Georgia

We visited Dae's family in Georgia this past weekend. His parents had gotten Christian a traditional Korean hanbok to celebrate his birthday and, while we were there, he also got a major scrubdown from Grandma. She seemed a bit surprised that we do not bathe him every day (oops!) so she hauled him over to the shower immediately. Above is a photo of him giving us the stink-eye!

Below are some photos of Christian's hanbok and Korean birthday spread. His cousins Caleb and Joshua got in on some of the action as well.


He had his hands all over his cake, giving us a staredown...


It was really sunny in Georgia on Saturday so we visited a local park. There was an abundance of thick accents, as well as a few edentulous ridges (no teeth...hehe). Otherwise, just a normal sunny Southern day!


We scoured northern Georgia for these "Walking Wings" that we heard about through Dae's brother. Our backs were beginning to hurt from leaning over and since Christian absolutely loves walking, we set out on a mission. Finally, we found a set at the Portland Babies R Us today in a lovely, conspicuous turquoise hue. Success!

Happy First Birthday Christian!!!

Dearest Christian,

Happy First Birthday! One year ago at 6:36pm you came into our lives and made the past year one filled with unending joy, laughter and love. Never could we have imagined that a little bundle of 6 pounds could add such a dimension to our lives, a dimension that would now be unfathomable living without! You have made coming home from work every day impossibly exciting, waking up in the morning to see your crinkly face the most anticipated event, and doing nothing on a Saturday except running errands and hearing you babble in the carseat more fun than...well, anything. Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween have taken on a whole new spin and brought back the unbridled excitement of childhood. We have relished every single second. Our lives are rich and full and we are so extraordinarily lucky to have the privilege to be your parents. Hopefully, years from now when you are reading this, you will get a glimpse into the everyday little things we love about you. Things that make us smile until our face actually hurts and things that make us take a zillion blurry, out-of-focus pictures to post on some silly blog. Here are just a tasting of a few of the things we love...

We love your laugh
We love your curly eyelashes that are threatening to become straight every day
We love your chubby hands
We love your ability to store food for an inordinate amount of time, sometimes even through a nap
We love your dark eyes
We love how you smell
We love how you let us brush your lower teeth but not your uppers
We love hearing you babble incoherently
We love how your teeth catch food like an adult's
We love your eye rubbing
We love your full, round tummy
We love your strict 7pm bedtime (no earlier, no later)
We love how you 'read' - flipping immediately to the front or back cover
We love your ears
We love how you drop everything to the floor, then innocently peer over the edge to have a look
We love your hand swat when your personal space is violated
We love seeing you sleep
We love that you love getting your ears cleaned
We love your strong distaste for getting your face wiped
We love High-Fiving
We love how you laugh when your ear gets suctioned against my face
We love your two types of hair co-habitating on one head
We love how you jam food into your mouth
We love your love of pounding aka drumming

Quite simply, we love everything about you. Through the highs and the not-so-highs, the sleep deprivation and accompanying haze, we wouldn't trade an iota of it. We love you very very much. Happy birthday to our little Leelee!!!

Love, mom and dad

Llama, Llama, Mad at Mama

We have a book called "Llama, Llama, Mad at Mama" which I think was given to us by Dawn. These days Christian gets mad whenever I try to feed him anything healthy so our newest joke is to call him llama, llama, mad at mama! It hasn't gotten old quite yet...

Little Dawg

Go Dawgs! They've beaten the odds and are still in it, even going to the Sweet Sixteen. How sweet!!!

As warned, more Hipstamatic photos below. Leelee enjoyed a Pho Hung outing with us today in his Washington apparel.

Blurry, but what else is new (hey, his hand is in focus!)

Big news: Christian can feed himself. Yahoooo! Seeing as how he has turned into quite possibly the world's slowest eater, you can imagine the reduction in workload this has created for Dae and me. Now we are able to put a few scraps of miscellaneous food in front of him and he will awkwardly stuff it into his mouth. Have I mentioned how much this guy loves strawberries? It's truly amazing. He is done with tofu, done with rice, and no longer a huge fan of avocado or sweet potatoes. (I think it might have something to do with the fact that we fed him those same foods for the past 6 months with little to no variation.)

He also loves walking now, but only with a firm 2 hands of adult assistance. Offer him one hand and he stands, paralyzed. Two hands and he never wants to stop.

Lastly, my seasonal allergies are taking over my life. I wake up every morning like a puffball and have gone through boxes of Kleenex, Benadryl and Zyrtec. Sneezing and sniffling into a patient is all sorts of fun as well! Oh well, we are going to Atlanta this weekend so I hope that my histamines are friends with Atlanta's pollen population.

Hipstamatic

I'm really into this new iPhone app called Hipstamatic. You pick your flash, film and lens and take the photo through your phone. (Be prepared for a lot of these, like it or not!)

Christian's Early Birthday Party

My mom came down this weekend to 1) babysit Christian while Dae and I flew to Chicago! Thank you mom! and 2) celebrate Christian's First Birthday a little bit early with a family celebration.

This post will be filled with pictures, but the important points were this: 1) My mom taught Christian, in 1 day, how to hold his own bottle. We had been unsuccessful in 1 year. 2) Dae and I had a great trip to Chicago. However, we missed Christian terribly and we were woefully underdressed for the Chicago weather (the weather forecasters were wrong, wrong, wrong and I was a mess in my jean jacket and faux down vest). It was FREEZING and wet and windy!

The famous dyed-green Chicago River for St. Patty's day. It was amazingly green!

We wondered if this was for Oprah...

John Hancock Building

View from the top of John Hancock building on the non-windy, non-rainy day

The very Magnificient Mile!

Before our fancy dinner at Alinea in Chicago

Meanwhile...

Having a ball with grandma

Not so much with his cousins...somehow I always find his crying faces just so funny!

Evidence of my mom's hard work at training Leelee

Birthday celebration. Leelee in his fancy shirt.

With Auntie Ev

Family


Enjoying cousin Mal

Didi eyeing his new present of Thomas the Train

Present opening

Me "resting my hand on Leelee's head" - the optical illusion! haha

Watching NCAA basketball with Uncle Jeff

Why laughing so hard? See next photo...

Dae and I had some problems with our hats. Due to our large head sizes Dae was forced to secure his hat, floss-style, through his teeth (look closely at photo). The laughs we had over that!

Still laughing over our hats.

Blurry, but even Leelee was laughing at our hats.

Finally...cake. Mal helped to blow out the candle.

Meanwhile, Didi wasn't feeling his hat either.

Not sure what to do with this big, brown mound.

Ok, I will try it.

Hmmm. Kind of enjoying myself! (and showing off my new top teeth. They are big, and there is a diastema between them)

Fun's over. Frosting in my hair and I look like Jack Nicholson. Confirmed that I do not, afterall, take after my mom in the sweets department.

Clean-up. Mom and dad holding me at arm's length to avoid getting frosted.

What a fantastic weekend! Thanks again mom and thanks to Ev and family for the fun and gifts! xoxo

Sick Baby and A Sunny Saturday in Portland

We had a sick baby on our hands last night and today. Again, it seems to be tooth related as his upper left tooth has broken through and the upper right does not seem to be very far behind. He rarely naps in our arms anymore, but, as evidenced above, he completely passed out this afternoon after a few fitful naps in his crib.

(Pre-tooth) A sunny Saturday in late winter is indeed a rare occurrence in Portland, so we maximized our sun intake yesterday by jogging (including Dae!) to Grant Park and back. We had a great time. Dae and I decided to run a 100m dash on the high school track and time ourselves. Dae finished in 13.8 seconds, while my grand finish was 18.9 seconds - how embarrassing! (We were laughing the entire time we were "sprinting", so I am pretty convinced my results were not very accurate.) Before our big race, we spent some time on the swings, the see-saw, the slide, the dog, and the bench.

A moment of rest after a long day's work