Pease Kids

Here’s Max in the bathtub.

Michelle is amazing at giving the babies baths. She can really keep them calm and they have an excellent time getting clean. Of course, she (and the bathtub) have had a lot of practice! Here are Nicky and Alex in the same tub when they were babies.

As always, we received many generous beautiful presents from our families and friends. Thank you all!

In the stockings, the boys found not only presents from Santa but also sweet goodies. Alex couldn’t wait to eat some candy. DiDi has never had that kind of candy before. He was so curious.

He was sharing his own candy with DiDi.

“One for you and one for me”.

Led by Alex, DiDi would like to share his candies with Charlie as well.

We had such a wonderful Christmas in 2011. DiDi and grandma are already looking forward to next Christmas.

But DiDi would rather take pictures with grandpa than Santa. Santa is wondering why.

The boys stayed up late on Christmas Eve watching movies. Since we all stayed overnight at grandma’s, for the first time, Alex and DiDi slept in the same bed. To impress Santa and get the presents they want, it was not very difficult to put two boys to bed. However, on Christmas Day, the boys were so excited they woke up before 5:00am.

DiDi rushed out of the door and asked “where is Santa Claus?”

Santa promised Alex he’d bring him Hiro, a good friend of Thomas the train, if he is a good boy. Alex has been waiting for it for the whole year. Would he get it?

Thank you, Santa!

After the three boys got up from their naps, we packed up the presents in the van and drove to grandma’s house at around 4:00pm. DiDi liked the idea of putting presents around the tree. He excitedly helped dad unload the presents from the box.

Alex helped put more ornaments up on the tree.

Both boys are amazed by grandma’s Christmas tree. They cannot take their eyes from it.

Books are Alex’s all-time favorite. Reading a book is a very smart way to keep him from keeping looking for the presents with his name on them.

Influenced by Alex, DiDi is more into books than ever. He was checking out the fishing book grandma Dennis compiled for grandpa. If you know how to read lips, you could tell DiDi was saying “fish”.

自从六个月前，易峰成功爬上铁山的顶峰，我们就一直没有再去。每次提起铁山来，易峰总是说，铁山让他累得够呛。是不是三岁的孩子还不知道什么是自豪感吧，我这个当妈的真的是很为易峰骄傲，他就知道累了，也难怪，三岁的小孩走个７英里和我们大人走个７英里是太不一样了，我开始几次爬铁山的时候也觉得挺累的。圣诞前夕，在得到易峰的认同的情况下，我们带着易峰和天天去爬铁山了，这可是天天第一次哟。由于天天比易峰第一次爬铁山的年龄还小，我们就计划能爬多少就多少，能到半英里就满足了，只要大家开心。果然，刚刚走了不久，天天的小腿就受不了了，他一个劲儿地教我们抱他，我们连哄带威胁，终于拉拉扯扯地到了半英里，人家易峰早就在那里等我们了，易峰真是个好哥哥，非常有耐心，还经常回头鼓励弟弟，拉着弟弟，我看着很感动。

Reaching the top of Iron Mountain with Dave and Alex (and Max in my belly) in June was one of the most memorable moments of 2011 for me. Alex cannot understand why I am so proud of him yet. It cracks me up every time I hear he says Iron Mountain made him so tired.

On Christmas Eve, we decided to go back Iron Mountain to hike with hiking pro, Alex, and hiking rookie, DiDi. It was the first time for DiDi. He didn’t know what to expect when we started. He happily walked about a quarter mile by himself and then began to whine and ignore our tricks and encouragement. Fortunately we set our goal really low this time – half a mile. So when we reached the half mile marker, everybody was happy and boys got candies – Ho Ho Ho!

As a hiking pro, Alex walked pretty fast–we had to call him several times to stop to wait. After the boys got candies at the half mile marker, they decided to go further. So we just let kids lead and hoped they’d have more fun together. Alex’s help and encouragement mean more than anything to DiDi.

I am moved by the above picture every time I see it. That is exactly the way I want my boys grow up to be–to always help, respect, love, trust, and care each other. I love all of you, Alex, DiDi, and Max!

昨天，易峰和天天的学校组织了圣诞演出。礼拜四晚上，天天和易峰不知吃什么不合适的东西，都吐了，要不是为了这个两个小孩准备了一个月的表演，我就不让他们去学校了，礼拜五早上，他们看上去都还生龙活虎，就随他们去了。下午去学校看他们演出。

On Thursday night, DiDi threw up before brushing his teeth. We thought it might be that he was crying too hard. When Dave put kids to bed, Alex said his tummy hurt. I put my hand on belly and massaged it for a while, but he said it didn’t help. Half an hour later, Alex threw up too! When we thought we could call the end of the puke night, Alex threw up AGAIN! I rushed into his room and saw Alex was still vomiting. His face looked pained and pale. I tried to keep calm, quickly clean up the mess, and put Alex into the tub. That night, Alex had three showers and DiDi had two. And later on, my tummy felt hurt too. It must be something three of us ate at that night, but we don’t know what.

If it wasn’t for the Christmas program at school the next day, I would have kept the kids at home to keep an close eye on them. Luckily, the two boys seemed ok in the morning. Both were very thirsty though. Neither of them want to miss Christmas program.

The program started at 4PM. When I arrived at school, DiDi’s class had just started to perform. Their first song is “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. DiDi didn’t find me until the end of this song.

天天开始没有找到我，唱完第一首歌才看到我。

Then DiDi’s class shook rattles while singing “Jingle Bells”. DiDi made two impromptu turns in the middle of the song. We were glad he had so much fun.

天天跟着铃儿响叮当的音乐摇铃铛，他自己还即兴转了两圈，看他那么开心，我们做父母的好高兴。

易峰他们班的表演我也录像了，但尺寸太大，上传不到我们放照片的网上去，我让Dave上传到另外一个网站上，过两天在贴出来。

Alex’s class performed about a half hour later. I recorded it, but the size of the video is too big to upload to flickr so we will upload it somewhere else soon.

Alex did a fine job on the stage, but we’ve definitely heard him sing those songs better at home. The teacher said Alex didn’t eat any lunch. He was very tired.

After the performance, both boys had some cookies. Alex met Santa and took a picture with him. 表演完之后，易峰和圣诞老人合影。

DiDi wasn’t so in to Santa.

On the way home, we decided to reward two well-behaved boys with chicken stars and waffle fries from Carls Jr. They were excited.　在回家路上，我们给两个孩子买了他们爱吃的薯条和炸鸡块，

At home, Max’s big smile tells us how special this holiday season is with our dearest three sons!　明明在家里也美滋滋的，明年要看你的咯。

去年奶奶给天天买了毛毛虫玩具，天天也不怎么感兴趣，谁知，一年之后，我们的小明明对这个小玩具却情有独钟。我想这跟我们没给明明玩什么玩具也有关系，这个毛毛虫玩具是我们给明明玩的唯一玩具，所以他专一，我说嘛，玩具多了，反而不好。

Grandma got this caterpillar toy for DiDi last year. One year later, this caterpillar has become Max’s first favorite toy.

When I took these videos, DiDi was trying to show Max a book, but the book almost hit Max. As the youngest in a family with two young brothers, Max lives in a much more hazardous environment than his brothers did at his age, and yet he still loves to smile so much.

易峰喜欢什么东西都是非常地投入。受dave的影响，我几年前也开始喜欢看美式橄榄球比赛，但我无非就泛泛地知道看个热闹，只关心得分，对几个知名的球队还知道名字，其他的就无所谓了。但易峰非常地仔细。他对每场比赛，每个传球，每个得分他都力争了解。Dave给了他一张比赛的时间表，他就老研究，现在虽然还不识字，但看着每个的队的头盔，就知道是哪个队了，我真佩服他的记忆力。他说他长大要当橄榄球队员，拜托了，易峰，您还是每天好好吃饭，把身体吃得结实些吧。

It is football season. This year finds a new little football fan, Alex, in our family. He closely follows the San Diego Chargers and their games. Before each Chargers game, Alex always predicts San Diego will win with a big score.

Unfortunately, the Chargers haven’t performed very well this year. When Chargers lose the game, it makes Alex sad.

We don’t have cable, so we don’t watch the game often, but Alex loves to listen to game in the car with dad. He has a football season schedule to keep track of each game. From that schedule, Alex learns most of the teams by studying their helmets.

Alex once said he wants to be a football player when he grows up. If he still has the same passion years later when he really knows how to play football, go for it, Alex. But, first, please eat your dinner every day.