Enoch's Angry Birds Birthday Party

It was fun to plan Enoch's birthday party because there is no need to guess around what he wants and how to make him happy, he makes sure I know. 

Since Enoch's 4th birthday , we have started kids-only birthday party where parents drop off their kids for a couple of hours at our house. Last year we had about 7 guests and Enoch was a little overwhelmed. So this year, we made sure only 5 kids were invited to keep it small and comfortable for Enoch.

Enoch knows exactly who he wants to be at his party. Enoch favors girl friends. It's no accident that only one boy made the invitation list. I tried to suggest other boys to Enoch and he would say, "I already said no mom!" and looks really upset that I even bothered him with asking again... It's easy on my part, but I also feel kind of sad that some of my good friends' boys didn't get to come. But oh, well, it's Enoch's birthday party not my girls' night out so I can live with it. 

He tells me exactly what kind of cakes he wants. First, he wanted a rocket/spaceship cake. Two weeks later, he changed his mind and wanted an angry birds' cake. Here is a picture of most of the food: 

He knows exactly what he wants to do at his party. 

Upon his request, we played Uno game.

Sweet Elle made her daddy stay a little longer ;) 

Enoch generally loves "pin the tails on the donkeys" kind of alike games, so I had to have a "Pin the beaks on the angry birds game".

Sam gave it a try... OOOPS! 

Enoch also requested two more games and we got to play one of them, which is "who can keep the balloons in the air for the longest time" where Sam cheated. Sadly we forgot to play the other game which was to see "Who can keep one coin on one eye for the longest time", which would have been really fun with the kids, since we have big toy coins from Mardi Gra and kids' always love them when they come over.

He wanted to watch his favorite Angry Birds' videos with his friends. They are all short and funny stories because Enoch absolutely does not like anything sad or scary. 

Enoch surrounded by the girls ;) 

He did also tell me last night that he wanted a pinata again... which didn't happen since it was last min :( 

We also played in the trampoline a little, blew bubbles, and of course built car tracks too. 

Of course we had cake time: 

Enoch wanted to cut the cake!

The party favor bags:

All in all, I think it was what Enoch wanted for his birthday party and he had fun and was comfortable for the most part. And that was the most important thing to us.

Enoch is 5!

Enoch just turned 5 today! 

At 5, Enoch:
1, can read English books by himself; Can read some easy level Chinese books as well;

2, can draw and cut amazing and detailed pictures of things;

3, can ride 2 wheels bicycles;

4, can ride scooters and balance bikes very well;

5, is super good at sharing with his brothers;

6, can be really creative with Legos, Duplos, and train set;

7, loves Angry Bird games, either toys or on the mobile;

8, loves Ninja turtles and turtles in general;

10, loves to give hugs and kisses even though sometimes he can be a little awkward at it ;)

11, loves to play games, especially Uno.

12, loves to pick flowers for me when we are outside;

13, does not want to grow up!


Here are some of funny Enoch-moments:

1, Enoch said to one of his girl friends during a play date: "violet can you please marry me when i grow up because if you don't marry me when I grow up then I'm going to be angry.";

2, Once I told Enoch that since my bottom is small that I can share a seat with him. He said " Don't lie Mommy, your bottom is big big big big big!"

3, Enoch explained what a "Hotel" means: it was like a new house that is not yours but you can stay in it;

4, Once while Enoch was pooping, he said " Daddy, if you use your nose to smell, you will smell poop!"

5, Enoch has always eaten all the skin off his sweet potatoes. Once Sam asked Enoch if he liked eating the skin. He emphatically said no.

6, Once reading a book, I said that when I grow up I want to have a mansion. Enoch said, "but Mommy your not going to grow up again!"

7, Once the kids want us to have another baby, I asked who is going to share the bed with the new baby, Enoch said "But we have sleeping bags..."


Today with Sam home, we had a full day celebrating Enoch's birthday and I think Enoch had lots of fun.

Donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast.

Presents time!

Enoch and his Lego Leonardo! 

Yay for Legos! 

Enoch and Michael posing with their Lego creations. 

Went to Chuck E cheese for dinner. Enoch has been wanting to go. It was really fun!

This was one of Enoch's favorite games tonight. Michael was too afraid to play.

Michael was really focused! 

I think we now have to make a tradition that every kid gets to go to Chuck E cheese when they turn 5. Michael is already looking forward to it ;)

Kids got to webcam with grandma grandpa Rogers before bed time where they showed off all the prizes they got from Chuck E cheese and Enoch opened birthday gifts from grandparents. 


Besides building Legos and chuck E cheese, Enoch played Angry Bird games for quite a lot of time today. It was his request for his birthday and we of course granted it. Enoch said " We had lots of fun today! " And that was what we wanted to hear! 

Utah Fun

We originally planned to drive up to Utah on the 29th, but was gladly warned by Aunt Ann for a big storm and then lots of snow in Southern Utah. So we changed our plans and stayed a couple extra days in Tucson and drove up on Jan 1st. Road condition was not great for my taste if you know how close to blind I am... well I still managed to pass the driving test. Anyways, usually on a nice day I can drive a few hours on the free way with no problem, but the day we drove up to Utah, I was only able to drive for maybe a little over one hour. Sam drove almost entirely the whole way. Thanks Honey! We stayed with Aunt Kerri and Uncle Brett until Jan 6th.

It was really relaxing staying with Aunt Kerri and Uncle Brett. They really tried to make us feel as comfortable as possible. They even tried to make kids' friendly meals which I appreciated so much and made dinners less stressful. We stayed next door to Grandma downstairs. We chose to give the bedroom with a bathroom to the kids and it was the right choice. Don't be jealous but we went in and out of their room, talking, making loud washing noises in the bathroom in the middle of the night and they didn't even make a peep. They are good sleepers just like that!

Our boys loved their dogs Chaco and Tilley (Hope I didn't spell their names wrong) !! I wish I had more pictures to share this cuteness. They have never been around dogs so much like this trip to Utah, so it was super cute to see them being excited around dogs. I think they only got a little intimidated by dogs' full on wet kisses ;) I wish I had more pictures of them and the dogs, but here are some of Peter touching Tilley (right?) on Aunt Kerri's lap:

We enjoyed living next door with Grandma Great. She was really graceful and sweet to talk to. She sometimes gave great advice. We also got to visit Grandpa Great with her on a Sunday afternoon. Though there was different advice about bringing the boys to see Grandpa Great, we eventually decided to bring them any way. And it was the right choice. Grandpa Great was really responsive that day, even though he didn't remember or know us at all, his eyes lit up every time the boys gave him a hug, a kiss or said "I love you". The pic of Peter holding Grandpa Great's hand was precious. I think Peter was saying "I love you", "How are you?"  to him. I took the boys for a walk in the building when they showed signs of being bored and restless (We get that a lot with a bunch of boys ;) ), and we found Grandpa Great's room with his name "Dr. Bruce Neville" on the door (We visited Grandpa Great in the common room area). And we had fun looking at the few pictures on the picture board outside of the door. All in all, it was a super sweet afternoon to remember for years and years to come.

We visited Aunt Shelley and Ann's house. Shelley and Ann's dog Prim was just the right size for the boys. They of course enjoyed playing with her. Enoch asked if he could put beads on Prim and here is what happened: 

Aren't they cute together?! Enoch has some great ideas sometimes. Aunt Shelley and Ann gave us some really good chocolate chips they got from Aunt Stacey. My first time getting these nice chocolate chips! I'm still saving it ;) Shelley gave the boys each a book and it was fun reading books with them. 

We had a really nice relaxing family Sunday dinner at Aunt Kerri and Uncle Brett's house. It was so nice to finally meet Taylor and Shawn right before they moved to Germany. Isn't that crazy that I felt like we've been friends forever on facebook but actually officially met for the first time after so many years? Haha I also got to meet Tailor and Monica. They are all lovely ladies! It was nice to be able to talk to Thomas a little bit about LSAT. I had been freaking out a little bit about how much I have to study to catch up on things that average American already knew just by growing up here. Well, on top of the unique way of reasoning they test that's so different from Science and engineer for Thomas' case. I might write something about preparing LSAT soon. 

We had a very nice lunch at Aunt Melanie and Uncle Roark's house, followed by sledding. We had so much fun! Everybody was happy the whole time which was amazing and proved that it was such a fun activity. Michael just loved it from beginning and wanted to try with different sleds. Enoch and Peter took some time to warm up to it. I eventually got Peter to get on with me together. Even though I don't like snow very much, but I wish we could have a little snow to do sledding with kids more often. Melanie was really nice to let me borrow her very own braided viking hat, I thought it was cute on me ;) 

Aunt Kerri offered to watch our boys for two nights so we could go out. That was really nice of her and we really needed some alone time. First night we went out to eat a nice dinner at Tucano Brazilian Grill. If you know how much I love meat, then you know how wonderful the dinner was. I ate until nothing tasted good any more. The second time, we went out to see the movie "Mockingjay Part I". Have to say that it's the best movie we've seen for a while, way better than "Guardians of Galaxy" and "Frozen". On a side note, we finally watched "Frozen" at Kerri's, our boys hated it, Sam and I got bored and had to fast forward. At least we set and watched "Guardians of Galaxy" without fast forwarding. 

While Sam interviewed on the 6th, I went to Kaitlin's house. She is so easy-going and already planned different things for me to choose to do. We went to planetarium which was FREE, just the right things I like to do with my kids. Houston has so much free and awesome kids stuff that I have a high expectation. And I was not disappointed. The kids loved it. Even though Michael was the typical difficult 3 year old and threw a huge tantrum right on the street, it was still worth it. 

Utah was a lot of fun! Came to think of it, it was Peter's first time to see snow. They all did great! Enoch and Michael enjoyed building a snow castle thing and playing balls with Uncle Brett at a playground around their house. They loved playing snow ball fighting at another cool playground at the station. Just walking down the street is fun too when there is snow :