4 Months, 3 weeks

The most notable things about Emily this week are: she began to get the joke – laugh and try to make you laugh. She also began to entertain herself when she was awake.

Friday night, we met up with Fang, Fred, their kiddos, and Fang’s parents for dinner at CiCi’s. Emily watched us eating for the whole time. Fang’s parents loved seeing her smiles and gigglings. Saturday morning I went out to run an early errand while Emily and David were still sleeping (David didn’t sleep well because of the soda drink he had at Cici’s Friday night). I went into Emily’s room and saw that she was sleeping across her bed – she must have had some gymnastics in her dream! I took a picture of it before I left and put the monitor at David’s bedside so that he would hear Emily if she was awake. After I came back at 9:15am, I was surprised that both of them were still sleeping. Emily normally gets up at 7ish. I waited for another 15 minutes before I went into Emily’s room to check on her. To my surprise, she was playing with her fingers and toes in the bed, still across the bed. I had no idea when she actually woke up since she didn’t make any noise all this time. She was so kind to daddy so that he could sleep till whenever he wanted!

Emily not only does gymnastics in her bed. She did that in the swing and on the sofa too! One day I put her down on her back on the sofa lounge and ran to her room to get an outfit for her. When I came back, I saw her hanging in the air with only her arms and head over the lounge! I asked David to get her when I ran to get the camera myself. But before I could press down the camera, David caught her in the air! Whew!!! For a few days she liked scooting down while she was held on our laps.

Saturday we visited our friends Kathy and Li. They just had their first baby Mike last Friday. We had a nice visit with them and their parents. They (Kathy and Li, Kathy’s parents and Li’s parents) took turns to hold Emily. They really liked her a lot. Sunday we had lunch at Jerry’s parents’ restaurant because Jerry’s mom wanted some Emily’s pictures to put in her wallet. Jerry’s mom took Emily back to the kitchen. All of them just loved her. David and I didn’t get to hold her much. When she was a little hungry, the waitress Cindy took over Emily and began to feed her. Jerry's parents watched her doing that. I felt like their restaurant business would suffer if we eat there too often!

When David was doing Friendspeak, I stayed in the car hoping that Emily would take a nap. But she was too excited to sleep. She played with the burping cloth and laughed every time she looked at me. She laughed almost every minute for 15 minues. Silly girl! I didn’t know why she was so happy. Maybe it’s because of her discovery that her laughter actually could bring me to laugh every time. She just giggled herself to sweat. Finally I gave up on the idea of napping and took her to see David. We met up with Ted and Mary for dinner afterwards. Emily laughed all the way home. It was great to end a week with catching up with friends!

Joey comes to our house for Friendspeak every morning. He loves Emily and Emily loves him. Here is a picture of them:






Emily sleeping after gymnastics:



Emily loves bath time:

4 Months 2 Weeks

This past week is wonderful: first of all, it is the spring break week! Only two people in our team were working (I’m one of them). Work is so slow and easy. I had a relaxing time in the office. The weather has been most beautiful with 70s degree and sunshine every day. David moved the tomato and pepper plants to the vegetable garden outside. Several teacher friends came over for a visit during their break: Paul and Jerry came over on Wednesday; Tracy came over on Thursday. We were so happy to catch up with them!

Emily enjoyed the nice breeze and bright sunshine too. She was fascinated by the dancing leaves, flying birds, yellow flowers, and all kinds of sound outside the house. She rested better with longer naps. She really worked hard on her legs – You can tell from the video below that she was very proud of the baby steps she made when she was supported by daddy. She started to sit in the bumbo seat – but not longer than 20 minutes a time. She gave free smiles to everyone. She likes to twist to her right side and fall asleep at night. Sunday (on my birthday) she successfully rolled over a couple of times without any aid! That was the best birthday gift I got! We started to experiment with the iron-fortified rice cereal after her last feedings before bed. We are surprised at how well she took it. But she won't eat more than half tea spoon of the rice cereal every time. Her bed time has been 7:30pm consistently (if we allowed her). She has linked bathing-feeding-sleeping together. That’s so easier on us.

It’s hard to think about it. Last year this week we just found out that we were going to have a baby. Emily’s size was 1/3 of a rice grain. And her heart beat was 109 per minute! In one year, she’s grown into a happy, lovely and beautiful girl of 26 in. long! How blessed we are to be her parents! We thank God everyday for the joy she brought to us each moment.

For my birthday, Robert and Gail took us to a wonderful steak restaurant Friday night. I indulged myself with a crabcake, steak, spanich salad, and baked potato. They were so good! At work, we had mini-cheesecakes and icecream. Yummy! Saturday, David arranged a surprise party with some of our Friendspeak friends at a Chinese BBQ restaurant for lunch. We had dinner at Brooks and Ann's house with another Chinese couple. Sunday we had lunch with some church friends at Jerry's parents' restaurant. Jerry's parents and the waitress just loved Emily! At Friendspeak, David got a big Chinese fruitcake. People enjoyed the cake as much as I enjoyed the Happy Birthday song! Emily was popular everywhere we went. Everyone commented how good she was. Ann made her laughing out loud many times. She delighted everybody with her bright smiles and giggles although she was overwhelmed/over-stimulated by so many people and missed her much needed naps. David and I thought she will grow up a people-pleaser! I got gifts from Dad, Amy and Kendall too! Thank you my dear husband, my loving friends and family for a very happy birthday weekend! Don't you love your birthday being spreaded over several days!! God has really blessed me with another great year. I'm looking forward to what lies ahead in the next year!

Surprise lunch with friends

Dinner with the Neals

Dinner with the Hargroves

Sitting in the seat

Daddy's little girl
First Rollover (Video)

Step and walk (Video)




Giggling

4 month 1 week

The weather was not really good this week. It was raining for the first couple of days and cold for the rest of the week. So Emily stayed at home all week except Sunday. Friday Joey and his girlfriend from Taiwan came to visit. We had nice lunch together. Rusi (a SMU student from China) came to visit on Saturday morning. David picked her up early in the morning and then took her back to school at noon. She told us that her classmate April was going to be baptized! We knew both Rusi and April last year when we picked them up at the airport. Later we brought them some used household stuff to start their new life in Dallas. I still remember the day when David and I sat in April’s hot apartment talking about Religion. She was very articulated and deep-thinking. We were so happy that she found the new life and decided to become a Christian half year later. I called April and told her that David was at SMU campus. She asked whether David could take her to see Emily. Saturday afternoon we hosted a baby shower for David’s FriendSpeak reader Ray and his wife Olivia. So April joined us for the shower. She told David on the way that she had always searched for spiritual things. She had a monk friend in China. But she was never touched by Buddhism. Recently she was moved by the message that a Chinese preacher from Arlington (Arlington Chinese First Baptist) delivered at SMU. She wanted to be changed by God and then use her own testimony (of change) to reach out to her parents! She invited Rusi (her classmate) to her baptism. Rusi asked me what the baptism was when David was putting Emily down for a nap. I explained it to her. She said, “I didn’t know there’s such rich meaning in it. No wonder April invited us to see her baptism.” On the way back, it happened that David talked to her about baptism too. So Rusi had a double message on baptism!

The baby shower had a great turnout: with all the active Friendspeak workers. We were so thankful that George, Bob, Louella, Pam, Gayla, Dawn, and others came to the shower and reached out to Ray and Olivia despite of their busy schedules. It was such an encouragement for Ray and Olivia. They said they learned so much from everybody. Ray hasn’t attended Friendspeak regularly ever since Bill Kidd passed away a year ago (Bill and David used to work with Ray). At the end of the shower, Ray told everybody:”I’ll see you tomorrow at Friendspeak!” Unfortunately David was sick. We didn’t go to Friendspeak Sunday afternoon. But hopefully we will see him next week.

Emily is still a super baby: easy and contented. Her appetite really started to grow this week. She is eating 4-8 oz for each feeding. She stayed awake for half of the party on Saturday and went to sleep in Gayla’s arms. Sunday she put up with us at Gayla’s house without a nap (Gayla prepared a delicious lunch). Sunday night Emily slept through the night for the first time – from 9:00pm to 6:15am! Yeah!! Here are a few pictures this week:

4 Months Old

Emily is four months old!! At four months old, she attempts to stand up against the sofa. She also flips pages and drools a lot. She likes licking/sucking her fingers when she is hungry or sleepy. She is quiet, gentle, contented and happy. We just moved the coffee table out so that she can have a big play area in the living room. The next thing is to baby-proof the whole house.

Emily had four-month check up today. She is still an A+ girl!!! Her weight is 14.5 lb (75%). Her height is 25.8 in (97%). Our pediatrician suggested us to begin adding iron-fortified rice cereal.

Amy, Kendall and Chloe were here for the weekend. Amy had her baby shower in Kyri's house. I made a diaper cake as practice. It was a lot of fun. On Emily's four months old birthday, the weather was beautiful. Both Chloe and Emily had their pretty spring dresses (I can't believe that I didn’t take a picture of them together …) We attended the second service. During the prayer time, Gordon came down from the pulpit to pray for Todd Miller’s family. Then he saw us. So he walked over to pray for Emily. That was the sweetest thing. He prayed for Emily’s development and for our parenting. On the way to lunch, David said “Parenting does require patience!” “Why do you say that?” I asked. “Gordon prayed for us for patience.” We are really impressed by our preacher’s personal touches on the church members. We had lunch at SpringCreek BBQ. Before Emily could take a nap, we had to go back for Friendspeak. It got hot in the car. So I took Emily into the Friendspeak room. So many people wanted to talk to her and touch her. She was exhausted in the end. We barely had time to have a feeding and diaper change before the “Made in the Street” missionary report. But we didn’t stay to the end. Emily had another long and busy Sunday!

Here are a few recent pictures:

Emergency diaper change at the roadside:

Smile to Gayla after Sunday service:

Practice stand-up (or Kong-Fu??)

Why can't doggie talk??!!

See what I can do in the swing

Thank you Daddy for feeding me!

Changing diaper at church - lady's restroom (Thank you Robin for the changing pad! We use it everywhere):

Getting ready to have shots at doctor's office :-(

Hurry Bath time!!

Fascinated about the blocks and rings:

Flipping through pages:

Hands and feet workout: