I had to work Tuesday and Wednesday this week, so Stuart had kid-duty.  Adding to the stress, as I was leaving for work on Tuesday morning, my car could not start.  We ended up having AAA towed the car to the dealership, and we did not get it back until the next day.  I had to take the SUV to work, so Stuart was left with the boys at home with no car.  With the help of grandparents, they all played at home all day, had lunch and took a good nap.  Our neighbors came over to play in the afternoon, so everyone was happy.  When I returned home from work, both boys ran to me while yelling “ma-ma” to me.  We had the longest group hug ever which I enjoyed greatly. 

     On Wednesday, grandparents drove back to their home, so Stuart took care of the boys all by himself.  I took the SUV to work in the morning, so the boys just stayed home to play.  I came home during lunch to spend some time with them, then they drove me back to work so they could keep the car.  Stuart managed to keep the boys up during the drive back in order to have a nice nap at home.  He put Connor down first, then put Logan down next before Stuart enjoyed some game time on his own.  Shortly after nap, they spent some time at the library before coming to pick me up.  The boys were thrilled walking into the Campbell medical center and into my office.  They had so much fun just hanging out there while I made my last phone call.  We then picked up my car, now with a new battery, on the way home. 

     Stuart did such a good job taking care of the boys, and he was not even stressed.  The boys also behaved well for daddy too.  The most I did solo with the two boys were 2 hours at a time, so Stuart totally outdid me now.  Good job Stuart!

     For awhile now, Connor uses only “ah” and “ma-ma”, and a couple of body signs to communicate to us.  We also have heard him saying “da-da” and “na-na” (for banana) before.  The past few days when we asked him to say some words, he actually would attempt to say them, and the pronunciation was not too far off.  They were “po-po” (to carry in Chinese) and “more”.  Tonight when we said our goodnight to each other, Logan was just commenting how Connor was not saying it back to him, and just then, Connor said “night-night” perfectly.  Connor gave a sweet smile immediately since he knew we were so proud of him.

     Part of my Christmas presents from Stuart this year was a close up lens for my camera.  We still need to learn how to use it correctly and well, but so far I am loving some of the pictures we took from it.  We went for a quick walk at the Global Winter Wonderland this evening, and here are a few pictures from there.

     The grandparents brought over lots of presents for everyone.  Those along with the ones from us and from our relatives/friends, our tree was loaded.  After we all got ready in the morning and after the grandparents arrived, the most anticipated present opening began.  We started with our stockings; Connor was so happy to see his buddy, a stuffed toy Mickey.  Logan was very excited to open the presents under the tree.  He tried to read the labels and picked out the ones with “L”.  Some of the presents really caught his attentions, and he would play with them for awhile before going back to ask for more to open.  Connor, on the other hand, was not too into the concept of opening presents yet.  He enjoyed playing with the packaging, and he liked helping with cleaning up.  While the boys were having a blast playing with their toys and books, the grandparents and us took our time enjoying opening our presents too.  Thank you to the grandparents and to everyone!  We all received many wonderful things, especially the boys.  Each of the boys probably received 15+ presents and many combined presents; they were totally spoiled by love from everyone. The whole presents opening event lasted 3 hours; at the end, Logan said “opening presents was tiring”. 

       After nap, two sets of our friends stopped by to say hello and to drop off presents for the boys.  We then had a nice turkey Christmas dinner along with the tradition of Christmas crackers.  This was such a full day of entertainment that the boys did not even step out of the house once which must have been a record for us.  Here are some joyous photos from today.

     This morning, Stuart and Logan went to the library while Connor and I did grocery shopping to stock up for the next few days.  Connor had a big breakfast before we left the house, but when we were at the store, he got so excited with everything he saw, and kept pointing to different things and pointing to his mouth.  People probably thought that he was starving.  After we finished with the errands and spent some time at the yard, we did a switch.  I took Logan with me to a group lunch to say hi to Jennifer and her family.  Logan is easier at restaurants nowadays; he can be entertained with crayons/drawing and ultimately my phone for videos.  When we got to the restaurant, Jesselyn was so happy to see Logan that she almost fell out of her chair, but unfortunately, Logan did not really reciprocate.  Logan sat down next to Ian which he warmed up to quickly; they seemed to have fun talking with each other and watching the phone together. We had a good lunch, and I had a good time catching up with others.  After lunch, all the kids started playing with each other, playing hide and seek around the table.  There were a lot of giggles and laughter; we finally decided to leave the restaurant before they got out of control.

    After nap, we just hung out at home to wait for the grandparents to arrive.  When the door bell rang, the kids both got so excited and curious.  They were shy initially, hesitating to give hugs, but Logan warmed up quickly as he has been looking forward to see the grandparents for a long time.  Connor, to our surprise, warmed up quite fast too; he held Grandpa’s hand and asked Grandma to read to him.  Connor was very clingy to us just a month and a half ago when we last saw the grandparents; I think the change was partly due to Connor copying everything Logan does these days.  Connor was also so funny that every time when grandpa left the couch, Connor would go find him and direct him to return to the seat.  Both boys behaved well and were so content playing with the grandparents that Stuart and I could leisurely get dinner ready.  Now that the grandparents have arrived, we can really feel that the holidays are here.

     Logan has been asking to go back on the cruise lately, and he said the best part of the cruise was watching movies on the ship.   As the first day off from daycare today, we decided to take Logan to see a movie.  There was not a cartoon movie showing today, so we thought “the Muppets” may be the most interesting one for Logan.  Stuart decided to hang out with Connor at the mall while Logan and I went to the theater there.  Logan was so excited for the show, we ran into the theater and he picked our seats.  He even forgot to ask me for popcorn until we were already seated, so I could deny him easily.  We sat through all the advertisement and the previews, and the movie finally began.  After like 5-10 minutes of it, Logan asked for something else, and another 10 minutes, he told me that he wanted to go home.  I offered the snack that I brought for him, then he happily continued to watch the movie.  But when he finished with the snack, he had made up his mind to go home.  So after sitting down for total of an hour and 10 minutes, we left.  I guess Logan is still more interested in cartoon movies only. 

    According to Stuart, he and Connor had fun hanging out and walking around the mall.  Connor was actually sleeping on Stuart’s shoulder when we met up with them.  We walked around a bit longer there, and had lunch before heading home for naptime.

    After nap, we walked over to our neighbor’s house for a scheduled play date.  The boys had a blast playing with the toys at their house.  After some warming up, Logan and Caleb played quite well together.  Connor followed their lead and played along with them, but at times, he just wanted to play with some baby toys on his own.  After over two hours of playing, we returned home to have dinner and our evening routine.  By the time the boys finished the bath, we realized that we forgot about Stuart’s last basketball league game tonight.  It was too late by then for him to go and besides he already had beer at dinnertime.  Stuart was disappointed missing the last game of the year as he is going to skip the next season too, so there will not be a routine exercise for him for awhile.