She Stands! Plus, Another Chung Contest

OK, I admit it's not as exciting as the big "W-ing", but Ingrid decided to stand up on her own today. It's actually a second rite of passage for this week. Ingrid cut tooth number four last Wednesday. The standing has not come without some craziness. Ingrid is insisting on following her sisters everywhere. She's especially mesmorized by older sister Morgan. Whatever Morgan has, Ingrid wants. Wherever Morgan goes, Ingrid wants to be. Ingrid's favorite spot in the house: Morgan's room. Perhaps her will to "be" her sister will lead to walking sooner rather than later which leads me to my next topic:

Chung Family Contest #2: When will Ingrid walk?

Please add a comment with your guess as to when Ingrid will walk. Here are a couple of hints to help you select a date. Ingrid's birthday is 8/16. Morgan decided to begin walking ON her birthday. Annika began walking two weeks after her first birthday.

To the person who picks the right date or comes closest, we'll send a new Korean treat picked out in Los Angeles when we go for Ingrid's Dohl ceremony.

So come on, Friends and Family alike, pick a date.

Peace at Play

We knew this day would come. We waited patiently, watching our children grow. And finally it's here - the day the three girls played together! They really played together, showing patience with their baby sister. We anticipate there'll be more days like this. We watch from the kitchen with glee.

Morgan is at elementary school during the day; Annika is at preschool; Ingrid is at home. There's a daily "reunion" that happens in the early evening when everyone comes home and the girls act like they've never seen each other. Then it's off to play while we catch up with each other, make dinner and watch the news. All the while, the girls are within eyesight. I want Ingrid to stay a baby for as long as possible, but this advancement into "girlhood" was great to witness. You go girls!!!

Tonight's Reading

Morgan is starting to discover the historical characters that make up the American Girl collection. Her first trip to the school library - "Mom, Mom, we get to check out TWO books this year!" - found her running to the AG section, selecting two books. She is most excited about Kaya and her adventures. She also checked out Molly, who grew up during WWII.

We settled into the Molly book and got part way through the first chapter. Annika showed very little interest so we'll wait until Morgan and I can steal away some quiet time to read together - perhaps this weekend.

This Evening's Reading

First Day of school or not, we're keeping up with the reading! Tonight's picks were two books that were next to each other on the bookshelf (we're still in desperate need of more bookcases for all the childrens books, but we're looking). The books carry a political flair tonight:

The pictures are courtesy of Barnes and Noble's website.

Morgan Starts 2nd Grade - Back to School!!!!

It's back to school time. Look how Morgan has grown. More later after we get back from the school.

Charlie's Back and Kissing Fish

You remember Charlie? The green grasshopper from Los Angeles? By miracle, he reappeared in our backyard - this time as an authentic praying mantis. Because it's green, it must be Charlie. Annika was so excited - Morgan not so. Charlie crawled on Annika's arm, spent time in a jar, sat on her head, and eventually after a long, long, long goodbye with a hug, (that's right!), Charlie was let go.

Later tonight, the dinner conversation turned to fish and how they are caught and cooked. We were eating some delicious yellow crocker we brought back from California. This fish must miss its family if it is here in Arizona, Morgan concluded. "Don't worry fish, I'll be your mama," said the other fish. When we turned and looked, Annika had the fish head as a puppet. Morgan joined in and soon we were treated to fish-head theater, complete with fish-head news anchors from Bikini Bottoms (Spongebob's town). Once Dad joined the theater, it got a little sillier (as if kissing fish heads wasn't funny enough). Ingrid squealed with delight and I just shook my head. My girls have very expansive imaginations!

Morgan turns 7

Morgan's birthday was a fun, quiet, family affair. We took the family to an indoor 3 story playground called Makutu's island. Morgan was very surprised. Arriving at 4:30 PM on a Wednesday guaranteed it was a pretty quiet place. Makutu's island is known for kid birthdays with 20 guests and multiple party rooms running simultaneously. Usually chaos. This was much better. We had a simple cheese pizza with salad. The girls climbed all over the playground with tornado slides, rope climbers and other activities to expell energy. Woody joined in and was seen crawling the catwork at the top of the playground with Annika.

We settled in at home for cake and presents. Our family doesn't really eat cake. It usually gets thrown away. So we settled on a large cupcake with a candle. Morgan enjoyed her presents, especially her eagle t-shirt from Grandma and Coconut shirt from American Girl.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A VERY SPECIAL GIRL

Today is Morgan's 7th birthday. Morgan is a very wonderful, caring, beautiful, smart and joyful girl. I'm so proud to be her mom.

Here's a photo journal of her birthdays.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORGAN!

WE LOVE YOU!

Annika Starts Preschool

Annika started preschool today at Morgan's old preschool - Sunny Days. She was very excited and dressed herself for school while waiting for others to get up. As they drove north on Dobson Road, Annika kept up with questions about getting to school. Suddenly as they turned left on Chandler Blvd, Annika blurted out, "Now that's what I'm talking about!"

Oh yeah, she's ready.

Das schmeckt gut!

While Woody and I yearn for the green grass and wide spaces of country life, there is something nice about big city life - you can always find international food. Today was no exception. A few times each year, we drive to the northern part of the metro area (we live as far south as it basically gets) to go to Edelweiss German Deli and Markt near Cactus and Cave Creek Roads. This small store has fresh wurst and kaese, broetchen, homemade sauerkraut, and bratwurst - many types. The Markt has imported baking and cooking items, jams, and sweets. We brought home several items and had delicious Weisswurst, sauerkraut, broetchen mit cheese, and brussel sprouts. The girls loved the wurst, kasebrot, and brussel sprouts. With some convincing, they ate the sauerkraut.



After dinner we settled into a family movie on the home theater. We watched Peter Pan. Actually, the girls watched it. Ingrid went to bed after her dinner and Woody dozed.

Annika picked tonights reading:

Typical Friday

Friday was a typical day for the summer months. Annika and Morgan built forts and did art in the morning and ran errands with Dad to get the camcorder fixed in the afternoon. Ingrid snoozed away in her stroller. After that it was a stop at McDonalds to run around the indoor playground and have a snack. (Woody packed snacks in the backpack. It's common to see McDonalds full of families trying the release some energy for their children in this heat, yet they don't eat McDonald's food there. It's like a indoor picnic area. Most of the franchises are lenient during the summer).


For dinner we went to a super Japanese restaurant and sushi bar in Chandler that really caters to children. It's relaxing to see every table have families with children and still eat sushi, udon, tempura and miso soup. The sushi chefs engage and entertain the children and the prices are very reasonable. This restaurant is owned and run by Koreans and our girls were smiling away and bowing to the hostesses. Ingrid was very well behaved, enjoying the miso soup and tofu, cooked sweet potatoes cut like french fries and rice.



After a very enjoyable dinner outing, the girls picked their books for reading. Morgan read to us, and Woody read to Annika. Guess who picked which book!

Odd Sleeper

For those of you who don't know, our middle child Annika, has some strange sleeping habits. Not only can she fall asleep in the strangest positions, sometimes she gets up before she actually wakes up and has ended up bumping into walls. She's also crawled under rugs to sleep and has slept many times with various objects clutched in her hand. (The ritualistic socks on hands phase is a notable example).

We have been documenting some of these in a photo library to show her when she's older (we're thinking a graduation slide show).

Now it seems we can start adding her sister, Ingrid. Maybe there's something genetic???

Morgan's Trip to Minnesota.

Morgan returned home this past Monday from spending nearly two weeks in beautiful Minnesota. Grandma took the time to document Morgan's trip which is posted below. I've added some photos to go with it. Enjoy.

"Lets see, where do I start? Morgan loved the visit here and wants to do it next month~! Grandma and Grandpa are still recuperating. Denny got home from AZ late last night. As you can see from the blog he enjoyed his visit, however short. He did not enjoy the heat 118+'. Dry or not that is hot! Morgan was extremely well behaved on the trip back to Arizona. They sat in the same row, but not next to each other. Morgan was not giving up her window seat. She loves to view the world. It was the same on the way from AZ to MN with me.
Morgan would still like an eagle for a pet, but settled on digital pictures of the eagles and a shirt I am sending her with an eagle picture on it. Her other passion was to get Annika a gift of fish at the pet store with the money she earned helping grandpa water the trees and shovel (with her little shovel) the holes made by the stump grinder and also steering the tractor in grandpa's lap while he mowed. She settled on getting her some fish in AZ with her Mom. Michelle can figure out what to do or say!

The activities:
Wednesday (6/27/07), we went to a church-friend’s horse farm. Carol gives riding lessons and Morgan had a lesson. In the morning before the lesson she got her first birthday gift: pink riding boots, jeans with a horse picture, matching vest, hat and shirt. (my embroidery machine comes in handy).

She loved it. At Carol Fosdick’s farm, she had to brush the horse first, then practice indoors in the arena before going outside. Her lesson included having to learn to steer the horse, step over logs, steer through a gate, trot etc. It was an hour lesson that lasted an hour in a half. Carol made a scrapbook page and included an achievement ribbon for Morgan.

Thursday (6/28/07), was the picnic. I really had a good time and hope everyone else did. The weather was perfect. Morgan was really excited to have so many cousins. She came to the realization that if they were her cousins, she was their cousin, especially Megan. I hope we can do it again next year when she comes. Sue really liked it too.

Friday (6/29/07), we went to Warthasen's farm to get vegetables. Morgan got to pet and feed grass to the goats; help bottle feed a calf: pet the sheep through the fence and got to hold and keep a warm egg from under the hen. She especially liked the chickens running all over. She took many pictures with my camera. Thank goodness for the delete button on my camera! Fifteen + pictures of chickens! Later that day, we drove to the cabin.

Saturday (6/30/07), was the children's festival in Grand Rapids. We went to that and did everything. She had her picture taken with Dorothy and Glenda on the yellow brick road(Wizard of Oz). We had lunch at Auntie Em's, watched the kiddie parade, and I gave her $20.00 to spend at the doll store on Barbie stuff (she spent $25), When we got back to the cabin I gave her a Barbie. She spent the rest of the day on the porch and outside on the grass with a blanket with her Barbie.

During the next week (7/1/07 - 7/6/07), we went several times to the Cut Foot Sioux information center. She checked out handicraft boxes to take home with all the stuff to make butterflies and a video on eagles that we watch at least four times. The next day we did one on flowers and leaves and checked out the butterfly video. However she was outside most of the next day on the beach in the sand with sand toys, and in the water, so we did not use the things. We returned them the next day in time for the eagle demonstration by Nicole the Naturalist. Morgan enjoyed that. Each time we went she checked out everything inside, all of the exhibits and taxidermy, plus the aquarium and frogs etc. We had a campfire with and made smores while we watched the fireworks from the resorts and small towns across the lake. That was fun for her and relaxing for us. The campfire kept the mosquitoes away that come out in the evening so was most enjoyable. The rest of the week was helping grandma in the kitchen make meals and treats for grandpa, fishing with grandpa (she caught a "northern pipe"), using the paddle boat with grandma, stalking a loon so we could see it close up if even for a couple of minutes before it dove, playing in the water, the beach, riding her bike to Trails End to get ice cream treats with grandpa, seeing the eagle in the tree, the eagles nest and baby eagle in the tree.

We came home the following Sat because that cabin is rented out until Labor day when Denny will accrue enough vacation to go again.
Sunday (7/8/07), was church and afterward Morgan just played at our house watching videos of herself in Russia, dress up, dolls and Barbies.

Next year, I want to take her on the train to Chicago to the American Girl Doll Place. You will have to go on the web to see all they have to offer there. I have heard from several grandma's that took granddaughters and say it is a wonderful experience with their granddaughters. Now we are cleaning up and recuperating and also making up for it at work. "

Hey Uncle Andy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today is Uncle Andy's birthday (Woody's brother). Andy lives in Los Angeles and is an amazing artist. He works in the entertainment industry and his designs are on many films and other projects. He spent all last week having Annika jump up and down yelling, "Look at me, Uncle Andy!" at every moment's notice. I think he enjoyed the attention.


Here's a baby picture of Andy. He's the one on the right. What a cutie!
I'll upload a current picture later tonight.


I bet he's embarrassed by this post!

Two Certificates of Achievement

Ingrid earned two achievement awards today. She's cutting her third tooth. Wow! She also is standing up to furniture. Of course, she's not coming back down when she stands up. So for the better part of the day, she attempts to stand up to objects but gets stuck standing up and we have to go rescue her. She doesn't know how to sit back down.

Earlier today, we took Grandpa to the airport for his flight back to Minnesota. I think the decibel level in the house was a little louder than his house (especially since we have all grown up and left). When you have three children, it can get crazy. You really don't sit still for very long.

We cooked Ahr Chigae for dinner. Chigae is Korean for stew. Ahr is fish and seafood. The rest of the stew included radishes, endives, rockfish, fish roe, shrimp, onion, jalepenos. Yum.

We ended the evening with baths and kids in bed so we could watch Jon and Kate plus 8 on Discovery Health. Before that I read Rapunzel and The Shoemaker and the Elves to Morgan and Annika. The book was sent by my mom. She read it many times to Todd and me when we were little. The binding is coming off. It's full of old fairy tales. The book was free if you turned in proof of purchase for two pounds of Folger's coffee. For my family, it probably took very little time to go through 2 lbs of coffee. Anyway, the book is nicely arranged for reading. It was a nice surprise to find it in the mail. I enjoy documenting our reading lists and quantity of reading. The girls hopefully will be surprised by the reading we did with them when they were little. I hope they will enjoy reading as a hobby and a way to connect.

Tonight's Reading

Grandpa did tonight's reading with Annika. Annika picked the Little Golden Book Beauty and the Beast. The special part was how engaging Grandpa's sounded. Annika was mesmorized and absorbed by his reading voice. She sat perfectly still for the entire reading without fidgeting or interrupting with questions.

Later we played Uncle Wiggly and Cheerios Bingo board games.

WELCOME HOME MORGAN!

Morgan came home from Minnesota today. My dad brought her back to Arizona and is staying for the night and going back tomorrow. She looks great - healthy and tanned. Thank you Mom and Dad for giving her a special vacation she will never forget!

Charlie

Woody found a very, very bright, green grasshopper near our car at the DoReMi market in Los Angeles. We were buying some last produce and meat to drive back to Arizona. Annika enjoyed looking at the grasshopper in the parking lot. While holding it, the back legs came off but the grasshopper somehow survived. Annika held it in her hand for the short drive to Woody's parents. Her Harmony (grandmother) was less than enthused about the grasshopper in the house. Harabagee was amused. Annika was then coaxed up to James' room to show him. Since James keeps artist hours, inevitably, he was sleeping. So she came back down so we could say our last good-byes and start the drive to Phoenix. We put Ingrid in her carseat and Annika settled in with the grasshopper in a cup. We stopped for some ice and food. Annika decided she wanted to name the grasshopper Charlie. We were laughing so hard as she introduced "Charlie" to everyone else in the car. Then Woody put holes in a water bottle and gave it to Annika to keep Charlie. Annika took out the book of DVD's to show "Charlie" so he could pick a movie. Finally, many hours later, Annika crashed out while drawing pictures and we allowed "Charlie" an escape. Probably a bit cruel considering the leg mishap and the dramatic change in temperature from L.A. to the desert areas of Arizona.

Morning Stroll in the Park

Today is 07-07-07, Lucky 7. This morning we brought a picnic breakfast to Schaubaum Park here in Los Angeles. Woody's mom and brother joined us. It was a gorgeous morning. When we arrived, the park was starting to fill in with early morning yoga classes, stretching, fan dancing, joggers, runners, walkers, soccer teams, etc. The park is very large and the hills are perfect for hiking. A saxophone player kept the whole valley filled with music.

Annika enjoyed the hollowed out tree, the creek and the playground. Ingrid was great and really enjoyed herself playing on the blanket. She finally fell asleep in the stroller. Annika wanted to hike up a steep hill. She did it once with Woody and again with Woody's mom. On the second time coming down, she wasn't as careful and did a head-over-heels fall. I was across the bridge with Ingrid and had a view of the hill. It looked worse than it was. She got up, dusted herself, and got mad her sandal came off.

The rest of the day was spent shopping at the Korean grocery stores. We're stocking up to take back to Arizona. The selection and prices are better here.

Morgan just called and said she was on her way home from the cabin. She had a fabulous time up in northern MN with great weather and fun activities.

Harabagee's Office in Los Angeles

Today we went downtown to Harabagee's (grandpa's) office and then out to dinner. Everyone at the office, including the patients, were delighted with Harabagee's grandchildren visit (although Lorainna missed seeing Morgan, too, who's still in Minnesota. Next time, we'll stop by again with Morgan). Ingrid was unusually social and enjoyed smiling and engaging with everyone. Annika tried a bit of negative attention by making faces from outside the office. For the remaining patients, it was more entertaining than any waiting room magazine. Annika re-joined the waiting room and started a long tale of the life of a rubber ball. Or, that's what we think. We're still not sure. Dinner was great! Chadorbegi, grilled at the table. Annika fell asleep in her chair. Ingrid finished up and was quiet for our meal playing with spoons. She, too, fell asleep and Woody and I enjoyed a very, very quiet drive back to the suburbs of Los Angeles. The girls were carried up to bed and we happily spent the evening chatting and eating with Woody's brothers, Andy and James, and Andy's girlfriend, Mihae.

Fabulous 4th

Our 4th of July was a quiet affair at home with Woody's parents in Los Angeles suburbs. After getting hamburgers for lunch, we spent the afternoon lounging and swimming. Everyone was home so we made a great feast - it looks like all we had was a great plate of various lettuces and endives, but mixed with kimchi rice, and pork, it made a great cold plate dinner. Andy created a nice fish soup to add to the table and we all enjoyed the fireworks from different parts of the valley seen in the distance from the backyard.

Some "fireworks" were a little closer sounding. We went for a walk to investigate the illegal fire show from two streets over. Annika and I sat at the root of a large tree to watch the private show.

San Diego Zoo

We had fun with Annika at the San Diego Zoo today. We rode the gondola three different times; saw Pandas, Polar Bears, Brown Bears, and Koala Bears. We walked the length of the zoo two different times and rode an open double decker bus tour to give our legs a rest.

Annika's favorite sighting had to be the animal that was not on official display. Annika sat and watched a perfectly formed snail walk along the curb of one of the walkways. Annika sure does see the world in her own unique way!

Kid Friendly Hotels

When I booked the hotel, I was asked if I wanted a kid friendly room. I assumed it meant the electrical outlets were covered. When I asked what it meant, they said the room would have a bunk bed instead of the second double bed. Now I see why they can set aside a whole floor of "bunk bed" rooms in a hotel and still make money. This hotel is located equidistant from Sea World and the San Diego Zoo.

Ingrid is staying in Los Angeles with Woody's parents. Woody, Annika, and I headed out this afternoon for the drive down the coast to San Diego. We're planning on spending a few days here seeing the zoo, the beach, the San Diego Trolley and the Botanical Gardens. Then it's back to Los Angeles for the 4th of July with Woody's family. Did anyone see the weather news predicting 117 or 118 degrees Fahrenheit for Chandler, Arizona on the July 4th? We're sure glad we got away this week. Even if I had to bring some of my work projects with me, it sure beats the heat.

We're posting this from the hotel.