Category Archives: Leo

Happily Ever Mo After!

Alex and Jackie are married!!!!


On October 24, 2021, Alex and I became husband and wife with the most perfect, dreamy, romantic, love filled wedding!  It was nice and intimate at Padua Hills Theatre and the weather was so perfect too, I didn’t even get sweaty one bit!! . Our immediate family and close friends got to celebrate with us and we had so much fun, so many happy tears, so many laughs and just smiles all around!  Our hearts are overflowing with the love we have for each other and we are so grateful and appreciative for everyone who came and showed us their love and support.  Below are our vows that we wrote for each other and wedding photos and videos that we will cherish for the rest of our lives!!  We had such an amazing wedding entourage and an awesome team of vendors as well.  Thank you to everyone involved and we love you all!!  Most of all, I love you so much Alex, my adoring husband.

His Vows:
Jackie
Thank you for loving me and choosing me, even if you don’t love cats. It’s okay, I don’t need one. I need 12. I’m kidding.
All the cats in the world will never compare to you. I love you for your heart, and how it’s made of pure gold. I love when you smile at me. I love how you are always so eager to spend time with me, and that everything you say and do is to set me on a path to happiness and success.
I love your kids. You raised Lily so well, now I have two people to call me out on my mistakes. I love how you fight for Leo, and that we get so elated whenever he learns a new word or phrase. And I love that you’ve accepted Finley as your own and that we’re a family unit of 5.
I vow to love you forever, unconditionally. I vow to hold your hand as we take long walks to the nearest boba shop. I vow to feed you brisket and tell you you’re petty. I vow to text you silly memes for the rest of our lives and to never let the puns stop. It’s like talking about our proposal—it’s so engaging!
Above all, I vow to treasure you every day of our lives, and to support all your hopes and dreams. I want to travel the world together, through the rich history of Europe, and the bustling markets of Southeast Asia. To dive in the clear waters of Bali and sip non-alcoholic cocktails on the beaches of the Caribbean. Or simply stream movies, shows, and YouTube at night in our own little world at home.
I promise to grow older together, watch and care for our kids together as they grow older too. I promise to continue cherishing our friendships and offering kindness to those around us in order to make the world a better place.
Jackie, I love you so much, and I can’t believe we’re here and I get to marry you. Yay!

Her Vows:

My Dearest Alex, hi!
How you doing?!  I want to start by saying I love you!  From day one I knew you were special and our connection was so real and strong that you I knew you were the one to capture my heart and keep it forever.  You’re the sweetest partner a girl could ask for, and you amaze me with your devotion, generosity, and kind heart.  You constantly shower me with your love.  You’re so good at showing me how much I mean to you that I even ignored the fact that you’re a cat lover.  You spoil me so much, I feel so humbled to be loved by you, and have you spend your time and energy thinking about me and how you can make me happy.  That makes me want to try my best to give you all that love and more in return.  I vow to honor you and give you my everlasting devotion, my loyalty and my respect. I promise to dream with you,  celebrate with you, and walk beside you on our boba runs, and whatever life brings.
You inspire me with all your ambitions and career goals.  I can’t promise we will be millionaires or famous YouTubers, but I promise we will grow our love and happiness together, and be rich in our hearts.  I vow to smile through life with you and comfort you during times of joy and times of sorrow. I promise to always pursue you, to fight for you, and love you unconditionally and wholeheartedly for the rest of my life and beyond.  I love starting and ending my days with your happy smile, kisses and hugs.  I love your random hugs, it reminds me to stop and take a moment in our busy life to enjoy the present moment together. I love that we always challenge each other to be better human beings, and I also love beating you in board games.  I vow to put you first and above all, always.  I vow to always take care of you, laugh at your dad jokes, and try my best to not fall asleep when you talk about baseball.
Since the moment you came into my life, it’s been more fulfilling, my smile has been bigger and my heart has been more full.  You are my better half, my best friend and I’m the luckiest person in this world and other galaxies far far away to call you mine.  I’m so excited to spend the rest of my life with you. So today I give you my heart and vow to be the best partner in life and in love. I love you Alex

Our amazing team of vendors:

Venue – @PaduaWeddings
DJ/MC – @EntertainmentExpressDJs
Photography – @PlayfulSoulPhotography
Videography – @MCJ_Impressions
Officiant – Simon Jung
Florals – @PeoniesAndPetals
Makeup – @Kelli.Shawn
Hair – @JayKayBraidsAndBridal
Photobooth – @3ThirtyThreeEvents
Boba Bar – @MainSqueezeCatering
Balloons – @LittleIttyBabes
Cake – Givral Bakery
Desserts – @BeverlysBakery
@MiraposaBride, Designer – @MorileeOfficial
Wedding Shoes – Elisabeth Tang
Tux – @FriarTux
Shoes – @AllenEdmonds
Ao Dai – Thanh Thuy Tailoring
Choreography – @LilyBelleEvents
Wedding Ring – @MasterJewelryShop
Engagement Ring – @KrikawaJewelry
Groom’s Ring – @KieuHanhJewelry

Happy 6th and 9th Birthday Leo & Lily!

Happy 6th and 9th Birthday Leo & Lily!  Leo stretches 3’10” and weighs 44.7lbs! Leo has been developing so much in the past year.  He can eat almost everything now (that he’s not allergic to) except soupy things.  He is good at holding the food himself and taking big bites out of it but now that he’s starting to lose his baby teeth, it’s a little more challenging since he doesn’t know to bite from the side of his mouth.  No worries Leo, mommy will cut up the pieces of food for you!!!  Some of his favorite foods are pizza, cheeseburgers, ham and cheese croissant from Starbucks haha, anything chicken, and chocolates!  He also like chips and tons of different crackers and gold fishes, apple sauce and yogurt!  He likes strawberries, blueberries and blackberries and looooves bananas.  He still drinks pediasure about once to twice a day to keep up with his calorie intake!  He also likes the mango dragonfruit drink at Starbucks and smoothies from my café!!  He also drinks water like a camel haha!  I’m so proud with how much he finally loves food!!

Leo is starting to read and is really good with making sounds of each letter!!!  He will sometimes call the letters by the sound instead of the letter names since that’s how he learned it, which is great for reading skills!  Leo can also count to 20 pretty well, we are just working more on counting objects instead of just counting to 10 or 20 each time haha. He loves reading time and listening to stories!

Leo likes making with dolls and figurines.  He likes to also put them in his mouth due to his sensory needs.  Leo is a huge fan of Spider-Man and all the marvel superheroes like the hulk, iron man, and captain America.  He likes to stand in front of the mirror and pretend to shoot spider webs from his hands or sometimes flex his muscles like the hulk.  It’s super cute!!!  Leo also loves music and dancing and he’s learning more words to songs and loves to sing along to al his favorite tunes even if it’s not completely clear, it’s still super cute!!  

This past year has been so difficult for many reasons, zoom therapy and schooling is not very productive for Leo but I’m so glad to see him still making progress this past year.  I’m super proud of Leo and his physical development is around a 24 month old, but he is just so smart amazing!!!  He is starting to jump more, we are just working on him bending his knees more before jumping but he’s able to jump about 8 inches out!!!  So great!!!  He loves swimming in the pool with his floaty vest!  He isn’t afraid to hold his breathe and go under the water either!  He’s super sweet and very empathetic to others emotions as well.  Leo is going to be done with kindergarten next week and will then be officially a first grader!!  He’s so friendly and social, he loves everyone and has no stranger danger or separation anxiety haha.  I feel like I say this every time but I’m so constantly amaze by all that he’s achieved and overcome!  I love you so much my petite prince Leo!!!  I can’t wait to see what more amazing things you will do and achieve.  Happy Birthday my adorable son, mommy is so proud to have you!!!!

Happy 9th Birthday Lily!!  Lily is 4’2” and weighs 51.4lbs! Lily loves all kinds of noodles, especially garlic noodles.  She likes broccoli and corn and will eat pretty much all kinds of sea food, but for some reason, all other meats are not impressive to her, even the fanciest steak in town, she will not eat it with much enthusiasm haha.  Her favorite restaurants are Olive Garden and Chili’s and anything with crab and noodles haha.  She likes all kinds of snacks as well except she’s not into cakes.  Unique child haha.  She enjoys doing lots of arts and crafts and likes to draw and color.  She’s getting

 

more detailed and creative in her drawings, she like to draw sloths, puppies, animals and her family!  Lily likes crocheting and knitting and has become pretty quick and diligent at it too!   Lily just finished the 3rd grade (year 3 month 9) and her end of the year math and reading scores shows that she’s at a 5th grade level (year 4 month 9)!  Wow Lily, you are so smart!! Even with distance learning, she still managed to keep up with her studies and excel!  I’m so proud of you my Lily pad!

Lily has mastered riding her bike with no training wheels, but also picked up some new outdoor sports as well.  Lily learned how to roller skate, and now roller blading!  She prefers roller blading over roller skating, maybe because I have roller blades too, so we match.  She also picked up longboarding within 5 minutes!  She is so fearless and I admire her bravery and her positive enthusiastic attitude when approaching new things!  I need to get myself a longboard so that she and Alex can teach me haha.  Perhaps I’ll have better luck with that than a skateboard maybe?  She also really enjoys playing tennis still and needs to upgrade to a bigger tennis racquet since she’s getting bigger!  Where did my baby go??  At least I can save her old racquet for Leo now!  Lily also had her 1st communion and received the Holy Eucharist!  I’m so super proud of Lily for completing her 2 years of religious education at St. Denis Catholic Church.  She really embraced all the teachings and I’m so happy her hear her say that she wants to be the best version of herself possible!!!  I cannot be any more proud!

Lily enjoys working on jig saw puzzles, but also word searches and spot the difference type of games!  Lily likes to play board games now too.  Alex and I introduced her to Catan Jr and Dominion and she totally caught on right away and had so much fun!  Yay to another board gaming buddy!!  Lily also likes sloths to the point where it’s an obsession like her momma, and enjoys drinking boba, especially with taro or ube milk tea!  Lily likes to play with slime still…it’s a love hate relationship with me and slime… Lily also enjoys playing with Legos and putting together fun Lego sets.  She enjoys building things and doing science experiments and projects as well.  She’s an amazing little helper and would love helping me do things from helping me cook, bake, and even folding the laundry and vacuuming.  Lily is so sweet and kind, she has a generous heart and is so mature and wise for her age.  She’s growing up so fast, but I’m still so grateful she enjoys giving and receiving hugs and kisses!!!  I will cherish all our snuggles on the couch together and all the enthusiastic “Mommy!” from her every time I pick her up from school.  I love watching you grow into your own independent, confident, healthy little person and I can’t wait to see more amazing things you’ll do!!  I love you so so so much my sweet Lily pad.  Happy 9th birthday, you make mommy so proud, I love you 3000 times infinity!!!

Here’s their annual birthday videos, enjoy!!

Holidays Fall 2020 to Early 2021

This past year of holidays has been very interesting. Due to the worldwide pandemic, we kept to ourselves and had a nice intimate celebration for each holiday. Life has been crazy but here are some photos of from the last few holidays from fall of 2020 to early 2021!

Happy 5th & 8th Birthday Leo & Lily!

Happy milestone 5th birthday to my little prince Leo and happy golden 8th birthday to my princess Lily!!  Lily measures about 48 inches tall and weighs about 42 pounds.  Leo stretches about 44 inches and weighs in at 37 pounds.  This year we had to experience the unfortunately worldwide pandemic of covid-19 and so the kids this year celebrated their birthday at home through zoom.  I made a balloon garland and blew up a ton of golden and different blue color balloons to decorate the house as well and made them each a display cake that had all their current favorite things on it.  I also made a read strawberry cake for Lily with whipped cream cheese frosting on it and got Leo a cheesecake since he cannot have eggs.  The morning of their birthdays, I surprised them with a bunch of blue balloons all over the floor of their bedrooms, so that was very fun to watch them wake up to that!  I had a bunch of candied bacon for their dessert as well and ordered Olive Garden (Lily’s favorite) delivered for lunch and invited friends to wish the kids a happy birthday!  It wasn’t as extravagant as I planned for earlier this year but it was still perfect because the kids had so much fun and felt all the love from everyone, and that’s all that matters.

Lily learned how to ride her bike this past year and nailed it really quickly, within 30 minutes! I’m so proud of her dedication and willingness to learn, even if it may seem scary at first.  She also learned how to swim, and can even do the forward stroke decently.  She can float and play in the pool all on her own with no floaties, what a big girl now!  Lily really likes to cook and bake still, she’s my little sous chef!  She also likes to practice origami and her favorite thing to fold right now are boxes, cubes boxes where you blow into it and it puffs up into a box! She is a very social person and so staying quarantined these last few months have been quite challenging, as I’m sure is the case for everyone else right now.  She does facetime with her classmates and so that helps a bit.  She likes to go and ride her bike outside or go swimming or play on the splash pad to cool off and burn off some energy.  Her favorite shows are The Last Airbender and The Legend of Kora.  He favorite movie was Sonic the hedgehog and she loves playing Arms and Animal Crossing on the Nintendo switch.  She also really likes playing with slime and watching a bunch of YouTube videos, especially of Collin Keys and he craziness haha.  Lily also likes reading a variety of books, and reading to Leo as well.  What a great sister Lily!  Lily also donated her give jar to her 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Barnes because she said she loves Mrs. Barnes and she had so much fun in her class and wants to donate her money so Mrs. Barnes can get more things to help teach more kids.  Lily, you have such a sweet and amazing heart, you impress me everyday with your kindness and generosity, I love you so much!!

Leo loves Chuck E Cheese right now and I would say it’s pretty accurate to say that Chuck E Cheese is his best friend haha.  I got him a Chuck E Cheese doll for his birthday and he brings him everywhere he goes.  It’s so cute to him so attached to him, and he’ll even pretend to give Chuck E Cheese his milk, and share his snacks with him as well.  He also likes watching Peppa Pig, GooGoo GaGa on YouTube, Pixar’s Bao, Float, Birds and Moana.  He likes to sing a lot more now and will try to sing along to random songs on the radio, but he favorite is the Happy Birthday song.  He can sing almost the entire song pretty well!!  Leo loves dancing to music, or even when there’s no music, and he loves to follow along to the Chuck E Cheese Cha Cha dance video.  He memorizes all the words and moves and will shout along periodically the words!  I love to watch his excitement when he plays the dance video, he has to stop what he’s doing and dance along!  It’s super cute!  Leo is also increasingly more affectionate and loving as well, it just truly melts my heart.  He’ll come over and randomly gives me hugs and kisses.  Sometimes he’ll ask me to give him a piggy back ride going down the stairs as well.  He needs to remember to not let go sometimes but he knows to hold on for the most part!  Leo really likes to climb, run around, play with swords, and baby dolls.  His vocabulary is increasing and he’s able to put 5 words together in a sentence recently too!  He blows my mind with how smart he is and how much he’s learning and able to achieve.  He’s also able to eat pretty much everything now too, except for soupy things, he’s still working on that.  He can eat rice dishes, noodle dishes, all kinds of seafood, chicken, tacos, any kind of sandwiches, he is such a great eater now!  He also still loves fruits, strawberries, blackberries, grapes, cherries, apples, oranges, pears, everything!  I am constantly so proud of him!  The zoom sessions for therapy and school has been challenging but I’m so glad he continues to make movement in his accomplishments.  You’re so incredibly amazing my petite prince Leo, I love you oh so much, and you light up my life!Happy special milestone birthdays Lily and Leo!!  I hope you both had an amazing birthday this year.  This year has definitely been a challenging and different experience for birthdays, and any kind of social celebrations, but I’m glad that it doesn’t take much to make your guys happy.  I’m glad that you both appreciate the little things that just feeling my love for you is enough, and that I can make you happy with what I have.  You guys are my everything and I’m definitely going to take you guys on a big vacation next year when things are safe.  Can’t wait for more adventures with you Lily and Leo, I love you both so much!!  Your hearts, smile, laughter, hugs and kisses makes me the luckiest and happiest mom in the world.  Happy golden 8th birthday Lily!!!!!!!  Happy milestone 5th birthday Leo!!!!!

Here are Leo and Lily’s birthday videos, Lily riding her bike with no training wheels, and Leo’s video of his 5 word sentence!  ENJOY!




Fall 2019

Here are some photos from the fall and winter of 2019 to early 2020. Lily wanted to be a witch for Halloween so I modified a simply black dress and turned it into a witch dress for her.  I got a black onesie for Leo and turned it into a matching dragon costume.  He was quite comfortable in his costume and loved it and didn’t want to take it off!  Lily would wear her costume even when it wasn’t Halloween as well!


I always feel so blessed during the holidays because I have such amazing kids to celebrate it with.  Life can be very challenging and stressful at times, but when I see these two laughing and smiling, it just brings so much joy into my heart.  I’m so thankful, grateful, and appreciative of what I have, and feel so lucky to have such an amazing group of friends and family that support me so much through all the highs and lows that life has thrown at me.  Lily and Leo are truly the best gifts I’ve ever received in life and because of them, I will never be alone, and will always have a full heart.
Lily didn’t like any of the ao dais at phuoc loc tho this year, so I took her to Joanns and had her pick out fabric and I made her an ao dai!  It was my first time making it so I feel pretty proud of myself that it came out pretty decent and that Lily loved it so much!  I bought Leo a white one to match Lily since I didn’t have the energy and motivation to make his…I felt like Lily’s was enough work for me haha.  I’m so happy it fit her so well, and the fact that she said it was comfortable is a huge plus since she wore it multiply times, to school, and at home and out and about!  She got so many compliments and people at school even asked her where she got it and her classmate asked if I can make her one as well!  So cute!

Leo had gone through such big developments in the last few months.  He started eating solids incredibly well to the point where he’ll be willing to try new things and actually ask himself to try the foods.  He really likes chicken and soft bean and cheese burritos at school.  He can also eat simple ham and cheese sandwiches as well, and eventually worked his way up to eating almost an entire In N Out cheeseburger! He also learned how to jump and so he likes to show off his jumping skills and jumps everywhere now.  He just jumps up and down, about 1 inch off the ground but that’s a huge achievement for him and it’s so cute when he does it!  I’m so proud of my rainbow little prince!  You have come so far and it’s such an exciting journey to look back and see all the amazing things you’ve accomplished.  Here’s to many many many conquers my petite prince, mommy loves to so much!! Lily is growing up to be such a mature little lady!  She loves helping out at school and helping her teacher Mrs. Barnes whenever she can.  When I come into the classroom to volunteer every week, she always gives me the biggest hug and her classmates start running to me to give me hugs as well!  She loves drawing and coloring and she likes to have crafting time with her momma on the weekends!  She’s constantly telling me how much she loves me and how I’m the best.  I don’t want to brag but…how can I not?  I feel so loved and spoiled by her, I’m so lucky!  Lily’s favorite subject in school is math and she is doing so well in all the other subjects at school too.  She’s improving so much in her writing and story telling that it’s quite amusing to see what stories she comes up with.  It’s a great glimpse into what’s going on in that cute little head of hers!  She is such a great big sister to Leo as well, she’s constantly bragging about what new things Leo can do, it just melts my heart to see the pride she has in her little brother.  I love you so so so so so so so much Lily, you’re such an amazing little girl, you’re the best daughter a momma can ask for and more!!!

Happy 4th Birthday Leo!

Happy 4th birthday to my petite prince Leo! Leo weighs in at 33lbs (24 percentile) and stretches 41.5 inches tall (77 percentile)!  What a tall boy!  At his annual check, he had to take 3 shots, and that last one was a live virus so you can tell it hurt the most, poor baby!  He will have to come back in November for this chicken pox shot and the flu shot as well.  I know he won’t like it (who would?) but it’s for his own good and he stopped crying within a couple minutes and was happy again! He was being friendly to everyone at the doctor’s office so it’s nice to know he doesn’t hold a grudge haha.  Leo is still not eating much solid foods, mostly just mashed up foods that I made him and recently he’ll eat more soft crackers like ritz, cocunut butter crackers, and gnaw on eggless cookies till it’s soft enough for him to eat.  He really likes bananas and yogurt and fruits as well as long as it’s massed up.  He has a major sweet tooth so he loves lollipops and candy!  He also really like cold water and and slowly learning how to drink from a cup too!  He understands the motions, he just needs to have more control so that water doesn’t spill all over the place.  I do have these special cups that have an insert in them that slows down the water flow, so that helps minimize spillage too, you can check it out HERE.  He’s so smart and observant, and imitates a lot now.  It’s so fun to see what new things he picks up each day!
Leo really likes music and loves to wave his arms in the air, that’s his signature dance move, it’s toooo cute!  He likes interactive toys that would light up or play music as well.  He’s recently taking a liking to the ipad and phone to watch youtube kids and play on the app ABC Animals!  He’s very into alphabets songs and games, probably because that’s what he’s learning in school.  His teacher said maybe he’ll be a teacher one day because he likes to stand up in front of the class and point to the calendar and numbers and pictures and babble like he’s teaching the class, imitating the teacher!  That’s so adorable!!  Leo also likes watching birthday videos of people singing happy birthday to little kids and watching them blow out the candles and then clapping in celebration with them!  I though maybe he’ll be super excited when we sing happy birthday to him for his birthday but he just got shy instead, but he still clapped at the end haha.

Back in April we had the annual Starfish 5k Dash for Chromosome 18 Society and Organization and Leo and Team Leo raised the most amount for solo and team entry!!  They sent us two trophies and I’m just so happy and grateful for all the supporters of Leo and helping me with bringing more awareness and resources for this cause.  We had some difficulty dealing with some discrimination at Leo’s day care, but the lesson is to always speak up and stand up for what’s right.  We managed to get in touch with the higher up people and talk to the right people to set things straight.  We mostly we able to educate the staff members about Leo and his chromosome disorder and I feel like learning and bringing more awareness makes all the difference.  For those directors and supervisors and managers, I am grateful for them and all their help for making Leo’s day care environment more inviting and inclusive of him.  Little changes can make the biggest difference!

Leo is starting to work on bending his knees more to learn how to jump. He’s starting to when he dances and plays.  He knows how to say “done” very clearly now and he’ll try to say “thank you” but it’s not quite as clear but I understand what he’s trying to say.  He definitely picks up signs much quicker and easier than verbal words but it’s all part of learning communication so I will continue to sign and speak to him verbally.  He also upgraded to a big boy’s twin size bed a couple months ago and he loves it!!  The big mattress is so much more comfortable than the crib mattress and he has more space to stretch his long legs and I feel like he sleeps even longer too, which is impressive since he already sleeps a lot!  He looks up to Lily a lot so I think he’s happy that he has a big bed just like Lily now too.  Leo is also using the booster car seat like Lily now too!  What a big boy!  He loves playing with cars and it’ll be cute to see him zoom across the room on the floor pushing his little cars and trucks around!  Leo is very curious about the world and his surroundings, he likes to observe everything and take it all in.  He’s also very sensitive and sweet and when someone’s not feeling well, he’s very curious and tries to go over to them and wait it out and then try to give them a consoling hug.  He’s super sweet and caring and I just love seeing him grow into such a kind soul.  His laugh just melts my heart too and he is such a happy go lucky kid.  I’m so grateful!

Enjoy Leo’s birthday video below!  I just can’t stop smiling thinking about my little Leo!  What a wonderful year it’s been watching my petite prince Leo grow and develop!! He’s such a big ray of sunshine and happiness, it just melts my heart. I’m so lucky to be his mommy!! Happy 4th birthday my littlest love!!!

Reasons to Celebrate

It’s been awhile since the last update, so there’s a lot to share about the kiddoes!  Leo is 31.4 lbs and stretches 38inches tall!  Lily weighs in at 39lbs and stretches 46inches tall!  Leo got glasses and looks so cute and handsome in them.  It was quite an easy process to get him to wear his glasses.  When he was getting them fitted, he stood still and let the optician put it on him and adjust them and he didn’t even try to take it off.  Later when he did start wearing them, he would only take it off once in awhile, but I would just say “glasses on!” and he would stand there and let me put it on and then go about playing.  I’m so lucky he’s so easy going!  I’m sure it must be nice to see better too but the professionals say that kids don’t really care or notice much haha.  Lily started first grade in the fall and is in Mrs. Penticoff’s class.  She also lost her first two teeth, with a week of each other and was super excited to give her teeth to the tooth fairy and receive her special surprise the next morning!  She did ask if I was the tooth fairy since I made her some acrylic necklaces and she saw some of the glitter and materials on my desk and said that looks like what the tooth fairy would use to make her necklace…what an observant smart girl…haha.  She lost another tooth last month and has a loose tooth right now.  All of these teeth are on the bottom room of teeth haha.

In September we took a mini weekend trip to Seattle for Kelsey’s wedding, but we took the kids and they got to enjoy a plane ride again and loved it!  Lily loved packing up her M&M suitcase with snacks and stuff animals and Leo was so chill and slept on the plane ride and enjoyed the sites!  The kids had a blast at the hotel and they even got to have a playdate with Kristin, Hisami, and Kristin’s cousins and their kids!  Lily and the two other kids, Nathan and Kylie, got to play at a the park and then on a little magic show for us back at their house!  We visited the space needle, went to Pike’s Place and visited the market and the first Starbucks.  We also had a layover in Vegas on the way back home and I got to grab a quick drink with Alvina at the airport as well!  It was a very quick trip but also fun and Lily is eager to go on another trip, especially one where you get to ride on an airplane!

At the end of October, my handsome boy started preschool at Sumner Danbury Elementary school!!! I felt confidant that these last several months of assessments, planning and meetings have definitely paid off to set Leo up in an environment that will cater to his needs and strive for success! He is such a strong amazing boy and he ability to adapt and learn never cease to amaze me! He is beyond special; he is my Leo!  Leo gets to take a bus to school and then a bus to his daycare at Walnut Valley Preschool afterwards and he adjusted really well to going to school!  He started to cry when I took him to the bus on the third day, but by the end of the following week, he walked onto the bus himself and was all smiles again!  He enjoys the bus ride and the staff and teachers at Danbury are so wonderful and friendly and I just feel so appreciate for that program.  Leo gets physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, adaptive PE, and sometimes swimming lessons when the weather permits, right on the school campus!  They have all the therapy clinics there so it’s super convenient.  They help him explore eating (trying to eat) different foods, it mostly ends up on his close but he’s starts to lick different textures of foods so that is progress!  He is signing a lot more and he’s met a lot of his therapy goals and they have to adjust and give him new ones at the 30 day progress meeting I had with his team at Danbury.  Right now some of the physical goals Leo is working on is walking up and down the stairs, catching a ball, fine motor skills, and exploring foods.  All his teachers say he is so happy and such a joy to have in class, and that just makes me so proud and happy that he is happy at school.  I’m super grateful and appreciative of this opportunity for Leo.

Leo had a small surgery in November.  He had to be put under anesthesia so that a camera can go in through his nose to see if there’s any obstruction or anything with the blood vessels in his nose that may be causing his frequent nose bleeds and he also had to get all the wax cleaned out of his ears that may be causing his failed hearing tests.  The nurse gave Leo some medication to help relax him and calm him down, but instead Leo totally got hyper and kept laughing.  It was so funny and cute, it seemed like he was high on life and was just being so silly!  I’m glad that he was so happy though so that the experience wouldn’t be too bad while I was waiting for his procedure to be over.  Turns out there wasn’t anything wrong inside his nose and Dr. Ahuja said that it’s probably just from Leo rubbing his nose too much/hard but they did cauterized the left side of his nose to help it from bleeding so often.  It’s not a permanent fix, just a temporary one though.  They also cleaned out a whole bunch of wax in his ears and they had to drill through one of his ear drums because the canal was too small for them to get through.  There was a lot of wax jammed pack in there.  Leo later took a hearing test and it came out normal!!!  What great news!! Leo didn’t wake up from the anesthesia very well and the doctor said that usually kids have a tough time waking up smoothly after head surgeries, so Leo was really uncomfortable and out it and cried a lot.  That was the most crying I’ve ever seen him do and it wasn’t until his two hour nap when we got home that he was back to his happy usual self!  I’m so thankful that his operation went well and that he is healthy and happy!

In November Lily got awarded Student of the Month and was honored for the character trait of kindness! Lily had her first piano recital back in August and then her second one in January.  Here is a video of her 2nd recital on January 15, 2019 below!  She did great and got nervous during her second song and forgot how the song started and started to panic and cried a little bit and said she forgot, but I went up there and told her it’s ok and to just start with the right hand by itself and her teacher encouraged her as well and reminded her the beginning notes.  Lily then remembered the song and played it well but you can see the tears and disappointment on her poor little face.  She gave me a huge long hug afterwards and was happy for the rest of the recital.  I’m very proud of her for not giving up and for trying her best.  She still had fun in the end and that’s all that matters!  I’m so proud of you my Lily pad!!

For Halloween the kids dressed up as Cinderella and the Petite Prince!  This year I made is easier on myself and bought Lily’s costume online on the amazing Amazon haha, but I couldn’t find anything that I liked for Leo’s costume so I made his costume myself.  Lily also was super excited to wear my tiara as well and she had fun spinning around in her dress.  Leo seems quite comfortable in his costume too and I bought the fox from Amazon and the red rose from Michaels.  I took the kids to Brea mall this year for trick or treating since it’s a change in scenery and I figured it’ll be much safer too.  Leo had a blast this year, even though he doesn’t quite understand the concept of trick or treating yet, but he loved sitting in the stroller and just gnawing on all the candy with the wrappers on…haha.  He was in heaven, it was so cute!

Lily enjoyed trick or treating as usually and we were going to donate most of their candy to CHOC, but they don’t accept candy anymore so we donated a bunch to US Veterans and their families!  I used a website pickupplease.org and they donate all donations to the vets and their families, and the convenient part is they come and pick up bags of donations from your house! I’m glad that Lily is always so willing and enthusiastic about giving what she has to help others!  Great job my Lilypad!  Lily got to wear her costume to school for her school parade and Leo got to sit in a wagon and go trick or treating at Danbury as well!  His class was the only class that got to go to the school office for trick or treating, how special is that?  They played halloween kid friendly music and all the faculty members dressed up and passed out candy to him and his classmates as their wagons came by.  How fun!  I’m so grateful again for Leo to be taken so cared of at this school!!

The holidays just zoomed by this past year.  The kids enjoyed eating lots of good food, well Lily did, Leo is still learning to explore new foods.  They got to see all the bright fun Christmas lights at the Mission Inn in Riverside and the Chinese Lantern lights at the LA Fairplex.  Lily loved the hot chocolate in Riverside, probably because it was also freezing outside, but she had a blast either way.  Lily also hose to donate all the contents in her “give jar” to her first grade teacher Mrs. Penticoff!  It was very sweet of her to choose her teacher because she looks up to her and is grateful to have a teacher that loves and cares so much about her students and makes learning fun and exciting!  I’m so proud of you Lily, you are growing up more and more amazing each day!  I know I say it all the time but I really and proud and feel so lucky to be your mommy!!  Also, this year for Tết, Lily practiced a lot on how to say chúc mừng năm mới and her inflections are quite spot on!  She loves going to Phước Lộc Thọ (the Asian Garden Mall) and eating all the Vietnamese food and checking out the flowers at the flower festival and picking out her áo dài!  This year she’s very into the color blue!  She got to wear it to school as well as the family gathering and also wanted to sleep in it because she said it’s so comfortable haha!  Happy year of the pig everyone, oink oink!!

 

Some last updates are that Leo has to wear an eye patch for 2 hours a day.  His left eye tends to dominate his right eye and so he doesn’t “look” out of his right eye much, so patching up his left eye will force him to use his right eye and strengthen it.  Leo is pretty good at leaving the eye patch on and now messing with it.  It was kind of cute when he first started wearing it because his depth perception would be off and his balance would get thrown off and he would bump into things a lot, but he just got right back up and kept on moving.  He’s so resilient and strong and amazing, he can adapt to anything!  Eventually his eye got stronger and you don’t see him wobble as much anymore!  Hopefully at his follow up with the Ophthalmologist in March, he won’t need the patches anymore.  Lily is currently doing Robotics Jr., piano, Fun with Science, and tennis after school.  She loves it all and I’m glad she gets the opportunity to do all (except piano) those programs at her school!  She also got awarded with a certificate of Kindness award for completing the Kindness Challenge at her after school Fun Club, where they had a month long challenge to complete various kindness activities!  She said that only 5 other students in her class got the certificate, great job Lily!!

I’m so happy with how much the kids are growing and learning and developing each day.  Leo currently likes to close doors, knock on doors and walls, look and point and photos, dance with his arms waving up and down, lots of sweets like lollipops and chocolate pudding, and recently likes YouTube kids.  He watched and learned how to navigate through the app from Lily and can even skip the ads sometimes too!  I think he really likes the interactive aspect of it, but he also likes to watch the nursery songs and alphabet singing videos!  He also now sleeps in a transitioned toddler bed and the transition was so smooth it was so unbelievable haha.  He knows routines very well and I think he is striving so well with structure, something that I think his school at Danbury helped him learn.  Lily loves watching movies and YouTube shows as well.  She likes to watch kids making arts and crafts and family YouTube channels that have babies and kids who go out and do fun games and activities.  Lily currently likes to watch Hotel Transylvania 3, the Chihuahua movies on Netflix, and other random movies, mix of live action and animation.  Both kids love going to the movies as well and Leo’s able to stay focus and engaged during the entire movie as well and even dances at some musical numbers in Mary Poppins Returns!  Lily really likes to draw and has a very eccentric fashion style haha.  Both kids are quite silly and happy little kids, and I count my blessing every day and am so grateful and humble to be their mommy!!  I love you my Lily pad and petite prince Leo!! Enjoy these videos of the kiddoes!

Happy Birthday Leo & Lily!


Happy sweet 3rd birthday to my handsome petite prince Leo and 6th birthday to my beautiful princess Lily!!  Lily weighs in at 37lbs (8 percentile) and stretches 44 inches tall (32 percentile) while Leo weighs 29lbs (21 percentile woohoo!) and stretches 37 inches tall (41 percentile).  Leo is getting smart and clever and sweeter each day!  He is now developing empathy and when he sees someone like Lily get hurt, he goes over and tries to give her a hug or looks at her face and tries to see if she’s ok.  If he gets in trouble, he’ll know he did something wrong and start to pout and then go to try to give you a hug as if he’s trying to say sorry!  He’s so silly and I just discovered he has a favorite hiding spot for some of his favorite toys.  There has been some toys missing when I would clean up and put all the toys back in their designated spots, but I’ll look all over the floors and under the couch even and can’t seem to find some toys.  Then one day I saw Leo put his tiny hand down the corner of the couch between the pillow and couch and pull out a toy!  A HA!  I found his secret hiding spot!  I went to check and what do you know, all the missing toys were there!  Haha, silly Leo!  He likes to clean up and now and after his naps and sleep, he would pick up whatever stuff animals that he would toss over the crib, and throw it back into his crib!  He also like to throw random toys into the kitchen sink too.  I think he just sees me and Lily putting dishes away and so he wants to participate too, so cute!!  Leo also will understand the word “hug” and likes to hug his arms and hug toys, hug anything really, and he likes to give hugs as well.

He can now sign “sleep” really well and when I tell him it’s nap time or goodnight, he will sign sleep very gently over his face, it’s so cute!!  He really likes to explore now that he is more comfortable walking all over the place!  He is very curious and likes to take in the environment and see how things work.  Leo had a series of assessments done with the public school district for his transition from the Early Start Intervention Program with the Regional Center to the public school system.  They say he’s around a 10 month to 1 year old in terms of development and that he will qualify for special needs education, and they recommended the school in Claremont called Sumner Danbury Elementary School where they have a built in therapy facility there that Leo would benefit greatly from!  They even have a pool that he can do therapy in as well!  The school sounds amazing for him!  Leo is starting to eat a tiny bit of thicker foods.  I made him a mashed avocado banana yogurt recipe and he ate it and didn’t mind the chunks in it!  Fingers crossed, I hope he will start moving on to more solid foods soon!  He really like sweets and lollipops and candy, I wonder where he got his sweet tooth from?  Haha!  But he also likes to lick lemon slices…  He likes to see what you’re eating now too so I think this new curiosity with food is a huge development!  I love his growing mind and sweet loving spirit!  I’m so proud of Leo, and cannot be more happy with his progress and development.  He is amazing in every way, and will always be perfect in my eyes!  Happiest 3rd birthday my handsome petite prince, I love you so so so so so so much!!



The kids are growing up so quickly, I just want to bottle up their youth and innocence forever!  Currently Lily is into the shows Spirited, Dr. Seuss, the Magic School Bus, and Vamporina!  She really likes playing with dolls and pretending to be a shop owner and selling you groceries or ice cream or anything really.  She likes going fishing and catching the fish with the giant net that’s bigger than her and putting the bate on her hook and casting it into the water as well. Lily also likes to read books and is doing pretty good at writing out sentences and sounding out words and spelling it like how it sounds.  Spelling isn’t always correct but it’s a super great start for learning to write right now!  She comes up with silly and funny sentences too, like “It is raining outside but I wanted to play.  I guess I will wait.”  Haha!  Lily’s been saving up money in three different jars (Give, Save and Spend) for the past couple months and on her birthday, I said she can use the money in her Give jar to someone or something to help make the world a better place.  She wanted to give her money to teachers, specifically her kindergarten teacher Ms. Edwards because she feels you make the world a better place!! How sweet is that?! So told her that I’ll matched how much she saved (and rounded up haha).  I attached a video message from Lily as well!  This was the wonderful response from Lily’s teacher:

“This email made me cry many happy tears! Happy birthday sweet Lily and thank you so much for your kind-hearted gift on your birthday. It means so much to watch that video and hear your kind words. It is students like Lily that make me love coming to school everyday and I look forward to seeing all the wonderful things that Lily is going to accomplish! She has such a kind heart and I am so honored to have been her teacher at QS and be the person she chose to present her Give jar to… Thank you, again, my heart is so full from Lily’s thoughtfulness.”

I’m so proud of Lily and it melts my heart to see her touch others’ hearts like she’s touched mine.  Lily felt so happy when I read her the email, and her smile just lit up the entire room.  You can feel the fullness of her heart, and I hope she continues to feel that throughout her life, and keep making a difference in this world!

Lily is also very into arts and crafts and has a very imaginative mind!  She likes to draw and color and make things with cutting paper and gluing things together.  She likes to make Leo laugh as well and feels very proud of Leo every time he makes a new sound or does something new!  She’s such a proud big sister and that warms my heart as well.  Lily also graduated from Kindergarten and she also got chosen as one of the readers of the classroom too!!  Great job Lily!!  Lily really enjoys summer school fun club at Maple Hill and she gets to do so many fun things during the week!  I can’t believe my baby girl is going to be a grade schooler now, time sure flies by!  Lily’s piano teacher said that Lily is really mature and is keeping up with the lessons and doing really great in class!  I see a lot of a growth and improvement in just her hand positions and fingers as well.  It’s impressive at how fast they pick things up at their age.  Lily also loves gymnastics and her favorite thing to practice are her handstands.  She’s improving a lot in that as well and is becoming more bold and daring and really willing to throw herself into the activities and give it her all!  She was very excited but also reserved at first, now she jumps onto the balance beam, doesn’t even look scared of the heights, and she even climbs the rope about halfway up the wall too!  Way ta go Lily pad!!!  Her bright generous sweet caring nature makes me so happy!  Happy 6th birthday my Lily pad, I love you so so so so so so much as well!!!



Check out these kiddies’ birthday videos!

Spring Update

Leo weighs in at 26.89lbs and stretches 38inches tall! Leo is getting better at eating with a spoon and is licking the puree off the spoon less, although the urge to do so is quite strong in him still haha. He is still very picky on what purees he will eat. He won’t be picky when it’s in the bottle but just by looking at the color and smelling the food, he will push the food aside and fight you if it’s not his typical plain applesauce. He is walking so much better, and he can finally get up to standing all by himself without having to hold onto something! He can also climb down the stairs very proficiently now as well! Soon he’ll be running and jumping all over the place! I already have the bandaids ice packs ready haha. Leo is starting to understand signing more and is better at signing “thank you” and “all done” as well. Sometimes I’ll blow him a kiss and he will do it back to me! I have been taking ASL classes to in hopes of furthering along Leo’s communication abilities with signing. I printed out cheat sheets and taped them on the walls to encourage and motivate Lily to learn with me and so we all can sign together as a family! I’ll often see Leo looking at his fingers and he will try to move them and make different shapes with his fingers and wave them around as if trying to communicate with me, so I really feel like signing will be his primary language as he’s trying to learn to speak verbally. He still hasn’t said any words with purpose or intention yet, although he likes to say “ball” a lot but he says that for everything so I doesn’t really count haha.

Overall, Leo remains happy and sweet as always!  He loves giving hugs and he’s finally not needing a bib anymore from all the drooling in the past!  He is getting so tall that his pants needs to be size 3T, but his waist is so small his pants sometimes slips down haha.  Leo still likes to put all his toys and Lily’s toys in his mouth, and he’s still so amazed with zipper tags and likes to just flick them back and forth.  He would lay on the couch and just play with that all day long!  He loves being thrown in the air, he’s a dare devil.  He likes swings and slides as well.  He still doesn’t like when things/places get really loud.  He is still an amazing sleeper and has such a calm and sweet demeanor about him.  Since he’s walking now, he can enjoy so many more things when we go out!  I took the kids to the Museum of Illusions, Candytopia, and game places like Neofun and Round One and he loves exploring and checking everything out!  He is always a super cute bright ball of joy!!

Lily is getting smarter and sweeter each day, she’s growing up way too fast!  Lily weighs 35lbs and is 44inches tall!  She has a very big appetite and loves to eat veggies (spinach, cabbage, carrots, and broccoli) and tofu, and a bunch of crackers and snacks, yet she burns off all the calories in a flash!  She has a very happy spirit about her and is so intuitive and thoughtful, I cannot be more proud of my baby girl. She is also now super good at showering by herself.  She’s also able to make her own bed every morning and is starting to learn to vacuum the house as well!  She’s been taking piano lessons for the last month.  She’s definitely trying really hard, some of the concepts aren’t as naturally easy for her to grasp, but she’s trying and with some extra practice at home, she’s getting more and more confident with it.  I’m very proud of her for not once wanting to give up, and her determination to keep focusing and trying.  She also loves her gymnastics lessons which she has twice a week.  She has so much fun and has been selected gymnast of the day 3 times now!  She gets a nice little ribbon and gets to ring the bell at the end of class to announce her achievement to the whole gym!  She’s almost ready to move on up to the next level once she gets more comfortable with doing hand stands and cartwheels! She also had her first jog-a-thon at school and did 26 laps!!  She had so much fun jogging around and was cheering on her friends to come and go go go!  She also forgot to get her lap marked off a couple times too haha.  She knew that the more laps she did, the more money she would raise for her school for better supplies and opportunities.  So she knew she was jogging for a cause and she tried her very best not just to have fun, but to help as well.  I’m so proud of her and her great big ball of athletic energy!

Lily is learning to read really well and can read a lot of books all by herself now!  She’s really good at sounding out the letters and putting the sounds together to form the word.  Her favorite subject in school is still math, but I’m glad that even though writing and reading isn’t her strongest, she’s still enthusiastic about it.  She really like Dr. Seuss, Elephant and Piggie, and Pete the Cat books!  Her favorite shows to watch is currently Sofia the First and Pokemon!  She likes to play with slime, dolls, and do lots of arts and crafts.  Lily loves to help me cook and her teachers and aftercare teachers tells me she’s always such a great helper at school as well!  Lily really likes the movie The Greatest Showman right now, and loves most of the songs from the movie.  She has a mature taste in theater, it’s nice to be able to share common interests with her like this.  Lily still has her happy go lucky spirit and is such a kind and sweet little girl.  I love it when she would just randomly come up to me and give me a big hug and kiss and tell me she loves me, she melts my heart!  She’s always thinking about others and I makes me really proud that she’s such a loving positive force in this world.  

Enjoy of of these videos of the kiddoes!!





Gratitude

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Gratitude, it’s not happiness that brings us gratitude, it’s gratitude that brings us happiness – Unknown.

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated this blog so this will be a very long one…so brace yourselves haha.  For Halloween I made Lily a Wonder Woman dress along with the leggings, arm bracelets, and a shield!  Lily likes wearing her dress to school and going out and just for any ordinary day and it makes me happy that she loves it so much!  She tells her teachers and that I made her dress for her and she just has such a big smile on her face too, it makes me feel happy that she’s so proud of my work for her.  I made a cape for Leo to be Captain Underpants but it was way too cold for that costume, so He was a last minute Batman Pumpkinpants haha.  Lily loved her costume and I bought her some Wonder Woman books before hand and so she loves the story of the amazing amazonian princess and brought the book while wearing her costume for her literary parade at school!  Lily also had her first field trip at Quail Summit to the Santa Ana Zoo.  She loved seeing all the animals and she said her favorite were the butterflies and monkeys.  Lily really likes going to school, morning care and after care (aka Fun Club) and she’ll complain sometimes that I pick her up too early (5pm isn’t really that early…).  I’m glad she gets so stimulated at school and is making friends with kids of all ages!  Every time I come to pick her up, all the big kids know her name and always run to give her a hug before we leave.  That’s so sweet and heart warming!

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I had the honor of having our family photos taken by the super amazingly talented, and kind soul, Lisa Holloway.  Here are some of the many favorites from that session.  I will cherish these memories and I am so grateful to have these beautiful kids to call mine.

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Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. – William Arthur Ward

Lily really enjoys all her extracurricular activities after school.  She has Jazz Dance, Baton Twirlin & Pom Pom, and Tennis.  Her absolute favorite is tennis and she always ask if she can do it everyday!  At least she gets to do it twice a week whereas all the other classes are just once a week.  I’m more burnt out taking Lily to all those classes than Lily is haha!  I’m very impressed with Lily on how quickly she learns and picks up choreography as well.  She only attending 3 classes to learn her choreography for her Jazz Dance Recital, her normal weekly classes are just for learning techniques of dance.  From just those 3 classes alone and lots of practice, she was able to dance through the whole routine for the recital and wasn’t even one bit stage fright or nervous!!  She’s so great and better than I’ll ever be!! =)  She also remembered her entire routine for her baton twirling parade and did so amazing well too!  I’m so proud of her and all of her accomplishments!  Leo is getting better at eating purees but he will still have days where he just doesn’t want to eat.  He expresses lots of interest in music.  He really likes the piano and likes playing with my keyboard and banging on drums.  He has a special technique where he uses his mouth to play the keys at the same time as his cute little fingers too.  The look of focus and concentration on his face when he plays the keys are just too cute and priceless.  Every time I try to play on the piano, he usually comes zooming over and pushes me aside and takes over haha.  He is signing more and more each day.  He’s really good at clapping his hands for “good job”, he knows “open” and “close” really well, and understands “more” and “head/hat” as well.  He’s getting better at waving bye more consistently too.  He is a super fast crawler, and he loves to climb all over the place now.  He likes to climb and sit on top of the kid’s table, on top of the couch, on top of anything he can climb onto really.  He loves stairs and even though he doesn’t know how to climb down, he is fearless.  He is able to take 3-4 steps on his own when you prop him up, and he is getting really good at walking while holding 1 of his hand.  I really feel that the hippotherapy is helping him a great deal with his core strength and balance and over confidence in himself and his physical abilities.

It was so windy! This was the best selfie I can get of the three of us!!

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Christmas blessings with my loves!  Lily is understanding more the joys of Christmas and really enjoys getting into the holiday spirit.  Lily got to go shopping at her school Santa’s Workshop for a whole week and she had a blast buying fun little toys for herself and Leo and even aunty Leilani!  She has a lot of fun picking out gifts for her teachers and friends and she even said she forgot to buy me something and has the saddest look on her face.  I told her it’s sweet of her to want to get me something but I told her all I need is her and Leo =).  Leo loves playing with Leo and he seeing her playing the iPad and would like to imitate her tapping on the screen.  He’ll see me working on my laptop and would come over and tap on the keyboard too.  He’s so cute and is trying to imitate us and it’s great to see him observing and developing mentally like that.  Leo is always so super happy, and Lily is the best person to make him laugh.  He loves being thrown in the air, looking at silly faces, and is strangely amused with the window blinds haha.  He also likes crawling into tunnels and small enclosed spaces, maybe it’s just safe and cozy in there for him, but he likes sitting in closets and the princess tent as well.  He doesn’t like wearing socks for some reason so they don’t stay on his feet very long, the only way to keep them on is to put shoes on him.  Apparently, he feels that socks should go in his mouth, not on his feet… Leo is super social and loves being held by anyone and everyone!  Leo recently had a hearing test again and they couldn’t get any concrete readings on his hearing, but they did say both ear drums weren’t responsive, so we will have to take him to an ENT for further investigation.  He also had a GI appt at Choc and for now, we just have to keep trying to feed him solids, there’s not much else we can do except continuing with therapy.  He’s gained 1 pound in the last 3 months so at least he’s still growing and that’s the important thing.  Lily loves to be a helper when Leo’s teachers come over for his therapy sessions, and she really pays attention to everything Leo can do, and likes to tell me all his developments with such pride!  I’m so happy to see them together and so happy.  My heart is and full and warm because of them.  I’m so grateful for my greatest gifts in the world, I would not be the person I am without them.  I try to give them the best love and care I possible can give them, to show them how much they mean to me, and I hope the feel my heart.  I love you Lily, Leo and my angels!!!  Can’t wait to see what 2018 adventures awaits us!

Gratitude is not only the greatest virtues, but the parent of all others. – Cicero.

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Enjoy these videos of the kiddies!!  They are growing up so fast, I’m glad I’m able to have these videos to look back on and relive those memories!!












Lily Starts Kindergarten!

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IMG_8361IMG_8363Lily had a great first month of Kindergarten at her new school in Diamond at Quail Summit Elementary School!  She is in Ms Edward’s class and she is also in the morning and after school Fun Club since my work schedule doesn’t allow me to drop her off and pick her up during normal school hours.  Lily is doing some extracurricular activities that’s offered by her school (Robotics, Programming, and Mad Science), and she’s doing some activities that I signed her up for through the community center (Jazz Dance, Pom Pom/Baton Twirlin, and Tennis).  I wasn’t sure if all those activities would be too much for her, but at LePort, she did about 3 activities after school each week and so I figured if any of this is too much, or if she doesn’t like any of it, then I won’t sign her up for it in the next session.  So far, she loves all of the classes!!!  Her favorite is tennis!  When she first came to the tennis court for her first lesson, she was super excited because I got her a new tennis racket and balls, but then once the class started, she froze and started to cry and didn’t want to do it.  I think she was probably intimidated by the tennis court and everything looking so unfamiliar to her.  I decided to do the warm ups with her and held her hand and jogged with her around the tennis court.  Then she stood in line and once she swung the racket for the very first time, she had the biggest smile on her face and she instantly loved it!  She had so much fun and was running to get the balls and even asked me if she can play till night time!  Haha!  I’m so proud of Lily for trying new things and giving tennis and chance and now fulling embracing the sport!

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IMG_8482 IMG_8620Lily is doing so well in class too!  On the first day of school, Lily received two stones to put in the classroom jar, and you get the stones by doing something good or behaving in class, etc.  Once the jar gets filled up, then the class gets a popsicle party!  She also received a Quail Coin on campus for helping another student and listening to the rules.  The Quail Coins go into a big jar at the school office and once that fills up, the whole school gets a party!  Lily was so excited to get homework too, that she even made up her own homework assignment at school on the first day haha.  I told her that I put all her color pencils, markers, pens, erasers, etc in a box in her backpack so that she can work on her homework in after care if she has any.  She was so excited that during recess, she just asked the teacher for a piece of paper, wrote her name on it and drew pictures and put stickers on it and said that’s her homework.  She’s so cute!  She didn’t have any homework the first week of school, but once she did start getting homework, she’ll do it right away when we get home and she’ll finish the whole week’s assignment in one day!  So the other days we just practice reading because she insists that we do homework!  That’s my girl! haha.

IMG_9157Lily also got selected to be the first Star Student in her class!  She kept telling me that she needed pictures for her poster, like the one her teacher has in class, so I gave her some photos but all week she said they didn’t have time to work on their posters.  That Friday when I picked her up, I saw the poster in her cubby and saw she was chosen to be Star Student!  Her teacher told me that Lily’s a joy to have in class and that she chose Lily to be the first Star Student because she felt that Lily would be a good example to the class for being Star Student.  So all of that week, she gets to be line leader, help serve lunch, pick the book to read aloud in class, and get first choice for other activities!  Lily also got chosen to be the first Student of the Month in her class as well!  She will be presented with an award this coming Monday, and it’s a surprise at the first school assembly too, so I can’t wait to go see Lily get her first award!  I’m so proud of Lily, she is transitioning so well to kindergarten and all the new activities!  She’s making lots of friends, and knows all the teachers names that she interacts with.  She even wanted to make a birthday card for one of the after school care teachers because she heard it was her birthday soon!  She’s such a sweetheart!  Lily even told me not to pick her up so early because she was about to do her homework and that she was going to play soon too haha.  I love her spirit and her desire to learn!IMG_8556Right now Lily loves to help me cook dinner and she can almost do everything herself!  She can chop and crack eggs, she can even turn on the stove and everything!  She’s very enthusiastic about serving the food when we’re all done too!  I also took the kids to the Museum of Ice Cream and she had a blast exploring the exhibits and trying all the different ice cream and candy samples!  She’s very happy spirited and has a very kind heart.  She’s always looking out for Leo and always telling everyone how much she loves her baby brother!  Everytime I bring Leo to drop her off or pick her up from school, or even bring Leo to her after school classes, she always point Leo out to her friends and teachers haha.  She’ll take a break in her tennis class to come over and give Leo a kiss!  I fills my heart seeing how much she loves him!  I love you so much Lily, I’m so proud of you!

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IMG_8901IMG_9023Leo is growing up so much!  He’s definitely getting taller and he’s moving really fast too.  Leo is getting much better at eating purees from the spoon.  Sometimes he’ll fight it and not want the spoon in his mouth, but he’s improving and he’ll stick his tongue out to lick the puree when it’s on the high chair tray too.  He’s getting better at closing his mouth around the spoon too, it’s not completely sealed when he closes his mouth but it’s definitely an improvement!  Leo enjoys watching his big sister Lily play tennis and is fascinated with her baton twirlin class too haha.  He likes being outside and getting pushed in his trike.  He also loves the water!  He will see the bathtub and instantly try to climb inside.  Leo is also doing really well with speech therapy.  He still isn’t purposefully talking yet, and the only audible word he really says is “ball”, but he says “ball” for everything…  He is trying to make more sounds though, and he’s trying to use his hands to sign and communicate with us!  He’s sometime signs “more” and “dog” and “all done”!  He will tap his head when you ask where his head is too!  We are still working on the rest of his body parts but this is huge progress!  I’m so proud of Leo and I really feel like sign language will be super helpful for him.  I’ve been watching youtube tutorials on signing as well so I can really use it as a primitive language for Leo.

IMG_9141 Leo loves playing with toys that makes sounds, especially drums, the xylophone, and banging toy pots and pans together.  He really likes playing with the door jam and making it going “boing” all the time.  He still loves the mirror and would just sit in front of the mirror laughing and squealing at himself.  He is his own entertainment haha.  He also likes to chew on nerf gun bullets and keep it in his mouth and crawl around the house with it.  He is still drooling but it’s improved a lot!  He also is getting pretty good at listening, when I tell him no and not to do something, he will stop and go do something else.  He’s clever though and will sometimes try to hide and figured that if he can’t see me, then I can’t see him haha.  He doesn’t know any other directions for the most part but he’s learning and slowly understanding!  He had a recent OT evaluation and they said that he mostly ranks at a 10-11 month old in terms of physical and mental development.  He scored at normal age range for some skills, but the lack of certain skills pulls him down a bit.  It’s sad to hear, but I just see how much he’s growing and improving and I cannot be more proud of my little man!  IMG_8670 IMG_8675 Leo will soon be starting Hippotherapy where he’ll get physical therapy through horse back riding lessons!  It’s a great way to increase core strength and gain balance and coordination!  I really hope Leo will enjoy it and hope that this can eventually be a great hobby for him!  Leo is always so happy and easy going.  He is very chill and super fun to hug and squeeze and kiss!  When it’s time to brush his teeth, he opens his mouth now and is really good and not biting the toothbrush too much, and doesn’t resist me brushing his teeth anymore.  He also loves books and music.  His favorite song is still Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!  He really likes stuff animals, mostly so he can chew on their tail or their nose haha.  He likes to sleep with a blanket and hold onto it while sucking his thumb and then falling asleep that way.  He also is getting really good at cruising now.  He can climb up the stairs and couch very easily now and he knows how to safely climb off the couch now too.  No more diving head first into the ground from the couch haha!  It’s really cute when Leo crawls really fast, he would tuck his head down and then dart off!  That’s when you know he’s determined to get somewhere fast.  Whenever the baby gate at the stairs is open, he’ll see it and climb up the step and sit one step behind the gate and sit there and chill and see the room from a higher view point haha.  He’s so funny!  He’s getting better at taking steps and walking with assistance.  Sometimes he can just hold only one of my hand and take a few steps too.  He’s definitely getting close to walking on his own, maybe he will be able to by Christmas!  Leo is so sweet and happy-go-lucky boy.  I love you so much Leo!!IMG_8588IMG_8945IMG_8952

 

Happy 2nd Birthday Leo!

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Happy 2nd birthday to my amazing prince Leo!  Leo weighs in at 25 pounds (~11 percentile) and stretches 34 inches tall (~50 percentile)!  Leo is getting really good at pulling himself up to stand and is cruising a lot more and very easily now too!  He’s starting to imitate me more like when I blow raspberries, he will try to do the same.  He is making lots more sounds and it sounds like he tries to say “bottle” when it’s meal time too. Leo is getting stronger in his core and is able to keep his head up when he falls down so that he doesn’t smack his head into the ground, and he is crawling up the stairs and the couch now.  He’s trying to climb up almost everything so that’s good he’s learning to explore more and be curious.  A huge milestone that Leo is coming upon is that he is finally allowing the straw in his mouth for the first time!  I’ve tried many times in the past and he would just fight me and not let me put any milk in his mouth from the straw.  This is called Mr. Juice Bear that was created by therapists for children who have trouble learning to drink from straws.  You can find it HERE, and the best part is that it’s spill proof too!  The bear is soft and the straw is durable but soft as well, and you just squeeze the bear for the milk to come up so that Leo doesn’t have to suck it up.  Eventually, he will learn how to suck and I won’t need to squeeze the bottle for him anymore! This was a huge success and step forward for Leo!  He actually put the straw in his mouth and tried to get milk from it!  He doesn’t know how to suck up the milk yet, but simply having the straw in his mouth and drinking some milk from it is huge progress!!!  I’m so proud of you Leo!!!

Leo2ndPhotoBoothLeo also had his first plane ride when I took him and Lily to Oahu, Hawaii for vacation to celebrate their birthdays!  He was very restless on the flight there and only napped for about an hour, but on the flight home he did awesome and slept for about 3 hours and was calm the rest of the time.  He did great in hawaii and adjusted to the time difference just fine and loved all the sight seeing!  He also didn’t like the sand at first from the beach, he would hold his hands up in the air like “what is this I’m sitting on?!” but he eventually warmed up to it and even tried to lick the sand!  Haha!  He also got to pet a dolphin and went to his first luau too!  He’s already a little adventurer!  Let also got a shot at his 2 year old check up and cried from the shock of it but quickly settled down, he didn’t even flinch for the blood prick on his finger though, what a brave boy!  I realize I’m ending every sentence with an exclamation mark but I’m really that proud and happy for my little prince haha!  Leo is such a happy easy going little boy and he is developing and improving each day.  He has the brightest smile and I feel so blessed and lucky to be his mommy.  Happy 2nd birthday my baby boy, here’s to many more adventures to come!  I love you Leo!!

Click HERE are more photos from Lily and Leo’s Hawaiian vacation! Enjoy these videos of Leo!