Happy Holidays 2019

And that's a wrap 2019!  We did it!  We made it through another year!  The kids are anxiously looking forward to the holidays ahead.  Our Christmas elf, Doodle, reappeared this month and that's kept them on their toes.  Eve refuses to believe he's magic and doesn't understand why the biggies are so into him.  Poppy's just along for the ride and follows suit with the biggies.  Here's an update on the family:

Esme aka Mimi, Meems
Age: 8 1/2
Grade: 3rd
Activities: Judo, Tennis, Soccer, Kumon, Piano
Fave Foods: taco salad, cheeseburgers, noodles/rice, madras lentils, mint gum/candy
Christmas wish: booties

Chan aka Chanee, Jay-man
Age: 6 1/2
Grade: 1st
Activities: Judo, Baseball, Kumon
Fave Foods: fruits, vegetables, yogurt, fish, milk, madras lentils
Christmas wish: hoverboard

Poppy aka Pops, Peanut, Boo-boo
Age: 3 1/2
Grade: Keikiland preschool
Favorite colors: purple and pink
Fave Foods: fruit, yogurt, madras lentils, gum
Christmas wish: pink comb

Eve aka Evie, Vita, Veets
Age: 3 1/2
Grade: Keikiland preschool
Favorite color: green
Fave Foods: crunchy foods, madras lentils, gum
Christmas wish: sparkly car

And of course Allen and I are still with our same jobs and somehow manage to keep it all together during this crazy adventure that we call our lives.  Hee hee!  We celebrated our 10 year anniversary this year and that gave us a lot to reflect on - how far we've come in that time and where we want to see ourselves in the next 10.  Here we go!

Happy Halloween

This year Esme decided to be a robber for Halloween.  She somehow got the idea from reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  Anyways, as soon as she said that then Chan quickly decided that he wanted to be a police man and wanted to make sure he had handcuffs as part of his costume.  Poppy found a fairy costume in our dress up bin and called herself the tooth fairy.  And Eve found a cat costume in the bin and said she was a scaredy cat.  Ha ha!  The twins were convinced that going to only 3 houses last year is just for babies and they wanted to do way more.  We ended up doing 4 with them and then convincing them to head home to hand out candy and see all the other kiddos.  The big kids walked the whole neighborhood though.  We let them eat whatever they wanted on Halloween night and they haven't asked for their candy since. 

The biggies got to wear their costumes to school so we got our money's worth this year.  Especially considering since this is the first year we bought costumes.  Usually we just dig through the dress up bin and find something but they're outgrowing a lot of it.

The evening trick or treat gang

We quickly did our pumpkins after school on Thursday before getting dressed

Chan recently participated in his first judo tournament.  He even placed 2nd!  Once he realized how the whole process worked he wanted to do many more matches.  

Esme didn't actually place since they had a hard time finding someone in her age and weight category but she still got a medal for her first tournament.  

Facetime with these goofies!

Poppy and Even had their first school pictures this year at Keikiland.  We weren't sure how it was going to go since getting them dressed and getting their hair done is always a battle.  Half the time they go to school in their pajamas cause they're so opinionated about controlling what they wear.  Turns out they put their dresses on fine and let us do their hair in the morning but somehow before pics were taken they decided to have their hair in pony tails.  Oh well!

Fall Break

Seems like school just started and now we're on fall break.  The big kids finished their first quarter this week and will have parent teacher conferences at the end of the month.  Poppy and Eve already had their parent teacher conferences at Keikiland and it was very informative.  We were told they're the most likely to follow directions and commands given by the teachers and that they never fight with each other in school.  We were floored cause that almost the opposite of home life.  Ha ha!  But I guess that's typical of the age. 

Weekend hike at Bird Park in Volcano.  It's just a mile long loop and it took some convincing but the twins walked the whole way.  Eve saved her tumble for the very end thankfully. 

When you forget your shoes and are surrounded by girls in the family then you get stuck wearing too small pink Crocs.  Thanks Eve!

Fun at Imiloa Astronomy Center

Watching the big kids at judo.

Here's Poppy giving Allen a lecture while putting on his sunscreen.  Look at that face!

Watching Esme's soccer game in the heat.  They'll take any shade they can get

Scrubbing the trampoline at Nana's before family dinner.  It had been making their feet black for awhile so we decided to hose it off and scrub it down one hot afternoon.

Celebrating their half birthday at Short & Sweet.  They're that much closer to turning 4!

School pictures!  It's amazing how grown up they look.

Pigtails!

Oh Esme!  All the littles just love her and going in her room.  Now she's posting hours.  Ha ha!

We Braved A Trip To The Bay Area

Yep you read correctly, we braved a big long trip to the Bay Area last month.  The biggies had just started school and we had to take off for a Shih cousins wedding in California.  It was a perfect time to see the whole Shih family together and for them to meet all the kids.  And boy what an adventure it was.  I can't even talk about the plane ride there because it was that awful.  Thankfully though the rest of it was pretty memorable in a good way :)  The kids all had a blast and so did we.  I still don't think we'll do any big long trips anytime soon but in the end I'm glad we went.

The kids don't normally get a lot of screen time but we figured this would buy us some time during travel.  We planned to bust them out on the plane but we had an unexpected longer layover than anticipated in Maui so we had to start earlier.  There was obviously no complaining.

We flew into Oakland and drove straight to Pleasanton where we rented a house with family.  On our first outing the next day we went fishing and Chan was beyond happy!

The house had a hot tub and all the littles loved playing in it!

We had some fun family get togethers at our rental.  After this picture Esme quickly realized that her stovetop marshmallow (for smores) was engulfed in flames!

We found lots of cool new places to play and pass time time each day.  We flew in a few days early in order to adjust before the wedding.

The wedding was at a winery in Sunol.  Thankfully it was nice and windy/breezy cause it was pretty hot out!

This was the first wedding that they remember and now they'll never forget it!  There was a cotton candy machine for the kids while the grown ups had pupus and drinks during the cocktail hour.

Chan had fun with all the props for the photo booth.  I think this "deer in the headlights" look is so him.

Eve thought it was pretty funny too!

We got one, just one, pic with all of the kids present

All the kids loved the dance floor, before and after the music started.

Eve caught the bouquet and Poppy was sooooooooooooooooo jealous.  Look at her face!  Ha ha!

The next day we went to the Oakland Zoo which was amazing!  The kids are still talking about it.  One of the highlights was this new gondola that takes you to a new section of the zoo.  It was so cool!

Gondola for 6 please!

We learned about the California condor and got to see a few also.

The exhibits got the kids so up close and personal with so many animals and they were all so amazed.

Of course the playgrounds were fun too

We spend over 6 hours there and even skipped nap which is a crazy thought for us.  The twins were fine though cause they were so well distracted with all the animals.  However we didn't even leave the parking lot and they were passed out!

This pic was taken while we braved a drive into San Fran for the remainder of our trip.  We spent awhile on the freeways and toll bridges.  Thank goodness for LOTS of snacks!

It took us FOREVER to get here and I was worried it would be anticlimactic but the kids actually enjoyed the view and driving through the fog when we crossed the bridge.

The it was off to the Golden Gate Park and the carousel was a hit!

We even found a homemade ice cream shop to stop and have a treat at

This fire hydrant looked way bigger in person so Chan thought it was pretty cool.  I must've taken the pic at the wrong angle

We rode a trolley and it was just okay.  Unfortunately we waited way too long to get on so the twins were a little fussy.

Esme ate some tomato soup in a bread bowl and Chan tried it for the first time too and loved it

Our hotel was right next to Chinatown

While the twins napped one day we escaped to the aquarium

 Lumpsuckers!