Daddy's return from Hong Kong

We went to the airport to pick up Kung Kung. Since he had a few hours before his next flight, we took him to a nearby mall.

First we had a quick lunch at the food court.

Then we had lots of fun at the children playground.

2/25 Sunday lunch at Macaroni Grill in celebration of the retirement of Chris' Mom

2/24 Saturday party, party, party. The lst one was MOPS Tea Parrty

Beautiful and delicious food offered at the Tea Party.

Becky made this special pretty corsage for one of the mothers, who is going to adopt a baby girl. They are holding this surprise baby shower for her.

Here is the whole gang of mothers of pre-schoolers.

Nicole having fun at Kyle's Birthday Party which was hold at a special gym for children

Before coming to Kyle's birthday party, they went to Chris' co-worker's lunch party at their beautiful 5000 sq ft home in Acadia to meet their new born son. Kyle's birthday party was held in a children's gym. Nicole merrily joined in all activities. She was having a ball!

Nicole's Day bagan with crying and ended with crying

Both kids woke up early today. After taking care of Jason's morning needs. I went over to Nicole's room to see if I could get her changed. She insisted to put on the pretty red Sunday dress. I explained to her today she was not going anywhere, so she should wear something else. Then she start crying and yelling on top of her voice. Chris was about to leave for work. He stood at the door wondering if he should check on her or ignore her. I told him I was trying to teach her that crying would help her get what she wanted. So he left. Nicole kept crying for Daddy and Mommy with all her might till she woke Becky up. Becky got her stop crying, got dressed and put on two lovely ponytails. When Nicole came down for breakfast, she did not forget to give me a dirty look.

In the afternoon, Nicole could not sleep after all the coaxing Becky gave her. Finally they gave up. Chris decided to take her to Kid'space, then come home to feed her and put her to bed early. So as soon as they returned, I got her dinner ready. As she was eating her dinner, she leaned on her chair backward to look at Jason and of course, she fell along with the chair inspite of Chris'warning and yelling. She cried and made a big fuss. I had to hurry to finish cooking for Becky because she had to go to another Fellowship and Bible Class. Then I took Jason from Chris and let him handle Nicole. It was not easy to have her finish her meal. After that she refused to go to bed and requested to play a little bit. Chris allowed her to play her puzzle. While doing it, she climbed on top of her little table. Chris told her to get down on the count of 3. Well, you guess it, she did not listen and Chris had her stop playing and go to bed right away. So she ended her day crying as well. Chris left for his basketball game soon after he settled Nicole in her bed.

Nicole's Day Off from school

There was no school for Nicole today. So in the morning Becky took her out shopping while I took care of Jason. Becky went for her Women's Fellowship in the evening. Chris went to practice shooting even though his hand was still hurting and there was no basketball game tonight.

Sunday - Chinese New Year Day

Jason woke up around 6:00 am this morning. He refused to go back to sleep. Since today is Sunday I thought I might as well get up early to get everybody ready for church. I changed Jason after feeding him his first bottle. Then I even managed to dress Nicole in her pretty red skirt and fed her breakfast. Wow, this was wonderful. Hopefully this would give Becky more time to pack each kid's bag. She often got irritable on Sunday morning rushing Nicole to get ready.
Since we ran out of ingredients to make another pot of the cabbage soup, our plan was to go to the Chinese market first to get what we needed. Just as we were on our way to the market, Chris' Mom informed us that the store were probably closed for the New Year Holiday. Therefore, we had to change our plan. Due to the fact that Jason was still coughing, we could not take him to the nursery. So I headed back to church's cry room with Jason to attend the Chinese service. He was sleeping in his stroller when we got there, I was hoping he would take a long nap. Unfortunately, he woke quite soon. However, he behaved pretty well all through the first service.
Becky came to check on us after her Sunday School. Before going off to sing for the English service, she got the milk ready only to find out that this bottle has no nipple. Well, Jason would have to do without his milk. When he began to lose his patience, I tried to keep him quiet feeding cereal. When Becky came back after leading the service, we decided to go to the nursery to borrow Baby Bradley's bottle. Jason refused our offer because he was not used to the new kind of nipple. We then had no choice but taking him home early.
Today we were invited to go over to Chris' parents home for dinner. It was our 4th day on our diet. We were supposed to take banana and milk only besides the cabbage soup. Luckily, Chris' parents were quite understanding. They did not insist that we should ignore our diet for one day. So we politely ate just a bowl of soup while the others were enjoying all the good food.

Chinese New Year dinner at Yeh Yeh's place

Yeh Yeh was happy to see Jason.

Cousin Bradley holding onto his lucky money.

I got one too.

Nicole couldn't wait to cut the blueberry cake for dessert.

Saturday- A quiet day at home except for a short ride to the park

In the morning, Chris went to help Scot to knock down the walls in Scot's Office, so no IHOP for Nicole this week. In the afternoon, while the kids were napping, Chris practiced his guitar for he had to lead worship this Sunday. Becky and I worked on the streamers for Jason's Birthday Party. Becky said she lost the measurement of the Park area and now she was not sure how long the streamer should be. So after the kids woke up, we all went to visit the park. Nicole had fun at the playground while Becky took the measurements again and then we went for a walk around the park. When we got home passing by Stephen's apartment, Sue came out to invite us for dinner to celebrate the end of the Chinese New Year. Becky and I would love to, but unfortunately we still had to stick to our diet, so Chris and Nicole went over to have dinner with their family. After finishing our cabbage soup, I took the chance to go over to their place to try out their message chair. My poor body was aching all over. The message helped to relieve my pain a little bit.

A short visit to the Garfield Park

Jason on our way home looking so cute.

Friday- MOP and Married Couples Meeting

As usual Becky took Nicole with her going to her MOP meeting. Today was her turn to bring fruit. She brought water melon, but they did not eat much. They returned around 1:00pm. Chris also came home to take a break, just in time to put Nicole to bed. Then he moved the sofas for tonight's Married Couples' Meeting at their place. They were also responsible for preparing the food too. I again worried what Becky was going to do, but she went to nap with the kids. When she got up I asked her about the set ups. Are they going to bring their children? Who would babysit them? How could they do their Bible Studies or sharings with so many kids running around them? What kind of food they usually eat and if she decided on pizza, would she need to go to get it at Costco? etc. etc. She took her sweet time looking at the computer and fetching the necessary coupons, finally she decided on Subway sandwich and salad. They used to have dessert after dinner, for that she said she would decide after getting to the store. So after the kids woke up, we hurried to put them in the double stroller and headed for Trader Joe"s. We got two packages of Asian Salad and one box of tiny frozen creampuffs for dessert. While we were there, Nicole enjoyed two helpings of their samples-noodle in some kind of sauce. Her face was smeared but her smile was big. Then we walked to Subway. It took us a while to decide what kind of sandwich we liked. By the time we got home it was already quite dark. Just when I finished feeding Jason, the first couple arrived! I fetched the baby and his bottle and went upstairs. After Jason went to sleep, I had nothing to do so I also crawled into bed for a nap. I could not hear what they do aside from their laughters and children's crying. It was passed 9:30pm that they all left and I was able to come down for my supper which was not much to eat since Becky and I were still on the Cabbage Diet.

Out for a walk to get sandwiches for the Married Couples Meeting

We were happy that we all could go out for a walk to get some exercises .

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Jason was so curious he stretched his little head to see what was in front.

Nicole testing out the yummy food samples at Trader Joe's.

The kids were kept busy watching cartoons on the computer while the adults held their meeting.

Thursday- Chris' half day

Jason's nose was still running, on top of that, he started coughing too. On Thursdays, Becky had to take Nicole to school because Chris has to start work early. She told me she would go get milk because Nicole's milk was running low. Well, she came back empty handed. I wasn't too sure if she would like to start dieting or after the Chinese New Year dinner. She did not want to wait, so I had to start preparing the diet soup, that way, she could have it for lunch. This morning I was able to do my exercises while watching Jason, so I suggested that we could walk to Trader Joe to get Nicole's milk so Becky could get some exercises since Stephen's treadmill was still not working. Chris was off this afternoon, he planted the pomelo outside and then offered to take Nicole to Kidspace. So we took the chance to take Jason out for nice walk.

A walk to Trader Joes

Wednesday- Valentine's Day

Again Becky had to go out in the morning to get more ingredients for tonight's dinner and to get my prescription. She was gone the whole morning, and came back with Nicole from Pre-school. She took her time to stay with Nicole in order to make sure she would take a nap. I was worrying about dinner. All I knew was Becky was going to make seafood soup, the steaks were defrosted, and the shrimps were cleaned by me in between time watching Jason. So I tried my hard to put Jason to bed, but he just wouldn't co-operate. He fought with me the whole afternoon, refusing his milk and refusing to nap. All the time I wanted to go downstairs to see what I could do to help Becky. She told me to relax. The seafood soup she make before and does not take long to cook. Calmly she put all the ingredients over the counter. Then she followed her recipe step by step to prepare the whole dinner. By 5:30pm or so, Stephen and Sue came over with the rice they volunteered to cook. Becky surprised us starting to serve us first with crab cakes and salmon cheese rolls as appetizers. Mnn, not bad at all. The seafood was smelling good. She then worked on the mussels and vegetables. I cooked the shrimps leaving Jason to the care of Stephen, while Sue played with Nicole. Table was set with Becky's nice dishes. We even opened the champagne we got from our cruise. It turned out the meal was fantastic. Everything looked nice and tasted great. Jason was absolutely tired. I had already fed him. We let him sat by us at the table while we enjoyed the seafood soup. When I finished mine, I took him upstairs to his room. He went to sleep immediately. So I was able to continue my dinner just after a few minutes. What a joy.

The seafood soup that Becky cooked for all of us on Velentine's Day was just super great! The steak was cooked just right and the shrimp cooked by Mommy was rather so so.

From the look of this dish you can tell Becky is quite a good cook after all.

Tuesday.

In spite of his sickness, Jason woke up only once during the night. Today, he had no more fever, but his nose was still running badly. When we offered him milk, he tried to fight it off. I guessed it was not because he was not hungry, but sucking the bottle made him hard to breathe. So he got us worried that he did not take enough fluid.

Becky went out shopping for the Valentine's Meal she wanted to cook for Chris, me , and especially for Uncle Stephen and Auntie Sue, just to show appreciation of all their help. She took Nicole with her. I was taking care of Jason when some repair man called and wanted to get in Stephen's house to fix their tread mill. I had no idea where was the key to his apartment. I tried those hanging by the dining table. None fit. I went to look into the Key box. Every key was there except Apt.104. So I had no choice but to call Becky up a to find out where she put the key. I found it in the shoe cabinet and went over to open the door for the repairman. When I came back, I was totally shocked to see Baby Jason playing with his own feet-long nose dripping.
What a poor baby and terrible grandma.

Tuesday night was Bible Study night for Becky. With Chris home I did not have to worry about putting Nicole to bed. I was able to put Jason down after dinner. Chris was gone by the time I came downstairs. I had no idea where he was going. A little later he came back announcing happily that he got a Marie Callender's pie. That was the last thing we want when Becky and I decided to start on our diet. However, we could save it for the Happy Valentine's meal the next day, then at least we could serve great dessert. To tell you the truth, I was actually worrying about what Becky was going to come up with for dinner.

Monday

Baby Jason's fever was down, but his nose started running. He was really congested, making it hard to fall asleep soundly.
In the morning, Becky went to have dim sum with her friends at mop. Nicole was in Pre-school. I took care of Jason.
Nicole could not sleep in the afternoon. Becky wanted me to cook early so Nicole could go to bed early after she ate. I made a quick meal. Becky and Chris ate in a hurry after putting Nicole to bed. Becky went for her Women's Fellowship and Chris went for his basket ball game.

Weekend Stamp Parties

This weekend Becky wanted to hold two Stamp Parties, one on Saturday, and one on Sunday. So in the morning they all went out to Costco to get food for the parties, leaving me with Baby Jason. Later, Mah Mah came to get Nicole. As we were baking the quiche, people started arriving. Becky sent out a lot of invitations, but not too many people could make it. In a way it was nice, because we did not have to prepare much for their lunch, and we did not have to set up another table. I took care of Jason while they ate and worked at their art.

Much to my surprise, Jason was still sleeping soundly when I got up at 8:00am. I hurried to get myself dressed for Sunday Service and then got Jason changed. Becky was upset Jason did not get his milk as usual, but I was just happy that he slept so good. Little did I know till we were notified by the Sunday School caretakers that Jason was getting sick. Sure enough, when we got him back from the nursery, he was running a temperature. Becky and I left church early and took Jason home. We figured that would give us a little more time preparing lunch. Yet before Becky could get everything set, a new comer- Peggy's friend already showed up. Again some told Becky they would come did not come, so the extended dining table fit everybody. Those who attended seemed to have fun. Becky managed to get from them some orders for stamps. Even so, I still hope she would not do this anymore. With the money and time she spent for these people, she might as well just order the stamps herself instead of hosting the parties to get free stamps. She must have felt more rewarding this way though.

Home after the crusie

Trying to take a nice picture with the kids was not quite easy. See how they goof around with grandpa and how we struggle to change Jason's diaper.