Playdate (take two)

Sophie didn't wake up until 9:30 this morning, so we were off to a rather late start. I took the girls to the Wong house early this afternoon to hang out. We had a delicious lunch of Susanna's homemade wonton soup (Lydia had special bite-sized ones and LOVED them!) and the kids played for a bit. Well, more like, Lydia and Ethan played while Sophie just chilled on the couch.Ethan enjoyed pointing at the little fish on Sophie's shirt.

Back at home, Trung spent some quality time with his daughters. Lydia and Sophie are truly Daddy's little girls. It's quite sweet. :)

Sister, sister

I could not be more happy that Lydia gets along so well with Sophie. As Trung was just saying the other day, Sophie needs attention and Lydia gives it to her. I can't wait to see what the future holds for these two. We're still working on Lydia's sharing skills...

Spotlight on Sophie

Here's a clip of Trung getting Sophie to laugh and "talk". One of these days, I'll get a clip of her snorting, which she does when she laughs really hard; it really cute! :)

Finally after her single roll a couple weeks back, Sophie rolls four times in a row today. Here's my rolly polly:

On the way to dinner

Lydia knows some of the words to her favorite books and songs. Today, she and I enjoyed singing "This little light of mine" in the car, with Trung driving, of course. :P

Lydia is constantly repeating words from us or from her Baby Einstein DVDs and is learning a lot! We still cannot understand half of what she says, but we can actually converse a little bit with the other half. Lydia calls water "nano" and says "cheese" for please (with a fake smile as though taking a picture), which always makes me laugh inside. Sophie likes to talk too, though it's a bunch of "uh-uh's" for the time being.

Growth Spurt

This past week Sophie has been waking up between 4-5 AM for a feeding. I have read and been told that babies have a growth spurt around three months old, so I am hoping that this is it and that it will soon pass because I sure do miss my sleep. It is also tough having the girls' rooms right next to each other; a no-no for our next house. Before with Lydia, we would let her cry herself back to sleep, which we still do; she goes right back to sleep. With Sophie, however, we're scared to let her cry too long because Lydia might wake up, which really had never happened until last night.

Oh, last night, well, morning really. Lydia woke up crying and since we never go to her (she always goes right back to sleep, I promise!), Sophie ended up waking up. So, I fed Sophie and as I was washing my hands in the girls' semi-adjoining bathroom, Lydia started crying again. I figured the baby wouldn't be able to sleep with Lydia being all loud next door, so I let her fall asleep on her playmat in the living room while I sleep on the futon next to her. As they say, "if it's not one (kid), it's the other (kid)" or maybe "when it rains, it pours" might be more suitable. Congratulations to my friends Chi, Summer, and Tabaitha on their second pregnancies; you have much to look forward to...hee hee. :P

Friends in the hood

Yesterday, Susanna and Ethan came over to hang out with the girls and I. Susanna is married to Henry, who went to college with Trung, and they only live three miles away from us. We had a fun time chilling at my house and then the Arboretum, and then eating at La Madeline. I didn't get any pictures, but here are some pictures I took from another gathering.

Ethan and me (with Trung in the background)

Susanna with Wendy's baby, Kaitlin

Last night was the first time in a long time that we've taken Lydia outside to play in the evening. She is almost already in bed by the time it's cool enough to go out; plus, the mosquitoes don't help. Well, the weather last night was really nice, and all the neighbors with mobile kids were out playing in the cul-de-sac across the street. There was a total of six kids ranging from 10 months (Sophie went down at 6:30) to 4 years old. Interesting enough, the kids match up in pairs, agewise, so there is someone their age to play with...Lydia is one day older than Robert, and Sophie is two weeks older than Amy, who was featured a couple posts ago. We are fortunate to have such cool neighbors and a safe place for our kids to play.

Family Pictures

Yay, the family pictures we had taken on the Fourth of July are ready for public viewing! We haven't gotten the high resolution CD just yet, but I couldn't wait to share some of my favorite close-up pictures with you; I'll post the larger group pictures later. Check out Everafter Images if you want to see more! :)

Sweet Sophie

Daddy Time

The Ly Family

Baby in a basket

Hello and goodbye

Our neighbors across the street had a baby girl, Amy, two weeks after Sophie was born. Amy's mom and Amy dropped by to say "hello" because we haven't been outside lately during the evening because both girls are asleep by the time it cools down.

Sasha's new owner, Bonnie, picked her up tonight. No test run this time; we are officially cat-less. I got to chat with Bonnie for awhile and I feel fortunate that Sasha will be living with a very nice, animal-loving person.

Baby Buddies

Wendy, Nick, and Kaitlin came over for a dip in our community pool and then some breakfast for dinner. The babies "played" on a mat together while we ate and seemed to really enjoy each other's company.

Head to head combat

Kaitlin couldn't get enough kisses from Lydia.

Armed and dangerous

We got a special swimsuit for Lydia that has a total of eight foam floaties to help her stay afloat by herself. It works pretty well, though we still use the arm floaties too, but I think it looks funnier than it works (if that makes any sense). :PLydia has always loved swimming, but now she can do it all by herself.

Growing Up

Lydia is enjoying playing with her big girl toys. She can play by herself for stretches at a time now which gives me a little break . I don't know if I have gotten more patient or if Lydia is behaving more (likely the latter), but she hasn't been going into time-out as much nor have I had to raise my voice as much. The change is more noticeable at home; she's still quite rowdy when we're out. Sophie finally rolled over for the first time today. YAY! Here she is in her "stuck" position...
then me trying to catch her in the act, but with no luck. Though, is it me or does Sophie say "Ma" and Lydia say "Sophie"?

Life or something like it

My brother Mike drove into town this evening to hang out with us for a couple of days. He had initially planned to stay in Houston, but with everyone working, it got pretty boring during the day. I didn't think that I would see him again before he left for Dubai, so I totally welcomed the visit. We plan on hanging out and watching some movies while he is here; he wants to watch "Sex and the City" which I had never really kept up with, but heard was good. I've been told that my cell phone ring tone is the theme song for "Sex and the City", but I'm not quite sure.

Though Mike had already been gone for over three months, it honestly seemed just like yesterday that he was hanging out with us in Austin. To him, his last visit seemed like years ago because so much has changed since he left, for example, Sophie was born. I guess that's what happens when you have a family and especially when you stay at home, life kind of goes in slow motion. One day, however, the kids are going to be all grown up and I'll wonder where the time went. Gotta live life and enjoy it to the fullest. :)

Dip

Everything tastes better with ketchup.

Uncle Weekend

Sophie got to meet her Uncle Mike for the very first time this weekend. He flew in from Dubai Thursday around 1:30 PM and stayed up until we got to Houston around 9:30 PM even though he had had only one hour of sleep on an almost 24 hour flight (including layovers). Here's a picture of their first meeting...
We took professional family pictures Friday morning in Jimmy and Cora's neighborhood. During a break...
Afterwards, we had a family lunch at Saltgrass, and then Jimmy's family went to a birthday party while the rest of the family took naps. After dinner and putting Sophie down for the night, Trung, Lydia, and I went to see fireworks as shown in the previous post.

Saturday, the family had dim-sum and then Mike, Trung, the girls, and I went to a mall for a little while. We went straight to Jimmy's house afterwards where the men built desks and chairs and the women filtered through toys. Calvin and Jennifer dropped by with a scrumptious apple pie. After dinner at my parents' house, Mike, Trung, and I went to watch "Wanted", which I thought was quite entertaining.

Sunday morning just after a feeding, Sophie took a pose with the bib Uncle Mike gave her.
Before everyone headed off to church, Mike took one last shot with the Ly girls because we headed back to Austin straight from the church.
Mike will be in the States for another week and a half, but we probably won't see him before he returns to Dubai. Hopefully he will decide to return home permanently next year, so that we can see him more often :)

July Fourth

The setup...the watchers...
the finale...

Lydia thoroughly enjoyed her first Fourth of July fireworks show at Katy Mills Mall. She was completely mesmerized by the bright lights and loud sounds; and would look up at me once in awhile, point to the sky, and say "uh". If you missed the fireworks, I hope you enjoy our digitally taped show. :P Happy Fourth of July!

Encouragement

Lydia always helps me encourage Sophie during her tummy times though she can be a little rough at times...notice as she bumps Sophie's face with the ball. Hmmm...must be tough love. :) Oh, also notice as Lydia mumbles "a ma" (aka "grandma on Mom's side in Chinese) as she goes for the phone; we had just gotten off the phone with my mom when I recorded the clip.

That's strange

I remember being compared to my cousin who is the same age as me and not liking it, but now I see myself doing it. I only have to deal with it every now and then, but Lydia and Sophie will probably be compared quite often for the rest of their lives, so I need to make sure to watch myself. Nowadays I've just been analyzing how differently each child develops. For example, Lydia started flipping over right when she turned three months old while Sophie shows no signs of it. Tonight she barely slept from 7-10 PM when she is usually knocked out, but I'm sure she'll sleep better the rest of the night. Maybe Sophie couldn't sleep because she was thinking of ways to flip over. :P