oddity

yesterday, i was picking up some stuff off the floor underneath the kids' table when audrey told me "mommy, i like your head." yes, my head:) i love being a mommy:)

it's a marshmallow world

now that audrey's fully pottytrained through night and day, we've started with jack. until now, he's been pretty reluctant to sit, even though we offered him treats. it's odd that he doesn't want to because he sure wanted to sit when audrey was being trained. he'll even drag the bag of potty treats over and ask for one. we would always tell him that he could have one if he sat on the potty, to which jack's reply was always no:) then we bought marshmallows. that kid will do ANYTHING for a marshmallow- they are his new favorite treat:) the first time he sat and got a reward, he "accidently" grabbed two marshmallows. yeah, that's never going to happen again:)audrey was SOOOOOOOOOOO mad at him:) she kept telling him, "no guy, you only get one to sit on the potty!" it was pretty funny:) jack just looked at her and smiled his "i'm provoking you and it's pretty funny" smile- it's the same thing my brother does to my sister. it's funny to watch, but i had to put a stop to it otherwise jack would think he gets the entire bag of marshmallows every time he sits on the potty. i think audrey's learned a few things from jack. i caught her trying to sneak three marshmallows yesterday:)

oh my kids:)

lately i've been teaching the kids gender...audrey is a girl like mommy and jack and sammy are boys like daddy. we use pictures of our family and point out boys and girls. they really like holding the pictures and pointing at everyone. this escalated to jack and audrey collecting all of our old health cards and drivers licenses and bringing them to us, saying, "picture of mommy" or "picture of daddy":) i thought, okay they're starting to recognize certain traits about mommy and daddy- hair color, eye color, whether the person wears glasses. boy was i wrong. last night, jack pointed at an ad in a magazine and said "picture of mommy!" the model was blonde with blue eyes and short hair. jacob's response to that was "that's not even close to being mommy":) i laughed and laughed and laughed:) at least jack gets that mommy is a girl:) i guess i expected too much. the kids i used to babysit didn't realize i was chinese until the day i got married! meredith and roxcy came up to me when i was wearing my traditional chinese outfit and asked if i was korean or something. up until that day,they used to draw pictures of me with blue eyes and blonde hair:) how's that for not noticing ethnicity?;) i guess i should be grateful that little children, unlike some adults, can see past skin color and inherited ethnicity to what ACTUALLY matters- like the person underneath:)

cool kids

they think they're just so cool with the sunglasses on:) little posers:)

the ol' swimin' hole

while nana was here, we went swimming as often as we could in the hotel pool. sammy was too young for us to take him swimming this past summer, but he did get to go in while nana was here:) he loved it!! we'll have to get him a floaty for this summer:)

audrey's become a really strong swimmer. she swam the entire length of the pool three times without my help! pretty good for a three year old:)

jack was just happy to have his "backpack" back:)

sammy's first tooth:)

sammy's first tooth came in and it's soooo cute!! not to mention HUGE!!! he's working on the second tooth right now so he's extra drooly:)

i love being a mommy:)

the following clips are a glimpse of what my days are like at home with the kids:)they make every day so much fun! i wouldn't trade being a stay-at-home mommy for anything:)

this first one is of jack- it doesn't take much to get him laughing like crazy!

jack FINALLY learned how to play the harmonica! it's been a work in progress for a couple of months:)

this is audrey going inside candyland. nathan and becca gave it to us for christmas and it's been her new obsession ever since she opened it:)

the funny things kids say:)

today, while audrey was taking a bubble bath, she made jacob sit next to the tub and "talk" to the giant rubber ducky we have. this is a normal occurance, us talking to her toys. it is not normal, however, for audrey to talk to her knees or to ask us to talk to her knees:) yes, her knees. she was sitting on her bum and popped her knees out of the water. she then told jacob that her one knee was asking the other one if it wanted to play. apparently, her second knee didn't:) at this point, jacob was stifling laughter:) audrey then started bumping her knees together and said, "look, my knees play together!" i didn't know knees could talk, nor did i know that knees could play...oh, the funny things kids say!