[day 160] skateboarding is his life.

I love my Dilly. Yes, he gets into trouble for not listening sometimes, but he truly has a heart that cares. One of his passions besides cooking and baking is riding his skateboard. He just loves it. I swear, he would ask me every single day to take him to the park so he could go down the steep sidewalk with his skateboard.  He likes the speed. Can I say cray cray to the tenth power? I want to close my eyes sometimes, but the one thing I learn as a parent is that I don’t want to interfere with what our boys loves, but rather use it as an opportunity to spend quality time with them. Because the best moments of a child life is their early interactions with their parents. Hence, why I spend SO much time with them.

We spend most weekday evenings at "our" park - We all benefit from it, while dilly continues to live his dream. He loves it so much that he crashed straight into my left leg at full speed. He has to concentrate, otherwise, he'll crash and that's what he did. I screamed, but didn't yell at him. When he asked me if I was OK and told me it was an accident, it made my boo-boo go away.

If you're wondering, he received his first skateboard for christmas last year from my parents. He fell in love with skateboarding when he watched skateboarders at the VAN store and asked for a board. I give credit to my younger sister for teaching him the basic foundation of skateboarding.

Who knows - he might make it to the X-games one day. I'll definitely close my eyes if he's flying in the air with his board.

Love my boys. XOXO.

[day 159] eat healthy.

we're trying our best to eat healthy. my husband is the KING right now of healthy eating. as a parent, i understand that food choices affects our family's health and how we would feel today, tomorrow, and in the future. as a mom, i don't want to be obese where i'm incapable of doing things with our boys. the physical activity (with four boys) requires a lot of energy and strength. papa d and i understand that small changes in our diet can help our body stay healthy, active and strong. it's all we need. plus, i want to live for as long as i can to watch our babies grow (they do grow to darn fast). also, i want to feel good and continue to have energy to DO all the indoor and outdoor activities with my boys.

i vow to stay healthy. i hope you're doing the same, too!

love my boys. xoxo.

[day 155] our weekend getaway - las vegas.

this was a last minute trip planned. 

so, my little sister has been asking me for nearly two weeks if i would take her to vegas.  she wanted to hang out with her girlfriend, which i've known since she was in kindergarten. it was nearly 24 hours before today that i oblige. i couldn't commit since we were planning a road trip to seattle. anyways, it was a tough ride coming into vegas since we were stuck on the 15 fwy for about an hour. i survived the car ride with all four boys, but almost went nuts when we were stopped during traffic. our boys can only handle the road for so long and kept asking "how many more minutes", "are we there yet", "what's taking so long" - well, almost six hours later, we made it!

we elected to stay at "elara" since it was the most kid-friendly hotel around. it's connected to planet hollywood and was in the middle of the strip, which was great. the best part is that the room was a suite with a kitchen, living room, and bedroom. i loved that there was no casino downstairs, which meant that our kids would not be expose to the gambling environment. the ventilation system was superb. i had to think about my boys.  i, also,understand that there's no way we could avoid the casino to its entirety but at least we didn't have to walk through it every single time we went back to our room. we actually walked through a mall. 

some people may think that vegas isn't good for families and maybe it's not. we're going to make the most of it. it's nice to get away sometimes. we all need a little time away. anyways, i'm always incredibly overwhelmed by what could have been a perfect day and maybe today was because i had everything that mattered most to me  - my family.

i'll be using my iphone to capture all the details and to savor our moment together this weekend. 

love my boys. xoxo.

[day 154] san diego zoo.

this was our family first time at san diego zoo and my first time as well! OMG, where have i been all these years and why didn't my parents take me here when i was younger. this is one of the most amazing zoos i've ever been to! it felt so surreal to see all the animals. honestly, i think i have a new ridiculous obsession for the zoo. we arrived in the late evening and stuck around for about 3 hours. we are currently annual pass holder since the price for admission was $44 pp. our annual pass cost approximately $200 for our entire family (what a steal!). it's very affordable and if you have a family, i highly recommend it. it was an excellent idea to arrive late with their extended summer hours. the park was crowded, but manageable. there was no way we could conquer the entire park in one day. 

the zoo has a wonderful collection of animals and i was bummed that we only managed to see 1/3 of it. i also wished i had more time to learn more about the endangered species. i always want to be enlighten by new facts by learning something new everyday. if you're wondering, our boys were fascinated by the animals. it was definitely a learning and fun experience for them and gave me a slight glimpse of awareness to support the conservation. i cant wait for our trip back. it was a wonderful evening spent with the ones i truly love most.

love my boys. xoxo.

[day 138] got robbed by the molar teeth.

ohhh.....my poor little evan. the arrival of his molars caused such discomfort for the past few days that he lost his appetite. he lost a few pounds, which made me a tidbit nervous, but i knew he would regain his weight after this crazy fight. it made me sad that i couldn't do anything to ease his pain so i treated him like royalty. i massaged and pampered him. i spent time spooning and giving in to whatever he wanted. i guess, it's nice to be king.

love my boys. xoxo.

[day 137] planking together.

papa dang is trying to get into the best shape ever. my hips and butt are bigger than his. on top of that, it probably contains more fat! i love the support he gives me when i'm trying to get fit again. and, i love that we were able to plank together. it's the one thing he can keep his mind focused on. yup, up until i asked him to pick up conditioner for me at target tonight since i ran out. um, he came home with shampoo instead of conditioner. are you kidding me?? i knew it! we rolled until our stomach ached. i totally made fun of him. we laughed again and joked. this is one of the perils of not providing a shopping list with pictures. i realize my reaction was an indicative of our outlooks in life. i was worried about making sure my hair gets its beauty treatment while papa focused on getting through his shopping just for me. i love him.

love my boys. xoxo.

[day 136] cute as a button.

oh my lan lan. he's so darn cute. i swear, papa dang is his daddy and not some crazy milkman. he looks mix sometimes. i think he's going to have slightly wavy hair like his brother evan, too. so, he slept 10 hours straight through the night. i couldn't believe it. yeah, it made me worry and i did check several times to make sure he was breathing. he's such a great sleeper though and currently tops his three brothers. it must have been the 7 ounce bottle he drank right before his bedtime. i'm sure he's getting used to our nightly routine. i'll bathe, play, and feed him. sometimes, i'll pop him upright on my leg and he would eventually fall asleep on his own. who knows, maybe we got lucky tonight. although, we've had pretty good sleep habits with our other three boys. we always try to be consistent when it comes to their sleep. i'm hoping my little lan lan continues this because i'll have more energy to function during the day. woot to the tenth power! 

love my boys. xoxo.

[day 135] step aside gordon ramsay

Our boys, especially Dylan, love to mess around in the kitchen since he was about 15 months. He only loves cooking toys and every time we went to the store, he would rather go to the cooking and baking section than the toy section at Target. I don’t know if it has something to do with him watching me clean and wash the dishes to preparing food. As his mama, I notice everything. I knew this was his passion and I started to let him experiment cooking, with simple tasks such as helping me mix and stir food when I prepare meals since he was itty bitty.  Little does he know, I’m not the greatest cook, but I’m glad he thinks I am. Up to this day, he still loves to cook and bake. 

When “the melting pot” offered a kids fondue class, I jumped on board immediately since our boys are currently on summer vacation. Um, dream come true for Dylan. This cooking class was fun and an educational way to get creative. Papa Dang spent the majority of the time helping our boys learn to cook. This helped them instill a good sense of self worth with their cooking success. And, you know what, it sure was! I ended up eating most of Dylan’s food.

Love my boys. XOXO.

[day 134] let the memories begin

Holy Cow! It’s ridiculously expensive to be an annual Disneyland passport holder now, but what Disney offers for our family makes the price worth it.  I’ve always been an ardent fan of Disney since I was a little girl. They do a darn good-job by bringing the characters to life. I have no shame saying that Disney movies rock.  I used to watch it with my sisters over and over again! Now, I’m watching them with my boys.

We haven’t been back here for a few months. I didn’t want to renew our annual pass until we were ready to bring Landon along.  It felt so great stepping foot back on Disney grounds. It made me feel like a kid again.  So good that I glanced over to look at Papa Dang. I gave him the look that appeared to be so powerful He knew exactly how I felt. I was SOOOOO happy. Yup, I'm the queen of nonverbal communication!

Today was a wonderful day. Being with my family in a place that always seemed magical!  I cannot wait to share more memories here with our newest addition to our family. We spent four hours at the park. This mama is P-O-O-P-E-D.

Btw, our first ride back was Monsters Inc. You can guess – our boys watched Monsters University with Papa Dang a few days ago and wanted to go on the ride. Also, the video clip below is short. I wanted to embrace my time with our boys and recorded whatever I could at the time. It's just a contemplation of my "less than 8 seconds" clips. Haha. I'm not a pro videographer, trust me. It's good enough to recapture our time together.

Love my boys. XOXO.

[day 133] a wet game.

i used to do it. i'm sure you used to do it or still do it, too! i remember playing in the sprinklers as a kid. kids love the water. and you know, where there's water, you will definitely find kids playing in it. it's what kids do. it's fun and today was that perfect day.

after our boys finished breakfast, i decided to take out the sprinkler and put our boys in their swim shorts and/or undies to play outside. i gave them a break from their daily home schooling (i created my own school - haha - since they're on summer break). i wanted to do something fun and knew this would hit the jackpot. while holding baby landon in my arms, i watched our three boys dodge the water drop, then hop and run through the sprinkler. it was awesome to watch them share space and toys together because you know there comes a time where sharing can be difficult. i love how they used their imagination to play, too. 

anyways, i hope this picture makes you smile and remember a simpler time in your life. life is sweet, as sweet as the grass. it makes me smile just remembering today with just us. 

love my boys. xoxo.

[day 132] 237 years ago.

Parades. Fireworks. Beach.  Red. White. Blue. Flags. America. Celebration.

Yup, that’s probably all our boys really understood from this day, but hopefully one day when they’re old enough, they’ll remember our country’s roots that others made to give us our freedom.  It’s the testament to the people who signed the Constitution making us one of the most powerful and free nation the world has every known.  

Thanks America for giving us this freedom and democracy. Today, we spent our freedom in an hour of traffic before we made it to the beach. It’s our family tradition to come here every single year, although, this year, we were supposed to be at the Hollywood Bowl, but couldn’t make it to celebrate with the rest. Idealistically it wouldn’t have been enjoyable to watch a symphony that our boys would not sit through.  They would have bored! My name would have been abused and the never-ending question of “why is it taking so long” would have been asked repeatedly.

The rest of our night was spent looking at the awe-inspiring beauty of fireworks display that were being lit from my parent’s house and of course, all the illegals firework that were lighting up the night sky.   Silly to say, but the fireworks made me think of our National Anthem and why I’m so proud to be an American and be given this opportunity to celebrate with my family.
 

Hope you had a wonderful fourth.

Love my boys. XOXO.