Christmas Pictures

I wanted to share some more pictures from our Christmas shoot (that didn't make our Christmas card) that Thuy took for us. The photos taken first were at Houston's City Hall in Downtown. Andrew and I met up with Thuy first to scope out the place and get some shots taken while we waited for Daddy to come meet us after work. Then, since it got dark pretty quick thereafter, we went back to our house for the second half of our shoot.

Again, thanks, Thuy, to taking our pictures and designing our cards! We really appreciate it!

Nonna's

Here are some more pictures from Nonna's house with Andrew and Nonna and Andrew by the Christmas tree. I just love him in this sweater with the Christmas tree in the background.

Christmas Day

After Andrew's nap, Uncle John, Aunt, Sharon, Peter, Kathryn, and Sharon's dad, Joe arrived at Nonna's house. Immediately, the kids wanted to open presents and have Andrew open theirs. They are so sweet to him. He loved his garbage truck that they gave him and played with it for a good while.

Peter and Kathryn also had fun with their gifts. We got Peter a Bakugan video game with which he immediately proceeded to head to Nonna's room to play. We gave Kathryn a Snow White doll set and she immediately wanted James and me to play with her as the Prince...and definitely not as Snow White! Ha! But Andrew and Kathryn played a lot together. She is just so good with him.

Afterwards, we headed over to Aunt Janine's house as the Gonzaleses were hosting Christmas dinner. Andrew had fun with Stephanie, Thomas, and Bandit of course. As we waited for the final preparations for dinner were being made, the kids all played together. Then, dinner was served and was fantastic! The turkey was so freaking moist!! Compliments to the chefs! Andrew ate mostly ham and mashed potatoes. He did try some turkey and sweet potato casserole too. He ate a good amount, but didn't a crazy amount, which I suspect is because he just wanted to go play.

After dinner, we opened presents. Yet again, Andrew had a wonderful time opening gifts. It's just too much fun watching him go at them! I am just in awe of my little boy who is growing up too fast. I can't believe he's been around for two Christmases already!! It's such a difference than from last year. This holiday season with Andrew has been so great. I can't wait for so many more in the future!

Thanks to everyone for a terrific day! Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope yours was as wonderful as ours!

Christmas Morning

We woke up Christmas morning of course awaken by Andrew. We told him to go look at the Christmas tree to see what Santa had brought for him. We had been telling him for weeks about Santa in attempt to get him ready to take pictures with him and then most importantly, for this moment of Christmas morning and presents from Santa.

We first showed him his stocking where he found some Thomas trains, Donald and Douglas. We then let him open Santa's big gift...the Thomas Roundhouse. He, of course, wanted to open it and play with it right away. So, Daddy opened the box with Andrew hovering over. We tried to get him to start opening his other presents, but he was too focused on the roundhouse. First, a Polar Express train set and more Thomas trains from Nonna and the Echo Tunnel and even more trains from Mommy and Daddy. Andrew is totally loaded with train stuff. It's so crazy!

Andrew had a blast opening gifts and getting to play with his toys afterwards. He's becoming such a pro at unwrapping gifts!

Christmas is just tons so much better getting to share it with Andrew and getting to watch him experience it.

Merry Christmas!

This is our Christmas card this year. I have to give credit to my cousin, Thuy, who not only took the photos, but also designed the card too! She's totally gifted and just started her own business. She takes photos, designs all kinds of things, and more. Thanks, Thuy, for everything!

Merry Christmas to all! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Happy 22nd Month Birthday!

I can't believe my little baby is two months away from the big 0-2! We have lots of fun this month just hanging out. Andrew continues to be a joy in our lives and for as much frustration he causes, there are hundreds upon hundreds times more of laughs and joy.

Andrew's vocabulary continues to grow such as beh for bed, dih dih for dirty, gah for garbage, sah for sock, da for that, choo choo, roo for room, suh for soup, among lots others. He is very good about repetiting and trying new sounds. But unfortunately, there hasn't been too much progression with multi-syllable words or combing words. To be honest, Daddy and Mommy are concerned and we are going to see about starting him on speech therapy before his second birthday. But as for his comprehension, it's pretty good. He understands lots of words and directions. Sometimes, we are taken aback by how much he understands, which is part of the reason we are so concerned with his speech development.

With the colder weather, Andrew at times loves wearing hats and hoodies And sometimes, he loves to wear them a little too much wanting to wear it all the time and refusing to take it off. There have been even a few nights where he has worn his hat to bed and fallen asleep with it on! But not to be too predictable, there are times he won't want to wear either, which tend to be the days when it is really cold and would be prudent to wear something on his head. Andrew also uses his caps to shield himself from uncomfortable situations, more specifically when Andrew is being shy and doesn't want someone to see him. And speaking of winter attire, Andrew is loving his Mammoth Crocs, or winter Crocs as we refer them. He prefers to wear them to his tennis shoes most of the time. My guess is because they are easier to put on and take off.

But thankfully, Andrew is more agreeable about clothes. Sometimes, he will still put up a stink about wearing something that he apparently doesn't want to wear. But other times, he will just let me dress him. We typically give him two shirts, pants, or pajamas to choose from. That has seemed to make things go a little smoother when dressing him.

Since we got back from Vegas, Andrew has seemed to either grow bigger or stronger...or has just up and decided to use his agility and strength. He now can open the refrigerator door, which is not fun when he decides to open the door and start grabbing whatever he can. And now, he has no qualms about climbing over the "jail" that we have in front of our stairs. He's been able to climb over it for some time now, but just didn't bother unless he was really adamant about escaping. But more frustrating is that he can climb out of his crib. Truth be told, he has been able to climb out of for a while, but never bothered to do it. I guess he was content with waiting for one of us to get him out. So, he will climb out and the landing isn't always graceful. Mommy is terribly scared about him breaking something like his neck so we have taken his crib mattress and put it on the floor. Andrew will sleep on the mattress, but usually will sleep on the floor next to mattress. I guess Andrew is more like Mommy in that regard sometimes preferring the floor to beds. Furthermore, Andrew has to have all his stuffed animals, pillows, and blankets on the floor with him. It's a mess in there!! Eventually, Andrew will wake during the night (at varying times) and then walk into our room. Some nights, he will want to sleep in our bed, but others, he will want me to lay down with him back in his room. We are discussing getting him a big boy toddler bed.

Another thing that Andrew likes to do is go under the blanket. We pretend it is like going under the parachute at Gymboree. At night, he will also go under the blanket. I don't know why he does it, but maybe to cover himself from the night light. Maybe it's genetic like Uncle Anh Tuan and Brennan. Sometimes, he will fall asleep while under the blanket, which scares me because of suffication or how hot it can get under there. So, usually, I will try to remove the blanket from his head.

Andrew has been liking Sesame Street more and more. He loves Elmo like most all other kids. He still watches his Thomas shows too. But he has been really into watching videos on youtube.com of construction vehicles and the Houston Light Rail. Some of the other things that Andrew likes to do lately is take walks in his wagon, going to get the mail with Daddy, and playing with his toys and coloring in the bathtub. One of the things that Andrew loves to do is to close himself in the pantry. He and I will then knock on the door and say "knock knock." Then, I will open it up to a smiling boy. He gets so giddy about it. It's so cute! He still loves playing with his Thomas trains and construction vehicles.

As for eating, Andrew has been big into eating pizza still and noodles...everything noodles. He especially loves his mac and cheese and fettucini alfredo. Sometimes, it seems that Andrew asks for mac and cheese at some point every day. He does like his Asian noodles too especially egg noodles. Andrew is also been digging lollipops and suckers lately too. He is good about licking it, but sometimes will try to bite into it.

On the breastfeeding front, Andrew never asks to nurse anymore. He has given it up so easly. I am so proud of him because I was so scared of how hard it might have been. But thankfully, Andrew has been such a sport about the whole thing. He has done a great job of drinking milk out of the sippy cup. I think he likes chocolate milk a little too much though.

With my being at home, Andrew is definitely a mama's boy, which I have mixed feelings about. We joke about it, but there are times, I do worry about him being so clingy to me and not a boy's boy. But one thing I don't worry about it is that he is such a loving person. I think I would cry if my child wasn't affectionate...you know I am so touchy feely! But Andrew is so great about hugging and kissing. He is good about doing it when told like when someone is leaving or he is going to sleep. But the best is when he does it on his own volition. He will come up and give snuggles or kisses just because. Oh, how this melts my heart!!

On the opposite side of that, Andrew is definitely hitting the terribles 2s. He will throw tantrums when he doesn't get his way. And he can be so dramatic about it sometimes flailing his arms up and throwing himself on the floor. So theatrical, I tell ya! Sometimes, he doesn't give up too soon crying for a couple of minutes. Other times, he gives up pretty quickly. Whew!

More pictures from today of my 22 month old...

Christmas Eve

We drove down to League City to spend Christmas Eve with Mommy's family. Ngoai and Papa cooked another delectable meal...including more deep fried turkey!! So yummy! And Andrew even ate some of the turkey--I guess it wasn't too spicy for him! Andrew also loved him some green bean casserole just like Ngoai and Mommy.

Then, after the meal came the real festivities for Andrew...the opening of the presents. Andrew was able to rip open the wrapping paper pretty well except for some difficult taping or ribbon areas. But it's so much different than last year where he wasn't all that into it. But this year, he knew so much more. He knows that he rips open the paper to get to something good. However, the problem was that he would open one present and want to play with it immediately and not realize he has even more presents to open (not totally a bad thing though). Andrew received wonderful gifts and was in seventh heaven playing with all his new presents--and some presents that weren't his. Like he didn't have enough! But he loved playing with David's Barack Obama talking bobblehead. He would crack up laughing everytime Barack talked. Interesting. Daddy and Mommy got really nice gifts as well. Thanks, everyone, for your thoughtfulness and generosity!!

Then during Andrew's nap, the adults also played with some of our new toys. We played the new (more current and not so outdated) version of Taboo that Mary Ann got us as well as the Scattergories that we gave to David and Dina. I am surprised that our laughter didn't wake Andrew up! Then, we just hung out with the family for a while before we headed home. We still had to pack and get ready for our road trip to San Antonio.

But Andrew seemed to have a great day between playing with all the family and all the toys. There definitely wasn't a lack of attention and playmates for our little angel. If today was any indication of how things were going to go this holiday season, Andrew was going to have the best yuletide ever! Thank you again for a wonderful day, everyone! We love you all very much!

Christmas Play Date

Mommy had planned a little Christmas play date with some of Drew's friends before we left for Vegas, but with Andrew being a little under the weather, we had to postpone it until today.

We lost a few friends because of the postponement (we missed you guys), which we were very sad about, but we still had a good turnout with Evan, Josh, Gareth, and Selene (poor thing--the only girl). It was great having all of the kids and their moms over. And then last, but not least, a very unexpected playmate....Daddy, who had happened to take the day off today so that made it extra special.

The kids no doubt played with all the toys; and Andrew did a good job sharing. It wasn't perfect--we had a few squabbles. But I know it must have been hard for him having all these kids playing with his toys. For the most part, he did really good; and Mommy was very proud of him.

Then, we had some lunch and afterwards, did a little arts and crafts time by making ornaments (the same kit as from Monday night). The kids did a pretty good job with them considering their age. Next, we opened some presents and played some more. Then, for some reason, Andrew wanted bubbles, so we had a little bubble time.

We had a great time; and I hope everyone else did too. Thanks to everyone who came. Can't wait to do it again...maybe Easter!?