October 28th, 2008 - The Morton Arboretum

Today we went to the Morton Arboretum. It was a beautiful day, but freezing!!! I wore a puffer jacket and I was still freezing!! So needless to stay, we didn't stay outside for too long. Here are some pics.

Our day off!

Me and Julian took Monday and Tuesday off to use up our vacation and to spend some fun time with Cady. Today, we went to the Shedd Aquarium and the Field museum. Both because they were free. :) Cady had a great time at both, but probably more fun at the Aquarium. Here are some pics from our day.

Terrible 1's?

I feel like Cady is going through her terrible 2's at the age of 1. :( I noticed that this started a few days ago. She's been throwing tantrums, screaming when we don't give her what she wants and when we put clothes on her and yells. I'm a little frustrated.......

Today, we went to the Pumpkin farm thanks to Wai and Christine! Even though it was really cold and started to drizzle, we had a great time. Cadence got to see a pig and little piglets eating from their mom, lots of chickens and little chicks and lots of pumpkins. It was a lot of fun and we're definitely going back next year. :)



Of course, mommy had to get her fresh kettle corn. :)

14 months

Cadence is starting to walk around like crazy. People were right when they warned me about walking. They go where they want to go and not where you want to go. And if you want them to go where you want to go, they put up a fight. She now has 9 teeth including one molar coming out. I believe she can fully understand a lot of things that we say and do. She loves it when we laugh, because she laughs when we laugh. She recognizes who her family and friends are. She can sign "more", "all done" and "eat". It all just happened one day. I said the word eat and she pointed at her mouth. I was so shocked! Consistency works even when you don't think it works.

We just came back from Texas and it was better than I anticipated. Cady slept most of the way there and back on the plane. She had a great time with Isabelle and Ethan and playing with them everyday. That's probably where she learned how to walk the most because she actually had an open space to walk around in. Our basement is still not finished yet so our house is still cluttered because everything is stored upstairs. The only bad thing is that I caught a cold while I was there which made my flight back home miserable because of my congestion. But I'm thankful that Cady was able to sleep and she didn't catch the cold until much later.

Cadence is now as playful as ever. This is probably one of the best times before she hits the terrible 2's. She laughs all the time and walks up to you with her arms out. She gives us hugs and kisses when we ask for one. Although it does take a little while, but she does. I just recently have weaned her completely from nursing. So I haven't given her milk for the last 2 nights from me. The first night was the worst. She kept crying and I felt like she felt that I was abandoning her. I later picked her up and rocked her to sleep. Luckily to fell asleep in my arms.

September 26, 2008 - Cadence is walking!

She first started to make more than one step when my aunt from Taiwan came into town. She took 3 steps total. Soon after that, I watched her walk from our shoe rack to the door. The yesterday we went to Northbrook Mall to play by the treehouse and she was walking around everywhere! She's still a little unsteady, but she does it!

We are getting ready for our next trip which is to Austin, Texas next Thursday. I'm even more nervous because this is a longer flight than NY and I'm praying that she won't cry like she did on that flight home. I'm dreading it!! It's going to sunny and 90 degrees there next weekend! For those of you that know me, I'm not a super fan of extremely hot weather. We'll definitely go swimming, but I think it might be too hot to Cady. We'll just have to bring lots of sunscreen.

September 18, 2008 - We love NY!

We just got back from our trip to NY and I can say that at least I can call this one a vacation. Cady did very well on the flight to there. She fell asleep in the Ergo as we were boarding the plane and slept most of the way. We kept her out a little late the first two nights since we were staying in NJ and it was about an hour bus ride to and from Manhattan. But Cadence had a great time at Auntie Angela's place in NJ because of all the toys!! The minute we arrived, she started to play with everything and believe me there were a lot of toys there. :) I knew she wouldn't want to go to sleep. We ended up packing the playyard and checking it in so she can sleep in it. NOT! She ended up sleeping in between us on our bed and of course kicking me off. Let's just say I ended up sleeping on the crib mattress both nights in NJ. And of course she woke up a few times so you can imagine me and Julian got no sleep at all.

The weather turned out better than I expected. The internet said that it was suppose to rain all weekend so I was a little bummed. But we got only drizzle on Saturday and sunny, hot and humid on Sunday and Monday just a little cooler. But regardless, not much rain at all! Praise God!! Here's what we did...

Saturday - Central Park (all day), then Zara :), then Chinatown at night to pick up Joe's Shanghai for dinner.

Sunday - The United Nations building, Times Square, Rockefellar Center, Greenwich Village. We ate at Pomme Frites which is this yummy fries place with a lot of different dipping sauces. As a fry lover, it was delicious!!!

Can you tell we teach Cady the proper way of sitting in the stroller....

Monday - Julian had to work, so I went with Cady to Soho. We actually took the subway. I found that a little easier than a cab because then I didn't have to collapse the stroller while holding Cady. We only stayed for there a little bit because I realized that I didn't bring any diapers for her. Darn! So we went back to the hotel then walked up and down 5th Ave and Madison Ave for like 4 hours. Good thing Cady was able to nap in the stroller. We later met up with Dou-Yih and family for dinner. After dinner, Cady was exhausted, so she ended up sleeping early of course in our bed. Since we had a king size bed, I wasn't forced to sleep on the floor at least.

On Tuesday - Our flight was at 3:30, so I decided to go back to Soho to see what I didn't get to see. I wish I had gone to Chinatown instead. The cheap and old side of me kicked in, so there wasn't anything I wanted to buy in Soho.

Our trip ended with a brutal 2 hours on the plane with Cady crying the entire time!! She's never done that. Nothing seemed to make her happy. If I took something away from her, she would cry and it just got worse. Thankfully it's only a 2 hour flight. We had to apologize to everyone around us. It had to have been the air pressure and the ears since she was just getting over a cold. poor cady... I'll have to prepare better for our next trip which is in a few weeks to Austin Texas for a wedding.

Overall, our trip was great. NY has changed so much since the first time I've been there which was about 10 years ago. People are much friendly. The first time I went, nobody in the stores would say "hi" or "thankyou". Random people would hit your car if you barely crossed the crosswalk line. This time, I got tons of hello's, thankyou's and even a random guy asked if I needed help bringing Cady down into the subway. I thought that was really nice. Cady loved saying hi to everyone and making faces at them. She brought many smiles and laughs to everyone she looked at. It was one of the best parts of the trip. :) Maybe people were nice to me because I had a baby. :p

September 10, 2008 - First Step!!

Today, Cadence took her first step! It was an unsteady one, but at least it was a step! I was just so happy that I had a chance to see it. She also said mama to me without relating it to food. :p

We're getting ready to go on our trip to NY this weekend. So far, both Cadence and I are sick with colds. Thankfully we have no fevers, just very congested. Hopefully Julian won't get sick.