Night Owls

If the saying "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" is true, then Soungsik and I are in big trouble!  We can't seems to force ourselves to bed any earlier than midnight, it just never happens. Last night I thought "I have to be up early beacause we have the ward Christmas party in the morning" somehow I ended up going to bed at 1:00. Tomorrow I have to be up early for church, but I already know that early sleep is not going to happen tonight, I will be busy playing with some friends! After I came home from the Christmas party this morning I was required, by myself, to take a 3 hour nap.  I feel much better. 
I probably shouldn't broadcast to the public my lazy habits and need for napping, but its all part of my honesty in blogging! Maybe I should make it a new years resolution to go to bed at a reasonable hour - it couldn't hurt to try. 
The real probem lies in two areas.  First, I love my kids but I also love "ME" time after they go to bed.  It is so sweet.  No one jumps on me, I don't have to watch cartoons or play guessing games, I usually don't even have to yell at anyone for getting into trouble.  Second, there are many nights when Soungsik doesn't get home until 9 or even 10.  He still needs to eat dinner, and really who wants to go to bed right after they eat dinner?  It would be very mean of me just to leave him all by himself, I am sure he doesn't like "ME" time, right?
It also helps that we are very spoiled parents.  Usually our kids don't get up until at least 8:00 or 8:30, and 9:00 or 9:30 is not entirely out of the question either, especially when we have to be somewhere at 10:00 :)!  I am so happy that I found someone compatable with my night owl life, and that being a night owl must come from heredity. 
I guess after saying all this, what I really want to say is that if you truly love me you will never call before 9:00 in the morning, and you will never come over before 10:00 in the morning. Please know that if you come over at 10:30 there will be a good chance everyone will still be sitting around in pajamas eating breakfast.  If you find yourself in need of a friend at midnight feel free to call.   

Carl Bloch Exhibit

Today for school we got to do a field trip!

Isabelle and I, along with Grandpa, Grandma, and
Camille and her kids

 went to the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU.

 He was born and lived in Denmark,
 although he traveled thru much of Europe.

He was born in 1834 and died in 1890.
He was the 4th of ten children.

He was a father to 8 children. He was very religeous and was a Lutheran his entire life.

I have always loved may of his paintings.  Being LDS you see much of his work in church literature.

This picture of Christ casting out Satan is very powerful.

They had the original painting of this one entitled "Come Unto Me".  All of the originals were huge.

It really must have been a full time job to create his masterpieces.

While this painting was beautiful it wasn't my favorite.  However the thing that struck me about this painting was the girl on his right side.  In the painting she looks so real it was almost scary. 

I wanted to go up and touch her just to make sure.

There have been very few artists that can make people look that life like.

This painting of Jaruis' daughter was so amazing.

It was one of my favorites we saw today.

I also love this story in the bible.  The daughter looks so "at peace" considering she's dead.

And my favorite part is her father kneeling at the door when Christ walks in.

This painting is very calming.

This painting was by far my favorite.

For me it had alot of energy to it. You can see his pain, you can see the comfort, you can feel the love.

Too bad I couldn't bring it home! While canvas prints may be beautiful, they don't hold a candle to how stunning the original paintings are!

I think that people can and should work hard to develop their talents, but I am beginning to believe that to be a true master of something it has to be ordained by God!  I guess if we all painted, sang, invented, created, ect. at the same level we wouldn't appreciate it.

  Maybe that is my talent, to truely appreciate others actual talents! 

If that is my talent, at least it is very entertaining!

BOOK REVIEW: FABLEHAVEN BOOK 5

Book 5 of the Fablehaven series named Keys to the Dragon Prison.

Written By: Brandon Muhl

Number of Pages 588

numer of stars I'm giving it: 4.5 (entire series)

I have really enjoyed this series. I can't compare it to Harry Potter or Percy Jackson because I haven't read those yet, but I feel like this is a great series for young readers. 

It is also a fun read for adults, if you don't take it too seriously!

 Despite the fact that there are demons and evil forces in this series it remains light and hopeful throughout.  It is a good book to examine the differences between light and darkness, evil and good, and to make you examine what choices you would make in regards to those areas.

I thought that each of the 5 books were better than the previous one.

I never quite got over the fact that Seth was just an obnoxious little boy.

However I did learn that even obnoxious little boys can care about important things and make the right choices even when it is hard.  I think that is one of the best lessons kids will take away from this book.

Kendra seemed a little on the naive/dumb side most of the time, even though everyone was constantly praising her for being very intelligent.  I didn't really see that, but I think she is a good examples for young girls too.  She did the right thing everytime she had too, even though she was scared and even though she was alone. 

One of my favorite quotes in this book was

"Some imagine the difference between Heaven and Hell to be a matter of geography. Not so. The difference is much more evident in the individuals who dwell there."

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something simply entertaining and fun!

The Most Wonderful time of the Year.

Whew.  The whirlwind has begun.  The days are flying by so fast and I am so busy its hard to believe!  I am happy to say that I have almost finished Christmas shopping & the wrapping of presents!  I have 1 nephew and neighbor gifts left to get.  Its pretty sweet to get to this point.  I have discovered that when you buy only 25% of the gifts you usually do, it only takes you 25% of the time.  At first it was bothering me having a small Christmas, but now I am actually getting really excited.  I have bought just enough stuff to make it fun and exciting, but not enough to lose the focus and the spirit of Christmas.  A mistake I have made the last 3 years.  Now I can just sit back and enjoy the season. The food, movies, family, and especially the music. It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Drill Seargent Mama

There is one day a year when I turn into a complete drill seargent. This is not to say that I don't have other days when I am bossy, but on this day I take it up to a professional level.  When a command is given it will be obeyed, quickly and without complaints. This transformation always occures on the day after Thanksgiving. 

This is when I like all of the Christmas decorations to go up inside the house. Of course to get that done you need 2 things.  The first thing you need is for the entire house to be cleaned from top to bottom.  The second thing you need is minions. Now in years past I have had very faithful and obedient minions, one adult and one child.  This year I should have had one faithful adult minion, one somewhat handy and overly curios little minion, and one cute but very non helpful minion.  Something went awry this year and my faithful and obedient adult minion managed to escape to the hills midmorning to terrorize fuzzy little bunnies. This was not before the entire house had been cleaned and he had received hundreds of commands.  The absense of my large minion caused caos in the ranks.  Usually large minion is responsible for bringing me all of the boxes, setting up the trees, putting lights on the outside of the house (if not already done), and keeping the little minions as far away as possible. Trying to set up 2 Christmas trees and boxes and boxes of decorations by myself was almost more than I could handle. Somehow even with all of the help from my little minions and the fact that half of the lights had burned out I managed to get it done.  Here's some proof.

This tree is our glass tree which the kids can't touch unless they want to be in BIG trouble.

Sadly this tree only had about half as many lights as usual. I am a Christmas light addict in regard to the trees.  You can never have too many.

This tree is the minions' tree which they helped decorate. That explains why 80% of the decorations are on the bottom third. I am sure it will get redecorated countless times before Christmas.

The minions went crazy over the toy train when it got set up.
 Minion #2 was in complete awe and minion #1 became the conductor/troll under the bridge.

The lights still aren't up on the outside of the house because large minion didn't take my "advice" to do it last week when it was unseasonably warm.  Now its so cold that your nose feels like it will fall off if you are outside for more thank a few minutes.  This means that large minion is on shaky ground with the seargent.  If the Christmas lights don't get up this year, its not going to be pretty come this time next year.

I am thinking I may need to throw in a few more drill seargent days in the year to give my troops more training.  Maybe Cinco De Mayo and Earth Day.  We'll see. 

Yesterday I aslo had to finish getting ready to go to a boutique in which I was attempting to sell some children's puzzles and things.  Unfortunantly we didn't get very many shoppers, but that is just how it goes sometimes.  I still had a nice day. The best part of my day was coming home to William who seemed to miss me more than anyone else.  He brought a blankie and sat and cuddled with me for a long time.  That was worth all of the money I could have made today. If anyone knows William you know that him cuddling is a miracle.  He never cuddles, but after tonight I have a glimmer of hope inside of me that maybe, just maybe he will learn to enjoy it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well it's the close of another Thanksgiving.  I just got Isabelle to bed and William has been out like a light for a couple of hours.  This year for dinner we had mom and dad, Daniel and his kids, Soung-Jo and Jee Hoon, and the four of us.  I ate until I felt sick and then I ate a little bit more.  The rest of the family came over in the evening and we played games and had lots and lots of dessert. It is a fact that when you let that many kids run wild in your house for that long, it will look like a bomb went off.  Despite the fact that it will probably take me the better part of tomorrow recovering from today, it was a wonderful day today.

Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday probably since I was an early teen. Of course I think Halloween is fun and who doesn't love Christmas? But there is just something about Thanksgiving that is so special. I wished that at this time of year I could slow down time. Thanksgiving seems to get overlooked more and more each year. I hope that the importance of this day could somehow find its way again in to our culture.

While we are grateful for the many, many conveniences in our lives I feel like this holiday is much more simple than that.  It is gratitude for life itself.  It is gratitude for the chance to learn of God and to follow Him. It is gratitude for the possibility to dream.  It is gratitude for the freedom to work hard.  And it is gratitude for those who choose to walk by our sides in life. I think those were the real things the pilgrims were thankful at the time of the first Thanksgiving. Everything else is just a bonus. I suppose I could make a list of everything I am grateful for, but it would be really long and just seem forced. When you start putting your love for your family in the same list as your love for hot chocolate it undermines the truly important things.  I realize that is somewhat cynical, but its how I feel. I need to give credit where it is due on this most important day.

I need to say to my Heavenly Father and My Saviour Jesus Christ, Thank you.  Thank you for allowing me to live and to do so with good health.  Thank you for sending me to a country where I have the freedom to dream and the freedom to achieve those dreams. Thank you for putting me in places to meet wonderful and supportive friends. Thank you for giving me good parents who sacrificed and loved me.  For giving me brothers and sisters to learn with and from. For sending me a loving and kind husband, and for trusting me enough to give me two of the most beautiful and loving children on Earth. And most of all, thank you for  giving me the gospel and for the Saviours eternal sacrifice for me. I don't say it enough, but from the bottom of my heart...THANK YOU.

Thanksgiving Arts & Crafts

I am using the word art in the MOST liberal sense!  I am not a gifted artist.  Yes I have fantasies about being a great artist, they run right behind my fantasies of being a great singer.  I am very subpar when it come to creative thinking and execution.  I think Isabelle might end up much more successful than her mom in both subjects, at least I am keeping my fingers crossed for her!

Here she is with her Thanksgiving art projects.

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without an Indian hat. 

Although Isabelle thought it should be a turkey hat since it was made with "turkey" feathers.

She was in heaven when I turned her loose with the glue stick and the tape. 

 Another step in independence.

And as Vanna is so beautifully showing here are leaves of thanks. 

There are many more blessings in our lives, I just didn't want to cut out any more leaves.

We had so much fun doing our little projects I had better

come up with more excuses to do things like this.

Crafts

Last night I went over to a friends and they taught me how to make

some flower bows for headbands and clips.

I am really branching out this week!

I made the green one last night and had so much fun that I have been making more for hours today!

Here are some of my favorites!

It's nice to have creative friends that can teach you new things.

And apparently you can teach an old Gabrielle new tricks!

I have burns on my fingers from the hot glue gun. 

Just like I am a messy cook, I am a messy glue gun operator!

But it was all worth it.

The Aftermath.

Here's what the world looked like the morning after the peaceful, snowy evening.

I don't know how many inches that is,

but it is a very wet and heavy snow!

This  poor tree almost broke with the weight!

This tree didn't make it. 

 Its very sad, because it was beautiful and unlike most

of our other trees this one had a perfect shape!

We will be making firewood out of it tomorrow.

Someone is still happy about the snow though!

It has begun snowing once again. 

I think we are going to see loads and

loads of the white stuff this week!

A Peaceful, Snowy Evening

 It's a beautiful snowy night tonight. 

I am saying its the first "real" snow of the year. 

Technically we already had one snowstorm in October,
but I am not counting that one. 

 It didn't have the same feeling. 

This snow has the feeling of newness,
everything is clean, still, peaceful.

I think it will keep silently coming thru the night.

There is something special about the 1st snow of the year.

It makes life seem more real.  It makes time stand still. 

It connects generations of people.

We only have an inch or two in our front yard right now.

Its a perfect blanket that I am sure will have many little boot prints in it come morning.

There will be attempts at snowmen and snow angels.

But preceeding that there will be a frenzied attempt to find the

 snow gloves before it all melts.  

It is ushering in the Thanksgiving holiday.  Making it better. 

Tonight I am thankful for the beauty of snow.

That will not be the case come January,
but tonight, I am thankful.

Amuck In My Mind

It's only 9 a.m. but I have been up for a while now.  I have had alot of unimportant things running around my mind this morning.  Thats not why I woke up early.  I woke up early because Soung-Sik decided to go shooting with dad and Nathaniel.  He got up a little before 6:30 and thats when my thoughts began. So here's a dip into my early morning brain.
I wonder why men think its fun to get up really early and go shooting.  I wonder why Soung-Sik left the closet light on when he left the room.  I love you to honey, but you have already told me you were leaving twice. Man its really windy.  Don't the bullets get blown way off course if there are hurricane force winds?   It looks like it might snow or at least rain, is it still fun to go shooting?  Do men go shooting because it's in their "hunter/gatherer" genes and they are going thru withdrawals?  Oh no, I think I heard a kid.  If I lay here and don't move or breath I wonder if he will go back to sleep.  I don't think its working.  Is there something wrong with the last 2 bites of yogurt? Oh no, the other kid is up and she wants me to pretend.  Doesn't she know my limited imagination doesn't turn on until 11:00? I wonder if she will want to eat too. She just got sucked into the tv - maybe she'll forget about food for a few minutes, or better yet she'll forget she wants me to pretend. I don't think those cups should qualify as "tippy cups".  There should be a law that if they haven't tested a cup by actually tipping it and seeing if it leaks, then they shouldn't be able to sell it as a tippy cup. I am just going to pretend that Liam isn't walking around eating a day old cookie that he just found (I guess I can pretend this early in the mornig afterall).  Its really only half a day old, and its making him so happy.  The cookie kid is stinky, I wish his daddy was here.  I bet his daddy wishes he was here too, it freezing outside!  I wonder if its not too windy to go shooting, but its way too windy to put up Christmas lights?  Why didn't I check the milk level last night? 
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 
Sorry, I just checked out there for a minute.  I love hot cocoa. I also love hot baths, but I think I'll have to settle for the cocoa this morning.  I wish I would have gone to bed before 1:30 last night.  I can't believe how bad my english/spelling has gotten since I left school.  Is it thru or through? I think I will educate myself today.  I can't believe Isabelle is watching a cooking show, how long will this last? I wonder if she wants to learn how to change a stinky diaper.  This blanket is so warm.
I better go wake up and try to accompish something today. Here's to hoping my mind will land on something concrete, not literally of course, that woud really hurt!  I am so glad its Saturday!



BOOK REVIEW: PRINCE CASPIAN

Prince Caspian
Written by: C.S. Lewis
Number 4 of 7 in the Narnia Series
Number of pages: 223
Number of stars I'm giving: 4

This book, like all I have read so far in the Narnia series has been very enjoyable!  Aslan played a bigger role in this book than in a couple of the previous stories.
The thing that strikes me in the books as compared to the movies is that the children are much more mature, kind, and loving with each other in the books.  They make the hard choices, and with the exception of Susan they do the hard things happily.  Susan, who makes me crazy in the movies, continues to annoy in the books.  I worry that I may be a little like Susan when the going gets rough, I will have to try harder to be more optimistic in hard times!
Prince Caspian the book is much different than the movie.  While the movie strayed from the book, I think they made mostly wise choices in when to stray in order to keep up the pace in the movie.  There were 2 areas in particular where I wished they woud have stayed true to the book.  First, Alsan was in the book alot towards the end - much more than in the movie.  Everyone saw Aslan in the book.  Also I wished they hadn't put the romance in between Prince Caspian and Susan.  There was nothing even eluding to this in the book, and it puts pressure for children to grow up too fast and become romantically involved.  In the books, though the children are brave, they still retain their childlike qualities and innosence.
A very entertaining story.  I am getting a little sad, becasue now I am over the "hump" in the series.  Only 3 more books to go.  They will be finished before I am ready for them to be!

No more whines now...I mean it!

That was the theme of the day today.  I must have told Isabelle 8,000 times and William 4,000 times to stop whining today.  I think I might have even told Soung-Sik to stop whining once or twice.  There must have been a meeting last night after I went to bed where they all decided to gang up on me today.  Or the fact that I woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep may have made me ultra sensitive.  Either way there were horribly annoying sounds coming from my house all day.  The only reason why both of my children were not in bed at 6:00 tonight was because we weren't home then.

Soung-Siks' excuse is that he is married to me and probably has to listen to me whine more than he would like to.  I am pretty sure that "when whinning and when not whinning" was in our wedding vows.

Liams' excuse is he is still a little sick.  He has also just figured out how to fake cry and he is very proud of his new talent.  I don't think it would be fair of me to squash it out without letting him perfect it a little longer. 
We aren't quitters in this house, no sir!

Isabelle on the other hand was not involved in the wedding ceremony and has long out grown the need to practice her talent of fake crying.  No I have a very real concern with Isabelle's whinning.  I think she might be getting the dreaded 5 year old attitude.  I heard about the terrible 2's, but I LOVE 2 year olds, they are my favorites.  I have heard 3 year olds are awful, but we just seemed to breeze through those as well.  4 has almost been a dream, I am her hero and she tries her best everyday to please mom & dad.  Lately in between our perfect 4 year old days a body snatcher is taking away my daughter every now and again.  One minute happy the next minute so emotional over who knows what.  I have heard the phrase "but mommm, it isn't fair" , more than I would like to think about today.  She knows that she can't slam her door but that hasn't stopped her from shutting it softly and then moping and grunting right behind it in hopes of guilting me out of something.  I am not ready for my baby to become a kid with opinions and her own plans. While reading her a bedtime story with her laying on my lap tonight I wondered if all of the whining had just been a bad dream.  Hopefully when the day starts tomorrow the body snatcher will have moved on to another house and found some other poor mother's 5 year old. 

Because tomorrow there will be no more whines now...

I mean it...

I think I want a peanut!

A Day in the Life of Isabelle

I figured her day had to be more exciting than mine.  It turns out it was!  I don't really know what time Isabelle woke up, because she colored for a while before she came in and woke us up at about 8:30!



Here we are watching cartoons. 
Sadly most days in our house start out this way.
Not Sundays of course, we are late enough for church without TV.

 

After the TV wore off we thought we'd make some banana bread.

First peel the bananas like so...

Then make sure you get all of the dough off the mixer.

You better get a sample, all great chefs do.
 I can't stand banana bread dough, but Isabelle loves it.
Cookie dough, cake batter and brownie dough on the other hand - YUM! 
Have no fears if you eat food from my house, that spatuala did not touch the food again!



Finished product - just perfect.

Now its time for school.
She got 100% on her spelling test today.
cats, pigs, beds, bugs, tops, and best!

Time for some food.
Too bad the only thing she would eat was kimchi.

Piano practice went great.

She also had her piano class this morning.

Isabelle is so excited for her performance next month!

All work and no play make Isabelle a cranky girl.

Play away :)

Off to TKD. 

She loves it when she gets to be the leader.

I wonder where she gets that from???

But seriously, her TKD instructor is sooo good looking.

I bet he has a totally awesome wife back at home!

Good form kiddo! 

Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up.

Ahhhhh.  Thats much better!

Reading is becoming a daily habit.

I am so glad she has started enjoying it.

Finally, eating her banana bread and watching a bedtime movie.

She is a great big sister, most kids would freak out if their little brother was stealing their snack.

Throw in about 20 potty breaks, carrying her brother around, chasing the cats,

and visiting with Grandma...I don't know about Isabelle,

 but I am ready for bed!

If we didn't have Isabelle in our lives it would be

pretty boring around here!

BOOK REVIEW: THE HORSE AND HIS BOY

The Horse and His Boy
Written by C.S. Lewis
Number 3 of 7 in the Narnia Series
Number of pages: 224
Number of stars I'm giving: 4

I loved this book.  It was a very quick and fun read.  If you don't have any children interrupting you every ten minutes it will only take one day to read.  If you have children but ignore them from time to time it will take two days to read.  If you have children and are a perfect mom it will probably take you 3 days to read.  In my case it took two days to read.
The reasons I didn't give this book 5 stars was because I didn't feel like it was as much of a pull between good and evil like "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" was; also it didn't make me want to be a better person like "Les Miserables" does. 
In this book you fall in love with the little hero Shasta. All of the trials he has to go thru in life make your heart strings pull for him.  You will laugh, be excited, and if you are a baby like me you will probably cry just a little too.  My favorite part is when Shasta is speaking to Aslan.  When you understand the symbolism there I don't know how you could not cry.  The fact that the Savior is there for us whenever we need Him, even if we don't realize it, is an amazing gift.  Also I loved the way this book shows the Saviors mercy and His justice.  It also teaches us that we should always choose to be merciful.
I can't wait for a couple more years when Isabelle and I can read it again together.  Prince Caspian: Here I come!

Haircut for William

Here's William after his haircut. 

 Please note the alligator tear by his eye that may still be there. 

People say that a picture says a thousand words,

but I think a tear can too.

Today was NOT the day I should have given him a haircut. 

My entire day has just been "off".  Not bad per say, just "off".

And poor little Liam has a fever and is trying to finish the rest of his teething.  

I could no longer stand the hair in his eyes or the fact that I could do a cute ponytail in back if I really wanted too.  In fact yesterday Isabelle suggested we put a bow in his hair and today Soungsik suggested the same thing.  That was it, I had to at least do a little trim on him.  Thats really all he got, but calling it "just a trim" does not give me the justice I deserve.  Now I am not a hairstylist, nor have I ever claimed to be.  Of course I have never been accused of it either, I would probably have to do something cute with my hair every once in a while for that to happen. 

Anyways, back on track...I am pretty sure that cutting William's hair is akin to, I don't know shaving an angry cat.  Which by the way I have done, and I know first hand is not easy.  He was not thrilled at all with my idea, and refused to hold still for even a minute.  Also just as a side note, hair sticks to tears really, really well.  We survived it and I even forced him to get his fingernails trimmed afterwards. He really hated that idea too.  I am not saying its the best haircut, heck I am not even saying its a good haircut, but we both survived and he is taking a recovery nap at this very moment.

I guess I could splurge 20 bucks on a haircut for him but that just seems crazy to me for his age.  Also why would I pay someone to have that amazing bonding experience when I can do it all over again next time?

It helps ALOT to have a beautiful assistant who can dance around the chair and sing while holding the comb you need. 

Magicians have the right idea!