Tonight we attended a dinner party at Nilo’s house.  We were prepared with toys to entertain the boys as this was a higher grown-up-to-kids ratio party.  The entire evening, Logan was very content playing with his little plastic soldiers, and later watching the phone during eating.  Connor was good just hanging with us while we talked with others, and he ate well too.  I had a good time meeting some people, and also catching up with Nilo, Stacy and Tina.  We also had a chance to meet the new baby Sawyer.  Toward the end of the evening, Nilo and Tina tried to bribe Connor with presents and chips to eat in return for a picture with him.  Connor was persuaded by this argument.  The kids finally started to get silly about 8pm, so it was our time to say thanks and goodbye.

    We finally had a chance to make our cookies this morning.  Both Logan and Connor were excited, and came running to be seated quickly.  Stuart and I helped both kids getting started, especially with the messy icing part; then they were on their own with decorating.  They were quite into it as you can see in the video.  I had given them a sneak taste of M&M at some point, and they both loved it.  They sneaked in another candy each, then they both returned to finish up the decorating.  Afterward, they enjoyed eating their own work; Logan liked both the cookie and the candies while Connor just focused on the candies.

     We met up for dinner last night to celebrate Michelle’s birthday.  We arrived at the restaurant with the Kaos and the Tsaos, then the Changs arrived a bit later.  Connor, Logan and Brandon were sitting together initially, playing with Legos and soldiers, until Logan wanted to move next to daddy.  Connor stayed in his seat relatively fine and watched a show on the phone with Brandon.  He also paid some attention to aunties too.  We all enjoyed our dinner.  Connor had some salmon and rice, but preferred the oranges afterward.  Logan had his share of rice, and part of Stuart’s fish and chips too.  The kids were all eyeing Michelle’s cake from the restaurant as we sang the birthday song.  Logan and Connor shared the few bites of brownie/ice cream, and Logan almost wanted to lick the ice cream off the plate.

    After dinner, we migrated to Theresa’s house for desserts.  She was having a dinner party with many guests, but they were accommodating us by moving up desserts before their dinner.  While we were hanging out at the family room waiting for desserts, the kids were wild.  Most of them were giggling and being silly.  All of us had to keep close eyes on them to avoid any damage to the furniture or any injury to themselves.  It was good that the dessert was finally served.  Logan was given a mini cupcake before we had a chance to remove the icing, so he was filled up by it before he got to the cake part.  Connor on the other hand enjoyed the cupcake without the icing.  We said our goodbye afterward to take them home to end the night.

   Today was the second day off for Logan while Connor had his last day of school.  Stuart’s holiday break also started today, so the three of us went shopping this morning.  For lunch, we decided to take Logan to eat at a sushi boat restaurant for the first time.  Surprisingly, he was not too impressed initially with the food on floating boats; however once he discovered the tempura shrimps, he became intrigued staring at the boats looking for more tempuras.  Stuart and I were able to take our time enjoying the sushi too.

   Robyn had reminded me recently that I should take Logan to visit his old school, and Logan actually seemed interested when I asked him about it the other day.  So this afternoon, Logan and I went for a visit.  Right when we arrived, Logan was a bit hesitant about saying hi to his ex classmates as he said “I don’t remember their names”.   As soon as we entered the classroom, the reaction was incredible.  The kids immediately came running to us and screaming “Logan”.  Logan was a bit shy and clang on to me.  The kids started saying “Logan, why are you going to another school?” and “Logan, are you coming back to our class now?”,  It was so nice to see the kids being so warm to Logan and they even tried to grab his arms to go play.  Logan however was not quite ready to jump in and play yet, so he asked to see his ex-teachers instead.  We excused ourselves to go to another classroom.  Logan saw two of his most recent teachers; he seemed warm to them and answered their questions.  Another teacher came by to say hi too.  After few minutes of that, Logan wanted to return to his friends.  This time, Logan was ready to play and started playing Legos with the boys.  I was hanging out in a corner, and the girls came over to talk with me.  I asked the girls if they remembered Logan, and the girls, Taylor and Caitlin, answered that they did as they had known him since he was a baby.  It was true that I had watched these girls growing up too.  After some talking, the girls became too friendly and then overly excited.  A total of three girls started hugging me, playing with my hair, pulling my jacket and loudly laughing around me.  I did not want to tell them off initially, but they were too excitable that I had to ask them to be more gentle and quiet.  However they would not stop so I had to keep moving myself away from them until the teachers had to stop them.  The girls were definitely more wild in this class than the boys.  On the other hand, Kira was so sweet; she periodically came over to talk with me.  Logan had a good time playing with other boys but mostly with Rohan.  At the end, Rohan asked “Logan, are you coming back tomorrow?”

     We left 30 minutes later.  Logan said he had a great time seeing his friends.  When I asked if he wanted to visit again in the future, he said he wanted to go to Rohan’s house next.

     Logan’s school is on holiday break starting today, and also my vacation from work starts today as well.  Logan has been quite excited about the days off since beginning of the week as, we assume, the school had been preparing them for it.  Stuart heard Logan saying “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” to some teachers on his own too.  When we talked about his days off and what we might do, Connor always seemed to be listening, and would put out a sadden face and said “Me?!”.  So since last night, Stuart asked Logan to keep his days off a secret so Connor would not get jealous.  Logan was so excited to share the secret with me this morning; he also reminded me that we would be going to watch a movie today.

     We arrived at the movie theater early.  I let Logan looked around at the arcade games for a bit before we entered the theater.  He watched through the commercials while eating popcorns, but kept asking when the movie would start.  Finally, the “Wreck It Ralph” started and Logan was quite engaged the entire time.  Funny thing was that when we were more than an hour into the movie, Logan suddenly asked “Is the movie starting soon?”.  But he immediately returned his focus to the movie, so I did not have to answer his silly question.  Only when the movie was about to end (5 mins), Logan asked if we could go home. 

      Later today Stuart told me that Logan had been expecting a train movie.   The last couple of nights after reading a book Logan had inquired about the picture promoting the Thomas movie on the back cover.  Stuart had explained that the movie had not yet been released, but I guess it didn’t stick.  However we both really enjoyed the movie that we watched.

     We also played a couple of games today per Logan’s suggestion.  He even offered to set up Chutes and Ladders while I finished cleaning the house.  Logan was hoping to take the long ladders to climb up fast, but it turned out that I won the game quickly.  Logan actually did not feel sad, and even gave me a high five to cheer for me.  Then we played a game of Match.  I tried not to remember any of the cards, so we just played based on luck.  Logan beat me this time and he was very happy.

    I have been interested to learn more about my DSLR camera, so I finally signed up for a three-hour workshop this morning.  Right before I left the house, I talked with the boys to tell them that I was leaving and that they would be spending the morning with daddy only.  Connor’s first reaction was “Me?”, so I explained again, then he said “Okay”.  When I was at the door, Connor ran over to give me a hug and a nice bye. 

    The workshop was actually quite good.  The instructor was knowledgeable and explained things well.  There were a dozen of people in the workshop, and we all had some hands on practices.  Now I just need to practice and try out all the new things I learned; hopefully I can put them in use one day.

    When I returned home, the boys had already eaten their lunch and were all playing a table game (monkeys in the tree).  They had a fun morning together too.