Friends

i've been thinking a lot about friends lately and feel blessed to be around some really good friends. this past weekend, my friend, Saejung, threw a party for me at her house. it was so lovely. lovely to be able to sit with my friends who were all there to help me celebrate Cordelia's birth. i was enjoying myself so much though i completely forgot to take pictures...!

and as i am blessed with good friends, my daughters are building relationships that i hope will last for many many years - such sweet girls!

Happy Mother's Day

to all the mummies i know, happy mother's day!! and especially to those of you who have little ones to take care of, big hugs! since i find it a daily challenge to get out the door properly clothed and sane of mind, i know you all are in the thick of it too! but as i was thinking yesterday at Skye's birthday party, surrounded by 6, 7, 8 year old little ladies, how quickly they grow up and don't seem to need us as much as little Cordelia does... and yet we'll always be their mums. and thank goodness we'll always have our mothers!

Happy Earth Day!

those of you who know me know i can't resist poking around in the Anthropologie store. so i was thrilled when i found out the store in Madison was doing an Earth Day activity that was kid-friendly. i managed to drag Cordelia and Claire to the store and Claire made these fun pots. in one, she planted sunflowers and in the other one which she made for Skye, she planted some thyme.

Belated post on Lunar New Year

oops! time has flown by and i meant to post these pics from our new year celebration earlier. but, better late than never!

doesn't the food look delicious? we ate SO much!


the girls put on their hanbok, the korean traditional dress

belated movies

here are two movies i just uploaded, one from Skye's ballet recital and the other from our new year's eve party (our hostess was very creative and put down strips of bubble wrap for us to jump on to make a terrific noise since we didn't have firecrackers). :)

Skye's ballet recital from slkim on Vimeo.

New Year Eve 2009 from slkim on Vimeo.

New Year Eve 2009

hmmm...it would be nice if my new year's eve was a bit more exciting, but with kids, i'm far too tired to party into the wee hours of the morning. instead, we went to a friend's house and had the countdown in Rio de Janeiro time (it was midnight there at 8pm Madison time :)). and now that everyone has gone to sleep, i can catch up on my blog.

i've wondered about new year resolutions, but it's hard to come up with goals when i know life is going to go into full chaos once this third baby arrives. but i am going to try my best to chillax a little more and try my best to roll with the punches. i do still have a list of things to accomplish before the baby arrives, so those are in the immediate future, but other than that, i'm going to try to embrace whatever life has in store for me this year.

here are some pix from yesterday when we drove up north to my sister-in-law Megan's parents' lake house by Dutch Hollow Lake. the girls had a great time opening up more gifts and having a second Christmas. they went sledding down a great hill and built a snow fort. Skye went for a walk to the frozen lake with Phil and Uncle Mike.

Phil's birthday

here is Phil on his birthday with his girls, wearing the special party hat Skye made for him. :)

Happy Birthday, Phil! from slkim on Vimeo.

Phil's birthday was also Skye's last day of kindergarten. what a difference from her first day of kindergarten, when we were all emotional about the big step she was taking!

Skye's last day of kindergarten from slkim on Vimeo.

and Claire has learned to ride the tricycle all by herself! i think i showed her how to peddle once or twice, but the other day, all of a sudden, i noticed she was riding without any help!!

Claire learns to ride a tricycle! from slkim on Vimeo.

Skye's Golden Birthday

it's hard to believe that my little girl is getting so big. i know people say this all the time about parenthood, that the first years fly by, but i can't help marvelling about it just the same. i guess because i'm not growing or changing at the rate my children are. i'm sort of walking along at a tortoise pace while they are hopping ahead like little bunnies.

while Skye's official party isn't until this saturday, we did manage to squeeze in some celebrating last wednesday. it ended up being a FULL day. Skye was the "Fantabulous Friend" at school last week and her teacher asked her to bring in her violin to play for the class. i was supposed to do that on tuesday but was sick as a dog, so i went in on wednesday. Skye was so proud of herself, to get up in front of her friends and play her many variations of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. then, after school, she had her ballet recital. they did the "Firebird" this time. i'll post some movies of their dance. it was lots of fun to watch.

personally for me, i had another celebration going on inside. i'd started my novel shortly after Skye was born. now, near her 6th birthday, i'm close to being finished with it. i have a final meeting with an editor and then i'll be sending it out to an agent. i feel really mixed up inside, sort of like seeing the children growing up. i'm happy that they are growing up so well and growing more and more independent, yet with each year, i'm letting them go more and more. and while i'm happy the novel is coming to an end, there's a sadness there too.

this saturday, we celebrate Skye's birthday at her ballet school with 10 of her friends. all the girls will dress up, dance and eat cupcakes. i did try my best to convince Skye to have a party at home, but she was quite firm about having her party outside this year. she wanted a fairy party, just the kind they have at her ballet school. :)

New Year's Day

on New Year's day, Phil's parents arrived in the morning and had the traditional duk guk with us. we also did jul, which really appealed to Skye when she learned that she could actually make money by doing jul! jul is a bowing ceremony that's done on New Year's day in Korea. the younger people bow to the elders and the elders hand out money. i remember as a young child in Korea, we would visit my mother's family on New Year's day and she had a large family and the jul got rather long, but i did make lots of money! :)

here is Skye doing jul to her grandparents



in the evening, we headed over to one of our neighbour's house for a neighbourhood party.

it was hard to get all the kids to cooperate...

Christmas 2008

Christmas morning, the girls jumped out of bed, excited to open their various gifts.




for some reason, Skye is really into doing surveys these days, something she learned at school. she had been wanting a clipboard to help with her surveying activities, so she was quite pleased with this gift! :)



playing time continues after a big breakfast of pancakes, eggs & sausages!


we headed out to romp for a bit in the snow


on Boxing Day, Uncle Mike and Auntie Megan joined us and the girls had another round of opening gifts!





Auntie Megan trying to take a picture of Claire with her fancy new phone...

and again...

and again!

Claire gives up

Thanksgiving and Claire's birthday party

here are some photos, belated. i'm busy trying to catch up here!

for Thanksgiving, we had friends and some of Phil's graduate students over for dinner. we had a great time! i had cooked a 23.5 lb turkey, but unfortunately, we forgot to take a photo of our big bird.






the day after Thanksgiving, we had Claire's birthday bash. :) many of Claire's friends came to celebrate and Phil's parents and brother Mike and wife Megan joined us as well. it was a good time. and Claire was just great with all the attention thrown her way! :) here is the birthday girl!


Claire's 2nd Birthday party from slkim on Vimeo.