Joining the Olympic fun - Part I

The Winter Olympics is starting real soon!! I thought what is better to do than to check out all the different cool Olympic related exhibits and memorabilia around downtown. It turned out to be a little bit of a disappointment. Maybe it is because we don't really know where to go, but the places that we checked out were not as exciting as I thought it would be.

Along Granville Street:

"Forest of Lanterns" - I don't want to be mean, but at first glance, I thought they are hanging some garbage on a pole. It turned out that those are paper lanterns and each lantern is decorated (pictures drawn) by an elementary school student. Too bad we were there in the day time. I am sure it will look pretty cool at night.
Again, another lantern crafted by a group in Taiwan.
A neat looking fish:
Um....I don't really know what it is, but it's unique, right?

What I really wanted to do, is to check out the Coca-Cola cafe. Yup, I am a big fan of Coke! It is way better than Pepsi and it is awesome! Although the cafe is much smaller than I anticipated.

Check out his cool Cola recycling container:

Ali will grow up to be a Cola girl too. She wants us to take a picture of her and our Coke bottle and she gives it a thumbs-up!

Our best man and his wife are in town and we all enjoyed a nice cold one in the Happiness cafe. Do you see that little box on the table? Well, there is a gold-coloured cola bottle in that box and they are selling it for $65!! It is a collectible item and they are only releasing 1000 of them. Nice, but really $65?? Are they crazy??

Monster Ali

Since Ali is much stronger and sturdier now, she likes to sit in her Bumbo to play with her toys. One of her favourite is her building blocks. She had a whole tub of it, but I thought it would be a good idea to start with smaller pieces. She is learning to hold it, but usually ended up knocking them down on the couch or the floor. Last night, she found a new way to play with them:

"Yay, my mama gives me these colourful blocks. I like them!"

"This red one tastes like strawberries! Yum!!"

"Oops, dada is taking pictures. I better pretend I am just smelling them. Hi dada!"

"Boy, this orange one tastes pretty good too. Oh, I don't think I can resist eating them much longer...remember to look innocent in front of the camera, but...they are so tasty..."

"Waawwaawwwaa....."

Ali's foot prints

When Ali was born, a good friend of ours (thanks Maria) bought us a footprint/handprint tile set. We didn't have a chance to play with it until last weekend. I thought there is some kind of crazy contraption that involves five thousand things, but it turned out to be a really simple thing to do. In fact, it's so simple I think every one should be able to do this at home and it probably costs less than $10!

Here are the steps:

1. Use a piece of sandpaper to lightly scrub the surface of the porcelain tile.

2. Use white vinegar to wash the surface. Let it dry.

3. Use an ink pad (that is good for embossing, make sure it is the washable kind since you don't want your baby's hands to be black for too long) and rub it on your baby's hands or feet.

4. Have your baby stamp her hands/feet on the tile.

5. Sprinkle embossing powder on the stamped image on the tile.

6. Put in the oven for 5 minutes (set at 350F). Let it cool for 15 minutes.

Here is the end product:

From our experience, we find it EXTREMELY difficult to get the hand prints. Being an angry baby, Ali likes to hold her fists real tight. We gave up after a few tries and decided to do foot prints instead. Even that was a little tough since she was kicking her feet like crazy. I would strongly suggest the parents not to wear anything nice in this process as it does get messy. Have fun!

Accenture Reunion

Hubby missed his ex-coworkers from Accenture. All his buddies are having kids! We decided to do a quick take out lunch at our place so that the little ones would get a chance to meet each other. We had a total of 6 kids at our house!!! SIX!!!!!!! Three years ago, I would be so scared that I would probably lock myself in the room (kai mama can vouch for that!) Three years later, I am all good!! Kids?? Babies?? Bring it on!

A happy reunion picture (excluding Howie, sorry, you left too early!!)

Daddy and Ali saying bye to her new friends:

Allison and Alison:
Aunt Kelly and cute Megan (Why is Uncle Anthony hiding?? Is he camera shy??)

Allison trying out the Bumbo chair. I think she really enjoyed it.

The lovely Taylor posing for our camera man:

The shy Nolan hiding from Taylor. "There are so many girls!!!!!" said Nolan.

The experienced daddy, Po, seemed so at ease with two girls (Amelia and Ali) in his arms.

It was a super fun playdate/luncheon. We should do that again soon!

Now I am crying, now I am not

Ali likes to be held...A LOT. Here is what happened when I put her down in her Bumbo chair.

I tried to calm her by talking to her, singing to her, giving her a toy, but nothing works! So I busted my camera out, and...

She immediately stopped crying. Look at those drops of tears still visible on her face.

"Alright, I will pose with my toys for you. Look at me, I am so cute. See, mommy, I am not crying. I am such a good girl."

"Why are you taking away the camera??? I am gonna cry now."

"Oh wait, the camera is back! I am not crying. I am a good baby. Keep on taking pictures of me, mama!"

"Back to work - bang, bang, bang.....yippeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Dinner with Nathalie and Lauryn

Now that we are parents, I found that we made a stronger effort to go out with other families who have children as well. A friend of ours came back with her little girl to YVR to visit. We thought we could do a small get-together with the girls.

Bertha with the girls - Lauryn, Ali and Nathalie:

Nathalie is super shy and started crying pretty much as soon as she woke up from her nap!! Lauryn, however, is super outgoing. She loves to play with babies and she was really looking forward to play with Ali the whole day. Her mom told us that Lauryn made her dad pretend that he is Ali so that she can play with "the baby". What a cute girl!!

Lauryn saying hi to our little tofu:

Lauryn showing off her little teeth:

Daddies with their daughters:
All in all, it was a really fun night!! We should do that again soon!!

Dermatologist appointment

So we went to see the dermatologist at Children's. The doctor prescribed some stronger ointments for her eczema and she is suspecting that baby is allergic to certain foods and also it might be genetic as her daddy and uncle both had skin problems. She said it is fairly common as 1 in 5 children develop eczema as well. We need to go back for a follow up in 2-3 weeks time and she is fairly confident that Ali will be 90% better. I hope so too. But the sad thing is this stupid eczema comes and goes, so while she is better one day, the next day it might take a dive again. Pretty darn annoying.

When we went to ER last week, the doctor suspected it might be her drool mixed with the food and it dripped down her neck causing this allergic reaction or that she has a food allergy. He suggested us to put a bit of the rice cereal on her forearm and see. We did that and she was fine. I don't know what's wrong with our little one. Anyways, the dermatologist suggested she should only start on solids when her skin gets better. I was hoping to enroll her in an infant swimming class too, but she axed that as well. *sigh*

Here are a couple of picture of Ali, butt naked, literally. These are taken two weeks back when her eczema was really, really bad. Look at her neck and shoulder area.

The diaper velcro areas are super red. Seriously, if people did not know that she has eczema, they would probably think we spank her (sides) repeatedly at home. Poor baby!