Switzerland...!!!

Yes... we are in Switzerland! Decided to tag along with Daddy who had some work to do here. Needless to say - Graham and I are super excited to be here! So far, we've had our share of bratswurst... ... and cheese fondue. YUMMY!
And of course, we have definitely taken in the sights. We started out arriving in Zurich where we traveled by train into the city:
Walked along the cobblestone streets of Zurich's old city: And Graham somehow still managed to fall asleep!

And you can never leave Europe without seeing one or two of their cathedrals and their city clock tower(s). Here is the St. Peter's Church in Zurich:

And now that we are in Lausanne (2 hours 45 minutes by train southwest of Zurich), we went to see the Cathedrale de Notre-Dame, the largest church in Switzerland. Just spectacular!

Need I say more about the cathedral's stained glass! Although, I think Graham is probably thinking... "See one church and you've seen them all!"

Graham is getting really good at falling asleep on his stroller while sitting up!

Just too funny! And speaking of cute, Graham has just learned to wave too! As usual, he was flirting with a salesgirl in one of the stores and he started waving back to her! I managed to get him to wave on video when we returned to the hotel room:

Just too cute! It's like he's looking at his hand to make sure that he is doing it right! Ha ha!

Well, that's all for now. I've been practicing some of my German during my trip here but it sort of ended when we arrived in Lausanne as they all speak French here! Thankfully Bobby is able to communicate some but for the most part, Graham and I have been alone while Bobby is at work. So.... we've only gone as far as saying "Bonjour" and "Merci"... which has been quite fun too! :-)

More snow!

As if we didn't get enough snow from the storm last week, mother nature decided to pile on some more snow last night into this morning!
And needless to say, we have yet to see the plow truck! Bobby shoveled the driveway again early this morning and by the time he tried to get out, there was probably already an inch of snow on it again! It didn't really matter too much though because his tires were spinning once he hit the main road. So looks like daddy got to stay home (Oh yeah, and work from home too) and spend time with mommy and Graham! :-)
I finally got to make my snow angel!
Ok, now that I have that checked off from my list for the year, I think I'm ready for all this white stuff to go away now...

Graham's 9-month doctor's appointment

Graham had his 9-month doctor's appointment today. All was fine and dandy when we were in the waiting room:
And then, Graham was preoccupied with the paper on the table:
I mean, he was REALLY preoccupied with the paper. Unfortunately, the quality of the phone video was not too great.


After the eye exam, a finger prick, and 3 shots in the thigh... Graham was not as happy. Although I think the Bugs Bunny band-aid distracted him for a little while after.
I'm still trying to figure out where the band-aid on his finger went. It was no longer on his finger at the end of our grocery shopping trip!

All in all, his doctor's appointment went quite well. Graham did not gain as much weight as excepted so looks like we'll just have to feed him more! But trust me... this is not the face of a starving boy!
Just look at those cheeks! The Doc did mention that Graham probably has a really high metabolism rate. He kept commenting on how fast his heart rate was!

By the way, speaking of more food, I have a new favorite kitchen utensil. It's the apple corer!
I should have bought it the very first time I started making Graham's baby food. I think it cut the prep time by more than half! I also have a new favorite knife. It's a new mini cleaver that I found at Williams Sonoma.
The knife works really well for chopping up all that fruit. Love it, LOVE IT! :-)

When your "model" doesn't cooperate...

I looked up online on how to line knitted hats with fleece, but I didn't really like the suggested solutions. And since my "model" would not cooperate in the fitting process, I decided to use a balloon. Yup, you heard right. A balloon!
I started out by putting the knitted hat on the balloon. And then, I would put the fleece over the balloon. I used a rubber band to hold it all together and actually, set the rubber band at the edge of the seam. That way I knew where to trim off the excess fleece.
Once it's all trimmed, it's time to sew them both together. Ta da...!
And here's the other side of it. It almost looks like a shower cap! Or a mushroom cap! Ha ha! I'm sure Scott and Julie's little girls will look a lot cuter than a hand-drawn balloon! I hope the hats fit and that the girls like them!

With daddy's help, we were able to take a couple of pics of the finished hat on my "model":
Well, I think I'm done with needlework for now, although we just bought some more fabric for our second set of family pajama pants! Speaking of which, here's Graham and Mommy relaxing in their matching family pants! :-)
I did just finish another scarf (with pockets!) for our neighbor. Bobby is still asking if I'm going to make him anything. I probably should especially with Valentine's Day coming up!

Happy Year of the Rabbit

Gong Xi Fa Cai!... which means Happy Chinese New Year! Called my dad this past Tuesday and he was celebrating CNY at my uncle's place, which we would do every single year in my hometown back in Malaysia. Ahhh... those veggie dumplings were always so yummy! Really makes me miss home :-(

Chinese New Year also means receiving Ang Pow's (or giving them once you're married!). So... Graham got his first red packet from Daddy yesterday!
Obviously, he doesn't know what it all means yet. But when I was a kid, we loved CNY because we would always end up with so much money!!! Although as we got older, the money would always be "recycled". My mom would somehow almost always run out of cash and she would have to "borrow" some from us to give out to the other kids.

Let's see how much Daddy put in the Ang Pow:
What?!? Only a buck?!
Daddy said $1 for 1st Chinese New Year. Hmm... I suppose it doesn't really matter because Graham was more interested in playing with (and chewing on) the red packet anyway!

By the way, I read online somewhere about giving infants boiled baby carrots. The carrots are small enough for them to hold on to and soft enough to chew - which I thought was an excellent idea!!! So,... here was attempt #1:


It might be a little while before we try it again. Although, he LOVES his pureed carrots with cereal. Maybe it's because the baby carrots were cold and it didn't taste as sweet as the pureed carrots. I pureed some green beans yesterday. I took a little taste and they don't really taste all that great. We'll see what happens when he has those tomorrow!

And oh! I forgot to mention - you're suppose to eat long noodles during the New Year - for long life. So I decided to take on the task of making homemade Chinese noodles. After kneading the dough for a while (probably 20+ minutes), I was unable to achieve the dough consistency required to "pull" it. So I ended up just using the pasta maker to make spaghetti noodles instead, which actually turned out really yummy! But anyhow, the next day when I woke up, my abs were really sore and I was wondering why. After pondering about it for a little bit, I finally figured it out. All that dough kneading made my abs sore! Haha... I had to laugh about it. Seriously, talk about working out your core. Who would have thought! :-D

Winter storm of February 2011

The storm started this past Monday. Tulsa received a record of 14" of snow in a day! So obviously, we now have snow piled up over a foot high all around the house!
Here's a view of the front door:
View of the garage (I'm glad the snow didn't tumble over and Bobby was still able to shut the garage door!):
Here's the view of one of our windows in the living room:
And the back door (so glad we got those new storm doors!)
And here's Graham checking things out. Nope, can't go out and play on the swing today!
Needless to say, we are stuck at home 3 days in a row now. Just as well anyway, as I have been some really crazy hair!

Bobby was able to arrange for a carpool to get to work today. He did a really good job shoveling the drive way these past couple of days! As usual, Mommy supervised... and took pictures :-)
I have to say, it's the best looking driveway in the neighborhood!
The Home Owner's Association have hired some plowers to clean up the streets in the neighborhood, but we have yet to see them.
Here's daddy and Graham surveying the land...
Despite all that clothing, I think Graham was still cold. I know I was... especially my nose and cheeks! We need to get him some boots so we can plop him in the snow (to take more pictures, of course!).

So..., in the meantime, we've been preoccupied in the house. Graham loves to eat these Graduate finger foods or "Wheelies" as I call them for their wheel-shape:
And he's been trying to feed himself too (NOT!):
And his throwing technique has been excellent to say the least!


But best of all, Graham is just good at being so cute!
Yes... we are so bias and proud of our little boy! ;-)

Graham's new milestone

Yup... Graham has graduate from crawling to standing!

So you're probably wondering why he's in the laundry basket to begin with. I was almost done putting in the last new door knob when Graham was busy destroying Bobby's book by the bedside! So into the basket he went. Good thing I was paying attention to him!

Oh! By the way, matching family pajama pants!!! :-)

More needlework

I've been busy trying to get some crocheting done. I wanted to actually knit our neighbor's daughter a hat but unfortunately, I ran out of yarn! So I improvised and made a neck-warmer instead. It seemed to be a little bit wide so I put a little button on the side. That way she could perhaps button it up so it's more snug around the neck.
I also made a little hat for their other younger daughter. I thought the color of the yarn was really cute and pretty and funny enough, it's called "Chocolate cupcake"! It's made out of acrylic so it's really nice and soft too. I may have to use up the rest of the yarn to make myself a little headband :-)
As usual, my "model" was not very cooperative. He does not like wearing hats! So it was quite a challenge to model the hat.
Anyhow, here is what the hat actually looks like:
That's all the crocheting for now. I need to finish up the two knitted hats for Scott and Julie's little girls. I did sew in the lining for one hat but about halfway through, I realized there was something wrong with it! So we're back to square one on that! :-s