Family Party

After their solo parties at school, we had our family party that evening. Luckily, their birthday was on a Friday!


We had dinner at their favorite restaurant, Chili's.


Since Chili's is in the mall, we took them shopping at the toy store there. Both of their sets of grandparents sent them birthday money and they were so excited to get to spend it!


After we got home, we enjoyed this Hello Kitty cake that Leonard's assistant, Crystal gave the kids. She's so thoughtful!

Then they got to open their gifts from us, the Martin's, and of course enjoy the gifts they just bought themselves.

Kaleb had a hard time picking out something from the toy store. He loves his futuristic concept car that he finally settled on.

Noe knew exactly what she wanted when she arrived at the toy store. The girl loves Ponyville! Both kids also bought themselves a set of gel pens with 100 pens in each. It makes me happy that they love to do art so much!

Noe's class party

Noe loves fairies, and was so pleased with her cake!


She just beamed while wearing her birthday crown, the birthday cape, holding the birthday bear, and her own kitty that she asked me to bring from home.


After she made her wish, she also got to cut the cake.

Her class enjoyed celebrating with her.

Noe and her wonderful teachers Mrs. Liu and Ms. Yamazaki.

Kaleb's class party

TAS has a great catering service. This year I took advantage of it and ordered the kids' birthday cakes for their class parties from them. I printed up the airplane coloring page, colored it how I thought Kaleb would like it, and voila! the bakery did the rest to make this cute cake!


Kaleb liked it and was so excited for his "own" party. Being a twin is special, but it's also special to have individual recognition. Last year they were in the same class, so this was their first solo recognition.


Make a wish!

The kids thought the cake was pretty tasty!

Kaleb and his fabulous teachers Mrs. Winter and Ms. Alison.

American Born Chinese

I finally got to read this book! I saw parts of the movie on TV and was intrigued with the story. I tried renting it at the Blockbuster here, and they didn't have it- go figure. So for Christmas, this was one of the books I got. For those of you who don't know the story it is about 4 female Chinese immigrants and 4 of their American born daughters. I really enjoyed it and now I really want to see the whole movie!

Since we found out we were moving to Taiwan (back in 2004) I have been rather fascinated with Chinese Culture. I've read several different books on my Chinese theme that I've enjoyed, and since I'm a list maker I want to list them here:

The Good Earth- Pearl S. Buck
The Keys of the Kingdom- A.J. Cronin
Wild Swans- Jung Chang
Bound- Donna Jo Napoli
The Ugly American- William Lederer & Eugene Burdick
The Hundred Secret Senses- Amy Tan

I'm grateful for the opportunity that I have had to experience another culture. I hope I am a better person because of it.

Redneck Mansion

My dad sent this picture in an e-mail to his family asking if he won the lottery if we'd all come live with him. Leonard called dibbs on the green one, because he likes the windmill. Isn't this picture great though? I love it! Do you think someone really lives here? The engineering is pretty cool, for sure. Okay, so I probably wouldn't want to live in a trailor, but I like the idea of each family having their own home and being surrounded by their extended family.


When I was 9 years old, I used to draw pictures of my family neighborhood with a home for each member. I still daydream about things like that. Right now I dream of having 3 rows of condos on Newport Beach. Each row would be for a different family-Reil, Pittl, and Lee (each individual family would have their own condo). We then would have a community area with a pool, barbeque, sports court, etc for all to share. Wouldn't that be cool? If I can't do that now for our extended families, I would love to do it in the future for my kids and their families. Since Noe wants to live with us forever (even when she's married with her own kids), and since Kaleb wants to live upstairs from us (his Asian brain used to apartment life), I think they'd be okay with that idea too. I can see it now- New Eden Court with homes for Len & I, Kaleb's fam, Noe's fam, Gavin's fam, and any future children we have. Of course, I still want our Newport Condos to see our extended fam during our summer vacations! Wouldn't it be great, if these dreams came true?

It's a Rainbow Planet

Tonight Jim Valley gave a concert to the TAS families. Leonard took all 3 kids and they rocked out! I wish I could have gone too, but I was overwhelmed with paperwork to get them re-registered for school next year. They came home with every CD of his autographed, so now we can enjoy his music whenever we want to. He was actually at the school all week and gave several performances for each grade. I think Kaleb and Noe got to see him 3 different times. His songs have great messages of self-esteem, friendship, taking care of our Mother Earth, and some just celebrate silliness- perfect for children of all ages!

Ribbit

Leapin' lizards it's leap year! We didn't see any lizards today, but we saw plenty of leap frogs. I had the Activity Day kids over this afternoon and this is what we did: First, we discussed the parable of the Good Samaritan. We said that we probably won't find lots of beat-up people on the side of the road to serve in our lifetime. However, there are plenty of ways we can serve our neighbors. We made 8 secret service coupons for the boys to complete in the month of March. We then started our frog activities in honor of the day.


We made these cute paper plate frogs. I love how the boys made theirs so colorful. Don't they remind you of the poison tree frogs?


We also made some hoppin' origami frogs and raced them. I sent them home with a leapyear/frog wordsearch, maze, and coloring page. The frog cupcakes though, were definitely the favorite!

Happy Lear Year! I look forward to doing this again in 2012!!

Look who's turning 6

Julia, Kaleb, and Noe!!!

You're invited to their

birthday party at Tom Dragon

on Saturday, March 8th,

from 10:00 am - 12:30 pm.

Please RSVP to

Jennifer or Milena.

Let's have some fun!!!

Sympathetic Soul

I started a GoodReads account wanting to keep track of the books I read starting in 2008. However, I think I'll post my thoughts on my blog too as I can write more. I knew this book was sad before I started it, but since I got it twice for Christmas I decided to read it on my flight to Vegas and back. The back of the book told me it was about regret, redemption, and love. The regret is obvious, but I kept waiting for the redemption and for me it never came. Or at least it was way too little, too late. There was definitely love, but it was never expressed properly so it was never felt. That was truly heartbreaking to me. I just bawled my eyes out sitting on the plane surrounded by strangers. This book is beautifully written, but because it was so sad to me I have to say something that was hard for me to say before, but here goes- I didn't like this book.

On a tangent- I am a very emotional person. The things happening to my loved ones greatly affects me. But not just people I know, strangers too. I even feel strongly for fictitious characters in books and movies. Sometimes I feel like May Boatwright in The Secret Life of Bees, and the poor girl drowned herself! I'm not that extreme, but I think I have a big heart and even though I am shy I really care about others. I wanted to mention some movies I watched on my flight too that I really enjoyed:
Lars and the Real Girl
Martian Child
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
Sydney White
I watched 4 others too, but they just helped me pass the time, not worth mentioning. What books and movies do you like?

For the love of Vampires and Werewolves

I actually read these books in December (thank you Camille and Lori for lending them to me). But we just had our book group discussion on Thursday night about Twilight. The 2 main things we discussed were: why are these books such page turners? would you like your teenage daughters to read them? Most of us generally liked them as they were light, escapist entertainment. However, we all kind of thought Bella is a twit. What drew us to them then? Edward, Edward, Edward. Yes, we all love Edward! Even though he is a vampire, he is so good. He is the perfect guy and he adores Bella. Isn't that what every girl wants? (I think I have that with Leonard, I'm so lucky!) I found some good discussion questions on the blog "So Many Books, So Little Time."
The question I thought was the most interesting was "Did this book change your view of vampires? If so, how? Is it a positive or negative change?" We all agreed we like the Cullen's, but the other vampires were frankly, scary still. One comment brought up was that the Cullen's are "vegetarian" vampires, which means going against everything it is to be a vampire. There was a parallel made to those of us trying to live the gospel. Our natural man self tells us to do one thing, but we believe we can rise above that and be better, even though that can be truly challenging at times. Another comment compared the Cullen's diamond-sparkly skin in the sunshine to Celestial beings- interesting thought.

There was concern addressed about Bella being a role model for our teenage daughters. Let's face it, her whole identity was wrapped up in Edward. She was obsessed with him, and that's just not healthy. Our daughters should be confident in themselves, regardless if they have the love of a boy or not. Plus, even though there were only make-out scenes in the book there was a ton of sexual tension. If we want our daughters to "wait" until marriage is it healthy to read this? Edward was the hero again (although he was scared if he had sex with Bella he'd devour her too). In the real world, most boys aren't as strong. I know it's not fair, but we have to teach our daughters to be even stronger. I don't think girls realize the huge influence they have on boys.

Even though I did have my own concerns about these books, I still really enjoyed them. I look forward to reading Breaking Dawn and Midnight Sun. If Noe wants to read these books when she's a teenager, I will let her. I will also re-read them then and discuss them with her. I want her to be a strong girl, and I think by being close to her and talking with her about everything (even/especially the books she reads) will help her to be.

If you've read this post, please leave me a comment and let me know if you were Bella, who would you choose- Edward or Jacob???

Lantern Display

I was so lucky and got to go with the Kindergarteners on their field trip to the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall to see all of the lanterns on display for the lantern festival.


For the first half of the day Noe and I joined Kaleb with his class, then for the second half Kaleb & I joined Noe's class.


These smaller displays were made by the local middle schools.

There were also large parade-float displays made by the high schools.

There were also beautiful hand-painted lanterns hung all around the memorial hall.

I love roosters, so I had to get a close-up of this guy.

Hand-holding chain, so cute!

The Memorial Hall, and the big globe that they lit up at night.

While we were there we also watched the changing of the guard inside the memorial hall. I took a picture of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's statue, but it turned out too dark. So, I thought I'd add this statue that's out in the garden area, although I have no idea who he is.

An Engaging Evening with Jack Gantos

Every year TAS hosts a visiting author for a week. During the week s/he gives presentations to all of the elementary, middle, and high school students along with a family night. Last night was family night for Mr. Jack Gantos. I was a little reluctant to go because he has a bit of a shady past and some of his novels have controversial topics. However, he was phenomenol! He was truly inspiring, giving tips for parents to help their children's writing, and he also surfaced Len's and my burried desire to work on getting our own stories written and published. Here are some things he said that made me go "aha!"
Most of us read at a level far above our writing level.
To be a good writer you must be a good reader.
To be a good writer you must write! He recommends writing for 10 minutes a day.
To help children get started writing, have them draw a picture first.
He encouraged us to have our children actually make books of their stories and illustrations including covers, a dedication page, and their photo with an "about the author" caption. He even said we could include some blank pages for people who read their books to leave comments. After all he said, when you write a book, you want it published, sitting on a library shelf, and you want someone to check it out!
My favorite thing that he said was that you should choose your literature like you choose dessert, it should be delicious!
At the end of the presentation he signed books and t-shirts. We got all 3 kids a Rotten Ralph story and the kids were so excited to get his signature.
Rotten Ralph Feels Rotten- Kaleb
Best in Show for Rotten Ralph- Noe
Practice Makes Perfect for Rotten Ralph- Gavin.



*Flashback to last year's visiting author Donna Jo Napoli. She gave an enjoyable presentation as well, and she signed books for all 5 of us.
Leonard- Song of the Magdalene
Jennifer- Bound
Kaleb- Bobby the Bold
Noe- Pink Magic
Gavin- Albert
Wouldn't it be great to get a book published some day and get to go to book signings and sign YOUR name for others?

**Sub-post= 5 Taxi Rides
Our little Gavin must have a reflux condition because whenever he coughs hard he vomits. Unfortunately, last night Leonard was his target again and it happened right in the middle of Mr. Gantos' presentation. Kaleb and Noe were sitting on the floor at the front, so I followed Len and Gavin to the bathroom to help them get cleaned up. I didn't come as prepared this time as I did last Friday. Len decided he would just take Gavin home in a taxi and I would stay with Kaleb and Noe. So the 2 of them left with Gavin barechested and Len wearing only his garment top (yes, he was mortified and he held Gavin really close as his shield). About 25 minutes later, they both came strolling back. In our effort to be discreet, we forgot that the house keys were in the diaper bag with me. So they took taxi ride #2 back to the school to get the keys and then taxi ride #3 to go back home. After the presentation and the book signings I gathered up a very tired Kaleb and Noe to head out to the parking garage down the street. I didn't get far when I realized I didn't have the garage card to get our van out, it was in Len's pants pocket. Taxi #4 took Kaleb, Noe, and me home. After we got the 3 kids in bed, Len took taxi #5 back to the parking garage. We finally got it right with keys, cards, and money so Len was able to bring our van back home. This morning when Kaleb woke up the first thing he said was, "Is our van home?" Yes we assured him, it was safe and sound in our little parking spot in our own basement parking garage. Whew!