Constant Beginnings

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yes, we are reunited and it feels so good.... thursday was delivery day. friday we picked up our car in seoul. six days later and we are unpacked. can you tell we were excited? 11 crates in six days. that has to be a record.

we have a full agenda of pumpkin, trick or treating activities in the next few days. topping off that agenda was our annual pumpkin painting activity. chris worked late, so i took on the disasterous task of wrangling in the two artists. it was a big job as mya christened our floors by spilling a bottle of purple paint right off the bat. it was great. she then began to freak out at her lack of supplies. what a kid! she was in heaven. this kiddo is not dainty. she loved the mess, watching claire and working on her masterpiece. mya paints nearly every day at school, so this was old hat, but she acted as though it was something wonderful and new. claire had just painted a pumpkin at school today, but she too, eagerly worked on her work of art. only a few spills, a mini bath, several wonderful strokes and the pumpkins were finished. mya didn't want to be done, but if she had had her way, we wouldn't have any paint left by the time she was done.

mya the monkey. she loves a little game of monkey see, monkey do. i was trying to capture a picture of her in this outfit that i had loved when claire was little. i bet you can guess--i was bending down.

mya is such a ham. she has a fun little personality. one minute she is smiling ear to ear, the next she is freaking out, and a moment later, mya is is making her scrunched up face. she is a chatter box and quite the mimic. mya loves to imitate us all. it is adorable. she definitely enriches our family.

prime example of why it was not a good picture day ;) example number 2. sensing a pattern. we ventured to seoul on saturday. we have a list of things to do before we leave south korea, but instead of getting shorter, the list seems to be growing. trying to live life to the fullest is our motto. that being said, one thing we've been told that is a must see/do is the coex mall. the mall itself is similar to the mall of america, but probably a bit smaller. it is hard to compare as it is organized completely different. instead of levels, it has squares. truthfully, i am not even sure how many there are. we tackled the mall with the aquarium as our goal. it was a great little jewel. i use little a bit loosely as it was far from little. the aquarium was filled with a large variety of sea life (manatees, seals, fish galore, sharks, penguins--all the usual players) as well as variety of others (bats, hedgehogs, monkeys, spiders--a very eclectic mix for sure). it w...

fun in the new princess tent from grammy and papa! claire insisted she put on her princess dress for the inauguration as well. dearest claire and mya, i am not great at keeping up with my "little life lessons" as i'd hoped. i had the best of intentions, but right now i can barely keep up with documenting all the great things in our lives. forgive me. i know you'll look back and read these entries time and time again, captivated by all the wonderful experiences we shared and all the amazing things you accomplished along the way. my little life lesson number 2 relates back to the very different ways your daddy and i were raised. i am sure you'll hear of this as you get older, over and over again, that our backgrounds are vastly different, yet we are unified in the lessons we want you to learn. many adults go through their lives not seeing their strengths, not speaking up when their voice is needed. they take the 'easy road,' then drown in self-p...

today was air power day at the base. the pilots had been practicing for the past two days, so our kids were well versed in what they would experience today. it was rather amazing to see all the people that attended as the base was open to basically anyone. thankfully we grabbed earplugs because we definitely needed them. those planes were so loud. there were helicopters, cargo planes, etc. that you could tour and take photos in. however, it was rather hot today, which meant that the inside of those planes were sweltering. claire and i went inside a couple, but only made it about half way before i decided the sweat beads meant it was time to turn around. it was a fun day. the aerobatic team did an awesome job with their tricks. it definitely gave me the goosebumps on several occasions as well as that urge to fly!

 <> <> immediately after i took claire's picture, mya jumped into place. <>  alphabet floor puzzle from  bx i say it jokingly, but i do feel as though i have a third job as a private preschool teacher. ha. i was feeling more torn now that claire is three and not enrolled in a preschools. i decided to provide a bit more structured support at home to compensate for what she may be missing. here are some of our little lessons and activities. my focus is strictly on helping her become more aware of letters and their sounds. she is solid on her vocabulary use and understanding, conceptual use and understanding, counting, etc., but has limited ability to identify letters and know what sounds they make. i do tie writing into our lessons, but i could care less at this point if she actually write the letter 'f.' i simply do it because writing seems to mean 'school' to her. i can't seem to place a caption on some of ...

claire is definitely a preschooler. she loves to 'write,' do projects, play and watch tv. she has taken the changes in our life in stride. in fact, things are so much better than they were just a few short months ago. she is listening better and i can happily say that we haven't had a time-out in weeks. amen. she is such a little mommy to mya. when i pick them up from school, claire immediately asks mya in her highest, yet sweetest little voice, 'did you have a good day?' it is adorable. mya typically nods her head and claire responds. i am told that when they are both outside, but separated by a fence, claire rushes over to greet her and tell her that i will be coming in just a little while. i love that they are together, yet separated so they both can grow as individuals. claire loves music. she knows songs from the radio and tries to sing along. we have a rather large repretoire that we break out almost daily of kid friendly songs. she loves to learn new ones, ...

mya mooshki is at such a fun age right now. she is talking up a storm, copying everything claire does and trying to be miss independent. the monkey see monkey do game is a constant here. just this morning, claire was irritated with something, so she sat by my closet with her arms crossed and pouting. not two seconds later, mya was sitting right next to her, arms crossed, but all smiles. she knew she was playing. it was so cute. she also thinks that claire's big girl bike is just her size and wants to take it for a ride. she thinks that she should write when claire rights and because claire is learning about letters and doing big kid puzzles that she should be doing those things as well. mya loves to play hiding games. she covers her face with her fingers spaced apart so she can see and tries to play peek a boo. it is pretty funny, since she is looking the entire time. mya imitates everything. her vocabulary is expanding like wildfire and she wants to do things on her own. ...

mya trying her first sampling. the kiddo wasn't too sure, but will try everything. lumpia and yakimando. yuuummmmyyyy. two weeks ago marked a lovely turning point in our lives in korea. we hired a phillipino housekeeper named miss irene. she is an angel. she comes and helps us out with whatever we'd like. it is awesome. i was planning on having her do our laundry as well, but decided i'd continue to take care of that for the time being. she cleans, scrubs the endless hard surface flooring in this house, washes our bedding each week and will even cook. last week she surprised us by leaving a little phillipino goodness in our fridge--lumpia. it was heavenly, although i need to learn how to deep fat fry because i obviously don't have that perfected. who'd have guessed?! i am sure the lumpia look like a nightmare to any experts out there, but my lack of skill didn't seem to affect their taste. mmmmm. we are loving miss irene and all that she brings.

i thought it would be fun to do a little interview with claire. here we go: what's your favorite color? mmm. yellow. (pause) blue and orange and green and pink. what's your favorite animal? elephant. what's your favorite tv show? jungle junction what's your favorite store? target (that's my girl!) what do you like to eat? pancakes (we had these for breakfast which is probably why) who's your best friend? mya (ahhhh, love her) where is your favorite place to eat? restaurant where does momma like to go? restaurant where does daddy like to go? restaurant (i am sensing a pattern) what's your favorite thing to play with? bike how do you like to wear your hair? with braids

i've been mia for awhile. i realize that. with a not so gentle nudge from my mom and loving sister, i am back. it has been a rough couple of weeks. things have slowed down to some extent and with that has brought some rough moments. i have been incredibly homesick. not homesick in the sense of missing the states, but homesick in the sense of missing friends and family. i do miss the new england fall, don't get me wrong, but my lack of friend and family connections here have really gotten to me lately. back to the new england fall thing for a minute. i receive emails about the foliage and subscribe to a blog feed about new england travel. talk about kicking someone in the stomach when they are already down! how i'd love to go on our traditional apple picking or pumpkin picking adventures or on our leaf peeping expeditions. ahhhhh. i miss it all. new england falls were my favorite! they do have apple orchards here, but most of them were destroyed when the typhoon struck earli...