Sydney Ballerina

Sydney doesn't appear to be the ballerina kind of girl, but I thought I would sign her up for a few ballet/dance lessons to see if she likes it. She's had 2 classes so far (Saturday mornings) and I can't quite tell if she enjoys them or not. She likes to wear her pink leotards and we're working on getting her ballet shoes. Ever since we read the book "Angelina Ballerina", she's had more of an interest to learn ballet.

9 month old "Mater"

Caleb crawls backwards like the character "Mater" from the movie Cars.

Satay, anyone?

Oh yes, believe it or not we had satay last night. No, we didn't buy it from the store. I made it! It was all eaten in a blink of an eye. Caleb had a whole stick to himself. Pureed of course. It wasn't hard to make, but the preparations takes time and marinating the meat must be done ahead of time. If you want the recipe, email me! :-)

Bath time is so much fun!

Communicating with his head

Funny Sydney-isms

New Teacher : Sydney started preschool last week, and she goes to a school that is near the University. Makes it easy for John to drop her off and pick her up. We signed her up for 2 mornings a week. The school has a flexible/open schedule that you can sign up for as many days and however long we want.

She was very excited on her first day of school (last Tuesday the 4th). The teachers (Mrs. Solomon and Ms. Barilla) commented on how well behaved and social Sydney was with the other kids. She never cried when we dropped her off and she was always so excited to see us come back to pick her up.

Anyway, on Wednesday after picking her up, I asked her how she enjoyed school and whether she liked her new teachers. She said she did and I asked her what her teachers’ names....were (just to see if she remembered).

Sydney answered "uhmmm... Mrs. Solomon and Ms. Gorilla. "

Going to the potty: Sydney has been doing a good job with the whole potty training since the beginning of the year. We often hear her say funny things when going to the potty or after. Yesterday while preparing lunch, Sydney all of a sudden....looked at me dead in the eye and said "oh oh...I gotta go to the bathroom....I hear the pee pee coming out of my butt". And off she ran to the bathroom. John and I just burst out laughing in the kitchen and thought we needed to save these little Sydney-sayings and remind her of them in her teenage years. :-) If Sydney is saying things like this, who knows what Caleb is going to say come potty-training time. Oh, you gotta love being a parent.

Random pics

Here are a few random pictures that were taken recently. Vivien has been cooking up a storm and has been trying all sorts of food. She's been craving Malaysian foods, so she tried making Rojak for the first time! It was soooo good. It's just time consuming to make, but it was definetely worthwhile. Caleb is happily growing - almost 22 lbs and turns 9 months this month. We have nicknamed him "Mater" (one of the characters from the movie "Cars") because he crawls backwards. We recently took the kids to the zoo and Sydney had the most fun seeing the panda bears. The picture above doesn't do any justice but they were pretty spectacular to watch.

Schooner Woodwind Sunset Cruise

This was a belated anniversary celebration (anniversary was July 10th) that we did on Saturday, Aug 18th. We took a sailing boat on the Chesapeake Bay and went on a sunset cruise, that left from Annapolis. The cruise started at 6:30 p.m. and we got back at around 8:30 p.m. Absolutely beautiful - relaxing - breath taking and sheer fun. Our friends Patrick and Georgia (who are about to celebrated their 1 year anniversary) joined us for the fun. We both had fun steering the boat which was really nice. I'm glad that it didn't rain, but John wished that there was a little more wind that day.

Who looks like who?

We are always receiving comments from people as to who our kids look like. I thought it would be fun to take a poll and see. Vote now using the poll on the right.

Vivien & John Sydney & Caleb

Visiting family in Iowa

You won't believe it even if I told you, but it's true. I (Vivien) drove 1200 miles from Maryland to Iowa with both kids. I made one stop in Indianapolis and stayed with some good friends for a couple of days and then drove on to Iowa. How did the kids do? Great! It couldn't have gone any better. They slept for most of the way and when they were awake, Sydney kept Caleb entertained. John was in California for work and he flew to Iowa to meet up with us. Since being in Iowa, we have had a great time meeting with uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. Here are a few pictures

Sydney with cousin Ellie and Ben Storr. Caleb and Anna(3 months) are in the stroller at the back.

Grandpa Jim with Caleb at the waterpark and Sydney with cousin, Lainey.