just like an angel

Thu - June 7, 2007

project dollhouse- phase 2

just a progress report- the exterior are painted pistachio mint, white windows and trim. we have started laying the roof, shingle fashion. as you can see, my roofer is not that experienced yet. but she is a lot of fun to work with!

Posted at 09:49 PM

Mon - April 30, 2007

project dollhouse- phase 1

it was a rainy day sunday. days like this remind me of my young, six year old self, sitting on the window sill, watching the rain, paint brush on one hand. rainy days were my water color days. today- well today is a project perfect day. kailea got a dollhouse from my mom-in-law for her birthday. unlike the big, plastic, ornate dollhouses sold these days, i recommended she get a small, natural wood, unfinished one. that way, kailea does not only get a toy, she gets to work on it herself. for selfish reasons, i wanted it to be our project together. years from now, she can look at that dollhouse and remember all the fun we had decorating it. we started with a color scheme. kailea knows exactly what she wants. she insisted that she come with me to the craft store to pick the paint, because she wants to make sure i pick the right green. pistachio mint it is. we painted for an hour. and then, we watched the paint dry.

Posted at 11:30 PM

Wed - February 21, 2007

mom, i'm harvesting!

green bean casserole, anyone?

Posted at 09:38 PM

raising the bar

it seems like kindergarten teachers are in dire need of a challenge...my daughter decided to make checking homework more interesting for ms. carr. notice also on the bottom page- an age old debate. which came first? the chicken or the egg?

Posted at 09:37 PM

Sat - January 6, 2007

cutie pie

'i called her cutie pie, because she is cute, but we are not going to make a pie out of her.' 'we're not?' 'NOOOO!'

kailea was dying to have a dog or cat but they are not allowed in our apartment complex. the closest thing we can get is a hamster. that was her christmas present . we wrapped the cage and a book on hamsters. she opened her presents and blurted out, 'i'm getting a pet!' we took her to PETCO (one of her favorite stores, See's is her first favorite) to pick one. cutie pie jumped into her cupped hands and remained there long enough for us to even take pictures. and so kailea declaired, 'let's take her home.'

the little one is a real cutie. she's very curious, friendly and surprisingly comfortable around us. each night, we all spend some time huddled around her cage, with smiles plastered on our faces. and kailea- adores her. she write notes to her every morning before she goes to school.

Posted at 08:49 PM

Wed - January 3, 2007

berries blue

blueberry sauce
strawberry sauce
boysen berry sauce
try the boysenberry sauce...

will i die immediately?
what? no, silly. i said boysenberry.
oh, i thought you said poison berry.

Posted at 10:16 PM

Mon - October 23, 2006

kailea's first field trip

kailea had her very first field trip. they went to avila barn, very timely as it is pumpkin time. we were offered sweet and juicy gala apples grown in their apple farm. the kids devoured each one while we waited for a hay ride. off the kids went, as soon as the pumpkin patch was in sight. kailea loved that she got to 'pluck' her own pumpkin, and not just pick from a bunch of already 'plucked' ones. like the clifford story ms. carr read in the class before the trip, the tractor broke down. all the kindergartners were yelling out, 'we need clifford to pull the hay cart!'. that was a trip. rather than wait for the tractor to start up again, we decided to walk back to the barn. there, they had fun with all the animals. the kids even ran into the hay maze. i of course ran after them to make sure they find their way out. i swear, i will never go in that maze again.

what was her absolute best part? riding the school bus. for the very first time too. she asked, 'where are the seat belts, mom?' yeah, where are they?

10.18.06

Posted at 10:16 PM

Sat - October 14, 2006

an apple a day....

have you paid your compliments today? kailea's kindergarten classmates had! and it sure made her day. go ahead, one nice compliment really goes a long, long way...

Posted at 01:55 PM

Wed - September 6, 2006

felicity

little kailea, look under your pillow. i thank you for the note and treasure you left. and for your tooth, a dollar i leave. buy something nice, a special treat. watch out tonight for your pearly white. with all the stars it will shine so bright. keep brushing, my dear and take good care. i'll be right over when the next one comes out.

love,
felicity
tooth fairy

Posted at 08:51 PM

Tue - August 29, 2006

class of 2019

kailea started kindergarten this morning. i couldn't be more proud. we walked her to her class. you can sense a mixture of tense excitement. she had inquisitive eyes. her mind is wandering. she is calm. she took her place in the circle in front. kissed us goodbye. she's been waiting for this, and we all know she is ready.

no tears, just maybe mine.

Posted at 09:05 PM

Thu - August 10, 2006

the soda blast experiment

kailea couldn't wait till after swim class to tell me what they did in mr. a's class that morning. soda blast experiment. she told me they wanted to find out who will shoot up the most when you drop mentos in. they have 5 bottles of soda, coca cola, orange soda, root beer, strawberry soda and sport. 'sprite', i corrected her. so, who won? 'coca cola, tied with root beer won' she said her money was on the strawberry soda, but it didn't win. why strawberry? because pink is her favorite color, silly.

the explanation as to why it shoots up might not be what they would remember of the experiment- she skipped telling me the conclusion but it is a sure way to get the kids excited and interested. for the more mature audience who are curious, check out myth busters - they too, had a lot of fun with this one!

she was trying to get us to go to the beach to make a volcano with lava coming out of it.

Posted at 09:07 PM

Wed - August 9, 2006

liar, liar, pants on fire

i got to pre-school yesterday later than usual. as i walk the ramp down to her afternoon classroom, i heard a loud cry. i recognized the wailing as my daughter's. my mom instincts didn't tell me that she was hurt. well, not physically. i walked in the room with the question, 'what happened?' plastered on my face. one of the stay and play teachers approached me and told me that kailea's feelings got hurt. 'huh?' rilyn, one of her best friends called her a liar. rilyn said she was making up going to swim class, so she can get picked up from pre-school early. it was mid afternoon, it was freaking hot, it was the brand. she cried her heart out. i let her. then hushed her. rilyn apologized. things were resolved. we had a talk in the car, on our way to swim class.

today, when i picked her up to go to swimming, she gave rilyn a big hug before running to the door. rilyn said, 'have a good swim.'

Posted at 09:04 PM

Wed - July 26, 2006

points to ponder

how come in your mouth, you call it gums when you can't even chew it?

Posted at 10:03 PM

Thu - June 1, 2006

the perfect little hostess

kailea, being the only child at home with us is used to being the center of our world. we don't spoil her and she's definitely not a brat. one day, her friend was over for a play date. just out of habit, i tend to her friend before her. this went on the whole afternoon. a couple of times, i had asked kailea to let her friend have a turn first. she asked politely, 'how come she always get to be first?' i said, 'because she is your guest and you are being a gracious hostess. when you are over at her house, you will be her guest and she will be the gracious hostess, right?' i directed the question to her friend. her friend nodded and said 'of course'.

the next saturday, after picking her up from her (same) friend's house, she told brent. 'daddy, i am her guest but she never let me go first, and we never did the things i want to do.' not a whine or complaint, just a confused statement.

Posted at 10:25 PM

miss congeniality

the school year is almost over, and i guess i can without a doubt say that kailea is the most popular girl in school. brent and i get handed out addresses and phone numbers with requests for play dates. i have a stack i haven't even scheduled yet. whenever i see some kid's mom or dad, they say their child can't stop talking about kailea. such a surprise, since i can count with my one hand the names of the kids she tell fond stories of. so one day, on the drive home, i asked her who her friends are. she said, 'all of them'. 'all?', i asked inquisitively. she said, 'yes, because they will cry if i tell them they are not my friend. especially the toddlers.'

this weekend, she is invited to 2 birthday parties. she wants to go to both. a play date on tuesday...etc. etc.....

Posted at 10:11 PM

Tue - May 9, 2006

happy birthday mr. daddy

we had a girls only closed door project this afternoon. we wrapped presents for mr. daddy. i wrote a sign on the door that says "no daddies allowed'. i read it to her. kailea thought that was mean. i had to convince her that this is only while we are finishing up our surprise. after carefully wrapping her present with the gift wrap and ribbon that she picked, she started writing on the card she carefully selected for mr. daddy. she drew a cake and put three candles on it. she stopped, looked at me and announced, "i'm only going to draw three candles cause he's too old!"

happy birthday mr. daddy. happy birthday honey. sorry- this is just too cute to not post.

Posted at 11:01 PM

Thu - April 20, 2006

kai-isms

you can tell that a child is watching too much iron chef when she says 'walk away' when she hears a buzzer sound.

'it's a good day to die', i overheard her say whilst looking out the backyard.

'moth cough! cover your mouth...' she exclaimed. 'what is a moth cough?', i asked. 'it's a moth that will make you cough when you swallow it' hence the name- moth cough.

'my name is ynigo montoya. you killed my father. prepare to die!'. she watched the princess bride all of last weekend.

'poke his eyes and pour drinkable yogurt all over him' what she'll do if a pirate is after her.

'is it tickle day? oh, it's friday. it's not tickle day. i moved tickle day to weekends.'

Posted at 11:28 PM

Wed - April 12, 2006

kindergarten, here i come

open enrollment is over. i turned in kailea's paper a couple of weeks ago. with time flying by so fast, i thought i'd put together a checklist i called 'kailea's kindergarten readiness checklist'. i started making the list, noting down 1st priority, grouping them into fine motor skills, social, intellectual, etc. i was running out of items to put in the list, so i googled 'kindergarten readiness'. i wouldn't want to miss a thing, you know. looking through each page, i was surprised to find out that i am an over shooting my goals for kailea. while they ask for shape recognition, i have 'shape recognition (and draw)' in my list. while they want the child to be able to count to ten, i put in a hundred. now, now, it wasn't really me- kailea asked me earlier to count to 100 with her. she was the one who wanted to write her name in cursive. she was the one who want to be able to tell time. she was the one who wanted to learn to tie her shoe laces together. indeed, we have an inspired child. it's contagious, hence i was inspired to put the list together. we have about 5 months.

Posted at 11:24 PM

Wed - April 5, 2006

in cursive

kailea is anxious to learn how to write in cursive. i'm all for that, but i made it clear that i would teach her how to write at least her name in cursive as soon as she masters writing her 'regular' letters both in upper and lower cases; and writing and recognizing numbers. we started last saturday. we are on letter P.

Posted at 08:26 PM

Sun - April 2, 2006

skateboarder in training

while waiting for mommy to come back to the ground, i had fun with the skateboard. i really wish i have one. when mommy came back, she couldn't help but notice how dirty my squeaky clean baby pink shoes are. that just means i had a great time.

Posted at 03:38 PM

Mon - March 13, 2006

the birthday girl

today she's five. she's been waiting for this day since the first of march. this year, she's old enough to make sense of all the things that come with having a birthday. we asked her what she wants for her birthday. she said she wanted to have her friends over for a birthday party. and so they will. her party is this weekend and she wants to be a big part of the planning and decorating. it's refreshing to watch her bounce up and down with excitement. all that energy coming from one little girl. a little girl who's a little bit grown up.

for dinner, her choice was japanese food. boy, she's such a weird kid. she definitely loves her miso & rice. we limit her sushi rolls to cooked ones like shrimp tempura roll. yum!

Posted at 09:27 PM

Thu - February 9, 2006

sleeping on the edge

photo taken the other night

today, kailea decided it's time to learn how to sleep without the guardrail. i asked her ten times and told her what might happen- falling off and getting a bit hurt. she stopped and thought about it- then said, 'yes, mommy. i still want to try.'

i learn a thing or two about life from my kid- and it's a humbling experience. i failed my first exam, but yes- i still want to try.

Posted at 10:00 PM

Tue - January 24, 2006

he just didn't know, mom

kailea was leaving the room as the quizno's commercial finishes. the one where they told the baby that santa claus isn't real. i tried to peek to make sure that kailea didn't hear what dave lieberman said. i was alarmed when she walked back in my room. knowing she heard all of it, i had to do some damage control- fast. before i could even say a word, kailea assures me, 'it's ok, mom, he just didn't know that santa claus is not real. he's magic.'

Posted at 09:48 PM

word play

what rhymes with bow?
ho.
what?
ho.
you mean a hoe for gardening?
no, a HO.

mrs. richardson wondered where kailea had picked up this word. she was curious, and frankly, a bit worried. she braced herself as she asked kailea where she picked up the word 'ho'.

from santa claus- HO-HO-HO...

Posted at 09:39 PM