Slow Down, Gym Shoe!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Guess who visited our house in the middle of the night?



Yep, the leprechauns were here! Little Bear made them a house yesterday, and they rewarded us richly.The kids woke up to find gold coins (including some made out of chocolate), little toys, shamrock bubble necklaces, St. Patrick's Day tattoos, and a brand new book for each of them. (Because the leprechauns like to encourage reading, apparently!)
We have a very multicultural household. We try to make a big deal out of the kids' heritages, because culture is a cool thing to have. Pufferfish is the one who is exposed the most to her Korean culture, because her dad and his family are still around. She gets to eat Korean food, hear the Korean language, etc, on a pretty regular basis. As for Monkeyboy, we try to tell him whatever we can about the Mexican culture, and we live in an area with a lot of Hispanic people, so most of his friends are Hispanic. Little Bear has always been the only one who could only be classified as "white," and this always sort of confused her. So a while ago we just decided to call Little Bear Irish. Her birth dad was adopted, so we can't know for sure... but I mean, look at the kid and tell me she's not Irish!

























Anyway, today is Little Bear's big day.






















































I hope it was great for you, too! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy New Year!!!

Hi, everyone! I wish I had something awesome to say on my first official blog entry of 2009... but unfortunately, my brain is too wiped out from lots of partying last night! ;)  We all went to Jimmy's sister and brother-in-law's house (the aunt and uncle who are Tigerlily's parents) and spent the night there. So all of the kids, including Pufferfish, stayed up to ring in the New Year at midnight! Then they pretty much all crashed out, and the rest of us stayed up for a few more hours. In the morning, Jimmy's parents came over and made lunch for us. Jimmy's  mom made Duk Gook, which is a  really good, traditional Korean New Years soup with egg drops, beef, and rice cakes in it. We also got to taste a Korean pear. It is different from a regular pear because it is huge, and shaped more like an apple... like this!

t also tastes different from an apple or a pear. It is not soft like a pear, its kinda crunchy, but not as crunchy as an apple, and much more juicy than an apple! And it is really sweet, delicious and nutritious.

Now we're all home... we picked up Marcus on the way... and the little ones are jumping in their new jumpy castle which takes up the entire living room. Little Bear poked all the colorful balls into the holes in the jumpy house, and she's getting really P.O.'ed because Pufferfish keeps popping them out of the holes! You should hear her, sounding just like Diana, saying, "Well, thank you so much, Hayden, that was so nice of you," with her voice dripping with sarcasm!

Tigerlily wrote a song, and made everyone sing along. It goes like this, "One with a dollar, one with a collar, one with a pig!" Basically you sing that over and over again. Not bad for a three-year-old, huh?

Okay, let me end this so I can go see what these little trouble makers are up to!

MySpace Glitter Graphics

What We've Got

The kids are on winter break now, and Marcus, Brittany and Topher are supposed to be going o the city any day now to spend a week or two with their mom. Its taking a while for them to get there, though, because of the cold weather. They were going to get a ride to the city with their older sister on Friday, but she couldn't come because of the snow. Then they were supposed to go today, but I think their sister is having car troubles or something. So they spent the weekend with us.

By Saturday, the five oldest kids were at each other's throats! They're used to being together, but usually its only for after school and evening hours that are taken up by homework, dinner, chores, bedtime, etc. The kids usually go to see their mom on the weekends. This was the first time all six of them had been together over the weekend, and they spent most of it stuck in the cramped bedroom, because of the extreme cold weather outside! Harsh words were exchanged. Punches were thrown. People cried. People got time-outs.

Today was much better! We all (including Diana's little sister Sarah) went to the mall to see Santa Claus. There were so many of us, it took two carloads to get to the mall! We were starting to feel like the Duggars!

Diana made the older kids see Santa, too, for the sake of a photo op. We can't afford the picture packages they offer, so Diana took pictures with her camera. you were only allowed one picture per family, so I had to discretely take some pics with my phone when nobody was looking... so they didn't turn out so well... but here they are!

Monkeyboy, Little Bear and Pufferfish sitting with Santa.

Marcus, Brittany and Topher with Santa.

Brittany and Topher also got to pick out their Christmas presents from Jimmy and Diana. They each got quite a lot. Marcus didn't get to pick out anything, but he didn't find out why until later. Marcus had really, really, really wanted an Ipod Touch for Christmas. He'd originally been promised it by his family, but today Diana talked to them and they mentioned that they were not going to be able to afford it. So, after much deliberation, me and Jimmy and Diana found one on Craigslist, and Jimmy went to pick it up. So today, after we got back from the mall, we gave it to him as a surprise. He's so happy, and he's trying to set it up right now as we speak!

We all went to Old Country Buffet afterwards for dinner. It was such an awesome day, with everyone together... my favorite kind of day!

Now everyone is at home and happy. playing around with their new things and getting ready to settle down for bed.

I don't know when Marcus and Brittany and Topher are leaving to see their mom, but the house is going to seem empty without them!

Pics From Pufferfish's Birthday!

I told you I'd post some pictures this week if Diana sent them to me, and she did! Check these out...

     

<-----This was the cake from Pufferfish's party! It was a little spooky to eat the baby's face!

<----And Pufferfish got her own little cake just for her! So at least she didn't have to eat her OWN face!

<----All the kids gather around to watch Pufferfish dig into her cake!

<---------The actual Tol party was at a banquet hall and was professionally decorated. We got to keep all the balloon decorations!

<-------Pufferfish in a happy moment being held by her Grandma!

<----------Pufferfish trying to eat her hanbok while Jimmy holds her!

<-------Me and Sarah

<-------Me, Diana, Pufferfish, Jimmy, Little Bear, Dravian and Monkeyboy!

<----------All of the same people from the last picture, plus Pufferfish's cousin Emily!

What a wild weekend! I think this was probably Pufferfish's best birthday ever, so far!

Pufferfish's Tol Celebration

I've mentioned before that Pufferfish's dad is Korean. For her first birthday party, we're going to be celebrating in a traditional Korean way. I am just copying off a page of info that Diana gave me, but I thought I'd post it for you because its so interesting!

What Is Tol? Tol has two meanings in Korean. The most common meaning is a child's first birthday. It can also be used as a generic description for birthdays: Chut-tol (first birthday), Dut-tol (second birthday), Seo-tol (third birthday), and so on.

Why Is It Significant? In the past, due to a lack of medical information, Korea's seasonal temperature differences, and many childhood related diseases, the death rate for children was extremely high. Many children died before their first birthday. After the age of one year, the survival rate steeply increased, making this milestone a very happy one for the child's parents!

Traditions: The traditional celebration has four major components... Praying and giving thanks, Making and wearing the birthday clothes, Preparing the table and performing the Toljabee, and Sharing the food with guests and neighbors.

Clothing: Traditional Korean clothing has its roots extending back at least as far as the Three Kingdoms Period (57 BC- 668 AD) The clothes worn for the tol (tol-bok) are colorful, dressy clothes. They differ depending on the child's sex. Both boys and girls wear a long tol-ddi (a belt that wraps around the body twice) for longetivity, and a tol-jumuni (pouch) for luck. Silk cloth is used to make the tol-jumuni, folded at the top with a colorful thread pull-string to open and close.

Event: At the birthday celebration, certain items will be set out on a table. (This is the Toljabee.) Pufferfish will go around the table and pick up items that attract her. Her future will be predicted according to what she grabs. After placing Pufferfish in front of the table, Jimmy will become the guide for her to go around the table and grab whatever she wants. The first and second items she grabs are considered the most important. Usually Korean parents place items that they want the child to choose near the edge of the table.
If she chooses the needle and thread, Pufferfish will live a long life.
Choosing jujube or apples means the child will have many descendants.
A book, pencil, etc, will mean she'll become a successful scholar.
Rice or rice cakes means she'll be rich!
A ruler, needle or scissors mean she'll be talented with her hands!
A knife means she'll be a good cook.
In modern times, some Korean families put different things out on the table. For instance, golf balls, a computer game, or a stethescope.
There will also be a birthday cake, and a formal picture of Pufferfish will probably be taken at the party!

Pufferfish is actually having a two-day-long birthday party this year. On Saturday we'll have a regular backyard party at the house, and then on Sunday evening is the Tol. I'll post more about these parties after they happened!

Wish little Pufferfish a happy birthday!

Pictures of a Kimchi Baby... and more!

Well, me and Diana are both hella sick with sinus infections and have spent most of the weekend popping Sudafeds. The good kind of Sudafeds... the kind that you have to show your ID to get, at the pharmacy, and you're only allowed to buy a certain amount of it each month, because its actually possible to use it to make meth! Yeah, thats the good stuff! We've been napping a lot too. This morning I woke up with a wet butt, and found that someone had emptied out the entire box of baby wipes on my bed while I was sleeping! I won't mention any names. But here are some photos of the main suspect:
















































Speaking of photos, on Friday night while the big kids were at their dad's, me and Diana took Pufferfish to the mall to get her One Year Old pictures taken. The plan was to take her to The Picture Place to get a picture of her in traditional Korean garb, which is going to be the photo used at her Korean birthday party. Then we were going to go over to JCPenneys to get regular 1-year-old pictures taken to distribute to the family and everyone.
Well, the evening didn't go so well. Pufferfish was not enthusiastic about her Korean outfit. Its called a hanbok, and is a really long dress with lots of layers, plus a head piece. I don't have a full-size picture of Pufferfish in her hanbok yet but you can click here to see an example of what it would look like on a toddler.
Pufferfish couldn't walk or stand very well in the hanbok, so she was crying bloody murder, and really wouldn't smile or do anything to cooperate with the photographer. The photographer managed to snap a bunch of pictures anyway, until we gave up and decided to call it quits.
Next we put the baby's other dress on her and I rushed her over to JCPenneys to try to get her in for a photo sitting while Diana waited for the Picture People photos... but it turned out the photo center at JCPenney's had closed hours ago! It was just as well I guess because Pufferfish was wailing miserably. I took her dress off and let her walk around in just her diaper for a while, and she was fine then. Its hard being a baby and having everyone put weird, itchy outfits on you, right?
But just to prove that the Picture People can work miracles, check out the photo they actually managed to get of the ornery Pufferfish...
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Beautiful, isn't she? If I do say so myself...

In other news, Jimmy is still away on his business trip, and the rest of us are still living on pizza and cold cereal, which really doesn't bother us much at all. Its kind of a 9-day-long slumber party around here! Right now the big kids are outside playing, and Pufferfish is napping, so I'm taking advantage of the peace to catch up on my blogging.
Hope everyone had a great weekend!

What Am I?

Our family is unusual in many ways. One way is that the three children each have different birth fathers. (We never call them half-siblings though! They're brothers and sisters, and thats that!) Also, each of the three fathers is from a different ethnic background.
The kids' mom, Diana, was still a teenager when she met Monkeyboy's father. He was a few years older than her, was from a very impoverished part of Mexico, and was in the USA on some type of work permit. He and Diana worked together at a fast food restaurant, and began dating. Diana was 16 when Monkeyboy was conceived, and 17 when he was born. Monkeyboy's father's work permit had expired by then, but he stayed illegally in the USA for a few extra months until Monkeyboy was born. He then had to go back to Mexico. He wanted Monkeyboy and Diana to go back to Mexico with him, but Diana did not want to move so far away from her mother, sisters, and friends. So they parted ways, and never saw each other again.
Years later, Diana married Tony, and eventually Little Bear was born. Tony legally adopted Monkeyboy, making him the father of both of the children. Unfortunately, that marriage did not work out, as Tony had a lot of serious, serious problems that made it unsafe for him to keep on living with Diana and the children. So, they got divorced.
Shortly after separating from Tony, Diana met Jimmy, and Pufferfish was born. Jimmy is half Korean, and Pufferfish definitely  has his Korean features.
So, we have a very multicultural household! And we try our hardest to help the kids learn about and have pride in their cultures as much as possible.
With Monkeyboy it is sort of hard, because his birth father is not in his life at all. We do talk about the fact that he is Mexican, point out the physical features he got from his birth father, show him pictures of his birth father, and things like that. We also try to learn a little about Mexican culture... even if eating in Mexican restaurants and celebrating Cinco De Mayo is the best we can do!
It is much easier to celebrate Pufferfish's Korean culture, because her father and his family are in her life. We are going to celebrate her first birthday following a Korean tradition next month, we are all learning a little bit of Korean words, etc.
Little Bear is the only one who doesn't have a specific culture to identify with, except "caucasion." Her birth father was adopted, and he's never been able to find out much about his birth family, so he himself is not aware of what his specific ethnic background is. Often Little Bear gets confused and says she is Mexican, or says she is Korean. Other times she demands, "What am I?"
One day, I had an idea. I looked at Little Bear, with her pale skin, blond hair, and bright blue eyes, and said, "I know what you can be! You can be Irish! And you know who else is Irish? Leprechauns!"
"Leprechauns?" Little Bear got all excited, because she remembers back in March when the leprechauns snuck into our house and left her lots of treasures! "Yay! I'm a leprechaun!"
Tony could be Irish by descent... he does look sort of Irish. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Little Bear can call herself Irish, and have a culture of her own to identify with.
I think thats a cool thing. I, myself, am half Italian, but I don't know much at all about my own culture. After immigrating to the USA as a kid, my Nona was made fun of in school because she was Italian and didn't speak English, so she worked very hard to become Americanized, and raised her children as American as possible. I'm proud of being Italian, but I really don't know much about it, except for the facts that Italians east the best food on Earth, talk loudly and use their hands a lot, and have Mafia connections! So I hope the kids will be able to learn more about their own cultures, because I think thats something pretty important. What do you think?

GOT  A LITTLE TRAVELER IN YOUR LIFE? GIVE THEM A UNIQUE GIFT THAT THEY CAN BRING WITH THEM ANYWHERE... A TREASURE JAR!

Cinco de Mayo!

Hope everyone had a great Cinco De Mayo! We did! We went to our playgroup in the morning, which involved playing at a playground and then going on a hike through the woods. We actually did hike, on a dirt path, hauling strollers and toddlers and everything! It was lots of fun!
Here's a picture of Pufferfish on the swing... the only thing she can really do at the playground besides try to eat the woodchips. (I actually didn't get any pictures of Little Bear, because she was busy running around with her friends, and because I had Pufferfish in my hands the whole time!)

(Remember to click on the pictures to make them bigger so you can see them!)

We also tried hard to celebrate Cinco de Mayo! The holiday is important to us because Monkeyboy's birth father was Mexican, and we try to teach him about his heritage in whatever ways we can. He was at school all day today, but I did things with the girls anyway. We read a book about the meaning of Cinco de Mayo and how it is celebrated in Mexico, and we listened to tapes of Spanish children's music in the car.
We also made maracas. A very easy way to make maracas is to take two plastic or foam cups. Fill one about halfway up with rice or beans or something else that will make noise. Glue the second cup on top of the first one, mouth to mouth. (I also like to tape over the crack to make it more likely to stay closed!) You can also decorate them however you like.
For a different sound, make a long coil out of tinfoil, and put it in the cup before you pour the rice and beans in!
Here are some of the maracas we made...

And here is the picture of Pufferfish trying to eat the maraca I made for her!

Finally we went out for Mexican food and fried ice cream!
A great time was had by all!

Did you do anything to celebrate Cinco de Mayo?