July pictures

In July, my cousin, Tommy, which is Summer's favorite uncle, came to visit us. He took Summer swimming and she had so much fun. We went to have dinner at Eddie's mom's house and my Aunt and Uncle came to visit Summer and meet Baby Solana for the first time.

Ariel's Grotto at California Adventure

Since I got a 2-fer ticket when I took Summer to Disneyland on my birthday, I decided to make the most out of the trip to California Adventure and take her to Ariel's Grotto. It is a restaurant where you have your picture taken with Ariel and a bunch of other princesses come out during your meal to chat with the kids. The food looked better than it tasted but it was definitely the best meal I've ever had at the Disneyland parks.

Summer was really excited, but she got a little shy when she met the princesses. I think she was a bit overwhelmed because she barely ate anything. It was hard snapping photos and shooting videos at the same time. The best moment (which I did miss on video) was when Summer asked Cinderella where the mice were. To my surprise, Cinderella stayed completely in character and responded, "Well they're back at the castle probably making a mess of things."

Summer's 3rd Birthday Party

On Friday, May 29th, Summer celebrated her 3rd birthday at the LA Zoo with all her neighborhood friends. We had lunch at a picnic area surrounded by the sea lions, and alligator exhibits. We all had a great time! These pictures were taken by 3 cameras: mine, Eddie's and my mom's. That is why there are so many. All the shots of people eating are taken by my mom. :) Sorry, some of the pictures are a little out of order due to slightly different time settings on our cameras.

Baby Solana Finally Arrives

On April 21, 2009, we went into St. John's hospital to get induced. I was already 4 days over due. This time the delivery was very fast, easy and pain free. When we went into the hospital I was already 4 cm dilated, I first got my epidural, then the pitocin to start the contractions. I was very comfortable and didn't feel any labor pains. The anesthesiologist even gave me a button to give myself extra doses of the epidural in case I felt some pain. Two hours later, I was fully dilated. I didn't even get a chance to sleep, I was getting nervous. Then it was time to push. I only pushed for 9 minutes and baby Solana was born! Here are pictures taken from the first few days Solana was born.

Pictures on my due date

On my due date, April 17th, Eddie took these pictures of me and Summer.

Gimma's 87th Birthday

On Jan 10th, 2009 we celebrated my grandmother's 87th birthday at my mom's house in Whittier. My mom and grandma cooked a delicious vegetarian lunch.

Summer making pizza

On Jan. 30th, 2009, Summer and I made pizza from an organic pizza kit I bought from Whole Foods. It was a bit messy, but we had a lot of fun. We put mozzarella cheese and meatballs. Summer's funny, she thinks all meat is chicken and she thought the dough was play-doh.

Lora's 4th Birthday

On Jan. 9th, We went to Borami's house to celebrate Lora's 4th birthday. Summer had a lot of fun playing with all the kids and we had delicious Korean food.

Baby Lizzy's 1 month celebration

On March 15th, Dave & Helen had their new baby's 1 month celebration lunch at Todai. We were very excited to meet Baby Lizzy. She looks so much like Dave! Summer had a lot of fun playing with Samantha and she loved meeting Baby Lizzy. Towards the end, Summer took some pretty good photos with my camera.

Disneyland with Angie, Adriane & Nicky

On March 25th, I took Summer to Disneyland without Eddie and it was so wonderful that Angie (Eddie's cousin) and her two kids, Adriane (our flower girl when she was 2 yrs old) and Nicky could met us there. Angie and Adriane were so super sweet and helped me so much with Summer. Summer LOVED Adriane and had such a great time! Thanks so much Angie and Adriane!

Finally done painting the new nursery

With just a few weeks to spare (baby's due April 17th) I finish painting the walls and the crib. I was lazy this time and didn't do a good job chronicling my work so I had to dig up an old 'before' photo. It's dark, but you can see that the walls were green and the crib was birch wood color.

 

I used a different brand of paint this time, Duration Home by Sherwin Williams. It didn't cover that well and took a lot more strokes, but the earth-friendliness of the paint made it all worthwhile. There's significantly less paint odor too.

And then there's the crib. I was really skeptical about painting the crib white because I knew I would not be able to get it as smooth as any white furniture that you'd
buy at a store. After sanding the crib, priming it, and putting on the first coat, sure enough the paint had a very coarse finish. Turns out that there's this superfine sandpaper (400 grit) that you can use to smooth out paint. The crib isn't perfect, but it turned out better than I expected.

The bedding is from Pottery Barn, if you couldn't tell. Since we chose the wall colors of both the nursery and Summer's room based on the bedding, both rooms ended up with very similar shades of pink. I'm going to need to claim a room pretty soon to paint blue...perhaps the loft?

SeaWorld Again

On March 7th and 8th, 2009, we took Summer to SeaWorld again. We thought we should take her now before the new baby arrives. Our good friends Mia and Julia met us there and we all had a great time together. Summer is 2yr & 9mo old now.

Christmas Dinner at the Gorman's

On December 21st, 2008, Linda and Glenn Gorman invited us to have Christmas dinner at their house. Summer had a lot of fun playing with Grace and Elie.

Disneyland in December

On December 18th, 2008, we took Summer to Disneyland to see the Christmas decorations. It was really cold, but we had a lot of fun.

Summer meets her new 'cousin' Ginger

On December 16th, 2008, Summer met her new 'cousin' Ginger. My brother Charles and his wife Sandy bought a new min pin puppy.

Our Christmas Photos

On December 13th, 2008, we took over 100 photos to get one good picture for our Christmas photo card. Summer looks cute in almost all of them.

Thomas' 3rd Birthday Party

On December 7th, 2008, Summer had a lot of fun with Grandma Moto and Grace and Elie at Thomas' 3rd Birthday Party.

Annabelle's 3rd Birthday Party

On December 6th, 2008, Summer had a lot of fun at Annabelle's 3rd Birthday Party at the Eco Station.

Random Pictures and Videos from November 2008

In November, Summer got a new chair, went to the park, went to music class a couple of times, ate a delicious blueberry muffin from Costco, got some hugs and a kiss from Ross, and her Uncle Tommy came to visit! :)



Summer dancing and playing a tambourine in music class.


Summer playing the drums with Teacher Matthew in music class.


Summer helping Julia blow out her birthday candles.


Summer and Ava blowing the horn party favors at Darryl (Ava's daddy).


Summer is singing Old MacDonald to her Uncle Tommy, while riding her rocking horse and wearing pajamas and her cowgirl gear.


See all of Summer's YouTube videos here.

More Pictures from November 2008

We had a fun and delicious Taiwanese dinner at my aunt's (Gugu) house. Everyone had a great time.



We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at Glenn and Linda's house. Linda cooked all the food (including 3 turkeys) and everything was so delicious! Summer had fun collecting treasures from Linda's house, she was sad when we had to give them back.

Summer's first time baking

Today was Summer's first time baking. Summer (2.75 yrs old) and I baked banana oat muffins from scratch. She had so much fun and the muffins turned out delicious!

Summer's Big Girl Room

Summer moved into her Big Girl room on Jan 1 2009. Getting her room ready was 3 weeks in the making. It was perfect timing too because she had just learn to climb out of her crib. Let me take you through the experience. Perhaps it'll inspire other dads to do the same for their toddlers.

This is what the room looked like before. See those side tables? They were drilled in pretty tightly into the walls. And behind the bed was another built in shelf.


After ripping out the built-ins came the worst part: blue taping and plastic. It's a good thing I did though, because I got paint everywhere.


Before the primer, I had to sand the walls to get rid of the horizontal lines. Unfortunately it didn't help, as you can still see the lines after the primer and paint.


Two coats of paint.


And the finished product.


Then came the fun part. Summer's first time on her new bed in her new bedroom.


Of course the first thing she had to do was test the bed for springiness. It was like a little playground to her.


One last book before bedtime. Took us 50 minutes to get her to sleep that night, but when we did I sure felt a sense of accomplishment.