Spiky seems to be getting his teeth in sooner than Chops did (at a little over six months versus about nine months). He has the start of two already! Here’s one of two teeth (and yes, he wasn’t terribly pleased with having his mouth poked and prodded at):
Guess that’s the end of those toothless grins!
I’m still getting accustomed to writing “2012″ as the year, ten days into this “new” year. And though a little on the late side, I thought I should Cliff-notes last year as a way to bid it farewell.
In the very first post of 2011, we alluded to the fact that we would soon be a family of four. What we didn’t know was the sheer amount of changes that would take place before that time. I switched jobs, we finalized on the purchase of a house, we packed and moved, finished remodeling our old house, put it on the market, and sold our old house. Summer sort of came and with that, our son. I took maternity leave and Dan took a decent-length paternity leave (really grateful for the time he took off from work). Chops became fully potty-trained (naps, bedtimes and all) sometime during the summer. Dan changed teams, and then changed teams again. I went back to work, Spiky started daycare, schedules are mostly adjusted to. Kind of a big year for us! I feel like I/we need to come up for some air …
Some things I am hoping for in myself in 2012 include: being more intentional with my relationships (be a better friend, and also to take more initiative in making new friends); focusing on trust and joy instead of stress, control, and “bitterness”; creating time for creativity (music/crafts) and exercise.
Some things I am hoping for in our family in 2012 include: time and ability (you know … kids) to go on family trips; becoming an even more cohesive family; becoming a family that is a refuge/sanctuary for each person who makes up the family as well as for those we each interact with (I particularly like this combined definition of refuge - “any place, person, action, or thing that offers protection, help, comfort, or relief”).
God, please, please watch over us and bless us all in this new year!
It is almost Christmas. I, for one, am excited 
— I get the whole week off and am looking forward to that. It’s going to be somewhat busy though with Christmas, family, attempting to coordinate time with friends, and hosting a birthday party.
This year, instead of baking cookies as holiday from-the-kitchen presents, I tried my hand at candy-making. I was nervous about this as I have tried marshmallow making before yielding unspectacular results (edible, but impossible to remove from pan, hence no good for sharing) as well as making caramel sauce (overcooked it the first time and wound up with essentially hard candy). Surprisingly to me, it was all mostly a success … except the first try at the caramel candy making (which also wound up toffee-like, in part due to error in the recipe I was using). I made:
We also took the kids to have pictures taken with Santa. We didn’t do it last year, but this time’s is definitely an improvement (in some ways) over the one from two years ago (for Chops) — Spiky didn’t really have an opinion just yet but might oppose next year. Here are the kiddos with Santa:
… and for the first time in a few years, we actually put up our Christmas tree. Chops really enjoys the lights. We also have a full set of stockings thanks to Dan’s aunt who went through the trouble of making us all matching personalized stockings. It all looks so pretty (if only I knew how to get a better photo of it …):
Hope everyone has a relaxing time celebrating Christmas with their families! Most likely last post until the next year … wow, 2011 passed by rather quickly!
Like this (from back in February):
I’m relieved to say that I have finally finished it. Just in time for Christmas, and possibly photos with Santa:
I am also relieved that Chops appears to like it. Might have something to do with the buttons on it .
While we tend to be thankful for things such as health, family, friends, etc. in the general sense, here are a few specifics that we’re thankful for this year:
We had Thanksgiving with my side of the family this year at our house. Due to oversight on my part when I was putting together the grocery order on AmazonFresh, we didn’t have any mashed potatoes. Regardless, we still had plenty of food: a 13lb turkey, stuffing, harvest soup (I should have lightened up on the ginger, but otherwise good), asparagus, yams and apples, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie. The best part — leftovers (and the chance to have mashed potatoes if we manage a trip to the grocery store in the near future)!
Here’s a picture of the food:
… a picture of the people (minus Spiky and me):
and then a picture of just Spiky and me:
Hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving Day!!
Inevitably, we will all die. I know — what a happy thought. I was thinking of people I’ve known more than just in-passing who have already died for whatever reason: all four of my grandparents, some of Dan’s grandparents, friend’s parent(s), classmates, a coworker, and most recently the husband of my piano teacher growing up. What are they remembered by? I think at the very root of it, the example they set for others in their life.
So … I want to be a good example. That’s what I was thinking the other night. I want to be a good example to my kids; so they can believe and know what it means to be wise, to be selfless, to serve others and be generous. I also want to be a good example to others; to always have a positive attitude, to be open to advice, to be willing to happily go the extra mile. I want to be a good example in deeds as well as attitude/thoughts — I want to be a good example in my heart as well as outwardly that people can see and want to emulate.
Can’t believe that it’s already November!! Our little boy is now four unbelievable months old and getting pretty good about sleeping through the (early part of the) night. Or perhaps I’ve gotten used to semi-waking up and feeding him to not pay too much attention (or recall clearly). Either way … it works . Still need to set a proper bedtime for him, but the last few days it seems to be that he’ll go down during the evening the first time around 9PM (generous margin of “error”), coinciding with Chops’ bedtime though he’ll half-wake when we go to bed (around midnight) for a feeding.
What have we been up to this past month? It seems so event-filled until I try recounting it, but here are some “highlights” I suppose.
We went to a pumpkin patch where Chops decided that she needed to adopt a number of “baby pumpkins” from “pumpkin daycare”.
We went geocaching together for the first real time as a family during this time. I have to say (and this isn’t just because I work at Groundspeak) that it is fun and a great family activity to do … provided you research your intended cache before endeavoring to find it — larger sized caches are better when kids are involved (slightly easier to find, greater likelihood that there will be small toys and gizmos for them to trade).
Chops actually agreed to wear her costume to trick or treat at my office; it didn’t last long though. The costume is still big enough that, unless she has a special request for a particular costume next year, she might be able to wear it again . Sir Spiky was Batman courtesy of a onesie with the Batman logo across the chest, a pair of dark colored pants, and a cape that I made for him last minute. He had nothing against wearing the costume when I wanted him to . Here is a shot of them together in costume:
Chops is now also completely diaper-free, naps, nights and all. There are still a few accidents here and there (though surprisingly, all occurrences during her awake-time outside of bed), but all in all … hooray Chops!!
Dan started taking the machine learning course offered online, for free through Stanford and is enjoying that (I think).
Other than that, nothing terribly exciting comes to mind. Parting “funny”: the other day during dinner, we were talking to Chops and tried getting her attention by saying her nickname. She turns around and says “I not Chops. I T-Pop Chops”. So there you go … our girl came up with a rapper-name for herself .
Perhaps it’s because we have a baby around the house, but it’s becoming more and more apparent that Chops is growing up. She wants to make food and feed people:
she likes helping her baby brother (or at least trying):
and enjoys practicing her language skills regardless of language. (This is her attempting to say “bon jour”):
This weekend, we were at a nearby shopping center and decided to let her ride in one of those coin-operated cars. She really enjoyed it — so much so that she cried when we insisted it was time to leave and informed us, “Daddy make me cry! I want to drive in my red car! No thank you! No thank you!” as we carried her out to the car (the real one):
Kind of wish life was really like a movie so you can continue to replay stages/scenes you really enjoy and/or rewind back time. At the same time, I’m looking forward to continuing to enjoy her developments and delight in things that she learns and discovers.
Besides the fruits that we knew of on our property of strawberry we planted in topsy-turvy containers,
blueberries in pots,
and blackberries we harvested from some of the branches dangling over the fence from our neighbors house,
we discovered that we do in fact have fruit trees — pear ones:
and … that we also have grapes:
Definitely need to figure out how to manage grapes since the fruits that we found were tangled in the branches of our cherry blossom tree where we couldn’t really get a close look to determine whether the grapes were ripe or not, resulting in our harvesting them before they were ripe.
The day has arrived. I am now back at work which is both cool/neat but also a bit sad. For one, our spiky little one is much younger than Chops was when I went back to work so there is a bit of me wishing that I got more time off for maternity leave. Directly related to this, it makes our days (mostly mine, but also Dan’s and, in some ways, Chops’ too) a little more difficult schedule-wise since we have to work our morning schedule off of Spiky’s feeding schedule and my “need” to pump in the morning before getting to work.
One thing that I didn’t fully anticipate was how much of an interruption to my work day pumping is and how I need to schedule things so carefully around it — still figuring it out. It’s good to be back at work though. I get to work on something new to me so that’s exciting — need to keep those brain-cells stimulated! And it’s nice to have enforced structure, and fairly guaranteed adult interaction on daily basis (and as a result, feel generally productive).
Since Spiky is so young, he hasn’t seemed to suffer in adjusting to daycare and a-ma watching him. If anything, Chops seemed to sense a change and on the night preceding my first day back at work, managed to keep Dan and me up through the night about: ladybug in her bed, needing to use the bathroom, wanting to sleep in our room, wanting me to sleep in her bed with her … you get the picture. Think she’s settling in along with the rest of us into our new routine (though it still needs a vast amount of work, imho).
Spiky is vocalizing more these days. Just today he smiled at me and proceeded to have a particularly long one-sided conversation with me while I was holding him. He has also this month started interacting more with toys:
and is frustrated with himself at his lack of coordination:
Really loving Spiky’s smiles these days
Will write more about Chops later.