big laugh

william got lucky and caught thomas laughing... not just any laugh. this was a full body, rolling on the floor type laugh. it even looks like he is hitting the tray with his little left hand. i have no idea what he was laughing at. maybe something that daddy was doing? who knows what goes on in the minds of our little innocent babes :)


--------------- jessica's baby shower----------------

a couple weeks ago, i went to jessica's baby shower with debbie. it was really nice to hang out with debbie and jessica again. they both looked great, esp jessica with her beautiful bump. debbie had on the cutest flats that she had picked up in taiwan. always very on trend:) and i love that maternity clothes these days are designed more to show off the bump than hide it. although it was a hot day and her dad's place has no a/c... one of her aunts was so funny. she said her brother was so cheap to not even put ceiling fans in. but he does have a beautiful home. we got to meet her whole family... and while no family is perfect, I must say she has such a nice family! 95% of my extended family lives in Korea so it is near impossible to keep in touch. plus most of them can't type in English and i can't type in Korean, so email is out of the question with most of my 13 cousins. so sad!


anyways, seeing you guys made me miss my co-workers and lunches in the cafe. although, i definitely don't miss work esp. with no more Target distribution/financial software... i am glad i am not there for that part. but i miss interacting with the people on a daily basis!!

perseverance or faith

say you have a decision that needs to be made. once the decision is made it will affect quite a few people (at least a couple dozen). So you pray about it and ask God for wisdom. Then you seek advice from other Godly persons. One person that you feel is very Godly tells you one scenario, but a second person (whom you also regard as Godly) tells you almost the exact opposite.
now, the first i regard as having more experience/wisdom. but they are both Godly people, so who is right? there are times i know exactly what direction God wants me to go. other times, it is hard to discern (or i am not hearing anything God is sending me because sometimes, I just don't feel up to being focused on God at that moment). i have actually been fortunate never to have been in a situation where God has sent two very opposing advices. so this is a pickle...
usually all the signs (from other people, from reading the Bible, from going to church, etc.) point in the same direction. other times, you only get one sign from God. still other times, it is just not the right time for an answer to be given and so you wait.
what do you do when there are clearly two different directions? i feel i need to wait and pray about it and ask God for further clarification. but so many things go into this decision (plus it is absolutely not mine alone to make). there is pride in my own abilities (which come from God anyways) and my own desires that affect how i see the outcome. it could be that satan is pushing me to rush into a decision based on my own deductions. Or is God testing us to see if we persevere in the one direction? does God want to see if we have enough faith to step out in the other direction? tough tough situation...

helmet head and dropping baby

here is yet another one of william's hilarious attempts to protect thomas. this time it was to protect thomas' lovely baby skin from unneeded sun exposure. he took thomas outside to water the plants but couldn't find a hat - so he plunked his big ole bicycle helmet on thomas' little head. (actually thomas head is not so little - 90-95% for his age.) amazingly thomas put up with it and i got this picture from the patio door. i can't believe he is not flinging things off his head yet; he still puts up with hats. sunglasses are not so lucky - they got taken off about 50% of the time now so that he can examine them. i am sure it is only a matter of time before he starts taking hats off too.

-------------------big falls-------------------------

on another topic, thomas has fallen twice now. both times my fault. :(
the first time, i was playing with him on the bed. our bed used to be a platform - no box spring. when we got a queen, we had to use the frame and box spring that came with the bed (we didn't want to buy a queen frame b/c i eventually wanted a king). this year we borrowed one of those 3" foam toppers to put on the bed from helen (william's sister). so for about a year - our bed has been high - almost high enough for me to need a stool to climb up. i have been DYING to get a king size bed so i can just get another platform bed - no BOX SPRING. i really dislike box springs. anyways, that is not going to happen until later this year... so in the mean time, we have a high bed.
so there we were - lying in bed, thomas was lying in william's spot. i thought to myself "i should really pull him back over to the center of the bed". then i thought "oh he'll be fine." i even started dangling a toy so that he would roll towards me. well, for some reason, that toy was not good enough, b/c he decided to roll away from me. one second baby was on bed, next second, he was dangling at the edge of the cliff. the next second he disappeared from sight as i lunged for his limbs. THUD. i scrambled and peered over the edge. there was poor thomas on the ground crying pitifully, looking up at me to make sure i was there. at least he landed on his back and not his face. i believe he hit his forehead on the nightstand, which caused him to flip from his stomach to his back. anyways, i rushed to gather him up and comfort him. he didn't even cry that much after i had him in my arms. that made me feel worse for some reason. he pulled back a little and leaned over to take a look at the ground that he had just fallen onto. gave a few more sniffles and was ok after that. i held a bag of frozen corn to his forehead for the next 30 minutes. after he realized it was not comfortable to have frozen produce on his head, he started batting it away as soon as he saw me lift it towards his face. smarty little baby... :)
ops... he is awake... have to finish later :)

24 and william's "tumor"

william and i finished watching the first season of 24. now we know why it is such a popular show. it is just real enough to make it completely believable... really well written. he is an uber-agent of sorts, but not like on alias where sydney bristow is practically super human. i read eric haney's book "delta force" (it is the book that "the unit" is based on, the new show that dennis haysbert is in). it is amazing the training that delta force operators have to go through. they really can shot accurately while running, and they can accurately identify people holding weapons from innocent bystanders while under high pressure. they are trained to be highly resourceful and delta force picks from the best. btw, you know those HALO knives are almost $400 each??? they have over 20 parts and are pretty much guarenteed to stay open regardless of any pressure you are exerting on the handle. i guess when you are trying to kill someone, the last thing you want is the blade to accidentally "pop" back in the sheath. anyways, delta force operators are mostly special forces guys when they are selected to try out for delta force. eric haney made a comment in his book that after 4 weeks of intense selection exercises, all the big, heavily muscled, jock guys were gone. the few remaining guys that made it through the selection process where fairly average looking guys, people that you would never pick out in a crowd. so it is believable the things that jack does as a former delta operator. whereas i have to admit, syndey is pretty skilled at things that really can not possibly be... as much as i love her character. plus, 24 is believable, whereas alias got into funky plot lines after the first season.
*******SPOILERS COMING******* DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT AND INTEND TO**************

it was heart-wrenching to see jack discover terry in those last minutes, but so believable. nina is obviously a highly skilled field agent, deep undercover. her handler told her to leave no connection to germany. the writers made a point of terry discovering nina speaking german. why would someone that like leave a liability like that alive? no way. she was trying to cover her tracks, there is absolutely no reason to let terry live. oh and watching sherry palmer get dumped was a most satisfying moment as well. palmer is a character that does not bend his principles no matter the effect on his career. i guess that is why everyone likes him. btw, dennis haysbert is the 8th of 9 children and he is 6'4". he was also in a lot of TV (A-Team, magnum p.i., buck rogers... ha ha yeah he's been around for awhile) before getting his film break in a movie opposite michelle pfeiffer. he got a couple sports scholarships but decided to go into acting. interesting guy. anyways...
we are taking a "24" hiatus for now, to catch up on some movies we have really been wanting to see (munich, firewall, cars, etc). but we are really looking forward to renting the next seasons of 24 and the adventures of jack and senator palmer. if anyone has seasons 2 and 3 let us know :)

------------william's stress--------------

william has had a headache off and on for 2 weeks now. i think it is stress - not bad stress - just stress of interviews, final projects due, micro-manager boss looking over his shoulder here and there, and crabby wife at home :p. he also managed to get a kink in his neck last wednesday - from just reaching over to turn the light off from bed. we are getting old. the neck kink still hasn't gone away and neither has his headache. he keeps saying he has a tumor. yeah... real funny bubba.... keep that up.... NOT funny at all! no more joking about brain tumors.... life's too short to be thinking about brain tumors. although, knowing william he is saying as a sort of reverse murphy's law. he is always saying "if i say it and it won't happen." i still say no more joking about brain tumors. although, william just sounded off a ridiculously long wind (of the nitrogen/hydrogen/sulfur kind) in the kitchen, making it really hard to be serious about this. he just deadpaned "do not come near here unless you want to die."

------------finally thomas---------------

i can not resist making fun of william's makeshift attempts to protect our son against chills while sleeping. sometimes i find thomas wrapped in old tshirt, old sweat pants, random bedsheet... i finally got proof...

Silly Pictures of Thomas and William

Thomas moves around in the crib a lot before he falls into deep sleep. In this instance, he decided the center of the bed wasn't "cool" enough so he decided to head for the corner and on top of that, decided that it's more comfortable to put his left feet up on the crib bumper. in the dark of his room, i thought he was asleep... i could see the outline of his body and thought it would make a funny picture. so i snapped a quick picture. to my surprise, his head whipped up after the flash went off. later examination of my surveillance photo revealed that i had snuck into his room when he was awake!!!
that made my heart kind of ache - because he was laying there in the dark, not fussing or making any noise... just waiting to go to sleep :( little boy has learned to put himself to sleep. *sigh* it is true what they say about how fast they grow up. one day, they cry for you to nurse them before they fall asleep, the next day they are fine without you. makes me kind of sad...


Here's a few silly shots William asked mom to take quickly while she was in the kitchen cooking. William had just finish spoon feeding Thomas his dinner... goofy goofy :)

piles and piles

i have 4 piles in the house. (1) the recent pile is things that have come in the mail recently or need to be done in the last week. that is located on the dinning room table. (2) the monthly pile is in the den upstairs. that is stuff that has come in in the last month that i really need to sort through in the next month or so. (3) the 2006 pile is in the office upstairs. this is stuff that has been sitting there since thomas has been born. yes jan 8th. i try to take an item or two from that pile every week so it doesn't sit there forever.
(4) the last pile is the X-files pile... scary. it is compiled of all the items pre-2006, including from when i was on bedrest (sept to dec 05) and some stuff from when i left Mervyns in feb as well as some stuff from my previous employer (yes 2003). it is a fairly big pile. i tried to avoid it for a long time. i am sure there is a lot of stuff in there that is not even valid any more. i used to have it under my desk upstairs. then i moved it right next to the chair on the floor in an effort to get myself to take a look. i bumped it with my chair and now the stack has toppled backwards, kinda of in a fan. it is like art. i should take a close-up picture of it and blow it up real big for the wall. i can probably throw away half that stuff... *sigh* i just need to start looking through it. or maybe, if i manage not to touch any of it by the end of the year, i'll just toss the entire pile in the circular file...

checking out the hands

thomas started looking at his hands again. he was doing it a lot starting around 3-3.5 months, then stopped around 5 months. he started again a few weeks ago, so i thought i would try to get a picture of it. he holds them up and just turns slowly front to back, palm to back. it is SO cute. like he is trying to get a really good look. "hey look here i have these hand things and they move when i want them too."


what a difference not using the flash makes. almost looks like different times of day but i shot these at the same time in the afternoon. opsy... i've been discovered! thomas was very intent on his hands but he suddenly flipped up really fast to say "hello! i see you!!"


----------------- 7 months old! -----------------------
i took him to the doctor's office yesterday to get a height/weight check. the office we go to said we can take him by any time to get an height/weight check. plus the scale we have at home is not always accurate. he is 18lb 9oz and 26.5 inches. he barely grew, but he packed on almost 2 pounds in the last month with all the solid food. look at how fat his cheeks are. i like to call him my fat little fluffy bird head because he is fat and his hair is fluffy (when it is clean) and he just sits there like a little birdy, mouth open, waiting for the food. although, i take that back, he is a moving target now. he gets distracted very easily and looks at everything except his food. so we have become experts (mostly) of RDMI (rapid digestible meal insertion). mrs naomi - that was for you oh queen of acronyms :)

more firsts for the record

we took some more pictures of him this weekend. here is a artsy little picture of his cute butt. look at the fat ooozing out the sides of his stomach! :)

thomas clearly recognizes his name now. he turns his head towards us when we say it. last Monday, he also started getting angry when we take toys away from him or when he can't get at something he wants to touch. it is so cute. he gets a little frustrated and starts breathing fast, hyperventilating really. then if he still can't reach it, or i take it out of his reach, he starts crying - a really whinny, higher pitched cry. so funny! at least it is funny now because he is so small...

i also had him try his gumball toy and AMAZINGLY, he realizes now that if he pushes the little lever, fun things come rolling out. that is amazing! i have showed him the toy several times, but he would slap it with his hands as he watched me push down the level and the gumballs roll out. now he actually pushes the lever himself and watches as the toys roll out. it was so great watching him discover this. look at the sly look on his face. like "whadda you lookin at?" the way he is holding it, it is like when you have put money into a vending machine and it is not spitting out what you selected. so he is shaking it to see if it will come out. ha ha....

i have been really really moody lately and poor william is getting the brunt of that. everyone has off days and this has been more of an off week for me. one minute i am fine, the next minute i will be chewing william out. poor daddy... never knowing when to duck! :p

thomas is finally getting used to sleeping without waking up and crying for us. wow... that took almost a week to get him back on track. it is so nice having him sleep through 9 to 6. and every morning when i go to pick him up, he cries a little when he sees me and gives me a big hug as soon as i pick him up and clings to me. it is so nice to be loved!

------------------- 24 ------------------------
on a side note, we borrowed the first season of "24" and we are totally hooked. we watch one episode every night. it must have been torturous for those of you that watched it when it first came out. we can't imagine a whole week between each episode.

look at the mess i made

i was eating and eating. and i had enough. mommy tried to make me eat more. so i showed her with my fast karate hands that i had enough. she wasn't expecting my fast karate hands!

by day, lovely baby, thomas anderson, with respectable parents. by night, a renegade cereal hacker with matrix hands...

sleep battles

thomas has been waking up quite a bit the last month or so. at least 2-4 times a night. as long as william picks him up and rocks him, he goes right back to sleep. sometimes around 4am, it takes longer than that and william ends up taking him to the downstairs room to co-sleep. i got sick a couple weeks ago and william was trying to protect my sleep. which is greatly appreciated but i am not sick anymore and we need to get our little crafty one back on track. i suspected that thomas was just looking for comfort but really didn't have a way to prove it. william doesn't like to hear him cry and neither do i (it certainly has a way of raising your blood pressure) so william always comforts him back to sleep.
well, the night before (at 3am), william was trying to talk through why he keeps waking up. we know he can sleep from 9 to 6 am without needing food. so william keeps thinking it is because he is cold. i've been telling him that he gets congested because he is crying, but he doesn't want to believe that. then he tells me that i need to get myself in order and figure out what is wrong. sheesh... if i had it my way, thomas would only get picked up once after 9pm to check for any remaining burps. anyways, i told him last night that babies wake up here and there during the night. they are not manipulative but they do learn and thomas has learned that if he cries, daddy will come sooth him back to sleep. i think william was finally ready to hear that, so we let him cry and he was back asleep after about 10 minutes of crying. around 12midnight, he cried out but it was literally less than a minute and he was back asleep. the third time, he cried out once and decided it wasn't worth staying up.
he slept right through until 6am. so, william has learned, even though he wants to comfort baby, sometimes, it is better to let them learn to cry it out so they learn not to cry for a certain reaction. then thomas can learn to sooth himself back to sleep and we all get a full night's sleep!

and i am supposed to change his diapers...

this is getting a little ridiculous. i need to install a restraint system of some kind. maybe velcro straps across his chest and hips...

he even uses the towel bar for leverage! several times now, when i try to flip him back, he swings his leg wildly all around until his foot finds the towel bar and hooks on for dear life. he grabs hold of the side of the changing table and presto magico flipping baby... look at that crafty face, so proud of himself.