when K misses his blanket

We were eating dinner and K started to get very cranky when he noticed that his blanket which he has been really attached to was sitting on the ground and not within his reach. He just made a mess of his dinner and so of course it wasn't my plan to let him hold his blanket while he was in his mess.

Then he was crying straight for another 20 mins. Next time I know to get his blanket out of his sight while eating. Yep, this is my sweet sweet boy!

E's First Day of School.

It was such an exciting day for me that I now am one of the moms that has to drive their kids to school! He has been really excited about his preschool and he was just really ready! We were all up before 6 this morning. Yeah, that's how excited we all were! I actually couldn't sleep well at all last night, I was trying to rehearse in my mind preparing his breakfast, getting him changed, bringing the list of stuff that the teacher asked... camera... etc...etc...

On the other hand, K has been feeling really crappy from teething. I even took him to the doctor during Eli's school hour, to make sure that he was not sick otherwise. So, yeah, he's teething. Poor thing since the weekend can't sleep/nap well, can't eat well, drooling, rash all around his mouth, eczema, diaper rash, diarrhea, screaming and crying all day long. He has been soooo frustrated. I hope my sweet K get his teeth soon so he doesn't have to suffer like this. It's been such an overwhelming day for me.

Silly boy swinging his backpack while talking our neighbor.

Until he found out my camera spotted him.

So proud of you E! What a big boy!

K's 1 year old birthday

It was K's birthday on June 23rd. Can't believe our baby is 1-year-old already! I have no idea where the time went... I can literally say that he is really growing like a weed. :)

We had a relaxing and enjoyable birthday celebration for K. We first went to the Children's Museum of Phoenix in the morning. It was his first time there and we just had a blast. In the afternoon after the boys nap we had a little celebration at home... it was not a big one, although we were lucky enough to have our gorgeous and awesomely talented neighbor/friend/baker Debbie so kindly to offer to make some yummy cakes for both of our birthday boys, Tino and K, in which their birthdays are only 5 days apart.

Kaian's personal size birthday cake, layered with chocolate cake and strawberries on top.

His cake right next to Tino's super "spoiled" size 4-layer birthday cake, layered with strawberry and yellow cakes, and cream cheese cream layered in between each layers, along with strawberries. 

Our little birthday boy.

We let Tino go first, hoping that K would be prepared mentally for his turn to sing him a birthday song and blow out his candles.

Tino once again, just like last year, could not blow out his candles until, like, his at least 5th try... Look how concerned on all these little ones' faces. He was finally down to 1 candle out of 3 after some of these little one's help.

Nope, our careful planning still didn't help.

Our beautiful friend Debbie who made these heavenly cakes for the boys.

We could not squeeze a smile out of this birthday boy until finally he discovered how tasty his cake was.

Hmm...

K: I can sit here forever just eating my birthday cake.

Just about half way done, needed to take a water break.

Kathryn, Raoul, and Mila who was so determined that I wouldn't be able to get a good picture of her if she kept moving around.

I used these pictures and made a quick banner for showcasing his first years. He's such an adorable baby boy, how did we get so lucky? We are very blessed to have you being a part of our family, K. We love you!

I really need to update this blog more often, kids really do grow too fast for me to keep track of everything.

at war with scorpions from now on.

K just had his birthday a little over a week ago, and I will be posting pictures soon but before I do that I have been wanting to post this post, I sucked at documenting things like this but just wanted to make sure that we will remember this forever, so I apologize for this lengthy, poor written few paragraphs...

On Thursday morning, May 17th, 2012, at 11 am., I put on a swim outfit on K as we were getting ready for a swim at the pool. We were still at home, at first he was fine, just playing around on the floor as I was also getting changed. As I picked him up, all in a sudden, he screamed and cried in pain. At first I thought maybe I pulled his muscles or something, from the way he expressed his pain physically. Not knowing what's going on, I had this really strong impression to remove his shirt. (And as with our knowledge in my church, the impression that I am talking about was the Holy Ghost... and actually it told me in my mind, loud and clear.) As I did that a big scorpion (about 3 inches long) crawled out of his shirt. I was in horror, because I knew it was this that caused my baby's pain. I started panicking. I hit it with the hardest thing I could grab in my reach, a hardcover Dr. Seuss book, probably like 20 times, while still with K in my one arm, with E standing afar off starring at me, I stopped before I freaked my 2 kids off, and until it didn't move a bit anymore. I didn't know too much about scorpion bites, so I called Tino (and it was my lucky day he was free at the moment to pick up my phone call). He just knew that the venom affects infants far more worse than adults and I needed to take him to the ER right away. I left E with my neighbor, so I could take off with K. (And E was a trooper. As soon as I told him what had happened, he told me he would stay with our neighbor because I had to take K to the hospital.) My hands and my body was shaking so badly, and I was breathing like I had just finished an Insanity workout, and I had to try really hard to calm down so I could get K to the ER as soon as possible, and safely.

 I felt so horrible when as I was rushing him to the John C. Lincoln Pediatric ER. During the car trip he was vomiting, screaming and crying, and making scary noises that I didn't even know what he was going through because he was in his car seat rear facing. When I carried him out running to the ER door, his eyes were twitching, his was having spasms and was already getting unconscious, and I could hear that he was having trouble breathing. I was trying really hard to not to show him my fear but tears ran down my cheeks and I screamed at him, "Stay with mommy, K, Stay with me, mommy is taking you to the doctor! You will be ok!" (I never thought that kind of words would have to come out of my mouth to say to my children, especially to a 10-month-old baby.) I thought I was losing him right there. In the back of my head, I was like, "We have just been all thinking about his birthday in a little over a month! He hasn't even have his first birthday yet! Not now! Not like this! Not because of a scorpion!"

As we arrived, they quickly started him on IV (it was hard too to have to watch that big needle being injected into his little hand) and gave him medication to calm him down (and other things, I couldn't even remember), then they started him on the anti venom (and eventually he had about 3-4 doses of the anti venom medication). I was holding him in my arms and there were 5-6 nurses and doctors surrounded me trying to work on K. He was in a really bad shape still, he was crying, and was really uncomfortable. I wish I could take his place to be stung. After 15 minutes or so he was finally a little more settled and they asked me to lay him down and they continued to work on him. His breathing continued to sound funny and seemed to get worse, they explained to me that the venom had protein that caused his airway to be swollen and so he was having difficulty to breathe, so they had to intubate him. (It got more complicated as it was so swollen that even the smallest tube didn't fit in.) At that point, he was put out and they paralyzed him. And Tino excused himself from work and drove over to the ER to see us, about half an hour later.

It was a hard 2-3 hours wait at the ER, but at the same time I was so consumed with the situation it also felt like the time went by way fast. In the meanwhile, they even considered transferring him to the Children Hospital for intensive care if he continue to have trouble with his breathing. After different tries from different doctors, and methods, and time, and he was finally stabilized. He was starting to waking up after about 3 hours and he coughed the tube out (less procedures for the nurses) and he was kicking and moving his little body around. We were so glad to see that he was doing fine.

I stayed with K overnight at the hospital for observation. We were sleeping on a regular hospital bed, and it was a very difficult thing to do sharing with a 10 months old baby who was overly tired and still uncomfortable. He actually almost felt off the bed, too. (And we would just go right back downstairs to the ER??) I think his throat was hurting from intubation and we did not sleep that night at all and he was up and ready to get going 4 o'clock in the morning, but at least he was happy.

It was certain quite an expensive experience, but we learned an extreme valuable lesson. It was incident like this that bring us closer together as a family. It also reminded us how Heavenly Father is always there watching over us, and we just have to listen to the prompting and act upon it. It definitely changed my feeling for my baby K. Not to be confused, of course I have always loved him, but I became even more in love with him. And seems like (and I know) he knew that, too. It make us appreciate life and just glad to be alive and try not to take things for granted.

This was taken after he was stablized. I wish I had the mood to snap a shot at the beginning.

Just woke up, still drowsy from the medication, with droppy eyes.

4 o'clock in the morning, our cute little bud exploring at the hospital playroom.

8 o'clock in the morning, Daddy and big brother came, while waiting for K's pediatric doctor to check us out.

We love you, K. And more happier news coming up...

p.s. My neighbor did confirm to me a few days later that the scorpion that stung K was indeed... dead. They took care of it before Santino got home, so for a while I kept wondering if I had took my revenge on it or not. I used to feel sorry for having to kill them, but that feeling is... gone!

Kk & Ee

These boys are so cute together, they are going to be the best of friends. They were having a blast hanging out on E's big boy bed. And I love the matching shirts that my little sister got for them from American Apparel. Their laugh and laughter are very contagious. Watch out!

I am in LOVE.

I am in love with this boy! E has been my best friend around the house for the past almost 3 years. He is funny, he is sweet, he is groovy, and he is smart. How can you resist this charming little boy?

 I love you, Eli!

hello

So, we still exist! Just not that much on the blog. Time flew and our sweet K is already 4 months old! I love being a mommy of my two boys. It is a lot of work taking care of a newborn baby but totally worth it. We feel that K fits into our family so well... like, he's always been with us. He has been growing so fast. He has been on top of the chart. Last he was being measured he was in his 85 percentile height and 80 percentile weight.

He has a lot of ticklish spots and give big smiles whenever, whoever gives him attentions. We adore him. E would prefer giving him kisses than to us. He loves to take care of him. What a great older brother K has!

Introducing Baby K

Baby K is here!

  

Day 2. First day at home.

 We are all doing really well. The delivery was smooth and we came home the next day. I was scheduled  to be standby for induction on June 23rd. While we got to the hospital I was already dilated to 4cm and was 70% effaced. So it worked out perfectly since I am not the type that like surprises. Santino was able to take a couple days off and went to the hospital with me.

E has been a great big brother and loves being one... from giving him a bottle to getting diapers and wipes when I need to change him, and he loves to give him kisses and hugs. A lot of times we even catches Eli putting a blanket on Kaian without asking. We hope they will be best friends forever!

We love having 2 boys. K adds so much to our family!

who says that E looks only like me?

Last week a friend offered to take some pictures of us because she wanted to build up her portfolio for her photography website. We were so glad to manage to squeeze some smiles off E while playing pee-a-boo. When we got the pictures back we came upon this wonderful one of E with a nice smile, and it totally reminds me of some pictures of Santino when he was younger. 

What do you think?

E definitely has my chin and my nose (the size... but from the front as you can see still look similar to Santino's.)

And here's our best attempt to get a family picture.

dr. seuss onesie

When we had the sonogram while pregnant with E and founding out his gender, we bought a Dr. Seuss onesie (from One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish). This time being pregnant with our #2 we tried looking for something cool for him but found nothing eye catching until we found this! Can it be more perfect? I can't wait to put this on him. Two more months.