well, he won't be an american idol.

hi. it's me delaying writing actual posts again. hurricane sandy + end-of-the-quarter + upcoming parent-teacher conferences = eating lots of chocolate and not doing any actual work including blogging.

so. here's a little video from our hurricane stay-at-home days. choi boy loves himself some singing, but honestly, he's not going to be making a career out of it. grown-up cb, if you read this, i'm sorry, but you have so many other amazing talents. just being honest, baby. ;)

but, it sure is stinking cute! here is his version of  "baa baa black sheep".


my favorite part is that he honestly think the people live down the drain. and the "have-en-enny wool"s.

:)

CBisms.

welcome to another edition of CBisms...aka, the funny and ridiculous things my child says that i don't want to forget. :)

indulge me a moment, will you?

choi boy, on self-reflection:
the other day, we were at the library for storytime and cb was being...not so pleasant. (in his defense, the storytime was dreadfully boring and the lady didn't even sing pete the cat correctly, let alone even reading the words properly.) later on, at the mall, cb looked up at me and we had the following conversation:
cb: mommy?
me: yes, baby?
cb: i'm sorry.
me: sorry about what?
cb: i'm sorry about the library. 
me: oh? why are you sorry?
cb: i was screaming and whining. i'm sorry.
he might have earned an extra fruit snack afterwards...

cb, the junk food lover:
while we were at wegmans, the bin at the start of the register line was full of packages of cotton balls. cb excitedly squealed and exclaimed:
"oooh, mommy! look at all those marshmallows!"

and while on one of our many visits to chick-fil-a, as soon as we got out of the car, cb said,
"mommy, today, i want BROWN nuggets NOT white nuggets. okay? okay??"
seems the boy already appreciates fried goodness over grilled chicken...

cb, on colloquialisms:
while running in circles on a recent walk, i told cb to slow down and calm down a bit. to which he shouted,
"oh! i need to chill down? okay! i'll chill down!"

on his doggy sister:
one of cb's chores is feeding piper. piper is eager to eat at any moment and once she hears her food container being opened, she runs over. cb, relishing the only authority he really has in this family, often lectures piper as he feeds her. this snippet is one my favorites:
"piper, you have to be patient. i have to help you... you don't have arms, girl!"

and finally,

cb, on fashion:
it's no secret that i love boys in cardigans. so you can imagine that the hubs' wardrobe boasts a few. the other day, the hubs pulled out a cardigan he hadn't worn since last winter. cb looked the hubs up and down and the two of them had this conversation:
cb: is that mommy's sweater?
the hubs: no! it's mine!
cb: why are you wearing mommy's sweater? did mommy let you borrow it?
the hubs: it's not mommy's. it's daddy's sweater.
cb: that's so nice that mommy let you borrow her sweater!
the hubs: it's not -- forget it.

he promptly took the cardigan off. and then i made him put it back on so i could take this snap for this post:

you be the judge. i think he looks good. cb is three.

i tell ya. sometimes, watching my little boy grow before my eyes is no fun. time can be a jerk. but, watching him grow in language development and hearing him share his thoughts in these conversational gems are enough to turn my heart into mush.

i love my growing boy.

midwest tour recap, part 1.

oh, hi. remember how we went to chicago 2 months ago? no? yep, that's because i never got around to posting any of the gazillion snaps i took.

now that it's a whole season later, i thought it would be the perfect time to do some catch up posts. (haha.) so, for the sake of posterity (and for my sweet in-laws that check the blog daily!), here is the first part of our time in the windy city and the cheese state!

i think the best part of our trip was watching these two crazy kids hang out together:

(can i get an "awwww"??)

molly and choi boy are two days apart and are quite the dynamic duo. and now that they're preschoolers, it's pretty hilarious to watch them really play together. (or, try to play together and then get caught up on the whole taking turns thing and bossing each other around business).

most of the time, the two of them were just about as sweet as sweet can be together.

molly was wonderful about sharing all her toys and cb loved playing with all the pink toys :)

molly even shared her daddy!

and when we headed up north to hahmuhnee and hahbuhjee's house, the fun continued!

there was fort-making,

and more sidewalk chalking and chalk-painting,

(dude. that chalk paint is the bomb diggity.)

general running amok all over hahmuhnee and hahbuhjee's yard,

and you know, sweeping.

natch.

even though these little rascals don't get to see each other but a few times a year, it is a dream come true to see them play when we do get together. 

more to come on our trip (including the little cousins' visit to the children's museum) soon!

or, you know, at least before january.

a sweet celebration

For months leading up to CB's third birthday, I asked him what kind of party he wanted to have. We had been to many birthday parties throughout the year, so I thought he'd be inspired by some of the licensed character themed parties we attended. I decided I'd be nice and let him have a Mickey Mouse or Thomas party if he wanted one (normally, I'm *that* mom and don't let CB wear licensed characters on his clothes, with exception of underwear or pajamas!). CB on the other hand, had only one thing on his party brain: candy. Anytime I asked him what he wanted to do for his party, he said, "Candy! I just want candy!"

So, candy it was. And candy we did.

I decided to go with CB's (slightly scary) sweets obsession and have a Candyland themed birthday party. And you know what? It was a lot of fun! And easy, too!

I wanted the party to be as low-key as possible -- so I focused the theme on the sweets table:

I made a banner with different colored cardstock cut into candy and sweets and then used a Candyland-ish font for CB's name.

We also made a mini candy buffet using different jars to hold the candy. And I made the cake to kinda sorta resemble the Candyland board.

It was pretty much sugar upon sugar upon sugar. But, hey, birthdays only come once a year, right?! ;)

The rest of the decor was really simple:

Those colored paper balls were from Target and I wrapped colored plates in wax paper to resemble large wrapped hard candy. 

And wherever possible, we used pops of color in whatever was necessary for the party:

I also used some sidewalk chalk paint to paint the driveway:

The sidewalk paint ended up being quite a hit among the little party guests, too!

Being that CB and his pals were all three and under, we just put out bubbles, chalk, paint and lots of balls and sports equipment and let them play and mingle.

For food, we had pizza and Chick-fil-A nuggets and a few Korean dishes to honor CB's Korean heritage. It was very casual and relaxed and totally what we had wanted for CB's party.

We did try to do one organized activity with the little ones, which proved to be hilarious and turned out just as one would expected an "organized" activity with 3 year-olds to be. We played a cake walk type game, but instead of numbers, we used large Candyland spaces and the game cards.

After that, it was time for cake!

CB loved singing the Happy Birthday song to himself was just tickled at the fact that he got to blow out the candle!

He was a little over excited. If you look closely, you can see a line of drool coming from the birthday boy's mouth (and the look of disgust on my face!). We keep it classy. Don't worry, the little drool bomb landed on the table cloth.

And the little guests were happy to eat up the sugary sugary cake!

Over serious conversation, apparently. 

Though CB looks serious in nearly all these photos, don't be fooled he really did have fun!

And we did, too!

Even Hahmee and Hahbee had fun! 

We loved celebrating our sweet 3 year-old! :)