Olivia’s pre-school class hosted a Thanksgiving party for both the kids and parents. The usual sign up list of party foods to volunteer to bring went up outside the classroom. I would usually sign up for something but this year with the baby and seeing paper napkins and plates already taken (these are always the first things to taken off the list), I passed but planned to attend with Ee-ee Bet to the party.
Olivia sat at a table next to Diego, across from Charles, and diagonal from Mia. Charles’ mom, Joanna, came to the party so it was nice to meet her.
Mia is currently Mimi’s favorite friend. It use to be Melissa, now it’s Mia, in a couple weeks it will probably be someone else.
I had Bet take pictures of Mimi’s art around the classroom.
I (heart) my Mimi!
Our Thanksgiving celebration started out in Long Island at Melissa’s (Jeff’s sister) future sister-in-law, Katie’s, house. Katie and her husband (Joe) have two wonderful kids, Kira and Joey. Though they have only met Mimi once, they embraced her immediately and played with her like she lived down the block.
This was one of the first toys the kids played with. Not the most non-violent…but super fun.
Mimi doesn’t have toys like this at home so she was excited to give it a try.
Mimi loved this guitar. She is obsessed with this YouTube video of a little boy playing a ukulele and wants to learn how to play one also.
We ate Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Martha and Uncle Davy’s house in Long Island. It can be a hard trip out to the Island on holidays because of traffic. It’s suppose to be a 45 minute trip that took us two hours. Good things the girls slept the whole way.
Matty with the baby. He really likes to hold her and talk to her. He will be a good dad.
Group shot. Why are Bet and James so close?
May and my mom. My mom is in the middle of making green bean casserole. The can she is holding is Campbell’s mushroom soup.
Aunt Alice with the baby. Look at those chubby cheeks (on the baby)!
Kimbie and the baby. Moy Moy’s (little sister in Chinese) hair is looking crazy.
My mom and the baby. My mom is the best mom. Not only to me, but to my kids. She is someone I am most thankful for.
It’s always fun to play games on Thanksgiving. Can you guess who is under the table?
Mimi and Artie!
Mimi loves to be a silly goose.
She cracks everyone up. Funny stories and laughing are always a big part of Thanksgiving.
Here is what is left of the turkey…only white meat. We are a true Chinese family.
The day after Thanksgiving, my mom cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for her side of the family. Kimbie and Mimi are making crusts for the pies for dessert.
Gung (maternal grandfather in Chinese) doesn’t leave home much anymore except when my mom invites him to her house. He use to cook all the time for us but hasn’t in a long time. He came out of retirement and chopped the lobster. This was so great to watch. I just learned how to chop a lobster and was going to do one, but decided not to embarrass myself in front of Gung.
His chopping is so precise. It comes from cooking and being a head chef for many years. In China he cooked for a very wealthy family. When he came to America, he was a head chef of one of the top restaurants in Chinatown.
Some of the courses for dinner.
And of course we have to have lobster on Thanksgiving. Would you expect anything less from a Chinese family?
We ate like kings and we drank like kings. It started out with Ruinart.
Then moved to 2004 Cristal.
And ended with 2003 Mouton Rothschild. This bottle is valued at over $900. It was delicious.
We also celebrated Jennie’s birthday because it was just a couple days away. She was turning 25 and felt old…Ha!
We call this Mimi’s skeleton smile. This is one of our hello kitty candles we use for all our birthday cakes. Happy Birthday Jennie!
The mornings are the best time of the day in the Jee home. Mimi and Isabella are fresh and happy from a good nights sleep.
They are two little silly gooses.
I grew up in Upstate New York in a super suburban town called Clifton Park. The activity everyone does in the Fall is go apple picking. There are many orchards to choose from and the apples are the best in the state. Even though we live in Westchester now with orchards nearby, we always make the trip up to my home Upstate to go apple picking. Bowman’s is the orchard we go to every year because it has the best apples.
Mimi picks apples for like two seconds then heads to the children’s play area with my Dad.
This year there was a hayride around the orchard. She thought is was the best thing. Jeff was the lucky one to take her on the ride.
She thought she was the princess of the orchard. Look at that wave…she is a natural.
Now this is something that has never happened ever. This is the first time my brother has pushed a baby carriage.
Sami was a beauuuutiful bride. Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Cheryl were so proud walking her down the aisle.
Sami and Mike were calm and cool under the chuppah.
Their chuppah was so pretty.
Enjoying the cocktail hour. Those lamb chops are still melting in my mouth. I’m still dreaming about the oysters and crab!
Ka Ka and Bet looking so glamorous.
Sami finally makes it to the cocktail hour. Can’t believe she is married!
Artie made friends with a much much older couple so he could sit at their cocktail table near the bar and eat his food. He talked with his new friends for a while. About what, who knows. Finally was able to pull him away for a picture.
Chatting with my cousin Karyn and Aunt Alice.
Great picture of my Dad and me. He didn’t think he would fit his tuxedo, but he did. He felt so skinny that day! He is wearing his new modern trendy glasses. I almost don’t recognize him!
We miss Ka because she lives in Sacramento, CA. Hopefully she’ll move back to the East Coast one day.
A family picture in the dining room.
The newly married couple and their first dance.
The wedding challah. The waiter didn’t like such close contact to the bread and wheeled it away after this picture.
It’s time to party and things are starting to get crazy.
Drunk and confused.
I should have worn black to fit in with everyone. Or maybe they should have worn color to not be so boring.
Kimbie and her boyfriend Mike.
Matty and my Mama.
My Mama and me. I think she hung out at our table all night to hide from my Dad who really wanted her to dance with him. No matter what my mom says, he’s really a romantic guy.
Can you believe this is Bet?!
We didn’t even need to go to the dance floor to dance and sing.
You could barely fit onto the dance floor. What a great party!
Michael (Sami’s brother) dancing to Michael Jackson. Look at him strut his stuff. Love it!
Love was in the air for more then just the wedding couple. Go Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Cheryl!
The three boys that grew up together in the Bronx. Why is my Dad trying to take a picture while being pictured?
Finally got my husband onto the dance floor. I tell him all the time I would practice dancing at home with him to build up his confidence.
Their wedding cake was the moistest chocolate cake I’ve ever eaten.
The dessert was a million layer crepe cake and creme brulee. Delicious. The box of matches didn’t come on the plate.
My BFFTT Michael.
Sami and Mike, we had a wonderful time at your beautiful wedding. We wish you a lifetime of love, luck, and happiness.
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Mimi.
She lived in a castle with her best friend cow named Isabella.
They played play doh and cooked in the kitchen all day in the castle. They really loved each other. One day a terrible snow storm came which made the power go out (we didn’t lose power but many other people in Westchester did). The princess and cow were very scared .
But luckily Daddy came and rescued the princess and cow and everyone lived happily ever after. Thank you Daddy!
Then Princess Mimi went trick-or-treating with Raggedy Ann in Dobbs Ferry.
To keep their candy safe, they brought along Wolverine to protect them.
Princess Mimi had so much fun trick-or-treating with her friends.
This year Mimi is in pre-school for three full days and two half days. When she has a full day she eats her packed lunch at school with her classmates. My mom raised Mimi pretty much the first two years of her life because I worked full time. Mimi acts like my mom because they spent so much time together. For example, my mom doesn’t like cucumber seeds and would cut them out everytime they would eat them together. I think this is a silly habit and wanted to break it so one day I packed cucumbers with seeds in Mimi’s lunch so she could at least taste the seeds and realize they were fine to eat. Each day, the teachers send back the lunch box with everything the child doesn’t eat so the parents can see. This is how Mimi’s lunch box came back that day.
And this is how I have been packing the cucumbers ever since.
We love when Best Friend Avery and Auntie Anne come to visit. Here, Avery and Mimi are holding their babies. Can you tell which one is real?
Cruising the yard in the Mercedes. Their Daddy’s better watch out. They want a real one when they grow up.
Avery and Auntie Anne having so much fun on the jungle gym.
This should be the next Patagonia catalog cover. Mimi loves her Best Friend Avery.
This summer Mimi took her first swimming lesson at a local indoor pool. The lessons were twice a week for 5 weeks, 30 minutes, a total of 10 lessons. As a parent, what can you expect from a 3 year old after 10 swimming lessons? Will she be able to float? Maybe even actually swim? Well…neither, and after crying throughout her first five lessons, I was happy just to make it through a lesson tear-free.
Isabella was born with jaundice, a yellow discoloration of the skin and eyes. Very common in Asian babies, Olivia had it, so I was not worried. The hardest part was leaving without her from the hospital because she had to stay an extra day for observation. The jaundice is treated with a couple formula bottles during the day (breast milk slows down the liver getting rid of the bilirubin, yellow-colored pigment of red blood cells causing jaundice), ultraviolet light from the sun, and time. It usually takes a few weeks for the jaundice to go away.
A bilirubin blood test is taken to get the level of jaundice. Newborns get their blood taken from their heel. As a mom, this is painful to watch, especially when they would take blood every six hours in the hospital.
Isabella loved the sun. It just put her to sleep. And of course because she can’t wear sun block, she only sun tanned before 10am or after 4pm for no more then 15 minutes.
We had a small scare when Isabella was three weeks old. Her skin and eyes were getting more yellow and her bilibrubin count was increasing. At her age, if the count continued to increase, there most likely was something wrong with her liver. We doubled up on the formula bottles and increased the number of sun tanning sessions during the day. Thank God her bilirubin started to decrease. I’ve had many stressful days at school and work when there were big deadlines or presentations. But nothing compares to the stress and worry you have when there is a possibility of something wrong with your child.