Christmas Tree

"Hold on everyone! I'll decide what goes on the tree."

It's Christmas! For the first time in K-bao's almost-six years, the family decided to put up a real, live Christmas tree in the house.

K-bao and fam took a trip out to Home Depot to pick out the tree ("At least 7 feet!" insisted K-Mum. "Go big or go home!"), and also stopped by a few retailers to find lights and ornaments. K-bao's good friend Aunt Leslie and Xiao Ah-yi (Aunt Christina) then came over to help decorate the tree and drink hot chocolate.

"Blue is definitely my second favorite color" 

Sister C-bao also joined in the festivities.

Lights! Camera!

Naughty or nice? You decide

Fresh pine! But also fresh ants. And lots of pine needles everywhere. The K-folks will have to decide whether all of this becomes a family tradition. But it was fun while it lasted!

No Foodie

Upon arriving in Singapore:

• K-folks: "Now that we're in Singapore, K-bao, there are all sorts of new foods to try. What would you like? Singapore is about 3/4 Chinese with significant minorities in Malay, Indian and Eurasians. They have great noodles, seafood, curries, and soups." 
• K-bao: "Pizza."  

K-bao is normally a dawdling eater, but put a pizza pie in front of her and she becomes focused and efficient. Three slices is a bad day. Indeed, generally K-Mum is lucky to finish half as many slices as K-bao.

Here she is anticipating her pepperoni pie.

The Ceremony

It's finally here!

Aunt Catherine and Uncle Zech's magnificent wedding ceremony in Singapore is documented beautifully in the above highlight clip.

The bride was stunning, the groom handsome, and of course the little ones did their best to play their part.

The girls make their entrance at 3:19 in the video. Sister C-bao led off the procession, striding resolutely down the aisle without bothering to dispense too many petals, as if late for an appointment. K-bao, on the other hand, took her time, solemnly and gracefully.

In between them was a young lad, a relation of WZ Shu-Shu's, whose gleeful, clearly intentional pitches of the ring pillow was more than made up for by sheer adorableness. And of course, stately Cousin Elizabeth made up the rear, ushering her young cousins ahead.

The bridesmaids then made their appearance, with Matron of Honor Da Goo-Goo (Aunt Esther) finally preceding the bride.

All three young ladies were beautiful in their flowing white gowns. In all, a fantastic experience for young K-bao and her sister.

Below is the original invitation from Xiao Goo-Goo from many months ago:

Munchkin

K-bao also got to see her second cousin, Little C - a.k.a. "The Munchkin" - in Singapore. She had not seen the Munchkin (who is daughter of K-Pop's cuz Auntie Julie) in quite some time, as she resides on the other side of the world, but the two had the opportunity to sit next to each other at the reception dinner. After a few shy minutes, the girls warmed to each other quickly and ended up running around heckling guests and creating havoc on the dance floor the rest of the evening. Naturally, K-bao led the mischief.

A representative clip, with K-bao leading wind sprints across the dance floor.

Family time

K-bao got to catch up with quite a few family members in Singapore. Here she shares a laugh with K-Grandmum and some other women in the family. 

The group took a quick day trip to the wonderful Gardens by the Bay, which was not only beautiful, but beautifully air-conditioned.

Here are the various granddaughters on the same trip, huddled around K-Grandmum and having a good time.



One of the best meals of the trip for our little epicurean was the brunch buffet with K-Grandpop & K-Grandmum at the St. Regis. As usual, K-bao's eyes were several times bigger than her stomach, as she wandered around excitedly from station to station, collecting plate after plate.

Below is the last evening with the always-popular Shu-Shu (a.k.a. Uncle James). This expression on his face is pretty typical of his interactions with the little ones (see, for example, here), as he is usually fending off some overexpressive advances by his little nieces.

And of course, the star of the show, Xiao Goo-Goo (Aunt Catherine). Here K-bao and C-bao, along with cousin Elizabeth, are being hosted by WZ Shu-Shu's family on the eve of the big day.

She also saw Da Goo-Goo (Aunt Esther) just about every day, but didn't get as many pics with her.

Rong-Rong

One of the favorite parts of this trip for K-bao, besides all the attention she received as she walked down the aisle in her pretty Flower Girl dress, was of course the opportunity to hang out with Cousin Elizabeth, a.k.a. Rong-Rong.

Here she sits down to a 1:1 meal to have deep conversations with her intellectual cousin. Notice the thoughtful expressions, witty banter and sophisticated thinking clearly going on.



Here the cousins get up to introduce themselves before showing off their expert dance moves.

At the end of the trip, K-bao was highly reluctant to part with her cousin. On one of the last nights, knowing Rong-Rong was leaving the following morning at 4:30 a.m. for the airport, she tried to extract a promise from K-Pop that he would wake her up exactly at 4:00 a.m. to knock on the hotel door and say her last goodbyes.

When this demand was wisely refused, given the reception night bedtime of 11:00 p.m., she woke herself up anyway in the wee hours, in the dark, and tapped on K-bao's sleepy head in another effort to see her cousin one last time. "What time is it, Daddy? Can we go say goodbye now?" she whispered urgently.  Unfortunately, she was an hour late...and was ushered unhappily back into bed. "We'll Skype her soon!" promised K-Pop in a failing effort to console the little one.

Singapore!

K-bao's just returned from a whirlwind trip to Singapore where she was a flower girl for Aunt Catherine & WZ Shu-Shu's wedding.

It was a fantastic experience for the little one and, like her Taiwan visit in the summer of 2013, worth a few posts. She got to see pretty much the whole fam on K-Pop's side - including her fave, Cousin Elizabeth - and met a number of new friends as well.

Here she is en route:

Clowning around with sister C-bao at a stopover in HK (see video below)

K-Mum packed a suitcase worth of books and coloring pencils for the flight

"Weak sauce! I'm never tired!"

"I can do it, really I can! Hang on a sec...just wait one moment..."

Jump!

K-bao persuaded K-Mum a few weeks ago to buy her a jump rope, and has since been practicing her hops.

In the below she tries out both the backwards skip as well as the running skip. Not easy, but as she reminds the K-folks constantly, "Practice Makes Progress."

Young Author

K-bao has advanced significantly as both a reader and writer recently, and indeed has started penning her own little booklets.

Last weekend she decided to write - and illustrate - her first book, admittedly constructed by putting eight or nine staples to two sheets of paper. Subjects ranged from astute observations ("My family is nice") to statements about her own feelings ("I was mad because I got sick") to pronouncements of universal truths ("Love is kind").

In her second book, written shortly thereafter, she invited K-Pop to co-author (but not to co-illustrate - clearly she has formed her own quite accurate opinions already on K-Pop's artistic capabilities).

 

 

 

Banana Bread Deluxe

Never one to waste perfectly good (albeit somewhat overripe) bananas, K-bao sprung into action last weekend, donning her baker's apron and recruiting sister C-bao to help her create her patented Banana Bread Deluxe.

Here is the completed batter, replete with chocolate chips galore. No Trader Joe's shortcuts here! Eggs, flour, baking soda - this was made from scratch.

And here is the finished product.

K-Grandpops in Taiwan (a.k.a. Gong-Gong) got wind of this Banana Bread Deluxe, and naturally lamented that he wasn't around to take a bite. Upon hearing this, both granddaughters extended a fork, hoping their grandfather could take some satisfaction in their act of virtual sharing.

Better Than Hallmark

Sister C-bao fell and scraped her knee while running in the courtyard after church.

K-bao immediately went to her rescue, held her hand all the way home, and did everything else she could think of to comfort her sister.

Indeed, while the two girls were listening to a story at home to help little C-bao take her mind off her injury, K-bao excused herself briefly, saying "I'll be right back!"

Shortly thereafter, she appeared with the below card:

Feeling Brave

Donning her most ambitious costume yet - complete with a flaming red wig - K-bao is Merida, the girl who turns her mother into a bear.

"Don't stay out too long, or I'll really become a bear!" warned K-Mum, who was concerned the weather was too cold for prolonged trick-or-treating.

Along the way, K-bao bargained and negotiated her way into additional homes to visit, as well as specific candies she wanted to make sure were carved out from K-Pop's rule that "All candies collected belong to the entire family" (namely, any purple ones, any particularly large chocolates, or others with unusually attractive wrappers).

One thing's for sure, our little one certainly has the independence, strong-will and feisty nature shared by her character (which appears to be a common theme in her Halloween costumes).

Smart Aleck

Upon receiving the above to-do list this weekend, our 5-year-old's reaction was as follows:

K-bao: "Daddy can I do these in any order?"

K-Pop: "Sure K-bao."

K-bao: "Ok then. I'm done with everything Daddy, what should I do next?"

K-Pop......

Bocce!

On a recent weekend trip to Uncle Calvin's for barbeque and cake, K-bao had her first exposure to Bocce Ball. It turns out Xiao Jiu's building complex has an outdoor bocce court with an artificial, mini-golf-like surface.

After dessert, of which K-bao had more than her fair share, we ventured out to the court and split into teams. K-bao got the rules quickly, and surprised everyone with her skills. In fact, despite a rather unorthodox bowling style, in 2 of the 3 games we played, K-bao delivered the closest ball to the jack of any contestant. All while playing in a flowy white dress.

Naturally, after hitting that kind of winning streak, it was hard to drag the little one off the court. ("Just one more game? Please? Anyone?")

Here is the beaming bocce ball winner.

For the Love of the Game

K-bao had the pleasure of hosting the K-Grandfolks several weeks ago for a short visit.

Naturally, K-Grandpops immediately got roped into K-bao's latest love, Uno, and found himself on the carpet with the little one hashing out Skips, Wild cards and +4s.

"Love is patient, love is kind," K-Grandpops must have been repeating to himself throughout the afternoon.

Self Esteem

The dresses have arrived!

K-bao, along with sister C-bao, will be a flower girl at her Aunt Catherine's upcoming wedding.

Once the dress was donned, of course, the overconfidence ensued.

Uno Madness

K-bao has earned a few dollars recently, via a generous Tooth Fairy, a variety of chores and some memorized scripture. One of her first investments was in her Aunt Christina's charity run, to which she committed $2 (and, to her credit, would have given virtually her entire savings before her Aunt scaled her back).

The other major purchase - costing her $5, the majority of her bank account - was in a pack of Uno cards. Yes, that's right. A blast from K-Pop and K-Mum's (mostly K-Mum's) past. And since that fateful day, the family has whiled away many a long hour strategizing on skips and reverses, throwing down Wild cards, and dropping the dreaded +4 grenade. As the K-folks have learned, no Uno session is complete until K-bao asks "Can we play one more game?" and is turned down at least four or five times.

Uncle Chris, Aunt Lynn, and visiting out-of-towner Uncle Dave each got a taste of the Uno craze this past weekend, when all were roped into a marathon session with K-bao at Golden Gate Park. Forty minutes and multiple deck re-uses later, an exhausted Uncle Dave finally emerged victorious from the single game. K-bao's first response? "Just one more game? Great, I'll shuffle."

Game On

Let the record show that, after a single weekend of practice with pop-up PUGG soccer nets (acquired at what is undoubtedly an 85% gross margin from the Sports Basement), little K-bao scored four goals in her weekend soccer match.

K-Pop was volunteer coaching / refereeing the game and so couldn't go overboard with enthusiasm, but nonetheless thought it appropriate to throw his arms up and and bellow "GOOOOOOAL" each time the ball hit the back of the net.

Here K-bao puts on her game face before the match:

"I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee"

Sisterhood

K-bao has grown significantly in her "big sisterhood" over the past year. 

While she has always enjoyed entertaining and teaching her sister, more recently, she's taken on a greater caretaker role. On weekend mornings now, for example, she will often usher sister C-bao - both of whom are pre-7 a.m. wakers - into her room to play blocks for an hour or more to let the K-folks get another hour of rest.

"You know I put a "C" on it so you wouldn't knock it over, right?"

One recent Sunday, sister C-bao was clearly feeling anxious about being dropped off at her Sunday school class; her normal volunteer teacher wasn't there. K-bao, who was watching from the door before going into her own classroom, rushed in to comfort her sister. "I got it Dad," she told K-Pop confidently, "you can go now." K-Pop smiled and returned to his service. Afterwards, he discovered that K-bao remained by her sister's side through the entire morning, choosing to stay behind rather than go join her own peers to ensure her sister was comfortable.

Going through the daily lotion and sunscreen ritual together

While her sister can still drive her to the brink, and she certainly isn't beyond appropriating C-bao's snacks from time to time through a combination of charm, deceit and dexterity, to the K-folks' delight, by and large K-bao is a protective, loving, playful force in her little sister's life.

Feeling comfortable

Architect

K-bao has been in a building mood recently, and has spent many a quiet hour laying out her intricately-planned structures (many of which, unfortunately, have been destroyed by a reckless 36" Godzilla).

Here she gives an introduction to a model playground, architected, of course, around her favorite activity in the whole wide world: the monkey bars (which she points out four times in a 45 second walk-through of the playground layout).

Interestingly, she also pauses halfway through to explain the art of practice: picking oneself up after falling, again and again.

Soccer

It's soccer season, and K-bao has joined a young team with her classmates. The first important question for our budding little Mia Hamm was, of course, her uniform number. Here's how the conversation went down.

K-mum: "K-bao, what number do you want to have on your soccer jersey?"
K-bao: "A trillion."
K-mum: "Um, that's too big, it has to be a smaller number."
K-bao: "A billion."
K-mum: "That's still too big, it can only be 2 digits, so less than a hundred."
K-bao: "Ok fine. Ninety-nine."

Go big or go home

We have to admit, there's a nice ring to that when we're hollering at her from the sidelines. "Go get 'em, 99!" "Nice slide tackle, 99!" "Hey get yourself back on D, 99!"

Goooooo.....Team!

Follow me, folks!

So the first game was Saturday against their cross-town rivals. Let's just say that we have high hopes that the play will one day catch up to the quality of their uniforms.

A few action shots below, including the all-important sportsmanship high-five line after the game.