Mexico

Over the winter break, K-bao & family made a trip down to Mexico to attend the wedding of K-Mum's cousin Uncle Stephen. Sister C-bao was also invited to be a flower girl. K-bao was not happy to learn that she had aged out of the program. However, the trip was so relaxing and full of sugar that she quickly forgot about the disappointment.

K-bao had a lot of fun hanging out with her cousins J-Cuz (cousin Justin) and K-K. Here she take K-K on a lap around the pool, and then comes down the water slide with J-Cuz.

The key attraction was, of course, the unlimited dessert buffet. No further explanation needed.

One of the nice highlights of the trip included an in-house performance of The Lion King at the resort.

First Recital

K-bao has been playing piano now for a few months, and had her first recital recently. The K-folks hope that learning the instrument and going through the process of practicing and progressing will not only teach the little one some musicality, but also the value of discipline and hard work.

Admittedly, neither K-Pop nor K-Mum were shining examples of these virtues in their own checkered histories of learning the piano, but perhaps things will turn around with this younger generation.

Here she is lining up with the other fellow piano players ahead of the performance.

Aunt Chris and Uncle Calvin were kind enough to attend, along with the rest of the family.

Here she is with a friend from school who also happens to be taking lessons with the same teacher.

Below is the clip of her full recital - all 55 seconds of it. K-bao played two songs, Are You Sleeping? and Yankee Doodle, which she practiced assiduously in the couple of weeks leading up to the performance. And aside from making some funny faces after each song, she did quite well.

Post recital group picture with her certificate of accomplishment!

Giorgio's

K-bao visited her favorite restaurant tonight, Giorgio's, together with Xiao Ah-Yi (Aunt Christina) and Jiu Jiu (Uncle Calvin).

Earlier in the day, K-bao was asked by Uncle Calvin to name her 5 favorite foods. It didn't take much effort to rattle them off:

1. Pizza ("From Giorgio's!")
2. Mac & Cheese
3. Spaghetti with meatballs and Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top
4. Baked lasagna with cheese
5. Grilled cheese

See a common thread? Anyhow, that was the inspiration for dinner. 

Let the record show that K-bao polished off four (4) slices of pepperoni pizza tonight, along with several pieces of heavily buttered bread. That was more than any adult at the table. 

Indeed, as one can see, she was so busy stuffing her face that she couldn't be bothered to turn to the camera to say "Cheese!"

Azul

(Overheard)

K-bao, smugly: "How do you say 'Blue' in Spanish, Xiao Ah-Yi?"
AC (Aunt Christina): "Azul." 
K-bao: "It's Azul with a 'zzz' not a 'sss.'"
AC: "Um, I'm pretty sure it's pronounced Assssul. I took Spanish for eight years, K-bao."
K-bao: "Well, that was a long time ago, and I take it almost every day now, so obviously I know more Spanish than you do. It's Azzzzzul."

(long pause by Aunt Christina while digesting that zinger, confidence clearly shaken)

AC: "I'm pretty sure I'm right K-bao. In fact...." (while furiously Googling on her iPhone)..."I bet you my house, and all of my earnings to date. And if you're wrong, I'll take all of your money."
K-bao: "Fine. That's ten dollars. I'm going to go ask Ms. McDonald. She's great at Spanish."
AC: "Is that your Spanish teacher? "
K-bao: "No, that's my gym teacher."

Tea Party

To celebrate our little one's 6th, Aunt Christina (Xiao Ah-Yi) took K-bao out to a tea party at the famous Crown & Crumpet. K-Pop was one of the few esteemed guests of the birthday girl, along with sister C-bao and Aunt Leslie.

K-Mum was unable to make the event, but did extract a promise from the little one that she would limit herself to one sweet.

As soon as K-bao arrived, she picked out her one sweet - naturally, the one with blue and purple colors.

Throughout the afternoon K-bao spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to put only "one grain" of sugar in her tea, per K-Pop's orders.

Overall, it was probably the most high-society party our little one has attended, much less been the center of. Thank you Aunt Christina!

Lucky 13

Over Christmas and New Year K-bao got to spend some time with K-Mum's side of the family. Indeed, with K-Great-Grandmum in the house, along with all the cousins, there were 13 happy campers in all. It was a festive gathering which extended over many days.

There was plenty of lounging time...

...but also some intense activities. In the below "friendly" Bocce ball match, the judge (Uncle Calvin) had to resort to taking off his shoelaces to measure the distance between the balls in order to resolve a dispute between the teams. (One can also see contestant Aunt Christina - clearly not fully trusting in the process - on the ground closely inspecting the measuring activity.)

"Pull that string tighter! Tighter!"

A highlight for K-bao was of course spending time with her cousins, particularly J-Cuz, i.e. Cousin Justin. The two built Magna Tile castles, read Bible stories aloud and even tested their arm strength against each other (refereed once again by Uncle Calvin). K-bao and sister C-bao also had fun playing with Justin's younger sister, Cousin Kaitlyn, who is a few days older than C-bao.

"Don't let my expression (or my 2 hands) fool you, J - I'm only using 30% of my strength"

"Don't try this at home, kids"

As usual, K-Grandmum, saint that she is, spent most of her personal time cooking up great heaps of delicious food to feed the hungry crowds.

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!

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."

Not Confirmed

A couple of weekends ago, the K-folks went to a Parenting Seminar hosted by our church. Uncle Calvin and Aunt Christina (a.k.a. Xiao Jiu and Xiao Ah-Yi) generously came by to babysit during that time. At one point, the following text exchange transpired between Uncle Calvin and K-Pop:

You read that right. Out of an abundance of caution given the chilly weather, Uncle Calvin wisely asks K-bao put on some warm pants, and reinforces his authority by texting first for parental confirmation.

After said confirmation is given by K-Pop, somehow the little one sneaks away her Uncle's phone, manages to read the text exchange, and in her contrarian mischievousness types: "Not confirmed. Kaylajordanhumomanddad." And then a bunch of euphemistic gibberish to express her frustration at having to change out of her pretty dress.

The Parenting Seminar did indeed address how parents should deal with rebels, but what about supremely cute and literate ones?

Crazy Inmates

Aunt Christina (Xiao Ah-Yi) came over last week to bake sugar cookies with K-bao. The extra sugar intake, coupled with the matching inmate outfits - which gave implicit permission for lawlessness - led predictably to an afternoon of turbocharged craziness.


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Thanksgiving Tree

Over Thanksgiving K-bao engaged in an exercise with her extended family to encourage all to reflect on their blessings.

Predictably, K-bao's favorite part was not so much writing out her blessings, but handing out the activity pieces and instructing everyone else on what to do.

Each person was supposed to write out up to 3 things they were thankful for, on individual leaves, while putting prayer requests on pieces of red fruit.

K-bao's Thanksgiving Leaves were: "Family," "Friends" and "Food" - unclear what order those were supposed to be in, but everyone appreciated the alliteration - while her Fruit prayer requests were for "Uncle Calvin and Aunt Christina" as well as for "K-Great-Grandmum" (represented by a stick figure).

Here she is working on the project.

The finished tree after various family members wrote out their leaves and fruits.

K-bao's prayer request, and what she is thankful for: 

For Dad

K-Pop walked in the door tonight after a whirlwind business trip and was handed the below piece of art by little K-bao.

K-Pop learned that K-bao had drawn and written the above on her own initiative and by herself, with only a little bit of help from Xiao Ah-Yi (Aunt Christina) on the spelling of "Happy Birthday." What a delightful Welcome Home and Happy Birthday gift!

Yoga

K-bao, who was out late celebrating Auntie Christina's (Xiao Ah-Yi) birthday last night at her apartment, warmed up for the festivities by borrowing Auntie Leslie's yoga book (without permission of course) and trying out some of the moves.

Down, Down Baby

On the way to the bookstore with C-bao today, K-bao suddenly had her 4-year-old mind stuck on the Roller Coaster song taught to her by Xiao Ah-Yi (Aunty Christina) several years ago - to the point where she had to stop and give an impromptu performance.

Here is the rendition - a little lacking in accuracy but all there in heart.

By the way, you can see C-bao, who is enjoying the solo, giving her "The Wave" in appreciation at 0:13.