Pink Lady Halloween Sauce

Maya and pappa make dinner together tonight. They make up their own special pasta sauce: carrots, ham, red peppers, brown onions, green onions, cream, and a little ketchup. Maya does the cutting with papa's assistance (The Global knife is super duper fast!) and she does the cooking, too, with minimum instruction from papa.    

Afterwards the cooking, Maya sets the table and drinks water from a wine glass. She and papa clink their glasses and toast to a good dinner and a job well done.

Maya's new bed

Maya has been asking for a bunk bed for a while now and pitching the idea that Luca can sleep in the bottom bunk. We like the idea of the kids sharing a room for a while so she certainly had a good sales pitch.

Maya promised that she would stay in her new bed and sleep through the night.... A very tempting offer, so we decided to buy a bunk bed. Maya really was excited about here cozy bed.

All the wonderful things in Oct (Part 3)

All the photos posted in this entry are from Waigong's small Canon. That's why they may look a little out of focus. :) 

We like to go to Campbell's farmer's market every Sunday. There're good selections of vegetables (especially tomatoes) and fruit there. And it's fun to check out the stores along the street. One of them carries Asian lanterns and furniture, which we like. Wish the furniture was a little cheaper. 

Come across this old artist at the farmer's market and we end up buying an oil painting from him (the one to the most bottom left)

Family outing. (Where is mama's new bike? Mama needs to go out biking more.)

Waigong and Waipo visit the old berryassa neighborhood, where they have a photo taken with some old friends

We visit Heather and Peter in Oakland. Maya and Lucia always get along.

Our babysitter Jennifer is wonderful! But she's only available on weekends. She's a teacher's assistant.

Heading to the Indian Festival in a Memorial Park in Cupertino

At Campbell farmer's market?

Waigong and Waibo often visit the Asian Art Center in Santa Clara. They have this photo taken  with the curator, Shu.

Pumpkin carving (Luca just woke up, thus looks a little grumpy)

Maya has started to go to My Gym couple of weeks ago. She loves it. Luca goes there every Monday for a free play.

Attend Samuel's 6-year-old birthday party in Sunol.

Before  heading out for trick-or-treating

Pappa carries the bat instead, otherwise Luca may swing it around to practise.

What a crowd! 

Halloween

We've been to the same neighborhood in Berryassa for trick-or-treating the past two years. It's on a street called Fairway. Many houses here are well decorated.

We meet Maya's preschool friends and their parents at Madeleine's house and have a pot luck then, then we head to Fairway. There're probably two hundred trick-or-treaters there already. A lot of spooky "ghosts" walking around and a lot of princesses, fairies and wizards, too. Maya is princess Raponzel (she was going to be Cinderella but changed her mind the last minute, but she still keeps her Cinderella tiara though. She also has her pearl magic wand.)

Luca is a baseball player - last minute inspiration from papa because Luca doesn't like his Elmo costume and is very cautious about anything other than normal clothes. So pappa bought him a baseball hat and baseball bat. When we stop by the first house for trick-or-treating, Luca is hesitant and has to be pushed forward to get the candy. But he quickly gets a hang of it and drags you from one house to another, never letting go of his bucket, even when it gets pretty heavy. He has even said thank you in Chinese and bowed to the house owners couple of times. Very polite, indeed.

Waigong and Waipo enjoy the night too, though it's a bit too much walking for Waipo who has back pain.

I wonder what the girls saw. A scary ghost???

All the wonderful things in Oct (part 2)

Maya with her teacher Mr. Dihn at the pumpkin walk 

At the entrance of the haunted house: it turns out to be a bad idea because both girls are very scared by the ghosts and noises inside and both cry. Okay, next time, mama and pappa need to be more thoughtful.

Luca has a great sense of fashion already. He throws away the matching socks mama has picked for him and chooses these two instead.

Maya, the family photographer, takes another photo, of mama and pappa with the big Nikon. Hmm, she seems to like fussy pictures and unique angles. 

What do you think about this one? Better?

Luca enjoys the pumpkins seeds pappa baked. He eats the whole thing, including the shells. You have to admire his strong tummy 

Luca can assume an amazing amount of food for one meal. Here it is an example (breakfast):

Vegetable/fruit smoothie  + banana + yogurt + glass of milk + leftover Indian pancakes (Thanks to Swati) + 3 waffles

Luca gets his FIRST EVER timeout for hitting Maya repeatedly. He doesn't like it. Hopefully we won't put him on timeout again.

Luca plays Waipo's Kungfu sword 

Waigong takes a photo of the family before Mama and pappa heads out for a date-night.