Time for a Trim...

 

The barber shop is open for business! 

They have great amenities here...flat screen HD...the latest espisodes of Sesame Street...

 

But they make you take all your clothes off...

 

I got to keep my socks on though!

I guess this is what happens when the haircut is free!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy New Year! I thought I'd share some pics from our Chinese New Year weekend. Although our families aren't very traditional, Chinese New Year is just a good excuse to visit with family and start the new year off right! Plus I got the chance to dress Justin up in some cute clothes!

 

A toddler in motion tends to stay in motion...

 

Until he tackles Daddy!

Sitting still with Mommy

Dinner at the HK Flower Lounge with Yeh-yeh and Naih-naih

Naih-naih brought a peeled pear just for me

Adam and Sissy let me be the middle part of the lion

Okay, this one doesn't have much to do with Chinese New Year, but it's fun!

I don't know!

Okay, I don't know who taught him this (Uncle Kevin??), but I think this is Justin's attempt to look innocent..."I don't know how that happened Mommy!"

Go Bears!

In honor of Super Bowl this past weekend, Jay suggested that Justin wear his Cal jersey that Auntie Ashlee got him. "But it's a size 2T! It'll be way too big for him!" I said. Well, as you can see from the photos...hmm, not so big on him! It prompted me to go sort through all the clothes I've put away for him because they're "too big". I can't believe how tough it is keeping up with kids' growth spurts.

Do you like my matching Cal socks?

Grr-rah! Grr-rah! Grr-rr-rr-rah!

Dizzy Justin

Toddlers sure can be silly. It's actually kind of funny to watch Justin develop a sense of humor and see what he thinks is fun to do. Among his favorite activities: arching himself backwards and launching himself into a "trust fall". Needless to say, this causes Mommy no end of small heart attacks as I try to catch him before he knocks himself silly. Luckily he only does this when we're horsing around. I swear I'm going to get gray hair from this kid.

Anyways, I wanted to try my hand at embedding a video into my blog, so I thought I'd share this video we took of Justin last week at Jay's parents' house. You can see him do his sign for "please" at the end (because he wants more food of course!).

Mommy's Little Helper

Just found a couple of photos I forgot to upload to the digital world. This one is from when I decided to sweep the back patio of all the leaves a couple of weekends ago. I thought Justin might like some fresh air. I think I need to get him his own broom...

Of course he wanted to do it by himself...

 

 All that manual labor makes a kid tired...well, really he was having some tummy troubles that weekend and woke up early from a nap crying, so Mommy had to rock him back to sleep and I didn't have the heart to put him back in his crib. It worked out okay because I got to catch up on some reading while I sat in the rocking chair. Besides, there's something endearing about a kid sleeping on your shoulder...

Commercial Break

Okay, as most of you know, I am totally addicted to Amazon. The marketing side of me loves their business model and the Chinese side of me loves not having to pay sales tax (shh! Don't tell the IRS!). Now that so many of our friends have kids and plead with us not to buy them any more toys, I'm on the search for cute books to add to their libraries when it comes to gift-giving time. I thought I'd share with you all!

One of my favorite gifts from Justin's Red Egg and Ginger party last year was a children's book called The Year of the Rat: Tales from the Chinese Zodiac by Oliver Chin.

It's part of a series of all the animals in the zodiac. Each one tells a story about the animal that illustrates its key characteristics (like how the Rat is so cunning - uh oh!) The illustrations are really cute and I think would be engaging for most kids.

So of course, children born after February 14th this year will be Tigers. I think The Year of the Tiger book would be a cute gift for any baby showers coming up!

To be honest, I haven't read the book to Justin yet because I'm afraid that he will tear the pages. He already has a strange fascination with ripping the pages out of his food diary that travels with him to the babysitter. In fact, last night, he sat very quietly on the kitchen floor while Jay and I cleaned up and methodically ripped pages out of the notebook, ripped the pages up into tiny pieces, and handed them to us. Well, at least he was quiet about it...I'll take what I can get sometimes!

Anyways I digress. Thought I'd share one more of Justin's favorite toys: My Pal Scout.

He got one of these for his birthday and I really didn't think he would like it...I mean really, a talking green dog that knows your name? A little creepy if you ask me. Well, I don't know what it is...whether it's the kiddie voice or the multitude of songs the dog knows...but Justin LOVES Scout. At the very least, it knows a lot of songs so it's easier for Mom and Dad to listen to as opposed to the dang toy that only plays three songs over and over - yipes!

Anyways in Justin news, he's doing well. He's slowly getting closer to talking I think. His range of "babbling" is getting bigger. He doesn't just make the same sound over and over, but lots of different sounds that really sound like another language altogether. He's starting to make certain sounds for certain actions...like he'll make one sound when he wants something and another sound for when he's looking for you. Like when I go upstairs and he's behind the gate, he starts yelling what I interpret as, "Where the heck are you going? Come back here!" Of course the actual sound is more like "AI YA YA! AI YA YA!" Jay and I actually think it's cuter with Justin just babbling...no talking back yet!