"Hmmm... what should I have from the pantry?"

Now that Graham has learned to open up the pantry door, he has also learned that he can get a better view of what's in the pantry by standing on the stool!

And after his cousin's visit recently, Graham has also discovered that you can get water from the fridge:

Pregnancy #2 Update - 38 weeks

Well... baby is still not here yet but my belly is surely getting bigger!

We were quite shocked to hear from the doctor over a week ago that I'm now actually 4cm dilated!  The doc seems to think that the baby is going to be out this Wednesday. We'll see if he's right!

Lau-Ye/Grandpa's visit

My dad has been in town for almost a week now.  He flew into Minneapolis (from Malaysia) where he spent  about 10 days there and last Wednesday, my sister and her 4-year old son Michael accompanied him to Tulsa.  Graham has been having a really great time playing with Michael!

We've also been busy picking tomatoes in the garden:

No, Graham was not eating a tomato since he does not like them.  So I'm not exactly sure why he has his hand to his mouth!  He does love saying cheese with his eyes closed though.

See what I mean?!  And when we asked him to open his eyes... he opened his mouth! Too funny!

I really wasn't sure what to cook for my dad while he was here, but after a trip to the Asian market, he was quite happy with his pork feet and tendon soup and a glass Guinness :-)

Bobby enjoyed the "aroma" in the kitchen as well... ;-)

... while I enjoyed a couple sips of Guinness.

I actually needed the Guinness to make Shepard's pie last night and my dad was available to drink the rest of the can up.  Guinness is high in Vitamin B anyhow... good for baby, right??? ;-)

All in all, despite the heat, everyone had a great time.  I think my dad really enjoyed spending time with his 2 grandsons.

Graham, our musician?

Graham has been "playing" the piano quite a bit these days. Well,... a lot more than I have!  And a couple of days ago, he was actually singing while playing!  You may need to turn up the volume on the video a bit, but he was singing "ba ba black sheep" and of course, being proud parent - Bobby and I were cheering on our little boy! :-)

By the way, Graham has successfully used the big potty a couple of times now.  Yay! :-)

Mischievous Graham

I was downstairs doing my own thing and Graham was really quiet upstairs.  So I decided to sneak up into his room to check out what he was doing. And there he was... stacking up Daddy's tubes of golf balls!

Somehow, he had managed to drag (or hopefully roll) Daddy's suitcase into his bedroom and he had unpacked everything out of the bag!
For whatever reason, he just loves to stack things:

A few days ago, it was tupperwares and this morning, it was this by the bedside table:

\

So mischievous! Maybe it has something to do with his new haircut!

Graham is also keeping himself occupied with other things around the house, like trying to wear and tie daddy's shoe laces:

There's also been lots of birthday parties to go to.  Last weekend was a fun one - it was at a pool/lagoon at a nearby hotel.

Daddy/Bobby was quite beat at the end of the day being in the water as well but Graham sure had a lot of fun!

Pregnancy #2 Update - 36 weeks

36 weeks!  Almost there! And after the doctor's appointment yesterday, he seems to think that the baby will most likely arrive early.  The baby is sitting very low and my cervix has really thinned out and I'm about 2cm dilated.  In any case, I do feel like I'm walking or more like waddling like a duck these days!  My belly does seem to feel bigger this past week and I am having more troubles sleeping at night!

When I saw this photo after Bobby had taken it, I was like "Wow, I'm huge!"  Although not quite as huge during this same time at 36 weeks when Graham was in my belly.  The ultrasound yesterday estimated this baby at 6lbs (compared to Graham at 7lbs 3oz at 36 weeks!)  The baby is just under that 50th percentile in weight, so hopefully delivery will be much easier this time. But you just never though. I've heard so many stories from several moms - these babies seem to just have their own plans!  Plus, it doesn't help when there is construction going on the freeway on the way to the hospital!

Graham does know that there is a baby is Mommy's belly and he even gets out his stethoscope to check baby's heartbeat.  He even knows the baby's name now! We'll save that announcement until the baby actually arrives :-)

Graham's new Lego

Graham's new Duplo Lego arrived in the mail yesterday.  We decided to get him some since he seemed to really enjoy playing with the Lego at our neighbor's house.  We also decided to keep all his legos in his bedroom.  His little table worked out really well and he really enjoys just stacking everything up!

And then, of course, the drill....

There's nothing more exciting than seeing something spin while turning the drill on!

When Bobby opened the door this morning to Graham's bedroom, he had turned on his little light and was playing quietly with his Legos.  He used to cry for Mommy to "Open door, please!".  So glad he's over that now!  Although, I did open up the door the other morning to a completely butt-naked Graham!  He had decided to take his pajamas AND his diaper off! Too funny!

Graham still likes playing with all the different games on our new tablet, but it's amazing how short his attention span is!  He switches games as quick as Daddy switches channels on TV!

But he looks so cute here sitting on the big chair, just high enough to see everything on the tablet :-)

Graham's funny voice

Graham started using his "funny voice" more often these days.  He normally does it when he's asking if you'd like to eat his food: "Do you want some?"  And more recently, he would just say "Mommy"... and I would say "Graham" or "Wen-wen" (his Chinese name)... and we would just keep going back and forth.  It's quite funny!

And he's got the funniest face too when it comes to saying "Cheese!"

I have no idea how/when he started squinting both eyes!

"I miss you too, Mommy"

After picking up Graham from daycare this past Tuesday, we went home and proceeded to watch one of his favorite shows on TV.  When I was sitting on the couch, I told Graham to come over and give me a hug and a kiss.  And I said "I missed you today"... and he said "I miss you too, Mommy".  My heart just melted! I wonder though if he really knows what it means but then again, how can you just not love a cheeky boy like this one!  Here he is saying "Cheese!"

And that finger... Graham loves to point!

Here are a list of other sentences Graham has been saying lately:

- I don't want to go to school!

- It's going to be bad! (When he doesn't want to do something)

- Mommy, come back! Open door, please!!  (When we close the door behind us during naptime/bedtime)

- I had a good time at the big pool today.

- It was fun!

Graham continues to surprise us with what he has to say each day!

Graham's new closet organizer

I finally transferred all of Graham's clothes into his bedroom closet.  I was going to buy some cube shelving - similar to his book shelf but they didn't have one in white. So... I opted for a different shelving system:

It's actually a toy organizer but it seems to work quite well for his clothes!

And Mommy even labeled his clothes:

So nice and neat!  But then I knew it wouldn't last long.  When we left the closet door open, Graham grabbed a bin and started "rearranging" his clothes:

Now that Graham's clothes are taken care of, I'll have to start putting together all the hand-me-downs for baby #2 in the nursery. Poor fella is going to have a lot of used clothes! Reminds me of myself with all of my sister's hand-me-downs... even till this very day!

Mom's 5th Anniversary

Can't imagine it has been 5 years now since my Mom's passing.  It does make me sad at times when I think that Graham never had a chance to meet/know his other Grandmother. But with that said, I'm so thankful that my mom-in-law is a wonderful Grandmother to Graham!

I actually forgot that this past Tuesday (the 19th) was my mom's anniversary. It's crazy how when you have a kid, you just seem to forget so many things! I can't imagine how much worse it's going to get once baby #2 arrives. Well, I guess I could. I do feel like my mom sometimes - being so absent-minded! Ha ha!

I did buy some flowers for my mom before the end of the day and lit a candle for her.

I was browsing through some pics from her funeral and wow, I've forgotten how many wreaths of flowers she received! It's so nice to know that she was dearly remembered.

Recent activities

We decided to head out to the pool at the club last weekend.  I can't believe the pool only opens at 11am!  So I had to chase Graham around the club house for about 15 minutes and then eventually just contain him in the Ladies Locker Room for the last next 15 minutes before we could get into the pool!

He was a little hesitant to get into the water...

We sent Mr. Turtle in first to check the temperature of the water:

Yay! Into the water and he even has his hat on - but that didn't last very long.

We were in and out of the kiddie pool and the big pool and would sit on the lounge chairs occasionally to dry off.

Meanwhile, back at home - Graham would at random times just sit and play the piano. He would even attempt to sing "Do, Re, Mi" while playing. Too cute!

And his drawing skills seem to have improved. I really wonder what he's drawing!

And finally, we bought a new tablet for the house. It keeps Graham occupied as well as there are lots of free kids Apps for him to play with.

There are even storybooks and of course, he still loves his trucks!

This tablet will definitely come in handy on our next road trip, whenever that might be! (As if the DVD player in the minivan wasn't enough!) It's amazing what kids have/can play with these days. Gone are the days of rotary phones, typewriters, and floppy discs!

Happy Father's Day

We didn't really do too much this Father's Day.  And looking back at the blog, we didn't do much last year either!  The US Open (golf) is always on during this weekend, so we watched most of that at night.  During the day, Daddy got to play golf with some of his buddies and actually played 27 holes!  Graham and I were waiting for Daddy to come home after just 18 holes so Mommy was not very happy when Daddy didn't show up when he was suppose to!
So Graham and I decided to tuck into the blueberry pie that Mommy had baked for Daddy. YUM! It sure made Mommy feel a little bit better :-)

And eventually, when Daddy did get home, we gave him a nice card and a kiss!

Happy birthday, Mommy!

Ahhh... another birthday... another year closer to 40! YIKES!!!  Daddy and Graham got Mommy some very cute gifts :-)

Who knew they made Hello Kitty soap!  And Elmo flip-flops to match Graham's Elmo shoes when we go to the pool.

And ok... I guess there was one more gift yesterday.  I still think it was just a coincidence, but we decided to trade in Daddy's car/lease for a new minivan!  And when we were leaving the dealership, Graham said he wanted to go with Mommy but when he saw the minivan, he wanted to get in the minivan instead with Daddy!  So I had to move the carseat then and there.

So here it is... a Volkswagen Routon:

And it had less than 1,800 miles when we drove it home!  

One of the many fancy features of the car includes the auto-start. I can start the car automatically without putting the key into the ignition. It's going to work great this summer as I can get the car cooled off a little even before getting to it!

When we were driving home together, it was funny to actually see my birthdate on the temporary license plate :-)

Bobby said that I'm changing his lifestyle with a minivan and a station-wagon, but I told him that it's Graham and baby #2 that's changing BOTH our lifestyles!

What's been happening lately

Since the weather has been so hot lately, we've been going to a couple of different splash pads.  The first one that we went to last week had a few tractors on the other side of the playground.  Graham was so excited to see the working tractors!

After a while, he finally decided to take on the splash pad:

Graham looks so tiny!

We went to visit another splash pad today and his first question was "Where the tractor?"  And actually, Graham didn't even get wet today.  He didn't want to even get near the water and opted for the playground instead.  Perhaps that one bucket of water that was dunked on his head from above didn't leave a positive experience the first time!

And perhaps the sand/water-play table in our backyard (or more like sand and more sand!) is more exciting for Graham - especially with the occasional visits from Mr. Turtle!

And Graham is such a great little helper.  Daddy's golf clubs got a little damp during his last travel assignment and once it was dry, Graham was putting it back into the golf bag:

Almost done...

All done! :-)

And we finally have some ripe cherry tomatoes in our garden!

What a helper!

It's too bad no one else but Mommy loves tomatoes!  How many can you actually eat in a day???