Summer post

Things are winding down here in California. We have about 1 month before we head back out to Utah. We've already got a place in Provo. It's the same apartment complexes that we were living in before, just in a different location. I'm excited about having a place of our own again, but I am SUPER nervous about taking on two kids. I've tried handling both of them at the same time, and it is chaos! If Nenji could just be a little more independent, I don't think it would be so hard, but it seems that lately he needs me just as much as Rylan needs me...and around just the same time too.

Nenji is now 17 months. He is one of the funniest kids that I know. I absolutely love his sense of humor and sneakiness. I can tell that he's always up to something, because he has this sneaky little smile and gleam in his eyes that give him away. I introduced him to time-out a few weeks ago, he totally gets the concept, but that doesn't keep him from doing things that he shouldn't. Sometimes when I ask if he wants to go to time out, he looks at me, puts his little finger up, and waves it around while say, "no, no". Sometimes that's enough for me to not put him into time out. :) His new favorite movie is BOLT, he loves the action at the beginning of that movie.

Rylan is now 3 months and 1 week. He is a good 15lbs!!! He is turning out to be a not so good napper during the day, but an excellent sleeper during the night. :) He is such a happy and bubbly baby. If anyone talks to him, he'll smile and laugh and talk back. I enjoy watching him interact with people, because he really does have the sweetest little face. He can now sit the Bumbo chair with out any help! That's great for me and him, so that I don't have to hold him all the time during this hot weather where sweating is inevitable.

Fi Dan is almost finished with his internship at Hmong Women Heritage Association. He's been able to finish a big part of his project, which was having over 100 Hmong women fill out surveys. He might be able to finish in December, but we're not too sure yet, if not then definitely in April 2011.

As for me, I passed the RICA (the California state Exam to get your teaching license) just this past month! Woo-who! I also took the PRAXIS II test to see if maybe I can get my teaching license in Utah too. I don't know the results for that test yet, but hopefully it'll be good. Crossing my fingers!

Anyhow, here are some random pictures that we've taken during the summer. Enjoy!

The Lo Family

Here's Fi Dan's side of the family

I just love this picture!

Nenji and his Txiv-txiv (grandpa)

Me and my little Ryce-ball :)

Don't you just want to squeeze him?

Rylan, Nenji and grandmas at Ry's baby blessing.

Update!

I do apologize for not bloggin lately, but as you can imagine, it's been CRAZY with two little ones. :) Rylan Meejmom Lo was born April 18, 2010 at 3:15pm. I was in labor for only 6 hours this time, and it felt like a walk in the park compared to when I had Nenji! He was 7 lbs and 9oz, and 20 inches long. :)

Rylan is a sweet heart. He is now 1 month and 3 weeks today! He loves to smile and cuddle with anyone that is willing to hold him. He is a lot more demanding and impatient than Nenji ever was, Fi Dan thinks that Rylan is going to take after me. :)

Anyhow, Nenji is doing great! He is now 16 months now. He is sooooo grown up and curious. He loves to bother his cousin, Maddy, and he absolutely LOVES his dada. Nenji loves to watch music videos on youtube. He also likes to sing and dance. Whenever he hears music he just can't contain himself, his little body just has to "move it, move it." (One of his favorite songs to dance to is Move it, move it from Madagascar).

Fi Dan and I are doing well. It's a BIG help having family help out. Kalu and Maddy often come over to hang out with us, and Kashia is always willing to help out with the babies. :)

We'll be here in Californa until late August, and then it's back to Utah!

Back in California!

Nenji and I have been in California for over a month now. I know the original plan was to wait until March 9th, but on February 10th, Nenji and I came to California! It's been very different having to learn how to not have Fi Dan around all the time. It sure does make me appreciate and love him more than ever. He just came to visit me and Nenji last week, and boy was it great to have daddy around! Fi Dan will be coming back again to California when I have the baby...so I've been hoping to pop tummy-baby out soon! And then he will be home for good on April 23rd. Can't wait to have him here with me and the babies!





My family has been a great help. My parents have slept with Nenji a few times to give me a break. Kashia has been a tremendous help with Nenji, she's practically his second mommy. Kalu and Maddy have also been big helpers. Kalu and Maddy come over almost everyday to just hang out with me and Nenji, which I'm very grateful for because it makes the day go faster.





Maddy and Nenji are so cute together. I call her Mother Maddy because she loves to baby Nenji even though he's bigger than she is. She gets his bottles for him, brings his dirty bottles to the kitchen, she brings him food and water, and she finds his blanket for him when he's sleepy. She is going to be a GREAT older sister....and mother some day. I am very grateful for my family and I feel very blessed to have them helping me out! :)

Here's my handsome little man.

Happy St. Patty's Day! Mommy made green french toast!

Poor Maddy Paddy, Chuckeecheese came out and scared her. :(

Here's my brave little man! I have to admit, Chuckee is pretty scary in person!


Here's daddy and Nenji. I love these two soooooo much!

This was Nenji's favorite thing to ride while we were there.

Happy New Year!!!

Okay, so I know the first month of the "new year" is basically over, but happy new to everyone anyway! Lots of things are happening. As of today I am 29 weeks and 3 days pregnant...so that means about 11 more weeks of being uncomfortable and fat...and until I see my little bundle of joy that likes to use me as a punching and kicking bag. :) I just took the gestational diabetes test 2 weeks ago and will know if I have diabetes at my next doctor's appointment. I am really crossing my fingers that I don't...but I'm not too sure, because tummy baby LOVES sweets. All that I really crave with this baby is sweets...cookies, ice cream, apple dumplings, oohhh....I think I'm going to have to get some sweets in a minute. He is very active and loves to stay up late. He starts to get really active around 9 pm and he doesn't stop until about 12am. When Nenji sits on my lap or leans against my tummy, little tummy baby will kick and push back. Oh boy, I hope that isn't an indication of how they'll get along when he comes out! But Fi Dan and I are very excited.
Oh, and I have decided to have the baby in California after all. The baby's due date is April 14th (which is also my dad's birthday) and that is the week before finals for Fi Dan. Fi Dan found an internship in California for the summer, so that means we'll be going back home for the summer. And so, we just figured it would be easier for us both and the babies if Nenji and I just went home a month early so that there could be people there to watch Nenji while I had the baby. And that way we wouldn't have to travel 12 hours across Utah, Nevada and California when the baby was only 2 weeks old.

Okay...now onto Mr. Nenji Lo. He is almost 1 year old! Yikes, already...I can't believe he's getting so big already. Only 1 more month and then my little man will be 1 ! :) He is such a joy to have in our lives. He just loves to make me and Fi Dan laugh. He is especially hilarious when he's ready to go to bed or when he's stayed up his bed time. We can tell he's going to be a really funny kid already.

Nenji stayed up past his bed time. As you can see he's laughing but he's also super grumpy. He's so silly.

He LOVES being around other kids and for some reason he also likes to climb on them and have them try to hold him up. He usually just ends up pinning the poor kid though. Nenji and I go to the Provo Library for reading time and he really enjoys that. We check out books and videos, but he just ends up reading his old books anyway. His favorite thing to do is spontaneously clap! I love watching "The View" or "Who wants to be a millionaire" with Nenji because whenever he hears the people clap he'll start clapping too. Nenji's favorite fruit is starwberries. He just learned how to feed himself a couple of weeks, which is good because I was a bit worried about his fine motor skills, but he seems to be doing pretty darn good now. His favorite songs are "I'm yours" by Jason Mraz and "Hey Soul Sister" by Train. He can just sit in front of the computer and watch those two videos on Youtube for hours (not that we've let him). He absolutely loves to slow dance with his dad when they're listening to music, it's the sweetest thing I've ever seen! We just enrolled Nenji in a swimming class a couple of weeks ago and he is doing a FANTASTIC job! Whenever we tell him we're going swimming or going to take a bath his waves his little hands around like he's splashing the water.


Anyway, that's about it for us. Fi Dan is doing well in the MHP program. He might be able to finish in December of 2010 instead of Winter of 2011, so we're happy about that. And as for me, I love being a stay at home mom/wife...most of the time. I just don't like the washing the dishes part. :) If we had a dish washer, life would be grand!

Grateful!

The people in our ward have been amazing! When they found out that Nenji had fractured his collar bone, the Relief Society Presidency called to make sure that everything was alright with us. They even set up meal plans for us so that we wouldn't have to cook. My visiting teachers were the ones who cooked for us. The first night we had tacos and the second night we had fish, rice and salad. Although Nenji wasn't suffering to the point where I couldn't cook, it was still so nice of them to bring over some food. Fi Dan and I joked that we would tell the Relief Society Presidency that we needed a meal plan for the week. :) I am so grateful to be living in an area where people are very thoughtful and kind. :) In return, I baked goodies for them. I made some thumb print cookies and chocolate truffles. Fi Dan loved the thumb print cookies and asked if we could just keep them. Of course I kept a few so that he could have some.

Crazy week!

My poor little guy has had a rough week. Last week he fell off the bed. :( He usually sleeps in his crib, but in the early mornings when he's fussy and cold, we let him sleep on the bed with us. He has this bad habit of sleeping on his tummy with his little bum in the air...and then he'll kick and kick until he bumps his head on the wall. Well, on this particular morning he kicked and kicked himself right off of the bed. :( Don't worry though, he was alright. When I picked him up he was all smiles. Later on that day, while I was cooking for Samuel's birthday party, I took some really hot cookie sheets out of the oven and placed it on a chair ( I KNOW! what a dumb idea). I had completely forgotten about the hot cookie sheets and turned my back for just a moment, when Nenji walked into the kitchen. I just remember hearing him yelling and then giving me this really sad look. Then I saw his little hand opening and shutting. I realized what had happened. Fi Dan ran him to the bathroom and ran his hand under cold water. We treated his little hand and within minutes he was his happy self again. I hadn't realized how bad the burn was until I saw a blister starting to form. (I still feel so bad just thinking about it....I just might start crying!) Through out the week I kept a good eye on him and his hand. I am happy to report that his hand is almost completely healed and perfect again!

Unfortunately, this isn't he worst of what happened to my baby. A couple of days ago he fell out of his booster chair. Fi Dan and I did everything to comfort him but he wouldn't stop crying, so we knew there was something wrong. We took him to the ER and had him examined but they said he was fine. They took X-rays of his little body and said that nothing was broken, but we knew there was something wrong because every time we held him or touched him a certain way he would wince and start to cry. The next morning we were convinced something was wrong because he woke up almost every hour crying that night. We took him to his Doctor and had him examined. She discovered that he had fractured his little collar bone. :( (tears are starting to form in my eyes right now!) She said that if he were to fracture anything, it should be his collar bone because it heals on its own and it's not too serious. Fi Dan and I were relived to find out what was causing our little boy pain, but at the same time we felt horrible about Nenji even being hurt! It's been 2 days since Nenji's sad fall, and he's doing better. He's not allowed to crawl, so he's in his walker or sitting on our laps during the day. He's as cheerful and as happy as ever, but is limited with his left hand/shoulder. Fi Dan and I have to be super careful because once in a while when we pick him up the wrong way he'll wince and start to cry. He has another doctor's appointment next Thursday to follow up on his collar bone, and I am hoping that everything will be okay.

Being parents, Fi Dan and I finally realize why our parents were the way they were. We also realize how much they've done for us and the sacrifices that they did for us. I see my parents in a whole different light. You'd give the world to make your children happy and you'd do anything to take away the pain or take their place if possible when they are hurt. Being a mom has definitely made me a better person. :)

Thanksgiving!

I love the holiday season! I especially enjoy it now that we've been away from family for so long and we get to go visit. We were actually planning on spending Thanksgiving here in Provo, and going to my cousin, Kazua's. But then one of our friends from Sacramento (who is also attending BYU), Joseph, went home and we wanted to go soooooo bad too. We decided Monday night that we would rent a car and go down for the week for Thanksgiving. It was all very last minute. We would have left on Monday night, but I had my ultrasound Tuesday morning at 10am, so we decided to wait until then. (Oh, and by the way we are going to have another BOY!!!) We left around 12:30pm and got home around 9:30! It was the greatest feeling to see the family. Of course they didn't care much for me and Fi Dan because they were more excited to see Nenji, but nonetheless, it was still sweet to see my family.

Nenji was terrified at first, he had just woken up from sleeping in the car, and the next thing he knew there were tons of people. I was so happy that Madison and Nenji got along. She's so cute. She's such a little mother to Nenji, she took such good care of him while we were there. :) We had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner that Kalu, Kashia, and I prepared. My favorite part...was the food! My dad made some delicious papaya salad...sooo good.
My in-laws also came up to Sacramento to see Nenji the last two nights that were there, and it was great seeing them too.
Being home reminds me of why I love being home so much....there's so much LOVE! I truly am so grateful to have such a wonderful family. My parents are awesome, and they make such wonderful grandparents. I love watching them with Nenji and Maddy. I am so grateful for my sisters and the bond that we share. I am also grateful for Ben, he's a silly kid. And of course I am grateful for my husband, Nenji and the new baby! As stated before, I love the holiday season because of the wonderful memories that are made. :)
We had a wonderful time in California and can't wait to go back in 3 weeks! Ready to chow down again!

Nenji and Maddy fought over who grandpa would hold,
so he ended up holding both of them!

Nenji's new favorite thing: being outside with grandpa.

Grandma and Nenji!

I Love this picture!