Butterfly in the sky

Lydia went trick or treating for the first time tonight with Lily (Jasmine) and Mary (Ariel), and had a great time. She understood the concept of taking the candy, but wanted to give it back and then go into the person's house. You have much to learn, my young padawan.

We got another camera just in time for Halloween...yeah! Happy Halloween!

Speechless

I cannot believe Sabrina got kicked off of Dancing with the Stars tonight. Sheesh, America, give her a break! Jane or Marie definitely should have been the one on the chopping block, but I suppose one bad (not even really that bad) week really does make all the difference. Well, at least now she can concentrate on her Cheetah Girls movie, which I honestly doubt that I will be seeing. I never that I'd say this, but I think Mel B really has a chance of winning the competition now, but I'd rather Helio win. Mel B has improved quite a bit, but she doesn't seem much of a crowd pleaser...to each to his own.

Here's a cute shot that Maggie took of Lydia when Trung was watching her while I was at a shower. Peek-a-boo, I see you!

Belly Wars

Who currently has the biggest belly? I think Lydia has the biggest belly relative to her size, but I'm sure I will exceed her very soon. :)

Weekend events

This weekend was extremely busy, which is rare for us, but we had a great time. Trung's childhood friend Randy arrived in Austin Friday afternoon, stopping by on his way home to New York from Las Vegas. That evening, we went to The Oasis and got there just in time to see the sunset.

Saturday, Trung took Randy to see parts of Austin and brought home Rudy's BBQ for lunch. Then off to my first out of four baby showers in two weeks...tis the season. After the shower, we headed back home where I got Lydia ready for bed as Trung and Randy picked up some hot wings and a couple DVDs.

Sunday, Trung took Randy to the airport while Lydia and I went to church, but not before snapping a shot of the strapping young men.

This was the first Sunday that Lydia didn't cry when I dropped her off in the nursery. We hadn't been consistent about going to church due to sicknesses and vacations, but we've gone three times in a row which seems to have done Lydia quite a bit of good. So long, stranger anxiety! After Trung picked us up from church, we got ready for brunch with our next visitors, my college friend Thomas and his adorable family. We didn't get any good shots of just Lydia and Daniel, but here's one of the future mother-in-laws...hee hee.
I had to cut the visit short to go to my second baby boy shower; my former co-worker Kristen is due next month. The shower was at a lovely house in Westlake, where about a dozen ladies gathered to "ooo" and "ahhh" over all things baby. Lydia can't wait to meet her new boyfriends, Landjuvan Obas and William Ramsey!

My little "big girl" & "Moo" Shoes

Remember how they used to have "my buddy" and "kid sister" when we were growing up? Well, nowadays they have this doll called "my twinn", which you can personalize to look like your child. My niece is getting one for her birthday next month and I'm buying matching girl and doll outfits for her...interesting stuff. I remember thinking how cool the "kid sister" was, but who needs one when you've got your own real life kid? Come to think of it, the doll would have been much easier to handle because Lydia is nuts! My pregnant friend Wendy got to experience first hand yesterday what a little bugger a very mobile 13 month old can be; the kid was walking out of the store with unpaid merchandise in each hand! Hopefully she'll calm down in the next few months as I become less mobile. Did I mention that Trung wants to try and potty train Lydia before the baby is born? Uh-huh...we've got a Sesame Street potty and everything! Good luck, Trung. :)

I purchased another pair of shoes for Lydia yesterday since; they are called Mooshu trainers ---> and are simply adorable! Of course I had to get the ones with the butterfly, but the really cool thing is that the squeak (and you can take out the squeaker too)! So cute for that new walker! Lydia has been walking for awhile now, but these were the only pair that I really liked, so we waited until the Fall to get them for her. As I was putting Lydia into her carseat yesterday, I noticed that one of the shoes she was wearing was missing. These were the pair that I had bought in Destin and just loved; she had worn them only twice! <--- I called Trung to see if I had left them at home...no...I retraced my steps to see if I left them at the store...no...I looked under the car and thankfully, they were there. The shoe was so far in that I literally had to lay flat to reach out and get it; I'm sure the cars driving by found that entertaining. I know, I know, I've got to get out of the chocolate brown and pink color trend, but brown goes with pretty much everything...except some black, so I've a black pair being shipped that I bought on eBay. The kid's going to be styling for the holidays, well, at least her feet will be. :P

Back in business

After a two week hiatus from eBay, I finally posted a few items today and it actually felt good. Since this was the longest time period I've gone without selling anything on eBay since I joined in January, it helped me remember the excitement of seeing bids get higher and higher. I'll only be selling a handful of items since I'll be on vacation for a total of three weeks for the holidays, but hopefully I'll end the year with a bang!

I had my doctor's appointment today and the doc was pleased that I had gained a few pounds. The baby's heartbeat sounded pretty fast, so now I'm wondering if I'm having a girl. I'm finding out the sex of the baby on November 27th, purposely after Thanksgiving holiday. Everyone in Houston will be asking what I'm having, so if I don't know, I won't be so anxious to tell them. That extra week of waiting totally bites, but in the long run, it will help me not slip the verdict to Trung. Okay, so everyone help me out...please don't ask me what we're having until after Christmas Day because that is when I'm telling Trung's and my family. Shucks, maybe it's better for me to find out that day too and have the sonogram person just right it down. Oh the decisions!

Nightmares, Netflix, & Chills

Poor Lydia has been having nightmares these last few days. Well, we think they are nightmares because usually when she wakes up at night she just wimpers and falls right back to sleep, but lately she's been wailing. Early this morning she was standing in her crib just bawling. Reason #2, Lydia doesn't get consoled as easily as before when we would just give her her pacifier and pat her back to sleep; we have to pick her up and rock her for a bit. How strange that this is happening as we're watching the Heroes season 2 episodes where Molly is having nightmares as well. Oh, speaking of Heroes, we're all caught up and are planning to watch tonight's episode (though I'll be sneaking in some Dancing with the Stars during commercials).

You know how they say that you get forgetful and/or clumsy when you're pregnant? I remember being both (yes, even more clumsy than I already am) during my first pregnancy and now I've done my first major forgetful thing this pregnancy...I returned the wrong Netflix movie. No big deal, right? I guess, but it so happens that I mailed in Lydia's favorite DVD Sesame Beginnings: Exploring Together when I was supposed to mail in Heroes Disc 5! I'd like to see the look on the next renter's face when they open the package to discover it...hee hee, though I'm hoping the Netflix people will be able to find the DVD beforehand. *sigh*

Another "inevitable" preggers thing...I've gone 100% maternity clothes now. I've heard that your belly gets bigger faster after the first pregnancy, but it's more than one month earlier than last time! At this rate, I'll be a blimp by the time I deliver...well, at least my Obgyn can't complain. :P I started wearing my maternity pants during the Florida trip because I ate so much, but I was still able to wear my longer short-sleeved tops since I bought several during post-pregnancy. Well, now with the cold front suddenly coming through town, I had to bust out my new fall maternity tops since I wasn't stocked up...no wonder people have kids around the same time of year. It's nice having the cooler weather for a change, though I don't anticipate it sticking around for very long.

I think we're having a boy...
Reason #1 - I don't feel like eating anything, but I'm ALWAYS hungry. With Lydia, I had a pretty good appetite and cravings, but nothing sounds yummy nowadays. So at HEB today, I bought some of my favorite foods, pumpkin pie and cobbler, in hopes of increasing my appetite a bit. Yikes, let's hope I don't get gestational diabetes while I'm at it!
Reason #2 - Acne galore. I've got the whiteheads pretty much tamed now, but if you look really closely, you can see little bumps all over my forehead and some dark spots of the ones I've popped. Don't start staring at my face now! Okay, one at a time though please. :P The old wive's tale is that if you have clear skin than you're having a boy, but the Chinese saying is the opposite. Seeing that I'm Chinese, I'll go with the latter. How convenient that I get to choose...hee hee.

Interesting stuff

1) Funny that I was just mentioning JLo the other day and she's performing on the Dancing with the Stars results show next Tuesday. Keep your eyes peeled for that belly! Oh, and rumor has it that she's expecting twins. Also, I read that she was 12 weeks pregnant on Sept. 17, which would put her due the same week as me. All I can say is that she totally beats Anna Nicole Smith (in sharing a close due date with me).

2) I just read an article about the largest mako shark every caught. Interesting enough, it was caught near Destin, FL on Saturday, the day we left. I would have loved to have seen it!

Save the cheerleader...

Jimmy left discs 3 and 4 of Heroes Season 1 at our house for us to return, so naturally, we had to watch them. We downloaded and watched "discs 1 and 2" on Netflix online yesterday. Today we'll probably get through discs 3 and 4, hopefully disc 5 will arrive in the mail tomorrow, then we'll watch "discs 6 and 7" online. We knew that we wanted to watch Heroes since we heard that it was so good, so now we'll be caught up in a week! Too bad we'll have to watch the weekly shows now since it's only in Season 2 right now. :(

Last night's Dancing with the Stars was quite entertaining. Everyone has improved tremendously that I honestly don't know who will be kicked off tonight. Might I mention how great Samantha Harris looks after having given birth only two weeks ago! Speaking of babies...JLo is preggers and due in the Spring though I'm not sure exactly when. Anna Nicole Smith had her baby within days of my having Lydia, so I'm wondering which actress will have her baby around the time baby #2 arrives.

Back at home

We arrived yesterday in Dallas around 3:30 PM, but ended up leaving Dallas for Austin around 6:30 PM. Why? Well, our car decided not to start in the parking lot, so after having it jumpstarted, we went to NTB to have the battery replaced. In the meantime, we ate at a Mexican restaurant that was within walking distance. Los Lupes ended being one of the best Tex-Mex restaurants that we had ever eaten at. Then after figuring out how to get back on the highway and stopping for some gas, we were finally on our way back home. We arrived home around 9:45 PM, but got to at least chat with Jimmy for a little bit; his family was in town to check out the Thomas the Train expo.

This morning Trung and I went to church after a long absence due to illnesses and the vacation. We then met Jimmy's family for some dim-sum where we ran into our cousins. Jimmy left soon after lunch, and I finally got a chance to upload all our pictures. Here are my favorites, but you can see them all on Picasaweb:

Lydia's first time to set foot on sand...fluffy, squeaky sand at that. Lydia looking into the distance with seagulls in the background. That is a "mongolian spot" on her shoulder, I promise. :)

Daddy throwing Lydia into the air.

Our one and only family picture. Mommy and Lydia.

It's sad that our vacation is over, but we look forward to our next trip to Tampa for a Ly Family Christmas.

Final days of Destin

Tuesday afternoon we were starving after Lydia's nap, so we drove to a public beach nearby and found a lovely beachside restaurant. We had a snack of oysters (I sure do miss those raw oysters...sniff sniff) and then drove west on Hwy 98 and discovered some restaurants we wanted to try later. We also found a park where Lydia enjoyed the entire playground to herself. During the drive, it rained for the first and only time on our trip, and I got a small stomachach, so we picked up some Italian food to go and headed back to the condo. I had missed Dancing with the Stars the night before, so heck was I going to miss it that night. Too bad, Wayne, but you knew it was your time. Loved the ponytail though!

Wednesday started off very slow, but relaxing. We ate breakfast and leftover Italian food for lunch and finally left the condo for the beach down the street, where only a couple people were sunbathing. Trung took a short jog to warm up for the cold ocean water while Lydia and I sat on a towel watching the seagulls. When Trung returned, he took Lydia into the water; she loved the water coming at her feet, but was shocked when the higher waves hit her face. The saltiness of the water may have stung her eyes as well. Then while Trung swam for a little bit, Lydia gathered enough courage to finally walk on the sand by herself. We walked on the tide-washed flat sand earlier, which I think helped her brave the fluffy sand. We headed to the Crab Trap for dinner, which was very good. Joe's Crab House was nothing compared to this place; the price showed it too.

Thursday we went to Waffle House for breakfast and headed back to the condo for Lydia's nap. Then off to the outlet for some more store browsing since there's really no point for me to buy clothes and Trung never needs anything, so he says. We had a delightful lunch of wraps and sandwiches at Camille's and then bought a pair of StrideRite shoes for Lydia. We browsed a few more stores, let Lydia play in the playground, and then headed back. We chilled in the condo the rest of the afternoon and had leftover Crab Trap food for dinner; I couldn't miss Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy, after all. :P

Today has been a slow morning again; we're savoring every minute of our last full day of vacation. We're at Destin Commons again so that Trung can do something quick for work and so that I can, of course, blog. We had planned to hit the beach again, but it seems quite cooler today, so we may just take a stroll. Sushi/hibachi is the plan for dinner; I hope they have some nice fully cooked rolls though I sure do miss sushi too.

Lydia has been waking up early again lately since she has gone back to taking two naps, but she's been sleeping in the peapod with great ease since she's always worn out. It has been a challenge keeping a constant eye on her with the stairs since she could easily fall down the set going down to the front door or fall trying to climb up to the second floor. Lydia just loves to climb stairs, so we let her climb often; gotta get it out of her system before we head home. Trung has enjoyed playing his PSP game during our down time and I've discovered cool shows like Top Chef, Project Runway, Jon & Kate + 8; I love the TLC, Bravo, Discovery, and Food Network channels and will truly miss them. It's been loads of fun with plenty of relaxation and great food...I'm definitely getting my pouch now!

Chillin'

We had dinner last night at Fleming's steakhouse; the last time we ate there was the night Trung proposed, so it was quite meaningful and very delish! Afterwards, we went to a chocolatier where we had some ice cream for dessert though I kept eyeing the chocolate covered rice krispy treat. Lydia once again went right to sleep shortly after we laid her down; we keep her nice and busy throughout the day and wore her out.

Today we had an earlier start, so we walked around Destin Commons before the stores opened. We got Lydia a cute outfit at Gymboree and had lunch at Panera, our favorite complimentary wi-fi spot. We're heading back to the condo soon where Lydia will take her nap, Trung will play his PSP, and I will catch up on my Food Network shows. No certain plans for this afternoon, but we might hit the beach again. I forgot to mention yesterday that the sand was nice and white, and squeaky. Yup, everytime you walked, it squeaked. Hee hee.

Two year anniversary

So, another reason we're on vacation this particular week is to celebrate Trung and my two year anniversary, which happens to be today. So much has happened in such a short period of time, but it has been a very exciting time, with much more to follow.

This morning we had a light breakfast at the condo and then headed to the beach. Lydia got to feel the white sand between her toes for the very first time, though she wouldn't budge without some assistance. The experience was short-lived since it was pretty hot and we were all hungry. We had breakfast for lunch at the Donut Hole, picked up some fruit at Winn-Dixie, and headed back to the condo for Lydia to take her nap. Since we don't have cable at home, I have never really watched Runway, but now I'm hooked.

We plan on having dinner someone nice tonight, maybe Fleming's or Ruth Chris' to celebrate this special day. Right now we're at Destin Commons, which has free wi-fi everywhere and is quite close to our condo, so hopefully I'll be able to keep a consistent blog. It's nice not having a set schedule to do anything, a far cry from the kind of organizational freak that I used to be. :P

Off to a rough start

Saturday we picked up Lydia's peapod ---> in Georgetown on the way to Dallas. I saw the travel bed in a One Step Ahead magazine and was fortunate to find someone on Craigslist who was selling a brand new one since I couldn't find a store that could ship one to me in time for our trip. Let me tell ya, it is way more convenient than a bulky playpen. So, we got to Dallas around 6:45 PM, hung out at our friend Jeff's place for a couple hours and then had dinner with him and Jasmine at a delicious Italian restaurant called Patrizio's.

Lydia had a rough night in the peapod and kept climbing out since we didn't think that we needed to zip it up for her. When we all started getting ready for the day, we realized that we didn't have our new Canon Powershot camera, which stunk because we wouldn't have any video footage, plus, we just lost our new camera! Hopefully Lydia took it out of the diaper bag while I wasn't looking, but right now it's pretty much as good as gone. :( Okay, so we're all in the car ready to head to the airport and our car doesn't start. ARGH! AND, we had just taken our car to the dealership on Thursday and no one mentioned anything! Fortunately, there was this nice man who had jumper cables and helped get us on our way. We hope it was a one time deal since we still decided to drive our car to the airport and leave it there.

The flight went quite smoothly with Lydia sleeping the entire time and in her car seat too; we were fortunate that it was not a full flight. We got stuck with a burnt orange rental car...well, here's to the UT spirit! (Trung didn't bring the USB cable, so we'll have to "backdate" pictures, but rest assured, plenty will be posted.) We had lunch at a sports bar, where Trung saw his Steelers defeat the Seahawks; and then we went to our condo. We were pleased to find a two story condo and the best accomodations we have gotten via Plan with Tan. We had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack after a very long wait and purchased some essentials at Walgreens before heading back to the condo. Lydia didn't take her afternoon nap due to all the excitement, so she was exhausted and ended up sleeping for twelve hours. We may just switch her to one nap a day while we're on this trip and try to continue it when we go home.

Thirteen months old

Hmmm, I wonder how much longer I should be writing these monthly posts? I guess until baby number two arrives or when Lydia turns two years old...we'll see. :)

Anyhow, this month has been CRAZY to say the least, but I've learned so much from it. Not only has Lydia's personality become more well-rounded, but her intelligence is expanding by leaps and bounds. She understands much more than she can say, which consists of mainly ma-ma, nay-nay (milk in Chinese), hi, and her usual babbling; but her actions truly do speak louder than words.

Lydia has been walking quite well with an occasional tumble. (She currently sports two slightly scraped knees from yesterday's walk. What can I say? She's independent and doesn't want me to hold her hand while walking on the sidewalk. :/ ) Her fifth tooth is slowly coming in and she approaches everything with an open mouth trying to taste it, ex. fluffy pillows, Sasha the cat, and clothes.

Lydia is going through a phase right now where she sometimes likes her baths and sometimes she doesn't. We switched her over to the regular bathtub a few days ago, which she seems to be okay with, except for the loud rushing sound of the water when I'm filling up the tub. Lydia still takes two naps a day, once at 10 AM and once at 2 PM ranging from one hour to two and a half hours. She sleeps between 8:30 - 9 PM and wakes up around 7 AM every morning with an occasional cry during the night if she wakes up, though she soon falls back asleep by herself. Overall, she is a healthy, bubbly bundle of joy who Trung and I love more and more every day.

Bad hair day

I'm sure there will be plenty more of these days, but here's an exceptionally "good" bad hair day.


Updates: Trung is finishing up the last of his medication and is feeling much much better. We just got his throat culture test results in the mail today and come to find out, the culture was negative for strep even though that's what the doctor thought he had. So, who knows what he really had, but whatever it was, it was baaaaad! You can see from the picture where the "mosquito" bit Lydia, but it's just basically a little dot now. As for me, I did not get strep (since Trung never had it to begin with) and my throat is feeling better, except for this one little spot. White sandy beaches, here we come!

Soreness

My throat was feeling a little bit sore this afternoon; I sure hope that I'm not coming down with strep throat. If I do get it, there's a really good chance that I won't be better in time for our trip. Wahhhh!!! We'll see in the morning. *sniff*

At least Lydia is all better now. She finished her medication today and seems to be her happy, perky self again. It really sucks to be sick and not be able to communicate...poor kid; it's definitely a relief that she's well. Trung has gotten better as well, though his throat still hurts a little. He did some work today, but had to rest during the afternoon. Talk about "in sickness and in health"! :P