Right brain

Here are some interesting shots that Trung took of Lydia when his artistic side took over... She's got daddy in her eyes...literally!

Lydia is playing with her feet as her little tush is airing out after a diaper change.

The Ly family quarantined

One by one we have each fallen prey to this thing called "the cold". Once again, the culprit was little Lydia, who started off early last week with a runny nose (again). She seemed to be getting better, but we ran out of distilled water for the humidifier on Wednesday, and the next morning she was all stuffed up. Her nose has been going from runny to stuffed ever since. It's quite tough nursing a baby who can't bring from her nose. At least her disposition is still good; she's such a mess when she wakes up with all her boogers crusted on her nose. Ugh, I know, but at least you're not the one having to clean her up!

Trung started feeling sick with a sour throat on Friday early evening; he took a Tylenol Cold and Flu tablet and took a nap. He woke up "supposedly" feeling better; I think he only said that so that I wouldn't get on his case about playing CoH instead on resting. Anyhow, Trung is still congested and keeps clearing his throat, but is slowly progressing.

Friday night my throat was a little tickly, which for me is one of the first signs of an upcoming illness. Yesterday wasn't too bad, just a bit of congestion, but it was bedtime that was the killer; I could not breathe from my nose for the life of me. I finally figured out to sleep on my side, so that at least one nostril was clear. Today the throat is still bothersome, but I think I'm going to make it. At least we all got sick before next weekend's ski trip.

So long, Poly-vi-sol

Last night Lydia started solid food and it went very well. She gobbled up that rice cereal as though her life depended on it, well, it kinda does. Anyhow, we've got the whole experience on tape, so that one of these days when she's all grown up, we'll look back and remember how cute she used to be. I was honestly scared that Lydia wouldn't like the cereal, but I had nothing to be worried about. Trung claims that he knew that she would take to it just fine...yeah, whatever. :P

All in all, I am relieved that I can stop giving the baby Poly-vi-sol, which was like iron concentrate and was very disgusting; Lydia would cry just seeing the bottle. That stuff was thick and she would try and spit it out, but end up choking...poor baby. Since she was exclusively breastfeed, she needed that extra iron, but goodness, even the smell was repelling. I'm sure Lydia would take food over Poly-vi-sol any day. :)

Har har

Trung is so funny, oh oh, he's so funny; I think I love him long time. :P

No deal

NO DEAL!!

My fav five

Whoo-hoo, they've got the dancers picked out for the fourth season of "Dancing with the Stars"! I'm looking forward to seeing Apolo Anton Ohno shake his booty and oh yes, enjoying the return of the professional dancer Alec Mazo. This should be an interesting season...hmmm, now all I have to do is convince the hub to watch the baby.

Other shows I've been watching this season include: Lost, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, and American Idol. How I manage to catch all these shows and raise a baby, I dunno. :P Well, let's just say, I watch the baby all day, so you know who "gets" to watch the baby at night. Deal or no deal?

Chinese New Year

Yesterday we ate dim-sum in honor of Chinese New Year, and um, yeah, that's about it. Traditionally, people with kids rake in the red envelopes, but what goes around comes around...we would have to give other kids red envelopes as well. So, it's so much easier just avoiding all that and eating some Chinese food, and exclaiming "Happy Chinese New Year" to every Chinese person you run meet. :)

Oh, we did dress Lydia in a little Chinese outfit that Trung's former co-workers in China gave him. Ta-da!

We'll leave the backside to your imagination. Let's just say it's a bit airy back and down there. :P Yes, it's true, little kids in China are running around dressed like this; at least they don't have to worry about diapers.

First word (that Trung heard)

Yesterday night Lydia was babbling quite a bit and we heard something that sounded like "da-da". We didn't think much about it since it wasn't that distinctive. Well, this morning she was playing on her mat and was yelling out "da-da" several times, over and over again. Of course, Trung was on a conference call and didn't hear it, but later she kept saying it again, so now he kinda believes me (he thinks she's just babbling still). Oh wells, I'm still thinking "By golly, I think she's got it!" My baby's all grown up!

Happy Valentine's Day!

May your day be filled with love and happiness!

More visitations

My uncle and his family from Taiwan came to visit us in Austin on Monday. I had a great time showing them Great Hills, Lake Travis, Mount Bonnell, and the UT campus; we topped that off with a beautiful sunset on the 360 bridge. We had ourselves some good BBQ at The County Line, where my cousins met us up for dinner. Nathan and Lydia had a grand ole time having a staring contest and taking turns crying. Hopefully I can get a picture of that to post later. :) Afterwards, the boys played some XBox and Trung introduced CoH to my Cousin Thomas. Let's hope I won't be hearing back from my uncle about dropping grades due to a CoH addiction. :P

Tuesday we went to San Marcos to shop at its famous outlet mall. My relatives enjoyed buying items at Coach, Polo, and Nike; the prices were quite a bargain compared to the prices back home. For lunch we had "the original" hamburger at Johnny Rocket, accompanied by yummy milkshakes and french fries/onion rings. I hope they had a good "taste" of Texas during their stay in Austin. Ya'll come back and see us, ya hear! :)

Yummy feet

It's unbelievable how flexible babies are!

I was sixteen, going on seventeen

...well, plus ten. We had our third annual Super Bowl + Grace's birthday party on Sunday; I guess my birthday will always be affiliated with the Super Bowl, at least to my Austin friends. Trung did an excellent job "slow" grilling the brisket; the last couple times the briskets were overcooked, but this time it was nice and tender. Talk about a huge chunk of meat! (I mean the brisket :P)


Another year has gone by and I'm another year older.*sigh* So much has happened this year that I feel like I've aged quite a bit this time around. Hopefully with age comes maturity; you definitely start thinking differently when you have a kid because you've always got a little one to consider in all your plans. But it is well worth it!Special thanks to Sing and Maggie for watching Lydia last night so that we could go out to eat for my real birthday! It was nice not having to worry about the baby during dinner, though we began to miss her by the time we headed back home.

Five months old

My how fast kids grow! Lydia is already rolling all over the place and showing indications of wanting to eat and crawl, at the same time. :P She's growing big and strong, and it isn't so pleasant when she kicks you in the stomach (especially when I had that stomach virus). Lydia has some stranger anxiety still, but yesterday when I dropped her off at the church's nursery for the first time, she cried for a minute and was completely fine for the next hour. The volunteers there even said she even enjoyed tummy time! Wha!?!? I'll be leaving her at the nursery for the rest of the month to see how she fares; all this in preparation for our ski trip at the beginning of March when she'll be with Grandma Lee for three days. So far so good; that's my girl!

Oh, have I mentioned that Lydia's hair is getting long? Yup, you can do all sorts of things with it. For example, here's her Einstein do....

Congratulations to all you Colts fans for your Super Bowl win yesterday. Peyton Manning is da bomb!

Why I never!

I was accused last night for selling a fake Coach wallet on eBay. These were the buyer's exact words, "why did you lie?????This is by far a coach wallet NO where does it state coach!Where did you come up with the fact it was a coach". My initial reaction (besides the fact that she needed to check her grammer) was..."maybe it wasn't an authentic Coach wallet" even though Cora handed the purses and wallet to me and said that they were Coach. But what if it was just the purses that were Coach and I just assumed that the wallet was too? AHHHH!!

It was about 10:55 PM when I read the evil message, so I couldn't just call Cora to ask. I did the only other thing I could think of and went straight to the pictures I had taken of the wallet on Picasa and scanned them very carefully as I thought of ways to protect my feedback score (luckily, the buyer hadn't left any feedback yet). Fortunately, I found a picture where you could actually see the COACH emblem. As Trung put it, I was vindicated! Whoo-hoo! Bu-ya!

So, being the cool-headed person that I am (not!), I kindly wrote the following e-mail to said buyer, "If you take out the ID bi-fold and look at the bottom right hand corner of the wallet where the bi-fold was, you will see the COACH emblem. Thanks.". Chica wrongfully accused me of lying and here I am thanking her! Yeah, I know you cannot see the emblem if the ID bi-fold is tucked into one of the pockets (on the left), but you could have asked me nicely about it. Sheesh, the things you do for 100% feedback. I guess I won't be hearing back from her; her feeling like a fool is all the apology I need. :P