Holiday Get Togethers

Uncle Pete and Auntie Ali hosted a Secret Santa gift exchange for the kids.  The kids sat in line from the oldest to the youngest waiting patiently for their gifts.

One of the most popular gifts was Courtney's coloring pages.  The kids sat quietly coloring. It was really nice of Courtney to share her gift and the activity became a team effort!

The girls also got together with James, Luke and Kalina to exchange gifts. The kids showed off all the goodies they got.  They all loved their presents!

Daddy, Mommy and Bella stopped off at Katelyn's winter Kindergarten performance before heading to work and preschool.  The kindergartens sang Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer, Oh Hanukkah and We wish you a Merry Christmas.

Katelyn, Po Po and Mommy watched Trolls during winter break while Bella had school.   There were some parts of the movie that was scary and Katelyn sat on Mommy's lap.

It was not the best idea for the girls to wait until the last minute to see Santa and visit him on a weekend!  Mommy waited in line for an hour while Daddy took the girls to walk around the mall.  The wait was worth it for these pictures!  Bella was not afraid of Santa this year.  Santa told the girls- they were on his good list and they couldn't stop beaming after seeing him!

Parties, Drive-Ins & Ice-Skating

Auntie Stef rented out a pizza joint for Preston's first birthday.  The theme of his party was the hungry caterpillar.  He looked so cute in his birthday outfit.

Katelyn and Bella blew bubbles and played with Harper at the party.  The 3 girls had nice smiles and cute bows in their hairs.

Later that evening, they met up with Courtney and Natalie to watch their first drive-in movie, Moana.

It rained the first 15 minutes when they arrived.  It started off with all the kids eating mac and cheese, sandwiches and snacks in the back of Daddy's van.

 Here's Bella's winter school picture.

Lately these two have been setting up their stuff and pretending to camp out on the stairs.  They bring their coloring books and snacks.

Katelyn started gymnastics class.  She's been on the wait list for awhile and finally got a spot.  She enjoyed walking on the balance beam during her first class.

The girls tried skating at Central Park in San Mateo last week.  It was Bella's first time on skates.  It was cute to see her step on the ice with her little skates. 

Daddy is not a great skater himself and Mommy can't go without holding onto the wall.   It was difficult to hold Bella while trying to balance himself.  It didn't phase Bella.  Shew was fearless.

Uncle Brian, Auntie Mai and Adam joined us.  Thank goodness for these skating walkers and Auntie Mai and Uncle Brian's skating skills.

Katelyn was pretty competitive on the ice.  She wasn't very graceful, she ran on the ice with the walker.


The 3 kids didn't want to go home. Katelyn was so hot from running around, she had to take off her jacket!

Fun Times

Tristan's birthday last weekend was at an indoor gym.  Natalie and Bella tried to keep up with the big kids, but often held up the line.

We can't believe how fast Tristan is growing up.  Katelyn has been friends with him since she was a newborn.

The girls helped decorate the tree.  They tend to put the ornaments all on one side of the tree.

Katelyn's after school program hosted a performance where the kids sang Christmas songs.

Katelyn likes to pretend she is the teacher.  She taught her students, Daddy and Bella basic math.

Katelyn loves adult coloring books and likes to see what color patterns she can make.

Bella has been learning about different modes of transportation in preschool.  During an activity, she glued popsicles sticks to a paper and called them her train tracks.

Bella and Katelyn took another trip to the Exploratorium.  This time they got a ticket for the drawing board.  In this activity, the girls each picked 4 color markers of their choice.  Next they pushed the platform.  As the platform swung, the pen marked a sheet of paper that is fastened to the platform, creating pretty and repetitive patterns, which grow smaller with each repetition. These colorful designs contained hidden lessons in physics.

This was the final product.  Katelyn was asked to sign her creation.

It's so heart warming to see how close these two are!

The day ended with a stroll checking out the view of the bridge and ice-cream at the Ferry building.

Thanksgiving Feasts

Mommy volunteered in Katelyn's classroom last week.  The kids learned about abstract art.  Mommy helped the kids think about different shapes and objects to tell a story through art.

Bella is loving her new class.  Each day the teacher draws names for the kids to pick a job.  Bella's favorite job is to be the bell ringer.  The bell ringer job is ringing the bell when it's time to go inside from the yard and line up.

The girls have been playing Zingo lately.  Bella is pretty good at the game and doesn't need any help.  She won 3 times in a row.  Katelyn asked how did she get so lucky!

Po Po was in Japan for Thanksgiving, so Auntie Michelle hosted an early Thanksgiving dinner before Po Po left.  The girls and Ethan played goldfish before dinner.

Bella liked petting Thumper and was really gentle with him.

Mommy held Mocha Mochi before she got too squirmish for a picture.

The girls went to Auntie Shirley and Uncle Rob's annual Thanksgiving lunch.  McKenna taught Katelyn and Courtney how to make bracelets out of rubber bands.  The girls caught on pretty quick.  They loved it and each got a bag of rubber bands to take home to make more bracelets.

Grandma, Aiden's family and Uncle Richard came over for dinner that night.

The final Thanksgiving feast- Gung Gung's side of the family came over for a potluck.  Katelyn asked Mommy if she could curl her hair before everyone came over.  She's so girly!

Daddy baked a turkey that was really moist.

Julia drew the kids pictures of animals they requested.

The girls had so much fun hanging with their extended family!

Transition Time

Bella started her new class last week.  She wanted Mommy to stay with her for a little bit during circle time.  She woke up in the morning with bad constipation and was not her happy self.

Teacher R. is Bella's primary teacher.  She was the same teacher Katelyn had 2 years ago.  Bella is well adjusted to her new classroom.  She likes participating in art class and having share day every Wednesday.



Katelyn is learning what to do in an emergency.  Her class had a field trip to the Fire Station.

Each kid had a turn in the captain seat.

Bella is doing much better in swimming these days. She switched to a new teacher.  She was becoming lazy before and didn't want to paddle to the distance of the wall.  Mommy was so proud of her for earning a sticker for her paddling.  The teacher gave her a high five.

Bella couldn't help smiling.  Rewards works well with this little one.

The girls celebrated Kalina's second birthday.  Kalina is already taller than Bella and can out eat Katelyn.

Auntie Michelle did face paint on the kids.  Bella asked for Dr. McStuffins on her arm.

Katelyn was so happy to have a reunion with her preschool friends at Delores Park.  Katelyn always has such fond memories of these girls.

There was a very windy slide at the park.  Katelyn was scared at first, but Daphne convinced her it was fun.  Katelyn ended up going on it a dozen times.

Bella had fun on the swing.  Siblings were invited to the play date as well.

Bella is asking more these days to sit on the potty. She rarely pees in it, but says, "I want to try going potty!"  Daddy gave her a pep talk and told her, she could do it.  Daddy has been great reading books to her while waiting for her to go.  The pediatrician said because she has bad constipation (she takes medicine everyday) potty training can take longer for her.  Mommy is in no rush and secretly thinks diapers are easier.