Wei 2 Be

12 months behind us, 12 ahead

2011-12-23T23:38:00.020-07:00

It's a promise, to myself, to everyone I told about this goal, to THE WORLD (because yes, my blog is just that important) - I WILL blog a LOT in 2012. I have a terrible memory, so writing, drawing, and taking pictures have always been my back up. There have been so many small memories lost, because I failed to write them down the last two years. I put some things on Facebook, but they are completely impossible to find after a week. There are hilarious or touching things our kids have said that I will never remember. There are beautiful, lovely life moments that didn't get shared with anyone except whoever was standing next to me at the moment of realization, which may have only been Nighty, Whitey, and King (our pet fish) since the kids and Jack are now gone from the house for hours and hours each day. These losses cannot go on. 2012 will be the rebirth of my dedication to reflection via blog.

How to begin again after only posting ONCE in 2011? A quick way to catch up... hmmm... a list! 12 months brought us copious new and wonderful times. Voila, our major FIRSTS experienced in 2011:

January - First Time Tubing on Snow (Thanks, Wrights, for introducing us to the fun!)

February - First Ice Storm with what felt like a foot of ice and weeks of cabin fever.

March - First Five-year-olds in our Family - Happy Birthday Dani and Alex!

April - First Son to Turn Three - Happy Birthday Ben! Also, First Dance Recital for Dani and Alex. They Tinkerbell Tappity-tap-tapped.

May - First Graduation Ceremony - Alex and Dani celebrate their time at "Mrs. L's" and move on from Preschool. THEN - Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo: First Trip to Disneyworld and Sea World! Gramma and Opa joined us for the rides, the swimming, the sweating, the silliness, and the whole adventure.

June - First Family Camping Trip. Thank you, Evanson family, for showing us the way to camp in style. Alex and Dani also joined our Neighborhood Swim Team for the First Time, and Competed in many Meets. The girls have become quite fishy.

July - Ben had his first swim lesson, attended his First Wedding (Congrats Dan and Leslie!), and then we all had our First Look at Mikey and Holly's Chickens. The kids were present for The First Egg and were Eggstremely Eggcited by this event. The Kids Attended their First Rock Concert - Steve Miller Band, with Uncle Mikey, Aunt Holly, Gramma, & Opa.

August - First Family Trip to North Carolina. We found shells, played games, flew kites, jumped in waves, and generally enjoyed beaching it with Gramma and Opa. Later in the month, Jack's cousin and family came from Japan for their First Visit to Indy! Children's Museum, State Fair, Monkey Joe's - not a single fun rock was left unturned. Cousin Shi-May also came with her family, and we had our First Visit with Baby Ethan. Cousins Galore! THEN - Alex and Dani had their First Day of Kindergarten! Ben had his First Day at Our New School, Sycamore! We are loving it there.

September - First Time Meeting Adorable Baby Marissa. The pool of cousins is growing growing growing!

October - First Musical for the girls - Beauty and the Beast. First Year Ben Chose His Halloween Costume (Luke Skywalker). First year Daddy was sick and stayed home from Trick-or-Treating :(

November - I escaped to Philadelphia and then Gettysburg with my dear friend Chrissa. We attended a conference (First time for me with SCBWI-PA!) where I renewed my love for the whole world of children's book writers, illustrators, and publishers. Jack managed, while on kid duty, to teach our girls all their sight word cards, clean my car top to bottom, and get all the laundry done. He rocked my job. Can't say I'd do as well, given his!

December - First year Picking and Chopping Down a Christmas Tree! It is our First Real Tree since Kids arrived. In utero, the girls enjoyed one in Tucson that was so dry it nearly posed a fire hazard. Indiana trees are much more fun.

Here we are! The start of a year to be remembered. Stay tuned. It may be hard for 2012 to top this past year. It was a good one. Not that you could tell from my blog!

May YOUR next year be full of Firsts, Fun, Health, Happiness, Prosperity, and Peace.

XOXOXO

Five Stars for Dani!

2011-03-30T18:04:00.007-07:00

Been a year almost to the day since I really blogged about the kids and general doings. Spring is here (sort of - snow today? Seriously Indy?) and with it will come a fresh start for the earth. It seems like a good time to continue growing the family story tree that was planted back in 2006 when we were excitedly getting ready for the birth of our glorious girls. They just turned 5 on March 12 and it's becoming scarily evident that we are entering a new phase of their growth - out of toddlerhood and little-kid-land and into school days and the Adventures of DivaDani and AdventurousAlex, two Big Girls on a mission to rule the world. Ben's birthday is in a few weeks, and before our little man turns 3, I wanted to focus on each girl, then do a post on him. Dani and Alex are so different from each other and yet they love each other so much. They both draw like fiends every day, although as you'll find out in a future post, Alex also has another type of art she also loves to make. Dani is an amazingly dedicated drawer and is she so prolific that I can barely keep up with the mounds of papers. Some end up in recycling, but there's one drawing she made for her sister that will get preserved for all time:

It reads: "I love my fish and Mom and my Dad but I love you most of all."

It brings tears to my eyes, especially when I think about how happy Alex was upon receiving it. She said, "Did Dani draw that Mermaid all by herself?! It's great!" We taped the drawing to Alex's bunk (the bottom, her choice) and someday I'll frame it for her, probably as she goes off to college and endures the biggest separation of her life. Unless of course they go together as many twins do. Ack! I refuse to start thinking about college when the impending doom of KINDERGARTEN is enough to freak me out!!! (FIVE days a week! All day?! When will we have lunch picnics together on the living room floor?!! How will they draw for hours while verbally telling the story while they draw?!!! Breathing into paper bag~~~ Cough. Sigh.)

Dani's drawing style has recently, within the last 4 months, changed a lot. She used to be all about COLOR, as much of it on a page as possible. With as many objects on the page as possible. This is from February of 2010:

This is from last month. She loves to incorporate words into her pages and really loves making books - pages and pages and pages that we staple together so she can "read" them to us. This one is interesting because it was made the same day as Alex's tear-jerker one and she was doing a "series" of drawing meant to appeal to each family member's favorite things (she drew Lightning McQueen for Ben and asked me how to spell Lightning). So she made a drawing of a book for me! Such a smart girl.

Dani's current obsessions are:
- horses and unicorns
- bagels with cream cheese and jam
- dancing, especially ballet
- her best friend Lily (she and Alex often fight over who gets to marry her)
- rubbing her brother's head (this has been a life long obsession that persists despite my efforts to save him from getting his head popped off)
- making zoos with our plastic animals and clear tubs
- Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, and all things Princess
- putting on plays for us (there are rarely intermissions despite the length of the productions...)

She is working on improving her:
- pencil hold (we say "Pineapple" to remind her to switch to the correct grip)
- bicycle riding (she made a big breakthrough a few weeks ago during a fake spring warm day when she made it down the driveway without walking her bike and she didn't stop at each driveway to walk across it. She even picked up a little speed and realized that the bike felt better that way!)
- temper (she is quick to be angry about ANYthing. Many a stubbed toe has provoked her to yell at the item that caused it.)
- ability to talk with grown ups, even family members. (If she doesn't talk with you, don't take it personally. We are working on it.)
- letter and number writing. She recognizes all of them, but many are backwards when she writes them. I hear this is typical of the age.

And very importantly, she is working on learning to READ! Tonight I was prompted to finally sit down and blog after she reached a milestone I just didn't want to forget. Rather than have us read her a bedtime story, she chose to read us a Clifford Learn to Read book called "Who hid it?" start to finish, with very little help. Hooray! Even for her to want to read to us and to not give up after the first few pages is a big breakthrough. She was very proud of herself and we were very very proud of her. When she is determined to do something, watch out world! The doctors at Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania sort of warned us of this character trait before she was even born... As most of you know, when the girls were 18 weeks old in utero, they developed Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome and it nearly took them from us. We went to CHOP for laser surgery to correct an imbalance in my placenta that caused Alex to get transfused with a lot of the amniotic fluid and blood that should have been going to Dani. This imbalance caused Dani to have very little fluid in which to move, making her what is called a "stuck baby" because she was plastered close to the walls of her sac. Yet Dr. Johnson, while looking at the ultrasound screen, said, "Well, she is still kicking and moving around and acting like she feels fine. So that's a good sign. She's a fighter." Yes, Dr. Johnson. She is. And will always be. She is one amazing kid and we feel so lucky to have her here with us... (even on days when she is yelling at the dentist who, in her mind, had "put the cavity in there to make me sit longer in this chair!")DeterminedDani. We love her.

A few pictures from the last few months. Dani is very happy her hair has grown long enough for braids - it was a goal. :)

This was the most fought over dress this winter. It says "Let it Snow" and now that spring has arrived, their teacher jokes with them that they shouldn't wear it. She puts a sticker above "Let it Snow" that says "Please don't".

One of hundreds of zoos

The sisters, in full Glamour Gear. We have been enjoying the Fancy Nancy books, and these accessories arrived just in time thanks to the first "drop off" birthday party they have attended. Thanks, Katie!

With love, for Tsong

2010-11-09T13:55:00.004-07:00

It's been six months. There's no way to catch up and catch everything. So I'll just start back up again... where it's most important - family. And the changes life bring us all.

It was 10 years ago, almost exactly this week of November, when Tsong, Shu, Jack and I had our amazing trip to Taiwan and Japan. The leaves were brilliant shades of fall, the chrysanthemums were blooming, and Tsong was happy as a clam to be in his home country and his adopted country.

It was almost exactly a month ago, on September 30, that Tsong left us, after weeks and months of sickness in the hospital, at home, and at our home. While we continue to mourn, I suspect he would love for us to remember times like I've found in countless pictures (one of his favorite hobbies!) - times when he was creating memories for us all with his carefree smile, and his love of cultures (especially Japanese!) and his love for his family.

We miss you Tsong.

Spring Sproing We are Growing

2010-04-16T06:15:00.004-07:00

Spring has sprung up all around us finally, so we're out of the den and back into the world. I've been busy getting things ready in the garden and Alex and Dani helped put our seeds in the seed starter pots again this year. Dani chose to do one tray of flowers and Alex did all the tomatoes and peppers - she put over 100 teensy tiny seeds into soil and I've decided that kid fingers are perfect for this job - I can't hold a minuscule tomato seed between my thumb and pointer, but she can! Most of these have sprouted, so we'll be looking for homes for extra plants again this year. 8 varieties of tomatoes and 4 pepper colors! Plus all the plants we plan to direct seed outside - summer squash, peas (already planted but not sprouting...), watermelon (a first try this year), carrots, soybeans, lettuces (planted but growing sloooowly this year), and cucumbers (my fav!). I'll take pics of our newly expanded veggie bed soon. :)

With all this planting (and sorting, tagging, and pricing for the upcoming twins club garage sale...) I've missed so many blogging opportunities, especially the girls' fourth birthday. (Yes, FOUR! They are amazing little people now. I LOVE age 3-4. Let's freeze 'em here!) I plan to rectify this omission after Ben's birthday fun is done (tomorrow! Yikes! TWO?! My baby... snif!) and the sale is over. Each of our kids is so unique and has their own hilarious, wonderful ideas. I'd like to do a spotlight on each one. In 20 years, we'll certainly come back here to the blog to solve arguments on what Alex's imaginary friends' names were, or what Ben's favorite things to do were when he turned two, or who learned to do a jump spin first...

The kids were accidentally dressed in coordinating clothes yesterday, so I dragged them out front for pics! Here are the four best.

I hibernated

2010-03-03T20:08:00.008-07:00

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. No blog posts for 2 months? Yeah, well, you know, it's cold and we all just haven't emerged from the den for awhile... I'll try to summarize.

Around the holidays, we enjoyed visits from Uncle Mike and Aunt Holly as well as Gramma and Opa. The girls were very excited to give everyone the ceramic gifts they had painted at The Creative Escape. They have been asking to go back and paint again ever since. They loved having two Christmases - one at home with Mommy, Daddy, Gramma and Opa, and another over New Year's with Ama, Akung, Aunt Jean, Uncle Aaron, and cousins Clay and Owen. The gifts, as always, were wonderfully chosen and good times were had by all. We are a very lucky family.

Since Christmas, we've just been trucking along. Between two to three school days for all three kids and one day with swim lessons for the girls we really only have fridays that are completely free. We fit in plenty of fun with friends on those days or just spend lazy days at home doing crafts and playing playdoh (one of Ben's fav's). The girls continue to love to play "Baby and Big Girl" and create elaborate story lines of what Baby and Big Girl are doing, eating, going to, etc. Dani often tries to decide who gets to be Baby but occasionally Alex convinces her to be Big Girl. They still draw at least 1-2 times per day, and while I feel slight pangs of guilt over our paper consumption, in the end I am tickled that it is their favorite thing to do. I plan to post some of their awesome drawings soon.

Ben now has well over 200 words that we are able to understand and probably 75 words he can use with the public. He is Elmo-Ernie-(Big)Bird-Cookie Monster-crazy, and mentions them at least 5 times a day (usually in this order). His sisters love to teach him how to say things, breaking words up into syllables. "Say Cin-da-rell-uh Ben!" His least favorite thing about his sisters is how much they love to rub his head. It's incessant. He must feel like a dog most days. He tells them, "Let go me!"

Despite my surgery 4 weeks ago to fix stomach muscles that couldn't handle 15 pounds of babies four years ago, we actually have gotten out for a few days of fun in the snow. Ben and Alex love to crawl, roll, climb, and build in the snow. Dani loves to come in for hot chocolate. ;) Everyone enjoyed a walk at our nearby wooded park with me and Gramma, who has kindly come to help out for 3 weeks during my recovery. They ran from the car saying, "Let's go see nature!"

Here are some of my favorite shots from the last few months.

Uncle Mike and Aunt Holly come to visit!

The kids come up with hilarious ideas. Dani and Alex LOVE their princess dresses and pretending to have a ball like Cinderella.

Ben is a boy. All the way. "I'm going to test out every possible use for my body," thinks Ben...

Daddy has been a good source of entertainment in these dreary winter months.

It's fun to see the silliness get contagious...

One sister demands to be swaddled... so the other sister does too!

Ben's a pretty good sport when it comes to his sisters' ideas. "Let's play haircuts!"

The snow was good this year and we enjoyed it. When we weren't too busy throwing things into the pond.

Santa Claus came to town

2009-12-26T22:23:00.003-07:00

We had a wonderful holiday this week here at home in Indy. Christmas Eve dinner was with Ama and Akung and then Gramma and Opa arrived Christmas day in the afternoon. I'll post more pictures soon of wrapping paper ripping, train tables in use, princess dresses being worn 24/7, and the like. For now, here are the letters the kids wrote on Christmas Eve. I was thinking I would write the note with them telling me what to write, but they wouldn't hear of it! It was worth getting them off to bed a bit late...

Dani wrote with Daddy's help:

translation: Dear Santa, Please leave presents under the tree. Love, Dani (the stickers are there to cover up drawings which did NOT please Dani. She is VERY particular about the results of her artistic endeavors.)

Alex wrote with Mommy's help:
translation: Dear Santa: Daddy said to take toys. But he is silly. Love, Alex (this was in response to an idea Jack had earlier about what Santa should REALLY do when he came to visit...)

Ben was on his own. Not bad for a 20 month old! (Mommy helped with the name)

Winter begins

2009-12-21T20:42:00.005-07:00

It's been a very wintery few weeks while we get ready for the holidays. The kids enjoyed getting outside for last week's first snow and we've now baked cookies as a family for the first time with Ben. It went surprisingly well! Ben loves doing anything his sisters are doing and his sisters have become quite skilled in all things crafty/homey. Alex exclaimed multiple times during our cookie making, "I love baking!" Hooray! So do I, Alex. Dani especially liked the decorating, which is not a surprise to us - she LOVES drawing and making things look pretty. They both enjoyed painting pottery for the first time a few weeks ago (items to be revealed soon! Can't spoil the surprise!)

So from all of us here at Chez Wei - Happy Holidays!

Dani:

Alex:

Cookies!

First snow, first snowflakes Ben has eaten on purpose!

Dani's play

2009-12-06T12:20:00.003-07:00

I've been very very behind in posting, so here's a quick synopsis:

- Before Halloween: I got sick. With the flu. It really knocked me out. Not sure if it was H1N1 but it felt bad. And lasted for weeks. Ugh.

- Halloween: Dani was Cinderella and thoroughly enjoyed her costume and all her Halloween parties (3). She made her own crown. Alex was a butterfly with beautiful wings that she painted herself and was miserably sick. She missed every single party that whole week. Ugh. Ben was a panda who refuses to keep on its ears. He played the part well.

- After Halloween: Chrissa came from Philadelphia for a week's visit and a picture book conference, and she got sick. Ugh. Just for a day, luckily. We are a bacteria factory. But she and I had a wonderful time at the conference, learned a lot about how to make our book better (ie shorter and more marketable), and even got critiques from an editor and art director from a major publisher. We're working hard to get it ready for another submission. Exciting times!

- Week before Thanksgiving, Ben came home from school with an ear infection. We got him meds and drove up to Chicago for a nice visit with Omi, Gramma, and Opa.

- Week after Thanksgiving: Dani gets sick with a high fever that lasts 4 days. She's finally healthy now and have fingers crossed that Alex and Ben (and Jack and I) avoid the fever sickness (we already have colds).

But it hasn't all been snot and Motrin - we've had some fun too! Dani adores her Cinderella dress so much that she wears it almost every day. A few weeks ago, she asked us all to watch a play. I've been trying to post this video for weeks but my iMovie skills are lame and it's a long video. So here is Dani's play in three acts. Enjoy! (It's long, but funny.)

Fall Family Fun

2009-10-12T20:59:00.005-07:00

Last week was a Daddy-stay-home week (aka vacation, without the traveling) so he helped pack in some family fun (and some house projects... chopped down a tree, cleaned my car, fixed a million little things, etc. all while we got a new roof!). We had a blast going to Stuckey farm again this year for apple and pumpkin picking. Everyone was old enough to participate instead of just scream, and we did a LOT of walking, picking, and eating.

Dani snacktime!

Daddy helps pick

Benny is thankful for teeth

Pumpkins were especially fun, even just to see how different each of our kids can be. Total time taken to pick a pumpkin: Alex - 45 seconds, Dani - 20 minutes and a half mile of walking, Ben - happy to have one chosen by Ama.

Dani is happy with her choice

Alex's new pet ladybug

Despite 50 degree nights, we let the girls camp out in the backyard with our new tent. Jack had first shift while I stayed inside with Ben (and my work) and then I went out to finish the night. It was COLD but dry and I slept really really well in the perfect smells of fall...

Finally, at the end of the week we took time for some crafts (My fav!) and got in the Halloween spirit. ;)

Sound bites from the breakfast table

2009-09-19T05:24:00.002-07:00

"Mommy, can we start having our birthday in September?"

"Benny, that bow looks cute in your hair."

"Hurt my lungs, Mommy! Hurt my lungs please!"

We start our days around here with a nutritious breakfast of fruit, milk, carbs, and silliness.

In Memory of Opi

2009-09-07T22:35:00.009-07:00

It's been an emotional few weeks since our visit to Chicago and I've been trying to find a way to express myself in the aftermath. That visit turned out to be my last chance to be with Opi, and I'm thankful for that time and all the other times he and I were together. He was not ill these last few months but just sort of gave up. At age 92, he was ready to move on and he did. I miss him. For the memorial service, I was able to scan pictures from Omi's beautiful heritage albums for a slide show. It was nice to spend time with Opi and his happy moments. He lived a simple but rich life, and he and his music touched those around him.

Dani's meltdown

2009-09-07T18:38:00.003-07:00

The scene: outside Ama's house, just before naptime.

Dani: "Oh no! My balloon!" (shrieks of fear and sadness begin)

Daddy: "I asked you if you wanted me to put it on your wrist and you told me you would hold onto the balloon."

Dani: (wailing and throwing herself to the pavement) "Daaaaaddyyyyyy, you shouldn't have listened to me!!!!"

(on the sidelines, Mommy works hard not to laugh)

Lovin' Summer

2009-08-11T19:54:00.008-07:00

As you can see, we've been busy busy busy having fun this summer...

Last week the girls got haircuts, so I snapped a few pics in front of our newly painted house.

Dani loves flowers:

Alex loves to make people laugh... and laugh herself!

Then after haircuts, we visited Omi and Opi in Chicago (and Gramma and Opa and Romeo, not pictured but much beloved.)

Ben's first playdate. We got together with his buddy Zach whose sister Lily is in preschool with the girls now:

Swim lessons!

The kids LOVE their new swingset, sandbox (thanks Aunt Jean and Uncle Aaron!) and playing in water. Ben's fav is to run in the hose while I'm watering the veggies. And we have a bike seat for him now so we can all go for a ride.

Alex's sand creation:

Sandy Dani:

Daddy worked hard to build it so he gets to play too!

Eh, you hosers...

He's normally not too happy to wear it, but when he does... so cute!

Growin' lots of veggies (tomatoes are finally ripening too!) My baseball bat zuc made 3 batches of bread with 1/4 of it still to spare!

Alex in the carrot frame...

Monday, August 10, Alex and Dani started a new school with Mrs. L. They have had 2 days of fun so far! (even if they didn't think they would when they got there. This is their "first day" picture...)

More fun to come! Hard to believe the school year has begun. Maybe once Ben is at school 2 days a week in September I'll post more often!

A full week of fun

2009-07-31T21:33:00.000-07:00

Since last Saturday, we have managed to find time for: the girls to have a sleep over at Ama's house, biking as a family, the girls' first fishing trip, a visit to the girls' new school and a visit for Benny at his new school, swim lessons, trips to Costco, Trader Joes, Marsh, the farmer's market, and Target (our usual routine), the girls' last day at Goddard School (after 2 years!) complete with treats and homemade gifts from both us and them, a picnic and splash day at Dillon Spray Park, and (last but not least) the local church carnival for games, rides, cotton candy, and face painting. Here are the highlights in picture form...

Ben in his new bike seat

Dani and Alex love wearing their goggles now

Alex the fisher...

...and her fish! She wasn't so sure about touching it (and after recent reports of toxic algae in area lakes, that's probably for the better...)

Dani loved fishing too! Both girls caught 2 fish.

For their last day, the girls gave each teacher a drawing it painting they had made special just for that person. In return, "the cows room" gave us a mural all the kids had worked on and it now proudly resides in the playroom:

Tonight after dinner all 3 Wei girls had an outing to St. Elizabeth Seton's Setonfest. The highlight for Dani & Alex was getting facepainted:
Alex plans to be an astronaut for Halloween so she picked a rocketship:

And our resident girlie girl picked a princess crown:

I don't have a picture handy, but our other excitement this week has been dogsitting Emma Hildebrand who is a wonderful, calm, non-neurotic shepard mix. Who knew you could have a dog and leave it at home alone now and then! Dogs are fun! The kids ADORE her and will be sad tomorrow when she goes home, I'm sure. Ben walks out to the deck yelling her name and patting his thigh. "Memma! Memma!" I'll post a video of him kissing her soon. It's unreal cute.

All in all, a good week for us. However, it's been a rough week for my grandfather, so everyone please keep him and my grandmother in your thoughts. Opi is in the hospital again for a potential stroke. I'll post more as we know more. The kids and I are going for a visit to Chicago next week which I'm hoping will help cheer him up.

Snacktime Banter

2009-07-31T07:38:00.003-07:00

Dani: "Cookie Monster eats his cookies messier. He should eat more neatly."

Alex: "Yeah, and he shouldn't say 'Coookie.' He should say 'Can I have a cookie please?'. And he shouldn't eat so many."

Do I have good kids or what?!

Ben the artist

2009-07-17T13:55:00.001-07:00

Bennie has gotten almost as excited about drawing as his sister Dani is, and he's really good at keeping at it for 10-15 minutes at a time! Here are today's products!

Kids Say the Funniest Things, episode 10,886

2009-07-13T18:45:00.003-07:00

The girls have been making a lot of books lately stapling together pages of their drawings (I'm so PROUD!) and tonight Dani wanted to read one of her books at bedtime instead of picking a storybook. She said, "The title is "Everything I Do Is Perfect", pictures by Dani, words by Dani." She has used this title before. Apparently it's an idea she likes a lot. (Additional funnies came when Alex said, "Me too!" after Dani said the author and illustrator, to which Dani replied, "No Alex. You didn't help.")

Jack and I both find it generally hilarious that both girls refer to Alexa as "Ow-wah-lex" and Alex often refers to herself in the third person. Yesterday as we drove to the zoo, she accidentally called herself Dani and then said, "Gah! I just called myself Dani by accident!"

When I gave the girls mozzarella cheese on their noodles a few nights ago, Dani gobbled hers up and then, "More Cindarella cheese please!"

As I drove to school one morning, Dani announced, out of the blue last week, "Even when I'm a grown up, I'll still spell my name D-A-N-I."

We've been talking about how old you need to be to do certain things. On that same drive to school, Dani said (again out of the blue) - "People who are 16 can drive. But even though Mommy is - How old are you Mommy? - even though Mommy is 31 she can still drive."

During playtime, Alex will often refer to something needing to be a certain way by saying, "There's a sign that says...." My favorite one so far was during a trip to the park, "There's a sign that says 'No coughing in this park.'"

Kids. They keep you laughing! Which is good because otherwise I might go batty.

We love Daddy

2009-06-21T19:29:00.008-07:00

Since Father's Day gets so much less hooha than Mother's Day, I'm declaring this Father's WEEK here at Chez Wei, which is why my post to honor Jack is acceptably late. It's been a busy year (aren't they all?!) and all of us here feel how much he loves us every day. Thank you Jack...

...for a chest to sleep on...

...for countless projects completed with loving patience....

...for being indestructible...

...for pretty toes...

...for figuring out how to make whatever we want come true...

...for helping with tough decisions...

...for story after story after story, even when it's I Spy Christmas for 4 weeks straight...

...for making us feel safe on new adventures...

...and keeping us safe while we challenge ourselves...

...for fun days...

...and unforgettable moments...

...and for always being there when we need you! You're our rock (and our peanut butter).

We love you!!!

Bugs

2009-06-13T11:32:00.002-07:00

It's been a buggy few weeks... first a stomach bug attacked Ben and I, then Alex. Then some sort of energy draining fever inducing bug attacked Jack and Dani and Alex and Ben. Then we found a SWARM of ants in the garage. Time to call the bug guy! Then Jack's computer went buggy and won't turn on - he was hoping to eek it out for another year before buying a new one. THEN I got a flat tire as we were headed to swim lessons (not the work of a bug, just a large chunk of metal). But as all things do, everything ended just fine. Ben finally got hydrated enough to stop throwing up, Alex and Dani made it to swim class thanks to Aunt Jean, and they are now even feeling good enough to play together again (instead of just laying around watching TV - they've actually OD'ed on it, I think! No requests today to watch). As they play, I can tell the week has made an impact. They have new games...

I'm eavesdropping and just heard Alex tell Dani, "Uh oh, I terribled my friends." Dani asked, "What does that mean?" to which Alex replied, "I leaned over and threw up all over them."

and when we went to Steak and Shake with Aunt Jean after swim class, the girls got paper convertible cars with stickers to add. Alex told Aunt Jean, "I'm going to make a flat tire!"

LOL!

Strawberries!

2009-06-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we headed to Spencer Farms to give the kids their first strawberry picking experience and we had a lot of fun! Ama came to add another set of hands which is always helpful when Ben decides he wants to help too. Which he did! The girls were excellent pickers and loved taking berries from us to add to the pile. We left with 15 pounds and the girls at 3-4 of those on the way home in the car! I can't wait to make strawberry rhubarb cobbler (with a cornmeal crust... Mmmmmm...)

The kids were almost as untested in the tree stumps as the fields!

Ben's Resume Resumes

2009-06-05T20:50:00.007-07:00

Apparently I am so unable to throw things away that not only do I have 1-3 junk drawers in every room of the house, but my laptop's hard drive has been telling me it's FULL for weeks. Which has kept me from downloading all the pictures from SanFran and our life thereafter. But Jack somehow accomplished it yesterday, so now I have no excuses for not blogging. I thought I was going to be forced to keep this blog updated with text alone and/or less-than-ideal pictures that can be posted via my iPhone blogging app (yes, I AM spoiled rotten and realize it every day) but, as always, Jack came to the rescue.

Most importantly, I need to record Ben's latest milestones (and by latest, I mean what he's done the last 2.5 months since March when I posted about his first steps. Bad Mom, what can I say). At 13 months, Ben is now:

- sleeping through the night. Yay! He started this about 2 days after I weaned him at 11 months. He's been a better sleeper than his sisters were even until they turned 2 years old, and now he's leaps and bounds ahead of where they were at this age. He goes down for naps with little to no protest twice a day for at least 45 minutes (this nap length and consistency was unheard of with the girls) and he's sleeping from 8pm to 6:30am-ish each night. If I wasn't a procrastinative, easily distracted night owl, I could easily get 8 hours a nite.

- walking up the stairs while holding the railing. He's also determined to go down the same way but I have been able to intervene so far after a few steps.

- running. Especially after his sisters.

- verbally saying "more" "done" "mama" "dada" and "nana" (banana) VERY consistently and can use signs to say book, drink, more, eat, all done, cat, please, open, close, cook, cold, hot, fish, and drive/car. He's also clearly shaking his head No and recently started doing Yes (altho he shakes his whole upper body to accomplish this! It's adorable).

- determined to run into the street and/or fall into the front yard pond. Those are the first places he goes if he escapes out the garage door. Which he does often. Thank goodness we are on a circle and have neighbors who are too busy to notice my 1 year old throwing rocks into the pond unsupervised.

- a very very good hugger, and he has a super hilarious smile that he pulls out when he knows he's being cute. He also has an incredible laugh that I STILL have not caught on video. Not that I could download it to share it here even if I did. Dangit!

- climbing anything in his way. I find him standing on the girls' kid-size table almost daily, even when I've taken the chairs away. He brought over a box from the playroom one day to use as a step stool and got up there.

- going to be the cause of our first visit to the ER since my hand injury back in 1999. Last week his sisters demonstrated to him how they can jump off the couch and off their beds, landing with a satisfied THUD on their feet. I've seen him trying to do it every day since.

- very social with strangers, even when acting shy. He likes to hand people things, especially rocks or small toys. It was so cute to see him shyly walk up to our neighbor's 5 year old son and his friend with a rock and offer this "gift" to them. He SO wants to be a big kid!

In general, Ben is a joy to be around, even when his temper flares up and he's flailing his 24 lb body around while I'm trying to hold him and cook at the same time (again, the ER visit is imminent). When he hugs you close and then pats or rubs your back in circles, it makes all the crazy work keeping him alive worth it.

With kids, you can never have too many buckets:

A few pics from last week's visit to Gramma and Opa's house in Chicago:

With "Uncle Jonas" and "Great-Auntie Edita":

Hooray for block parties and the bouncy houses they bring! ;)

Things I've learned on this trip

2009-05-11T22:27:00.001-07:00

We had such a great time traveling with the girls! I was amazed at their ability to keep up to our activity level and am so proud at how generally well-behaved they are. They also seemed to grow into bigger, funnier, smarter little girls right in front of my eyes! Some of this revelation may just stem from the focus we were able to give them without juggling "Baby BooBoo" (as the girls have been calling him). They've probably been this advanced for weeks and my eyes and ears are just now catching on. ;) But with so many new things to do and see, they probably did grow up a bit. Even with our own city just a few miles away, and Gramma and Opa in Chicago, this was their first big city experience. Alex pointed out how many cabs she was seeing at the airport when we first landed. Dani noticed how tall the buildings were and how some were tall and some short, with so many people on the streets. Alex also had a blast with all our walking excursions (and we did a LOT of walking!) because she loves to tell us whether we should step on the cracks or not. They both enjoyed seeing their cousins every day and the boys were excellent friends to them in return. Funny how we have to travel hundreds of miles to spend so much concentrated time with family who are 10 minutes away at home! This trip was a wonderful break from our everyday busy lives, and we all enjoyed the beauty of San Fran hills, sun, and sites. I loved this time to soak up family life, and it's comforting to know how easily the girls travel. Even though Jack and Jean planned almost every aspect if this trip (thanks!) I still learned a lot:
- Take&toss sippy cups do not work on airplanes. The pressure makes them leak which is less than helpful
- Only 2-3 new kitschy toys per kid is necessary. They get excited enough to play with them for awhile.
- My girls are not quite ready to entertain themselves with stickers yet
- Dani prefers to sleep on her tummy and has more trouble sleeping on the go than her sister, even tho she falls asleep in the car instantly. Hills make for difficult car naps - too many head flops!
- Alex likes sleeping on her back (for once, she's like Dad in this way! Usually she's more like Mom) and is very good at looking out the window to entertain herself.
- Dani likes goat cheese!
- Alex likes to eat treats slowly to make them last.
- Both girls love wearing fancy dresses but hate having their picture taken. The ultimate wedding photographer teases.
- Alex will pretend to be a monkey or mountain climber wherever she goes. Dani will pretend to be a big sister who's helping teach her sister to climb. And then they'll switch (except Dani will actually need the help! How Alex finds those perfect finger holds, I'll never know. She and Uncle Mike will be scaling cliffs in Slovakia before we know it!)
- Almost anything becomes easier when ice cream is involved.
- Sisters make good bridges. ;)

-- On the fly From My iPhone

Monterey Bay Aquarium

2009-05-07T17:17:00.001-07:00

For our first real activity of the trip we visited the aquarium with Aunt Jean, Uncle Aaron, and cousins Clay and Owen. The girls were incredible troupers, walking all day and staying interested in everything we saw. Even after waking at 3:45am pst (which is their usual waking time of 6:45 at home), they kept on looking, listening, being cheerful and asking questions until 4:30pm when we finally gave them a car nap driving back to SF. I'm so proud of them! And all at the young age of 34 months (Insert sheepish laugh of a parent who is too cheap to pay 17.50 x 2 for a child admission...) Before drifting off, Dani told me one of her favorite things we saw were "the birds with long skinny legs" (sandpipers I believe) and Alex said "I liked the penguins." I loved the sea jellies exhibit, the school of anchovies in the Outer Bay tank (one million gallons of water!) and the sea horses - so cute and amazing how they glide like the ghosts in "beetlejuice".

I'll upload better pics later from my real cam but here's a taste of today. :)

Anchovies swim together like the one big fish in Leo Lionni's classic book "Swimmy"!

Beautiful jellies

Alex & Dani make otters swim, bob, and spin. We got to see an otter feeding near the end of the day.

-- On the fly From My iPhone

The first Wei family vacation

2009-05-06T18:16:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Jack's cousin Yvonne (Congrats Yvonne & Matt! We can't wait to see you soon!!) we're headed back west... to San Francisco! As I write this, we're enjoying our first plane ride with the girls and they are doing FAN-tastic! We all kissed BenBen goodbye in Chicago this morning and headed to ohare. The girls were so excited about going to the airport but were still able to take a little nap in the car which put them in extra good spirits as they boarded the train from long term parking. Their first train ride! We'll have added three to four new forms of transportation to their resumes by the end of this trip.

On the train - daddy and dani

Alex and mommy:

Enjoying activities fir four hours plus a 30 min delay

Little Einsteins time:

-- On the fly From My iPhone

Ben's First Birthday and Easter Eggstravaganza!

2009-05-03T20:49:00.011-07:00

This has been a long time coming. I haven't found much computer time between a very busy month for twins club and all of us being sick this past week (Dani and I had Strep Throat, Alex and Ben had ear infections, and Jack is covered in Poison Oak. Yikes! Don't come to our house without a hazmat suit!). But we most certainly must record how much fun it was celebrating Ben's first year of life AND the joy of our yearly Easter egg hunt! Here are more pictures than I've posted the past few months combined.

Clay with his stash. He finished first of course and went on to help the girls find more. What a good cousin.

Dani was excited to play "I Spy" out in the real world! It's her favorite.

Alex had a hard time waking up from nap. Gramma helped her get looking.

Holly and Uncle Mike joined the fun.

Me and my little man

Alex and her super heavy basket

Ama loves her BenBen

Clay helps Dani find treasure

All the cousins! Right after this pic, Ben went on his own egg hunt... in Alex's basket!

Aunt Jean and our little Chinese boy

Uncle Aaron, Ben, and Jack dig in

Easter/birthday dinner

Jean, Clay, and Owen

Onto cake - time to strip down!

Ben didn't dig in nearly as enthusiastically as his sisters did on their first taste of cake. I think he's had far more sweets already than they ever did!

Ben's favorite thing to do - rip paper! Finally a time when it's sanctioned.

Happy Birthday Little Man!

Fry guy

2009-04-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

Ben and I are having a special treat -- mcDonalds! I asked him "where's your nose?" and he answered... Perhaps I should have waited for him to finish eating that fry!

-- On the fly From My iPhone

2009-04-19T21:25:00.001-07:00

Testing out my new technology... Now I can blog from my iPhone! Maybe I'll be better about catching those cute moments that so often get lost in the daily grind. I'm gearing up to post an epic photo-a-thon of memories from Ben's bday and Easter. So stay tuned!

Girls' Third Birthday Videos

2009-03-26T20:31:00.005-07:00

We've now already had Ben's first birthday party, but I've wanted to post the girls' party for weeks. With Ben getting sick last week and a lot of work on the book submissions (all no, so far), plus a few days of party planning/cooking, it's been a busy time Chez Wei.

I don't have many pictures of the girls and their party - too busy orchestrating - but here are the cake videos. The funny lines you see on everyone's faces are face paint. Caillou did face painting on his birthday so the girls just had to do it too. ;)

Kids Say the Funniest Things, episode 4,278

2009-03-19T19:12:00.003-07:00

Yesterday we let the girls take a bath in our "spa bath" with the jets on and bubbles and once we finally pulled them out of there, protesting all the way, Alex squealed, "But we want more tickle tub Mommy!"

Today I asked Dani to start cleaning up her toys faster so we could get upstairs to bedtime, asking her to stop looking at everything and start putting it away. She replied, "But I NEED to look at things Mommy. I have eyes."

Ben took his first steps

2009-03-11T19:39:00.003-07:00

Not to be overshadowed by the girls' birthday, Ben's latest acheivement is a few steps before he falls int our arms! He took these on Sunday when Ama visited. She brings out the walkies in all my kids! I was happy to get to see them, even if they weren't directed towards me. ;) I'll catch it on video eventually.

Today he figured out how to stack pegs, which have been his fav toy lately along with our little car simulator toy. He's all boy!

The Twins Turn Three Tomorrow!

2009-03-11T18:39:00.009-07:00

This post is not only historic in that my babies are going to be THREE YEARS OLD in less than 12 hours from now, but it's ALSO my 100th post! I've probably said it a million times (or at least 100. LOL!) but I'll say it again - man does time fly! Some days it feels like just yesterday that we moved here from Tucson (and I still consider myself an Indy "newbie") and sometimes I feel like the time even before Ben was a million years ago. It's strange, being a mom. Wonderful and strange. And tiring. Which is why I'm off to wrap presents and go to bed. I'll post actual birthday pics soon, after their party on Saturday with the whole family. (We'll have face paints and a bouncy house. Woohoo!) For now, here are some three year pics we took today in their new dresses. Alex is in the green floral and Dani is in white, which she demanded to wear. She's going to be the wedding-happy one, I can tell already. They'll don these at Jack's cousin's wedding in May. If I'd let them, they would have worn them every day until then...
Note the comparison with their birth announcement pic. :) We unintentionally caught them in the same spots even!

PS: Congrats to Rachel and Dave! Katherine is beautiful.

And here's what happens when you play pin the tail on the donkey with three year olds. ;)

Grocery horse

2009-03-04T21:52:00.002-07:00

The girls had their first rides on the grocery store horsie on tuesday. It was fun to watch them enjoying the simple things in life. :o) Benny will get his turn eventually...

Dani:

Alex:

Everything's Number 3

2009-02-21T21:45:00.002-07:00

Alex cracked me up tonight during our car ride home from Ama and Akung's house (where we celebrated Clay's 9th birthday! Yep, that adorable 18 month old that some of you got to see walking down the isle in a tux at my wedding is now turning NINE). The girls asked me to sing "Zippity Do Da" to them because they were miffed we didn't read stories before heading home for bedtime, and at the part where it goes, "Everything is satisfactual", Alex helped clarify by saying, "That means everything is OK. Or it's number 3." Then she did the hand gesture for OK that makes an O with your thumb and pointer. Yep, you're right Alex! Number 3!

Jack's Birthday

2009-02-17T22:55:00.005-07:00

We caught some pretty cute and funny footage of the girls during Jack's birthday last week. My favorite part is Dani's assessment of Alex's cake eating abilities.
(I had to condense this down pretty small to be able to upload it, so apologies for the bad sound and picture quality...)

Funny enough, Dani was right!

Ben's Updated Resume

2009-02-17T21:05:00.003-07:00

I've been lacking in my blogging abilities lately (D@%# facebook), and it feels like the babiest Wei has made so many leaps and bounds (literally! Well, almost) that have not been documented yet. So I'll do my best to be comprehensive. Ben is 10 months old today, and he's a real handful and a real charmer. His smile melts any heart and he has a laugh that I still haven't been able to capture on video - it's even better than that kid laughing to "bling bloong" on YouTube (IMO). :)

Ben can now:
- Stand and let go of what he's holding for about 15 seconds
- Do stairs up and down (often by himself when I accidentally leave the gate open. Where's Ben? Oh, he's just roaming around upstairs by himself.)
- Gesture and grunt to show us what he wants (which he does every 15 seconds...)
- Use sign language to say "Light", "All Done", and "Music".
- Drink water and breast milk (cold! good boy) from a sippy cup which he holds himself. Same for a bottle, although he seems to prefer the cup. (pics below)
- Say "Da" which means Done, Daddy, Ball, and I want that.
- Say "NaNa" which means Banana or other fruit (he says it for pears and peaches too)
- Say "Mama" (Yes, I do love this, except he usually says it when he's upset about being left alone or wants out of his crib so it's not as endearing as it will be when he's the girls' age and says it while running towards me when I enter the room to pick him up from school!)
- Look at books instead of just eating them
- Ride in his new wagon when we go for walks
- Put toys away into a bin when we sing the "Clean Up" song
- Play peek-a-boo by putting a blanket on his own head and then pull it off laughing
- Eat almost any table food you offer him. His favorites are canned green beans, cheerios, banana pieces, asparagus tips, pears, peaches, cheese, scrambled eggs, and noodles (he does an adorable slurping sound to get them into his mouth)

Ben still does not:
- Sleep through the night (this is my fault. I just can't let him cry it out in a consistent way. It makes me sad. I need Jean to be living upstairs again to tell me I'm not torturing my kid while I listen to 1-2 hours of screaming.)

- Understand that the toilet is not a water table. When I set up a water table for him in the playroom a few weeks ago (see pic below), I thought he'd have crazy fun with it considering how much he loves his bath and how many times a day I drag him out of the bathroom kicking and screaming. But it was only fun for a few minutes and then he was on to something else. We'll see if having his sisters around would help - they were at daycare that day.

- Like his carseat much. He'd rather be crawling around. Poor guy - he spends a LOT of his life in there! Between errands with and without his sisters and running them to school 2 days a week, he must see his carseat as a second home. Apparently one he'd like to leave.

It's hard to believe our little man will be 1 year old in a few short months. It makes me feel a little torn about our 4 day trip to Vegas next week... with my luck, he'll start walking at my parents' house and I'll miss his first steps! But I can't say I'm willing to give up 4 whole days with Jack in a kid-free environment. ;)

Drowsy Girls Say Funny Things

2009-02-12T20:47:00.002-07:00

The girls skipped their naps last week, and by dinner they were both pretty out of it.

Alex asked for more green beans and I brought them. She gobbled them up, then looked at her empty bowl and whined to me, "Mommy, you never brought me any green beans."

Dani barely held it together through dinner and was too sleepy to take a bath, so Jack took her up and started getting her ready for bed. He put on her night diaper at which point she woke up, wanting to take a bath. She stood up, looked down at her diaper and asked Jack, "Have I been wearing diapers ALL DAY?!?!"

Dani and Alex the Photographers

2009-01-28T09:08:00.004-07:00

Santa was kind enough to bring a kid-friendly camera for the girls to share. It's been fun watching them get excited to take a picture and run for their camera! (not unlike Mommy...)
Here's a sampling of their first "roll". I've been bad about downloading them frequently and I suspect they've deleted some of their own shots because pressing buttons is fun.

These are Dani's creations:

These are Alex's:

And these are of unknown origin, since one of the girls isn't in the photo! I love the kid-level perspective. :)

Snow Gardening

2009-01-17T22:47:00.003-07:00

We got lucky and were able to go out and enjoy the recent snow before the extreme COLD hit last week. I think the girls miss planting sticks in the dirt...
(Ben, however, is happy to be in the baby bjorn under my coat. It's where he'd be anyway, snow or no snow.)

Dani is funny

2009-01-14T21:33:00.002-07:00

Again, only have a story for this one, but it was cute...

Today after dinner, Jack was singing 'The Wheels on the Bus' with the girls. Dani decided to add her own verse out of the blue and began singing, "The Toys on the Bus say Clean Up Time, Clean Up Time, Clean Up Time..."

We all LOL, including Alex who loves word play.

Alex is funny

2009-01-14T21:28:00.002-07:00

I wish I had a video to accompany this one, but the stories will have to do.

The girls and I were talking in the car on the way to daycare on tuesday, and the subject of how they slept the night before came up. Dani said, "Good" but Alex said, "I had a scary dream." So I asked her, "What was in your dream?" She put up her hands in the way kids usually do when describing a bear - with claws out - and made a grrrr kind of face like a bear, but as she did this, she said, "Babies."

Tonight she cracked Jack and I up at bathtime. Jack was joking with her about her toothbrush and he said something to the effect of "Ok, let's brush inside your nose." And she said that no, this was a toothbrush, "But there is a brush that looks just like this one only it's for your nose. It's a nosebrush."

We've been Elfed

2008-12-27T06:33:00.002-07:00

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T15:15:00.002-07:00

Alex, Ben, and Dani are excited for Santa to come tomorrow night (we're playing with dates a bit to accomodate family travel!) so here they are to bring YOU some holiday cheer. We love all you friends out there and hope to see you in 2009!

Santa!

2008-12-17T15:11:00.004-07:00

This is the first year the girls willingly sat on Santa's lap (after some candy cane ringpop bribery and witnessing 2 other kids who survived the event) and Ben was in a good mood too, so we actually got decent pics! Hooray for good Santas! And for nice days at the mall. (We go so infrequently that Dani asked me to explain what a mall was. I think we need some variety from our weekly Costco/Trader Joes/Kroger trek!)

The Garbage Man

2008-12-16T19:59:00.003-07:00

Things we've pulled out of Benny's mouth in the last 3 days (besides somewhat appropriate toys and food):
- magazine paper (many many times... if paper had nutritional value, he'd be huge)
- crayons
- cracker dropped under the girls' play table
- pirate booty (cheese puffs)
- lint
- bit of candy cane (from the floor of a gymnastics gym - UGH!)
- unidentifiable whitish item looking like dried paint
- blue painter's tape
- spinach (a full leaf)

He is reaffirming my belief that I really should get CPR certified... I never got around to it, but now we have a BOY in the house.

let it snow... pictures please!

2008-12-09T21:40:00.004-07:00

Since my last post (sorry for the delay. I blame facebook.) we've had our first snow, and another one. And the girls made their first paper snowflakes! Dani's is on the left and Alex on the right. As different as the girls are! They made a bunch more after those first.

In addition, I tried, in vain, to make it snow inside for our holiday card pics. Word to the wise - when you have three kids under age three, keep ideas simple and setup to a minimum. I should know this by now, but I never seem to learn. I made more snowflakes after the girls were done (LOVE making snowflakes! A holiday favorite. Mike, have you made at least ONE this year?!) and then set up a home studio in the playroom.

Since I have no idea what I'm doing, the lighting was terrible, the setup awkward, and the results? Well, here are the outtakes (thanks for the idea, Jill!). Ben isn't even pictured - he was crabby and slept through the whole thing.

Needless to say, I'm formulating a new card idea. Stay tuned.

Daddy sandwich

2008-11-15T21:17:00.003-07:00

Dad is always the best jungle gym on rainy days. Winter's going to tough on Jack's back... this is 60 pounds of squirmyness on him!

Alex the acrobat:

Ben does steps

2008-11-15T21:13:00.002-07:00

Ok, it's getting a bit ridiculous now - Ben has a new milestone almost every day. He's now able to completely stand while holding something (like the TV or my leg) and today he did not one but FIVE steps in an attempt to follow his sisters up the stairs. I'll try to catch a video tomorrow but it's hard to make sure he doesn't fall AND grab the camera! Here's his first attempt 5 days ago.

Raspberries!

2008-11-15T21:00:00.002-07:00

Even though we try to eat local as much as we can, I can't resist really good looking organic raspberries at Costco (our second home) whenever I see them. The girls can't resist them either!
Dani started this at dinner

Then Alex joined in

Aren't we funny?!

Yum!

It's Leafing

2008-11-11T20:11:00.005-07:00

Gramma and Opa visited a few weeks ago when the leaves were first starting to fall. Thanks to "Little Bear" (yay Maurice!) the girls get very excited when leaves fall like rain... "It's Leafing!" they squeal. Gramma got plenty of leaves down her shirt and plenty of giggles. And we all got to enjoy hot chocolate (the girls' first!) afterward.

I can't keep up

2008-11-11T19:21:00.004-07:00

To give you an idea of how fast Ben is growing up (and how he's VERY MUCH a boy), today's "firsts" included first time smashing his own fingers in a drawer and first time muscling up one step to sit on a platform. I wish I'd caught a picture of both (he looked at that drawer, mad as all get out, like it was a dragon who'd bit him!). Instead, here are a few recent smiley shots and one of my new haircut. ;)

No one but me is probably interested in this stuff, but I've gotta preserve SOME memory of Ben's babyhood and this is the only place information is being stored right now! I haven't touched the baby calendar since he started grasping objects 4 months ago. Poor kid. I wrote down every day that the girls tried a new vegetable, every check up weight, every milestone until they were 18 months...

Three for Halloween

2008-11-02T20:07:00.003-07:00

We had a beautiful day here on friday and the girls had a great time being out in their costumes, especially for trick or treating.
Our little bunny Alex was happy to hop along:

Elmo Dani was la-la-la-laughing all the way to each door:

And Benny the dog was taking a catnap for much of the fun:

As we've done every year, we went trick or treating with Clay and Owen in their 'hood (where they actually have houses with KIDS instead of RETIREES!). It was a blast (into outer space!)

Even more progress

2008-10-30T09:51:00.003-07:00

One day after pulling to his knees, Ben decided to keep movin' on and is now pulling to his feet! Our pediatrician saw him today for his 6 month check up and said he's progressing faster than any 6 month old she's seen in her 13 years of work. I can't decide if I'm tickled or sad to see my little guy growing up so fast. He's also keeping up with his sisters in other ways - he got his first ear infection last week. :( Hopefully we'll get to stay away from the Ear Nose and Throat Doc with him, but if he gets tubes like his sisters, I won't be surprised.

The girls are speeding ahead in their development as well. Dani has been drawing amazing shapes and filling up pages, coming back to a single drawing throughout the day. Our walls are getting full of both girls' beautiful art!

Alex enjoys drawing too, usually making large sweeping movements with many different colors, but she also loves pretend play and finds incredibly creative ways to use her toys. Here she is "making muffins".

Tomorrow should be a fun day of trick-or-treating and a parade with their school friends. I'll post pics of our bunny, Elmo, and doggie ASAP!

Keeping up with the Wei girls

2008-10-25T21:59:00.002-07:00

Ben is determined to be a toddler. He pulled himself to his knees today for the first time and was looking into the big bin of balls when I found him. He's exactly 6 months and 1 week old. STOP GROWING SO FAST little man!!! I need my baby to be a baby for at least a few more months!!! Halloween and fall leaf pics coming soon.

Sit ups

2008-10-15T21:19:00.005-07:00

Today was the first time since August I actually recorded one of Ben's milestones in my journal... He sat up from a crawl! That's right, not only did he sit himself up, but he's crawling. I've been meaning to post about that but it's been crazy around her since the last week of September when I fled the house for a weekend in San Diego - the first time I've left Ben for more than a few hours. I figured he would learn to crawl while I was gone, just to spite me, but he waited until a few days later and is now doing a very strong army crawl style forward movement. His favorite "toys" to dart towards are electrical cords and the tubes on my breast pump! After that very fun trip with the ole' Wash U illustrator crew (thanks for 2 FUN days, guys!!! And Congrats Chris! It was a GREAT wedding. Everyone should have a photo booth at their reception!) I hosted a twins club board meeting at my house, spent a week with Chrissa working on the book (it's OUT! We'll see if our chosen Rep bites on the project), organized a table at local baby expo all weekend, started having back spasms (I should be doing sit ups now too... Oh, physical therapy, why are you so hard to fit into my day...) and am now finishing 3 Halloween costumes. After tomorrow's spooky party, I'll try to post a few pics of everyone and a very cute video of the girls on their teeter totter. :)

Here's Ben, at 6 months old.

And here's our second annual trip to the pumpkin patch

Benjamin v2.0

2008-09-04T20:02:00.003-07:00

Ben's added a lot to his resume the last few weeks. He's not only a cute baby who laughs but can now roll over, eat cereal, and - as of TODAY! - can rotate 180 degrees on his belly. Here's the proof that:

Ben eats:

Ben rolls:

Ben scoots:

And, now that Ben is 2 weeks older, here are those adorable 4 month pics by Jack.

A Dentist Needed for Wild Things...

2008-08-17T19:33:00.002-07:00

Today Ben turns 4 months old and Jack took some adorable photos of him that I'll hopefully post soon. But I just had to share a quick post with today's "Kids say the darnedest things" moment (we have one almost every day but I don't always get around to recording them!). While Jack read tonight's bedtime stories, he learned that, according to the girls, Maurice Sendak's 'wild things' go around "Smashing their terrible teeth" before rolling their terrible eyes and showing their terrible claws! Ha!

A Fairly Good Time

2008-08-12T19:09:00.005-07:00

We went to the Indiana State Fair this weekend. It was my first state fair as well as the girls' and Ben's, and we all had a great initiation into the world of show animals and 4-H fun! (and funnel cakes. Mmmmmm... funnel cakes) The pony rides were an especially big hit for the girls, especially Alex who is apparently more of an animal lover than we realized. With each animal we saw, she didn't want to let go of her new pig, horse, calf, or sheep friends. And neither girl had a potty accident the whole time we were out. They're potty pros now!
Alex and her new friend:

Dani took awhile to warm up to petting the animals:

Dani rides Hank:

Alex and Bandit and Ama:

Tractor Time!

Dani's not sure she likes the Carousel:

Alex enjoyed her ride:

I can't wait to go back next year and have more new experiences and see how Benny likes the Fair!

Dancing with the stars

2008-07-17T16:54:00.002-07:00

We've gone to a couple kid concerts this summer with Ama and the girls especially enjoyed when Stacia Demos sang Twinkle Twinkle. Alex does a great "grand finale" to her singing...

One Year? He's A Quarter of the Wei, I mean Way

2008-07-17T09:28:00.007-07:00

Last week, Ben turned 3 months old and boy is he cute. He's added a lot to his "resume" - laughing, grasping fabric with his hands, bringing his hands together over his chest, and occasionally batting at toys hanging above him. Daddy is the best at making him laugh, but I tried on his 3 month birthday and recorded it for all you loved ones out there who want to do some virtual cheek pinching. And they ARE pinchable - he's weighing in at 16 pounds these days - double his birth weight in only 3 months (that's about twice as fast as most kids do it. With my genes flowing through his veins, this may be the only thing he ever does fast...)

Here's Ben's first movie on this blog! (I had this all ready to upload that day and it turned out the video was too big. Hooray for iMovie and compression abilities...)
;)

2 2 2

2008-07-10T20:31:00.003-07:00

A week from today, I won't have 2 2-year-olds and one 2-month-old anymore... Ben will be 3 months old! So here are a few shots of Ben at 2 months.

Hey, who's there?

Look, these things can come together!

Hanging around with Mom (one of his fav spots)

One week away from 3 months!

Everybody Poops!

2008-07-10T19:40:00.004-07:00

Dani's doin' her doody duty...

It's amazing what potty training can do to you... I spend HOURS every day keeping the girls company in the bathroom, waiting for them to pick out the perfect jelly bean or M&M and stickers after they go pee, and cleaning potty chairs for the next day. But when it all starts to work and you see how proud they are of themselves, it's totally WORTH IT! And this week has been a great week for them, culminating in a big (ahem) accomplishment - Alex pooped in the potty for the first time!!!! And Dani did too for the first time in months! And I was SO HAPPY. I think we've turned a corner. I give some of the credit to the new potties I brought home today - baby Bjorn brand "little potties" (or Squatty Potties as I'm calling them). They are simple, small, and force kids to sit in a way that's conducive to doin' their thang. I highly recommend them. Plus there's just one piece to keep clean, which should cut at least 15 minutes of sanitation out of my day!

Here are the proud poopers. When I snapped this pic, Alex (on the right) was saying, "Like a statue" since her doodie was standing up tall. ;)

He Sleeps!

2008-07-06T23:52:00.002-07:00

Ben has successfully slept for 5 hours straight tonight! So I got 3.5 hours of sleep... ALL IN A ROW! That hasn't happened in almost 3 months, and man did it feel good. Hopefully I won't have to post again like I did with the girls , announcing, sadly, that he's not sleeping well again. But this 5 hour thing has happened 3 times now so maybe it's a trend, even though it hasn't happened three days in a row... oh well, we'll see. I'm just psyched to feel so rested! And I still get to go back to bed for MORE shuteye. Woohoo!

Ben smiles!

2008-06-21T22:09:00.003-07:00

Grandma has been spending a few weeks here with us, off and on, and she was here when I captured Ben's first smile on film! He loves doing pat-a-cake and having his face tickled. He's also able to put his fist in his mouth - this was accidentally omitted from his resume ;)

Dani and Alex Wuv Each Other

2008-06-21T21:58:00.004-07:00

I'm not sure if it's because I have less time to play with them, of if it's just their age, but the girls are playing TOGETHER all day, every day now. I've caught so many adorable shots of them TOGETHER. I love being TOGETHER with my crew!

Ben's Resume

2008-06-21T21:36:00.004-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend who's a photographer came down and took pics of all the kids (thanks Jill! It was sooooo fun!)and we have some proofs I can share. Aunt Jean took beautiful ones of Ben too, when he was just one week old, and I'll share those soon when I have prints to scan. Having a professional portrait got me thinking professionally, so I'm writing up Ben's resume of skills as well, in case you want to hire him to be YOUR baby (Don't even think about it; he's all MINE!).

Benjamin Mason Wei

Objective: To be adorable and learn to be a big boy

Education: April 17, 2008 - present: Big Sister University - continuously auditing all classes

Professional Experience and Acheivements:
- Has grown over 6 pounds in 2 months, since weighing 8 pounds at birth.
- Extremely proficient "singer"
- Cooing, smiling, and following moving objects with eyes
- Improved head control and turning head from side to side as desired
- Kicks toys set near feet (soccer career?)
- Skilled in building long term relationships with family and friends

Recent Photos for Publicity purposes

Snug as a bug on a rug

2008-06-01T13:38:00.002-07:00

Thanks to everyone for kind words and open ears after Plato's passing. I still feel like I'm missing something when I get everyone into the car or go upstairs at the end of the day, but I've been doing pretty well most days.

Things have been quite fun around here, now that the weather is warming up! I've taken so many pics and videos the last few days, but until I get time to download them, here are a few of the 3 kids having some floor time. The girls continue to be sweet to their brother in general, but we're going through some terrible twos and/or sibling rivalry issues that make Mommy a little frazzled at times... Dani especially is using tantrums to get a bit more of my attention, and Alex has been whiney and clingy if I'm not able to give her enough one-on-one. It doesn't help that Ben can be pretty fussy, therefore stealing a lot of my focus. I hope to get him on a schedule over the next few weeks so I can make sure the girls have my attention when they need it.

Here are the "wei three". Dani is on the left. Ben is in the middle. hee hee ;) He's getting so big! His 4 week weigh in was 12 pounds 11 ounces - he was 8 lbs at birth!

In Memory of Plato

2008-05-15T20:43:00.002-07:00

We lost a member of our family today. He's had a rough time the last few years between moving to Tucson, moving to Indy, the additions in our family, and his own health problems, but I know how much we love him and hope that he felt loved through it all. I miss him already.

3 weeks with 3 kids

2008-05-08T19:47:00.003-07:00

Today Ben is three weeks old! He's a very good baby and his sisters, as we expected, have been great big sisters, always patting him, wanting to help Mommy, and talking about "my buddy Benny." He's generally easy to care for - good eater, not fussy, etc. But we could both use a bit more sleep. Jack is on duty with the girls at night and they haven't been sleeping without waking at least once each since Ben came home. And I'm on baby duty, which may be a bit more predictable than girl duty - he wakes every 2 - 3 hours to eat, and then (unlike his sisters at this point in their lives) he goes right back to sleep (usually). So he has his days and nights figured out pretty well. However, during all his awake time, he wants to be held. So, today was a HUGE breakthrough when he finally took to being in the sling and actually SLEPT in it - twice! I did puzzles with the girls after dinner while he sling slept. Hooray for 2 free hands!

I've been convinced that he looks like Dani at this age, so here's a photo of the 3 of them. See what you think.

Benny & the Jets, I mean Girls

2008-04-22T07:04:00.006-07:00

Poor Alex. We've been getting the girls excited for the arrival of their baby sibling, and then the minute he arrives, Alex gets a fever and cough and is quarantined away! After keeping them from getting too huggy/touchy all week, yesterday they finally got to "hold" him.

Alex loves his little hands and nose.

Dani, our baby crazy little mommy, could barely contain herself.

Here's a few more close ups of the new Wei. Ben has been a pretty good sleeper so far. I love when he gets his left arm free from the swaddle. This was the arm that had his IV in it, so maybe he's used to it being out to his side!

Yes!

2008-04-20T19:31:00.003-07:00

We have a baby! "He came out!" as the girls have been saying all day. Benjamin Mason Wei arrived thursday April 17 at 9:11pm weighing 8 pounds exactly (8 is my lucky number!) and measuring 20 inches. It was an easy delivery for me, but a bit of a rough time for him - he had the cord around his neck which the doctor promptly removed, but it caused him to have trouble breathing at first. He was breathing very fast and it was taking a lot of energy to do it, so he was whisked off to the NICU and was observed, without needing oxygen, for our entire 48 hour stay. But after the first night, it was clear he was very strong and was definitely the healthiest kid in there. He outweighed his neighbors, the twins, by leaps and bounds! Every time I visited him, that sesame street song played in my head... "One of these things is not like the other..." So he was able to come home with us right away with a clear bill of health and we're overjoyed to be here with him. The girls met him finally this morning and were giddy with excitement, especially our resident baby expert, Dani. Alex unfortunately is running a fever and coughing, but she mustered as much energy as possible to meet her brother and give him adorable pats on the head. Fingers crossed for everyone else, especially Ben, to stay healthy.

Anyway, it's almost time for another feeding (As Jean used to say, "Mom's Diner: food's great, service is slow" LOL), so here are a few early pics. Many MANY many more to come!

Maybe

2008-04-17T02:04:00.002-07:00

Well, yesterday (which was just 5 hours ago) was my due date and nothing looked imminent on the newWei front. The OB found the baby in a transverse (sideways) position AGAIN on Monday, for the second week in a row, and there'd been no change in anything to show the baby was ready to come. So the doc pushed Baby head down again to see if he/she would stay this time, and as of last night I was sure he/she was not thanks to the double mountainous shape of my belly instead of the nice cone shape I took after the appointment. But all night I've been having some pretty good contractions, so we'll see if this could be it. I figure if I'm not sleeping I might as well sit at my computer! So here's a poem. Like many sentimental things lately, it made me teary the first time I read it. Maybe at least my preggers friend SHB will appreciate it. :)It was not credited when I found it on the walls of my OB so, sorry out there to whoever wrote this.

These Last Few Hours
It is important to me
that I spend a part
of the next few hours here
alone with you in the darkness

You and I
will never be this close again.
By morning
you will be a tiny person
all your own

No longer the kicking, demanding
bulge in my body
that I have grown to love so well

I pray that God will safely guide
you on your journey tonight
and I ask Him for the strength
to help you all I can

Again, you signal
your impatience to be free

Time to wake up your daddy.

Watermelon Sisters

2008-04-10T18:43:00.006-07:00

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, so we ate snack outside. The girls had picked a mini watermelon at Trader Joes and they were excited to try it. They were guarding it closely from Plato, and at one point, Alex was trying to keep him away from his sister's piece. They look out for each other now and ask for each other. It's adorable to hear them say loudly, "Where are you?" and the other calls out, "I'm right here" from another room in the house.

Today was a "school day" and the note written on Alex's paper was the cutest we've ever gotten from their teachers:
"Alexa and Danica are best friends. When they talk to each other they smile and hug, run in the playground and hold hands."
Awwwwww!

Daddy makes good videos

2008-04-06T19:52:00.005-07:00

He always catches the cutest moments. This one speaks for itself.

Dani is baby crazy (she and Alex and going to be good big sisters!).

Alex is the Queen of Silly Walks. Here she is getting ready to "paint" Bob Builder.

Pit Stop

2008-03-30T18:54:00.006-07:00

We acquired two Cozy Coupes a few weeks ago and it's finally started warming up enough to vroom around on the driveway. The girls LOVE them, and so does Mommy because I can help push them without bending down very far! Dani and Alex decided to do some "fixing like Daddy" and asked for tools for their new cars. They spent 15 adorable minutes tuning up their vehicles!

Doubled up on fun AGAIN!

2008-03-28T18:43:00.003-07:00

Just like our double holiday celebrations, we had double the birthday parties. With a visit from Gramma and Opa last weekend, almost the whole family (we missed you Uncle Michael!) was here in Indy for the girls' birthday dinner/Easter egg hunt. Dani and Alex are already pros at opening presents and eating cake and it was definitely amazing to see how much they've grown in one year. Here are a few memories from last year:

This year we started with an egg hunt and they were actually able to look on their own and find almost all the "easy" ones we hid. Being 'I Spy' aficionados has definitely helped their hide and seek skills!
Alex finds one:

Dani too:

Alex looking at her stash:

Dani's first peep:

Dinner and cake followed.

Alex, by Dani's request, got to have her birthday song sung first this time:

Then Dani got her turn. They both, eventually, blew out their own candles this year, but Dani did quite a bit of the ole' bottom lip blowing up into her own hair technique before hitting the candles:

This year, for cake, they were using FORKS!

Presents galore followed. They now each have their own aprons (mini versions of Mommy's new one!) and they seem to like them - the next day they helped make ham balls for Easter dinner.

It's hard to believe it's been 2 years since that snowy day in Tucson (that's right - it SNOWED in Arizona the day they were born). Year 3 will hold many more surprises, I'm sure. In a few weeks, they'll be big sisters!

Just 5 more weeks to be preggers

2008-03-16T21:15:00.003-07:00

We finished painting the new nursery this week (pictures to come) and it's feeling very real now. So I guess I'll post the first professional maternity photos I've ever had taken. Big thanks go to the lovely ladies at m cubed photography, aka my sister-in-law (and sister at heart) Jean and her talented business partner Nelly. May their new business grow as big as my belly has.

The Two are Two!

2008-03-13T18:01:00.003-07:00

"I'm two!"

"I'm two too!" says Alex.

Ok, we're two and a day as of this post. Mommy is a bad blogger. But
here's our party yesterday. We blew out our candles really well. (Note
from Mommy: Listen close during the birthday song for Dani and you'll
hear Alex reminding everyone that it's her turn next.)

We made mini-pizzas!

2008-02-18T08:31:00.004-07:00

(And cleaned up afterwards. Good helpers!)

Happy Valentine's Day...

2008-02-13T20:59:00.001-07:00

And Happy Birthday to Uncle Mikey!

Bye Bye BaBa's

2008-02-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

On January 27, the girls took their last drinks from their bottles for breakfast.

Then after nap they helped me put all their bottles into a box, tape it up, and they said bye bye. Then we had a bye-bye-baba party! They enjoyed cookies and juice and had a good old time being "big girls" with sippy cups while sitting on the counter. ;)

A new era is dawning - they now seem ok with being big girls. A few short weeks ago, when asked whether they wanted to be babies or big girls, they would answer "babies". Now they ask for big girl cups at dinner and they're progressing slowly but surely in their potty training. Dani went poo in the potty chair for the second day in a row today! Yeah Dani! And Alex is doing well too. They enjoy keeping each other company in the bathroom. With enough books on hand, they'd stay in there all day!

Winter blues... and yellows and reds!

2008-01-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

With the frigid cold weather, we've been having lots of indoor fun, and
the girls get more creative every day. They get artistic:

And they get downright silly:

We do everything in 2's

2008-01-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

As we do every year, we had two Christmases, one in Chicago with Gramma, Opa, Uncle Mike, Aunt Irene, Cousins Olivia & Ariel, and GrandOmi & GrandOpi, then another on new year's eve with Ama, Akung, Aunt Jean, Uncle Aaron, Clay & Owen. The girls enjoyed both and were quick to learn how to open presents, even saying Tankoo by the end. During both holidays, they also stretched their culinary skills - cookies at Christmas (thanks Gramma!) and on New Year's they made sushi and pigs in a blanket (thanks Ama and Aunt Jean!). We've all been enjoying our new toys and books since the holidays which is good since it so COLD that we never play outside anymore. :)

Christmas Eve & Day - states represented: Illinois, Indiana, Idaho, & Missouri!

Gramma & Opa

Cookie Time!

New Years Eve - the presents continue...

...and so does the food. My fav meal of the year - Sukiaki! And this year, Clay and Owen added cheesecake. What more could we want.

Then Jack's fav day of the year - New Year's Day with family, football, and food. The girls' first sushi making day!

So that's the holiday wrap up. It's only taken a month to get posted. :)

Since then, the residents of Weiville have been working on potty training. The big phrase around here is "Special Treat" which is code for "I get an M&M when I pee-pee". We're no where near ready to get rid of diapers (we tried) but little by little, the girls are growing towards independence. I'm sure I'll post big exciting pictures when they finally get #2 into the pot. ;)
Stay warm everyone!
PS: Congrats, Lilie! The girls will try their best to give you the day of your dreams.

The Office

2008-01-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

What you are about to see constitutes about 20-30 hours of Jack's free time. So it's a darn good thing that I'm in love with it! My new office/studio feels like the first real space I've had to do my work, rather than something cobbled together quickly and piecemeal. The desks are (xplane style) made from doors that he custom stained to match the trim and the shelves are hand picked as well. Only the white wire shelf above my drafting table is something we repurposed, but that fits in with everything and will look even better once we get the white blinds delivered. It's a fun, functional, high-crafted space and I'm super happy with it (and its creator). :)

This is the current view from my drawing table. In the spring, it'll showcase our beautiful front yard pond which is frozen over right now. So the fish and I will get creative together! Actually, in the spring, I probably won't be sitting there much unless it's to nurse... maybe summer. ;)

Hmmm... it'd be fun to see all my past office views... I'll have to dig up some drawings from St. Louis someday. But I was in the digital photo world for Philly...

And my Tucson window looked like this:

Guess I've always been very very lucky no matter where I live! Enjoy your spaces, everyone. Home is wherever you stash your daily tools. :)

Stuff I should have posted in 2007

2008-01-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

Happy 2008! Hard to believe the 90's are almost a full decade past now... they were such formative years for me. But now that our kids are around, the early 2000's seem more important. Life without the girls is hard to remember, and I'm sure we'll feel the same way about the new baby once he or she makes an appearance. (Thanks for the input Renee! I'm starting to feel more confident that I may know enough this time to keep it around longer than a few months... LOL!) Anyway, below are a few picks from December that should have made it onto this blog a long time ago. I'll show off holiday pics and MY NEW OFFICE in another entry as well as OUR NEW CAR! That's right, I'm a minivan mom now, but as Rachel said to me - it's a car even a "cool car guy" like her hubby appreciates, so maybe I'll maintain whatever small snibbles of coolness I had before kids... HA! Well, it is a very cool car; let's leave it at that. As is my office. BIG kudos to Jack for his late nights and hard work to get it done. 2 more rooms to go! Guest room is next - all you loved ones who come in 2008 (Please! Come!) will enjoy his expert paint choices. History has proven over and over (and over) that I stink at it.

Dani left, Alex right:

Alex:

Dani:

A true Daddy-driven snowman - m&m's for a mouth and girl scout cookies for eyes...

EDIT: I added names before pics above. I just realized I haven't been good about that lately.

Merry Christmas and (a belated) Happy Hannukkah!

2007-12-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and family! I hope you've been enjoying preholiday preparations and, if you're like us, playing in some snow. It's been on my to do list to post pics of the girls' first snowman and family snow play day, and now we're up in Chicago with Gramma and Opa, so the pics will have to wait. But the merriment can't, soooo - HAPPY HOLIDAYS! The guest room is always open up in Carmel (even after our new "guest" comes in April. He/she won't eat it up) and we hope to see as many of you as possible in 2008. Peace, love, and happiness in the new year!!! Love, Dani, Alex, Jack and Alyssa

Laughing all the Wei Hahaha

2007-11-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, I already have Christmas songs stuck in my head now. And since jingle bells may be useful for this year's holiday card, it was on the tip of my fingers as I titled this post. But it's true - the girls make us laugh every day. For example...

On Halloween, Dani was really into Clay and Owen's electric guitar that plays heavy metal riffs on its own. So much so that (I wish I had my video cam for this) she started head banging while playing! I have no idea where she got that idea - Laurie Berkner and Raffi are hardly teaching her to head bang...

And our little bookworm Alex was captured on film by Daddy last weekend. What else would a 20 month old want to read but some thrilling Tom Clancy?!?

Today's funny story goes along with the potty theme, too. Daddy was holding both girls when I asked, "Alex, are you stinky?" to which she replied, "No. Dani's poopy."

Another Wei on the Way!

2007-11-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right. This blog name may need to change to "Wei 3 Be" because we're expecting a singleton in April. We're excited and the baby is doing fine. Today was the big 18 week ultrasound, so I actually have pics to post. We had one other at 11 weeks, but it was a pretty mundane pic... 'Yep, it has a head and arms. Ok, back to life.' (funny how things change the second time around, eh? Last time the girls had had over 5 ultrasounds by now and I was excitedly posting every single one) So, here's Baby Wei, loner. We're not going to find out the sex of it until we meet him/her in person, so we have another 22 weeks to go until we can say, "It's a...."!

Not quite Siamese...

2007-11-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

Happy day after Halloween! We had a great time yesterday with our little kitties. They marched in the parade at school (a few laps around the parking lot - thank goodness for sunny warm weather!)

Then we went over to trick-or-treat with "Ama", Ahkoh", "Ah Jee", "Ohnco", "Kay" and Owie". (For those of you who don't speak 19 month old, that's Ama, Akung, Aunt Jean, Uncle Aaron, Clay, and Owen.) The girls totally got it after the first few houses. They happily walked up the steps, opened their bags, and said "tankoo." Then it was off to the next house in the wagon. They discovered that taking candy out of their bags is a LOT of fun, because that's what candy is for, right? To crinkle and put in and out? That's Daddy story and he's sticking to it. ;)

Then back at Aunt Jean's, Alex decided to do a tribute to the drawings of my buddy Dan Zettwoch.

Chicago Bound

2007-09-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

It's been too long since I posted, and I apologize for the silence. We've been battling more sickness around here - flu, ear infections, colds, you name it. But hopefully with some good new antibiotics, we'll be back to sleeping at night and having fun all day. We did actually have fun up at Grandma and Opa's house a few weeks ago, so here are a bunch of shots from our visit. The girls loved Grandma's toys this time - they played in the daycare space for hours and expanded their ride-on toy expertise to include motorcycles (Uncle Mikey would have been proud!).

munch munch crunch

2007-08-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

We've been in a bit of a time crunch the last few weeks, between my trip to Philadelphia (working on my children's book with Chrissa) and the girls' recent double ear infection. So here's a quick video of them CRUNCHing on carrots for the first time.

We are family

2007-08-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

We've been having lots of fun and I've snapped plenty of good pics that I need to upload here, but for now, since I have a deadline to meet on tuesday (Yikes! I haven't had one of THOSE in a while!) this new family shot will have to suffice. We braved a professional photo place again a few weeks ago and it's probably the last time. Not because they aren't good photographers, but the girls have some hang up with being there and burst into tears the minute we walk into the studio. So I'm back to taking my own pictures, which is a good challenge.
I'll post some cute shots of the girls "driving" when I get back from my big trip to Philly! Yeeha - Chrissa, here I come! Let's go to Monk's for a beer!!

Becoming...

2007-07-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

Today was a very productive and fun day for me. The girls were enjoying their weekly visit with Ama, so I spent all day battling (and conquering) the weeds in my vegetable garden and then mulching to keep myself from having to do this again for awhile. While some may say, "That doesn't sound like much fun to me...", I know that Sarah and Tina will understand the simple joys I felt today while getting dusty, sweaty, and sunburnt, since they are what you might call "gardeners" while I am what you might call "a hack". I realized that when one has to weed an entire bed with a full size spade rather than a trowel, it's probably a sign that one is not the best gardener... But I had fun! And I got to do a lot of thinking while doing all that digging. Things always fly by while I'm taking care of the girls and it doesn't leave much time for really enjoying them at each stage. The baby manual I'm currently reading (Your One-Year-Old by Ames & Ilg - I highly recommend it Shan!) says this about kids their age:

"There is hardly anything in the world more exciting than something which is on the verge of becoming. When this something is a human being, a human personality on the verge of declaring itself, the excitement doubles...we as parents and grandparents see, or imagine that we see, the person emerging more clearly at about Eighteen months than at any succeeding age. Later on the child will have become. Right now he or she is becoming. When he is no longer a baby but is not yet a preschooler, his very in-betweeness on good days can be a delight to behold."

I invite the authors to see what my eldest daughter was "becoming" at Trader Joe's yesterday when she didn't want to give up the kid-sized cart... ;) But seriously, this really is an amazing time in their lives, and I keep trying to soak in as much of it as I can. Between doing endless dishes and changing diapers and picking up hundreds of small (and getting smaller) toys and wiping crayon off walls, I peek at them and wonder what their interests will be when they are my age... how will they choose to spend their lives? Who will accompany them in their adulthood? Current trends indicate that they will have each other to lean on, at the very least. They are both good at looking out for each other, bringing one another toys and giving hugs when one is crying. And we suspect Alex will enjoy something that requires movement and agility and a little bit of fearlessness, maybe dance or downhill skiing or synchronized swimming... And Dani loves to stir pots and pans with spoons, spatulas, whisks, sticks and she cracks herself up while going around pretending to feed people, so maybe she'll be a world-famous chef, or a kind-hearted nurse, or a scientist (perhaps the mad variety!). To my delight, they both love to read books and draw. :) So we'll see what our pumpkins become. For now, I've made a little compilation with mosaic maker... maybe these are clues as to what they'll become!

Let's hope Alex actually doesn't become the Hulk... (thank goodness for washable crayola finger paint!)

On a side note, it's been brought to my attention at a recent wedding (Thanks Allicia! Congrats on a great day!) that we have a few international friends who are following our little Indy life. I love that my goal of reaching out to my loved ones has become even lower maintenance than I ever dreamed! Being a lazy, bad friend doesn't always kick you in the butt, I guess. Yeeha! Visit again soon, dearies!

i THOUGHT it was awfully quiet down there...

2007-07-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Those 5 minutes I was upstairs yesterday morning were very productive for some little people...

I'm expanding...in the blogosphere that is

2007-07-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

Ha ha, no - no new family members to announce. (unlike Shananalagins. Hooray Shannon and Brent! We're so happy for you! And TWINS - welcome to the club!!! See the links column for their blog) But I do have a new creative "baby" - an illustration blog. I figure that I've made my family a priority and lots of great things have happened, so now I'm going to make my drawing more of a priority too and see what happens. You can check out my first posted sketch here:

http://wei2draw.blogspot.com/

Check back often to keep me in line! (comments are much appreciated)

Row Row Row Your Sister

2007-06-27T01:38:00.000-07:00

Another recent video for you. Video is really my favorite thing right now, even though I love to take pictures - you can't beat seeing them in action to show how darn cute they are.

Sorry - this is pretty dark.

I swear, it didn't take much to teach them that song - one "dance" together in the livingroom and they took it from there. They just love playing together. And clapping. :)

It's a sliding swinging splashing singing summer

2007-06-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd post a few recent videos, which is really the only way to understand how ACTIVE our girls are at 15 months. It often feels like they're in constant motion and now that they are starting to "talk", there's a constant hum in the house as well.

Here's a (somewhat long) view of our playroom and some funny antics on the slide. Funny to themselves, most of all - I love how much they crack each other up.

We finally went to the Indianapolis Children's Museum for the first time and they had so much fun! I had to drag them away after almost 2 hours of running, stacking, pushing the lawnmower, watching other kids, and generally keeping Mom on her toes. As I pushed them in the stroller to the car, I realized that they had so much energy they just couldn't keep it bottled up as they sat...

And last but not least, here's a peek into Dani's new favorite word, "Upah." (Sorry Opa, it's not about you yet.)

And of course, to keep things in perspective, here's a video from exactly a year ago - to the day - to compare with Dani's favorite word video - here's June 5, 2006:

Oh, how deluded we are in those early days... how could we have thought that was nearly as exciting as what we have today!

Alex loves to accessorize

2007-05-21T20:27:00.000-07:00

Alex loves to put on bracelets and turns toys into necklaces, tiaras, etc. But last week she went even more exotic and gave herself a banana bindi at breakfast.

My girls are so cosmopolitan. Just wait - fruit accessories will be all over the runway this fall...

When the cat is away...

2007-05-08T20:08:00.000-07:00

Jack and I have a really nice reciprocal agreement on the weekends. One morning I get to sleep in while he gets up with the kiddos, and the other morning is vice versa. This past Saturday while I slept, he may have looked away for a little too long...

Alex undressed herself for the first time,

And Dani just got herself stuck in an embarassing pose.

You gotta love 'em!

Life is always a little zooey around here

2007-05-06T18:51:00.000-07:00

To appease Kamila, this post contains a picture of me with the girls (there aren't too many of these in existence!). We took our first trip to the zoo a few weeks ago. It was a lovely day and the animals were kind enough to let us watch and even pet them occaisionally. The whole family had fun. Until Alex vomitted on the way home. Then a few members of the family spent hours cleaning the car and carseat, and Alex got an early bath. A note to all parents or future parents - the only way to get smelliness out of velcro is with a TOOTHBRUSH. So save those old ones, folks. Everyone is fine now - the girls have had a hacky cold for the last few weeks, but otherwise, there was no permanent scarring. ;)

(It just goes to show you how life has changed when we go to the zoo but I only took 1 or 2 pictures of animals... at least the ones that aren't related to me.)

We Heart Being Outside

2007-04-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

The girls are completely addicted to being outside. They get visibly bummed when Plato gets to go out in the morning but they don't.
Alex:

Dani:

Even during that cold snap a few weeks ago, we got bundled up and headed out. They walked around really well in their big bulky coats and seemed to like their mittens (still probably a novelty. Next season is a different story...).

And I love going outside, because they sleep really really well at nap and night time!