not just a new york kitchen anymore

amelia's kitchen didn't have any food for the first couple of days, and amelia really had to use her imagination to "cook." momma has fixed that now, and bought a bunch of different foods. amelia's favorite, hands down, are the wooden eggs. she clutched the egg carton all the way home from the toy store in her fat little hands, and kept repeating, "careful, momma, mia careful." here she is demonstrating her cutting skills:

cousins

hm, am i supposed to be doing something here?

let me see, let me see!!!

is there someone back there?

ah, whatever, these veggies are too good.

and so is this squab leg!

hair

see, her hair color is from me!!!

dream come true

halmoni and harabiji are visiting, and they bought amelia this gorgeous little kitchen. here she is demonstrating her cooking skills:

here's a better shot of the kitchen, with amelia dancing a happy dance around it. it's a two-burner cooktop, with microwave oven on top, stove on the bottom, sink and washing machine on the other side. it's like a new york kitchen, come to think of it.

amelia's lucky to have these grandparents; my crazy hippie parents tend to do stuff like donate money to a buddhist temple in her name. what good is that to an almost two-year-old?

it's been a while

i lost track of the days--we spent some time in LA last week, and it's been busy here trying to get stuff done before i go back to work. amelia and alex got to spend some quality time torturing each other.

and amelia got to see poh-poh, kong kong, and lau ma for a couple days. here are amelia and poh-poh at poh-poh's new house:

reading the morning paper

summer

it's crazy hot here, and to drag amelia away from the scorching playground, i told her we would go visit poppa at work. here they are:

poppa's got a pretty fantastic view, though we've learned that amelia's a tad afraid of heights--floor to ceiling windows just can't be trusted.

here's amelia walking around after lunch. yes, i know the outfit, complete with a bottle of perrier, is totally ridiculous. we're setting her up for being one of those ladies who lunch.

our little chef

thanks to auntie jenn, amelia now has a little apron to wearing when she's "cooking".geez, cooking is really hard work!

amelia's purse

amelia picked out this little bag at j.crew yesterday, and she wouldn't let go of it. she's filled it with keys, sunglasses, "money," and various other essentials that every toddler needs to get around town.

japanese tea garden

it's a gorgeous day today, and so we took kong-kong for a little walk in the japanese tea garden this morning. amelia had to be coaxed into going to the garden by promises of goldfish sightings, and luckily there were, indeed, goldfish to be found. see the buddha here with his hand raised? amelia thought he was waving to her, so she waved back.

cousins, sisters

my sisters nancy and jeanie and their respective children, alex and alicia, and my dad came up this weekend to check out our new place. we think of amelia has being so grown-up now, but compared to those kids, who are nearly 5 and nearly 6, amelia is completely clueless. take, for example, this picture:

alex and alicia are nicely posed for the photo (though alicia blinked), while amelia is just, well, clueless looking. she did manage to assert herself quite nicely whenever she was being tortured by alex, which was all the time. there was a whole lot of "NO ALEX!!!" heard around the neighborhood.

she and alicia got along much better, as you can see here:

here is amelia's list of cousins in order of preference: 1. alicia, 2. ryan, 3. andrew, 4. alex. yes, that's what she told me today. though later when i asked again, she seemed to realize it was bad form to like one cousin over another, so when i asked who she liked better, andrew or ryan, she said, "alex." alicia or alex? andrew. and when i asked her who she liked better, momma or dadda, she said, "momma and dadda." nice work, little miss diplomat.

here's a photo of me and two of my sisters at crissy field. i know there are no cute kids in the photo, but i thought someone out there might be interested in seeing at least one non-amelia photo.

where's amelia?

so ignore the stack of empty boxes in the corner (don't ask, poppa kwong insists he's going to use those boxes again) and the boxes covering the fireplace, and the living room looks halfway decent! the new chairs you see there are poppa kwong's new splurge furniture purchase. amelia keeps referring to them as "dada's chairs." you like?

posing for the camera

this is what amelia does when you ask her to "smile" for the camera. not so much a smile, i know.