Happy Chinese New Year at Newpark Mall

We celebrated our New Year's Eve at the Newpark Mall this year. They have the dragon and lion dances, plenty of arts and crafts, and free giveaways. This is probably Katie's first time seeing the dragon and lion dances, it is very noisy though, so many of the young kids got scared by it. I am more worried about Katie's ear drums and covered her ears so it isn't that loud. :p After the dance we get to take a picture with the dragon and lion costume.

Afterwards we started to do the arts and crafts. We made a dragon and a lantern.

Happy Chinese New Year to All!

Katie is 2

We decided to host Katie's 2nd birthday party for her with her friends. The day that has been greatly anticipated, Katie is finally 2 years old. It was so cute seeing her and her little friends together. Katie loves hanging out with her friends and she has been increasingly asking to play together with her friends recently. She has grown so much.
Still haven't introduced much sweets to her yet, so this year I made her a turkey meatloaf cake once again. Here is her trying to blow the candles.

And here is her smiling for the camera.

The kids were busy playing with Playdoh, Katie learned how to mush all the Playdoh together today.

Our 10 Days of Christmas

Day 1: Our Christmas Eve
Surprisingly there are many places still open on the day of Christmas Eve, but mostly close earlier. Therefore, we went to the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose again. Immediately upon entry, we were greeted by the man with the yellow hat from Curious George, seems like during this holiday period, there is a different character that will show up everyday. Can't miss this photo opportunity, so there you go:

Later on Katie enjoyed painting, the nice thing about holidays is that there is less people, so Katie got the whole board to herself.

At night time, we went to Christmas in the park right next door:

Day 2: Christmas Day
On a day with nothing to do, yes, I am talking about Christmas day, when all the stores are closed, and there are no where to go to, luckily the holiday lights are still on. On the night of Christmas, we went to the Crippsmas Place in Fremont. Crippmas Place is actually a charity holiday lights done by the volunteered neighborhood, and it has been a tradition since the 1960's. I think it is a wonderful place to take the kids to, since many of the billboards are cartoon characters. We even found Katie's favorite Blue, look at that big smile on her face.

Day 3: Took a Break

Day 4: Oakland Zoo
Previous trips to the zoo during hot summer days have a down side. The lions and tigers tend to hide in their forest or caves and we can't see them at all. This is why I am determined to visit the zoo this time during winter. It was a right decision, they were all out this time and up close. Another benefit is that you don't feel hot and sweaty after walking around all day, but you do feel a bit cold, maybe I should try fall or spring next time.

This time we also rode on the cable car (which please remind me next time to not go on again as I am afraid of heights), Katie was not afraid of it at all, however, I was a little concern that the cable car passes right above the lion den. We also rode on the train, and found out that in order to view the ostriches and wallabies, you have to ride the train. Good thing that Happy Hollow membership saved us half off the admission ticket, so the tickets for the cable car and train kind of balance it out. Overall it was a fantastic trip, we were there the whole day all the way until closing.

Day 5: Global Winter Wonderland
Global Winter Wonderland the holiday lights right next to Great America in San Jose. How should I describe this? I guess it doesn't really feel like Christmas lights to me, but reminds me of the Lantern Festivals in Taiwan, especially since many of the lights are Chinese styled. Since I got the tickets for a cheaper price, even though the parking is kind of steep, I guess it is still a good event to take your kids to. I mean, where else can you see Chinese style lights here. The place takes roughly an hour to finish touring, but the downside is it was really crowded.

Day 6: Niles Park
Today is just a casual day at the park. The swing is recently Katie's favorite.

Day 7: Creativity Museum
The Creativity Museum is located in San Francisco. We actually didn't take any pictures today, probably because mom and dad were too busy trying to make animation out of clay figures. I think the museum is definitely more suitable place for older children, we saw bunch of adorable 3, 4, 5 year olds singing karaoke and making a music video. Definitely look forward to doing that with Katie once she has that concept.

Day 8: New Years Eve
Another day of chilling at home.

Day 9: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
Thanks to our good friends that purchased season pass, we were able to visit Six Flags with free tickets, yay! Katie had a super fun time there. We started out sledding on the snow hill they created there, I guess this counts as Katie's first snow encounter. Then we watched the killer whale and dolphin shows.

But the part that Katie enjoyed the most was that there were tons of kiddie rides. Katie spent majority of her time on rides.
Yay for rides:

(Only if I can get on this ride...):

By night time, the Christmas lights all lit up.

Day 10: Meeting up with Old Friends
This was a day spent meeting up with old college friends and catching up.

Tiny Tots -- Gingerbread... Tree?

Today's project is actually a cooking project, well, kind of. We are making a Christmas tree out of edible materials. Kind of like making a gingerbread house. This is actually a pretty interesting and easy project. For the cone shaped tree, we used icecream waffle cones. Cover it with some green dyed frosting and use sprinkles and M&M's as the ornaments. The majority of the work was completed by me while Katie snacks on a tiny piece of waffle, but she definitely did the sprinkle part, as proven in the photo. Katie wasn't thrilled about eating the tree, as a matter of fact she didn't even finish eating her tiny piece of cone, I guess not letting her eat sweets still paid off in situations like this. The rest of the class all devoured the entire tree before their moms had a chance to finish the trees. That why she ended up with the best looking tree which mom had plenty of time to work on. :p

Tiny Tots -- Christmas gift bag and photo frame ornament

Katie's Tiny Tots class is making two projects this time. We started out with decorating a Christmas gift bag with a Christmas tree cut out. Katie does her usual bingo bottle dots on it.

The next project is more exciting for Katie because she loves to play with those little knick knacks used to decorate the frame. That frame was quickly destroyed when taken home, because she peels everything off to play with again.

Surprisingly today she asked me to put on her flower shirt for her and actually asked me to take off her favorite Blue's Clues' shirt. She even let me put a skirt on her, what a shock. Of course I have to take a picture of her.

Christmas at Ardenwood

One of the special events in December of Ardenwood Farm is the Christmas at Ardenwood. Some good old fashion music and puppet shows, and tons of arts and crafts project. I definitely had a lot of fun doing many of the arts and crafts, they are a bit too advance for Katie, but she definitely enjoys the end products. I learned how to make a Danish Heart this day, and here is a picture of Katie holding the woolly lamb I made her.

There were also arts and crafts like making cards and ornaments, corn husk angels, and tying your own mistletoe, which by the way after I looked up online, I found out that mistletoes are poisonous and I took it away from Katie, just in case she ingest any.

And we got our picture with Santa:

This is also the first time I toured the inside of Patterson House, it was fully decorated for Christmas.

Niles Festival of Lights Parade

Every year after Thanksgiving, Niles have a Festival of Lights Parade. The parade starts at 6:30pm and is only about half hour long event, but the street is packed with people. This year we bring Katie to the parade again. Night time photography is kind of tricky also with a wiggly kid and a moving parade background.

And this is the pictures from last year: