AGG Christmas and my Martha Stewart Moment

I often have Martha Stewart ambitions (who doesn't?) but seldom have the time/inclination to act on those impulses. Well, the holiday season got the better of me and I decided to build graham cracker "gingerbread houses" for my girlfriends' annual AGG Christmas get together. 

I built nine houses in total...after I muddled through the first one, the rest were actually fairly easy to assemble. It did take me all morning and early afternoon, several batches of royal icing, and Justin's entire stockpile of graham crackers from Costco to get everything ready though. I think that's why I only have these Martha Stewart moments once a year or so.

It turned out to be a lot of fun for everyone and wasn't as messy as I thought it would be. But maybe next year we'll stick to sugar cookies ;)

Ready for the kids!

The kids feasting on Christmas pizza

I managed to convince Justin not to eat any of the candies while decorating!

Let the creativity flow!

Mommy had to learn not to be so "Type A" and just let Justin do what he wanted :)

Justin's final masterpiece - it was HEAVY

Our annual AGG picture. We are of course missing Akiko who is in Bethesda and Yoriko who passed early this year, but we are AGG Forever :)

The Big News

I know that most of this little blog's readership is on Facebook and already knows this news, but since I posted this link on our annual Christmas card, I thought I should include the news here as well. Here's the big Wong news of the season:

 Baby Wong is due somewhere around June 9 (I'm currently 15 weeks). And to answer the typical questions:

1. I've had a lot more nausea than I did with Justin. Most of it has subsided, but I still get queasy in the evenings (not a good thing for a working mama who's trying to wrap Christmas gifts)

2. And no, Justin has no clue. We've mentioned it to him a couple of times, but he's more interested in his trains and dinosaurs. In the meantime, we're trying to transition him out of the crib and starting potty training so he doesn't regress too much come June!

Stayed tuned in the next few weeks when I go into for my regular ultrasound to see if we can tell what gender the newest rugrat is!

San Diego Redux

We finally made it to San Diego the other week - no massive power outages or anything! I booked us to go right after I finished my major tradeshow at work (which in retrospect, wasn't the best idea since I was so worn down from working, I caught a cold over the weekend! Bleah.) The weather was chilly, but sunny. We went to Legoland and Seaworld.

Legoland turned out to be the hands-down winner for its rides and food (surprisingly). While the food was expensive as all theme parks are, there was actually a lot of choices and we didn't feel completely ripped off (all you can really hope for at a theme park!)

Seaworld is in need of some updating I think, but Justin loved the pet variety show. He was less than impressed with Shamu since the whale doesn't jump around as much as he used to.

All in all, it was nice to get away as a family. Justin is already asking when we can go back to Legoland ;)

Justin had a hard time figuring out steering and stepping on the gas at the same time...

Enjoying Granny's Apple Fries with whipped cream

Building a snowman at Seaworld

Mommy trying to be artistic and failing

Thanksgiving

Well before Christmas is completely over, I thought I should post some pics of Justin's Thanksgiving celebration at his preschool. Now I now this is all typical for all schools, but it still cracks me up to see Justin dressed up in his construction paper pilgrim hat and vest, with woven placement and turkey made out of handprints. The room was full of little pilgrims,  pilgrimettes, and indians (Native Americans??) as well as LOADS of parents. I think the gym wasn't quite big enough to hold this crew of the Mayflower, but everyone seemed to enjoy their turkey dinner (at 4 in the afternoon no less!) And true to form, Justin cleaned his plate...

Halloween 2011

This was the first year that Justin actually understood what Trick or Treating was all about. It was a bit of a process though. I bought his dinosaur costume at the beginning of October and would ask him every so often if he wanted to try it on. "NO" was always the answer. I was beginning to get nervous for Halloween. Eventually I wore him down and could get him to at least try it on for 30 seconds. It finally took several Halloween outings for him to get comfortable with it.

I took him to my company's Halloween party first where I got him to wear the costume for about 20 minutes. Of course, everyone at work was dressed up and was trying to say hi to him, which totally freaked him out. But after he discovered they were serving ice cream, all was okay in the world. Plus he got a caramel apple which I had to pry out of his hands and convince him we had to share it with Daddy later.

After the party, we went to downtown San Carlos where the stores were doing Trick or Treating. It was a complete madhouse! It's amazing what free candy will do to not only kids, but their parents! So many parents had no regard for anything but pushing their own child to the front of the line! Sheesh. I was just glad that Justin is a mellow kind of kid and hasn't quite figured out what "unfair" means. But Justin had fun regardless, especially since he got some lollipops - his new favorite sweet. He let me hold his trick or treat bucket while he held on tight to his lollipops.

On Halloween Day, Justin had his first Halloween parade at school. Most of the preschoolers, including Justin, had a dazed, "What the heck is going on?" look on their faces while parents shouted their names and took pictures. After the parade, most of the parents left, which threw many of their kids into a tizzy. Four little girls in Justin's class had meltdowns. Big props to his teachers who were trying to maintain order in this chaos.

Which finally leads us to Halloween night. Our friends Sean and Esther came over with baby Paxton (who, according to his mom was dressed up as "Some kind of bear" and then indignantly corrected by his dad). Justin was eager to get into his costume by now and had a great time walking up to each house and ringing the doorbell and saying Trick or Treat. We met many of our new neighbors so it was quite a nice evening all around. So far we've been able to distract Justin from actually eating any of the candy he got. He still doesn't know what chocolate candy is and we're working hard to keep it that way as long as possible. A parent can dream, right? We'll see what Halloween 2012 has in store for us...!

 

Justin's First Field Trip

Justin has been in preschool now for about 8 months and I think he really enjoys it. It's been good for him to learn how to listen to a teacher and socialize with kids his own age. For me it's been a kick to experience all those "typical" school activities that I haven't participated in since I was a kid myself. 

So Justin's first official field trip was to the Pumpkin Patch on the Friday before Halloween. You know, I've always driven by these random "patches" and thought they were kind of cheesy. But apparently to a group of preschoolers, it's great fun! There was a small petting zoo with a goat, some terrified rabbits, and some equally terrified chicks. There was also a tractor "hay ride" that went around in a small circle. For some reason Justin thought it was great and went on it like seven times! He was less interested in actually picking out a pumpkin. Boys.

 

Happy Birthday Justin!

Okay, so I'm bit behind in my blog posts...it's been crazy lately. We moved into our new house on Justin's birthday a couple of weeks ago, so between unpacking and the craziness of tradeshow season at work, all I want to do lately is sleep! But here we go...

Justin was a trooper on his birthday. We spent the whole day packing up our San Carlos house and unpacking into the Belmont house. Thank goodness for Cars 2 on tv, the iPad, and Uncle Kevin and his girlfriend Sandy who managed to keep Justin occupied all day long. By evening time, everyone was completely worn out, so it was nice to take a little time to have some cake and presents for our favorite three year old.

It's hard to believe that he's three already and can actually carry on a conversation with people. We celebrated his second birthday in Hawaii last year and that was when he really first started talking. I don't think he's stopped talking in the ensuing year!

So it looks like Year 3 will be filled with "I can do it myself!", attempts at potty training, and learning the names of all the trains on Thomas and Friends (fun). But our little Chubby McStinkerson isn't so little anymore: he's 35.5" tall and weighs 36.5 lbs! I'm pretty sure he's as big as some 5 year olds!

Here are some pics from our little birthday celebration:

 

A Day at Lemos Farm

Last weekend, we took Justin to Lemos Farm in Half Moon Bay as part of my mommy's club annual event. Our subsidized tickets included unlimited train rides, goat food, and pony rides - something that tickled Justin to no end. Apparently he's decided he really likes ponies now, so it's a good thing we had unlimited rides. Who knew that riding ponies could be such a racket??


We fed the goats and rode the train, and oh yeah, got a pumpkin. Man, kids are fun at this age...so easy to please!

Pony Party!

This past Saturday, we were invited to a birthday party for one of Justin's little girl buddies who was turning three. Justin was already tickled to find kids his own age there, plus a playhouse in the backyard and games to play. But he just about fell over when he saw the PONY walk into the backyard. He actually stopped eating his lunch (which for those that know him is a BIG deal) and wanted to ride the pony right away. After the birthday girl got her fill, Justin hopped right on. He had a GREAT time with Sam the pony and really wanted to feed him some carrots or grass.

More games followed along with cupcake decorating, a pinata, and more running around. Justin was thoroughly tuckered out after such a fun day. Jay and I hoping that this doesn't raise the bar too much for his own birthday coming up! :)