Strange toddler lunch

We sat down for lunch yesterday and Lucia decided to dump her leftover granola  cereal into her bowl of mashed potatoes. She also insisted on eating it with her training chopsticks. Quite the hodge hodge lunch!

FREE Happy Noodle Saturday

As you know, we are most fortunate to have a Korean grocery store within walking distance.  I mean, how seriously great is that?!  It's not like we are in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago or Atlanta where the Korean population is such that you can actually get by without knowing any English.  We live in an average-size suburb of a small city.  In fact, my parents have to drive 45 minutes to a decent Korean store and they live where there are lots of Koreans.

Anyway, apparently last Saturday was the wedding of the owner's son in NY, and the store advertised free noodles all  day long!  Admittedly I felt skeptical about the quality of the food being given away, but it was very delicious and we all enjoyed our free "noddles," as the English sign on the entrance stated.

Post number 1002!!

Well, I had been watching our blog stats recently and noticed we were reallyreallyclose to number 1000.  My intent was to post something special two posts ago to commemorate such a feat of coming up with 1000 ideas to write about (if you blog... you know what I mean!).  And then, kiddo got sick the past week and trivial things such as blog stats slipped my mind.  Though slightly caught up on sleep at the moment since I napped a little with her... I won't do any more than just nod to the 1000th mark with this post.  Thanks, everyone, for reading our blog and traversing along with us on our journey through life!

Very sad girl

Someone was coughing too much for us to leave the house today and she cried really hard, saying "go gospel meeting, go gospel meeting" as Daddy and Halmoni walked out the door. This morning she pulled out her special shoe drawer, chose her gold shoes, said "meeting shoes" with tears in her eyes and brought them over to me. Broke my heart!

These boots were made for walking

Someone wanted to try out Daddy's boots...

which landed her on the floor.

Biker Babe

For months now, Lucia has been drawn to bicycles.  She notices them when we pass by a bike stand, she wants to jump on a seat when we are in a store with bicycles, she points them out in any book we read, etc.  Needless to say, the thrill of possessing one is obvious and contagious.  She hasn't stopped smiling, sitting in its seat and wanting someone to push her these past few days.

You can see her in action below....

Is a kid ever too young to car shop?

I just discovered the best indoor play area!  Our little local Toys-R-Us store carries two aisles of motorized vehicles with enough head room for kids to walk up and climb into them.  Little girl turned the steering wheels, honked horns and thoroughly enjoyed test-driving several of them.  We had to tear her away from the display.

The girl who loves hamburgers

actually, cheeseburger with nothing on it except ketchup.  She ate the majority of this one we grilled the other day.

Simple summer savorings

The weekend was full and busy as usual, and with potential thunderstorms all day yesterday (the weather forecast changed hourly!) I thought it would a perfect day to tackle the closet which holds all of our daughter's junk no longer used stuff.  Unfortunately munchkin wanted constant attention from Mommy which precluded the completion of that project.  The late afternoon park outing provided good relief for her pent-up energy.

After supper, as the sun lowered into the sky, we walked (I mean, Halmoni and I walked, Lucia ran and Daddy chased her) to the baseball fields in our neighborhood and found a couple of little league games nearly ending.  She sat on Daddy's lap mermerized by the bright lights and activity, and said "go in" every time the chain link fence gate opened and a player passed in or out.  Too bad my phone camera died when I attempted to snap a photo.  Ah, the joy of summer starts with the clink of the bat and the roar of the crowd.....

This photo is from the other day when she dribbled strawberry juice all over her white shirt.  Another joy of summer is the plentiful sweet fruit! 

Extra pair of hands

Troy's extremely busy schedule this week included working in the field for three days straight, with equally long days of prep before.  The co-researchers are also in town to take samples and measurements.  Yesterday's thunderstorm hit them late afternoon while they were standing in the middle of the stream.  Yikes!  Too bad they couldn't take photos for me to post!

Needless to say, I am extremely grateful for my mom's extra pair of capable hands.  For example, we jaunted over to the Farmer's Market yesterday and got some strawberries, blueberries and sweet potatoes.  Peach season is here already, can you believe it?!  Lucia relished biting into the sweet strawberries.  At the very moment I thought I should change her out of her new white shirt... dribble, dribble, dribble of red globs of juice all down the shirt and skirt.  So great to have an extra pair of hands to keep kiddo occupied while I sprayed and massaged the stains out.  (Thank goodness for Troy's mom supplying us with Melaluca stain remover -- it's magic!).

Also accomplished with Mom's help.... our office is switching over to electronic records so I finally completed the online training and then attended the meeting to learn how to to work the program.  I only have one more closet to clean out, which is Lucia's and the worst one.  I've been storing all her no-longer-necessary stuff in there, in random bins and boxes.  It really needs sorting before "baby sister" comes along.  Maybe I'll tackle it this weekend. 

Learning how to count in Korean, the fun way!

Thunderstorms had been predicted for the morning, which then shifted to the afternoon.  However, as 3 pm ticked along, a little girl was irritable from being inside all day the previous day and the morning, so we decided to venture to the park.  The sun shone brightly in between the heavy clouds and the breeze provided relief from the mugginess.  The last-minute park idea was a much-needed respite for our girl, and of course for us too.

Why it takes 45 minutes to walk around the block...

Our recent trip to Africa

The 65 degree, sunny, cloudless day fostered a wonderful trip to the zoo.  We only saw half of the zoo, which was the Africa portion.  Lucia, Audrey and Neil really enjoyed their morning together, as did the moms and Halmoni, of course.  The best scene of the day was the idyllic pasture with the giraffes and zebras.  Beautiful!

Lucia's buddy Audrey

She shoots, she scores!

This week's art class

What is better than attending art class in pajamas?  Attending art class at home in pajamas with Halmoni, of course!  We got some modeling clay for her the other day, and broke open the package after breakfast.  She liked the texture, and excitedly tossed the light-weight clay balls that Halmoni made for her.  The two ended up making a neat animal figure out of multiple sized and colored balls but I was too late in grabbing the camera to snap a photo of it.

Individual colored balls

All mixed up colors!

27+ weeks

First pregnancy, we took photos of the expanding belly every month or so.  This time, the initial pregnancy photo comes almost at the 3rd trimester. The OB appointment this week showed baby growing very well, and likely weighing the same as her big sister did at birth.

New Cleveland Browns Quarterback: Clay Pigeons

Closet unscramble

We experienced a busy weekend (as usual) with picking up Halmoni at the airport Friday night (and of course the plane was delayed), trying out a new Korean French fusion restaurant afterward (yummy... highly recommended), my working on Saturday, rushing to attend Kelly's graduation party in the afternoon, special meetings on Sunday and Troy hammering away at his finals.

Since I now have additional hands to keep a toddler girl occupied, I decided I should tackle the closets.  My goal is one closet per day but that's a daunting goal.  I started off with the one in the dining area since I hoped to complete that during her nap before our play date this afternoon.  Again, I realized I have several hardly-used small appliances and way too many linens.  The reorganization took longer than expected (no shock!) but was a nice way to ease into the closet cleaning marathon.

Before

After

Mouse in the house

Last Saturday, after planting tomatoes, strolling around the art festival, washing off the shed, mowing the lawn, blowing leaves off the roof, cleaning the inside of the house, doing multiple loads of laundry and making beds, we finally quit around 9:30 pm.  Troy opened the pantry door for a snack, and out ran a mouse!  At the same moment, our girl had a potty accident, so I was taking care of her.  I walked out into the kitchen to find the contents of the pantry spilled out onto the counters.  It's amazing how much stuff that closet holds.  We threw away packages that the mouse had found, and placed potential temptations into big plastic tubs.  We caught the mouse the following night, after I dreamt about huge mice running around inside my pillow.  Troy thinks the mouse came in through a hole in the crawlspace vent which now doesn't exist.  Thankfully!

Spring Daze

Last Saturday, we popped over to our town's spring art festival for a couple of hours.  On our way back, walking the greenway to our friends' house, Troy spotted the mother duck with her little chicks. 

Lucia's buddies Riley and Dylan

The children enjoyed a perfect day outside with sidewalk chalk, after playing inside with Lucia's toys.

Helping Daddy plant tomatos