Rink Rats

Okay, so we are not even close to being "rink rats"! We usually go roller skating a couple of times a year. We, meaning husband and the big kids, I usually stay home with Pay. But, when the G6 invited us, we were super excited to go as a family!

The hardest part about it is getting the right size skates for everyone and then getting all 4 kids (and their friends) all laced up.

Isa (from the G6) had thought she was having a skating party for her bday, but her family surprised her and had a big surprise party/sleepover instead. Poor Isa (and Kaylin) were so confused that we promised them we would still take them roller skating the week after.

 Haley brought one of besties Sarah along with us. =-)

We were so proud of Em! She hardly held the wall at all!

 Em and her bestie, Nana, and friend Olivia doing the trio skate.

 Dev (from the G6) was super brave and went out on skates for the first time. He LOVED it!

Pay spent most of the time playing with Madi (youngest of the G6) whom she loves.

 We did get her up and on the floor with skates. She kinda freaked out after a few minutes, and that was it for this time. We'll try again next time!

Thanks so much for inviting us G6!

School Family Dance

Our school had a family dance and we all went. We were super excited to see Haley perform in the Jazz band!

I've been trying and trying to get the video of her performing on the piano to upload and it won't work! Ugh! I do have this picture of her, though. They performed two songs. She did one and the another pianist did the other. They did great!

Right after they performed, the girls noticed the snack bar in the back. Their Daddy took them to get snow cones!

A very happy girl!

I tried to do a quick shot of Pay, Dev, and Livi eating their snow cones, but Livi got kinda cut off. =-(

They took forever to eat them and enjoyed every bite!

After Haley's performance, we hardly saw her and her friends all night. They were off being tweenies.

Besties Em and Nana are always good about posing together! They were running around and dancing all night. Em's cheeks are super rosy!

I wish I had taken more pics, and I really wish the video would upload!

Pay's first sleepover

Last weekend, Pay had her first friend sleepover in her room. Her best friend Dev spent the night!

We sent them up to put jammies on, and found them like this. They both LOVE Lego's so they spent some time checking out the Lego catalog. It's so cute to hear these little 4 year olds having conversations or telling jokes.

We then got their beds ready and had them settle down with their lovies and Legos. They played in their room for over an hour before falling asleep covered in Legos! We had to fish around in the semi dark to get the ones in their beds so that they wouldn't sleep on them.

They posed with their Build-a-bear's. Aren't they adorable?

Dev's big sis stayed the night with Em. It was their biggest sis, Isa's, birthday sleepover, so Kaylin and Haley stayed the night at their house.

In the morning, the kids requested pancakes for breakfast, so husband made these.

Then we all sat down to make some Lego hats with Sculpey clay.

They sat for 2 hours working on the cutest hats.

Can you see the pizza hat or the sombrero?

We were so happy that her first sleepover was a success!

Along for the Ride

Thursdays are my volunteer days at school. Dao is still home from work from his concussion and he had a doctor appt scheduled for the afternoon, so he came with me to volunteer. (Grandma had Pay)

Of course I have no pictures of us sitting in the hallway listening to kids from Haley's class individually read to us (which is what we did most of the morning), but I remembered to pull out my camera just after we had lunch with Kaylin and Emma. Daddy walked his girls out to the playground for lunch (they begged us to stay for recess). Just after I took this picture, Emma took off with her girlfriends to go chase boys the entire recess! She barely waved to us when it was time to go! Silly girl!

Kaylin hung out with us (literally).

When Daddy teased her about being on the "short" bar, she walked over to the bigger bar where all of her friends were.

She is the shortest one in her group, and she totally works it. Her sweet friends let her use their back so she can hop up on the bar. She lost one of her shoes while twirling around on the bar and her friend helped her put it back on. Dao and I tried to explain to her friends that she is capable of climbing and twirling up on that bar on her own (she does it on ones twice this size in her gymnastics class), but they all thought it was cute and funny, and didn't listen.

I made them hold still long enough to take a picture of them together.

I'm so glad she has such close friends in her class!

An Iron Chef in the Family?

Okay, so maybe he's not officially in the family... But our sister, Xuan's boyfriend Dan was a competitor on The Iron Chef. He is the Sous Chef for a restaurant called Joule in Seattle. The restaurant Owners/Chefs were called up by the show's producers and invited to compete on the show and they brought their number one sous chef, Dan! The show was taped back in October, but the episode just aired last week.

His family flew in from Boston to celebrate and watch the show when it aired on TV. (From left to right: Xuan, Dan's Dad David, Dan, his Mom Stephanie, his Uncle Jon, and Grandpa Abe) Don't you just love Dan's hat that someone made for him? Someone also made the adorable bling necklaces that say Iron Chef Joule on them. We brought them home and our girls wore them to school the next day to tell their teachers and friends all about it!

Dan and his Grandpa watching the show. His Grandpa is 97 yrs old.

My Mom came with Dao and I. Along with Linh and Brian, B and Rob. We had some yummy apps before the show.

We picked the prime spot to watch. Next to the food table!

Here is a list of the yummy apps that we had.

The next night we invited Dan's family over for dinner at our house. Dao made salmon, clams, and prawns, and his Dad made lobster and Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce. We had some garlic bread and my Mom made brocoli salad. It was an amazing feast! All of Dao's family came too!

Dan's Mom, Stephanie, brought Sculpey Clay and everyone sat down and made everything from beads and Lego hats to unicorns and dragons. Once again Grandpa sat down and showed off his skills

Here is a pic of the clay that was used. You have to bake the clay for about 15 minutes @ 275 degrees to harden the pieces.

Linh watched for the longest time, and we finally made her sit down and make stuff! I love that this family is always right in there with the kids having fun and playing around!

Thank you so much, Stephanie, for bringing such a fun activity for our girls to play with!

We had a Trader Joe's Marion Berry pie and Dan decided to put bacon bits on it. He at 4 pieces with bacon! None of us could say anything because the man has been on The Iron Chef! He had me try it, and I have to admit, it was good.

Haley made a penguin with his own house, TV, and couch! So cute!

Here are a few of the Lego hats and creations. I can't tell you how much fun this is for the kids and adults!

I wish this picture turned out better! Many new Lego hats were made with all of the creative minds that were here. We took an informal vote, and the squid hat was the favorite. They made dolphin, chicken, pig, snake, and dragon hat's to name a few.

We also watched the episode of Iron Chef again. We were in a bar when we watched it the night before, so we didn't catch all the details of the episode. After that, they played a little Super Mario Bros. B is totally addicted to this game! I kid you not, her husband told me that they hop on the Wii almost every night to try and beat the game!

Dan's Mom had never played the Wii before, so Dan gave her a quick lesson.

Thank you so much, Dan, for sharing this special moment with all of us. We are so very proud of you!

Something Yummy

Our oldest has developed a new passion...

She loves to bake!

She is not a fan of milk or dark chocolate, so when she figured out she could make white chocolate chip cookies, she jumped right on it!

They turned out super yummy too! We ate them so fast that a few days later she made them again for us!

I can't wait to try her next creation!

Daddy's Home

Sunday's are hubs outdoor league soccer game day. This Sunday was the first day of the season, and we all piled in the car to go watch Daddy's game. He usually plays forward/striker, but the team's goalie was injured so he couldn't play. Dao has played keeper many times in the past and he enjoys it, so he took over. Shortly after half time, Dao went up for a save and an opponent jumped up (hopefully to kick the ball) and kicked Dao directly in the head at full force. He flipped in the air and landed on his side. I watched it happen and have never been so scared in my life. He popped up (never was unconscious) and the ref and his buddies came over to make sure he was okay. He answered all of their questions correctly and even walked a straight line, so they cleared him to continue playing.

When the game was over he walked off the field with a big goofy grin and said "Is the game over? What happened?". We answered him and he immediately asked the question again, and then again, and again. His teammates quickly told me that this was a common sign of a concussion and I should probably have him checked out. Wha??? A concussion?? But he played the whole game??

Anyway, I managed to get him to the car and promptly took the kids home to stay with grandma while I got him to the ER.

After many tests, and an overnight stay at the hospital he is home now recovering.

I'm not gonna lie, this was one of the scariest things that we have been through. He lost his short term memory for quite some time. He thought it was 2006. He thought Bill Clinton was president. He had no recollection of Christmas. He asked the same questions over and over again without a break for 12 hours.

I have never been around anyone that has had a head injury or concussion, so this was all shocking to me.

Here is a picture of him playing keeper during an indoor tournament last year. He thought that this tournament had happened "yesterday". It was more than a year ago, but he was sure that it had just happened.

It is true what they say, you never know when someone can be taken from you. The doctor told me that had he been hit in the head again while continuing to play after the first hit, he would have died.

I think everyone should know that if someone gets a head injury during sports, they should not continue playing. They should automatically be pulled out of the game/practice. Even if they argue that they are okay, like Dao did (his motor skills were all fine, but he completely lost his short term memory).
Insist on it, you just might save someone's life.

So for now, we have Daddy home recovering. Most of his memory has returned, he still can't remember being hit or anything that happened after and up until the next morning in the hospital.

We are very blessed to have amazing family and friends who care about us. I want to thank everyone for your help and kind thoughts during this scary time.

• Thank you Robin, for coming to the hospital and being there for me, so that I could go to the bathroom and not worry that he would be alone and not know where he was.
• Thank you Sheree, for coming to the hospital to check on Dao and for bringing me food (Dao couldn't eat) and coffee. I hadn't eaten all day, and was starving! Thank you also to David for offering to take over a shift in the middle of the night if I needed to get some things from home. Thanks to the G6 for the sweet card for Dao and the goodies for the kids who were home and worried about their Daddy.
• Thank you Heidi and Joe, for your support and for bringing Haley home from Logan's bday party. We so appreciate all of your kind offers for coffee and help if need be.
• Thanks to Xuan, Linh Ta, B and Rob, for offering to do anything needed to help us out.
• Thanks to Andria and Van for offering to bring our girls to school and help out in any way.
• Thanks especially to my Mom for spending the night with the girls so that I could stay with Dao. I didn't have to worry at all, because I knew that they were in the best of care.
• And thank you to all who have checked in to see how he is doing and let us know that you care.

Thank you all!