Kung Hei Fat Choi & More

The "westside" TeNgaio's.

The TeNgaio cousins: Ethan, Austin, Kai, Kenzi, Madeline, and Autumn.

Isabelle feeling the love from Madi.

Austin feels the love from all of his cousins

The entire TeNgaio clan flocked to the parents house last Saturday to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We use it as an excuse to get together, plus, to eat some righteous food! Everyone prepares an Asian dish and we converge to devour as much sodium as possible. Although all the dishes were unreal, my brother Jake takes the prize, (and now is expected to bring these every year), for his killer Shumai. They are like won-ton but steamed, very ono-licious my friends. Ethan and Madeline love the Kung Hei Fat Choi ritual too due to the fact they get to see their cousins from Soda Springs/Pocatello. Kudos to Austin for being such an awesome BIG cousin to all of his smaller ones!

Madeline's ear tube surgery went well the previous week, she is definitely a trooper. She only cried a little bit afterwards but was back to being miss jolly by that afternoon. It kind of sucks to see your kids when they are that little go into surgery of any kind but our ear doctor is pretty damn good. We'll have to wait and see if she'll need her tonsils out like her big brother did last year (that sucked!).

Ethan just finished a 6 week session of basketball. He doesn't seem too excited about it, he likes to kick the basketball more than dribble but he got the hang of it by the end. Next up is pee-wee baseball this sumer. ET also has his first tooth that is ready to fall out of his mouth. He thinks it's pretty cool to be able to wiggle it with his tongue. Ahh, the joy of an-almost 5 year old.

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Holy Huevos!

So the weather is finally nice and I have the day off (President's Day) and what am I doing? I'm at home resting from a surgical procedure I had done on Friday – the big "V". It's not that bad as far as pain goes and now I kind of have a feeling for the ladies when they go to the gynecologist. I also have a feeling for what it's like to have elephantitis.

We always knew we wanted to have 2 kids and I guess we lucked out by having one of each. We both agreed that once that happened that I'd be the one to do something about making sure we didn't have an "oops" child afterwards, hence the vasectomy.

We love our 2 kids immensely and that is just fine for us, thank you very much.

Ethan with a portrait he drew of he and his sister (I think he's the one on his right.)

Ethan is finally sleeping on his own (yes!). He still wakes us up in the middle of the night, (which I suspect will carry on until he's out of the house), but will now fall asleep while dad sits at the end of his bed. This is monumental my friends, believe me. Next step: go to bed on his own w/o dad having to sit there.

Ethan can write his own name now too. He is learning how to spell at a furious pace and still loves to recite the ABC song MANY times in a row. Many times.

Madi haming it up for the camera.

Madeline is moving up to the next class at her daycare. Her teachers say she is ready because she is so smart and it's time for her to start learning new skills and such. Her scholastic skills, however, weren't enough to keep her from getting her first time-out at daycare the other day. Her teacher said that she was tackling/smothering the other babies in class (she's one of two girls in a class of about 8-10). Hmmm, I wonder where she gets it from?

Mahalo,

Matt

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"Let's talk about the weather…"

Ethan gettin' ready for the big ride.

The look of a content 4 year old in the middle of winter.

Brittany and I took advantage of the spring-like weather to get out and cross country ski. I swear, the weather has been equal to that of living in a frozen Hell since the middle of December. However, Sunday brought mild temps and sunshine! The birds were out thawing their feathers, the squirrels were doing their normal, crazy tree acrobats and a ladybug showed up in our kitchen window thawing himself out of a frozen slumber.

It was our first time skiing at the golf course and we found it to be really enjoyable. Instead of driving .5 hour or more to x-country ski it was like 5 minutes and we were cruising along the groomed trails. We used to get excited about going downhill skiing at Targhee and now we're reduced to getting excited about x-country skiing at the freakin' golf course, man, we must be getting old! Oh well, it was nice to spend time alone together for a couple of hours outside. Next time we are going to bring Ethan along and rent some skis for him…that'll be interesting.

Afterwards it was time for Ethan and dad to do some serious sledding at Ethan's-soon-to-be-new school just around the corner from our house. That kid has so much energy it's crazy! If you could harness it it would light a house for a year, I swear! After some good spills, some horse playing in the snow and Ethan exploring a pile of dog feces it was time to head home and wrap up the weekend.

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Just another day at the office

Madeline catching up on current events. Like her brother she loves to read…anything with pictures in it anyway. Her current vocabulary includes "Uh-oh", "more?", "dah-dah" (for dog dog), and "no-no" (once again referring to Izzy, and her water bowl, it's a long story.) I thought "dah-'dah" was "da-da" (daddy) but no, the dog once again takes precedence.

After a power breakfast and the latest in breaking news, it's off to the office in her pimped-out Barbie car-thing. I wish I could get this excited before heading off to work!

Ethan and dad had a sleep over (in the basement) this weekend. He gets sooooo excited about sleeping down there with dad, it's funny. It's starting to become a weekend ritual this winter. Nothing like watching late (9 p.m.'sh) episodes of Chowder, Sponge Bob and (my favorite) Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends to get the party started. Damn, life is good.

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"Doo doo doo lookin' out my back door"

…and wondering why the hell we live here.

Today marks the 12'sh day this winter that I had to shovel. That tops all the years combined at our old house on 15th St. – and it's only Feb. 7. Is there more snow on the west side of town? I guess it doesn't help having a big farm field behind our house.

Madi was right on cue last night waking up at about 1 a.m. and refusing sleep until the alarm went off at 6. She's been doing this since about Oct.-Nov for a variable number of reasons. I swear Brittany is the most hardcore person I know. Unlike Angry-Dad, she can still get up and go to work after all that while keeping her cool, for weeks on end too.

Ethan had to wake me up last night at about 2 or 3 a.m. to inform me that he had a dream, not a nightmare just a dream. I thanked him kindly for that tidbit in the middle of the night.

- Matt

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Bashful

A morning shot of Madi being bashful. She usually loves the camera (just like her brother), but this morning she was wanting some privacy. Maybe she was pooping.

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Lil' Devil(s)

This is from Halloween '07. As you can see, Ethan is fine and Madeline is not. This is a common scene in our house.

I've been meaning to check ET's scalp for "666".

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Madi's Going Under…

Sounds like our little Madi is going to get ear tubes. Her and Ethan have been cursed with their mothers ears and always get ear infections. Ethan has already has his in, then out, then in again plus his tonsils out (that was fun) so he's doing better in that department. Poor Madi's going under the knife later this month. She's had at least 5 ear infections since we moved last June so the doc said it's time to put the tubes in. It's worked well for ET so hopefully little Mad's will get some relief! And mom and dad too.

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How's this thing work?

Just testing out this crazy blog stuff. We're trying to compose a page for friends and family updates. Wish us luck!

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