Life With Chan

I feel like the last few posts were about Esme so lets catch everyone up to speed on Chan.  He is the funniest little guy!  He has such a sense of humor already.  And he knows he's silly cause he always looks at you with a sly little face when he does something silly.  He continues to be incredibly thorough with his speech.  He copies/repeats what you say and then makes sentence twice as long.  It's amazing he just turned two.  He also continues with his sometimes monotone, sometimes southern accent, and sometimes deepened voice. The deepened voice is the funniest but it's like he's barely trying and he talks like that for hours.

He's sort of interested in the potty but nothing consistent yet.  We started a potty chart but he hasn't gotten very far.  Esme saw it and decided she wanted a potty chart too so we thought it would help entice him but no such luck.  Up until recently he's been horrible at teeth brushing and flossing but we may have recently turned the corner.  He used to scream and kick when he did it and he seemed to have stopped this past weekend.  Thank goodness cause that's always torture.  And in the past week he's been taking extra long naps, up to 4 1/2 hours, so maybe he's getting ready for a growth spurt.  He's also getting in his top left 2nd year molar so that could be doing it.

Nightime sleep has gotten way better too.  He consistently sleeps through the night with bedtime around 7:30pm and waking around 6:30am.   Esme and Chan are still sharing a room and they really like that.  We've asked if they want their own rooms but they always decline the opportunity. .

Chan has swim lessons with Nana and Aunty Peggy every Monday and seems to be making progress.  He has no problem going right under the water and holding his breath.  He actually comes up smiling and wants to dive in again from the edge of the pool.  It's actually hard to stop him which can be a little scary.  He's good at kicking and knows he needs to do that to get around and move.  Esme also has swim lessons with Aunty Peggy on Saturdays and she finally made the leap to comfortably swimming after we got back from the mainland.  Pretty soon the kids will be swimming together!

Chan also loves to sing, mostly children's songs.  He listens to all kinds of kids songs in our cars and sings along with most of the words.  He also likes to immitate all the animals in Old MacDonald which he thinks is so funny :)

The kids potty charts :)

We love our Chan Man!

Hanging out at Target on a Sunday with these two.

Still Catching Up

I feel like I still have some catch up to do with the blog.  Here's one last picture from our trip this summer.  This wasn't the first time Esme's taken a picture in front of a blank wall and then had her image superimposed onto a scene but she definitely thought about it this time.  So we took this pic before getting on the Great Wheel in Seattle and then picked up our souvenir photo at the end.  For the rest of the day she kept looking at it and reminding me that we weren't standing in front of the Great Wheel when we took that picture.  Sharp little kiddo!

The week we got back Esme had a field trip to Suisan Fish Market, KTA Superstores, and Coconut Island for lunch, fishing and activities.  It was the last field trip mommy could go on before she headed back to work also.  Esme was super excited about the fishing and bummed we didn't catch anything.  We'll have to go again cause I never thought she'd be into that.  

Ms Sky's summer class. 

Watching the fish market happenings.

Esme's bus partner, Ethan.

All of Keikiland at Coconut Island!

Esme and her little bamboo pole

Keikiland friends Ethan and Tehya

Esme also had her schoo's ho'olaulea (Hawaiian for celebration/gathering/festival) the week after she returned.  She was supposed to sing and dance but she didn't remember a lot of the words and moves since she'd been gone while they were practicing.  Nana and Chan went to watch and apparently she was pretty shy.  This was her only smiling face that day.

Esme and Tosh wearing their kihei's for the ho'olaulea.  

 Apparently when we were gone there was a heat wave and that sort of continued when we returned.  Hilo made some record temps up to 90 degrees that hadn't been touched since the mid 60's!  Chan and Esme weren't always so happy with the extra hot weather.

Bored and tired of the hot day. 

Fun parties with family!  Esme was so happy to have her face painted again!

We also got to go out to the beachhouse at Kapoho but that was at the same time that Hurricane Guillermo was pacing by us so it rained most of the time!  Thankfully the water is still warm and the kids could swim but it wasn't the same.

Rain, rain go away!

Hanging out on the porch with cousin Mahina

Chan was so bored he opted just to lay on the porch and watch someone's phone. 

Chan looking for the good weather...

 We left the beach house to see what Uncle Sterling was up to at his house that he's building.  Tosh made the kids their own Flintstone car!  Notice it's the upgraded version with a gas and brake pedal.

Chan's been super hungry lately and loving his eggs.  He cleaned up the pan this night.  

Potty training!  We're still a ways off though.

Putting the kids to work on a Sunday morning.

What A Summer!

Well summer is winding down over here as mommy headed back to work recently and Esme starts her new pre-K class at Keikiland this week (Hawaii is on a modified year-round school schedule).  We had a good trip to WA and OR right up till the very end.  Esme visited her old daycare for 2 days and then attended a children's Chinese camp for a week while we were there so that kept her busy.  She's such a shy kid so she wasn't too keen on being left alone at camp everyday but she got through it and seemed to pick up some more Mandarin which we were afraid she was losing.  We've also started "Chinese day" on Tuesdays where Allen picks her up from school and they have a sort of lesson in the afternoon and review Mandarin words and talk about stuff.

Back to our trip, we visited all our old friends, drove by our old house, and just did all the fun things we remember doing when we lived there.  It was a nice vacation but we were happy to get back to our island home at the end of the two weeks.  Plus we missed our guys!

While we were gone Allen and Chan spent a lot of time swimming, at the park and with cousins to keep themselves busy.  Apparently Chan regressed a little with his good sleeping habits but they seem to have gotten back to a good normal now.  Maybe he was just missing his mom and sister and the normal family routine.

We started our vist with the Mitchell girls who recently visited us in HI earlier this year.

We always wanted to ride the Great Wheel when we lived in WA but never got around to it.  So this trip we made it happen!  Esme loved being right over the water/pier.

We found her great grandpa Lindsey's tile at Pike Place Market.

We even sat on the pig!  Something we never did when we lived there.

Esme LOVES babies and we got to visit the latest baby Capri, Aunty Annie's new baby.

Faye-Faye was soooooooo happy to have Esme back.  So was Victor, her son.

We drove 6 hours to Bend, OR for a wedding.  Aunty B was in charge of hair and Esme got the royal treatment.  Congrats cousins Dustin and Josh!

Mommy-daughter shot with glasses on.

Esme got ahold of the fondant on the cake before we could stop her.

Esme and Nana at the end of the night.

Mommy and Aunty B goofing off in the flower fields.  

We got to stay with Micah and family.  It was just like having little brother Chan around since Micah is the same age.  

We helped to celebrate Micah's 2nd birthday while we were in town.  With the hot wave Seattle was having, the slip and slide was a lot of fun!

Esme took a little while to warm up to cousin Tabby but once she did they were so excited to see each other.  

Esme's one request for the trip was a visit to Molly Moon's ice cream.  

Esme in front of her Chinese school.

To celebrate the end of her Chinese school we went to a pottery studio and did some painting.

Face painting with Addy and Natalie, Esme's WA friends.

Covington Days! Watching a parade with all her friends!