william's office make-over

I've added a clock to my cubicle. Now I know when to leave!!

happy thanksgiving

visited our old college friend, michael in berkeley a week ago. hi michael and grace! it was nice to catch up with you. grace, we'll see you soon...


this year, we had 3 thanksgiving feasts.. ha ha... the first one was on thursday - with my dad, my sister and her family and william's parents. the food was courtesy of Whole Foods. unfortunately, i overheated the turkey so it was a little dry, but everything else was fairly good. william's mom also brought a lot of food - she said she would bring one dish, but she brought four. unfortunately william's parents took off first and we forgot to ask them to stay to take a picture.


on friday, my sister and her family came out again so we could all spend some time with my mom. that was nice to see her kids again, especially princess ariana (my favorite neice :)
she is so precocious! and precious too! as you can see baby cousin joshua is asleep in his car seat. he is so good about sleeping in his car seat. we should train thomas more on that... would definitely make life easier.

on friday evening, we went over the johnny & betty's place for their amazing thanksgiving spread. they always cook up a storm for all of us - especially nice for those that don't have family around (like them, and the lu's). it was nice to see everyone and the babies were having a good time too. they were all grouped around the coffee table like little teletubbies. dylan was dancing to "we will rock you". hilarious!

random picture of thomas sitting in the laundry basket. he tried to climb out shortly after and did a hard face plant into the floor. gave him a nice big bruise on the forehead just in time for thanksgiving. :)


-------------other news--------------

my mom has come to stay with us for the holidays. she has some odd "preferences" when she is here (like locks on her door) but otherwise, it will be nice having someone watch Thomas while i eat and take showers, etc. it will probably be a week or two. we'll see if she wants to stay through christmas or not.
wow christmas is only 4 weeks away! this year has FLOWN by....


----------thomas updates----------

two weeks ago he got his first cold. it wasn't that bad, but his nose would switch between really stuffed up and really drippy. so when he was eating, poor little baby had to stop chewing to open his mouth and breath. i felt so bad. you really do want to take all of the bad stuff for your baby so they don't have to suffer. here he is taking a break to breath... too funny. i put on sesame street so he would not be as fussy while eating. he is usually good while he eats, but the cold made him very fussy. it is a whole new experience for him, not being able to breath through his nose.


also, he has 6 teeth now! the last two nights he has been very restless in his sleep, crying a little here and there because it is not comfortable. william has been a real trouper, comforting him as much as he can so that i get to sleep in! :) and we give him baby tylenol before bedtime.

oh and the best news - william only has 2 and a half more weeks of school to go and he is done. completely done. with a new set of letters to add after his name :). yay all around! counting the days down....

not getting anything done...

this is me during the day. whenever i am on the phone or computer, this is exactly what it looks like at our house...

Bowling Thomas

Thomas and bowling pins. Not much to comment..just daddy posting pictures for his enjoyment at work....

He's so cute I just wanto crush him flat when I get home these days.... -William

Untitled-Yet

This picture was taken by Catherine while she was on the laptop. Thomas has a very "annoyed" look on his face because mommy is ignoring him for time being.

Isn't it hilarious they're already showing these "personalities"?! What a difference between month #8 and #10!


And thanks for all the suggestions for my cubicle. I'll work on it next month...and post an updated picture later. -William

Daddy's new home away from home...

Well, PeopleSoft sure did spoil their employees at the Data Center.

Back there I had my own office with doors and what not. Now at Siemens, I've joined the ranks of cubicle dwellers. No doors, 6ft grey walls, and no privacy!

I need some decorations in my cubicle, any suggestions?

tea and teepee

thomas discovered teepee today. i tossed him one of those costco rolls to try to keep him in the middle of the bathroom (away from dustier toilet closet). not only did he find it interesting, he figured out how to get the wrapper off and with his sticky little fingers, picked at it until it started unwraveling.... i grabbed my cellphone and got these shots - so the quality isn't good but at least it captured the moment.


victory over the teepee!!! ha ha... his little stubby, charlie brown arms barely clear his head.

at this point, i interceded before too much teepee was wasted :)


----------------tea on tuesday-----------------

i was running an errand in pleasanton tuesday around lunchtime and decided spur of the moment to have tea with thomas. we were right here, i was hungry, might as well treat myself and thomas! i had read both bad and good reviews but my experience at the english rose tea room on main and neal st. was very pleasant.... maybe because i went when they weren't busy, who knows. the server was very nice and paid a lot of attention to thomas which he loved. he gave her lots of smiles and talked up a storm to her. plus there were two little girls there (maybe 5-6 years old) having a birthday tea and of course he watched them closely. they were also fascinated with him and came over to ask "can we pet him?" that was hilarious. they proceeded to pet him and talk to him like a little kitten.

after being seated, i got a ginger cookie and the ‘tea of the day’ to sample, as well as a scented hot cloth to wipe hands. it was perfect to clean thomas up with! she didn't mind at all when i asked for another one at the end so i could wipe him down. they had a special queen anne's tea which is a thanksgiving dinner in miniature. thomas tried both of the sandwiches, a little of the stuffing roll, a lot of the little stuffed potato pastry and some scone with heavy cream. he liked everything. he also tried tea for the first time, a decaf "lavender lace". he took a couple quick gulps and promptly spit out what was in his mouth. ha ha... he was probably expecting water or milk. i guess lavender tea was a little too strange. i was feeding him the EB veggie beef pilaf but as soon my food came out, with the shiny platter and colorful leaves and roses on top, he stopped eating and began eyeing me every time i put something in my mouth. so he only ate half the jar. luckily, there was enough food to fill me up and give him some. the savory items were probably not cooked on the spot - i am sure they don't have a full kitchen staff back there (doesn't look big enough) but to me, it tasted fine. thomas did really well right up until the end when he started getting a little tired, so i got to relax a little too. it was a little pricey, but i like supporting local mom & pop shops. at the end, the server, Carol, asked me to sign the guest book and to include any prayer requests i had. that was a nice touch too :)

halloween

Thomas's first halloween last week - we answered the door as a two headed ghost.... or a maybe we were impersonating kuato from total recall :) ha ha... look at how big his head is! he was in front of me but still - wow - they are so big now!

william has one more quarter of school left, ending dec 12th. thank goodness! the thing that sucks is he chose classes back to back monday and tuesday. so it is basically me and thomas from monday morning until wed evening. and even then he only sees thomas for 1.5 to 2 hours on a good traffic day. if he leaves work at 5:30, gets home by 6pm, thomas usually goes to sleep around 8. oh well, only 5 more weeks to go.... *sigh*


funny thomas - digging for candy. it will be worse when all the babies know what it is... he held that snickers for a long time and by the time i took it back, it was melted into the shape of his hand.

so mondays and tuesdays are really long days for me. i have been using his crib as a playpen when i need 15-20 minutes to get stuff done. he has continued to be clingy. i used to be able to plunk him down with his toys or in his walker for a good 30 minute stretch at a time. in the last couple weeks, he has decided that he wants to be held more. so at least one of my meals a day, i eat while he is trying to climb up my legs or ramming himself into my chair in his walker. a couple times last week, just gave up and held him while eating. although, he is getting pretty good at trying to swipe my food on its way to my mouth.
oh and my joints still ache in my neck, hands and arms. another friend of mine said she had the same issue and that it does get better but she said she felt joint pain/stiffness until she stopped nursing. man, only 2 more months of nursing and i can start weaning him off. i love nursing, but it does literally suck the best out of you and it is hard to eat enough every day to keep it up. i will be glad when i know that i just have to eat enough to satisfy my stomach and not two!

he started pulling himself up on things last week. before it was just onto his knees. this week, he finally took a couple hesitant steps while supporting himself on the sofa! this pic is funny -the look on his face, "i am concentrating here, don't mess with me"



he finally gets the gumball machine... at the beginning of november, i noticed him trying to get at it. so i pulled it out into the open (i had stuck it in the back of the play area because other toys had usurped it. lo and behold, when i showed him how to drop the ball into the top, he copied me! and he didn't stop for almost 10 minutes. just kept dropping the balls in and pushing the lever to make them come back out. it was amazing! this last weekend, he showed off his new adeptness to william too.
and he just started clapping (finally!) - i was visiting my mom last Thursday and she took his hands to clap. when she let go, he kept on clapping! he has spontaneously started clapping at least several times a day. on sunday morning, he actually started slowly clapping while he was nursing. so funny!


they are so smart! sometimes i try to get away with just giving him a big hug and leave his feet on the ground. but he whines a little and starts bouncing on his feet, you know that kind where they jiggle their legs at the knees. very whiney! he knows when i have not picked him up off the ground. i mean, what is wrong with a hug?? it is still mommy's arms wrapped around him. why does it have to be off the ground???? smart little oinker.

--------------- "um" ------------------

another thing i noticed is that he is VERY tuned to the noises i make. seeing as how he is verbalizing but not actually saying anything yet, i guess noises are very meaningful. if i just grunt at him once (you know, that sound that means "hey check this out", his head whips around to see if i have some new activity or toy or food for him. :)