The Interview

So to finish up Alex week and begin a week of Cade I conducted an interview with the boys. Here's the script from Alex:

What is your name? Alex

How old are you? Alex

What did you have for lunch? (whispers to my face ‘lunch’, followed by a kiss)

What is your favorite snack? No favorite snack

What is your brother’s name? I wanna go play

What is your mommy’s name? alex

What is your daddy’s name? momma

Do you like nursery? yes. I talk with my friends

What is your favorite train? Cranky the crane

What is your favorite color? no

What is your favorite food? no

What is your favorite drink? No

That concluded my interview with Alex. This truly demonstrates his stubborn nature because I think he knows all of those answers except how old he is. He just didn't want to answer. Have I also mentioned how kissy he is? He'll just come and cuddle with me and kiss my hand, all the way up my arm and then mouth, nose, eyes, ears, you name it. He just loves to kiss!

Now here's the same questions with Cade. He wanted me to add, what is your favorite toy, to the list, and then i had to expound on his favorite toy so as not to frighten all of you. He doesn't even have this toy, he just wants it. :)

What is your name? Cade

How old are you? 4

What did you have for lunch? macaroni

What is your favorite snack? Cinnamon toast crunch

What is your brother’s name? Alex

What is your mommy’s name? Laura (lowla)

What is your daddy’s name? Daniel

Do you like primary? Yes.

What is your favorite part of primary? Having a snack. (nice)

What is your favorite train? The polar express

What is your favorite color? Blue and purple

What is your favorite food? Cinnamon toast crunch

What is your favorite drink? Chocolate milk

What’s your favorite toy? The Red Death.

What is the Red Death? Giant big and it came from How to train your dragons


Now you can look forward to a week learning a little more about Cade!

The day alex ate the stick

When we were trying to wean Alex off of his pacifier we had been putting him to sleep on our bed while Cade went to sleep in the top bunk. Once Alex would 'finally' pass out we'd move him over to the bottom bunk. This night was no different. We put the kids in their respective spaces and watched a show of our own in peace. There was no evidence of what was apparently taking place in our room until we were getting ready for bed. It turned out that Alex had been sifting through our entire room and found, 'the stick'

It had been dug through, spread all over our bed, and upon closer inspection, eaten. His breath just smelled way too clean, if you know what I mean.

Being in a foreign country, there was really no way (at the time) to call poison control. We called the E.R. at the Army hospital and since they were having troubles reaching poison control too they advised us to come in just to be safe. I made the trip and they monitored him for a little bit, but finally received info from poison control that even if he had eaten the whole thing the most he'd experience is vomiting and diarrhea. They advised us to hydrate him and sent us home.

Upon leaving the E.R. Alex had the biggest tantrum of his lifetime. I'm not sure what set him off but he literally screamed all the way home, and it was a chore to get him unbuckled and up to our 4th floor apartment. About 30 minutes later, Alex experienced a side effect the doctors hadn't mentioned. Insanity. The video's a little long, but well worth the watch, I promise.



I had never seen Alex act like that, or since, thank goodness. He truly was not himself that night. Now whenever he's sees the stain remover he says in a stern voice, "Don't eat the stick!"

True true

Trains

I'm not sure it's possible for my boys to be more obsessed with trains. It started with a simple viewing of a Thomas the Train episode at a friend's house and has bloomed, no, exploded into virtual train station at my house! Though Cade was the initial train connoisseur, Alex was sure to follow in his brother's footsteps. In fact, I think in some ways he like trains even more. We got them a train that went around the Christmas tree this year, and long after the presents were open and cade was playing with new toys, I found Alex doing this:

He asks me every day if we can put up the chugga train, but for now it's just a Christmas decoration.

So here's a few tidbits of info on Alex and trains:

  • His favorite Thomas episode is Hero of the Rails
  • His favorite train right now is his Lego Thomas
  • His favorite train song is the Polar Express song by Josh Groban
  • Anything can be a train or train track, including zippers, hymn books and shower curtain rods!
  • He seems to get joy out of destroying the tracks Cade builds
  • A few other favorite train shows include Dinosaur Train, Mickey's Choo-Choo express and of coure Polar Express
  • His favorite real train is the 6 train by our house
Just wait until we have Cade week and talk about his obsession with trains!

Chuggachuggachuggachuggachuggachuggachuggachuggachuggachuggachuggachuggachugga

Winter

So I blame the lack of blog posts on this very cold winter we're having here. Last weekend the high was between 9-12 degrees and we get on again off again snow. In fact today it started snowing while were in church, snowed all the way home and into the night. We'll see if it keeps up! The boys have also been sick with some pink eye, coughs, strep and ear infections. So now that we're all feeling better and everyone is stir crazy, we're still not going anywhere adventurous!

That's why I've decided to take some of this non-eventful time and re-acquaint you all with the family. This week we'll start with Alex. I've got some fun videos that I'll share throughout the week as well as some fun stories and quotes.

Alex is 2 1/2 and the toddler stuff is in full swing. There are some things he does that baffle me, until I remember that Cade did those sorts of things at this age too. Ya know, flipping out over something little like how I opened his gogurt, or insisting on filling his own water cup. Still he isn't as demanding as Cade was. Stubborn, yes. Demanding, not so much. Cade had to help me with every step of the breakfast making process and if I forgot to have him push the microwave button or help pour his milk, it was a big long tantrum. Alex isn't so picky.

It's funny how different they really are. I remember Cade let go of a balloon at this age and man, it was the end of the world. He screamed and cried and we could barely get him into his carseat. Alex let go of his balloon a few months ago and he just watched it go and said, "Oh no! Balloon up in the air!" But Cade hasn't harbored any memories of the balloon while Alex tells me every day, "Balloon up in the air. Don't let go" Tee hee..

So here's just a quick video to show you my joyous Alex. More to come throughout the week!

Hard to believe it

I still can't believe Cade is reading. I'd like to say we did something to attribute to his reading skills, but other than reading a book every night before bed it was all up to him. He's always been obsessed with letters, learning his alphabet and their sounds at 2 years old, and then last spring it was writing all the letters, and then words, and then recognizing words and then full blown reading. Today I took the garbage out, and when I came back inside this is what I found! So sweet :)

I did it!

I ate sushi!

The other day Dan brought home some Kimbap,

which resembles sushi a bit, but has no fish, just vegetables, egg and rice. I quite enjoyed it, and Dan insisted that if I liked Kimbap that I would like sushi. But if you know me at all, you know I pretty much detest fish. Texture, taste, smell, everything about it. The only one I've been able to tolerate is salmon. So the thought of raw fish? No way.

But I did like that Kimbap....

So the idea stewed in my head for awhile until one night when I told Dan I didn't feel like cooking and he said, "Should we go to Itaewon and get sushi?" I hesitated and said yes. He was taken aback, of course, and he actually hunted for some sushi around Hannam Village but wasn't able to find a place with an English menu. So we waited until we could get a sitter and tonight we went to Rollin' with some friends from the Band. Check out this platter!


I was definitely nervous to try it. The restaurant neighbors a recently built Taco Bell, so I knew I had a back up. And for those of you sushi pros, you know you have to stick that whole piece in your mouth, there's just no other way around it. These rolls were quite large, and honestly I think that was the hardest thing for me. If I could have cut them in half I may have enjoyed it more. So overall sushi wasn't terrible! (except for one piece) And I may even eat it again. Now that's sayin' something!

Sledding in Seoul

We finally live somewhere where the kids are old enough to sled and they have sledding! Minnesota would have been a great place to sled, but Cade was about 6 months old when we lived there. So a friend recommended this sledding area, and despite a chilly 20 degrees, we spent the last afternoon of our holiday break playing in the snow!

Here's cade half bundled up and excited to go!

First time sledding!


So I have to tell you a little more about this place, because these Koreans are very crafty. See, the sledding place was called Ttuskeom Resort, but don't think of a hotel/resort. In the summer it is a splash park/pool area. In the winter they convert it into a 'winter wonderland'. They make their own snow, but since it had recently snowed you couldn't really tell. They also add a custom sled hill, which is manned and monitored. In fact, the bunny hills were monitored. I got a pretty nice glare from one when Alex's sled hit someone else's. Sorry! It's crowded!




The boys had a blast, and alex really enjoyed collecting snowballs to put in his sled.



Notice the snow covered stairs? (and the full grown woman riding down them?) This is a wading pool that is currently being used as a sledding area!

I had to include this picture because it has the sledding hill in the background, between me and Alex. I think we would have gone on it more than the few times we did if you didn't have to return your inner tube after riding and wait in line all over again not only for another tube, but for your turn to go down the hill.


We look forward to sledding again this winter, but maybe on a little bit warmer of a day :) Maybe we'll also go here again in the summer so you can see what it's like 'normally'!

Our family

Our family

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