My fourth year celebrating Mother's Day (as a mom)! Our Mother's day tradition continues, except I got a bit lazy this year and didn't find matching outfits for all of us.

What does being a mom mean to me?

• Being the last person to eat
• Eating cold meals
• Spending all my money on cute kid stuff
• Sitting in the car while my child naps
• Sniffing butts and analyzing poop
• Constantly looking at pictures of my kid(s)
• Always wearing dirty clothes
• Wiping snot. All.The.Time.
• Getting overjoyed when I get to spend time away from the kids, but then miss and want to see them like crazy
• Showing unconditional love
• Sacrificing
• Eating snacks in secret so I don't have to share
• Believing I can cut my kid's hair and then do a terrible job, but my kid thinks it looks fantastic
• Getting really into kids shows like "Sophia the First" and googling it so I can catch up
• Constantly stepping on little toys (darn those shopkins!)
• Losing all my hair and sporting awkward baby hair
• Sleeping late is 10pm and sleeping in is 7am.  
• Striving to becoming a better version of myself for my kids/family

I'm continually learning/changing, and I'm so grateful I get to experience it all. I love my crazy girls. Happy Mother's Day!

Colorado

We took a 4 day family trip to Colorado a few weeks ago. I've never been and since we had a handful of friends over there, we thought it'd be a nice little trip to take.

• They call Denver the mile high city. Did not know that. 
• It often snows in April. Did not know that. 
• It can get very windy. Did not know that. 

I'd like to start off my stating that I did not pack correctly. It snowed about 2 of the 4 days we were there and the wind was insane. Not having packed enough clothes, we couldn't stay outdoors for too long. The kids just stayed covered up in the stroller. But...we did manage to stop by a few key spots:

• Manitou Cliff Dwellings
• Garden of the Gods
• Air Force Academy
• Capital Hill in Downtown

As for food, tons of breakfast/brunch places to choose from, but not so much lunch and/or dinner. We had some decent sushi one night but the highlight of the trip was definitely our morning meals. I highly recommend One Fold (get the Vietnamese iced coffee and breakfast burrito) and Snooze (the Benny Duo and Cinnamon Roll Pancake is a must). Apparently they opened up a Snooze here in orange county. Definitely got to check it out. Oh and ice cream at Sweet Cow is super yummy!

Overall the trip turned out well. It's always hard traveling with young ones. There's the packing of a million things, making sure they're well napped, well fed, well entertained, etc. I often ask myself why we even attempt to travel with the girls when they most likely won't remember any of it. There's also all that extra suffering. But, I see how much joy Erin has whenever we board a plane and how excited she gets when she sees we get to share a bed, it just puts a huge smile on my face. The girl seriously enjoys traveling. We may suffer, but there are tons of benefits to traveling with kids and I think its good for the girls. The trip was harder for little Ava. She did well on the flight to CO considering we dragged her out of bed at 5am. She was a bit cranky each day, but she had fun walking around and exploring. We slept at a different place each night, so sleep was our biggest challenge with her.

Unfortunately, our trip didn't end on the best note. Ava ended up screaming the last 30 minutes of the flight, thrashing around trying to jump out of my arms. We still aren't sure if it had to with the ear pressure from the trip/flight or whether she was just dang tired of being on the plane. We were that family with that kid. Sorry folks of Southwest Flight 700. We owe you.

Life Lately

Can't believe it's spring already. Cold weather is leaving (I'm not very happy about this) and lots of sunshine is coming our way. Some quick updates of the Kim family:

• Ken: He finally chose a logo for his photography business. Check it out here!
• Grace: I've made the steps of starting a business. It has been a struggle...with feeling insecure and inadequate, but I've opened the doors to putting myself out there. If you want to learn more, check it out here. We'll see what comes of it! Oh and I've been making my own iced vanilla coffee at work, which means I'm saving tons of money!
• Erin: She can write her name and can draw people now!
• Ava: Not walking yet, but shes standing, crawling and climbing everywhere. Oh and tantrums have already started. AHH.

We're heading over to Colorado next month. Our second trip as a family of four! I'll be sharing our CO experience, so stay tuned!

Dear Future Me

Thought I'd start a little series of random thoughts/goals directed to future me. It'll be fun looking back at these posts and see what I can check off.

-----------------------

Dear Future Me (5+ years from now),

I'm sure a Disneyland pass is like a trillion dollars now, but I hope you've convinced Ken to get them for the family or at least got to go a few times? I bet there are tons of new crazy, kool rides!

You said you'd start running and exercising. I hope you got back some of your muscle mass and aren't huffing and puffing anymore going up and down the stairs.

Did baby #3 happen??

Erin best not have her own phone or whatever new electronic device there might be that people are completely fixated on.

Where have you traveled so far? Iceland, Korea, Japan, Sweden, all of the above??

You really really enjoy watching movies and I'm sure that hasn't changed, so I hope you've tried to go out and see at least 2 movies a year.

Hope you're telling your girls you love them a lot. I'm sure they've grown to become incredible little humans.

How's mom doing? Hopefully she has retired by now.

Also, both you and Ken work hard so please tell me you've taken a vacation sans kids. If not, go now.


With Love,

Your younger, not so put together, out of shape self


Must remember them like this..so little and just so darn cute!

Current Parenting Challenge: Underweight Child

Here we are again:
Doctor: "Ava is in the 1% for weight".

This is nothing new to us. Erin was underweight most of her life. The first 6 months of life, Erin was hovering around 45%, but then it started decreasing at each checkup and by 2 years she wasn't even on the charts. Looks like Ava might be on the same track. Doctors look at Ken and expect to see big kids, so when they don't, they get somewhat concerned. Erin's doctor suggested we get blood work done but nothing unusually showed up. We just focused on feeding Erin properly. Erin was a very picky eater (to think it couldn't get worse). Trying to feed an underweight picky child = Difficult. With age she became less picky and has now packed on some weight and at age 3 she actually feels heavy! Hooray! Ava is starting to get picky, but she definitely eats a lot more than Erin did at this age. It's amazing how early kids start to develop food preferences. Ava carefully analyzes what's on her plate and picks out the stuff she doesn't want to eat and throws it on the floor. Goodness. Hopefully it won't take Ava too long to pack on some weight.

Grocery shopping for the girls means buying foods that are high-calorie. Since they both can use some extra pounds, we sort of let them eat anything and everything. We try to keep meals as healthy and balanced as possible, but we definitely don't mind letting them put extra butter on something or eat an extra spoon full of ice cream (yes, Ava has tried ice cream already). Feeding your child can be quite stressful. It's a never ending battle, because one week they'll be eating like champs and the next, they'll want to eat nothing but rice. We're just thankful both the girls love milk. I'm sure at one point in the future, they will just suddenly start to eat well and weight won't be an issue anymore. But till then, we shall battle through this "One more bite!" journey.

Oh, and I remember my mom telling me what a picky eater I was when I was little and how I didn't want to eat anything. Apparently all I ate as a kid was rice with soup and I couldn't finish a McDonald's cheeseburger till I was in the 8th grade. haha! Sorry mom! 😁

Some high-calorie foods and meal ideas:

1. Dairy: Whole milk, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream, creamed soups, pudding
2. Protein: Eggs, peanut butter, bean soups, nuts, hummus
3. Fruits/Veggies: Sweet potato, avocado, dried fruits, bananas, peas
4. Carbohydrates: mac and cheese or any other pastas, french toast/pancakes, mashed potatoes, oatmeal
5. Other: honey, butter, syrup

• Oatmeal with blueberries
• Cottage cheese with strawberry jam
• Banana egg pancakes with nutella
• Toast with cream cheese and whole milk yogurt
• Scrambled eggs with heavy cream and cheese
• Pasta with heavy cream, peas, ground meat and cheese
• Butter on everything
• Cheese slices with pepperoni/deli meat and crackers
• Rice with beans and sweet potato fries 
• Smashed avocados and bananas
• Grilled cheese and smashed avocado sandwich  

My cute picky eaters: