From HK!

Thank you to Auntie Cynthia, Uncle James and cousin gigi for our special Christmas package from HK :)  Don't the kids look spiffy?

Happy 2014!

We want to wish our family and friends, near and far, a wonderful New Year!  May you seize each and every single moment and enjoy this crazy journey that we call "life".  We have so much to be thankful for this past year and we'd like to share some of our fave holiday moments.

A special visit from Uncle Herwin and Auntie Jean!

Christmas Eve Breakfast with Santa at Grouse Mtn

Awesome times with the Mills and Li families

Emilia is 2

Emilia Grace Chan is 2 today.  I remember the night she came into the world so well. Born at 2:27am, Emmy or Empem (as we like to call her) was 6 pounds, 12 ounces and 49 cm long. Vince and I were so excited to have a baby girl join our family.  It was an intense and painful back labor but it was well worth it when they placed her soft, tiny, and wrinkly body onto mine.

Last night, I was holding her tight and trying to remember her days as a baby....and not wanting her grow up any faster.  Turning 2 seems like such a big milestone!  She was such an easy going baby that it's hard to believe that she's turning into a spunky toddler who exerts herself through making everyone laugh and at times, growling like a dinosaur to get attention.  She just adores her older brothers and tries her best to keep up with their shenanigans.  

 

Some of Miss E's faves...

Fave food:  Chinese!
Fave character:  Elmo

Fave book:  Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle

Must haves for night time sleep:  Elmo blankie, Elmo, and a ton of books.  How does she sleep in the crib with so much stuff?

I love it when....
-she asks for a kiss in between the crib rails at bedtime

-jumps up and down excitedly when I come home from work

-she shows her nurturing side by taking care of her stuffies and/or babies

-she pretends to tuck me into bed

-she makes daddy pretend he's a baby and wipes his bum!

 

The last picture really captures Emmy's silly side.  She took out many towels and placed them carefully on top of Rylee :)  Thankfully, our dog withstands all the fun tortures from our kiddies!

Happy 2nd birthday, Emilia!!  You are so loved!!! 

Just roll with it...

It has been "one" of those weeks.  At times, I feel like treading under unknown territories and the past few days have been definitely interesting to say the least.  I am learning to "just roll with it...."  It all started with Emilia when she scraped her nose onto concrete, then Aidan ran into a bench and Noah cracked his front tooth.

I wonder what will be next?  ;)  

Thank God, they are still all smiles!!  I love my three monkeys!!

Merry Christmas!

Here's the first ever Santa picture that the kids have taken!  This photo simply shows the personalities of our kids.  Aidan is ready to take on the world (and Kindergarten), Noah is smiling (and whining) his way through life and Emilia is just doing whatever her brothers are doing.  It's amazing how different and quirky each one of our kids can be.  God has entrusted them to us and we are trying our best to love them and take care of them to the best of our abilities!  Trust us, there are days when we just want to shut the bathroom door and have a time-out for ourselves.

This year has been an interesting year for us as we have finally settled into our Steveston home.  Things are finally taking shape even though the exterior of the house is still half painted....but that's just life with three kids.  Things just take a lot longer to do!  Vince enjoys DIY projects and thus far, he has accomplished quite a bit.  The most honorable mention would be walling up the fireplace and installing wall-to-wall expedit bookcases on both sides.  We wanted to save as much money as we could so we had to scrounge through Craigslist, Kijiji and even amongst our friends to find the bookshelves.  Can you believe that we drove down to Seattle to pick a bookshelf up?  Thanks to Pam and Norm for the bookshelf and for introducing yummy burgers to us!  It's a good thing that we all have the Nexus pass!

We love our new family room!  We managed to keep the costs to a minimum and the total was about ~$1200 including our new TV.  Thanks for the Li's for sharing your Visions voucher and for helping us save money.  The best deal would be the "6 for $20" used Expedit white inserts that we bought off Kijiji.

The next on our list is to finish decorating and organizing the kids playroom.....and then to start Isabel's sitting/formal room!  Come by for a visit whenever you are in the area :)  

Our epic Disneyland trip with 6 families!

Emmy celebrated her first birthday at the happiest place on earth.

(Thanks to Auntie Jane for organizing it) 

34

Birthdays are a great way to be more introspective and this time, I wanted to list 34 things that I'm truly thankful for:

1.  A wonderful husband who loves me despite my quirks and gets "me"
   
2. Three healthy and happy kiddies
3. My mami's strength and perseverance in raising us as a single mother 
4. My late father's love for road trips
   
5. An amazing sister who is always willing to take care of the kiddies and dog
6. A little brother who is growing up too fast and whom I am so proud of
7. Understanding in-laws
8. A loving sister-in law who shares the same Chinese name as me
9. A funny and understated brother-in-law who lives in LA
10. My maternal grandfather who is turning 90 in November
11. My maternal grandmother who I love so dearly
12. My late paternal grandfather who paved the way for many people to have a better life
13. My late paternal grandmother who took such great care of me when I was young
14. My aunties and uncles who have shaped me into the person that I am
    
15. Supportive community at Tenth
16. My home sweet home
17. The on-going projects that Vince has
18. The relationship between siblings
19. Open communication with hubby
20. Old and new friends
    
21. Running around Steveston
    
22. The changing colours of the seasons
    
23. The crunching of autumn leaves
24. The splashing of puddles
25. My upcoming new job in January
26. Ability to work part-time and be home with the kids for most of the week
27. Our neighbors
28. New orange wallet (thanks M, J and G)
29. Aidan's positive first year of school thus far
30. Living in a community where we can walk to the library, community centre, great parks, restaurants, etc.
31. Aidan's unrelenting protectiveness to his siblings
32. Noah's unbridled zest of life
33. Emmy as she is a true example of God's grace
34. Last but not least, for Sandra in capturing such great photos for our 10 years' anniversary!

Summer in a nutshell

In just a short few weeks, our little A is entering Kindergarten.  We are trying to savor the last bit of summer and enjoy this time before September kicks in.  As much as we are looking forward to sending A off to school, it's also sad to let him go!! 

Granville Island

 

homemade monkey cupcakes for Noah's bday

This summer has been filled with some lazy days and some busy days.  Poh-poh came for a visit and was here to celebrate Noah's 3rd birthday.  We managed to do some hikes around North Vancouver (much to Auntie Lulu's prompting!) and we were utterly surprised at how easily the boys hiked 4km!  We also had our first family camping trip to Porteau Cove this past weekend.  We all enjoyed the simplicity of the great outdoors -the boys played endlessly with rocks and logs and even Emmy had fun crawling in nature- we are definitely doing it again.  Sleeping will hopefully be better for Emmy next time since this time around, she woke up every two hours or so.  Despite the lack of sleep, it was all worth it!!!  Camping was even more special as we were surrounded by wonderful and generous friends.  Can you believe that we not only had one canoe to use but two?!? 

waterfront view

One sad event happened this summer:  saying good-bye to Milo (our first dog).  Due to an unfortunate event of Milo biting Aidan, we decided to put him down.  Thankfully, Aidan was not hurt and the bite did not break any skin but it was one of the hardest things that we've had to do.  Milo was getting quite old (not exactly sure how old he was as he was adopted from the SPCA, maybe ~13 years) and we think that the added stress of the kids was starting to get to him.    We want to remember Milo as our loyal rescue dog who loved tummy rubs, cheese and oranges.  We were also able to adopt Rylee because we already had Milo!  All in all, Milo had a good life and we miss him lots.  Here is one of the last moments that we had with him...