when i woke up this morning (the day before easter), i told mommy that i had a dream about painting easter eggs with sienna.  well, thanks to uncle henry, dreams do come true!  uncle henry had brought over an easter egg decorating kit a few weeks ago, and mommy had put it away with no intention of using it this year.  but after that dream i had, she had to bring it out.

sienna and i wrapped, dyed, and stickered our eggs.  and then we put them in the fridge.  what are you supposed to do with eggs after you decorate them?  well, i asked mommy to make a deviled egg for me.   i didn’t actually know what it was called, but i was able to describe it well enough for her to figure it out.  sienna had to steer clear because of her egg allergy.  poor sienna — she’s missing out.  deviled eggs are so yummy.

the neighborhood easter egg hunt that we’re going to tomorrow is not in our cul de sac, but we want to contribute, so we stuffed a few dozen eggs.  most families stuff their eggs with candy, but we went for a healthier (though less tasty) option.  we filled ours with stickers and erasers.

with our real eggs decorated and plastic eggs stuffed, we are all ready for easter!

last fall, sienna and i took school photos for the first time.  mommy complained about the technical quality of the photos and how she prefers the ones that she takes of us.  but still, we bought some.  mommy predicted that the photos would sit in a box somewhere and collect dust, and she was mostly right.  i can’t say for sure that they’re in a box, but they’re definitely collecting dust.  mommy put them away in a safe place — a place so safe that we have no idea where they are.

well, now it’s spring, and we took school photos again.  this time, mommy loves sienna’s photos.  she says that this photo of sienna is among the top 3 of sienna’s all-time cutest photos.

and what about mine?  mommy and daddy don’t like any of my photos. 🙁  i’ve somehow developed a fake smile.  can you blame me?  after 4.5 years of having cameras pointed at you every day, your smile would start to look painted-on, too.  but given that this is my last year of preschool, i really want to buy the cap and gown photo.  what do you think?

here’s a link to the rest of the photos if you want to take a look.  we have another couple of weeks to decide.

when uncle jim and auntie lana got engaged, mommy wasn’t on facebook to see the announcement.  (she gave up facebook for lent.)  luckily for mommy, uncle jim had texted her to tell her the good news, so she already knew.  that’s a good friend, huh?

anyway, uncle jim and auntie lana asked us to take some engagement photos of them today.  they chose san francisco as the location.  mommy and daddy both wanted to shoot, so they weren’t sure what to do with me and sienna.  eventually, they decided to bring us along and let us be their assitants.  i was the designated reflector holder.  i even practiced holding it beforehand.  the reflectors are bigger than me!

it turned out that we didn’t use the reflectors at all.  but sienna and i still got to help by being practice subjects, and i also directed uncle jim and auntie lana on how to pose.  sienna and i even got to take some pictures of each other.  what do you think?  are we natural photogs?

we had a really fun time seeing the sights in san francisco.  we went to the legion of honor, the palace of fine arts, fort mason, and north beach.  my favorite was fort mason because we got to see the red gate bridge.  i know it’s really called the golden gate bridge because we learned about it in school.  but “golden gate bridge” is a really silly name for a bridge that’s red.  so i call it the red gate bridge.  i’m going to bring the picture of me to school this week to show my friends on share day.

mommy and daddy’s favorite location was north beach.  that’s because we didn’t take any pictures there (so they didn’t have to keep track of sienna and me while also focusing on taking photographs).  we just ate dinner there with uncle jim and auntie lana.  yup, dinner in north beach on a saturday night.  mommy said she felt like she was back in her pre-kid days.  that was the most exciting saturday night dinner that she and daddy have had in a long time!

we had so much fun spending the day in the city taking photos and seeing a lot of the great tourist spots.  and we are so happy for uncle jim and auntie lana!

i had my first t-ball class today.  after i registered for the class a couple of weeks ago, i went out and got a baseball glove.  mommy and i spent a long time in the store trying to figure out whether i should throw with my right or left hand.  you know, so i could figure out which glove to get.  after about an hour, mommy reluctantly bought me the left-handed glove (i decided i wanted to throw righty).  she was hoping that i would use my left-handed tendencies to give me an advantage in athletics.  instead, i just use my left hand to eat and write (sometimes).

anyway, in my first class, we practiced throwing, fielding, hitting, and running the bases.    i am totally hooked.  i am still trying to figure out if i want to bat left or right, but there’s plenty of time for that.  my first priority is finding a favorite team.  we started class by introducing ourselves and telling the class who our favorite baseball team is.  i didn’t know what to say because i don’t know any baseball teams.  i only know the sharks.

after class, mommy asked me if i want to be a yankees fan since one of the pitchers is mashiro tanaka.  he must be my uncle or a long lost relative or something.  so uh, go yankees?

sienna and i had a really long day today.  really long, and really fun.  we started our morning on the peninsula for max’s 3rd birthday party at his house.  mommy and daddy drove separately because we all had different places to go and different people to see.

apparently, max loved the fire truck that came to visit us for my birthday party.  so much so that he got one for his party too!  the fireman came, i sat in the fire truck (sienna wasn’t interested), and then i was over it.  the other kids had fun trying on gear and spraying the hose, but i was more interested in getting back to playing.

max has a really fun backyard with a basketball court, play structure, and jungle gym.  sienna and i had fun swinging and climbing.  i also had a lot of fun playing basketball with auntie judy.  she got a first-hand view of my “shuffle shuffle shuffle defense”.  we also enjoyed all the yummy hawaiian food.  since most kid parties serve pizza, mommy usually pre-eats.  but not today.  mommy and daddy knew the food would be good because max’s parents are foodies.

after a few hours, sienna got tired, so she left with daddy and they headed down to grandma’s house.  sienna napped in the car, just like we planned.  mommy and i (and auntie judy) stayed at max’s party until we were the last one’s left.  happy birthday max!

after the party, mommy and i went to uncle kyle and auntie jen’s house.  i hung out with joshua and connor while mommy caught up with the grown ups.  it’s always so fun to visit them because they are older boys (8 and 6 years old) and they have the coolest toys.  after a couple of hours, mommy and i headed to grandma’s house to have dinner with everyone.

after dinner, mommy and sienna met up with auntie judy and went to the sharks game.  sienna was really good during the first period.  she didn’t flirt with boys like she usually does, but she made friends with another little girl who offered to share her popcorn. 🙂

by the middle of the second period, sienna was done.  she wouldn’t sit still, she kept taking off her earmuffs, and she kept kicking her feet (almost kicking the people in front of her and next to her).  mommy was ready to take her home in the middle of the second period, but sienna promised to start behaving.

amazingly, sienna made it through the end of the game.  unfortunately, the game ended 0-3 (predators won) and there was no scoring in the 3rd period.  (mommy wished that they would have left early to beat the rush.)  well, now we know that sienna is too big to be sitting on mommy’s lap and will need her own seat at sharks games from now on.  but we’ll worry about that next season.  i call dibs on playoffs!

guess who’s potty trained.  yes, sienna!  well, during the daytime, anyway.

for a long long long time, she was staying dry all day at school, but she was peeing in her pull-up in the evening.  but that was because mommy and daddy weren’t reminding her to go potty every couple of hours like her teachers do at school.

a couple of weekends ago, i was shopping with mommy, and we picked out some frozen and little mermaid underwear for sienna.  her favorites!  mommy washed them and put them away so they would be ready for sienna whenever she was ready for them.  well, that’s all it took.  starting the very next day, sienna dressed herself in her underwear and insisted on wearing them.  the deal she made with mommy and daddy was that she could wear underwear, but if she had an accident, she would change into a pull-up for the rest of the day.

well, sienna did have potty accidents a couple of times, but since then, 100% dry.  no more diapers!  (except for at nighttime.)

i, on the other hand, went to bed pull-up-free for almost a week.  i wet my bed every single night that week.  mommy and daddy tried everything.  cutting off liquids at dinner time.  making sure i peed right before i fell asleep.  one time, mommy even woke me up to pee.  sometimes, i’d wake mommy up (always mommy, never daddy) in the middle of the night to tell her i had an accident.  sometimes, i would just wake up in the morning soaked in pee.

one time, mommy checked on me when she came home from volleyball (around 10:30pm) and she saw that i was wet.  so she woke me up, cleaned me up, changed my sheets, and put me back to bed.  then she checked on me again before she went to bed (around 1:00am) and i was wet again!  that’s when mommy finally realized that i’m not peeing in my pull-up in the morning when i wake up — i’m peeing during the night.  sometimes more than once.  i guess that’s what happens when you have a tiny bladder and you sleep like a log. zzzzzzzzzz…

so anyway, i’m back to wearing pull-ups at nighttime.  i wonder if sienna will be nighttime potty trained before me.

i am 4 and a 1/2 today!  mommy left for texas this afternoon, so i knew she wasn’t around to celebrate my 1/2 birthday with me at dinner time.  so instead, we had a morning celebration.  i requested a special breakfast of yogurt topped with bananas sprinkled with cocoa powder and homemade granola balls (mommy rolls them into balls instead of cutting them into bars like normal mommies do).  so yummy!

anyway, here’s what i’ve been up to these days.

daily schedule:

• 7:20am: wake up to a song of my choice.  my alarm clock is mommy’s old iphone.  for the alarm tone i get to pick from a dozens of songs that daddy downloaded for me.  i usually start my morning with one of the songs from frozen.
• 7:30am: i take off my pajamas and get dressed for school.
• 8:00am: breakfast.
• 8:30am: daddy drives us to school.
• 1:00pm:  we have nap time at school every day, but i hardly ever nap.  maaaybe once a month.
• 4:30pm: mommy picks us up from school.  sometimes it’s later, but with all of our after-school activities, we’re usually outta there by 4:30pm.
• 6:45pm: dinner.  we’ve been trying to eat dinner a little earlier so we can get to bed earlier.  but unfortunately, that means that we usually have to start without daddy. 🙁
• 8:00pm: shower or bath, change into pj’s, and brush teeth.  i recently stopped wearing a pull-up at nighttime, but i’ve peed in my bed every night, so far.  so we’ll see how long this lasts.
• 9:00pm: mommy and daddy usually take turns putting me to bed.  and when we read a book, we read alternating pages.  i could read the whole thing by myself, but that would take too long. 😛
• 9:15pm: lights out.

favorite indoor activities:

• reading
• drawing
• sleeping

favorite outdoor activities:

• riding the scooter in my school playground.  it’s not what you think.  it’s a squarish board with wheels at the corners, and you sit on it and push with your feet.
• playing with a hula hoop like a jump rope (also at school)
• playing soccer and t-ball

favorite book:  doc mcstuffins: engine nine feelin’ fine

favorite TV show: kai-lan, doc mcstuffins, curious george

favorite song:

• do you wanna build a snowman?
• let it go
• love is an open door

favorite mobile app:  clumsy ninja

favorite foods: i am a super good eater.  i always eat my healthy foods, but when given the opportunity, i’ll gladly eat foods that are not healthy too.

• pizza (i like making my own)
• jello cake (think tiramisu, but with a jello/cream cheese/fruit mixture in place of the marscapone/rum/espresso)

favorite character:  cat in the hat

favorite animal:  dolphins and whales (because they both spray water)

mommy and daddy are always doing things to empower me and sienna to be independent.

like buying the 5 step stools for our house.  yes, 5.  regular sized step stools for me, and taller ones for sienna.  ‘cuz she’s short.  we can both brush our teeth, wash our hands, and help out in the kitchen.

like, moving all my clothes to the bottom 3 drawers of my chest of drawers.  i can reach all my clothes and get dressed by myself.  sienna’s dresser is only 3 drawers tall, so she can reach all of her clothes and get dressed on her own, too.  sometimes, that’s not a very good idea.  like, the other day, she put on the pink supergirl halloween costume that she wore when she was 1 year old.  (i have no idea how she fit into that.)  it’s a onesie with an attached skirt.  over that, she wore a green plaid skirt, and then she put on purple leggings with white polka dots.  usually, mommy and daddy let her wear whatever crazy (embarrassing) outfit that she assembles, that that’s where mommy drew the line.  she made sienna change into something… uh… less costumey?

and today, daddy installed a kid-height hanging rod in our closet.  now, sienna and i can choose which jacket we want to wear each day.

so yes, all of these things allow sienna and me to do things for ourselves.  but i’m on to them.  they don’t do these things for us.  they do it for themselves.

all those step stools?  those are there so that mommy and daddy don’t have to drop everything they’re doing to help us go potty.  or wash our hands.  or get ready for bed.

the strategic placement of our clothes?  that was so that they can sleep an extra 10 minutes while sienna and i get ourselves dressed in the morning.

the kid-friendly closet?  that’s there so that mommy and daddy don’t have to go through the morning routine of “here’s your jacket.”  “i don’t want that jacket.”  “okay how about this jacket?”  “no, not that one, either”  also when we get home, sienna and i can now hang up our own jackets instead of throwing them on the closet floor.

see what i mean?  everyone thinks that they’re teaching me and sienna to be independent from them, but they’re actually gaining their independence from us.

it seems like sienna gets to play hooky from school all the time to have playdates with her friends.  without me.  today, it was my turn.  while sienna was in school, i went bowling with murci!

it was murci’s first time bowling, so i showed her how it’s done.  we were only planning on playing one game, but we had so much fun that we convinced our mommies to pay for another.  i’m not as good at real bowling as i am at wii bowling, but i did pretty good.  i got a spare AND a strike!  murci did a good job for her first time, too.

hooky bowling is so fun!  actually, everything seems more fun when you get to skip school to do it.  i have to plan more mid-day playdates while i still can.  next year i’ll be in a real school with a strict attendance policy!

the weekend around march 24th is always a super busy one for us because march 24 is logan’s, edison’s and daddy’s birthday!  but instead of celebrating logan’s birthday last weekend, we celebrated mason’s (logan’s brother’s) instead.  don’t ask.  actually, go ahead and ask, but ask auntie cheryl.  not me.

on saturday, mommy went to a fancy baby shower for auntie serene.  and since mommy wasn’t home to make lunch for me and sienna, daddy fed us pizza.  yummy!  we love pizza.

later in the afternoon, mommy met me, sienna, and daddy at pump it up in sunnyvale for edison’s 4th birthday party.  edison has a lot of friends.  a LOT.  there were so many of us that we could barely fit in the picture!

sienna and i had so much fun.  i really liked the giant slide and the games that were projected onto the ground (like kick the soccer balls and squash the bugs).  sienna loved the obstacle course where she climbed up walls and dove through holes.  everyone was so surprised that she could get through that whole course by herself.  especially the climbing wall.

after playing on the inflatables, it was time for pizza and cake.  yummy yummy.

on sunday, we went to swim lessons like usual, then to isaac’s house for a frozen viewing party.  uncle warren picked up pizza for lunch.  i really liked the movie and sat through the whole thing.  sienna enjoyed the movie too, but she just couldn’t sit still for that long.  we both sang along with the songs in the movie. 🙂

sunday night was mason’s 2nd birthday party at the little gym (my old gym in sunnyvale).  the activities were geared toward little kids like mason and sienna, so i thought i might be bored.  no way.  air trac and bubbles are fun for all ages, so we all had a great time.

after playing in the gym, we had pizza and cupcakes.  and if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll realize that that was the 4th meal in a row (not including breakfast) that we ate pizza.  BEST.  WEEKEND.  EVER.

and now it’s monday, daddy’s actual birthday.  mommy and daddy usually play volleyball together on mondays, but they are between seasons this week.  and since uncle henry was already planning to come over to help gung-gung put sienna and me to bed, mommy took advantage of the kid-free time to take daddy out for a nice birthday dinner at blackhawk grille.

happy birthday daddy!  and happy birthday to edison and logan, too. 🙂