Lots Of Love

We've had quite a few celebrations this past week!  Last weekend was the Chinese New Year's celebration at school.  Nana bought Esme a special jacket to wear but she wanted to wear her tutu and butterfly wings instead so Chan got to wear it, even if it was a little big.  We got to hang out with the other parents and kids, do some art work together and eat some yummy Chinese food.  Welcome year of the horse!  Most surprising was the snow we were greeted with when we left that night.  It continued to the next day so Mimi, Chan and I made a ton of "racetracks" in the backyard while Allen was at work.

Getting ready for Chinese New Year

Chan Chan got a red envelope!

Making tracks

Venturing out in the snow

 



Chan also turned 9 months old on February 10th!  Time really is flying by.  He had a check up with Dr. Hiegel at my office and he was 20lbs 6oz and 29 1/4in long.  He gained less than a pound since his 6 month check up which dropped him down to the 55th percentile for weight but he stayed steady with his height in the 85th percentile.  Just this week he's given up his army crawl and only gets around on hands and knees now.  He's also pulling up on anything and everything.  He's even getting adventurous and doing some couch surfing.  Esme has learned that if she wants to keep things away from Chan she has to put them up and out of his reach because now he can go for whatever he wants!

Esme and Chan also celebrated Valentine's Day at school.  Throughout the week they came home with all kinds of goodies from their friends (many kids are part time so they'd bring stuff in whenever they could).  Faye asked for no candy gifts so it was fun to see what other families came up with.  The kids got crayons, pencils, funny sunglasses, strawberry plants, rattles, bracelets, spinning tops, and other fun trinkets.  Esme took some rambutan from Hawaii to share with her friends and she was very proud to show it to them.

Eating her rambutan

Wearing their sunglasses on Valentine's night

Then of course our last celebration was just yesterday, Esme's third birthday!  She woke up to a table of presents and balloons and was so excited for the day to begin.  She got through two presents and then lost interest so she helped me make her birthday cake - homemade carrot cake with lots of goodies inside like pineapple, coconut and of course, grated carrot.  She also got to wear the new apron that we got her.  Later in the afternoon Esme had a small birthday party with her friend Addy and cousin Tabby.  The little girls had a blast together!  It's hard to believe our baby girl is 3 years old now!  Her big birthday gift this year was a big girl bike with training wheels.  We actually got it while we were in Portland a few weeks ago but she knew it was for her birthday.

Birthday morning surprise

Helping with her cake in her new apron

Esme got hot so she was only wearing her tutu and her apron :)

Decorating her cake and eating some cream cheese frosting

By the end of the party she was hot again so she lost her dress :)

Esme, Addy and Tabby in dress-up princess shoes

 

Riding her new bike at the school nearby

 

The birthday weekend celebration continued with a trip to the Seattle Aquarium today.  Esme was so much more interested than the last time we went when she was about two years old.  She liked touching the starfish and watching the jellyfish.  However the thick aquarium glass kept throwing her perception off and she kept getting confused on how close she could get to it.

Fun times at the Seattle Aquarium



Up And Down

Chan tries to find anything possible to climb up on these days.  He doesn't go very far once he gets up but he loves going up and down, up and down, up and down.  So far he hasn't realized that he can do this in his crib too.  All his new foods must be making him stronger.  All of a sudden he's trying some chunkier foods or really soft fruits and veggies.  Chan and I made a last minute long weekend trip to the Big Island last week and he got to eat papaya straight from the source without mashing it up.  He also got to run his teeth along apple bananas and scrape off what he wanted.  He LOVED that!  He gets very demanding now when he sees food in front of him.  He'd much rather have the solids than the purees.  At daycare they even said he's not as into his bottles because he'd rather eat real food.  This is such a change from before cause they were always telling me that he kept demanding more milk.

Pulling up on the kitchen table chairs.

Chan got his upper right central incisor while we were in Hawaii.

After we got off the plane he was so excited to stretch his legs.  Looks like little pigs feet, right???

Quality time with Uncle Sterling

Hanging out with cousin Mahina who's about 6 weeks younger.

Cool dude with Uncle Sterling's hat

Hiding from the rain with Aunty B and Nana

 Esme got to stay in WA with Allen while Chan and I were gone.  They had lots of fun adventures including her very first gymnastics classes, trips to Costco and Trader Joes, and even the Children's Museum.  Before I left we had a mother daughter pedicure day with Aunty Marina and Addy though.  The girls got to pick out their own colors and were fascinated with the whole process.

I had to change her hair to match Addy's

Playing with their M&M cups from the little candy machine

Silly girls!

All done!

Martin Luther King Weekend

Daycare was closed for Martin Luther King Day so we decided to take a little adventure over the long weekend.  We drove down to Portland to visit with family we haven't seen in awhile and then we just hung out and enjoyed our hotel in the Pearl District and other Portland attractions.  It was nice to get away for a little while.  Esme really enjoys the Portland Children's Museum so we spent a good amount of time there too.

Our first stop was to see mommy's great-uncle Richard

Uncle Richard got to spend some good time with both the kids

That evening daddy's cousin Bryan came to visit us at our hotel

Aunt Trina, and cousins Dustin and Josh joined us for breakfast the next day

We drove out to Sandy to see G.G. 

We got to experience the Portland food truck scene.  Mmmmm!

And Esme was very excited about visiting Voodoo Donuts

Here's their loot!

Construction site at the children's museum

Goofy kids!

Wearing the "cone of shame" in the vet room

Learning about the dentist

Esme driving daddy crazy.  Ha ha!

And this is what Chan and I were doing, just hanging out :)

Mama, Mama, Mama

Hmmm...it's been so long that I'm not sure where I last left off.  I'll re-cap the last month or so if I can remember correctly - Chan's pulling up on things more and more as he gets stronger.  He started pulling up on his little bath tub since it's so low and he just kept going from there.  He also does short spurts crawling on all 4's but mostly gets around by army crawling still.  He likes to clap sometimes and he still loves to jump or move his legs when he's happy.  We call them his "happy feet."  Oh yeah, really exciting news - he said "mama!"  He's been babbling the ma, da, and ba sounds for awhile but he definitely says mama now when he sees me.

Chan's still eating lots of purees and not quite ready for the chunky stuff just yet.  He's recently tried egg yolks and yogurt with mixed reviews.  The other new additions have been green beans, apricots, spinach, and beets. Esme is always very eager to help feed Chan Chan.  And so far she's only fed him his food that we know of.  She hasn't snuck anything by us just yet.  Her eating frenzy has calmed down and she's back to her normal eating.  No second helpings all the time.  She's still loving smoothies, grapefruits, tomato soup and rice, and kefir.

Esme is good at copying quotes that we use like "that's impressive" or "excellent" or "how was your day?"  It always throws us off when she says something so grown up like that.  We're trying to remember the funny quotes and are recording them in a book for her later.

Our happy little guy

The pom pom twins

The clapping Chan

All decked out and ready to go

 

Lazy Days

It's moment's like these that make it ALL worth it and melt our hearts...

More Food Please

Chan Man continues to chomp away with his two bottom teeth and loves eating, especially after getting over the stomach bug.  He's recently put up a protest and doesn't like any of the pureed broccoli that I make him.  In the meantime he's been enjoying pureed lentils, sweet potato and butternut squash the most.  He's developed some expensive taste for pears though too.  We got some Harry & David pears once and since then he can't get enough.  We put a nice chunk of the ripened pear in this mesh feeding net that he can suck on and he goes to town with it.

All this food is making him nice and strong too.  He can now go from a sitting position to crawling without face planting.  And then when he's crawling he can push back into a seated position.  He still gets around by army crawling and loves to rock on all fours when he gets a chance.  He's even pulled himself up in the bathtub onto the ledge of his baby bath.  It's low enough for him to do that but nothing else in the house is that low so we haven't seen it again.

Esme has also been on a feeding frenzy.  We think she's going through a growth spurt cause she's been eating so much more than normal.  She's never been a big eater so when she starts requesting second and third helpings of things we know somethings up.  Her favorite thing to make lately has been smoothies.  She likes to help me put all the ingredients in the blender and then watch it get all mixed up.  On school days she gets breakfast and lunch at Faye's and I'm thankful because they offer her so many different kinds of foods.  At home, she usually eats her broccoli or green beans first if they're on her plate.  Sometimes she even steals some off our plates.  Then she gets to her rice and main course.

For Christmas Esme got a puzzle set and she's been obsessed with it ever since.  It's a box with four puzzles inside.  I think each puzzle has about 30 pieces and she's getting so good that we think she's memorizing them.  Regardless it still entertains her for long periods of time which is nice.      

Keeping the bald head warm.

Chan Man and Mimi

Baby shower for Addy's little sister, due March 2014

More time at the workbench

Our goofy girl

Tomato soup and rice mustache

Morning smoothie mustache

Happy New Year

We had a low key New Year's (which isn't anything new for us) since it was the Lyman's last night and we had 4 little ones in tow.  We ended up having an early dinner at the Lunchbox Laboratory and then heading to University Village for ice cream at Molly Moons and to play at their kids play area. We were home by 7:30 and the kids went straight to bed.  And the adults weren't far behind!

Tomorrow Esme and Chan go back to school at Faye's.  I think they're both ready for some routine and normalcy again.  So are we :)

 

Our four little goofballs!

Enjoying the warmth of the firepit

Aunty Amy and Malia enjoying their ice cream

Esme was going so crazy that she wasn't cold.

By this time we made her put her jacket on again :)

Aunty Amy getting in some last minute time with Chan Chan

Chan Chan playing with his new workbench

A First Time For Everything

For Esme's first Christmas she got her first ear infection and for Chan Chan's first Christmas he got his first stomach bug.  Well it actually happened a few days after but close enough.  School's been closed since December 23rd and so Allen and I juggled our schedules to take care of the kids during the holidays.  One day while I was at work he threw up a few times and then it just snowballed from there.  He was up most of the night, fussy, and just writhing around in bed.  The next day he continued to throw up a few more times and felt warm most of the day.  We cancelled our trip to Portland that weekend in order for Chan to recuperate and it took a few days but it finally happened.  Unfortunately by the time that happened then Allen and I got the bug.  Luckily for us it only lasted less than 24 hours and Esme never got it.  Phew!  Chan looks a little skinnier but I'm sure he'll bulk back up soon.

When Chan was sick we spent a lot of our day trying to help him and get him better.  Esme didn't get as much of our attention as she might have been used to so we made a point to have some good one-on-one time with her when we could.  She convinced mommy to walk to Starbucks with her for oatmeal and a milk steamer one day for lunch.  And then she also convinced mommy to make matching pigtails with her :)

Mmmm...oatmeal and milk!

Matching pigtails!

Our goofy girl

And this is how she spent her quality time with dad.  Not sure what they were up to???