Monday, September 26, 2011

summer photo dump (pt. 1)

We always keep our little point and shoot camera in the diaper bag, and apparently I used it to take pics all summer, but haven't uploaded it once.  So here is part 1 of our summer...

In July we took Poppy to Toronto for the day to see a Yankees game (we left Sam at home because he's just too squirmy to sit for an entire baseball game in the smoking hot sun.  more on that topic later.).  On the way to TO, we made a pit-stop at Ikea to stock up on Ratty's.  Poppy knows that we have an entire stash of them in my closet, but we only use them if she loses Ratty or if he's taking a spa day through the washing machine.  She's only allowed to have one at a time (or else our house would be filled w/ rats because we do have about 100 of them and now that I'm thinking about it, it would be super funny to take a picture of ALL of them together).  But here she is with her new stash of rats plus a bunny she talked us into.  


The game was super fun and thank God, our seats were in the shade.  Poppy had a blast pigging out on popcorn and ice cream.

...................

The following weekend was our annual weekend with my Godson, Gage, who we take to a Bisons game each year for his birthday.  
Despite the 6 year age difference, Poppy and Gage always have a blast together.  And of course, the highlight of the game for her was all of the junk food that she gets to eat - like cotton candy.

................

At the end of July was our annual Stonybrook camping trip.  We were planning on bringing Sam, but at the last minute we decided to leave him at home w/ my parents instead.  He was just barely learning how to crawl at this point and he was going through a phase where he wanted to be held 24/7 (because I was weaning him) and I knew that it would be a rough time for me if we did bring him.  Next year, Sam.
 {swinging on the hammock with Amelia}
 {a banana and her beloved ratty fingerlights}
 {her cousin trying to show her a katydid (on his hand), Poppy is grossed out and wants nothing to do with it}
 {there were a lot of s'mores consumed this summer}


 {She's got her camelbak and she's ready for a water hike!}
 {taking a break for some beef jerky}
 {waterfalls at the end of our hike, Poppy doing a ballet move}
 {Marc going off with the kids to explore the waterfalls}
 {I love the expression on his face, apparently the water was about 50 degrees}

.................

This next picture is from when we were up at the beach.  The one night, Marc and I drove back to Buffalo to go on a sailing lesson/happy hour.  Basically we went out on a sailboat with a few other couples and the captain of the boat gave us lessons along the way.  You could get as involved as you wanted with the actual sailing of the boat, or you could just sit back and relax and enjoy a drink.  We did a little bit of both and we had the best time.  And now we want a sailboat.
My favorite part of this picture is the fact that Marc looks like a vampire because his face is caked with sunblock and his eyebrows are covered up.  If you've ever seen Marc apply sunscreen to himself, it's hilarious- he has a tendency to "over apply".  I was reading Interview with the Vampire at the time, which makes it even funnier.  And I pictured him as one of the vampires until the end of the book.


And that concludes part 1 of our 2011 summer photo dump.  More to come...

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Agapa Day

Yesterday we packed up the kids and made the loooong car ride to Rochester for an event at the Korean Methodist Church called Agapa Day.  Aga means baby in Korean and Pa is the first two letters of Parent.  It's basically an event where the members of the church share the Korean culture and build relationships with Korean adoptive families.  This was our first time attending and I was blown away by the organization and hard work that went into this day.  There were tons of events for kids of all ages, like origami, calligraphy (at the end of the day they had Poppy's name written in Korean in a frame for her!) and a photo studio filled with Hanboks for the kids to wear in a picture.  They had a delicious lunch of rice, bulgogi, dumplings and kimchi.  Then we all went outside for various Korean demonstrations.  The first one was some of the little girls from Sunday school that were just starting to learn the "fan dance"...


Then we saw a Tae Kwon Do demonstration...and some of these kids were intense.

Then it was the grown women doing the "fan dance"...


After the demonstrations it was time for the family games!  Poppy was a little hesitant to participate at first, but within minutes she was having a blast (which is evidenced by her tongue sticking out)...


Sam (who took his first steps today!) was happy to just play with this ball...

And then finally it was time for tug of war...
 (Poppy is in the middle, facing the wrong way)

Our team lost all 3 rounds, but you can't say that Marc didn't put his energy into it!

After a long day of playing, learning and making new friendships, it was time to hit the road and head back home.  Poppy has asked about a million times when we can do that again.   I love the fact that the Korean culture is such an important part of our lives and it's so rewarding to see how much Poppy loves it too.




Thursday, September 15, 2011

Poppy has been all about picking out her own outfits lately.  I'm pretty sure this one was inspired by Pinkalicious (or Pink-delicious as Poppy likes to call her).

Monday, September 12, 2011

first day of pre-k!

I'm back!  Our new computer arrived this weekend and I've been in heaven ever since!  Besides all of the computer drama, we have had quite a bit going on around here lately.  

Last week was Poppy's first day of preschool!  I can hardly believe it!  She is going to the same school she went to last year, but she is in the UPK program this year which is 5 mornings a week.  At first I was unsure about having her go 5 days, but going any less is not an option.  She only goes for 2 1/2 hours, so it's actually working out pretty good, and Sam naps the entire time she is at school, so I've been getting a ton of things around the house done lately!

The night before her first day we had our annual "Back to School Feast".  When she saw the way that the table was set and I told her it was to celebrate her first day of school, she was beyond excited...


Poppy picked out the lovely red, white & blue flowers for the centerpiece.  We had Korean bulgogi and rice for dinner with sparkling apple juice to drink.  And chocolate zucchini cupcakes for dessert!


I'm pretty sure Sam liked the cupcakes. :)

A new notebook, a few pens and a chapter book to start the year off right!  She has been bringing the little mermaid chapter book to school every day and one of her teachers reads her a chapter each morning.  She loves it so far!

This year, I'm the room mom for Poppy's class and the teachers asked me to bring in snacks for the first week.  I made these cupcakes (as seen on pinterest, of course!) and brought in a bag of fresh apples.  Poppy was beaming when she got to bring them into the classroom.  And they were so easy to make!
  
 My big girl on her first day!  

Sunday, September 4, 2011

RIP macbook pro

So I mentioned Sam's new nickname, Spaz.  Well, I guess he's not really a spaz, he's just a boy.  Quite the opposite of our gentle little Poppy.  He's very, um, mobile.  And energetic.  He's got ants in his pants.  But all boys do, don't they?  Anywho, when Poppy was a baby, I used to always drink my coffee out of a travel mug with a serious leak-proof top because I was afraid that she would knock my cup over and we would have coffee spills all over the house.  As she got older, I eventually went back to drinking my coffee out of a normal coffee cup.  And so now that Sam is completely mobile, I'm not sure why I didn't switch back to my trusty leak-proof/spill-proof travel mug.  Which brings us to the title of this post.

Yesterday morning, I put my big ol' cup of coffee on the coffee table in the living room as I got out my laptop to begin checking my emails.  I'm not sure how I got distracted, but in enters Sam, who often looks like King Kong as he teeters and totters, knocking things left and right and suddenly the entire table was covered with coffee.  Including my laptop.  I actually didn't think there was any damage done because the laptop was closed at the time and I didn't see any coffee on the keyboard when I opened it.  A few hours went by before I had a chance to turn it on, and when I did it started smoking!  Smoke came out of the keyboard!  The autopsy was performed within a few hours at the apple store.  Diagnosis: beyond repair.

The nice repairman at the apple store commented on how well I was taking the news.  He said that he often sees tears when he tells customers "beyond repair".  Well folks, there is a silver lining to this story.  Remember earlier this summer when I mentioned I couldn't upload any pics because we were out of space on our computer?  Well Marc has spent the entire last month backing up every single thing on our computer to various different discs and drives and thingys.  He just finished backing up the very last video file the day before the "big spill".  The only thing that was lost were the pictures from our last week at the beach.  And I'm sad about that, but it could have been soooo much worse.  Tragically worse.  Two important lessons were learned yesterday.  #1 - make sure you are diligent about your back-ups!  #2 - make sure you always use a spill-proof coffee cup when around energetic little boys.

And right now, I am using an ancient dinosaur of a laptop that we had sitting in the bottom of a closet, just waiting to be recycled.  It's taken me almost an hour just to type this post!  This thing is a beast.  And it's a pc (shudder).  So until macbook pro2 arrives later this week, peace out.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

We're back! (again)


We are back from another amazing week at the beach.  Packing up and leaving that last day was so bittersweet - we were ready to go home after a nice relaxing vacation, but it also meant that summer is officially over.  Half of me is ready for fall and routine, but the other half of me hopes that September stays super warm and we can do a few of the outdoor activities we didn't get to yet.

Just next week Poppy will start pre-k!  Both of my babies seemed to have grown at least a foot while we were at the beach.  And the changes in Sam (aka Spaz) are so huge, he deserves a post all his own.  More to come soon!


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