Jocelyn's Hair

I thought it would be fun to play around with Jocelyn's hair since it is getting longer. She enjoyed having me do her hair and loved looking in the mirror after I was done. She is such a cutie!

Dairy Farm Adventure

We were able to go tour the UIUC Dairy Farm last Saturday morning. I was excited to bring Jocelyn because she loves to make the sound of the cow and whenever we drive past the farm she would always point out the cows outside. It turns out that Jocelyn is scared of the cows and did not want to get close to one. She even got scared when we tired to take a picture of her with the cows in the background. I guess it would be scary for a little girl like her to see a cow. The cows are huge and weigh about 1500-2000 pounds! They are definitely a lot bigger up close! We got to see where and how the cows are milked, where they stored all the milk, what type of things are fed to the cows, the young calves, and some people even got to stick their hands into the cows stomach! We were not able to stay for the whole tour so we missed out on sticking our hands into their stomachs. It was a fun trip and although I gagged sometimes because of the stinky smell, it was worth going.


Jocelyn before the tour pointing at the tractor.








Bruce, our tour guide, explaining how the cows are milked three times a day.







The stalls the cows stand in while being milked and after they are done, the bar goes up and the cows walk out all by themselves.







Jacob and Jocelyn standing in front of the milking machines.







This is where the milk is stored at 38 degrees F. It is emptied about every two days.







Cows outside eating. I couldn't believe how big the cows are, and their utters looked painfully huge and swollen. Good thing they are milked three times a day!





We finally got a picture of Jacob holding Jocelyn in front of the cows. Jocelyn was really scared and nervous around the cows.






Me with the cows... this picture was taken to document that I was actually there.







I liked how pretty this cow looked.







Hay. One of the things in the cows diet. It is mainly a filler.







Alfalfa hay. This adds to the fiber content of the diet.








Cotton seeds. Also part of the cows' diet, but I forgot what nutrients it provides.





Soybean pellets. It adds protein into the cows' diet.







Corn meal. The corn has to be ground up because the cows can not digest the whole corn.







This is called corn silage. It is whole corn plants chopped up to pieces and fermented in bags. The smell was awful, I almost threw up.



A caterpillar we saw while we were walking.






I'm guessing that this is manure by the way it smelled.





A calf. They don't start milking until they are two years old and are usually 10 years old when they stop milking them.




Jocelyn and me with the calf. Jocelyn was still scared.

Mama's Vietnamese Beef Stew

This is a picture of the beef stew I made for the first time. My mom usually made this for us on Sundays. I thought I would give it a try and make it with the help of Jacob. I was scared to make this for Jacob because he was use to the good stuff that my mom makes. Luckily it turned out great and it brought back good memories of being with my family. We will definitely make this again! YUM! (and a special thank you to my sister-in-law, Lauren, for being the brave one and making this dish first and typing up exactly everything she did)

Our Trip to Indianapolis- White River State Park

We searched on the internet to see what fun things we could do in Indianapolis while we were there, and the White River State Park was the only thing that didn't cost anything. So after playing around at Costco, Jacob took us to the park. It was a beautiful day and the park was nice and peaceful. We did have to pay for parking though. I guess we came at a bad time because parking usually cost $2 for a couple of hours, but there was some event going on and parking everywhere was $10. Oh well, we had a great time walking around the park and taking pictures. It was a fun family trip.

Jocelyn and me on the bridge at White River State Park in Indianapolis.

Yum yum! This will be enough food to last me...

WOW! Look... Jacob is so strong!


The city of Indianapolis.

Jocelyn pointing to the river and saying "water" in Chinese. It's cute because she kind of says it in a deeper voice.

I love Jacob! Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to go out as a family!

Jocelyn has fallen asleep in her stroller on our walk back to the car. This was the only nap she had all day... about 15 minutes! She wouldn't fall back asleep on the car ride home. We were just glad that she was pleasant the whole time we were driving home and during the night.

Our Trip to Indianapolis- Costco

We decided last minute that we were going to make a trip to Indianapolis to get our tires looked at. We noticed that the back right tire of the car was losing air. Since we got our tires at Costco, the closest one was in Indianapolis. It only takes about two hours to get there. We planned for Jocelyn to just nap in the car, but instead she wanted to be awake. We were just glad that she was cheerful and happy on our drive there and back.

Once we arrived at Costco, the tire services said we would have a 2 hour wait before they could even look at the car. We ended up waiting about 2 1/2 hours before the car was ready. It wasn't hard to fill our time because we were at Costco! We walked around and tired samples, got a couple of things, ate lunch there, and played outside of Costco while waiting for the car. Who knew that Costco could be so much fun! I love Costco.

Jocelyn can now buckle herself in her stroller.

If you look closely there is a poster with an Asian lady on it, and Jocelyn thought it was me! She pointed it the poster and said, "mama." Haha.

How cute. Jocelyn and Baba holding hands!

I love this picture of Jacob and Jocelyn.


While waiting for the tires to be fixed, Jocelyn liked to point and look at the Michelin man/logo that was inside this tire.

We also passed the time by spinning in around in the tire section of Costco... people gave us weird looks, but it was fun and Jocelyn thought it was funny and enjoyed it.

A Couple of Sundays Ago

A couple of Sundays ago I decided to make some French toast for breakfast. It turned out that Jocelyn really liked them. Instead of syrup, I just sprinkled some powder sugar on Jocelyns' French toast. We are trying to let Jocelyn feed herself as much as possible. I guess next time we give Jocelyn smaller portions on her plate because she stabbed four pieces of bread and tried to stuff it all in her mouth!

Later on that day, while we were getting dinner ready, Jacob noticed that Jocelyn was being quiet so he decided to go check up on her. He caught this silly girl in her little green toy bin! She had to have Jacob help her get out of it.