I’ve been taking the last two months to readjust to working life … I know I just work part-time, but it’s pretty close to 20 hours/week and all of those work hours are outside of home so its been a big lifestyle shift for me. Not gonna lie .. I miss my old life 😂 I miss being my own boss and making my own schedule. Anyway, that’s not what this post is about – this post is going to be more of a big life update/photo dump. I’m planning on doing a separate post about how work is going though!

star of the week

A was the Star of the Week in her class during October! We got to make a little “All About Me” type of slideshow and come in while she presented it to her class.

Part of being Star of the Week also means you get to bring the class stuffed bear home and write about the bear’s adventures in the class journal … A has the same kindergarten teacher her older sister had and her teacher was sweet enough to dig up E’s class journal from 2016-2017 so we can look back at what the class bear did with E when SHE was in kindergarten. I’d forgotten everything (I was so pregnant) so it was fun for us to look back at the memories together.

after school…

I really promise I’m not TRYING to make my kids or my schedules busier than they need to be but we are in the season of life when we have three kids who are all “of age” to participate in extracurriculars. And even if each kid only did two things (like one sport, one instrument), that’s SIX different lessons I need to shuttle around to. Anyway, we recently switched the kids’ piano lessons to an in-person music studio that’s much closer to our house. Their previous teacher switched to Zoom when the pandemic first hit and over two years later, it was clear he had no intentions of changing that. I don’t know about you but Zoom piano lessons are NOT how I think kids should be learning an instrument, especially not now that we’re all vaccinated AND have already had COVID (TWICE). I think the switch was long overdue and all the kids, A especially, seem to be learning better with an actual in person teacher. Go figure.

Both D & A played soccer this fall … well D’s team is year-round since it’s a competitive league but A joined the kindergarten rec league and had so much fun! She was SO excited to get a little trophy at the end of the season (participation trophy LOL) 😂

A is also REALLY starting to get into dance now … I mean, she’s always been really interested in it but I’m noticing her taking the interest up a notch these last few months. I love watching her prance and dance around!

family pictures

We also took our annual holiday/fall family photos with our usual photographer, Sanny from Lilac & Vine Photography and of COURSE, she did not disappoint. I booked it late with her because I was hesitating over whether I should just reuse some shots from our photos last year (we did ours last year at home with our Christmas decor all around and I’m still obsessed with it). When I finally got in touch with her, I just asked for a mini session since it was already a little late to be booking full sessions and the mini session was really all we needed for this year! Here’s a sneak peek for what you might see on our card this year 😉

glamping

One big thing we did this fall was take our kids glamping at Mendocino Grove! People. I am not a camper. At all. And I understand that glamping is not true camping BUT??? I really had the BEST time. I finally get a little bit of what all the hype around camping is. You’re just in beautiful fresh air nature all weekend, surrounded by people you love, unplugged from life’s distractions … I get it now. I get it. That said, this mama was really happy for fancy bathrooms and real heated beds to sleep in at the end of every night. Ready for the glamping photo dump?

pumpkin patch

And of course we did our annual trip to the same pumpkin patch we always go to … had to take our “How Tall this Fall” picture!

halloween

I don’t have his picture here but I’m pretty sure A has a little boyfriend in her kindergarten class. He is the cutest little half Korean/half Chinese boy … I caught them holding hands in the library and they are just ALWAYS together. She calls him her best friend and she begged me to ask his mom if we could trick or treat together 🙃 so I made it happen for her LOL. And yes .. our entire family dressed up this year in ACTUAL costumes (not repurposed everyday clothes).

(*Can we all just collectively agree that Halloween on a Monday should be forever banned? Why can’t Halloween just be the last Saturday of October, like Thanksgiving is always the second to last Thursday of November?)

our niece

Our one and only niece turned ONE in November and had the sweetest little dohl (Korean first birthday) celebration in Southern California. We couldn’t miss this chance to celebrate so we all flew down to spend time with her and the other cousins!

Was there a cousins sleepover at the grandparents house? Yes. And did one little kindergartener get kicked out of said sleepover for being a nuisance after hours? Yes. Little A was keeping everyone awake so at around 11pm we pulled her out and made her sleep with us LOL. She … was not happy about that. BUT! I guarantee that the next time we have a cousins sleepover and tell everyone it’s LIGHTS OUT .. she’ll listen 😉

doggos

Now that Daisy is 1 and Kylo is almost 3 .. I feel like we’re FINALLY hitting a groove where it makes sense that we have two dogs. I do not regret getting Daisy at all, she’s the dog I thought Kylo was going to be 😬 She’s gentle, sweet, follows me around, sleeps… Kylo is still needing to be “managed” actively (meaning, I’m never just gonna let him be free in the house alone). Just the other week, he tried to bite E so honestly? He’s just lucky he still has a home with us.

christmas things

Well, y’all KNOW that your girl started pulling out the Christmas cheer as soon as November hit. I’ve been rocking my cheugy Christmas sweaters … earrings … OH! And the BIGGEST splurge I have made so far this holiday season was I bought Christmas bedding for EVERY SINGLE one of us. It was a big purchase and I have zero regrets. My house looks like a Hallmark Christmas movie.

middle school things

E is getting SO big .. she’s just a few inches shy of my height. She wears a size 5 shoe (I’m a size 7). She’s thriving in middle school, guys. Making way more friends than she ever did at elementary school… her elementary school did a great job of raising autism awareness and inclusion but in hindsight I wonder if that pigeon holed her a little bit because she never got invited places/playdates. One trimester into middle school and I’ve already been contacted by two random moms because their daughters (who are also on the spectrum) want playdates. I think middle school is just a bigger pool of fish, and more room for quirks to exist and it be okay, you know? Anyway, I am so happy that SHE’S happy. She recently went on her very first church youth group retreat (which was SO trippy for me as a parent to send her on). I picked her up and she was … SO happy. Not tired at ALL. Like literally glowing when I picked her up. Sigh, I love her.

random, final thoughts

If you’re a fan of the Trader Joe’s horseradish chips … you need to run and go stock up! Every time I go, I buy (no joke) 6 bags. You know why? My husband likes to eat one entire bag in a sitting so if I don’t stock up, I’ll never get to eat them. RUN!

I don’t remember where we were driving home from but A was SO tired, she passed out in the car in this exact pose. I was dying.

Aaaaaand! Last update for this post – A has pink eye! We’re pretty sure it’s pink eye anyway … viral pink eye. She’s been complaining of a sore throat for a few days and then suddenly started getting huge globs of gunk in her eye over the weekend. This picture actually doesn’t look that bad but at one point her eye swelled up so badly she looked like Quasimodo. After lots of rest, warm compress, and a salt gargle (for the sore throat), her eye is actually looking a lot better so fingers crossed it will clear up on its own. We do have a doctor’s appointment for her in case she needs prescriptions though.

That’s it! Miss you guys!! I don’t know what blog/IG content will look like now that I genuinely have almost no free time anymore but I do know that I want to make time and space for this blog. The posts and updates might be super infrequent but I don’t want to just abandon this place altogether. So… stay tuned!