conjoined banana

so how do you tell someone who is excited about something that what they have discovered is no big deal? well, i had to be the bad guy. joe came hoem from a supermarket with this "special" banana. he thought it was the most unusual thing and just kept going on and on about it. i was like "i hate to say it but if it was that unusual, don't you think that the farmer or the store keeper would have kept it instead of selling it?" well, he didn't believe me. he said "they worship this stuff in India!!" ofcourse, i can't just let it go so i needed to delve more into it.

and guess what? there's bunch of blogs and youtube video dedicated to conjoined bananas. it was so funny. in fact, one of the blog was someone who lives in India ~ ahhahahahhahh. so obviously they don't worship this stuff. we were cracking up as i kept giving joe the eyes of "i told you so."

bedtime ritual

as a stalling tactic, our children have developed this ridiculous ritual of putting their stuffed animals to bed. they change the configuration EVERY night and then decide where they are going to sleep.

for example, below, you see that ethan has given the top portion of the bed to the animals, thus squeezing himself on the bottom portion of the bed almost about to fall off. and if it's not done the way they wanted to, they freak out.

ethan was obsessed about blankets being completely flat for a while and drove us totally crazy. while we were putting him down, he would demand the blanket to be "fwatter, fwatter!!!! fwatter, fwatter!!!!" the person who was putting him down for the night usually gets so annoyed that the other person has to intervene and continue with flattening the blanket. thank goodness that phase is over - he would come out middle of the night screaming - "the blanket is not FWAT!!!! it's all wrinkleddddddddd!!!!" and one of us has to go fix it and remind him that the blanket cannot be flat when he is in it. kraygee.

ethan is happy with tonight's configuration with snoopy and bear tucked inside the pillow
makayla putting the baby blanket over her koala before she slides into her blanket. makayla's ritual is much tamer though for a while she was collecting all kinds of toys under her bed like a bag lady. that drove our cleaning lady batty. today she only has a colored picture of hello kitty by the foot of the bed - progress, i tell you.

summer highlights: one

It turned really cold all of a sudden this past weekend. it's now in it's 40's - brrrrrr. to look over these pictures from the summer is a bit torturous thinking about what is to come. . . .

disclaimer: makayla doesn't like to be photographed - ethan on the other hand loves it.

chinatown: philly - oh how we miss you salt baked squid!
natural history museum: ny - not as big of a hit as we expected with the kids
bike tour (or rather a quick hop from the museum to the park) : ny - note: never let kids have popsicles on a bike, it melts at ridiculous speed and splatters everywhere . . . .
central park: ny
pinkberry: ny - note: you're not allowed to take pictures inside pinkberry - give me a break.

visiting friends: ny

the apple store: ny - joe little too happy to stumble upon the shop while going for a walk at 10pm

FAO schwartz: ny - my goodness! the best toy store EVER. haven't been there in ages - you can spend good 3 hours in there!

ethan in 15 years

recently, i've been obsessing about this korean hip hop boy band - "big bang". they seem to be really popular and i like their songs too. but the reason i'm obsessing is not because i like them necessarily - but because one of the member reminds me of ethan so much. i keep looking at him and say to myself "that's what ethan is going to look like in 15 years!!" okay, okay, i hope that no fans of "g-dragon" randomly finds this blog and send me hate mails. . . .

joe thinks i'm so weird because i would look up "g-dragon" on youtube and make him watch it with me and confirm the fact that they kind of look alike. is that so weird? as a parent, don't you imagine what your child will look like when they are older?- and if you find someone who kind of look like they could be the grown up version of your child - wouldn't you obsess about it??? now, i would like to see someone who looks like makayla!!

i obviously think ethan is going to be better looking :P (i guess this is where i get the hate mails....) but they seem to have some similar aura and expressions. dont' you think??

blonde makayla

makayla has a classmate who is swedish. our families have become very close and hang out together often. the funny thing is that both families think that makayla and ester look extremely alike. they are the same height, same shape, has similar expressions. it's very cute. now i know what makayla would look like if she was blonde. . . .

just imagine makayla with blonde hair and light eyebrows - they'll look like twins!

kungfu panda

while we were in the states, makayla and ethan got to see their first movie in the theater. kungfu panda. ever since then, ethan is a little obssessed with kungfu moves. the other day, we were in the supermarket when ethan started to do all kinds of kungfu moves screaming "hi-ya!!!" though it was extremely hilarious, i was worried that we were feeding into asian stereotype. i mean, come on, how many asian boys are in Polish supermarkets? they MUST think that all asian boys learn to do martial arts at an early age. . . . would they think that all asian boys aspire to be bruce lee??? i guess better that than thinking all asian boys are geeky math wiz. . . . though joe might differ in that opinion.

"snake"

"tigress"

"panda"

first day of school

welcome back everyone!!

no labor day here - which means that the first day of school was today! and my baby boy's first time in school - sniff, sniff. i couldn't even believe myself at how sad i got thinking about having ethan in school full time. when makayla started school part-time when she was two, i felt like she was ready and i was ready. no tears on either of our part, and off she went. ethan is three and i had such hard time letting go. i realized that without me knowing, i totally babied him! so, i know it's good for both us - but it's a big jump from being home full time to going to school 8-4 EVERY day!!!

As I suspected, he went into the school bus kicking and screaming. I called the driver 15 minutes later and he said that ethan was looking out the window after about 10 minutes of crying. though makayla reported that ethan cried all the way to school (35 min. drive), i will choose to believe the driver for my sake, even though makayla is an accurate reporter and the driver could be just saying that to ease my mind. people must have known how anxious i was, one of the mom kindly texted me that ethan was all smiles at school. they both came back happy from their first day and the driver told me that ethan said that he will be braver tomorrow. we shall see.

all ready with their backpacks - it's really chilly in the morning here so they both have their jackets on.

my baby!!! all grown up..... off to school!

i was highly debating whether i should pick them up at school but i decided not to. more time on the bus, faster the adjustment. so to ease my guilt, i made them cupcakes (from scratch!!!) and frosting (from scratch!!!) for them to decorate with sprinkles. i know, i know, the colors of frosting are little weird - i bought food coloring (can't find them here) in the states and i picked these "true to nature" colorings rather than neon pink or yellow. so here you have it, muted green and slate grey. not the most appetizing colors, but once they tasted the sugar, it's all the same to them.

makayla decorating her cupcakeyum.... concrete frosting

all the better with more sugary sprinkles.....

i hope to post some updates about this summer - now that i have all this time!