Customer Service

Sam and Sadie were playing restaurant. Sam was the chef. Sadie was the customer.

He had two plates - blue and purple. He gave the blue to Sadie. He put the purple at an empty spot.

She indicated she would like the purple one.

He wouldn't give it to her.

She declared a bit louder she wanted the purple one.

He wouldn't give it to her.

I intervened, asking why he couldn't just give her the purple since nobody else was using it.

I explained to him the concept of "The customer is always right."

"Well, at my restaurant the customer is not always right. At my restaurant you get what you get and you don't throw a fit!"

It's so pretty!

We have had a little bed rotation around our house in the last week.

Joe and I (after many years thinking about it) have upgraded to a king size bed.

(And why didn't we do it sooner when we had kids trying to join us in bed in the middle of the night on regular basis!?)

Our old bed went to the guest room.

Sam got the guest room full-size bed.

(Which almost makes me as happy as our king-size, since now when I put him to bed at night and chat for a while I no longer have to teeter on the edge of his twin-size one.)

When he moved up, Sam got to pick out a new quilt to match his room that would fit his new bed.

That led to Sadie picking out a new quilt since she had been living with a random boring tan hand-me-down comforter from us. She picked a purple one, which in turn led to new sheets, new curtains, and new wall decorations.

(I actually turned her down the first time when she asked for a purple one since she had a perfectly good one that already worked, but then I thought to myself She just picked purple! Purple! Not a blue one to match her brother! Not her brother's old one! I should jump on this purple-y bandwagon while I have the chance!)

(You'll have to excuse all the ! in that previous thought - it was a very exciting thought!)

(And what does that say about my life right now that my daughter wanting a purple quilt is exclamation-point-provoking?)

But the highlight of the whole bed-shifting redecorating procees was realizing this treasured quilt from our friend Marlene coordinated with her room perfectly.

I put it on her bed while she was at school. When she walked in her room that afternoon I heard a really loud, "THANK YOU MAMA! IT'S SOOOOOO PRETTY!"

(I tried to recreate it on video, but didn't quite get it. However, the bouncing does a pretty good job of capturing her enthusiasm!)

Yes, sir!

The kids started a martial arts class today: a 3-week "trial" to see if they like it. It was so much fun to watch them interact with their instructor. He was impressed with Sam's listening skills and his jumping jacks, but had to encourage him to respond with loud enough replies. He was impressed with Sadie's skills at being loud and found her "bounciness" kind of amusing.

Here's Sadie standing in the attention stance. She did a good job paying attention most of the time, but every once in a while could be found examining the ends of her belt or bouncing up and down on her toes.

Ready to punch - those words made Sam very happy!

Sadie doing pushups, which were actually quite impressive!

It's Sam's turn - equally impressive.

Harvest Moon Festival and Chuseok - this year!

We celebrated this year with Korean food for supper (thanks to Aunt Elisa for the cookbook!). We had Sam's favorite noodles in japchae and some Korean melon and mango.

Both kids did well with their Pororo chopsticks (again - thank you Aunt Elisa) and noodles. I think I need a set for myself. 

 Ready to eat mooncakes: Chinese in the middle, Korean around the outside. I was smart and just bought them this year.

 Sadie liked this one. Sam (and Joe and I) weren't that fond of either variety. My definition of anything containing the word "cake" involves A LOT more sugar.

 The kids got to stay up until it was dark to see the moon. They jumped around shouting "The moon! The moon! The moon!" like they had never seen it before.

 Our interpretation of the holiday included sparklers this year. We had some from 4th of July we never used (due to the ER trip for Sam's arm) and figured we'd just get them really wound up before we attempted to put them to bed.

Harvest Moon Festival and Chuseok...last year

So - here are our preparations for the Harvest Moon Festival and Chuseok from last year. I went to look them up on the blog and discovered they weren't there, so I though I had better get them up before we celebrate for 2011 tomorrow. 

We made our own mooncakes and ricecakes last year. We made the Korean ones fairly authentic (though I did nearly burn down the house when I lit the cheesecloth on fire in my attempt to steam them). The Chinese variety would have been way too complicated for what we had time for, so we made a more kid-friendly (and sweeter) version. 

The finished plate of Korean ricecakes (songpyoen) - some with sesame filling, some with M&Ms (as I was predicting the sesame would not be as much of a hit with Sam as it was with his sister).

 Not so sure about that filling....

 Sadie loved them all - here she is with the simplified (and not really very Chinese) Chinese version of a mooncake.

Sam ended the day with a little moon-gazing. 

Sam's Parade

Sam has decided he's going to be a flag-twirler in a parade someday and needs to get in some practice every day.

Have I lost my mind?

Guess what this is a picture of.

Yes. I let Sadie paint her own nails. (Nicole and Maddi - I need you!)

I think she needs a little more practice before I let her do anyone else's.