Vincent VanKoh

My sisters sent each of the children a bag packed with all sorts of fun things for Christmas. In Kohen's bag was this little notebook that I recently noticed had become a mainstay of Kohen's morning routine- a welcomed change since usually his first tasks are to #1: Wake up self. #2: Wake up sister.

Anyway, one evening while cleaning up Nathan and I opened up the nearly filled notebook and discovered we have our own little Vangoh VanKoh on our hands.
First we have a self portrait where Kohen pointed out his black shield and red sword, obviously...
Then things started to get impressive with his version of???? Can you guess?

Yup, Mr. Potato Head.

Then we figured out who the above was. Any ideas? Here's a hint: "Kitty"

Sully from Monsters Inc.
Next page was Boo.

Followed by the one and only Mike Wazowski (yes I did have to Google how to spell that)
Last but not least:
Celia, Mike's girlfriend.
Kohen is 5 and I am impressed. Course, as his parent I am supposed to be. But still. Who knew what was going on in that little red notebook? Or in his little head for that matter.

A Note from the Editor

You know, as Editor-in-Chief of a Blog I have been thinking a lot lately about how you can really edit your life to look however you want it to. Specifically, as good as humanly possible. Real control freaks probably derive a lot of pleasure from such a thing. It of course does nothing for me. *hand to chest, humbly fluttering my eyelashes*

I mean, it's not like this is a place where I am going to air our dirty laundry but does that mean readers assume we don't have any? I don't know. Editing is an essential part of any story and when there are 86,400 seconds in a day and I'm sharing maybe 4 of them, one would have to realize you aren't seeing everything. More accurately, you're hardly seeing anything.

Take this little possible post. A sick day for Nathan and the children swarmed him playing "Doctor". How sweet right? How adorable is Kenna with the stethoscope around her neck and her homemade remedies in hand?
And here they are administering a shot with a very big, galactic sized "needle".

How cute. Can I get a collective "aaawwwww!"???

I might've left it at that and you never would've known the reality:

Funny little thing, that "reality" these days. Be it TV or Blogs or whatever... just a thought.

Daddy/Daughter Ball

This Saturday Nathan took Kennedy to a Princess Ball at the American Club. Kennedy was beside herself excited to go. When Aly would ask throughout the day if she got to go to the ball too, Kennedy would gently remind her that her turn would be another night because tonight Dad was taking just her. As most daughters know, one on one time with Dad can be hard to come by and is quite special.

Kennedy was excited enough that she let me spend and hour doing her hair. When someone at the ball complimented her hair and asked how long it took she replied, "a movie." lol, true! but that included a break for feeding the babe and also wrangling other children all the while. Doing hair is a hobby of mine and this was particularly fun, though my right hand actually ached by the time I was done. Out of practice I guess.
I thought I was so clever. I found a couple of left over crystals from another project and we superglued them to Kenna's ears. It worked perfectly. They stayed on about 24hrs.
I loaned Kennedy my Handsome Prince for the night- and really I have to be fair and say Nathan surprised me at just how excited he was to take Kennedy. He had done all of the planning and could hardly wait to see her reaction. The anticipation was killing both of them.
These neglected ragamuffins were full of all sorts of well wishes as they saw their sister off to the ball and bid them a fond farewell...... Though I have a feeling they were eager to see her off because they could hardly wait to pounce on Big Sis's off limits toys.

Nathan nearly lost the privilege to take Kennedy when at ^ this moment he turned to me quite seriously and said, "She really can't sit in the front?" I mean, I know it's a date and all but are you kidding me?! Had he not driven in Taiwan before?! Don't worry, they departed with Kennedy safely seated in the back.
I received regular texts from Nathan throughout the night. Kennedy was in heaven. The ACC had really gone all out and Nathan was having so much fun watching Kennedy experience everything.
She loved it all from the music (Hannah Montana themed) and fancy table settings to her first Shirley Temple- which she guzzled down in a wonderfully un-princess like way :)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... I came upon this photo op of Kohen sharing his book with Ander. Kohen was sweet all night. He'd had the idea to make cookies for Kennedy while she was away so she would know we missed her and be surprised. Somehow we managed to eat dinner, make cookies, eat some, and the younger 3 still made it to bed on time. For the record: I was exhausted.
All the while at the ball Kennedy was delighted to have as many desserts as she wanted (I think I counted at least 4 when she told me about her night) and danced the night away in her daddy's arms.......

......aaand the arm's of strangers when she was introduced to "The Train"- which apparently she is a huge fan of and couldn't get enough. (she is hiding in the middle of the above pic, but she is there)

I know it's a lot of pictures but nights such as this are rare for little girls and I want Kennedy to be able to remember just how much fun she had at her first Ball.

Taipei Zoo on a Saturday

On this lovely Saturday we went with our friends the Robinsons to the Taipei Zoo. A really nice zoo actually. We went in and decided to sit down and eat lunch since Ander was hungry. At one point we turned around to find Kohen standing on a chair he'd moved next to a tree, casually holding on to the vines trying to look nonchalant and not alert me to the inner Tarzan he was desperately wanting to channel.

Never mind the rusty umbrella holder sitting in your landing zone waiting to render you posterity-less... Maybe try a different tree???

Now that's more like it. Tell me that's not the picture of happiness?If Kohen ever tries to say he didn't have a good childhood I will pull out this picture and ask, "Are you callin me a liar boy?"

These are some very happy tree climbers. The vines really seemed to improve the quality of their climbing experience. Both Kennedy and Kohen would have stayed here all afternoon. Kennedy especially is our climber, she loves it.

Suddenly, our attention was drawn away from our own monkeys when I spotted this rare Asian Adult Male Rat Tail! So elusive! And he was on the move so I felt grateful to catch a glimpse of this endangered (rightfully so) species. All I could think was, my sisters need to see this. Such a thing is so much more fun when you share it.

*thanks to the Robinsons for this and several of the pics

Our children ran from each animal enclosure with Lizzy and James taking in all of the different sights and the occasional smell.

Claims of "tired feet" increased when they yielded shoulder rides from Dad.
The Robinsons will be moving back to the states in a few short weeks and I fear both Aly and Lizzy will be devastated. They have spent their mornings at preschool together, played much like sisters and are most certainly two peas in a sassy little pod. It will be a bummer. At least for now they play blissfully unaware. It really was a great day at the zoo.

Ode to the Commode

You know what I hate? And yes, hate is a strong word but I repeat, you know what I hate? When I open the stall door in a public restroom and find this:

Say hello to the Squater. Unfortunately, Squaters can be found in restrooms all over Taiwan and Asia. They seem to mock me at every full-bladdered turn. As much as Aly claims "that's not for me, it's for boys!" she is sadly mistaken. These little babies are quite aptly named and I'm not sure any further explanation on my part would clear up their use any better than the name does.

I always enter the stall with dread, avoiding any wet areas on the ground around the Squater telling myself- it's just water from the previous flush, it couldn't be that someone before me has missed the narrow porcelain strip. Impossible... Impossible like Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize...

The Squater tests your ability to relax while simultaneously testing your balance, leg strength and stamina. Kind of like patting your head and rubbing your tummy. I'd like to share two ways I have discovered to enhance the Squater challenge, the P90x of Squating if you will.

First one, I was 10 months + 2 days pregnant. No bar for stability or help. Ever done a squat when you were that pregnant? Exactly. It's ludicrous and you'll be lucky to recover from such a squat. I barely did.

Now for the Grand Finale. Picture me with a 14lb sleeping baby strapped to my mid-section in a Baby Bjorn, 4 straps to the carrier hanging down randomly. Now quit picturing me cuz that's kinda weird. But just know that I successfully used this not-quite-commode, and emerged with all four straps plus 2 baby feet dry, and had a still sleeping baby. Seriously, I defy you to recreate such nonsense (a squat to the floor holding 2- two liter bottles, say) and you will see how if they gave medals for Stellar Squater usage, I would've just won the Gold.

Bikes @ the Sports Park

The fact is we've been needing to get a bike for Kohen. Just like Kennedy did, Kohen has been riding around on the Radio Flyer wooden bike that doesn't have peddles for quite some time. It has once again proved it's worth as Kohen will prove in the below video. All in due time.

We live about 4-5 min away from this great Sports Park. We have been coming here lately to let Kennedy ride her bike, Kohen kick his way around the track on a peddle-less bike (now that's what we need video of) and Aly on the little trike where every third rotation she diligently peddles might eek out another 2 feet along. It was time for an upgrade.
So this Saturday while Nathan literally ran laps keeping up with Kohen and making sure his spills were minimal, I walked around the track with Ander in the stroller while Aly went along beside me on her new little bike, screaming ridiculously most of the way. Seriously, she was shouting at her bike, shouting at me to let her peddle herself! and shouting for the sheer attention of all the Chinese people walking by- mostly the last reason.

The first video is honestly Kohen's first ride, never having used training wheels mind you- and also you may hear Aly discover the bell on her bike. Gets irritating fast but living here the girl will need all the practice she can get. The second is fun because Kohen is doing awesome, Nathan is getting a nice run in to keep up with him and Aly proves I wasn't exaggerating about the shouting. And lest you worry, that is a completely fake cry and elicits zero response from me anymore, as you'll see.

New Years Day Accidental Discovery

On New Years Day we decided to go downtown and explore the Cheng Kai Shek Memorial. Turns out about a million other locals decided to do the same.

Signs and symptoms Kennedy is being influenced by her surroundings, check out her hands^...
Nathan should've gotten a picture of the crowd that stopped to stare while we tried to get this picture of Ander and I. *papa-paparazzi*
We had no idea this would be happening but they were giving out these packets with cool brushes and paper to write out your New Years wishes of luck on your auspicious red paper. We sat down with hundreds of others and got to work. A nice guy who said he is an art teacher at a school stopped and offered to help Kohen with his, the people here are really friendly and helpful, I'm grateful for that.
Aly was all about this, she loves to paint be it "chinese characters" or something more impressionistic, she just wants free reign with that brush.
After Nathan helped Kenna with one he asked a local to write the characters for Happy New Year on a small piece of paper for her and she worked on her own off of that. I'm no expert but I thought it looked pretty darn good.
It was so neat to look around at some of the people who were actually good at painting characters, it is absolutely an art.
We really couldn't believe we just stumbled into the Memorial when there was such a fun gathering going on. I mean, it was pretty awesome to look out at the hundreds of Chinese people all painting their New Years wishes of good luck together and to be a part of that? Now that's a memory.
Happy New Year everyone.