maeva's first visit to my house....

i was so excited that meg and jeremy and maeva came to our house for dinner on sunday. they had been out running errands, and my parents just knew they could use a hot meal waiting for them on their first real day out as a family. i got to watch meg change maeva's diaper. i was mesmerized by her and knew to be very gentle. i wanted to show her all of my favorite toys but had to show meg instead ....... did you know that maeva starts with M?

my bilingual-ish singing tongue

alphabet song from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

"what dat spell?"

for the past several weeks, i've been pretty intense about letters and how words are spelled (well, at least what letters different words start with)...i know how to spell my name and can identify every letter in the alphabet .. regardless of the order. (i'm still working on singing the whole alphabet song, though -- that timing/speech/coordination thing is a little hard for my bilingual-ish tongue.) you can see (below) a couple videos my mom took of me putting together an alphabet puzzle....one of my favorite past times. i should also give props to SUPER WHY - the pbs cartoon that has really gotten me interested in letters and words.

alphabet part01

alphabet - part01 from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

alphabet part02

alphabet - part02 from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

girl baby

last night before i went to sleep, my mommy told me that meg was going to have her baby and that i'd get to meet it in the morning. she asked me if i thought it was going to be a girl or boy and i said girl baby. turns out it was a lucky guess! because this morning my papa and i drove to the hospital to find my mommy (who had gone to the hospital first thing in the morning) and to meet my new buddy. i thought it would help to call out to the girl baby so that we could find their room...."maeva....where are thyou?"

"self portait"

innagural time-out day

for the first time in my life .. my behavior pushed my mother to the point of giving me a time-out. i am still in the midst of my terrible twos - so i figured i would start pushing the boundaries to see how far they go. my sassy-ness today had me nodding my head yes to the question, "do you want a time-out?" until i knew what it involved and then i realized that i wasn't too fond of them. i admit to having a short term memory (or else the terrible juices were just flowing freely because) i actually received 2 of them just today! ........ however, tonight after my bath, i took the little "tock" off of the counter in my room and told my mom, "i want a time-in"

lussi is FOUR

my cousin lussi turned 4 back in march - but she was in utah at the time, so i didn't get to go to her birthday party. well, they are finally back at home and last weekend she had another birthday party that i got to go to! it was so much fun with a super-cool-not-missing-a-thing-CANDYLAND cake, and a dora mermaid scavenger hunt, a pinata, and yummy meal. i really like to give compliments these days, so before we left i made sure to tell my mommy (who then made me tell cory & kara) that it was a nice party.

happy birthday uncle kai!

"happy dir-bay kai!" from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

look who came with the snow - kai!

riding horses with great uncle terry

practicing guitar with framma

singin' from guitar-book w/framma from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

i vacuum everywhere & everything ...

silo's vacuum from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

evening concert

cello & xylophone concert from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

the easter bunny!

the easter bunny came last night! i was so excited to see if he had come, that i went to the front door first thing - instead of just checking my easter basket. my easter basket was filled with a bunch of different eggs filled with different treats like goldfish and teddy grams and pennies and jellybeans and m&ms.... he even hid little candies all around the house -that silly easter bunny! it took me a little while to catch-on, but i did manage to find them ALL ... i ate a bunch, too!

who would have thought?

who would have thought that we'd have nearly 3 days of straight snow after getting a glimpse of spring with 40+ degree days leading up to the storm? granted, it wasn't a blizzard, really - more of a constant soft snowing from friday through sunday morning. i took advantage of it - with hours of snow-playing in the back yard everyday. staying out until my snow-gear became soaking wet. i think that's a good sign that it's time to go inside.

that took a while

my mama and papa finally painted my room...well, at least one wall in my room (& touched-up another.) once the decision was made to paint one wall a color, there was a three-way competition going on between blue, green and yellow. as you can see, yellow won-out :as it often does with my parents - heavily persuaded by my papa... our house up in duluth was also painted bright yellow many years before i was born and my papa was even driving a bright yellow (spray-painted) truck when he first met my mama: so you can see it runs deep - not that i mind, though. i like yellow too, despite it being a hard word for me to say.

washing dishes with mama from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

make this funny face from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

pushing papa from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

i broke my head

see this cool bracelet? i got it when i went to the radiology department at children's west last week - to get my head x-rayed. it confirmed that i fractured my skull. no kidding. doesn't that sound drastic?!? to be more specific, it is a "linear fracture" that will basically heal itself and is pretty much the best way to break your head.... because despite the utter panic i felt about my mom FREAKING out after i fell backwards off of my stokke chair (i was being a bit of a monkey, reaching far for something on the table & when i came back to sit down, my feet had happened upon the seat and my butt happened upon the back of the chair and in a split second i went down, backwards.) and despite my head hurting - i really have been totally fine and normal since it happened. no signs of anything really wrong except for my bruise - which will again, heal itself.

this marks the third major blow to the head i have experienced in my short little life. (one: trip down the stairs at Ma-Tu's house before i was a year old. two: face plant on an outdoor patio that chipped my two front teeth while on vacation in Finland last summer. and now three: squashed melon in the dining room while being a monkey.) i'm taking it as a sign that i'm a little "head-heavy" -- or perhaps that i'm a "tough-guy" -- either way, i'm pretty glad that i'm as (lucky and) resilient as people often say that kids are. (and you can be certain my mother is glad, too - although she hates when i make light of the situation - because it was perhaps her most terrifying moment of parenthood to date.)

best friends

best friends from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

counting

counting from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

one morning i woke up and told my mom, "this is my thumb. these are my fingers. one. two. three. four. five." -- she tried to get me to say it again - this the best i could do. i still get the numbers mixed-up a little bit - but on this particular morning i was golden!

pre-wedding photos

my mommy took a whole bunch of photos at my uncle chad's wedding - but they all tended to be of the PRE-wedding preparations and capturing the setting. she has no pictures of the chad and mimmu together, none of her and auntie-brit in their beautiful dresses (but she does have a picture of the dresses, themselves!) and no family shots, because the photographer took all of those ... so, while we wait to (hopefully) have some more photos to share, i hope you will enjoy these.

i should also report that my cousin lussi and i had some pretty important jobs for the wedding - we were in charge of holding the rings. we started our jobs pretty well - but neither of us completely executed them....uncle cory took my pillow after i yelled "suki!!" and then ran up to lussi after she had come down the stairs. (i call lussi, suki) then, lussi ended-up dropping her ring after she got kind of confused/disturbed that all of her aunts and uncles were standing around with big wells of tears in their eyes. brit picked-up the ring after lussi had gone to stand with her mommy. (in our defense, she was woken-up from a dead-sleep in order to make it to the wedding on time and i had only a fraction of the normal nap i am used to.) alls well that ends well, though -- chad and mimmu were married - they both have their rings safe and sound on their fingers. ~~ suki and i were both pretty tired and were happy to stay with a baby-sitter while our parents enjoyed the wedding dinner. we're so excited to have a new auntie!!!!

pistachio snack

pistachio from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

x-country skiing

last weekend, i called meg to see if she wanted to come skiing with me at theodore wirth golf course. i'm so happy that she was free and wanted to come with me! i had so much fun!

x-country skiing from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

silo's snow house

icky snow for lunch @ silo's house

icky snow {for lunch @ silo's "house"} from keo boun pheng on Vimeo.

playing baby

sometimes my mommy calls me her baby. i tell her i'm not a baby - i'm a boy. but last night i played along with her (to make her feel better) - she wrapped me up in a blanket and carried me around like a baby for a little while (like 2 minutes.) i think she thought it was fun, so that is all that matters (although it was nice and warm wrapped-up like that!)

christmas 2007_02:SALMELA

A COUPLE HIGHLIGHTS FROM CHRISTMAS IN DULUTH: 1) ruining family photo opportunities by being a squirmy 2 year old boy! 2) singing christmas carols outside with a christmas-eve-fire in the unchimney and getting to touch the snow on the "mountain" outside my grandparents house. 3) getting to open one present on christmas eve (especially because it was the CARS movie - "light-queen say kachaow!") 4) playing with all of lussi's new toys - particularly her new purse with make-up and cellphone. 5) experiencing my first real "christmas morning excitement!" 6) getting the same SUPER-COOL gift that lussi got from gramma & grampa - a plasma car! 7) watching the plasma-mechanics in action. 8) driving our new cars around and around the house!!

christmas 2007_01:KEOBOUNPHENG

we spent the sunday before christmas with my keobounpheng family at ma-tu and pa-tu's house. we had some really yummy food: sticky rice, bamboo soup, pad thai and nappa cabbage salad -sap-sap! we even remembered to take a picture of the whole group! and i love this picture that my papa got of ma-tu and her "baby" bruno!

infection hair

last friday the doctor told me that i have an ear infection. i was in a lot of pain and had a pretty rough weekend waiting for the antibiotics to kick-in. i slept really late on monday morning and you could tell i slept pretty hard - because LOOK at my hair! my mom is calling it my "infection hair."

my mom downloaded a bunch of our christmas pictures at grandma & grandpa's house and forgot to take them home with us (that's why i haven't posted any yet...) -- they'll be coming shortly...

happy new year