Yogurt for Breakfast

A New Word

Update on Christian's vocab:

- He can now point to a balloon and say "chee cho" - Chinese for balloon (I don't use proper pinyin Chinese, in case that wasn't immediately evident!)

- He signs "more" and "please"

- He'll wiggle his hands and feet when we say hand or foot in Chinese (courtesy of nanny)

- He motions up and down when singing The Wheels on the Bus ('babies on the bus go up and down' portion)

Peace?

Christian and Didi might have reached a truce. The former arch nemeses seem to have come to a place of mutual respect and agreement this weekend. Dae is in Lincoln City so we hung at Ev's place most of the weekend, therefore the boys were forced to get along. And look!

We picked up my Mac on Saturday after 3 days of impatient waiting (while they transferred data from my PC over to my new prize possession). Leelee helped himself to the kids' computer, placing his grimy little paws all over their machines. I am sure the employees were thrilled!

Lastly, we had another Mom's Potluck and I finally snapped a photo of babies and mothers. They do exist! Here are Lori, Karen and Dana and their kids.

Me and my new Mac

I love my new white Mac! Thanks Dae!!!

He knows this is not the computer we use, therefore he has little interest in it. He does however, periodically pound on the keys just like mom. Here he is in action!

Baths in the little laundry room sink

(This post is not very well constructed or orderly. I am working a five day work week this week and already am complaining and tired!)

Anyway, onto business. Just as quickly as Christian learned to say yes (or Yeah), he learned to say no. All of a sudden on Friday he started saying it, and frequently!

I have been forgetting to update his latest sleeping patterns. For the past few months he has been sleeping pretty well. We put him to bed at exactly 7pm pretty much every night. He wakes up once sometime between 3-4am, Dae gets him, places him between us in bed and feeds him a bottle of milk which he guzzles. He gives a big, full-body stretch to let us know he's done and that he's ready to go back to his crib. He is not interested in spending one extra second in our bed, much to our dismay. How lovely it would be if he would just lay silently in our bed without turning, grunting, and wailing!

This past week was a pretty fun one. We visited Selynn and her new baby Dylan, who is gorgeous and very sweet-natured. Then we met up with the Robertson clan at Red Robin for Mal's 4th birthday. Then Megan visited on Friday and stayed until today, so there was, as usual, a lot of bargain clothes shopping, Walgreen's runs and Costco visits (the finer things in life!). Dae was relieved of his Leelee-watching duties on Saturday when he was able to drop off the little guy at Ev's house to hang out with Gong Gong, who was also in town for the weekend. He came back exhausted and berry-stained, so I am sure he had a grand old time!

The Red Robin clan

Selynn and Dylan

Me & Megan

What has become our tradition: S'mores over the stove...we really rough it!

Weekend(s) Re-Cap

Today was the first Sunday Parkway in Portland and this Sunday's event was in NE Portland. Perfect! About 5 miles of neighorhood streets were closed to traffic and open to bikes, walkers, joggers, and rollerbladers. This path connected 5 different parks in Northeast Portland which hosted games and food vendors.

So we dusted off our one bike, borrowed another (as well as a trailer for Christian) and set on our way. When we left our house it was raining and freezing (ok not freezing, but certainly not the 70 degrees I was eagerly anticipating), so we didn't get off to a fantastic start. However, it warmed up, we got some Voodoo doughnuts in us and a hot dog for Dae, and all was well again :) Meanwhile, Christian was subjected to a new helmet which covered I'm guessing about 90% of his vision. We felt so sorry for him. Every time we looked back, he was just laying there, playing with his train, more or less blind. I think he finally realized there wasn't much else to do and promptly fell asleep for the remaining 45 minutes.

Our meals have gotten a bit more complicated. Christian drops so much food we have started to place a large tarp of newspapers below him every dinner. That Sunday paper (after I have taken out the coupons, of course) sure does come in handy!

Last weekend my mom was in town so she took lots of photos. My mom, Ev and I spent the night Saturday at the Avalon hotel after getting facials and pedicures and it was a real treat! (Lounging, reading magazines, drinking champagne and watching TV never gets old.) We also made a Burgerville stop on Friday after their visit to my dental office.

Church on Mother's Day

Demo: doing a whole lotta nothing!

After the spa

Race to the finish!

Loves stairs

Hopefully he will not have to spend a lot of time in this chair!

Burgerville

Leelee at the Mac

Didi asleep

"Yah!"

This photo was taken Thursday when Ev and I took the kids on (more than enough!) errands around town.

Christian loves to answer all questions with "Yah". Any kind of upward inflection at the end of a sentence will usually illicit the "Yah" from his end. This video below illustrates this as well as his new walker that he discovered today.



We just got back from dinner at Ned Ludd and dessert at McDonald's....delicious! Mother's Day was great. My mom came down for the weekend to celebrate her retirement, her birthday and mother's day, so pictures to come!

May!

I've been starting every post with a trouble shot. Christian's getting into all sorts of goodies these days. So in case you were curious, apparently a standard dishwasher door can carry 21 pounds with ease!

Dawn came over a couple of weeks ago and photographed Christian at Grant Park. I love these photos. Her talent never ceases to amaze me! (note: We have since trimmed Leelee's hair. It was getting a little unruly as you can tell. Somehow we don't see it until we have a good set of photos, unfortunately!)

This one is so funny to me.

This is one of my favorites. Contemplative profile shot. hehe

We drove home to Richland again this weekend to visit my Grandma. The weekend was nice and full of lounging around as well as helping out my Grandma with her tasks. She is getting more and more mobile and seems to be recovering quickly, which is amazing considering her age and the surgery.

The threesome lounging. Christian pretending he's going to give up his milk bottle (never!)

Dae submitted his request for Mandarin House dinner, but I knew that my grandma wasn't too keen on having restaurant Chinese food (seeing as how she can make the authentic stuff herself) so we compromised and had a delicious dinner of Pizza Hut and Mandarin House! Only the finest!

On the way home, we stopped by Multnomah Falls and had brunch. It was a good brunch and afterward we hiked up one mile to the top of the falls. It was a really pretty hike but neither of us had planned on a hike so I was inappropriately dressed in my white (yes white) jeans and leather jacket. Dae was in his work shoes. Oh well, we saw a lady in high heels during the first portion of the hike so I don't think I was the worst dressed of the lot!

Can't see much, but Leelee's smiling. He enjoyed the hike.

We got Christian his very own guitar in San Antonio for $9.99 at the Market Square. He jammed with Dad last week...


And finally, after two days of cloth diapers, I have noticed: 1) he's developed a fierce diaper rash, and those cloth diapers supposedly eliminate diaper rashes 2) the smell is a little overpowering. So I'm obviously not sold, but I'm not going to give up yet. I called Aunt Ev for some advice and apparently I might not be changing them as frequently as I should (another oops). Stay tuned!