Grandma feeds Astrid Korean food for lunch

Astrid and I spend every Monday at my parents' house (aka Grandma & Grandpa's house), and most often my mom will cooked us a Korean feast for lunch.

She loves feeding Astrid rice wrapped in dried seaweed (she makes sure she shakes off the salt), chicken, all sorts of Korean side dishes that aren't spicy, and I've recently noticed that she's been giving her kimchee (with the spicy stuff rinsed off of course).

Meanwhile I get to enjoy my favorite Korean dishes. And when Astrid is done, my mom will take her out into the backyard and push her on the swing so I can finish eating my lunch.

Astrid just saw these photos and pointed and said, "Look! I eating with Grandma."

Carnival in Memorial Park

The Girl Scouts held a fundraising carnival at Memorial Park this afternoon. We ate our tamales in the park after shopping at the Farmer's market as usual, and then stopped by to check out the bouncy house, games and prizes. I spent $5 which equated to tons of fun in the bouncy house (unlimited time for the kids), played 4 games, and came away with a bubble blower in the shape of a monkey for Astrid in the end.

Astrid's 1st dance class

This morning was Astrid's first "Into to Dance" class. The first 30 minutes is ballet, and the last 15 minutes is tap dancing. I had wanted to sign Astrid up for dance class for some time now, but every studio and dance class only accepts kids 3 and over. With her turning 3 in two months, she's just now eligible. What a cutie she is in her pink leotard, pink tights, and pink ballet slippers.

She was so excited about dance class, that when I got up this morning, she had already laid out her outfit and shoes on her bedroom rug, ready for mom to put them on her. Amazing how she remembered all the separate pieces, as I purchased them a week ago and quickly put them away. When I told U. about it he commented, "Organized just like her mother." =) It was hard to get a clear shot with all the jumping around in excitement (on Astrid's part - not mine).

Each class is color coordinated. The youngest class (Astrid's) is all pink. I saw another class dressed entirely in blue.

In addition to the dress code, they're also strict about the girls having their hair up in a bun, and no skirts. Astrid's hair is too layered to pull back into a single bun, (and I didn't want to use hairspray - she's too young for that), so I just hoped the double bun would be okay. But I still got yelled at (or rather chastised) by the owner for not tucking the strings of her ballet shoes in. I took ballet classes as an adult, but we never had those drawstrings so I just thought you tied them into a bow.Getting up early on a Saturday morning to get to dance class by 9 AM was well worth it. I'm preferential of course but I thought Astrid was the cutest girl there and I had a smile on my face the entire time watching her.Adorable!

This was a substitute teacher. Her regular dance instructor will be back next week.

One thing that's not ideal: there's only a small window high up to watch the girls, so you have to stand the entire time in a narrow hallway, crowded by other parents, to watch them. And the window is covered with some film, which makes taking photographs nearly impossible. (I think it's there so the dancers aren't distracted.) So I had to take these photos through a small hole where the flim was pulled off. Not ideal like I said, but still a lot of fun to watch and Astrid loved it.After 30 minutes they let the girls out to change into their tap shoes. Or more precisely, for their mother's to change them into their tap shoes.When class is over the girls line up and curtsy when it's their turn and say "thank you" like perfect ballerinas.

Astrid cried when class was over exclaiming, "More dance class mom!" When I explained that class was over she asked, "Why?!" She just didn't want it to be over. It was new and exciting, and fun. I'm glad that I was so determined to get her enrolled in a dance class now, rather than waiting until she turned 3. She's ready now and already asking me about when she can go back to dance class (because like she tells me "I have to bance mom.")

Yummy lemonade!

We don't allow Astrid juice, but once I let her take a sip of lemonade at Philippe's, (she loved it!), and now she will request it at a restaurant. So occasionally we'll allow her a special treat of her own lemonade drink. Our waiter was nice enough to put it in a coffee cup with a lid so that it wouldn't spill.

Astrid's shadow

Astrid loves looking at her shadow (and mine). So tonight before bed, I turned a desk lamp towards the wall to let Astrid see her entire shadow. And let her shadow play for awhile before bed.

Astrid acts in her first production

The LA Zoo has a performance theater for kids. Twice daily they have volunteering kids dress up and perform roles in a production. Today's productions comes from a children's book called, "The Mitten."Astrid played the part of the "Grandmother". It was really sweet to see. I was excited for her!

I peeked in the back and got a pic of her getting dressed in a gray shawl and old apron, and saw her playing with the other kids. By the time she got on stage though she was really shy. Not surprising because she went on first, and was isolated from the other kids on that chair off to the side of the stage. She had no idea what she was doing, or what to expect. The story starts off with a grandmother knitting mittens for her grandson.The MC feeding Astrid her lines. He was great with the kids.Here you can see the entire stage, complete with a fake Christmas tree, and winter landscape background.The story continues that the grandson drops one mitten and it gets blown into the forest where the other animals find it and climb into it one by one. It was really cute to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes.The grandson finds the mitten and it's all stretched out and HUGE.The kids taking a bow (to the roaring applause of family members).Afterwards when I approached Astrid on the stage, she looked like she was about to cry. Many of the other kids had performed in this production before, but it was Astrid's first time. It was the perfect role for her because all she had to do was sit there, but it might have been more fun for her to play an animal and hide behind the mock glove with the other kids.

(We went back a week later for the zoo's Chinese New Year celebration, and U. had the opportunity to watch the theater performance, but Astrid had a major case of stage fright and did not want to volunteer. She just buried her face in Papa's shoulder and when we asked her if she wanted to be the "mouse" she just shook her head "no" and was on the verge of tears. I hope she gets over her fear because she was so darn cute up there on stage.)

Happy to be at the LA Zoo with mommy

Intoducing Astrid to the voting process

We took Astrid with us to our local polling place to vote in the Presidential Primary (not to mention all the propositions). I normally vote via absentee ballot, but this year I felt it was important to expose Astrid to our voting process; so we waited until U. was home from work and all three of us headed out to vote together.

Chinese New Year arts & crafts at the Cypress Park Branch Library

Astrid and I participated in the Cypress Park Branch - Los Angeles Library arts and crafts class today in celebration of Chinese New Year.First they read a children's book about Chinese New Year.
Then it was time for arts and crafts.

Astrid's not old enough to use scissors yet (that skill set is pretty difficult to master), so I had her use glue to stick on pieces of colored tissue paper as I made a Chinese paper lantern out of cardboard toilet paper rolls, some gold leaf paper, and construction paper.Having fun drawing with markers.
You can see my finished lantern that I made for Astrid, decorated with purple glitter glue.
Afterwards, each child was given a Chinese yoyo.

Arts & crafts are always fun, and it's great that our local library does nice things like this for the community.

Making German pancakes with Papa

Astrid in braids