Leelee's Accomplishments

How could I have forgotten to boast about Leelee's accomplishments? Dae took him out golfing - starting him young - on Saturday and said he was quite coordinated. He seemed to have a good time. I find the littering of balls within a 2 foot radius of the tee pretty funny. Also, he is really, really into his Legos and I feel, without any basis of comparison, that he's pretty handy with them. His masterpiece of choice these days is this particular configuration above, which he calls his Airplane.

More Photos (Good ones)

It's pretty obvious, but these photos weren't taken by me. Amanda took them and sent them to us. So cute!

Thigh rolls 

Olin mesmerized by Addie's hair

Firefighter gloves 

New sunhat from J.Crew. It's slightly tight, so I had Dae use his big noggin to stretch it.

Bisous!

Sunday Picnic

For our mom's potluck today we decided to meet at the park (Irvington Elementary). It was a really nice time since the kids are getting to the point where they are a little stir-crazy if sequestered inside. Leelee and Olivia (his birthday partner) were thick as thieves and made a beeline for each other until Quinn asked Leelee to be a part of his fire-fighting operation, including a fire-fighting glove. 

Olivia and Leelee

Quinn and Leelee high-fiving with their gloves

There was an odd play going on at the park (think Portlandia) and after the actors left the stage, Leelee and Quinn assumed the stage. It was really funny - they started waving to the audience and the audience clapped. They stayed up there quite a while, even after the audience started dispersing.

Goose eggs...They are enormous! Compliments of nanny.

Weekly Round-up

We've had a busy week. Dae got called in numerous times at 10pm or 2am or some other unmentionable hour, so we've been trying to play catch-up.

Tuesday marked two big events: 1) the end of the 3-week cleanse that Ev and I have been on and 2) Coldplay in concert! The cleanse was a no alcohol, no caffeine, no sugar, no wheat, no dairy, no processed foods situation, which actually turned out to be much more do-able than I had imagined (I wasn't starving). Now I feel like my body is so clean I don't want to add any more junk. I am sure this feeling will be fleeting, but I'll go with it as long as I can! Anyway, 'clean' and organic grocery shopping is taking a major hit on the bank account (Dae maybe you should stop reading at this point - hehe). The grand total for this one little basket of items plus a couple of miscellaneous items on the lower part of the cart from Whole Foods was $145. I almost had a heart attack. I just have to remind myself that you can't put a price tag on good health for me and my family! haha

Coldplay was really good. We had seen them in 2005 at the Clark County Amphitheater and I remember being really impressed at how good they are live. I was not disappointed. Ev and I celebrated the end of our cleanse by imbibing a few adult drinks that night.

This picture of Olin was taken at the Lululemon fitting room. Coincidentally, I had taken Christian into the Lululemon fitting room around the exact same age (8 months) and the reason I remember that is because both Christian and Olin were barely sitting on their own at this point so I had to prop them up in the corner of the fitting room. Here is the link to Leelee's photo.

Lastly, we got this Johnny Jumper thing from Target which hangs on a doorframe and allows the baby to jump to his heart's content. Leelee thinks it's his own personal toy and refuses to be gentle with the baby. You can hear the irritation creeping, not so subtly, into my voice in this video.

(ps... I've discovered how to enlarge photos with this new Blogger format. Be prepared for a lot of very large photos!)

OMG, a Miracle

Something living is growing in our pot! This is, like, a full blown miracle. I have never, ever, ever in my life nurtured a plant or kept one alive or planted anything that stayed alive for more than one season. I am the master of purchasing bloomed flowers via Freddy's or Costco, planting them, and idly watching while they wither away. Actually, scratch that, I am not even aware when they die since I go out onto the deck so rarely. So you can imagine my total shock when I was walking across our atrium today and spotted these little purple beauties shining on our deck. Actually, this is really funny because I caught a glimpse of these flowers a couple days ago in my peripheral vision and just assumed it was our neighbors'. In fact, I remember thinking "how strange, those flowers look like they're on our deck, but that can't be, so they just must be really tall or really close to our deck or something".

Back up about 6 months...I really can't even remember, but I believe my assistant at work gave me some bulbs to plant, and I inwardly groaned (tip: anytime anyone gives me any live plant, I always inwardly groan. Bottom line is, I know they are just wasting their money, since I don't water anything and have never seen a plant through its growing season). I didn't even know what type of flower/bulb she had given me. She had said just plant them and put some soil on top, so I set the bulbs on our kitchen table for like 3 weeks. I was about to throw them away, then I felt really guilty, so I trudged outside in the freezing weather, fluffed up the soil that had sat untouched for probably 2 years in that blue pot, and put them in. Period. From them until now, I have done absolutely nothing. I mean no water, no protecting them from the rain, no strategizing about sun exposure...nada. In fact, if you want to know the embarrassing truth, the last time I touched that pot was when I was shamed into doing it because the weeds that were growing in there probably 2 feet high! They were starting to look like a real plant to me they were so big! I am sure our neighbors were absolutely and totally horrified. We are probably that family in the building that doesn't take care of their plants, doesn't wash their deck (still have no idea where the water spout is), has loud kids in the hallway, the list goes on and on.

So back to my flowers...I am beyond excited. I honestly cannot believe they have grown. It has planted a seed in me (pun intended! ha!) that I might, just might, attempt some sort of simple garden once we move and have a house. Excited!

Monday: Um...update. I told Dae the miraculous story last night and he goes "oh, those bulbs I gave you?". So yeah, I really had no idea where they were from and had obviously put them out of sight, out of mind.

Baba's Job

The past couple of Saturdays Dae has taken Leelee to vascular conference where they listen to speakers and eat donuts. Now when we ask Leelee what dad does at work he says "uh...eat donuts...and ride the tram!". Today, he asked what baba was doing at the hospital. I said taking care of sick people. He asked "taking temperatures? And wiping their nose?". Sure, close enough :)

I also need to reiterate how much this Olin likes to eat. He eats a LOT. He ate an entire banana this morning and a good serving of squash in one sitting, then wanted more banana and green peas when we got to Whole Foods. He can't seem to get it in fast enough...

Monday night musing

This is the first diaper cake I've made, copied directly off of a tutorial on a craft blog (literally step for step). It's for my friend Megan's baby shower in May and I can't wait to bring it. I am very proud, since I don't really feel like there is an ounce of natural crafty in me!

Yesterday we attended a birthday party at the Jantzen Beach carousel and (drumroll please...) Christian was not scared to ride the carousel horses! In fact, he loved it! Rides are free all of April in celebration of their big renovation so maybe we'll scoot back over there for another ride or two.

Today's big bath. The only unhappy camper is the one getting cleaned.

Baby In Red

He's been wearing this red bad boy 4 days and counting...

Coming Soon to a Tri-City Herald Near You...hehehe

This is the copy of Dae's newspaper ad that I suppose will be on display in the Tri-City Herald shortly. Dae got it by e-mail today and forwarded it to me, saying the photo is "horrible". I said no, it wasn't bad, but I do see a 1) huge head and 2) his half-smile that he always does. I asked why he never smiles his full smile, which I think is quite nice. I'm thinking he needs to pick up some pointers from Leelee, the major cheese-monster in photos these days.

Hodge Podge

I've been scanning the dental journals for job openings in Washington and came across this one in my town of birth, Lynchburg! Contact name happens to be Melanie, too...

Dae and the kids in their Easter Finest. This year I didn't do anything for Easter. I decided Leelee had been getting enough random candy here and there to more than account for the holiday, so we just went to church and otherwise went about our regular day.

Sleep training is going well (if you disregard the fact that he's crying his eyes out right now). Besides that, he has slept well the past few nights. After the mammoth 13 hour night, he woke up once at 9pm the next night, then he woke up a few times the next night, then last night he didn't wake up at all. Each time I just have to go in and stick his pacifier back in and he's pacified. Imagine!

Olin Slept Through the Night

As of 8am this morning, he has been sleeping for 12 solid hours. Not a peep. I am in a state of shock, but apparently this means he was ready to be on his own (even if I wasn't!). This sounds crazy, but I honestly can't remember if Leelee ever in his life slept 12 solid hours.

Meanwhile, Dae just took Leelee to "work". Work being vascular conference. Leelee was so excited to go with him, I have never seen him put on his jacket so quickly. He has also been asking to go on the OHSU Tram since Thursday when we drove by it, so Dae said he would take him for a ride on the Tram as well. I can't even imagine Leelee's excitement.

Last note on leelee's vocab: I think we've got to work on gender assignment. Everyone is a She. Example: "Baba is at work. She isn't home yet". Or "This rocket ship is Didi's. She share it with me".

Update: 13 hours and counting. Just went in to check on the little bug - he stirred a bit and went right back to sleep!

Confessions of a Co-Sleeper

Confession: Olin has been sleeping, snug as a bug in a rug, wedged between Dae and me in our queen size bed since birth. If it were up to me, he'd stay there until he left for college, but reality has set in and I realized it's time for some sleep training (btw, until recently Christian was never much of a snuggler in bed and was not very interested in sleeping with us, or I am sure he would have been right there up until college too). This decision was prompted mostly by this new book I'm reading called "Bringing up Bebe" by an American woman raising kids in France. It's really good, and talks about stuff that I should already know, such as that I am doing Olin no favors by feeding him every time he wakes up or even makes a hint of a sound.

So last night I began. I pulled out the Pack 'N Play (coincidentally purchased in France!) and set the little wailing guy down at 7:30pm. (Dae was still at work. I had warned Dae in advance that if there was ever any night that he might be 'obligated' to stay at the hospital, this might be it :) He did end up getting home at a reasonable hour, only to return to the hospital in the middle of the night.)

Anyway, Olin wailed for about 15 minutes, sweating profusely and alternately sucking on his paci and crying. I turned on the white noise machine and waited it out while Leelee disobeyed my commands and kept hopping into and out of the room. Then, Olin fell asleep. (big sigh!). Around 9pm, I wandered listlessly into our bedroom and felt a little (ok a lot) of sadness at the little void left where his warm little body usually was. Throughout the night, he did ok. He woke up around 10:30 and cried for 10-15 minutes, so I went into his room and put his paci back in and he fell back asleep. He then woke up again around 3:00 and at that point I took mercy and carried him back into our room and nursed and fell asleep. (Meanwhile, Leelee had also made himself comfortable on Dae's side of the bed sometime in the middle of the night.)

I told Dae that when I first put Olin down I felt like he was looking at me and asking "What happened? Why aren't you taking me with you to your room?". And this morning when I retrieved him at 3am I could have sworn he seemed a little withdrawn and melancholy. I know it's little melodramatic, but I didn't realize I would be this sad, and I guess I must be going through some sort of grieving process! :)

Anyway, on a positive note, Olin now claps on command and can kind of sit up! I have to say "pai pai sho" a few times (maybe 5-10 times) and he usually starts to clap. Sitting-wise, he can actually sit up for a few minutes before teetering to one side. I usually try to sit him with his legs spread wide apart for maximum balance, and I think he's getting close! (Nobody ever accused the Lee boys of mastering their motor skills early! Although I am proud to say they seem well ahead of the curve in most other areas!)

Speedo Swim Goggles

Thanks Auntie Ev for my Speedo Swim Goggles. I like them a lot. Love, Christian.

I got a lot of gifts for my birthday this year (my mom thinks too many!), including a stamp set from my mom & dad and a drill set from Puo Puo (thank you!). xoxo

Richland

Photo of Ni and Ye taken in the 1940's, we think

We traveled to Richland and back this weekend for Ni's memorial service. It was very nice although very windy and cold! Didi, Leelee and Olin made the trip with me and Ev, as well as our cousins Andrew and Christine. 6 of us (3 adults and 3 children) stayed in my dad's one-bedroom apartment. It was snug to say the least, and it's safe to say no one got a good night's rest. Andrew forgot his C-pap machine and some heavy snoring ensued. Leelee was up to his usual traveling antics and woke up 3 times crying and screaming, which the thin apartment walls did not muffle! Therefore Ev slept with Didi on a tilting futon (earplugs in), I tossed and turned with both boys in the bed and Andrew slept in his pink and purple sleeping bag on the floor! We should have gotten a photo.

Grandma

For such a somber weekend, Leelee said some hilarious and embarrassing comments:

1) At our favorite new Frozen Yogurt place last night (Maui's apple) they had a Hawaiian celebration with hula dancers and a band. As we left, Leelee said "I liked that dancing" and I asked what kind of dancing it was. He said "um...shake your booty!"

2) As we pulled into the cemetery today Leelee yells out from the backseat "I love this place!"

3) In the car today he says "Mama?" I said yes. He said "I wanna shake my weenie!"

Geez louise...

Potty stop on I-84