cellphone camera because our Canon S3 camera lens was jammed :(...Oh well, I am just thankful of cellphone cameras!

Yes to those that know Darren, Darren was patient enough to wait for his face to be painted as Spiderman! Sarah was actually dozing off at face painting, it was afterall her nap time.

Halloween is coming up in a few days so stay tuned for our kids in Halloween costumes. Now I just have to borrow a camera somewhere.

School for Sarah & Darren

In September, Darren has moved into the pre-K class Room 1 at Lily's Garden. Sarah is now on her own in Room 5 and her teachers (Ms. Kelly and Ms. Lily) say she has adjusted very well. After almost 2 months of preschool, she has become more talkative....singing songs when she goes the bathroom and using full sentences sometimes. I think it is still stressful for her to adjust to the rigorous school schedule(filled with indoor and outdoor activities). Also after starting school, she has been getting sick more often (coughing and runny nose). The good still outweighs the bad. Here is a videoclip of her cute little singing voice.

Darren meanwhile has a lot more challenging school work. He is learning to read and spell simple words. He has moved onto to more educational videos such as Word World. This month marks the 1st month of Chinese language class. He didn't want to learn Chinese in the beginning but lately he had surprised all of us. He is learning the basics of Zhu Yin and he has learned a couple of phrases/songs. Doug and I hope his interest in Chinese will continue because it is important to know his family heritage. $100/month is worth it! Here is a clip of his mandarin skills.

Happy 4th Birthday Darren!!

Darren turned 4 years old yesterday 8/28. He has matured a lot, using a lot difficult words and always asking "why?" Of course, Darren still has his moments of frustration but reasoning with a 4 yr old is not easy. Darren will be moving into Pre-K next week so he will be officially a "big boy".
We have mini celebrations throughout this week. 8/27 We went to Chuck E Cheese's for some pizza and some video arcade. Darren loves to drive cars or jet skis. Some of our friends joined in "Where a kid can be a kid".




On his birthday 8/28, we brought cake to school so his classmates can celebrate with him. He was crowned King of day and he really had fun. Just to let you know, you have to prepare birthday favors and it could be a hit to the wallet. I had been shopping for months for Spiderman related stuff like nylon bags, tattoos, puzzles. Then 2 weeks before his birthday, he says he doesn't like Spiderman...he wants Thomas the Train. At least his cake was Thomas the Train, everything else was a mix of Disney and Nick Jr. stuff. Why do we as parents have to prepare party favors for classmates? It's because of self fulfillment to be a "cool" parent, you got to go all out. Doug and I couldn't make it to the class celebration because of work. However, we have a mini celebration on Sat for him and his cousin Trevor. Stay tuned for more posting this weekend.

Busy July!

Blog updates have been slow lately because I have started to work full time now. Sarah just started preschool
Friday 8/1/2008. Darren and Sarah are in the same class for 1 month because teachers feel the transition will be smoother. Doug and I don't know if that is a good idea considering Sarah bit Darren's back(leaving a scar) on the first of school. I guess she is proving to people that she won't be bullied at school. Now that I work, it is a juggling act to take care of the kids, cook and clean for Doug and me. It's definitely a team effort for the Banh family, hopefully we'll get used to this busy schedule.

We try to plan more family outings on weekends. We went to Go Diego Go show at the Nokia Center on July 19th. Doug's sister in law got box tickets so the kids could pretend to be on an adventure with Diego and Baby Jaguar. Here are some pics from that event:

On August 2nd, we went to Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's "The Greatest Show on Earth" at the Honda Center with our friends (The Calinskys). Darren enjoyed to clowns and bike riders. Sarah liked the elephants. Cotton candy was among their favorites too...Doug unfortunately didn't appreciate the cost $12/bag or the $9/lemonade bottle. I say that is the cost of entertainment nowadays!

4th of July 2008

It's the long weekend for 4th of July so time for parties and fireworks. We went to Aidan's 1st birthday party at Kid's Island first. There was a lot of activities for the kids to do: playing ball, dress up, slide/swing/tunnel, playing pretend.






For July 4th, it is always tradition to go to Doug brother's house for fireworks. His backyard faces Almansor Park so we get to watch beautiful fireworks without dealing with trafffic. We had BBQ short ribs, Vietnamese rolls, sashimi, papaya salad and fruits. Here is the grand finale of the 20 minutes fireworks show:

Summer Activities

The kids went to their first baseball game on Monday 6/30 Anaheim Angels vs. Oakland Athletics. My sister won 4 tickets from the radio station 93.9. The seats were really far from the home plate but we wanted the kids to experience a game. We were rooting for the Angels but they lost with a score of 1 to 6. Here are some pics from the event.





During the summer, a lot of parks hold concerts. The kids can dance or jump while enjoying a picnic outdoors. Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena has Children's Night on Wednesdays. You can check out their performance schedule here at http://www.levittpavilionpasadena.org/ I made sushi for the adults and the kids had Little Caesar's $5 Hot and Ready pizza for July 2nd performance by Joanie Bartels.

Summer is here!

The official start of summer was June 21st this year. It has been HOT! Last weekend was over 100 degrees at San Gabriel. We cooled off by spending time in the apartment complex pool. Yesterday we went to a pool birthday party. The pool was filled with parents and kids. Everyone enjoyed the cooling pool. Today we packed the kids up and went to the Huntington Library. We signed up for membership at Huntington Library because it is really close to our home and the kids can enjoy the beautiful flowers and scenery. It was 90 degrees today so we spent about an hour and half at the Children's Garden, Japanese Garden and the new Chinese Garden.

Maui Vacation 6/3-6/9 2008

This is our 2nd vacation trip to Maui. We went last year also around the first week of June, before the peak summer season begins. We stayed at Kapalua Villa for both trips because we love the open space so the kids can run around, there's the full kitchen so we can cook and washer/dryer. This year we stayed at a 2 bedroom villa. Thank goodness we booked our vacation in late March or else the airfare would have been outrageous. 2 of the airlines that service Hawaii (Aloha and ATA) filed for bankruptcy a few days after we confirmed our trip. This was a long awaited vacation for us. This time we traveled with our friends "The Caos". It was their baby's aerial trip. Even though there was a washer/dryer at the villa, I over packed for the kids and myself. In the end, we packed 2 suitcases of clothes and 1 golf case of clubs. Overall, it was a relaxing trip. We enjoyed ourselves at the pool, beach, got suntanned/burnt, ate a lot of delicious food and took tons of pictures.








What made this trip weird for me was we encountered some cockroaches and a toad, I lost and recovered my house keys, got my cell phone wet, lost and recovered my cell phone. As I previously posted in my blog, my brain has been deteriorating ever since parenthood. Of course that's not an excuse but I am so grateful for those nice people out there...the person who found my keys and turned it into the resort security and the lady who found my cell in the restroom. All I can say is "We'll be back, Maui"