The Zhao Family

This is the first time the kids went ice skating. Since we haven't done anything for the winter mom decided to take the kids for some ice skating sessions. It was rough for them at first but after falling many times they got the hang of it and was having lots of fun while continuing to fall. Mom dressed the kids up to be well padded to minimize bruising all over the body. But they thoroughly enjoy the session.



Her tiny little skates...so cute!




The boys were getting ready for some fun too!


See they can't wait to get in but it wasn't their time yet.


It's always nice to hold on to someone...


Clayton already getting the hang of it after the first 15 mins on the ice.


Bold man...


Even had fun falling!


Brennan's in a different class, so he's on his own.


A little trotting, knee bending, and he slow gets the hang of it.


A little self practice and...


See some amazing things you can do...hahaha (I think he was about to fall)


Since we couldn't get close enough to Brennan, we were able to record his siblings small little ice-capades.







The kids are doing really good in s sense that they learned how to get up on their own and even after falling down, they can get up to fall back down again and still have fun! Awesome!

The last couple days has been really nice weather in the 60s and 70s. And we're enjoying every minute we can. Here's a few things we've done in the last couple weeks.



Our friends from New York stopped by this weekend and we had a gathering at our place to catch up with old friends and everyone's lives. The kids got right onto having fun and Clayton just lead the way.






For Valentines day, Da took the day off to spend time with family at the request of Abbey.

Someone did a little bit of shopping.




Brennan was well loved at school with all this classmates







Guess who's ready for school?


Future career? or maybe something else?





Last week was not that warm so the kids stayed in and was a bit imaginative








On such a nice day and the snow is melting, mom took the kids outside to draw on the sidewalk. Who's the one with the funky hair?

Happy Chinese new year!! The year of Rabbit!! We got the little kids to wear their Chinese outfits. We got ONE good one out of 50+ pics.



Last day of the year, we went to grandparents' house for dinner. It was a feast as you can tell.



Per grandparents' request, we brought the Chinese outfits the kiddos so grandparents could take pictures with the kids.

Here a couple things the kids did during our first snow storm of the year, which also caused havoc in the entire region. Da got stuck in the snow traffic for six hours and didn't get home until 9:30pm. He had to park his car in some neighbor and walked home since the road was blocked with stuck cars.














This was a private lesson/trial for the kids..it was a lot of fun! and cutesy funny too.

Can't believe Cayleigh is TWO already! We went to the doctor today. She is now 26.5lb and around 36 inches long.

Getting ready for her birthday! Baking some carrot cup cakes.





Someone knows its her birthday.





We had two parties this year. This is the one with all her church friends.



The kids decorated their cupcake and sang Happy Birthday with their own cupcake in hand!



You can tell it's hard to get everyone's attention for just ONE picture1





The boys were hiding under the table. No girls allowed.



Then when Cayleigh opened her princess tent. No BOYS allowed!!





Girls tea party started right after the tent was set up.



Happy Birthday to our dear Cayleigh!!!

We're almost done unpacking at home. Actually Abbey did most of the unpacking and she does a fabulous job! Meanwhile I try to help out taking care of the kids. From my activities at home, it almost appears the camera is always with me.




FF has recently wanting to grow up. She has the urge to go peepee and would tell us. She thinks it a game because when she say it, we'd take her to her potty and she would go! but just a little bit, then she's all done. Once she leaves her potty and we put her pants back on, she'd say PP and she would go a little again. She we kind of take her only once, hopefully training her to go once at a time.



Taking bath with three kids is always a huge challenge to make sure they are clean, to stay dry, and to minimize the amount of water outside the tub. As they are getting bigger, the bathtub feels smaller and water appears to have a life of its own splattering everywhere.







How much do you like to take baths? ....TWO THUMBS UP!










After some good reading do I realized that there's some news waiting for me....







It reads, "No parents.Kids Only and Brennan's mom." First thought was, after so many years of giving them showers and baths, cooking pancakes, and brushing their teeth, and tucking them in, I am no longer allowed in the room??? just me!! arggg..where's the father and sons bonding? Once again, moms win.






On the good news, we got some new appliance! It's the cool exhaust fan that we got from NY when we were up there last month. Due to some inexperience of me installing it last time on the old house, Abbey did not allow me to set it up. So two experts spent about three hours cutting through the ceiling, the cupboards, and tunneling the exhaust pipe to outside we got our exhaust fan installed professionally. The difference of me installing it and the pro is $$ and no cold air.