Thank you, SONY!

My 2-year-old daughter has decided to earn an official title of "Terrible Two." She is usually a very pleasant, sweet little girl. But, oh boy, she can scream when she is mad. She goes down to the floor, roll and cry, with tears and everything. She knows what she wants and she has to get it no matter what. What a stubborn girl. I wonder where it came from!? (Ask my husband and my mom. Oh, they know.)
But, I found a solution! Well, more like a distraction - A camera. Our Sony digital camera (thanks, Mom!). Even when she is scream crying, bouncing her legs, and her face covered with tear and snot, if I have the camera on she poses and smiles. I mean, in a split second, she is done crying and switches her face to a pretty smile. Wow!
You know, somehow crying kids' faces are cute (when I decide them to be) and I have been trying to capture her tantrum. But because of this, I have not been able to do that. I'm not so sure if it's a good thing or not. At least, though, I found a good distraction to stop her tantrum. That's a good thing. Thank you, SONY!

Sledding

We went to sledding at local sledding hill this morning. It is Saturday. The temperature was not so bad (i.e., 20 degree F). We had fresh snow yesterday. The sledding hill was in the perfect condition. But, NO ONE was there. The sledding hill was only for us. And we had fun. Of course, I screamed louder than kids, somehow managed to go down backwards, splashed snow to kids and myself, and maybe possibly made this sledding-with-mommy-experience not so pleasant because of it. But it was a lot of fun.

And it gets even better.

We went to have freshly made donuts and tasty hot chocolate at Tim Hortons (I love their price!). Kids' happy faces were covered with chocolate - their smiles were just glowing. They slurped, giggled, licked the chocolate off the fingers, giggled, slurped more....I could tell they were having a good time. It made me feel warm and happy. And, to top it off, we all took good naps in the afternoon.

What a perfect winter day.
Snow is not so bad, sometimes, on a day like this.

Keep on rockin' me baby

Ever since we played Rock Band with XBox360 at my brother-in-law's last weekend, we have been rock 'n rolling everyday at our home. The favorite is Steve Miller's "Rock 'n me," of course. J calls the song as the "Rockin' roll song." We don't have guitars, but kids figured out they can hold their pillow to pretend playing their own guitars. J with guitar last weekend

So keep on rockin' me baby!

Things I did today

Today was R&R day after a long week away from home last week.
So, here is the list of things I did today.

1. Waken up by kids jumping on our bed
2. Made oatmeal for breakfast
3. Stayed in pajamas till almost noon
4. Read books to kids
5. Took a nap
6. Played piano with my daughter
7. Made and ate dinner with my daughter (menu: banana pancakes, sausage, orange juice)
8. Took a bubble bath with my daughter
9. Cuddled with my daughter
(My husband took my son out. That's why they are not in the picture.)

Now, I am enjoying this moment. It's so quiet. I love it.
Maybe I had a good Rest and Recover day today.

Eight Things About Me

I got tagged this one by my friend, Liz. This is my first time being tagged.
We'll see...

*8 favorite TV shows (Oh, boy, I don't really watch TV nowadays...plus we don't have satellite or cable. Out of things available to us, I'd choose)
1. Mentalist
2. NUMB3RS
3. Eleventh hour
4. Cold Case
5. CSI (original)
6. NOVA (PBS)
7. Curious George (default. It's on every morning. But I like it. I learn things with kids.)
8. PBS Frontline

*8 things I did yesterday
1. Slept in
2. Ate the best sticky buns my sister-in-law baked
3. went to church
4. took a nap
5. played ROCK BAND with family
6. Scored over 400,000 points on "Rock 'n Me" (Of course, the song was in my head rest of the day)
7. Ate the best home-made pizzas my sister-in-law baked
8. Slept in a car all the way home. (Thanks to my dear husband for driving!)

*8 things I look forward to
1. Warmer weather and more sunlight
2. Making something yummy in my kitchen tomorrow
3. Seeing my husband tonight (He is out trying to fix his car)
4. Gardening in spring
5. Next date night with my husband
6. My parents coming to visit this summer
7. A planned vacation this summer
8. A good night sleep tonight

*8 favorite restaurants (we don't really go out to eat)
1. My friend Tami's home made meals (It's not a restaurant, but I think it's best in town!)
2. Mountain Town (local restaurant)
3. Panera Bread
4. Grand Traverse Pie Company
5. Dragon Express (local Chinese restaurant - cheap!)
6. IKEA's cafeteria (good meatball!)
7. Pizza Hut Bistro (surprisingly good pasta)
8. McDonald's playhouse (not for food)

*8 things on my wish-list
*8 people I tag
Sorry, I'd rather skip these two.

Now....Tagged! You are it!

Crafting with 4 girls

While I was staying with my sister-in-law's kids, her 4 girls (age 9-14) and I made some French Memo Boards one night. I took my leftover fabrics, batting, ribbons, and buttons. With several cereal boxes and hot glue, Ta-Da! It was fun crafting with girls, and made me look forward to doing so with my daughter some day. It was very interesting to see how each girl had very different taste in things. They all turned beautiful!
Here is a picture of the girls' boards (some is completed and others in progress).

My life with 7 kids

I'm staying at my sister-in-law's place this week to baby-sit her 5 kids while she and her husband are out of town for a business trip. My 2 kids + her 5 kids = 7 kids. Wow!
Here is my morning schedule:
6:45 am - get out of bed
7:00 am - make sure kids eat breakfast (her kids are really good at taking care of themselves)
7:13 am - oldest 3 get out the door with my husband
8:12 am - her younger 2 kids get out the door to catch their school bus

But somewhere in between, I had to squeeze time to;
- hold my 2-year-old "baby" who wants to be held or otherwise scream and cry;
- make sure everyone brush their teeth, pack their lunch and homework;
- try to print one of kids' homework out of super-duper old computer, just to be failed because it was not hooked to a printer (of course!), try to transfer via USB drive, again, to be failed because that computer somehow didn't want to cooperate with me, and try to e-mail from one computer to another, finally after fighting with that for 20 minutes we were able to print successfully.

Yesterday, I got to run to chase one of the kids down the street because she forgot her lunchbox - me in my pajamas in 5 degree F weather. It must have been a quite comical view.
Today is a slow day, but other days I have to go back to my home by 9:00-9:30 am, which is 40 minutes away, on the top of it. Did I mention that I am not a morning person?

But when I was running around this morning, holding my 2-year-old on my hip, saying out loud "7:10 am! Brush your teeth! Did you pack your lunch? Where is your backpack? 2 more minutes guys! Out the door!!" My husband smiled and said proudly, "You can totally handle 7 kids!"
Ummm, thanks, but I don't know about that (mostly because of hard pregnancies I have had, but I won't mention here).

My sister-in-law has always inspired me in many ways(luckily I have many of those). Her love towards her husband and kids, love towards other people, thoughtfulness, creativity and ideas, and most of all, shining light of joy that she is happy and enjoying her life. I believe it's pretty contagious in a good way. Now I am experience just a tiny bit of her daily life, I admire her more than ever. I am learning a lot from her kids things she does as a mother. I can tell kids love her and they know their mom loves every one of them very much. She is a wonderful mom. I'm thankful for this opportunity to let me experience what a mom's life is like with school age kids. It's a good practice for coming years. But, wow, it's crazy! I'd better thank my mom for making breakfast and lunch everyday in my school years!