November 2009 Archives

I took Henry up to Lotte Mart today. I figured he could take his 30-minute-nap in the car (he did) and we could both have a change of scene. I know it did me some good anyway!

I haven't decided if having the name and photograph of the driver helps anything. Maybe he's a better driver than he would be if that information wasn't there? Maybe that's not even why it's there. Who knows?

"Washing Dishes."

Sarah has "Crazy Pajama Night" almost every night.

This is his last day in this seat & stroller as we are selling to another family tomorrow.

I spotted a sign for Kraze Burger earlier in the week and Craig scouted out the location for us. We had only heard of it in Seoul but thought it was worth checking out: they are excellent! Very expensive but the "Original" without "Kraze Sauce" is perfection. It's a good thing they are in Gohyeon and not in Okpo so we will be able to restrain ourselves somewhat.

This morning I took Henry for his 4 Month doctor's appointment. Here are his stats:

Height: 70.2 cm (27.6 inches ) - above 95th percentile
Weight: 8.04 kg (17.7 pounds) - 75-90th percentile
Head Circumference: 17 inches - 50-75th percentile *this I have to measure myself since they don't do it here; I hope to at least be consistent with how I'm measuring it*

This afternoon the girls helped me bake a chocolate cake for my birthday: delicious!

Sorry, I can't help it. I love going to Starbucks for lunch because I can get a really tasty chicken caesar wrap and feel like I am in America for a short time.

Poor little Henry, my notes on your progress are not going to be as good as your sisters' just because you're number three. I hope you understand some day when you have kids: I'm doing the best I can with the time and energy I've got right now!

Henry likes to read books. He looks so thrilled when the girls ask to read a book and I have them sit next to him (in his bouncy seat or the megasaucer). He also likes to hold my hands or grab the book when I read to him for nap time.

This past week he has been a nightmare during the day. Screaming a horrible scream and not wanting to sleep more than 30 minutes at a time (and then being obviously tired between naps). Hopefully it won't last much longer (there seems to be nothing "wrong" with him other than he is tired and can't figure out how to sleep during the day for any length of time all of a sudden).

He still hasn't rolled over but I swear it looks like he's going to at any moment. I'll keep waiting!

The girls are reading their dinosaur book to Henry while they wait for Thanksgiving dinner to be served.

Craig made the best EVER pumpkin pie for our early Thanksgiving today. He also made the stuffing and turkey (they were both also really good). It's too bad he worked so hard today though because now he claims he'll never cook again. I think he should cook every meal if it's all going to taste that good!

We had our Thanksgiving today because last year we decided to have it on the Saturday after but we ended up being sick (and I ended up being pregnant!) and we never did it. We actually ate the turkey I bought last year for our meal this year. It was great (it was a 50,000 KW imported turkey!). For all anyone knows all frozen turkeys are frozen for as long as ours was.

Anna helped Craig make a pat-in-the-pan crust from Joy of Cooking for our pumpkin pie tomorrow.

There are cabbage trucks all over town right now and they're all stacked as high as this. People (all year) load up their grocery carts with cabbage, too. I realize they're making kimchi with it but it still looks insane in mass quantities like this! (I don't know if I ever mentioned on the blog that I loved walking past the kimchi section of the grocery store when I was pregnant with Henry—I love that smell!)

Anna & I went into town to run some errands. Craig was putting Henry down for a nap. Sarah was coloring the kitchen wall. She says it is "ghosts."

"Happy Thanksgiving 2009" from Anna.

Getting set up for the experiment.

The girls were really excited when a package from Grandma came with a few new clothes!

The girls & I did a "color hypothesis" activity from the Dinosaur Train section on PBSkids.org today and they really had fun. Sarah got a little bored with the data sheet but liked making predictions and figuring out the results.

This will be the picture we send out this year.

And we're done.

Henry was a little freaked out when I put him in the Megasaucer yesterday but today he seems to like it pretty well. This contraption has gone through seven kids now (Owen, Raisa, Anna, Sarah, two Norwegian kids here, and now Henry). I will pass it on when Henry is finished with it.

Henry keeps looking like he's going to roll but it hasn't happened yet. I'd actually prefer he figure out how to put his own pacifier back in his mouth at naptime and the middle of the night!

Sarah still has a bit of a cold so I kept her home one more day.

The girls were so happy to see Craig come home!

Craig finally made it home today after spending the night in Tokyo on his way back from Houston. Anna and Sarah ran to him yelling, "Daddy! I love you! Daddy, I love you!" Henry preferred when I put him down for his next nap, however.

Anna is sorting out the dinosaur pictures by herbivore/carnivore/omnivore. This is a hot topic of discussion around here lately.

Craig's flight out of Houston was delayed so he won't be home tonight as planned. At this point, what's one more day? We're all still doing great but Henry has been getting a bit fussy today so I'll be glad for Craig's help after tomorrow!

The girls have been obsessed with dinosaurs lately so I found a few dinosaur activities for us to do today. We also made our own book about them while we wait for Craig to bring us back a real one with more dinosaur information. I have had a really difficult time sounding out all of the dinosaur names in Korean on a sticker set I bought for them and needed the English (although I'm sure I'll still struggle with some pronunciations!).

Sarah's favorite dinosaur is the triceratops and Anna's is the parasaurolophus. I like to call Sarah "tri-SARAH-tops" and Anna "pter-ANNA-don." Poor Henry has to be just "Henry-o-saurus."

I admit that today was the day I was dreading most of all this week. I had originally planned to go to the store on Wednesday with just Henry (Anna & Sarah had Friday off already this week). I usually go to the store by myself on Sunday morning and then once into town for a quick trip on Wednesday night (again, by myself). The kids were perfect. I got a cart with a baby seat for Henry and Anna & Sarah held on to my cart the whole time (I thought for sure Sarah would bolt since she usually rides in the cart). I don't think I'll ever take them again so that they will have a fantastic record of being great when I've had all three with me in the store.

Also, today is Sarah's half-birthday and she can suddenly pedal her little tricycle. She's not going crazy fast yet but I'm sure that time will come soon enough. She was pretty thrilled when she figured it out! Henry is 16 weeks today and is finally starting to look like he might roll over (he looks like he's working on both directions).

It's still going really well over here! You can see we did some suncatchers today, Anna was busy creating more art, Sarah was getting good use of the dress-up drawer, and Henry is starting to make some moves toward rolling over. I am so surprised and happy with how this week has gone (and that we seem to have escaped the H1N1 virus so far).

The kids & I went into town today to get out of the house for a bit. We went to a park in town, Starbucks for lunch, and then stopped at the convenience store for some milk (we'll do our big shopping trip on Friday when the cleaning ladies come).

My three fantastic kids. I love Sarah's Bumbo hat. Anna worked on art projects for most of the day.

Decorating the ornaments. Sarah wanted to make all of them for Opa. I convinced her that we should send some to a few other people as well.

Day three of no Craig and no school and we are doing great! The girls have been getting along so well, Henry has been napping predictably and fairly well. And, so far, no one seems to have gotten sick! It is only Tuesday, however.

"Henry I (heart) you"

Just after Henry woke up from his (awesome) nap this morning Anna's school called to tell me to come get her because one of the Wombats had H1N1 and probably had it on Friday while they were at school. It turns out a ton of kids were home sick already on Monday (I watched all of this unfold on Facebook!) so it was spreading around OIS fast. Henry & I drove over to get Anna and then walked over to get Sarah out of school early as well. We stopped at the Import Lady & Bakery Lady to stock up on a few supplies and then went home to stay away from other people while I started panicking about what I would do if one of my kids got the flu (or me--how would I take care of all three of them with Craig gone?). So far it's just Sarah & Henry with the remains of their colds which aren't so bad. I'll have to think of some fun stuff to do around the house this week and hope for the best.

Craig left for Houston today. He will be gone for one week... wish us luck! Today has gone well so far and since Sarah has a cold (Henry, too), I ended up putting her to bed a bit earlier than usual which worked out very well for getting Henry down hassle-free. (The bedtime routine is the part of Craig being gone that I'm nervous/stressed out about.) I got Sarah to bed at 6:45, Henry in bed at 7, and then Anna went to bed at 7:30. Anna worked on some art while I put Henry to bed which was perfect.

One sad/cute thing to remember this morning is that when Craig was leaving, Sarah was in a panic to find a tissue. She ended up unraveling a large amount of toilet paper, wiped her nose, and told Craig she "wiped off her cold" so that she could kiss him goodbye (we had asked her to not hug & kiss Henry & Anna when her cold started... too bad Henry got it anyway!).