peekie wu!

I love giving gifts.  I think I definitely inherited the habit from my Mom, who's a big giver in general.  When she can't give objects, she gives her love in the form of her time, home-cooked food, and heart.  Giving gifts is definitely one of her dominant love languages.  I don't think receiving gifts is one of mine, but I definitely enjoy giving gifts.  There's something about dwelling on the person you're trying to find the perfect gift for, and trying to think about what is something that they need or appreciate in their lives that they wouldn't buy for themselves.  To me, it goes beyond just the act of buying and giving the gift.  I enjoy reminiscing about all the good times I've spent with that person because I'm thinking back on what we've done together to try to discern what a perfect gift might be.  As I peruse through about a dozen gift guides from blogs or youtube, I get excited when I find something that reminds me of someone.  Th...

I'm usually not a fan of Halloween at all just like how I'm not a fan of scary movies.  But, after making Ethan's last-minute costume with Lucas last night, I realized that it can be fun.  I came up with a ghost idea because how much simpler can you get for a diy costume, right?  I asked for one of Lucas' old white tshirts, and started digging around in my craft drawers.  I found some googly eyes and black foam sheets.  We opted for the black foam so that we could make the ghost eyes bigger.  As Lucas was cutting up the bottom of the shirt into jagged triangles, he made me think of Pacman ghosts.  I temporarily got excited to make  a Pacman ghost costume, but Lucas brought me back down to earth by saying it might not be clear since we were using a white tshirt.  Oh well, maybe next year we can all be Pacman ghosts, hehe.  Now, if we could only get him to wear the tshirt ghost costume!  He's been getting picky about what he's willing...

Thank you for the lovely notes and cards of comfort and warmth yesterday.  To be honest, I was a bit surprised to hear from some of you, but it's nice to know there are a few people actually reading this blog.  I feel a lot better today because of you guys.  *virtual hugs*  Time also has a way of lessening the deepness of the sadness.  I'm sure there will be days ahead that will be difficult again, like when I actually see my mom in person for the first time, but I'll cross that bridge then. In the meantime, I'd like to continue doing regular things to further distance the sad feelings and memories.  I wish I blogged more regularly so that I wouldn't start forgetting things, but c'est la vie.  Ethan has gotten used to his new shoes now, and doesn't protest putting them on as much anymore.  We did go to Little Gym in our area, and Ethan was curiously terrified.  He wouldn't let go of Lucas, and refused to be put down.  Even his legs and...

Cancer and death seems to surround me lately.  I used to think cancer was something only the few got in their lives, and that if you made healthy choices in life, you could avoid it.  But, I'm not so sure anymore.  Two of my coworkers' moms passed away recently, and my boss just let us know that he found out he has cancer.  He has young kids, and so much life left to live, so here's hoping he can fight it.  Then, the hardest hit happened this morning.  My grandma passed away.  We only recently found out she had stage 4 lung cancer.  My mom is taking it pretty hard, and I don't know what to say to her.  I've never heard her so sad before.  It makes me very sad to hear her mourn the loss. The only light in my life right now is Ethan.  He's growing so fast and learning so much every day.  He is the reason why I try so hard.  He makes my little family unit whole.

Things have been changing quite a lot lately.  We finally got our new closet installed at the end of July. There's still a mirror, drawer front, and hamper that needs to be installed/fixed, but it came together rather quickly.  I need to get my life organized now, no excuses. When Jenny and her mom came to visit recently, we took them to Ethan's daycare's open house.  All of my pictures from that day are on my dslr, so I still have to upload those.  It was a good time though.  They had little farm animals and a pony outside to pet and ride.  Ethan was both scared and fascinated with the pony because he has a thing for horses lately and can pronounce "HORSE" very well.  He didn't want to touch any of the animals actually, which I guess is a good thing in terms of hygiene.  He's more of a look from afar kinda guy. I started a new workout series called 21 day fix, which is a part of the beach body franchise.  I haven't b...

Recent wedding pic from Shannon's bridal suite on her wedding day: 4/26 Oops, my weekly updates seem to have fallen by the wayside.  I think we got busy on the weekends, and then things just snowballed away, as they do.  Here goes a more general update though: - New House Stuff The new house to do list has gone way down, almost to the point that there are really only maybe 2 more things that we need to address.  We also still need to tackle putting things in their right place and deconstructing the boxes that are being stored in our "dining/play room."  Alas, the devil's in the details, right? - Ethan Updates Ethan is about to move onto his next classroom: The Elephants!  This will be his very first transition to a new class besides the obvious one due to our move.  This will likely be very difficult for him since he seems to get attached to teachers.  Perhaps it's because he has started developing attachments to everything lately inclu...

Lucas' push gift, when baby E was born, is a reminder of the amazing things love can create I'd have to say, after I became a mom, one of the biggest changes for me is - what I used to call, becoming a big sucker/weakling/weak sauce for stories about babies or kids at peril.  I hate hearing or reading about babies who can't survive due to any circumstance.  I hate it so much because I almost get a physiological response to the story as if a dagger just got thrusted into my gut.  One of the first instances of this was on my drive to pick up baby E from daycare back in Cali.  I was listening to NPR on the radio like usual, and they ran a story about babies in NICU because of drug addict moms.  Hearing the little cries of strong withdrawal pains from a newborn still hurts me to the core right now - and I'm just recalling this story from memory.  It almost spurs me to action, to want to vote for whatever bill it was they wanted to pass to convict d...