Halloween outfit

It was difficult for Julie to figure out what to dress William up as for Halloween. After all this is his first Halloween. Finally, Julie decided to let William have multiple outfits. We know William won't remember.... But Julie will^_^



So Julie first had William try on the Chinese outfit he wore for his one month birthday... The shirt was a little tight and the pants ripped after William wiggled a few times (but the outfit did make it through the library and our apartment halloween party).



Then Julie dressed William up as Charlie Brown on Halloween. With the little amount of hair he's got, doesn't he look like Charlie Brown?


You would think that it would be easy to find a yellow shirt to put a brown strip on... It took Julie forever to shop for that shirt. She finally gave up and just bought a white polo shirt and some yellow cloth dye... Tada! Charlie Brown shirt!

William didn't get to have any candies this Halloween but Eric and Julie shared some of William's candies together.

We also celebrated Eric's 31st birthday by visiting the California Academy of Science.


William loved the aquarium!

Since we were close by the De Young Museum, we also tried to go and visit the Impressionest exhibit:

Julie had a little too much fun with the cutouts.




Here is more pictures from October:

What does this bottom do?

Our Curious George has found the flush on our toilet. He is heading into the bathroom to try out this new bottom every chance he gets! Luckily we pay a flat fee on our water bill...

Hello Adolf... wait... I mean Charlie Chaplin

Here is a picture of William's first taste of miso soup at a Japanese restaurant. Julie tried to feed him a piece of the seaweed and it landed on William's lips instead. We just couldn't pass up on this precious moment ^_^

And here is a video of William climbing up some stairs for the first time:

The strategy to combat "NO"

The terrible twos is what all new parents fear and the word "NO!" is what all new parents don't want coming out of their toddler's mouth.


Even though we are still far away from the terrible twos, we are already catching ourselves telling William no a lot (ex: don't pull out the electrical plug, don't lick mommy's shoes)

So the other morning, Eric said to Julie:
E: I know how to solve this problem!
J: how?
E: so for the really bad stuff we will say no but for the stuff that is not too bad we will just say "you shouldn't"
J: why don't we just do the Taiwanese way? Just call their name in a harsher tone. This way he won't associate the behavior with a specific word and he will learn his name too :)

Blogging from my iPos touch

It has been difficult to blog since our little guy came along. Julie is often trapped on the rocking chair while William takes a nap on her lap. With her new iPod and the new blog app she is hoping to be able to blog more. Here is our first test blog from the iPod. And here is William taking a nap.

Life is precious

Life is so precious and unpredictable. The usually healthy and athletic papa Yang suddenly fell ill in early September, sending our little clan into panic mode. Packing up everything we needed in 4 hours, Julie was still in a daze when they made it on a flight bound for Taiwan.

( Yes! William and his stroller!)

Unlike our last trip, we just brought whatever bare necessaries we could fit into two carry-on suitcases (e.g. William's slumber music machine, bath time rubber ducky, baby carrier, and lots of clothes).

Like our last trip, William was a pretty good sport. He was able to sleep through most of the flight but this time wanted to crawl around when he was awake. We tried to keep things light for him so we took him to the child play area while transiting through Narita Airport so he can get some crawling out of his system (he enjoyed following the older t0ddlers around).

We also rewarded ourselves with some ice cream while we were there. Sorry William... maybe when you get older^_^

Papa Yang and Mama Yang were glad to see William there.

Luckily Papa Yang was able to recover quickly during our 3 weeks stay in Taiwan.
Here is William having fun with our luggage as we are packing up for our return trip. He always likes to be in the middle of the action!

Towards the end of our stay, a typhoon came through the southern part of Taiwan sending down lots of rain and wind. Julie's uncle's house in Kaohsiung was affected.
Although water flooded their basement/garage, Julie's uncle, aunt, and cousins were able to move their car and mopeds to higher ground in time. Julie's aunt said that since the water rose so fast, they didn't have time to think about what to save. They tried to save whatever floated to the top (e.g. slippers) but later realized that their nice shoes were all in shoe boxes... which didn't float up.
Luckily no one was hurt.

As Julie was doing her final e-mail check before heading to the airport, she got the bad news that her college roommate Amy has passed away...

It was quite a shock to both Julie and Eric since we just spent a Saturday with her back in June.

It was a beautiful day in San Francisco. She brought William a Giant's panda bear, which became one of his favorite stuffed animal (probably because of it's high contrast). In Julie's mind, Amy was always smart, happy, and smiley... wish we were able to share some of her burden...

Life is truly precious... we thank God for our wonderful family and friends and we hope to be able to continue treasuring our time with love ones.

William 8 months: Swimming class

William is finally old enough to start swimming class. Eric and Julie did a lot of research to make sure that William is not too young to swim and the possibility of toxicity from the chlorine in the water. It turn out to be a great idea! William loves to splash in the water and it totally wears him out and helps him sleep at night ( even though he was only in the pool for 30 minutes).

And who said being a mom is not a dirty job? Here is Julie making pumpkin baby food... that is not #2 on her jacket. Here is William having some nectarines for dessert. Did we mention that William likes to eat everything (except for carrots... just like his mama).

Since William started crawling, Julie had to say goodbye to her mammy and me yoga class because William was too interested in all the other babies in class and would not stay in one place ^_^

Just as a side note, Julie was finally able to get her hair cut. Donating 15 inches of her hair to Locks of Love sure feels good!


Here is Shirley getting her hair chopped too. Yap! partner in crime for hair donation! Sure hope to do it again in 2 years!