Advent Calender

This year Khai gets his very first Advent calender. Its not that its a tradition in our household...more like i've always thought they were kind of neat growing up (but never got one) and this year as I was passing by a stack of them at the grocery store, I thought Khai would really love this. While its not the greatest one I've seen, its serving its purpose well. Behind each door is a fairly small piece of chocolate, which works out just fine by me since he gets to open his door every night after dinner (i.e no hyper child in the evenings). Its an added push to get him to finish his dinner too. Each night he's so anxious to open a door - granted he doesn't open them in order and is now begging to open two doors, sometimes three - its been fun to do this with him and maybe a new tradition for our little family.

Bye Snow

It didn't last very long.... but we had fun.

First Snowfall of the Year

Yesterday marked the very first snowfall of the year! The excitement was bursting from Khai from the moment he first looked out the window after waking up until the end of the day. He ran through the house screaming "Snooow! Its snowing!!" and went from window to window singing snow songs and asking a million and one questions. "How does it snow? Why does it snow? Where does it come from? Why is it on the car? Can we eat it? Can we build a snowman? Can I go outside?" Last year he really didn't get to experience much snow because he was sick alot. He didn't get to play in it and only got to stomp in a pretty weak patch of remains in the front yard. It snowed all day long and by the 2nd day, when the sun came out, we spent all morning throwing snowballs at each other, stomping his name across the back yard, and for now...he enjoys helping me clean off the snow on the car. Hopefully this winter we'll get at least one more good dose of snow for him to play in. He's been dying to wear his snow boots again and this recent snowfall surely will be long gone by weeks end. :-(

Oh Christmas Tree

Oh happy day. Khai's been begging to put the Christmas tree and some lights up for a few weeks now. Today being our first snowy day of the year, seemed like an ideal day to bring out the boxes. It was a half day project, because if have a young, enthusiastic, overly excited child...they want to help. The time was then extended because a string of lights died on us just as we finished putting them up. Grrr. Ma Moy headed out in the snow, to the store to buy another box...where she got side tracked on all the other Christmas stuff. When she finally returned a good hour or more later, we finally got the tree up and Khai placed the first ornament - his hand print ornament from when he was a year old. He then pulled out some extremely old stockings from when I was a kid, and thought they were socks, so he put them on his feet and walked around... awww. I'm thinking Christmas this year will really be fun for him....for us.

Childhood Memories

Nothing beats a Christmas tree with ornaments that have been around since you were a kid.
They are falling apart, the angel is missing her wings, the snowman is missing an eye, the wooden horses leg is broken and dangling. No doubt anyone else looking at these would see trash, but the wear and tear are the things that make them warm. These are our memories. Up until I had a child of my own, I used to scoff at my mom for keeping these raggity ornaments and tree. She'd always say these ones were perfectly good, and so I always thought she was just too cheap to buy shiny new ones. For Khai's first Christmas, we put up a new tree. New ornaments and lights.... Khai was still too young to really care.
The next year, my mom put up her old tree and ornaments. Still at that point Khai wasn't too into the concept of Christmas. He was intrigued by the lights but they could have been any lights and he'd have been happy just as well. This year, he's old enough to be truly excited, eager to put up the tree, eager to help hang the ornaments, calling it HIS tree. This year the old tree and its ratty ornaments really changed their meaning to me. Watching my baby boy hang the paper reindeer I made when I was five, the four weird looking Santas that used to creep me out, the random ornaments collected from the various countries I'd lived in growing up, and best of all....him adding his crayon colored, paper ornaments proudly next to mine.....
him placing his little hand on the very first ornament we made together when he was a year old - a hand print - and seeing how big his tiny hand has gotten since then... adding new memories to the old.

Video Games

Well, Khai has entered the world of video games. He's been quite obsessive asking to play them. Hmm, good idea?? Bad idea?? The two games he currently plays are Cars, and Gauntlet. Both are pretty good for him in that you can't die. Ever. Cars has helped him learn how to maneuver the remote fairly well and Gauntlet really has him going at the "bad guys". Ok, so maybe that could fall into "bad idea" category here at some point. And I wonder why he walks up to me with the random punch....
Either which way, he's pretty darn good at them for someone his age. I'm impressed. He'll get in the zone when playing...and naturally, when you are playing he orders you around. Threats of
"No Video Games".. or "Bideo Games" as he calls them, get him to do lots of thing... i.e. eat, go to sleep, clean up, etc... Mwahaaa...

First Pine Cone.

Khai was really excited to receive this pine cone from his Ma Moy. I love how the most simplest things can be so intriguing to a child. This was also the first time he'd ever laid eyes on a real pine cone, thus upping the excitement no doubt.

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, we split time between Ma Moys house and Mose and Sassy's house.
Dinner at Ma Moys, dessert at Mose and Sassy's. Khai got to visit with his cousins Alex and Avery, which was the highlight of his day - he talked about them ALL day long. And of course, he got to see Carter too - who he absolutely loves. After dinner/dessert activities primarily involved the kids playing Rock Band.. Khai LOVES Rock Band. He calls it Wock and Wole.
So, now we've got him singing, dancing, playing drums, and guitar. A full band!