A-Ma Ding, A-Gong Ding, Atticus and Skyler

By KEVIN DING

I had time this afternoon to put together the following photo montage from my parents' camera -- compiled from February through June -- because Sedona and Maven were over at my parents' house, where they so often are and always have a good (food-filled) time.

The most recent videos I posted were a slice of the fun the girls have with my parents; these photos are sort of the rest of the pie. I hope the images contribute to the girls remembering many years from now how connected they were as little ones with my parents.

There's also one shot in there of my sister and her kids in the pool with us at her house. Sedona's affection for Atticus and Skyler, even though they are only seen periodically, is surprisingly strong. She brought them up the other night while we were reading her favorite two books -- Richard Scarry animal books gifted by Kris, actually, because we had the same books at home when she and I were growing up -- in Sedona's normal bedtime routine.

We don't usually just "read" the books; it's more like we look for things or discuss issues, with Sedona so often hatching her own commentary or simply asking: "What's ..." to evoke discussions. The times we sit together and read are truly some of my favorite times ever. Anyway, I pointed to three animals playing on a carousel in the book and asked Sedona if she could pick anyone in the world, whom would she pick to play with her. She said: "Atticus and Skyler." I said, "Really? Atticus and Skyler?" She said: "They are my cousins!"

She had just come from my parents' house, so I said, "What about A-Ma Ding and A-Gong Ding?" And Sedona paused and pointed to some open space on the carousel between the three animals and said: "They can sit there. There's room for them there." For the next three nights, I asked similar questions regarding with whom Sedona wanted to play "Ring Around the Rosie" or tug-of-war, based on the pictures in the book. Each time, she said: "Atticus and Skyler" ... with the follow-up refrain to explain: "They are my cousins."

Final notes: We've expanded the photo images to the largest size for better viewing. And we've re-opened the voting for the polls to the right about whom the girls most resemble; there seems to be a lot of opinion changing on that front in recent times.

Poo-Poo on the Potty!

By MAVEN DING

For the record, I pooped in the potty for the first time today!

Early summer videos

By KEVIN DING

While I am sitting here in utter bafflement over how my league-leading .792 softball batting average got mentioned in there, allow me to present some recent family videos to support the points brought up by my lovely wife in her most recent post ...

Early summer updates

By MAGGIE WANG

Before having children, I always looked forward to the summer because it meant that I would have Kevin off work and to myself -- but now with kids, I have more of a reason to love summers!

Beyond having everyone together consistently under the same roof, there are so many fun things to do locally and events to look forward to. The fun for me is watching my girls react and enjoy occasions and see how they smile from new and fun experiences. They shed a a new perspective on how I view my summers -- and the world.

Sedona and Maven have so much fun these days that they are going to bed later and later, but we have been fixing that the past week.

Isn't Maven just adorable? Look at all those teeth. She is growing up so fast. Communicating and talking much more. She asked me for a cracker the other day. Super cute.

We hit the San Diego Zoo last Friday with the Lev family.

Sedona (wearing her first of two outfits; this one got a little sweaty) is getting braver with age.

"Hello, Goat! Come here!"

They were completely devouring the Minute Maid cherry limeade ice. It was a hot day by our mild SoCal standards.

Sedona is a great big sister. She wakes up hugging Maven. She is always sharing (as shown here). One of the caretakers for day care at my tennis club, Sharmine, mentioned that she has never seen siblings so adorable. The girls will play there, she said, and then randomly stop to hug and kiss each other.

They love each other. It's so sweet. This past Saturday at Sophie's 3rd birthday party at the Redondo Beach marine-science S.E.A. Lab, Sedona and best buddy Riley were holding hands and Maven zipped right over to join them. The older girls gently took Maven under their wing. It was so cute. Maven is calling Riley by name these days, too.

Sedona loves Austin Lev and serving a big sister to him, too. Whenever Uncle Mag's name is mentioned, Sedona always follows with "Is Austin coming?"

We are fortunate that A-Gong & A-Ma Ding live minutes away in Redondo Beach. They help watch the girls, particularly on Sundays so I can work or play tennis and Kevin can play softball. *

* Editor's note: Despite a bad game recently after suffering some in-game post-concussion issues, Kevin is easily leading the league with a .792 (19 for 24) batting average this season.

As you can see, they love their A-Ma Ding.

Jennie Lin swung by for a few days after a bachelorette party brought her to San Francisco.

The girls loved her! She was a hit!

When Jennie wasn't in the room, Sedona would ask, "Where is Jennie?"

Last Sunday, we walked down to the Hermosa Beach Sunset Concert. (It is quite the weekly event for the neighborhood. It was super crowded and a lot of fun.) A-Gong & A-Ma Ding joined us in the festivities and seemed to have a great time seeing the girls interacting with their peers in a different environment.

Sienna and Sedona found a rare open spot in the sand to play ball.

And finally here is a picture of Whitney (Riley's mom) and me for those who haven't met her but hear about her all the time via our blog.

July 8 video: Maven's Mango Slices

By KEVIN DING

We got into a little bit of a rut recently, giving Sedona too many snacks in between meals, probably because Maven wants to be stuffing her face constantly. So they both can wind up eating all the time. For as much as Sedona loves fruit, she also began to grow a little long in her sweet tooth -- in the case of this video, adoring yogurt-covered pretzels.

Because Maven is freakishly dedicated to mimicking Sedona's behavior, Maven can finagle her way into some of the same sweets (especially Yogurt-Covered Pretzels). We've been scaling back in recent days -- with immediately positive results -- after the girls too often could be found doing pigeon imitiations outside the kitchen pantry door, in search of something far more flavorful than bread crumbs.

(At least Sedona knows better than to open the pantry door and go in herself, even though she easily can. She was very proud recently when she has reached the level of strength to open the refrigerator door herself. It's fun to hear her always chirp, "I can do it!" and then try something she has seen us do, but it's really so much better to hear her squeal with pride when she does do something for the first time: "I did it!")

Right now Sedona still is dealing with a fancy for Almond M&M's, but they've both begun to accept raisins as their primary sweet snack. Personally, I picked up a bag of Bugles on sale at Albertson's yesterday, and they are one seriously underrated snack item. Delicious!

Anyway, here's Maven devouring some mango slices for me the other day while Maggie and Sedona were out on the town.

July 5 video: More Song and Dance

By KEVIN DING

Maggie's parents -- and her Uncle Steve, Aunt Kelly and cousin Jason (brother of Lulu) -- came over for a post-July 4 get-together. Maggie's brother Felix and his girlfriend Jenny picked up our beloved crawfish for a holiday feast.

First, though, Sedona and Maven did a public song-and-dance routine to another of their favorite kid-style songs. It's not one of my favorites

Side note to this day: There was a moment where Maggie's dad really, really wanted his wife to scratch his back, lifting up his shirt right there on the sofa in front of all of us and telling her to quit joking around and just do it. Maggie reports this is something of a Wang family penchant. Some of you might recall me noting in our personally written wedding vows how I laughingly vowed to rub Maggie's back, but in actuality she often prefers it to be scratched. She says Felix used to rub up against a sharp wall corner in their house in Houston while growing up to scratch his own back feverishly.

I bring this up because yesterday I was rubbing Sedona's back for a few seconds while we were waiting for Maggie to finish cooking dinner (yes, she did cook dinner) and Sedona lay on her tummy. Without even looking up at me (the TV wasn't on; we were just sitting there together for a quiet moment) or saying a word, she lifted up her shirt and made a scratching motion against the sofa. It was the very same sofa that Toshi A-Gong had asked for his back scratched ... just a week before but spanning three generations!

I did it for a few seconds and stopped, and Sedona just lifted her shirt up over a different part of her back and made the same scratching motion on the sofa. It happened repeatedly, and as much as I realize most people like having their back scratched to the point that it's a cliche ... man, it runs deep in the family DNA in this case.

July 1 video: Yogurt-Covered Pretzel

June 22 video: Garlic Peas Update

By KEVIN DING

Maggie's cousin Lulu introduced us to the allure of garlic-flavored peas as a snack a while back, and recently we got another delivery of them that Sedona thoroughly enjoyed. One of her favorite pastimes is to sit on my lap at my desk and look at stuff on my computer screen, and her unquestioned primary option is to eat watermelon seeds while watching the old video of "Baby Sedona" at 15 months old and eating watermelon seeds.

So I recently took the opportunity of her eating a bag of garlic peas for us to watch six-month-old video of her eating garlic peas.

June 6 video: "Big Fun" Dancing

By KEVIN DING

Sedona says these days that Maven likes to dance even more than Sedona does, which is saying something. This was filmed more than a month ago, but Maven was already so into dancing that she was undeterred by how the CD skips when Sedona jumps on the hardwood floor. (The CD player was on the floor next to them at the time, hence the problem.) See how Maven is right on cue for the "Hands up! Hands down!" part of the chorus, though a bit delayed to "Shake out!"

A Hair-Raising Beach Friday

By KEVIN DING

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... I'm an out-of-work writer these days (although I'm still getting paid all summer for my lack of work, so there's that). The least I can do is pitch in with a few blog posts. What you'll get from me is definitely more video, because I know that's what you, my dear reader, truly wants.

Hmm ... well, in that case then you're not really a reader, but whatever.

For now, though, here are some quick snapshots of a Friday at the beach with the visiting Lev family. What is not pictured is the moment at the house before we left to walk to the beach when I got Sedona to tell Mag she wanted to see what his bare chest looked like. (Suffice it to say, it doesn't look bare ... more like "bear"!). He reluctantly flashed her.

She was literally speechless.

But before you go declaring me a cad and thinking how mean that is -- to both Mag and Sedona -- please note that I did include below the most flattering shot I could find of Mag in his clingy blue beach shirt. He did actually delight Sedona with how much energy he displayed playing ball with her on the beach.

Fun with Riley

By SEDONA DING

My mommy is terrible at remembering to bring the camera when we go out ... especially when Daddy isn't around. You know two kids younger than 3 can be a handful :-) ...

But here are some images from earlier this spring that we did nab with Riley's help ...

Playing in fountains at El Segundo Plaza outside Pinkberry.

Big hugs! Other kids love to hug me, but I'm not that fond of it (although I'm affectionate with Mommy and Daddy). Here, I am all hugs with Riley, though.

Maybe it's the matching tennis outfits. Super cute, huh? Riley's mommy and my mommy play tennis together. We want to be just like them!

Enjoying some yummy food at Veggie Grill.

On a sunny day in June -- while the daddies worked -- we played at the Palos Verdes Fair.

I love Riley!

Maven's First Haircut

By MAVEN DING

I awoke Wednesday, June 24, to my first haircut. (It is totally inappropriate for my parents to put me in the Bumbo on a kitchen counter -- explicitly against product recommendation -- but they do!)

This is the pre-cut stage. See how my hair is long on the outer parts but short in between?

Hey! That's my hair! I worked hard on growing that!

On Saturday, June 27, we went down to the Riviera in South Redondo Beach. It was nice because it wasn't too crowded. I didn't get to do much but watch Sedona.

She was excited about going on a ride.

She really is sweet -- always waving to me and trying to have conversations with me.

Hi to you, Sedona!

Here I am posing cutely for Daddy today. He's been taking care of us a lot since the NBA season ended and he has been on comp time/vacation (and Mommy has been busy working).

Here is an artsy photo in which Daddy adjusted my colors a bit. What do you think?