These days it seems I have a lot of pictures and  video of Sammy and less of Sarah.  Part of that is because we are spending more time together as Moon has to spend time with Sarah.  Thus, Moon has Sarah pictures that I have to try to get my hands on.

 

I finally showed Sammy the Sound of Music, which he loved.  The kid loves songs and he picked up on Do Re Mi pretty quickly.  The next 2 videos are him sing that.

He's really a good brother.  Sammy helps out with Sarah a lot.  Of course, his biggest help is just ignoring her sometimes :-)  This is Sammy holding Sarah on the couch.

 

GQ Sammy showing off his impressive tie collection. For a couple days, Sammy kept bugging me about wearing his ties.  I finally got him in a shirt with a collar so he could go to town. He models are regular tie and a bowtie.  I'm guessing that he started to be interested in these because Daddy has been wearing a lot of suits these days.  It is an unnatural change in dress for daddy which is likely whay he took notice.

Mountain Sammy discovers the glories of tree climbing.  We have continued to go hiking together.  This hike took us on the mountain behind my school.  It is wonderful to know that just beyond my office is this area.  We hiked all the way to my office then watch some cartoons and got ice cream :-)

During the hike Sammy found a good climbing tree.  This is a real change for him.  He was scared to death of climbing trees last year and now he's climbing everything.  Fun to watch, but quite scary too.

 

St. Patrick's Day event in Insa dong brought big crowds of beer guzzling young folks and a certain family of four.  We listened to a pretty good band and performances.  Sammy learned about Hurl (spelled right?) an Irish sport that he treated more like a combo between baseball and golf.

Sammy, Sarah, and Moon at a normal, average dinner.

I reached my upload limit on the previous post. These are the left over videos that didn't fit in that one.  One more hiking video and two videos from Sammy's keyboard class.

February started off with Sollal.  This a time to honor ancestors through ceremonies of offering, which Sammy participated in for the first time this year by pouring soju (Korean liquor) for the offering.  He also dressed up in his hanbok (traditional outfit) and, of course, ate and played with family.

Sammy and I went to a play called "Guess how much I love you" with his friend and the friend's dad.  It was a good play and good company.  It's always nice to find someone who not only has kids the same age, but speaks English as well :-)

You have probably seen many hiking pictures already.  Sammy and I hit the mountain a couple times in February, though it was quite cold.  He has gotten much better at it.  We even made it for the first peak near our home.  It took a little pulling from Dad, but we finally made it.  It was really windy at the top, though, so he wouldn't pose for a picture.  He just croutched at my feet.  I'm glad to be able to do more active things with him.

One of many pictures of Sammy and Sarah on the couch together.

Sammy loves going to the English library near our home.  Lots of books there to check out. 

Grandma and Grandpa Kim let him practice drawing some Chinese characters.  He did a pretty good job of it too!

Dad made a chocolate fondue for dessert one night.  It was a big hit.

All that work it tiring.

I had an artist through http://www.artpoli.com create a portrait of Sammy.  Artpoli is a site that helps promote Korean artists.  The company is trying to go beyond the Korean audience now and reach out to English-speakers.  What you get is a digital picture of your work, at this point, you can't order the original through the site due to problems with shipping.

This seems like a good time for a general update on Sammy.  He's doing wonderfully.  He's about 43in (109cm) and 43lbs (19.6kg).  He's growing at a rate of about an inch every 4 months, but he's only gained a few pounds this year.

He's fully bilingual at this point.  His English vocabulary seems to be lacking a little, he's better at expressing himself in Korean.  This disparity grows in the time between visits to the States.  I fear that he is learning academic language at his daycare, but he's lacking that in English.  That's going to be a gap as long as we are here.

He continues to love music.  This kid could memorize War and Peace if it were put to song.  He loves any movie with singing and, surprising, he asks me all the time to watch Mama Mia! again.  Yes, my son is an avid ABBA fan at 4 years old.  In addition to that, he's started his first piano (keyboarding) class.  These are group lessons that focus mostly on singing at this point, with a particular focus on finding the different notes.  They also do actual keyboard work as well.  He loves it.  At least at this point, I don't see me having to drag him to any classes.  It's important that these classes are very social and fun.  I like that this is his introduction to music instruction.

He's been able to pick the English letters of his name out when inputing them for high scores on the Wii, but I've never seen him write his name.  However, the other day he wrote is name in Korean (first name) for the first time.  I was a proud papa :-) and he was so proud of himself when he saw my reaction.  I was a little concerned for a while when he was having difficulty with character recognition, but that seems to mostly be in the past with both Korean and English.  He can recognize the characters, though he does have problems with different font sets.  I can't blame him, so do I.

I think Sammy is ready for the arrival of his baby sister.  He has fun feeling her kick.  He likes to put his ear to Moon's belly.  Not sure what he hears, or if it's just a good way to feel the baby move.  However, he is going to hate some of the changes, including not sleeping with his mommy. We have been trying to boot him from the bed for a long time now.  Even if he goes to sleep in his bed, he usually makes it to our rooms sometime during the evening.  That's going to have to change when Sarah comes.  He's going to get less alone time with his mommy as well, which will be tough.  They spend a lot of time together.

This month he's starting to ramp up for Christmas.  He's making a list and starting to talk more about Santa :-)  It should be a good season.

That's all for now.

My little boy is going up.  It's time for a new passport as his will expire at the end of the year.  I made an appointment with the Embassy and started collecting the required documents.  In addition to his birth certificate and other docs, they require 2 pictures a year from the time his picture was taken for the first passport.  I thought those would be good here.