Thank you, mommy!

Aidan's 2nd birthday celebration at the Aquarium!
He loved the beluga whales and the jellyfish...

I received one of the best mother's gifts that a mom could receive...
her child saying "thank you, mommy!"

It has been one of those very special and touching moments when AC finally grasped the concept of expressing gratitude! He has been very thankful as of lately and at times, he just says "thank you, mommy" out of the blue. It totally melts my heart.

Life at the Chan household has been hectic as we are now preparing for Baby #2's arrival in July and the school year is coming to an end. (report cards time!! yeesh). AC's developing his sense of humor these days where he often finds ways to make us laugh with his phrases like telling daddy that he has three eyes, and then saying "silly Aidan". AC has also been experimenting with many monkey moves at the playground and often times amazes me that he's growing so quickly. Vince has told me more than once that how he would like to just "bottle" this part of AC's life and now I can totally relate to him. I am enjoying watching AC's exuberance of life and his strong yet sensitive personality.

below: Aidan just loves sour lemons!

Baby #2

We have awesome news to share!

We are expecting Baby #2 at the end of July and we are looking forward to this new phase!! We know that it'll be a lot of work having 2 but just imagine how much more love, joy, and fun we will have? We are most likely going to find out the sex so that we can give him or her a more adequate name and A can also start saying brother or sister rather than just baby.

Here are some of our highlights of 2009 thus far...

• Trip to Hong Kong to celebrate the Chinese New Year amongst Vince's family. We are definitely done with travelling as it's a lot harder with a toddler and especially with the time change. It was a trip to remember in many ways, though!
• I wrote my first batch of report cards since coming back to work from mat leave.
• Dogsitting Sidney! Having three dogs and one toddler was definitely very tiring but we had a wonderful time.
• Auntie Lulu's staying with us until she finishes her precepting at SMH. We love having her around and A is always looking for her and wanting to jump onto her bed.
• Daytrip to Victoria to hang out with the Huangs, P&P (Peter and Philippa). The day passed by way too quickly but A had a great time with M =)
• AC's first two words strung together were: "watching TV"
• AC's three words strung together were: "monkeys eatin' nanas"
• AC's four words strung were: "bye bye jelly fish" (it could be considered three words since jellyfish is one word...)
  

*hug*

totally mesmerized at the Toronto Zoo

One of A's favourite words right now is *hug* and I absolutely love it especially when he puts up his hands anxiously waiting for the embrace. I figured that I have at least a few more years to enjoy these hugs until he becomes a "big" boy. He's babbling a lot more although often times, we're still not sure what he's trying to string together but for the most part, he is able to express himself either through sign or one-two word(s) sentences. This morning, something really cool happened...

I've been teaching Aidan to say "Aidan" and he finally got it, then my next goal was to teach him to say it after "What is your name?". After a few times, he got it and then we were jumping up and down for joy. I also managed to squeeze in the question "How old are you?" and he can say "Two!" when I hold up two of my fingers. (Although he's not quite two yet, but why not get a head start?)
Our Christmas holidays was really busy but a lot of fun. AC went for his third plane ride to Toronto and enjoyed a wonderful time among his poh-poh, great-grandparents, aunties, uncles, etc. Only mommy and A went as daddy wasn't able to get time off from work.

Other updates include that AC is now in Daycare three days a week as I have gone back to teaching. I am currently teaching Grade 6 at Moberly on Thurs. and Fri, and I am also teaching Resource at Begbie on Tues. I am really enjoying the balance between being mommy and a teacher.

A and his great-grandparents in TO

11 teeth

in Maui (Oct. 2008)

The wait has been over! AC had four teeth for the longest time and we were wondering why it was taking so long for the others to erupt. We actually made an appt. with a pediatric dentist and he suggested that AC should get his gums cut in order for the other teeth to come out. We thought that it was quite an aggressive approach and after consulting other dental professionals, we decided to wait for his teeth to come out naturally. One by one, his molars came out and he now has a total of 11 teeth, with five on the bottom and six on top.

We should also mention that AC was teething at the most inappropriate time: during our vacation in Maui. He ended up waking up at least a couple of times during the night and thus made us lose a lot of more sleep than usual. But overall, our trip was very memorable and eventful (of course, other than the teething incidence, we managed to do some fun stuff like hiking the Haleakala crater, hanging out at all the beautiful beaches and we even spent time with our friends M and P who happened to be there at the same as us). Vince was very sweet in planning this trip for my BIG 30th birthday!

AC has been very chatty lately and we still can't really figure what he's saying most of the time but it's quite entertaining attempting to see what he's trying to communicate. We realized that he really, really loves our mutts as he kept mentioning them during our Maui trip. AC enjoys bossing Rylee around and tells her NO when she's doing something bad (or good depending on his mood!).

Goodbye Summer!

BEST waterpark: Steveston

As summer draws to a near, we are slowly getting back into the swing of things as we put away our tanks and shorts and pull out long sleeves and pants. We will definitely miss the warm summer days (although we didn't have too many of the HOT, hot ones this year) but nevertheless, it was nice to just hang out at the parks and bbq. We look forward to the beautiful changing colour of the leaves and for a new school year ahead of us. Here is a list of our summer faves...

Little A's Summer Reads
The Bear Snores On written by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman
I love you through and through written by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak, illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church

Mommy's Summer Reads
The Chamber by John Grisham
Between Parent and Child by Haim G. Ginott
The Eighth Promise by William Poy Lee

Dada's Summer Reads
any book by Tad Williams

Our Family Adventures

• Maplewood Farm
• PNE in the rain!
• playing at various water parks throughout Vancouver and Richmond
  
• outlet shopping in Tulalip with Poh-poh who visited us for three weeks
• trail running in the UBC Endowment lands

White Rock

all geared up for A's first rainy PNE day!

Fifteen months report

We have had a rough couple of days and nights as Aidan's been super fussy with a fever, and lots of drooling. Could it be teething? We're still waiting for something to erupt! This happened just in time of Auntie Lulu's visit from Calgary =) We went out for dinner at Toshi's last night and we were only able to sit down for less than half an hour before we made an early exit. Aidan usually loves eating out and has not caused any problems for us....so I guess it's not bad for his first time in 15 months.

Here's a quick update of what the little guy has been up to lately:

• AC is one affectionate fella as he enjoys giving people hugs and kisses
  
• can identify his head, ears, tongue, and nose (likes to stick his finger UP his nose!)
• has an impressive upper body strength as he manages to pull himself up onto everything including the toilet (he would put the toilet seat down first before climbing, of course)
  
• loves to go to the beach and dip his feet into the water and play with the seaweed
• had a great time in June because he had lots of visitors: cousin Angigi, Auntie Cynthia and Auntie Lulu. he also watched mommy race her first 1/2 marathon after giving birth...
  
• is beginning to exert his needs and wants with screaming (grrr...) and we are constantly trying to teach him to ask for something nicely
• is learning to be more gentle... (this sounds like a PLO, for those who are teachers, you know what I'm talking about)
• enjoys slurping up all kinds of noodles like lai fun, ho fun, spaghetti
• rocks are his utmost favourite "toy" right now. he finds small holes and puts the rocks into them....he even managed to put one into our door holey thing.
  

hanging out at Jericho beach


with cousin Angigi at the airport

going down on a very BIG slide and having loads of fun

Our Victoria get-away!

Aidan is running really fast around the ferry terminal

For Father's Day, I attempted to plan a surprise Victoria get-away to visit our dear friends, G and A, and their little girl M. I was so close to have successfully planned it but due to my forgetfulness, Vince found out when he saw that I had googled "Victoria weather". I am not a very good liar so I ended up having to tell him my elaborate plans. We had a wonderful time away and we soaked in the sun as we lazily hung around G and A's porch while our kids napped. It was really great to be amongst friends and to be able to celebrate such an occasion as Father's Day. It made us realize how special it is to have friends who truly love and understand you completely. How we wish that we lived closer together!

Aidan gives cutie pie, MH a big hug and a kiss!