Tyler and Cody make the Kumon honor roll

The boys are both doing Kumon now, and this September they made the honor roll, Tyler is top 100 in the country out of 15,000.  Cody is not far behind in the top 200.

I am sure they are looking forward to the awards ceremony in May!!

This is the reading one, he has only just started Maths

Maths slightly lower than reading, strangely

Close to breaking the top 100

Tyler's first piano recital

Tyler's piano teacher organized a travelling piano recital and Tyler was invited to play in it. And our house was one of the recital destination.

About 5 other students came to our house and played their pieces. As Tyler is quite shy, i was surprised at his willingness to perform. And at the end of it, he even said he enjoyed it!!! Wow!

Initially i thought it was going to be a bunch of kids performing. But it turned out Tyler, most of them were much older than him!! I think the youngest of the bunch was 14!!

Anyways, it was an interesting experience for both Tyler and I.

Tyler playing his piece

All the students sitting around

Taking a bow! 

A view of all the other students

Raclette Dinner with the Heides

We had gotten a raclette set for Christmas and was quite eager to try it out. We had made a trial run with the Chandrasekaras and this weekend we broke it out again to try it with the Heides.

I tried some different ingredients and pre-cooking most stuff that worked out better! The Heides approve of the raclette meal and we had a good time cooking together and catching up!

And this time, i remembered to take some pictures! 

All ready to try it out

Our pile of raclette cheese

Our spread

Sienna's Frozen Dress

For my lastest sewing project, i got an inspiration from Sienna who is crazy about the last Disney movie - Frozen. We were talking about the dresses and she was so animated that i thought i would try to make one for her. I also used it to bribe her to go take a nap(but she didn't)!!

I couldn't really find a pattern that matched the dress in the movie(it was kinda provocative). So, i just went with a simple dress and hoped the cape would sorta disguise the fact that it's not the same dress!

So, it took me about 5 weeks to finish the dress. When it was nearly done, i had asked for Cody's help to help me test for size. My awesome little boy did it without a 2nd thought! I will miss this when they grow up!!

This weekend, i finally got a chance to invite the Heides over to try out the dress and as expected, the cape did it's trick! :) Our little princess Sienna was quite happy with the dress and wore it the whole night while she was at our house! :)

My little Cody - the sweetest child on earth!! 

The dress is finally complete with the super long cape specially requested by Sienna!!

Princess Sienna!

Check out the pose!!!

Cody's playdate with Sienna

Cody had a last minute playdate with Sienna on Saturday. They went to this place called Progresh which really is a skateboard, trampoline place for big kids. But they also allow little kids to be there. Both Sienna and Cody(after he threw up) enjoyed jumping on the trampolines and over the cushion things.

After watching the kids repeat the same activity for 2 hrs, we the mothers, get to reward ourselves with some good Korean grub! :)

Both of them frolicking around

The tooth fairy visits Tyler

I had been waiting anxiously for Tyler to start losing his teeth as his friends are all losing their teeth like crazy. During the last dental cleaning, the dentist pointed out that his permanent teeth were nearly coming thru, BUT, the baby teeth weren't showing much signs of movement. He gave us 2 weeks for the baby teeth to fall out on its own before he was going to yank them out.

2 weeks later, his permanent teeth had actually nearly fully grown and yet, still no sign of the baby teeth falling. So, into the dentist office we went!

Tyler was rather upbeat about the whole thing. He willingly climbed on the dentist bed and took the laughing gas and the numbing cream AND even the needles without a wince. I was fully impressed!!(Maybe i should change dentist!!). And after a few minutes, he went in and just yanked the 2 teeth out, just like that. Tyler remained cool as a cucumber, while i was secretly freaking out inside!

Both the teeth still had roots on them which i guess explains why they were not moving. Weird.. I asked him if it hurt and he said no.. hmm..

Last picture with his baby teeth!

Fully grown permanent teeth behind his baby teeth

Relaxing with some laughing gas

And he's done! He's just zoning out...

Missing two teeth..

Our toothless :)

Oh, right, tooth fairy did visit his room that night. He woke up super early the next day and ran to our room all excited to show us the $4 he got for his teeth!!

Mini Tiger Mom

When we went to Steamboat for our 3-day vacation, i brought our new keyboard that Tyler got for his birthday with us so he can practice his piano while we were there. We put the keyboard on a luggage frame and used the trashcan as a seat!

Tyler was actually quite excited about his "new piano" and quite willingly did his 15 min practice. And whenever he was having a idle moment, he went and played on it. I'm sure this is not going to last, but i'll take it while it does! :)

I recently read the book the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and i thought if i showed this picture of Tyler, my friends would call me that too! But i'm seriously not worthy, so i'm just a Mini Tiger Mom!! :) But i thought just in case i become a tiger mom in the future, i have documentation of my journey of becoming one!!(i hope i won't become one, actually. She is crazy!)

Look at him all willing and serious sitting on the trash can!! Ha!

Presidents Weekend at Steamboat Springs

The kids had President's Day off making it a long weekend, so, we decided to go away for a few days to do some skiing. This year, we decided to go to Steamboat Springs. It's been quite a few years since we'd been there and since Tyler and I had free ski days there, we thought it'd be a nice change.

This is the first time Alan and I have skied together in 6 years and for Cody to start his ski lessons to join the rest of the Millsers clan in our skiing adventures. Although we've been prepping him up with ski lessons in the park and his fancy new helmet, he was initially still determined that he didn't want to go to ski school. But after using ALL methods of persuasion, when we got to the ski school, he actually willingly went. But it could be because the person there knew that the best way is to just swoop the kid and go. 

After dropping Cody off, Alan, Tyler and I went on to do some skiing. We did mostly blue runs and Tyler seemed to be doing OK with them. He did crash a few times but i told him it was awesome and so he was OK! We did that for a few hours.

After lunch, Tyler wanted to go check out Cody(quite sweet). So, we skied all the way down to the base but Cody was nowhere to be found. I was worried he was curled up somewhere in the ski school crying so i went around asking. But apparently his group had gone for the gondola ride. As i caught a look of him walking back with his group, smiling and goofing about, i sighed in relief!! Looked like he was having a grand time. We watched him do his last two runs before his class was done and thought he had done very well! 

And then Tyler and I went for a few final runs before our 1st skiing day was over. 

Taking Cody to ski school

Cody and Daddy on Gondola right after his lessons

Nice view from the Gondola

Nearly the whole Millsers clan on the mountain

Tyler and Daddy ready to hit the slopes

My ski buddy and my new hair do to keep my hair from poking my neck!

Cody when i saw him coming back from Gondola ride. Such happiness!!

Going on Magic Carpet

Making his way to the group

Such a flirt

Can't wait for his turn

His turn, finally!

I have to say that little kids doing ski school are the cutest sight!! They waddle around with their giant robocop boots and skis. And when they fearlessly ski downhill and do their little pizzas to stop, you can't help but beam with pride!! So cute!!

Our gondola ride to the top of the mountain

Our first full clan on the mountain!! Yay!!

So, i have to say our first day of skiing was a success. Everybody had a great time! That night, we went to celebrate our belated Valentine's Day meal at a posh restaurant. Food was pretty good.

The kids experiencing posh dining

Tyler got bored and decided he was going to learn to do a selfie! hahaaha

The next morning, Alan and Cody decided that they were going to take it easy while Tyler and I go try to do more skiing. They dropped us off at the resort. We skied for quite a bit longer than we first anticipated and decided to call it quits at about 3 pm when the weather was looking like it was going to storm. Since Cody was still napping, we figured we'd take the local bus back to the hotel which was an adventure by itself!!

Tyler and I getting dropped off

Cody and his lunch!

On our last day in Steamboat, we booked us a ride to Strawberry Park Hot Springs to enjoy some beautiful scenery and some soothing hot springs water. Strawberry Park is one of my favorite places as it's nestled in beautiful snow covered hills.

The kids thought it was cool and had a great time playing in the pools. Thought it did take quite a few tries to find the right pool with the right temperature!!

Hot pools surrounded by snow..

Group picture

Another one

Yay!!

I convinced Tyler to go sit in the snow

Beautiful

Me and my boys!

After the springs, we started our long journey home and were so happy we didn't have any traffic on I-70 making it the perfect ending to our nice weekend!

Here are some videos of Cody's ski school:

Tyler is William Tell?

Tyler got a very good report for his schoolwork, so as a reward we went to the archery club in Broomfield.

He picked it up quicker than I expected and scored quite a few bullseyes, as well as popping a number of balloons.  Of course now he wants to go and do it every week!!

Aiming for the balloon

\

Hitting the balloon

Popping the balloon, its easy Daddy

Check out my grouping

Here's a video: