I’m Not Ready For This

This week Emily started on her baby food: sweet peas. She liked it as much as her mommy and daddy did. On the first bite, she was kind of avoiding the spoon- not sure what’s in it; on the second bite, she leaned forward; on the third bite, she reached out for the bowl! By the end of the feeding, she opened her mouth wide and swallowed the peas like a pro! Here is a picture of her third bite ...

She also started to splash the water in the bath tub so we moved her from the kitchen sink to the big bath tub.


Emily licks on everything. In the restaurant, she licks on the menu (Yuck!); at home, she licks on the toys; if there's nothing else, she licks on her feet. She is so fascinated by any hanging strings (including my hair). She tries to catch them with both hands whenever she sees them.

We went to two birthday parties this week. One in Papadaux for Jeff Nolan and one in Papasido for Nikki. It was the first time for some of our friends at Jeff’s party to meet Emily. Lea cried when she first saw Emily. At Nikki’s party, Emily got to spend some time with Charlie, Ethan and Cole. We had great time at both places.

Dad stopped by Friday night on his way back home from Amy’s place. We had birthday cake for him and enjoyed breakfast with him Saturday morning. After that we met with Leslie and Johnny for lunch talking about the possibility of doing Let’s Start Talking in China this October. We’ve been planning it since early last year. Although it may still be difficult to do that with Emily. But we will not be able to find a convenient time in the near future. David is really motivated to study Chinese now. In his own words, he’s got 150 days to polish up his Chinese! We didn't have any plan for Saturday afternoon. So I tried a new recipe for making the sweet and sour pork ribs. After much boiling, frying, coating, the dish was ready by the dinner time. I couldn't wait to dig my chopsticks in the ribs. But for the first bite, I almost spit it out - it was way too salty! The recipe didn't call any salt. I remembered putting four table spoons of sugar in it though. Where did the salty flavor come from? "Did you put the salt in instead of the sugar?" David asked. Guess what? That must be what happened. I was trying to put Emily to bed in the middle of cooking. My brain was not working! Here is a picture of me washing off the salty coating and trying to modify it to another dish ...

Sunday Gayla invited us to her house for lunch. Emily found a baby that she loves there. Gayla was so kind to let her to take the baby home. Here is her first baby...

Sunday afternoon, I was busy in the kitchen. David came over and said, “Our Emily is a little girl now … Look at her, she is sitting there playing on her own – I’m not ready for this!” Yep, she’s growing up! I was in the mourning mood when I put away the onesies, dresses, hats that are too small for her. I was sad every time when I saw the bassinet and the bouncer at Babyrus - we sold them a couple of months ago. Six months flew by and she gains more and more independency each day. We are NOT ready for this!

Below is a past video of her rolling over from tummy to the back

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 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:

Week 15

We caught Emily's belly laughing when Dad was here on Wednesday. She had laughed several times before. But because they were so short, we couldn't record them. This time Grandpa really got her. Below is a video clip of it.

Chloe's Birthday was this Friday. We ended up celebrating her birthday at Waco. She is bigger and prettier each time we see her. Amy got many cute birthday stuff for her. Can't believe Chloe is one year old already! We said Happy Birthday to Kendall too. His birthday was just a couple of days away.

We are still working on Emily's sleep. She doesn't take long naps. Most naps were half-hour naps. We thought maybe the PackNPlay was not the perfect place for sleeping. It's like a hammock. We need to put her into her crib now ... but we've got to find the baby monitor first. Emily is so pleasant and precious. David already began to pray for her future husband now.

One thing I remembered from this week's sermon was the analogy of Christian being the salt of the world. All the things I knew about that analogy before were that: salt adds flavors; salt preserves; salt is normal but important; ... Gordon added one that I never thought of: salt gives glory to God, not itself. He said when we like a casserole, we never say "I really like the salt in it. Which brand is it?" It just made me laugh.

Week 11

Emily started to suck her fingers, especially her index finger. I'm not sure whether this is the phase that all babies go through, or just because Emily didn't have a pacifier. Sometime the sucking sound was so loud that we could hear it in the dining room while she was in our bedroom. On 21st at around 3:40pm, Emily was playing with the nipple of the bottle. I laughed at her. She laughed back! It scared me at first since I didn't expect that. I laughed again (just to make sure) and she laughed back again! That was the first time she laughed. She also learned to use her hands to push the bottle away when she was full. Sunday after church, I tried to clip her finger nail. Just when I was proud of myself that I hadn't cut her skin yet, I suddenly heard a cry - I cut Emily's index finger! This week David and I had our first anniversary. We celebrated the most wonderful year of our life together. Here are a few fun pictures of Emily:
(More pics are at http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=qu0dq1t.76h9lmx5&x=0&y=e6h3q2&localeid=en_US )




























































"Parents are gardeners - planting the seeds of faith, truth, and love that develop into the fairest flowers of character, virtue, and happiness in the lives of their children." - J. Harold Gwnne, author

8 weeks

It's been six weeks since the last post. So many things happened and I barely had time to process everything. But one thing is common: I totally enjoyed everyday with Emily. She has grown so much. Here are a few highlights of the past six weeks:

Week 3: Thanksgiving holiday with Grandpa Jack, Aunt Amy, Uncle Kendall, Cousin Chloe, and Presley; Visitors during this week: Nikki and Matt and Cole, Randy R., Lori and Billy, Brian W. , Richard, Cathy and Annabelle. Emily was active in the morning. She began to wear 6-month clothes.

Week 4: Emily began to turn her head from one side to the other in the bassinet. She began to do the feet push ups with David. She grabbed the rattle for the first time. She liked to sleep on her tummy. When she was full, she learned to push out the nipple with her tongue. She turned her head from one side to the other during the tummy time. Her umbilical cord fell off. She began to smile back and follow the sound and objects consciously. She had her first coughing and yawning. She started bringing her hands to mouth. She had her first bath. Grandpa and Grandma came from China. This week's visitors are Jenny and Eric (they brought a painting with Emily's name for her bedroom); Gayla; Jean Ann; Bivi and Martha; Angela and Tavi; Leslie F.; Amy and Nathan.

Week 5: Emily had her one-month checkup and got A+ from her doctor. She weighed 9lb 10 oz. (50-75%) Her length was 22.5 in. (90-95%). Her head was 90%. This week Emily started wooing back and talking and smiling. She went to the church for the first time. Began to use size 1 diapers. Her fists began to open and she started tasting her fingers. Emily started to sleep for four hours stretch. She loved reading her books and talking to the characters in the books. Her favorite toy was the red mouse rattle that Angela and Tavi bought her. Visitors this week were Kathy and her dad; Robert and Gail.

Week 6: We had the Christmas photo session. Emily went with us to a grape orchard in Grapevine. She also attended her first Chinese church service. She was more sleepy than before - guess this was her growth spur. Visitors this week were: Kun and his wife; Shawnda; Jean Ann.
Week 7: First Christmas!!! Grabbed toys and brought to her mouth. Slept for 5 or 6 hours stretch. Slept on her right side. Visitors were Grandpa Jack, Aunt Amy, Uncle Kendall, Cousin Chloe, Presley, Greg and Shannon and their two kids, Joyce. Watched the Christmas lights at Deer Field. Visited Home Depot. Her neck can support her head now. Her favorite painting is the fruit (of the Spirit) picture in the kitchen.

Week 8: Welcome 2009! Visited Fort Worth (Stock Yard). Had dinner with Leslie at Houstons. Had bad constipation. Doctor suggested to change formula to Good Start. Had lunch with Tom at Fogo De Chao. First tears rolled down the cheek because of bowl movement pains. Visited Yuemei's family and Pam's family. Visitors this week were Tony and Suanna and their two kids. Emily can stand on my hand for a few seconds now. She loves her crib mobile.


Here are a few pictures:

A Video of Emily and mobile:

The first talk recorded on Dec. 10, 2008

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to yours!!!