Family Updates

Seoul

What a great little person! She has such a personality and talks up a storm. It's all about new words and sentences these days. So far her longest word is 'calculator' and her longest sentence is "I want my ball." She narrates everything: daddy's milk, mommy all done, Seoul do it (or Seoul's turn), and so much more. Every day we look at her and love her more and more! Each day she asserts more independence, which is good and bad of course. The thing we don't like is this new high-pitch scream. She loves to help, whether it's fixing chairs with daddy or vacuuming with mommy. She loves her new bed and the transition is going well. Nursery is fun for her - this last Sunday she didn't look back when Kelley dropped her off. At meals she likes to sit at the table rather than her high chair.That's our big girl!

Kelley

Hard-working as always, he is now pursuing more education. He has applied for a certification program that begins in January. Should be quite the adventure but he is ambitious about providing for our family as best he can! For the 4th year in a row he won fantasy baseball... woohoo! He loves spending time with Seoul and talks to Sydney. Work is going well... super busy, but he gets some great commendations for his impeccable customer service. What a great man we have in our family! Seoul and I appreciate everything he does for us :)

Joo Lin

Just call me "Large Marge" these days! I feel HUGE but not uncomfortable, just awkward. Being pregnant with Seoul I never had reason to crawl on the floor and lift a small child on a daily basis :) [12 weeks to go!] I don't do anything terribly noteworthy, but I realize I LOVE being a stay-at-home mom with Seoul! Each day is filled with activities for Seoul with a little work fit in between. I feel really good with where I am in life - so blessed :)

"take me out to the ball game...."

Kelley is pretty excited the San Francisco Giants are in the World Series. Ok, that is an understatement. He is beyond excited!! Right now we are sitting here watching the Giants beating the Texas Rangers and hope it continues that way. I like baseball and I'm understanding more of it. I've learned to not bother Kelley when a game gets intense... and I admit I hope they win it in the first 4 games :) I'm not sure I can handle the stress like when they won the National League Championship Series against the Phillies a few days ago... I may just go into labor super early!

This is what we'll be doing for the next few days: (fingers crossed!)

Gm 1 - Wed Oct. 27    TEX @ SF 4:30 PM
Gm 2 - Thu Oct. 28      TEX @ SF, 4:30 PM
Gm 3 - Sat Oct. 30       SF @ TEX, 3:30 PM
Gm 4 - Sun Oct. 31      SF @ TEX, 5:00 PM
   [And if we must]
Gm 5 - Mon Nov. 1      SF @ TEX, 4:30 PM
Gm 6 - Wed Nov. 3     TEX @ SF, 4:30 PM
Gm 7 - Thu Nov. 4       TEX @ SF, 4:30 PM

Happy (late) Birthday Kelley!

This post is long overdue - sorry Kelley! He said he stopped counting at 25 anyway, so what's a couple extra weeks in the scheme of things??

Kelley is great at choosing creative things to do for his birthday. So this year he chose to go to Roloff Farms ... the home of the little people family of "Little People Big World." Although I have never seen a whole episode personally it was a popular idea amongst those who went.

We got to meet the mom, Amy Roloff. She was cool, available to take pictures with people and chatting with all the visitors. Kelley's mom embarrassed him by telling Amy that all Kelley wanted for his birthday was to go to your.... (pause) farm for his birthday. At various times there were other family member sightings. Good times!

They had a little pumpkin house and had some fun pumpkin scenes inside. Kelley laughed a lot!

There were some exotic animals that were fun to see. The petting zoo was fun since Seoul actually fed the animals and got excited to see them. She was real happy about the "baby pig" (as she called it)!

Seoul rode the pony and enjoyed it... until she got confident and waved at someone and then became unsure and wanted off. She did a few rotations, though, and it was a proud moment for us to see her becoming more adventurous :)

Seoul LOVES bouncy houses also... especially when the cousins are there to play with.

I made Crazy Lady Cake at Kelley's request (it's a variation of german chocolate cake). He opened gifts and we spent more time with family and friends. He ended the evening watching the Beaver game. It was a really fun day!

Happy Birthday, my handsome 25-year-old husband!! Love you! Better start thinking of a fun adventure for next year :)

B.I.G. C.H.A.N.G.E.S.

Our House

Kelley tackled the project of painting the exterior of our house recently. It went from tan with cream trim to willow green with white trim in a weekend. Being pregnant I wasn't a lot of help and he actually told me I'd be fired from prep work because I took too long to mask things off. Really! So I held the ladder a lot :) Kelley saved a shutter so Seoul could help paint, and you can see she took it very seriously. Now we have a fantastic new look to our house that I love! We are still working on the finishing touches (shutters, landscape, etc). Kelley is such a hard worker and has so many talents - gotta love him!

old look

new look

Seoul's Room

Kelley surprised us one day by bringing home a big girl bed for Seoul. We've been looking recently because we want her transitioned out of the crib before the new baby is here. So one evening we put it together and she LOVED it! Once it was put together she climbed up and wouldn't get off. However, that night she slept in the crib at her own request (literally pointed to the crib and said "that bed"). The next few naps & nights she did great and got me thinking it was going to be a simple transition. Then came the weekend.... let's just say I have no pictures of her running down the hallway every few minutes :) She is so proud of herself for getting out of bed by herself. As she says when she finds me "Seoul off bed" with a big grin. Silly girl! Fun times...? (I'll let ya know - haha)

 

awww.... where did our baby go??

my daily dilemma

Do I write in my journal or do I post on the blog? I believe Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk once about making choices between good, better, and best things, although I'm sure he didn't mean something trivial like this. Don't judge me for my choice... but I will take a stab and say some of you are glad I chose this rather than my journal tonight, right? Mmhmm... I won't make you admit it....

See!

This is Seoul every day... thus, fewer pictures (at least that are clear) and not much time to take them before she's running at me to "see! see!" - whether it's a video or the regular camera. These days, it's more like "Seoul see!" Today I did get her to stand back so I could take the picture before she could see it. She is very reasonable sometimes :)

Some of Seoul's Words

Seoul likes to eat big tomatoes like apples. She picks them off the bush... knows to pick red ones and take the stems off. This time I took preventative measures so it wouldn't stain yet another shirt.

We had fun getting her to say just a few of the words she knows. As we're sitting here watching the video to see what's on it, she's repeating all the words with herself. This was a month ago and it is nuts to see how much she's progressed in speech and vocabulary!



Please note this really is an extremely small sample of what she can say... especially without being prompted. She can say almost anything if we ask her to... it's hilarious. Her newest word is "awesome!" She's my little jabberbox!

(video from 9/9/10)

Seoul's a helper!

Seoul LOVES to help these days! As soon as I get the vacuum out she asks to dust. Not only that, she is thorough! She moves the pictures off the entertainment center to dust underneath them. While I do dishes she likes to unload the silverware into a drawer. When I pull out the broom or mop, she insists on a turn also. The funniest thing is that she loves to do laundry. As soon as I pick up clothes or mention starting wash she runs at me yelling "clothes" or "button" (to push to start them).

Enjoy the video. Earlier she had put everything from the washer into the dryer (with just a little assistance since they are so tall and she can't reach everything). Now it was time to unload the clothes and she was more than a little excited...

Seoul helps with Laundry from JooLin Rice on Vimeo.

Can I possibly teach her to do it all so I don't have to do any when she's older?? Haha!

(video from 9/16/10)