Category Archives: Tet

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!

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!!!

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!

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!!





Happy 20 Months Leo!

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LeoSleeping2017Happy 20 months old my little prince Leo!  Leo weighs in at about 23 pounds and stretches about 33.5 inches long.  Leo recently had an Electroencephalogram (EEG) scan (where they send tiny electrical impulses to brain to measure brain wave patterns, activity and responses) to see if it’s functioning like how a child his age should function and respond.  I won’t get the results until another week or so, so stay tuned!  Leo is getting much better at crawling and can go greater distances before falling onto his belly.  He is also getting much quicker and stronger at climbing up to his knees.  Leo still hasn’t made much progress when it comes to eating solids but he sure is putting almost everything into his mouth, everything except FOOD!  I try to trick him and put some puffs on his high chair tray along with some toys and he’ll play but will lick everything else except for the puffs!  What a clever little boy.  He’s gonna be trouble later on!  He’s getting bigger though, drinking about 7-8oz of formula each feeding, 4 times a day.  He is making lots more different sounds with voice and loves (really loves) to squeal high pitched noises of excitement when he’s happy!  He likes to blow raspberries and get drool EVERYWHERE too.  I feel like he’s starting to purposely drop things now too because he’ll drop something and then look at me to see my reaction.  Also, whenever someone asks Leo where mommy is, he’ll look at me!  Yay, my baby boy knows who I am! =)  I love you so much, happy 20 months, keep on shining and growing strong!!
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StarfishDash2017Also, I am participating in a virtual run on April 29th called the Chromosome 18 Starfish Dash for my Leo and created a team page for him.  Help me support Leo’s journey with Tetrasomy 18p and the Chromosome 18 Organization and Society!  If you would like to participate and donate, click HERE.  If you can’t donate at this time, then please help me by spreading the word!!  Thank you so much for all your love and support for my precious Leo!

LilyWorkingLePort2017LilyOMGDessertsLily gets more and more amazing each day.  She recently had her progress report at LePort and here’s what her teachers had to say about Lily, “Lily is blooming this year with her bright smiles and animated conversations with her teachers and peers.  She is making new friends of different ages, both younger and older.  Her interest in engaging socially seems to be great importance to her and yet it sometimes inhibits her concentration and makes working on her own a challenge.  However, when Lily is engaged in something she enjoys, usually in the company of a classmate, she can work with concentration.  She has now started to seek out new lessons with enthusiasm and takes pride in developing skills such as writing!  Once Lily has mastered a lesson, it is wonderful to see her enjoy repeating it, and some activities she revisits daily.  Recently she has consistently been verbalizing her thoughts and feelings with confidence and is working diligently toward refining her penmanship, using the Metal Insets and taking her time to write correctly formed letters and numbers.  Lily also continues to trace the Sandpaper Letters carefully, revealing a greater retention and knowledge of the shape, sound, and lowercase cursive symbol for all the letters of the alphabet.  We look forward to seeing her long-term recall of letter sounds so we can work more in-depth with her on the Moveable Alphabet, an important work highlighting sound blending.  We are thrilled to see Lily gain openness to taking on some new and challenging tasks.  Well done Lily!” It’s so wonderful to hear all the great things about Lily and how she’s learning and growing into a beautiful smart lady!  She even impressed me by pointing our some states on the map like Texas and California, and even all the countries on earth, except she couldn’t remember the name “Australia” but that’s pretty difficult to pronounce at first.  I cannot be more proud of my Lily pad!!  I love you so much Lily!!

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Here’s some video fun of the kiddos!




Happy 8 Months Leo!

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Leo 8 Months Old

LeoSleepingThumbLeoGrumpyFaceHappy 8 Months Leo! Leo is about 16.8lbs and stretches about 27 inches long!  He still drink a little over 5 ounces (165cc) at each feeding, 4 times a day, and is still sleeping very well through the night (about 12-14 hours straight!)  Leo likes to babble a lot, most ba ba and on three very distinct occasions, he said mama!  He will also say “ma” a lot too along with other sounds.  He is finally reaching for his toes and is getting better at sitting by himself but he still needs assistance or else he’ll topple over after a few minutes.  He is recovering very nicely since his surgery has well, he still has some stitches but it will go away soon.  He likes to suck his thumb a lot now, probably due to teething.  He has two very prominent teeth on the bottom but more will probably start peeping out soon since he is starting to drool more now too!

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Leo w/Occupational Therapist Jan

Leo still hasn’t been taking solids very well, so he had a consultation with an occupational therapist, Jan, to help work with his feeding.  I’ve been trying to give him puréed squash, but she suggested maybe trying peach or maybe something a little bit citrusy or cold even to wake up his taste buds so he knows that food is in his mouth, rather than something more subtle and luke warm.  She also said his cheeks are very tight so we will have to go back to massaging his cheeks and mouth as well.  Overall though, Leo is growing each day and is constantly making progress, slowly but surely!  He is also starting to kick a lot more and rolls around all over the place now too!  Some times it looks like he wants to crawl as well but doesn’t know how to quite get to his planned destination yet.  He is better at holding onto a toy and shaking it up and down to play with it as well!  He is getting sturdier and his neck is getting much stronger too.

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Leo 32 Weeks Old

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Leo 33 Weeks 2 Days Old

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Leo 33 Weeks 4 Days Old

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!  Happy year of the Monkey!  Lily loves wearing her áo dài and Leo looks so handsome in his blue outfit as well!  Lily is getting much more cooperative when it comes to me taking pictures now!  Also, check out Lily getting pampered for her photoshoot (which she ended up not taking a picture for but still got paid! haha) for MGA Little Tikes HERE!  She’s very into girly stuff these days, so this was a nice day for her!  However this will be the last time she’ll be working for now, we will give her a break until she’s not as camera shy around strangers.  Back to the Lunar New year though, Leo got to celebrate his first tết and he sure can back with lots of lucky li xi!  Lily thinks all the money is suppose to go straight to her piggy bank and when my dad asked her what he will do with all her money, she says “nothing!  You put it in your piggy bank!!”  I trained her well hehe.  Lily and Leo are always so happy and wonderful.  Lily talks so much and is so brilliant and smart, she never cease to amaze me.  Leo is so mellow and happy, he is truly a gift that keeps on giving.  With this new year, I hope it brings new fun adventures, I hope it allows me to embrace change and hardships with confidence, and mostly, I hope it brings lots of love and happiness.  I am still very sad that Luna is no longer with us, but it just further strengthens my life philosophy; Life is too short and precious, live your life how you want like how you want it to be, be the person you want to be, and always love and treat the people that mean most to you like there’s no tomorrow.  You can see more pictures from our Tết festivities HERE.

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Here’s some video fun of the kiddoes:

Year of the Horse 2014

Goodbye year of the Snake and Hello year of the Horse!  Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!!  We started the festivities by going to the hội chợ tết at Phước Lộc Thọ (Asian Garden Mall) with my parents!  Lily loved seeing all the pretty decorations and she really liked the little lion puppet, so we just had to get it for her!!  I noticed she’s really good at “window shopping” and she’ll walk to the displays and just look, and not touch anything!  She’s so good!  She had so much fun that she went way past her nap time and then totally knocked out on my dad’s shoulder!  How sweet!

We then had a series of family events and she got to wear her new áo dài that I got her at Phước Lộc Thọ and she looked so darn cute in it!  She really liked wearing it too because when we try to take her out of it, she whines and doesn’t want to take it off!  She’s so smart these days! 

Lily also got to make this cute little lantern at school!  She contributed by coloring in the little white circles on the lantern.  When I came to pick her up, she kept showing it to me and held it really carefully by the handle!  So cute!! It was fun to see all the family to celebrate, and eat lots of delicious food.  Lily also got tons of lucky lì xì as well and this time she didn’t put them in her mouth!  This new year of the Horse is off to a great start, and I wish for lots of love and happiness this year!!

Happy 8 Months Lily!

Happy 8 months Lily!!!  It seems like these months are just going by faster and faster!  Lily weighs about 17.4 pounds and is about 26 inches tall.  She still sleeps very well at night and is currently wearing size 3 diapers.  Just 2 weeks ago we finally had to use our own diapers that we bought rather than using diapers from our baby shower!  We still have two packs of size 4 diapers from the baby shower, isn’t it amazing how many diapers we received?  We are so grateful, that saved us a lot of money!!  She has two bottom teeth that’s grown evenly now, and she has one top middle tooth that’s starting to grow now as well.  She likes to chew on her finger in the side of her mouth these days, and she’s starting to learn to want to be held by us.  Uh oh…haha.  She is slowly starting to crawl, still in the early beginning stages of crawling though.  She sits really well and likes stand while supported a lot as well.  She’s really active and bouncy, and loves to explore.

For these photos, I wanted to use cherry blossoms for Tết, and so my mother in law’s neighbor conveniently has a big cherry blossom tree and they offered her to have some branches for decoration for Tết!  So of course, she got some for me, and I’m so grateful!  They look so beautiful and way better than the fake ones I was originally going to use!  You can’t tell in this photo but you will in my Tết update post! Anyways, I went to Phuoc Loc Tho back in December to buy Lily an áo dài [it came with a khăn đóng (headgear) too!], and the smallest size they had were for 1 year olds.  It still looks great overall, and she’s so cute, my little Vietnamese công chúa(princess)!  She’s all ready for the new year, can’t wait to celebrate this weekend!

[UPDATE: We had a wonderful time celebrating Lily’s first Tết this year!  We went to Escondido Saturday morning to spend time with Khoa’s grandmother on his dad side, and then went to spend the rest of the evening and night with Khoa’s grandparents on his mom side in Fountain Valley.  It’s always wonderful to see all the family, and we get to share the love and light that Lily brings with everyone as well.  We went to Fontana Sunday morning and got to be with my family there and eat lots of yummy Tết food!  Lily got showered with so much love and lì xì!  She loves to examine the shiny pretty envelopes in her hand, flip it back and forth, and then chomp on it!!  hahaha!  She’s so cute when she does it and doesn’t even know what’s inside!  So cute!  I just love how easy going she is with everyone and everything, and I love the fact that I can dress her up and she’ll be just fine with it (for now…).  She also got featured on instagram and facebook on Babystylista’s page for her áo dài photo as a fashionista baby as well!  You can see her on their facebook page here!  I’m such a proud mama!!!!  For more photos from Lily’s first Tết, click here!]

 We took Lily to go play at the park for the first time last week and we found out that she likes the slides, but hates the swings.  She likes to look at all the new surroundings and take in her environment.  She is super curious and is constantly looking all around her at the bright new colors and objects.  Take a look at her going down the slide with daddy (sorry for the initial camera shakes)!!  She gets super excited at the end and wants to go again!


Also, look who has her very first passport, all ready to go to Canada to visit her aunty Jennifer and uncle Andy in April!  Is that not the cutest passport picture ever?  We were quite excited and surprised that we were able to get such a nice photo for her passport!