Baby Girl Adventures!

On one of our only sunny days of late (almost 70 degrees out), I took everyone outside to enjoy the sun. Naomi hadn't really experienced walking in the grass yet and at first she was not thrilled to try out uneven grass walking! However, once she realized all was well and that there were things to explore out in the grass, she started sauntering around with her little swishy walk that she does.

She enjoyed climbing onto and off of the little ride-on Mater toy that we have that was out in the yard as well.

Last Sunday, I put her in one of her pretty, pretty dresses for church and she promptly made her way over to the empty recycling bin to pose. This is her "sniffy face" as we call it, when she does this funny sniffing sound.


And lastly, a very serious Naomi after demolishing a chocolate chip cookie. She is quite the eater, though you wouldn't think so due to the fact that she is so petite and small. She loves to feed herself though and sometimes eats as much as her brothers!


One of her fun things she does lately also is that she finds things to put in the garbage can and wanders over and puts them in. Of late, I have found a library book (thankfully caught that one right after it was thrown in), a sippy cup, and many different toys that have made their way to the garbage via our little "helper." She also is like a moth to a flame whenever I turn on the water in the kitchen and open the dishwahser to load dishes. She likes to come over and pull the dishes out and then try to put them back in for me.


Her only real word that she uses with frequency thus far is, "Uh-oh" whenever she drops something or sees someone else drop something. She does wave with her open hand turning at the wrist to say hello and bye-bye though too. Her main form of communication though are her various different cries that she has to alert Momma and anyone else who will listen as to what is going on. There is a very specific "brothers are bothering me" cry, "I am very hurt" cry, and "I have a stinky diaper" cry. There are others as well, but those are the main three we hear most often. She loves her Daddy and waddles over to him whenever she sees him. Anytime an adult is on the ground, she plops herself down in his/her lap to get some snuggles.


We love our sweet little baby girl and it is fun to see her learning some new fun things to share with our family.

Ha na-Tul-Seht, Orange Belt!

Josiah started taking Taekwondo in January and he has really been loving it and doing great. It has taken some doing on Mommy and Daddy's parts however, to convince him that he has to practice at home as well for his Taekwondo goals, but little by little he is getting more disciplined to do that as well. This picture was taken just before the belt ceremony started to receive his orange belt and as you can see he was pretty happy! At the actual test the Friday before (we forgot the camera), it was a little nerve wracking for me as I wasn't entirely sure he was ready. The master only lets them come to the testing though if he feels they can pass, so that was good, however, it was a nail biter for sure!

He goes to Taekwondo practice three times a week (half hour each time) and his instructor is really great! He sets the standard very high and challenges the children to meet it. He also encourages good behaviors at home as well (big PLUS) by sending home a chart of things to check off each month as Josiah's does various tasks (one of them is "listen to parents"). For his orange belt test, he had to do his white belt 10-step routine, master the four kinds of kicks (he numbers the various type of kicks for them to learn), and also to be able to break a board by doing a "hammer-down fist." During practice, they used a practice board (made of plastic) that he would break and that the master would then fix it back into a board for the next person. At the test, (to our surprise) they used a real board and I could hear Josiah say to the black belt helpers, "I use a yellow board with a line down it." He was able to break the real thing on the first try though and he got to take his broken board home with him.

During the test (while the many other senior belt children were testing), Josiah and the junior belt children had to wait and listen. Josiah was in his goofy, excited mode however, and was playing around with his board and trying to talk to Sydney (a green belt from his class) and no less than 3 times the black belt helper kids had to come and tell him to "cool it" while the others were testing. He finally got the message and calmed down thankfully!

When Josiah completes certain things as required by the master, he can earn stars to go on the sleeves of his uniform and when he passes various skills during practice he can earn stripes to go on his belt. Recently, he got a yellow stripe for "basic movement" mastery. He had to do his 10-step for senior orange belt in order to pass for his stripe. This class has been great in developing Josiah's listening skills as he has to be on his toes during class listening intently to the master in order to perform the proper skills in sequence and when called upon.

As per Josiah's usual, he gets really shy when he is being praised or pictures are being taken over and over. He was very proud to get his orange belt though for sure!

Master Kim (as pictured in the 3rd picture down the blog, standing right behind me in the photo) prompted all the parents to come and get into this shot with our kiddos after they had just the kids with the Grandmaster (the man who founded this Taekwondo school--pictured in this middle of this photo). We were reluctant to join the photo shoot, but he insisted and so here it is!

We are very proud of our oranged belted-boy. As a treat after his test, we took him to DQ for an ice cream treat. I am glad he has this outlet for his boundless energy! I look forward to seeing how he will progress in the future.

NOTE: On the post title, the first three words are how you count "1, 2, 3" in Korean. They have to learn how to count in Korean and many Korean terms to learn Taekwondo. We also discovered that when they earn their black belt that they actually receive a letter written in Korean and an offical card to signify that they are approved to receive their black belt from the main Taekwondo Academy in Korea.

Free Friday Field Trip Day

Every first Friday of each month, the Tacoma Children's Museum hosts a free day for all families to come in and play at the museum. I normally cannot go to events like this without another adult helper....for OBVIOUS reasons! :) I had the idea to take my babysitter and her little sister with us (and provide lunch for them), so that I would have a little extra help at the museum and it worked out perfectly. Hannah and Josiah get along well and many times they were walking around the museum holding hands.


Josiah would run off and Hannah would call for him and would search around until she found him again. They had fun checking out all the different areas. They enjoyed the ball pit, the little construction house, a place to build things with big foam blocks, and a little vacuum-like machine that sucked up little balls and went through tubing that you could move around to have the balls go on different paths.

Josiah even played with Naomi a bit here. A little game of Peek-a-boo!

Caleb was all over the place and we had to keep our eyes on him closely to make sure he wasn't lost in the crowd. He has no qualms about being alone to play and so we were busy following him around to various locations. He really loved laying and jumping in the ball pit as you see here.

He was the first to poke his head through this little hole and I caught him looking through it just in time!

Daniel was very thoughtful about all the exhibits he looked at, and spent a majority of the time putting the balls up the vacuum machine, but here you see him examining the vegetables at the little market area. He actually took that potato and put it in the apple tree. A new type of apple perhaps....the apple-potato? Well, maybe not the best combo! Try again little buddy!

Daniel is looking downstairs through the window and you can see his reflection in the glass. He frequently came to find me when I was off with someone else and wanted to hold my hand. :) He is the one who is much more cautious and heeds any warnings I give right away. I am never concerned about him in a public place, as he always stays with me. At least I have one of them like that!

This is Naomi's excited face. She was THRILLED to be out and about looking at everything!

They have a "slob bin" for items that have been slobbered on by the babies, and we tossed our fair share of slobby toys in it! I love her beautiful blues here above the slobbed on squash!

This was one of the building blocks that she just HAD to keep climbing into to sit. I tried to pick her up a few times during this little session and she gave me some dramatic floppy motions with her body and exclaimed, "Ahhh, AHHH, AHHHHH!" to let me know that it was NOT popular to remove her from this block! She has really liked to try and climb things lately, and it is so cute to watch her try to get her little petite body up onto things.

She really enjoyed the ball pit too and you can see by the tongue action here that she was really "having a ball!" :)

Hannah and Josiah promptly held hands as we walked out of the building to head back to the car. As it turned out, I parked in a GREAT spot...in this parking garage down the hill a block down from Broadway on the 4th floor. By doing so, we were able to cross the Broadway bridge (a walking bridge) RIGHT over to Broadway without pushing the stroller uphill! Yeah, parking in the right spot "for the win!!" It was a fun field trip and it was fun to have friends to share it with. Thanks Sharel and Hannah for joining us today!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow!

The morning of March 2nd, I looked out and saw this rainbow in the sky. It was strange as I have rarely seen one in the morning like this! It faded rather quickly, but not before I got a quick shot. Please disregard the junk in the backyard, someday when it is actually sunny I plan to go out and clear it all out of there. Somewhere over the rainbow you may find a pot of gold, but on our side you get a pile of junky toys. :)