It’s “All about me” week in Tyler’s class this week. His weekend project was to make himself out of a manila folder that was provided.

Nat lost her 3rd tooth today during lunch at school. She said the ‘Yard Duty’ sent her to the nurse’s office to rinse her mouth and the nurse gave her a small envelope for her tooth. She’s talking with a light lisp now.

We decided to skip going to LA for Labor Day weekend this year and instead stayed around for some relaxin’ fun. On Saturday, we decided to make use of our annual membership and went to Monterey Bay Aquarium again.

What’s everyone looking at?

Penguins!!

Tyler ate a hot dog again

And we shared some sweets

Nat took a nap

After the aquarium, we rented this surrey and rode around. It was cold!

Then we had some delicious Cioppino at Phil’s Fish Market in Moss Landing

Yesterday was the first day of school. All summer long, we’ve had mild temps in the low to mid 70s mostly and yesterday it was 104!

Natalie was excited about starting 1st grade. One of her buddies from Kingergarten is in the same class as her so she was happy about that.

Tyler on the other hand, was not excited about starting Jr. K. In the morning, he was cranky and said he didn’t want to go to school and how he wanted to go to Rosamaria’s house instead. But after some encouragement (and bribery with the iPad), he was in better spirits about going to school.

“Good-bye mom, see you later!”

As a last quick mini-vacation before school started, we went on a weekend trip to Monterey and visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The kids had a great time checking out all the sea creatures and Natalie even got to touch a sting ray. Their favorite part of the trip: staying in a hotel.

We saw Nemo and Dory

Watched a penguin feeding

Kaiya, this one’s for you!

Scuba guy feeding the larger fish & sharks

All that walking made Tyler really hungry!

There was a big candy store outside that all of us were really excited to be in!

I’ve was in San Diego the past 2 days for work. Last night, I get a phone call from Tyler asking me where I was and when I would be home. I told him “tomorrow” and he said “Can you please come home today, please??” I was touched he really missed me! Then I asked, “Why do you want me to come home?” and he replied “I want to play with your iPad.”

David was installing blinds in our room and she tripped on one of the boxes and sprained her foot.

Last week, the kids had their annual visits with Dr. Yen. They both did a good job. Tyler had to get an immunization shot at the end, but he was really brave and didn’t cry! Natalie was happy to learn that she doesn’t need to get another shot until she turns 11.

I’ve been thinking about blogging about what the kids eat for dinner for sometime now and I finally did it. So here goes:

Sunday: Grilled chicken, grilled peppers and onions, grilled asparagus, steamed corn on the cob, and hummus with flat bread. Rice.
Kids rating: 4 stars (out of 5). They love to eat chicken and rice.

Monday: Spaghetti with mushrooms
Kids rating: 3 stars

Tuesday: Rotisserie chicken from Costco and green beans. Natalie and I walked to Lucky’s on Monday evening and I let her pick out the vegetable we would eat on this night. She chose green beans. So when I started cooking, I let her clean the string beans. I once read that if you let your child help with the cooking, they will want to eat the food more because they helped prepare it.
Kids rating: 5 stars

Natalie had her face painted at summer camp that day. She’s a bear.

Wednesday: Chicken noodle soup. I used the left over rotisserie chicken from the night before. It was perfect since 3 of us had a cold!
Kids rating: 5 stars

Thursday: Taco night! Build your own tacos. The kids had meat with rice.
Kids rating: 3.5 stars

Friday: Burmese noodles at Yee Po’s house
Kids rating: 4 stars

Saturday: Taco night again. We had alot of leftover tortillas.

Tonight was movie night. Movie selection: Toy Story 2. We’re trying to get the kids hyped up so they’ll be ready when we go watch Toy Story 3 in theaters. (If we ever find the time to!) We ran out of popcorn, so the kids substituted with chex mix.