Always willing to help, Kaitlyn volunteered to help her mom make some dumplings a little while ago. Not exaggerating here, but she really begged us to let her help & didn’t stop until we told her to. Here’s some photos to prove it.

One Saturday in early April we decided to visit IKEA. Actually, Kaitlyn & I first went on a Friday night. I forgot why but I had to take care of Kaitlyn that evening & I took her there. And when Mel found out, she was jealous & wanted to go as well, hence the Saturday visit.

We walked around a bit, bought a few small items & had lunch there.

March was all about corn beef, chasing the supermoon, some very good steaks that I butchered (too much salt), sleepless nights (thanks to shadows + imagination), Indian take-out, and a bunch of hair clips. Oh, and at some point last month, it was finally warm enough for us to watch the sun set & have Micky D’s in the car.

Enjoy!

This year we did it again—we made our own turkey! Jeremy also brought over a big piece of ham to go with our 20-lb. birdie. We also added items to our menu, including candy yam & apple pie. Good thing we had 2 Elders over so we were able to finish half of the food. It took all day to prepare the meal but we sure enjoyed it.

Check out the delicious photos! Enjoy!

*This is actually an old entry that I haven’t put up.*

So much has happened since we haven’t really updated. Here are some things that she has learned to do in the last 2-3 months (some things might have been repeated from a previous entry – i can’t remember):

- She no longer drinks from a bottle (nipple) and only uses a sippy cup or drinks from a straw. She learned it pretty quickly. At first she would just bite on the straw, but then when I showed her how to suck up the liquid, she did it! We were very proud.

- She can feed herself w/ a spoon. Of course she still makes a big mess, but she’s still learning.

- She can also brush her teeth w/ her new toothbrush.

- She could pretty much identify and point to all the major parts of her body, except her eyes.

- She smiles when we ask her to (like in the 7th pic).

- She dances whenever she hears music or just about anything w/ a beat.

- She screams at the top of her lungs just to get what she wants (and to drive us both crazy).

- She spins around and around.

- She climbs up on the couch, futon, and stairs.

- She understands sit and stand.

- She folds her arms to pray and says “ah-mama” (AMEN)

- She says “Ah-mo” for Elmo.

- She says “hi” to everyone she sees and calls almost every kid “be-be” (baby), even if they’re older and bigger than her. She also says “be-be” whenever she sees us using a camera or cell phone. She wants to see pictures of herself. (vain baby?)

- She says “Boosh”, meaning bird.

- She says “ba-ba” (meaning dad) everytime she hears the door open. (usually because it’s Ether that’s coming home from work, but it isn’t always him at the door.)

We have tons of old pictures that I’ve wanted to post but never got the chance to. April and May were really busy months that Ether needed to use the Mac for his homework. So here they are..

Dim-Sum Day w/ the Posse (5-1-08):

She loves to look at books, but we have to be careful when we give them to her because she still bites on them and chews off parts of it. So we usually give her a pacifier and watch her as well when we give her books to look at.

Our delicious Valentine’s Day dinner:

Today is Presidents Day, so no school or work for me. Although it rained last night & it’s supposed to rain again later today, it’s sunny outside & it’s 62 degrees! Unfortunately, there’re too many projects that I have to work on, so I have to stay home pretty much all day. Mel wanted to go shopping, so she & Kaitlyn went to her parents’ house last night & she’s going to go out with them today.

I really don’t mind staying home alone working on projects, since I usually get more things done without the distractions. It’s hard to resist playing with Kaitlyn. Trust me. Besides, I love how our apartment has big tall windows & a high ceiling. They just make the place brighter & look bigger, so it’s very pleasant to be inside. The location & rent are the other obvious things that we love about this place. You can’t beat this anywhere else.

Sadly though, because the building itself is really old (probably over 60 years old?) & the last time that this place got a total facelift was probably 30 years ago, there’re all these gaps/cracks/holes in the house. I try to patch up as many as I can & we keep this place pretty clean, so we have no problem with ants & roaches. In fact, I haven’t seen one since I moved in here almost 3 years ago.

BUT, for some reasons, mice get in somehow. I am seriously a musophobe. I can tolerate any bugs: cockroaches, spiders, caterpillars, whatever. You can put them on my face, if you want. I won’t flinch. But when it comes to rodents, regardless of size, I can’t bare even looking at a photo of it. For real!

Since they are doing major renovation/construction just two houses down the block, we’ve caught almost 10 mice in the past month alone! We live in attached houses, so the construction makes the rodents move to other houses. Although we put all the food that mice would eat in containers, they have been biting on bags & plastic containers in the kitchen, trying to get to the food. Our two electric mouse traps have been doing a great job catching them most of the time.

Still, there’re more coming!

Every time I’m alone in the living room at night, even with all the lights & the TV on, a mouse has to run into the room!

And a stupid mouse ran in on me again last night! What’s there to eat in the living room?! I mopped twice yesterday! Or do I smell like food to them or something??!

WHYYYYYYYYYY???!!

I swear the first thing I’ll do, when I get a full time job after graduating this May, is to find a rodent-proof place to live in!

Anyway, enough bad news. Here’s a video Melanie took of Kaitlyn falling asleep after eating. It’s about two minutes but it’s pretty funny. It was the morning my mom & sister arrived, so you can see my mom napping in the background, too.

Kaitlyn enjoying her birthday cake:

- taken on 02.02.2008

Happy 1st Birthday Kaitlyn!!!!!

My how fast 1 year has gone by already.. My baby is now a big girl… well sorta..

On Saturday, we had a mini birthday party with family and her 2 playgroup friends. Our apartment is WAY too small to accommodate everyone that we wanted to invite. So we apologize to those of you who weren’t invited, but we still love you!

Kaitlyn’s Mini Birthday Party on Saturday, Feb 2nd: