it’s that time of year again when people bring oranges to our house and give red envelopes to me and sienna.  yup, chinese new year.  auntie mimi and her family had a huge celebration at their new house and we were lucky enough to be invited.

mommy and gung-gung feasted on their favorite traditional dishes like jai, daddy and i had our fill of noodles and potstickers, and sienna gorged herself on fruit.  (with all of sienna’s allergies, there’s not a whole lot that she can eat when it comes to chinese food.)  somewhere around our third plate of food, a 3-year old boy named lane came over and invited me to play hot wheels with him.  i didn’t pay much attention to him because i wasn’t interested in playing cars.  i wanted to play “the game”.  mommy  didn’t know what i was talking about.  i tried to show her, but we were intercepted and diverted to the courtyard to do fireworks.

after the fireworks, i took mommy over to “the game”.  all evening, i had been watching grown ups (who i didn’t know) noisily spread tiles all over the table, stack them up, and then one by one, throw them back into the middle of the table.  apparently the game is called mahjong.  i wanted to play too.

so after everyone else was done, mommy taught me how to play.  we played 3 rounds, and i won all 3.  mahjong is the best game ever!

thanks for inviting us to your awesome chinese new year celebration, auntie mimi!  gung hay fat choy.  happy year of the horse!

guess what.  sienna swam by herself today!  she’s such a big girl!

the independent swim classes usually start when you turn 3 years old, but sienna’s teacher thought she was ready.  she even recommended that sienna skip the first two levels and go straight into the yellow starfish class.  that’s only one level below me!

when mommy dropped sienna off for her class, she explained to the teacher that this was sienna’s first independent swim class.  she hoped he would be a little more understanding of  anxiety or tears if he knew the situation.  but there were no tears.  sienna barely even glanced back when mommy left the pool deck.

sienna did such a good job swimming by herself.  she even got 2 of the circles (skills) on her starfish card marked off already.  when the teacher put out his hand to give her a high-five, she kissed his palm.  yes, she kissed him.  repeatedly.

you know, now that i think about it…  sienna hasn’t had a lot of male teachers, but the ones that she’s had, she’s been very fond of.  remember the gym teacher (mr. dennis) that she had a crush on?  i think sienna is so silly. mommy and daddy think that she is going to be trouble.

we ate a lot of really yummy food today.  for brunch this morning, mommy made chocolate crepes.  they were wheat-free, so it was a special treat that both sienna and i could have.  sienna loved them.  apparently, they didn’t love her.  mommy thought that the egg in the crepes would be okay because sienna has been eating muffins/breads made with egg, and she hasn’t had any problems.  mommy was wrong.  bad for sienna, but good for me because i got to eat the rest of sienna’s crepe. 🙂

for dinner, we went to forbes mill (danville) to celebrate gung-gung’s birthday.  forbes mill (los gatos) is daddy’s favorite steakhouse.  that’s probably why he was a little worried about taking us kids out to that sort-of-fancy restaurant.  because if we ended up getting banned from there, daddy would have to go all the way down to the los gatos location to eat his favorite prime rib!

but the evening turned out just fine.  they gave us crayons, and the entire table was covered in paper.  how fancy can a restaurant be when the tables are giant coloring pads?

uncle tilton and his friend joined us for dinner, which was a nice treat because we don’t see him very often.  and it’s always fun hanging out with cousin zoey.  we were on our best behavior all through dinner.  sienna was pretty good until later in the evening when she got tired and restless and wouldn’t stay in her chair.  the food was super yummy and gung-gung enjoyed a nice evening out with his family.

happy birthday gung-gung!  (i don’t know how old he is, but i’m guessing 180.)

PSA: we learned tonight that rice is not always gluten-free.  some restaurant suppliers add wheat flour to the rice to make it stickier and to help preserve it.  we will definitely have to ask from now on!

valentine’s day is a really fun holiday.  to prepare for this special day, sienna and i picked out 3 different kinds of cards and small gifts (tattoos and pencils) to give to our classmates.  for each friend, we picked which card and which gift we wanted to give.  (i gave two pencils to my girlfriend maria because she’s special.)  i signed my name on all the cards for my friends.  sienna wanted to sign the cards for her friends, but mommy kept having to remind her that she doesn’t know how to write her name yet.

just like every year, uncle randy sent us a giant fruit arrangement with our favorite fruits, a balloon, and a bear.  it arrived while we were at school.  since sienna was having a valentine’s day party in her class, mommy brought the fruit arrangement to school for her to share with her friends.  it was a big hit.

even after sienna and her friends had their fill of the fruit arrangement, there was still so much left that i shared it with my friends, too.  we didn’t have a party in my class, but we did make big envelopes with our names on them, then went all around and delivered valentine’s greetings to all of our friends.

when we got home, sienna and i sorted through all of the loot we received and gave all the candy to daddy.  it was kind of like halloween, but we didn’t have to go door-to-door to get all of our treats.  we also got a lot more non-candy items (pencils, stickers, pretzels, etc.) than on halloween.  and oh, and i didn’t get to dress up like superman. 

i wonder why mommy and daddy don’t give out cards and presents to their friends on valentine’s day.

on  mondays, uncle henry usually comes over to hang out with us while mommy and daddy play volleyball together.  if uncle henry can’t make it, we have a handful of other aunties and uncles who would like to come and play.  but today, uncle henry wasn’t feeling well, and all of our other aunties and uncles weren’t available on short notice.  no problem.  mommy planned to sit out the match and ask daddy to find another girl to sub for her.  but before mommy could let daddy know, he texted her and asked her to help find a sub for one of the other girls on the team.  uh oh.  if mommy skipped volleyball, her team would have to forfeit.

so mommy had to make a choice.

• leave sienna and me home with gung-gung.  gung-gung is pretty good at taking care of one of us, but he can’t handle both of us.  individually, we are pretty good.  but together, we can be mischievous, we sometimes fight, and we don’t listen to gung-gung very well.
• bring one of us to volleyball.  if mommy was to bring just one of us, it would be me.  i am a better listener, i am less likely to run onto the court, and i am more independent than sienna (like, if i had to go potty in the middle of a game, i could go by myself).  but, if i got to go to volleyball and sienna didn’t, she would be SO PISSED and it would make her (and gung-gung’s) night miserable.
• bring both of us to volleyball.  sienna and i play together all the time and we both could draw/write/color and cut paper for hours.   the risk is that we might fight and then one (or both) of us would run onto the court crying, or maybe we would get tired and whiny and want mommy to hold us, or maybe one of us would have a potty accident…

i guess there were a lot of things that could have gone wrong, but apparently, mommy didn’t think about them.  sienna and i promised to be on our best behavior — i even offered to help sienna go potty if she needed to go.  so mommy agreed to bring both of us to volleyball.

when we arrived at the gym, mommy gave us a choice between staying in the lobby and doing activities (where there was plenty of room to run around) or coming inside the gym to watch volleyball (but we’d have to sit on the bleachers and not walk around).  we picked the lobby.  so mommy set us up at a table with our dinner, activity books, scissors, crayons, rescue bots, and plenty of scratch paper.  she showed us where the restrooms were and she pointed out the court that she and daddy would be playing on.  there were big windows where we could see into the gym, but mommy made it very clear that we were not to go into the gym unless there was an emergency.

mommy and daddy were lined up and ready to play their first game, when all of a sudden, i wandered into the gym, headed in their direction.  daddy ran over to me to find out what the emergency was.  sienna had dropped some of her food on the floor.  apparently, that didn’t qualify as an emergency.

after that minor incident, the night went smoothly.  sienna and i ate our dinner.  we did our activities.  we said hi to the auntie and uncles we recognized as they arrived for their games.  auntie jen even sat down and hung out with us for a little while before her games started.  i was a super good listener all night.  sienna was good except for when she used her plastic scissors as chopsticks to eat her dinner.  oh, and also when we were standing in the doorway watching mommy and daddy play and sienna pushed me into the gym.  she knew we weren’t supposed to be in there and she just wanted me to get in trouble.

mommy’s teammates were nice enough to let her skip reffing and take us home at a decent hour.  still, it was past our bedtime and mommy expected us to fall asleep in the car on the drive home.  we didn’t.  we were too excited from the fun night we had.  sienna and i hope we get to go to volleyball with mommy all the time.  maybe uncle henry should come to volleyball with us and open childcare services in the lobby.  i med

today, i went to princeton’s birthday party at partipalooza.  it wasn’t the first party for a school friend that i was invited to, but it was the first that i was able to attend.  the invitation didn’t say that siblings were invited, so i assumed they weren’t.  i told sienna that she couldn’t go, so she stayed home with daddy.  but once i got there i felt kinda bad because everyone else brought their siblings.  one of sienna’s classmates was even there.

partipalooza is a really fun party place that’s sort of like a pump it up.  the party starts in one room, moves to another, and then finally to the party room where the birthday kid sits in a giant throne while everyone eats pizza and cake.  the first room had a few inflatables.  i climbed up and slid down the giant slide a few times, but i quickly lost interest once i noticed the air hockey table.  i love air hockey.  that’s princeton, the birthday boy, playing with me.  and the girl who’s grabbing me from behind is one of my friends from school.  when she saw me, she yelled my name like i was a celebrity and then ran over to grab me.  mommy thinks she likes me.  after a marathon session of air hockey, i made my way over to the foosball table.  i had never played foosball before, but it was so fun.  now i’m hooked.  i didn’t care about the jumpy houses at all.  air hockey and foosball all day long.  mommy says that i’m a frat boy in the making.

the next room was sort of like an arcade.  there was a mini bowling alley, rock climbing wall, a basketball game, and some arcade games that i didn’t pay attention to.  i bowled and bowled and bowled.  at the very end, mommy (strongly) encouraged me to try some other activities so that other people could have a chance to bowl.  so i shot some hoops, but that got old quickly because i couldn’t make any baskets.  so i moved on to rock climbing, but only got half way up before it was time to go eat.  but that’s okay because i didn’t want to go any higher anyway.

so then it was off to the party room for pizza and ice cream cake.  what kid wouldn’t be happy about that?  me.  i just wanted to get back into the activity rooms to play some more, and i was so upset that i wasn’t allowed.  i had so much fun at princeton’s party, and partipalooza was such a nice change from the usual birthday party places that we go to all the time.  happy birthday princeton!

sienna is a big girl now.  she made an easy transition into the peacocks class (2.5 – 3 yos) at school, she can use the potty by herself, and she picks out her own clothes and gets dressed by herself.  this is all good.  almost.

the problem is, she has no fashion sense.  she understands matching, and she looks for common colors in each piece of clothing that she puts on, but she doesn’t get that the same concept does not apply to patterns.  remember when daddy dressed me in a mismatched outfit because he thought that green matches with green matches with green?  sienna apparently thinks that stripes matches with stripes matches with stripes.  i wonder where she gets that from.

we watched a lot of TV this weekend. on saturday, isabelle had her red egg and ginger party at her house. there were a lot of people and a ton of food, but i missed out on most of it. as soon as we arrived at their house, we headed straight for the theatre room where kid movies were playing. we caught the end of “despicable me” and then sat through one of the “toy story” movies. sienna kept popping in and out to eat and to hang out with mommy and daddy. but not me. i was glued to the big screen and didn’t even come out to eat dinner. it was my first time watching an entire movie.  it was so cool because i never get to watch that much TV at home!

i really like watching movies at isaac’s house.  i wish we had a home theatre room like his.  (daddy does too.)

on sunday, we had another football playdate at our house.  logan and mason came over to play with me and sienna while uncle greg and auntie cheryl watched super bowl XLVIII with mommy and daddy.  uncle ritchie, auntie margaret, and uncle henry came over too.

mommy made this sheet of silly prop bets (as she usually does for the superbowl), and we all filled one out.  i filled mine out all by myself and even put in my own (fake) money from my cash register for the entry fee.  i thought it was weird that uncle henry’s money looked different than mine.

i didn’t actually watch much of the game, but the audi commerical with the doberhuahua made me laugh out loud.  but dangit, that was question #15 and i got it wrong.  auntie cheryl ended up winning the pool, but i did better than mommy and daddy, so yayyy me!  at least the prop bets kept us interested in what might have been the most boring super bowl of all time.

sienna started her first soccer class today.  she was so excited to finally get to try out a real “team” sport (swimming and gymming don’t count).  i went to sienna’s class with her to cheer her on, just like she does for me at my basketball class.

the soccer class is being held inside a gym, which i thought was weird because my soccer classes have always been outdoors on grass.  i think the slick floors made it harder for sienna (and the rest of the kids) to learn to dribble, but they did alright.

since sienna is still so young, this is a parent participation class.  but during the part when the coach asked the kids to kick the ball through their parents’ legs, i stepped in to help.  although, i think sienna might  have done better with mommy because mommy’s legs make a bigger tunnel.  but at least the ball fit through my legs.  sienna’s legs are so short that the ball got stuck a couple of times when i tried to kick it through. 🙂

a couple of days ago, i was invited to a classmate’s birthday party.  mommy was typing the RSVP email as i was dictating: “kyden wants to go bowling first, then have pizza.”  and that’s when mommy and i had the talk about birthday parties and how the birthday boy/girl gets to choose what to do.  on my next birthday, i want to have a bowling party, and all my friends will bowl with me.  but at my friends’ birthday parties, they will choose the activity, and i will do whatever they choose.  okay.  got it.

today, greyson had a putt putt party to celebrate his 3rd birthday.  i’m not sure why it’s called “putt putt” when really, it’s miniature golf.  but you play the whole course with a putter.  oh.  i just got it.

anyway, greyson plays mini golf 2x/week, so he’s a regular.  we have a putting green in our backyard, but sienna and i had never been mini golfing before.  it was so much fun!  we golfed and golfed, but we also had a big shaded picnic area where we ate lunch and hung out between rounds.

i had a blast and didn’t want to stop playing, but sienna, not so much.  she didn’t even get through the entire course one time.  her form is terrible, which might be why it wasn’t as fun for her.  we all kept trying to help her, but (like everything else in her life) she insisted on doing it herself.

between the mini golf, the pizza, the pinata, and the chocolate cupcakes (which i got to take 4 bites of), we had a great time.  since it was greyson birthday and he picked golf, we all had to play.  he made a good choice.  happy birthday greyson!