A Week In Review

Well, the sun is partially shining today, the snow has almost completely melted, and the year is almost over. David, Vincent and I made it through our week of messy, snow covered roads and cabin fever. Looking back, it was a really good week. It was a bit stressful to have to constantly play things by ear, and guess if we would actually make it out for whatever we had planned. In the end, we were able to enjoy the Christmas festivities with people we care about and with each other. David returned to work this morning. Here's a recap of our week together.

Monday, 12/22/08 - Vincent's birthday (see previous post).

Tuesday, 12/23/08 - 1) We got a call that our bags arrived in Long Beach, and were on their way back to Seattle. Unfortunately, that flight was delayed 2 hours, which made it too late for David to make the trek to SeaTac. 2) We head to our neighbors' house, 2 doors north, and enjoy holiday celebrations & very delicious shrimp etoufee.

Wednesday, Christmas Eve - Snowing again! 1) After much pondering and waiting to see how the weather pans out, we finally decide to head to SeaTac and collect our bags. They only had 3 out of 4 of our bags, and 2 of them have been damaged. At least we got our Christmas gifts in time for the big day. No car seat. We were lucky to borrow one from a neighbor. 2) After the airport, we head to Federal Way to have dinner with Lucy's family. We get there late, but are welcomed with plates of delicious food upon entering. Lucy's oldest brother takes over watching Vincent and does a fantastic job playing with him. We all open some gifts after eating, and then it's time to head home for Vincent's bedtime. We had changed him into a fresh diaper and pajamas before leaving, which was a good thing because he was sacked out from all the playing he did with Robert & Halina. I was able to carry him to his room & place him right into bed.

Thursday, Christmas - More snow! 1) When Vincent woke up, we both led him out of his room into a dark living room with just the Christmas tree lit up. Under the tree were all the gifts that were in our luggage, wrapped and ready to be opened. We thought he would have some profound reaction, but he just went straight to one of the gifts (still in the dark) and tried to open it. The gift opening was a lot of fun, but I think Vincent woke up on the wrong side of the crib. We did a web call with David's family, and Vincent was acting wild and cranky. 2) After Vincent's nap, the snow had turned to rain, and we head over to The Hildebrandts for an early dinner. Thankfully, Vincent was in a much better mood after his nap. It was just the thing our little family needed. A relaxing evening shared with our good friends.

Friday, 12/26/08 - 1) They found our car seat! David drops Vincent and I off at Southcenter Mall to play in the kids area, and maybe do a little after Christmas bargain shopping, while he goes to retrieve the car seat. The plan was to have lunch at the mall together before heading home. David has an easy time getting back to car seat, but I have a tough time with a sort of rough playing toddler. After 10 minutes of circling the parking lot at the mall, David calls me and picks us up...we'll go eat in the International District back in Seattle, instead. I think the rest of the day continued pretty uneventfully, except for 2) Jen Beatty has her baby boy, Maxton Scout Beatty!

Saturday, 12/27/08 - 1) We had our most successful outing all week. We bought Vincent a new twin mattress. We had no idea it would be like buying a car. Somehow we got him to knock off about $200, just for standing around thinking about what to do. We also do a big grocery trip at Wholefoods. It felt good to stock our fridge again. 2) I got to visit Jen and Max at the hospital with my friends, Kari & Brian. On our way out of the hospital, the three of us get stuck in the elevator. Luckily, it was only for about 10 minutes, and I didn't go into labor. 3) Nog Night our at neighbors' house. We only stay for about an hour, but during that time, I met a woman named, Sparrow Hawk, who dangles a needle and thread over my belly and predicts I will have a baby boy! 4) David goes to the Thunderbirds hockey game with friends.

Sunday, 12/28/08 - David's last day of vacation. The roads are almost completely cleared. It's raining. 1) We have a delicious breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe, and head to Target for some bargains. Totally underwhelmed by the Christmas selection, but we did get new sheets for Vincent's new bed! 2) As a fun ending to David's time off, we decide to take Vincent to his first major sporting event, a Thunderbirds game. Yes, that's two in a row for David. We head to Queen Anne & grab a few slices of pizza at Pagliacci before the game. It was so cute to see Vincent holding the half slice of pizza and taking bites. He seemed to have a good time at the game. He immediately loved "Cool Bird" the mascot. We lasted only two periods, but it was still a very fun family event. This is about as crowded as I think we can handle with Vincent for a sporting event. We'd like to try a Mariner's game soon, but we'll see.

Happy 2nd Birthday Vincent!

The snow continues to fall here, in Seattle. Actually, it didn't snow today. The sun was shining at times and the some snow started to melt. The day before was pretty crazy. But, first, let me take you back a few days...

Friday night, we had the Demseys over for a little mini birthday celebration for Vincent. I made a cake. I'm not much of a baker, and I made the mistake of putting sugar sprinkles on the side and refrigerating the cake. I had forgotten that sugar melts in refrigeration, so you can see some sugar syrup here in this photo. Nonetheless, Vincent enjoyed having us sing to him and blowing out the candles, and especially eating the cake.

The next morning, Christmas came early. We had a web call with Vincent's grandparents in Cleveland, and we all opened our gifts from them, since we planned to be in L.A. for the holiday. We all received some great gifts, but the top gift in this household was definitely the Thomas and Friends train track set, along with a few trains from his grandparents and friends.

As I mentioned, the snow continued here. We were supposed to leave for So Cal on Sunday afternoon for a week trip to visit my family. David and I were on the ball getting to the airport. Everything went pretty smoothly through checking in, baggage drop, security, lunch and getting to the gate on time. Once we were at the gate, things sort of snowballed (no pun intended) from there. The flight out to Palm Springs ahead of us at the gate was still there & delayed. In fact, the passengers had been on the plane, and were now all getting off. They were moved to another gate, which gave us hope that we may get our plane soon. Not the case. At around 2pm, when we should've been boarding, they announced that our flight was cancelled. We were to go to baggage claim to retrieve our luggage, & strongly encouraged to go home and call Alaska Airlines reservations from there, rather than going to ticketing.

Baggage claim was a nightmare. Bags everywhere, people everywhere, and lines that nobody really seemed to know for sure where they lead. We happened to run into some friends who had been there longer than we had and were at the head of one line. They got some useful information, which actually helped us because we waited in the same, shorter line as they did. We ended up leaving our bags there, after giving the agent all our info, and headed for home.

The drive home wasn't too bad but scary. We drove very slowly. Unsure of the best route, we chose to go up one road that our friends had luck with a couple days prior. We had almost made it to the top of the hill when our car couldn't go any further. Luckily, David was able to turn us around, and we headed back on to the highway and tried another route, through downtown. We almost got stuck again, but somehow we made it home all in one piece.

So, here we are, in Seattle. Our trip to L.A. has been cancelled all together. But, we are making the best of it, even though all our gifts are either in already opened, in L.A. or in our luggage at SeaTac. Yes, this includes our stockings. For Vincent's actual birthday, we took a walk up to 15th Ave & found an artificial tree with lights for $20, and a few little cars to wrap up for Vincent as birthday and Christmas gifts. We also took him to Vios for lunch, so that we'd have a nice hot meal & Vincent could do a little playing. The street next to Vios was closed off, and there were kids sledding down the hill.

Here's David putting the first ornament on our new tree.

I baked Vincent a Betty Crocker cake out of a box & iced it with some whipped cream. We asked our neighbors to come over after dinner to help us sing "Happy Birthday" and have cake. Vincent was happy to have another cake & even did a better job blowing out his candles. He loved the cars & Playdoh we got him, and he didn't know the difference at all.

More snow and holiday cheer!

It's snowing again today, even harder than it did over the weekend. The roads outside look crazy. Busses are stuck up the street. In fact, I just looked out the window and the one that was trying to come down the street about an hour ago is still there, now with it's hazard lights blinking.

In anticipation for the bad weather yesterday, David's Microsoft commuter bus was cancelled completely for the day. David drove into work for a little bit yesterday. When he got home, we took advantage of the lack of snow and took the bus down to the Seattle Center for their Winterfest ice skating rink. Here are a few photos from our pre-snowday outing. Good thing we went yesterday, because we are stuck inside today!

On the bus.

Gettin' ready to take the ice!

A little wobbly.

Haircut - Finally!

I had a doctor's appointment this morning, and when we were done, I decided that if I could get a decent appointment time, Vincent would get a haircut. I've been so torn about this for a long time. I've even attempted to get him one a couple of times, but when they didn't have any "walk-ins", I would just shrug and that was the end of story. Today, it would be an hour wait. Since they had a train table, I took the appointment. Vincent played with the trains for a while, then we got a bite to eat, and came back for the haircut.

So, here are a couple of pictures, even though they aren't the best. He was distracted when I was trying to take these.

It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas!

I feel like I've been having a tough time getting into the spirit of the season. Up until last night, the only thing I have been doing to get into the holidays is buying gifts. I've been on a gift buying frenzy. There are so many people to remember. AND, there are so many birthdays to celebrate this time of year, too! So, I'm done with getting gifts now. There are still a couple of people left on the list, but David is responsible for them. The other thing I've done is hang up our stockings. Everytime I go to a friend's house and see their decorations, I have holiday envy. But, I just couldn't get myself together to make things more festive in our house. We've also opted out of getting a Christmas tree this year, due to a small, curious child.

So, yesterday afternoon it was decided that we would go to Trader Joe's & get a wreath and some garland. After Vincent went to bed, we hung the garland with some lights. WOW! What a difference that made in my inner holiday spirit. Not long after they were hung, it began to snow! This morning, after breakfast & a quick web call to the Cleveland grandparents, we took Vincent out to play in the snow.

David made a snow angel (didn't get a picture) & I built a small (er, tiny) snow man. I think this may actually be my first ever. Yeah, yeah, I grew up in L.A. Apparently, it wasn't very good snowman making snow, so that's my excuse for it looking so peuny.

Afterwards, we walked over to the park across the street to see if there were kids playing in the snow. My batteries to the camera died halfway there, but not before I got this shot of Vincent. He carried the snowball most of the way to the park, and when he dropped it accidentally, I had to remake it for him.

Some photos

I thought I'd post some recent photos of Vincent. Enjoy!

Here he is having a semi-pureed meal: whole wheat noodles in a sauce I made by pureeing sauteed mushrooms & sauteed zuchinnis (separately). He won't eat either of those things if he actually knew they were in his noodles. He's also having a banana/blueberry milkshake. I'm in love with the Magic Bullet blender to get my child needed nutrients!
This past weekend, Vincent received his first Christmas and birthday gifts for this year. Here he is opening them up. It was very exciting! I think he's going to love both events when they come around.

This morning, Vincent was pointing to something on the dining table. I think it was my laptop, trying to get me to show him this online book from http://www.onemorestory.com/. Instead, I grabbed these sunglasses and put them on his head. It disstracted him from the computer & he kept them on the rest of breakfast. He also posed for me, pretending to eat his sausage. I think he finally ate that piece 10 minutes later.
These last two photos were taken today in the toddler class we take together at the Seattle Central Community Collge. Today was our last class of the quater, so I thought that I should finally take a camera with me for the first time since we started taking the class in January.

Here's Vincent "cooking" away. And, one with the streamers during circle time. I can't believe he was still crawling when we started this class. Now, he sings along with the songs, dances, does art, runs around, and knows many of the names of his classmates!

"Sorry Baby"

This phrase both super cute and super sad at the same time. "Sorry Baby" has quickly become Vincent's favorite thing to say. He has been saying it for quite some time now, though just on occassion. But, yesterday afternoon, I had gotten upset with him about something, and I apologized for getting angry. I feel like I spent a good amount of time talking to him about how I had gotten angry, and that I was sorry for raising my voice, etc. Today, I think he must've said "sorry baby" at least 20 times. He said sorry to Buster for something this morning, only it was specifically, "Sorry Busta," he said "Sorry Baby" to me when we got home from My Coffee House this afternoon because he screamed at me the whole ride home (he didn't want to leave the train table there), and then he said "Sorry Baby" to David during his bath when he made a fuss about getting his hair washed. Among several other random times, that I can't remember for what reasons. It is so cute to hear, but it I have mixed feelings about this, that I just can't quite explain.

Some other cute things coming out of his mouth these days:
-"No" in Mandarin, which is much cuter and easier to put up with than when it's said in English
-"Milk Honey", or "Honey" after anything he is wanting..."water Honey..."
-counting to 10 in English and Mandarin, and almost to 20 in English
-SINGING! He can carry a tune, and has some of the words to the songs; Twinkle, Twinkle in English and Mandarin, Old McDonald, Wheels on the Bus (his favorite), and a more than a handful of others in English, Mandarin, and a couple in Spanish (um, he doesn't know all three versions in all the songs; just one or the other). And, he has made up some words to tunes, too.
-The way he says, "Daddy" or "Mommy" when we go to his room in the morning when he wakes up, like he's so happy to see you.
-"too tight"
-"naked"
-Mommy or Daddy "pee pee"
-"roasty toasty"

Gosh, there's just so much coming out of this kid's mouth now. He's a talking machine. Most of it only David and I can understand. Ooh, a new one today was when I told him we were going to the ProClub gym this morning, and he said in Mandarin, "Mama exercise." Ahhhhh....