Break

We are in Findlay right now. We decided to 'gift' our kids with snowboarding. Our friends in Findlay have been asking us to come out here to snowboard with their kids for a while now so we just decided why not since we will be busy soon, what with the baby and all.

Nilun is pretty excited and i'm not sure about Naree. She is still a nervous i think. I'm not even sure if she wants to do it or not. We will see tomorrow.
Too bad there hasn't been any snow here in our neck of the woods. Ohio hasn't has much snow. It snowed about a total of 2 days this year for winter. I have a feeling we will get hit hard sometime in January or February. Not looking forward to that.

We had wanted to leave a little early for Findlay but we had ordered shoes for Naree for Christmas and it was to get here today.
So we decided to stay home and wait for the package to get here before we head off since my sister-in-law wasn't home either.
We ended up waiting till 6 pm!!!! OMG i was a little frustrated. I wanted a head start on our drive. Lien was pretty mad.

I had tried to call them 3 times around 3 pm and 4 pm to try to see where the package is now or if we were even going to get it. I couldn't get any one on the phone.....just the machine. {i really hate these automated calls} Seriously why can't a live person just pick up the phone now a days? Is it that hard?
Anyways i couldn't get through.....
Lien got up from his nap around 5:30 and he was getting irritated. We really wanted to get going. So he called them up. I will spare you what he said or did. He was upset and ok so he yelled into the phone a bit and demanded to the automated voice that he wanted "a representative dang it!"
2 minutes later he WAS TALKING to a live person!
WHAT?
I tried 3 times and couldn't get through!
I guess i will have to learn to yell and scream my way to a live person! lol
Hey whatever works right?
He talked to someone and he demanding to know how the status of the package was and if he was even going to get it.
The other person on the line said they didn't know when we would get it but they know it's been in the truck out for delivery.
Lien was livid....on the line of saying "you saying you want me to wait around ALL DAY for you to bring me my package? What if i have something to do? I've been waiting all day and i have to be out of town. YOU need to have some kind of system that will at least tell me what time the package will come or between what time it will come...."
The guy made the mistake of telling Lien "you can come pick it up."
Bad idea!
"if i wanted to pick it up i wouldn't be waiting for you all day long. I would be there this morning already. YOU were suppose to delivery, that's your job."
He then said this is the worst customer service ever and hung up on them.

We decided to just leave. So i left a note for the delivery guy to just leave the package by the back door. My sister-in-law would be home by then of course.
While we were packing up the car, just only 15 minutes after, the call the UPS guy shows up.
He was rude.....
We were outside by the car loading and up and he didn't even come give us our package. He just left it at the front! Jerk......
We are usually not mean or bad customers. We are the opposite, we always think of other people and such and try not to give any trouble but this was beyond ridiculous.
We didn't mean to be rude but it was just too much. They really need to work on their deliveries. Get some kind of time system or something. Technology is booming right now, there's got to be a solution.

But we did get an extra package! We also got a package from my dear friend, Bori and her boyfriend. Christmas presents!!!! {i forgot to take pictures.}
I knew the package was coming but didn't know it was coming with the shoe too. Two in one.....not bad!

I am blessed to have such a wonderful friend. She is so thoughtful to send us Christmas gifts. She didn't have to but she did and we appreciate that.
She is also my children's' Godmother.

How's that for a day huh?
So now I'm all showered and relaxing. Hubby is out in the living room chatting with his buddy and the kiddos are in their buds' room playing.
Tomorrow morning we head out to the mountains and maybe get some snowboarding done. How exciting is that?
It's been a good Christmas break so far!
I'm so blessed to be with my family.......there's really not much i could ask for. :)

Merry Christmas 2011

This year has been an adventure for us. Some bad and some good but we have made it through. I'm so blessed in so  many ways with how my life has turned out.
I have such a wonderful family who loves me and cares for me so much. How did i get so lucky?

I am grateful for my family and my friends. Grateful to have a life full with love, laughter, and happiness.

No amount of gifts or money can buy me those things.

This Christmas we were able to get the kids some things that they had wanted. The kids seemed pretty happy to get everything that they wanted.
To see my kids face while they open their presents......that's a great feeling.

When i was a kid, we didn't get many presents. One for each of us and it was pretty much something cheap. But we were still excited to open it. A barbie from the dollar store, t-shirt or underwear.....we were still happy.
We didn't have much growing up so to see my kids happy and having more than i could - that is a feeling i can't explain.
I am grateful that i have a life that enables me to provide for my kids and to give them what i didn't have growing up.
I know that i am blessed. I have a wonderful husband who works hard to provide for us and i thank God every day that i have him.
Did i mention that i'm a very lucky girl?

I hope every one had a very Merry Christmas and i hope every one was/is as blessed as i am to have such blessings.

As usual we went over to mom's for Christmas Eve so the kids can open their set of presents from grandma. And then we had dinner.

They were pretty spoiled. :)
We stayed and chit chat for a few hours and then off we went for our annual Christmas lights outing. I try to keep that as a tradition for our family to go every year around Christmas time to see all the holiday lights.

I was pretty disappointed with downtown Cleveland this year. They normally have lights on every tree on every corner but this year there was nothing. The only holiday lights they had up were in the middle of downtown and that was it. We were disappointed. Only shows how our economy is still in the shits. What a shame.

At midnight we let the kids open presents at the house. They were pretty excited. After presents we hung out and ate {again} and then we watched a movie {i forget what movie it was}. We didn't sleep til about 4 am but we enjoyed hanging out as a family. :)

See, even Yuki got presents but he was only interested in only one. A toy gingerbread. :)

Lien bought me a Coach purse. Had no idea he was going to do that. Didn't even think he paid any attention to what kinds of purse i liked. He picked the right one. I like big bags. :)

This time around next year we will be celebrating Christmas with an addition to our family. Can't wait!!!

Merry Christmas!

photo challenge

A picture of your most treasured item.

My Monkey pendent zodiac necklace.
For over 7 years i've had this necklace and i've never taken it out. It is my prized possession.
The Monkey is my Chinese Zodiac sign.
Sad to say i've lost my necklace. After over 7 + years i can not recall where i've lost it.
One day i was showering and i was wiping my neck and realized it was gone. I just don't know where it went. I searched and searched and searched but i still can not find it. It is a sad situation. I am so mad at myself for losing it. I wish i can recall where it is or when was the last time i remember wearing it. I know i didn't take it out.
It has gotten loose a few times but i've always managed to catch it in time. I'm so bummed {even now, after 2 months} and sad that i've lost my most valuable thing. This is the only piece of jewelry i like to wear constantly. I don't even wear my wedding ring! Well now i do simply because i wore it before finding out i was expecting and by the time i wanted to take it out, i couldn't. My fingers got too big! lol

Hopefully one day while cleaning or something i will find it. I hope it is somewhere in the house. I really miss it. I feel weird without my Monkey necklace. :*(


Have you seen it?

Christmas Concert

Some pictures from Nilun's Christmas Choir concert a few days ago. He has been into getting dressed up lately. Ties and all. I think it's pretty cute! My little boy isn't such a boy anymore is he?

Did i mention how much i hate my camera right now? The blurriness of my camera is really irritating me. The diopter that adjusts the blurriness of pictures is right where my thumb goes and it has been moved a few times. Now i just can not adjust it to where it was when i first bought it.
Now all my pictures are turning out not as clear and crisp as they used to be. I'm so mad and annoyed. I need to take it in to Dodds and see if maybe {please please} maybe they can help me with this before i pull my hair out.

Lights and gingerbread houses.....

I love Christmas! It has to be the best holiday of the year. I love looking at the lights. I love the music/sounds all around the mall. People mingling and enjoying themselves. I love the atmosphere of this holiday season. There is something about it i just can't explain.
I love that we get to be with our families and share traditions. What's not to love about that right?

When we were living in Idaho - back when we were kids. Every year for Christmas dad would take us girls and head out to find us a real Christmas tree. Mom worked two jobs so she wasn't able to go.
Every year we get a real Christmas tree. I really don't know why but it seems that was the tradition in our house back then.
When we get home with our tree dad would go about making a stand for the tree. He would nail it to the tree so the tree will stand and we'd decorate it.
Dad wasn't around much....or should i say he wasn't much of the kind of dad that would spend time with us. He was more of the provider type and not the 'there' daddy type..
So this was always a welcome treat for us.
That's about the only time we actually do spend time with dad: Christmas tree shopping!
We didn't mind at the time. We knew our parents were busy parents. Working a lot to provide for us girls.

We didn't have much presents around the tree because we couldn't afford much but we were still happy just to get something.
A barbie from the dollar store, socks, underwear.....etc.....
It was just awesome to unwrap those presents. And back then, let me tell you! I was as excited as a kid in a candy store to get a barbie from the dollar store! Seriously.....i thought i had won the lottery.

The kids made gingerbread houses a few days ago!  I am trying to get this to be one of our tradition. So far so good....

And now i feel like my kids are having it so much easier than we did. They are some lucky kids. So i hope this holiday season and for many more holiday seasons to come.....They will remember how it is to be grateful and remember that there are some out there who aren't as fortunate as they are and that they will appreciate all that they have.
I also want them to always remember that it isn't what you get, it's what you give. And never expect anything in return.
I hope to start many traditions with my own little family. So far we are doing good. :)

We will be adding one more to our family soon. This Christmas we are enjoying the time for the 4 of us....
We are going to celebrate having another year with us each other.
We celebrate having another year of health...
We celebrate another year of love and laughter. ...
We celebrate another year of friendships - old and new..
We celebrate being a family....

We celebrate being able to provide for each other....
We celebrate life!

This time around next year, we'll have another reason to celebrate! It'll be our baby's first Christmas! We just can not wait.

29 weeks

You are moving like no other. Every minute of every hour. But i love that feeling. Sometimes you hurt me sometimes you just love me.
Right now you move like crazy - all over the place. Your brother has felt you {he loves it} and your sister too. She was a little freaked out but she loved it.
Your cousin Jasmine felt you and went a little nutty.......She's dramatic like that but we all know she loved it. :)
Grandma is spoiling mommy like crazy. Buying mommy whatever she wants to eat so that you can be healthy and fat {hey grandmas are like that}......she is so excited to just meet you.
Daddy loves to feel you and sometimes tease you by trying to wake you up just to feel you move. He secretly wakes up at night and rub mommy's tummy and gives you kisses.
You are truly one loved little baby!

I can not wait to hold you in my arms and give you kisses............
But i do love the time i have right now with you in me. I love the feel of you- knowing that you are protected in there. I hope that every time i talk to you or when daddy talks to you that you will hear us and love our voices.
Your brother and sister also can not wait to see you.

They have nick named you Piccachu for now! lol
We do have a name {we think} but we also want to wait to see your sweet face to give you that perfect name. I hope that you will love your name and your family as much as your family loves you!

We hope that you will be just as excited to see us as we are to see you. But lets wait until you are suppose to come out okay baby. So as much as we'd love to see and hold you right now, we'd also want you to grow and be the healthy baby that we know you will be.

See you soon my little Piccachu!

Makeover

This is way overdue but at least I'm finally putting it up right? lol

Naree's room is all painted and everything.....beats the wallpaper! The color was her choice and where each color goes was her idea too.

See this space here? This is where her bed goes. You just can't see it because of the drawer there.

the other side of the room.

Gotta say she does have the biggest room of all of us. It used to be our room but we wanted the kids to be across from each other when they have their own rooms. Nilun's is across the hallway. :)
Actually it's just so that they can't sneak out of the house at night, because it's upstairs and it's pretty high too! Hey don't judge! lol

here is Lien inspecting the burn site!
I was washing dishes {back when Nilun was around 4 or 5} and Nilun was playing upstairs. He was pretty quite but i figured he was just having fun. So i see him come down and go to the bathroom. He comes out and i look and he looks suspicious. So i ask him "what are you doing?"
He's looking at me and he has something behind his back "nothing mommy."
So i go back to washing dishes and he goes upstairs.
A few minutes later i spell something burning and Lien does too. We both go and look up the stairs and by this time the smell is strong. So we run up the stairs, get in the room and all we see is Nilun trying to water down the flames with a bowl of water he had gotten from the bathroom. {what he was hiding behind him}
We run over to him and get him out and i Lien gets a blanket and put the fire out. Good thing it was a small one.
Apparently he was playing with my candle i had lite and he must have dropped it or something. But the candle was still lite and just standing there on the table. So who knew what he did.
We were just glad that it wasn't anything big.
My son is fire dude! He loves playing with fire....that's my fault. I oh so love fire! :)
So we still have evidence of that day for him to see.

So how do you like it? It's not fully done, she is still decorating little by little. She still wants a desk and a chair for her room. Still a work in progress but we are doing it a little at a time.

Me painting the trims white. Because i think it looks better white.

I will post a picture of her room soon.....i just need to take a picture of it. :) 

Halloween

For Halloween this year Naree was a Monster High girl? {i'm not sure}, Jasmine was Niki Manaj and Niilun was a glow alien.

This year Naree ended up going alone with us. One of our close friend was suppose to bring her daughters to join us but they got in an argument- one wanted to go with her friend and the other wanted to come with Naree. So they ended up not going and stayed home.
Lien and I took Naree around the neighborhood. Nilun was with his friends and Jasmine with hers.
We did ran into Nilun and his friends trick-or-treating......booger tried to snatch Naree's candy! lol

I think she enjoyed it, i mean she did mentioned that this year it wasn't that fun- wonder why? But i think she made the most of it.
We still stayed with tradition and went to my parents so she can go trick-or-treating there and then we {well i kinda felt bad} went to our friend's house to share some candy with the little girl who didn't get to come with us.

my alien and monster girl. I didn't get a picture of Jasmine because she left before i could get one. :)

Next year we will have to be more prepared and have Naree ask one of her friends if they want to come with us or if Naree can join them.

When we got home i found this at the top of the stairs. Freaky huh? :)
this is Nilun's costume! Awesome right?

Special visit with a quilt and some Cheesecake!

A few days ago i had the privilage to attend a dear friends' baby shower. She is due only a few weeks before me! :)
The shower was nice filled with lots of people and laughter, not to mention the food and dessert- i was in heaven! lol

the mommy-to-be and I

the proud parents-to-be and grandma

Isn't she a beautiful mommy-to-be? I think so!

can't wait to see our babies!

 I had wanted to make something special for her baby shower and asked Lien one day if i should make something. He thought it would be better if i just bought what was on the registery and maybe make something for the baby when he/she comes in January.
So i said ok.....but i gave in and made something. Simply because i really wanted it to be a personal gift and i knew that she would be getting lots and lots of presents from every one else anyways.

I'm so glad that i decided to go with my choice and make something.........the outcome was great and i love it! I must admit i had to pat myself on the back for doing such a great job. Bragging moment i know, but hey i don't do it too often. At least i don't think i do! :)

here's what i made! I'm pretty proud of myself too.....no measurement {can you tell?}

 

I was a little nervous, i didn't know if she would like it or not......but i didn't mind, because i really wanted to make her it.
She did like it though! :)

We had a special visitor to our home this pass weekend for the baby shower. Our close friend, Latsamy came in from Texas to visit for the baby shower.

I was so happy to see her.....So glad i could spend some extra days with her and play catch up and eat our faces off. And that's exactly what we did! We ate and ate............fun times i tell ya! It sure was an interesting adventure!

And then to top off her visit we had a girl's night at Cheesecake Factory. Didn't i mention we love to eat? :)
Always stuffing our faces i swear............such pigs! lol
The night was great and a great way to end Latsamy's visit.
I am glad she could make it....until next time!

I know i look pretty big here! lol
I love these two girls, they have made my life interesting and wonderful. Wouldn't/couldn't ask for better girlfriends. I'm a lucky girl. Too bad we were missing one more lovely girl, Miss Margie! We miss you!

It was also Tina's birthday week!

I am truly blessed with some wonderful and amazing friends in my life. There's always an adventure! I am also blessed to have a best friend who's been with me since 3rd grade. How lucky can a girl get right? :)
I truly am blessed and i love them all.

Mushrooms anyone?

A few weeks ago we headed out to Michigan to visit Lien's uncle who isn't feeling well. He is very ill. We also got the chance to go mushroom picking with his cousin and her husband too! I like being out door and in the woods- stuff like that. But this time my allergies got the best of me and i am also pregnant too so it made it extra hard to walk around the woods and stuff.

Plus i had packed pants for naree but they ended up being too small. So she had to wear her capris and that wasn't a good idea. She was getting scratched up real bad so we didn't get to do much mushroom picking. Just Nilun and the others got to do  it. It was still fun though!

Every few minutes you would hear someone shouting out names and someone else from another direction answering back. That's how you do it there, gotta call each other once in a while so you don't get lost. It's in the woods and all the woods look alike, you might think you only looked down for a minute but in a minute your direction might have changed. But we try to stay close to the group as much as we can.

This year it rained a lot so we weren't able to get a lot like the other years. Most of em' had rot from the rain or the others that live there had already picked them during the week days. But we got enough to bring back home to share with some family members who weren't able to make it.

On a different note; his uncle is doing well. Better than we last saw him. He is able to hold his neck up on his own and his talking sounds a lot better.
Last time we went to see him in July, he was having a hard time breathing and talking and his neck was pretty weak. Hopefully he'll continue to improve. He use to be such a strong and sociable man, now all he does is stay in his room. He comes out to see us but can't stay too long.
We will keep on praying that he improves and gets healthy again.

We enjoyed the trip. It was a short one but we always love our little family road trips! Too bad it is getting a little harder and harder to do that now....since i'm getting big now and it's more exhausting for me. But i still enjoy it, i won't give it up! :)

Fall Academic Awards!

Today the middle school had an award for the kids who are in the honor roll and have high GPAs. Nilun and Jasmine were among the kids who were honored at the award! Can you tell i'm a proud mommy and aunt right now?

I am so very proud of what these two have accomplish. They worked hard and it's great that they are being recognized and rewarded for it.They will grow to be wonderful and successful adults! I am beyond proud. They have kept up their grades all through middle school and I hope {I KNOW that they will} continue to be bright kids. I couldn't ask for better.
I took them shopping to reward them for such a job well done. And to let them know that their hard work is appreciated. We haven't been to the mall in months so it was well deserved for all. :)

Lien was able to come out and join me at the award ceremony so we can both be there to support them. We are both very proud and beaming parents!