Season's Cheer from Us to You...

Family Photos

Our neighbor, Mike, is a photography aficionado and Canon DSLR owner, which makes it fun for me to have someone to chat with about the latest camera gear gadgets. Anyhow, Mike was awesome enough to spend a morning taking some family photos for us. We had two remote flashes going on, a kids play-date during setup in-between time, and good wintery outdoor weather. Thanks Mike! Here are the few photos we picked out.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Bad Santa!

Bad Santa. I'm sure you and I and most people have the classic "fear of Santa" photo.. so here's to keeping up with the tradition! One for us to embarrass our kids with in the future. hehe.. yes, Ryan and I are a bit too amused, eh?

Maybe we should have taken a family photo with the holiday Marine or the Christmas tree that was there at the local neighborhood Toys for Tots community event. Oh well Santa... maybe better luck next year! =)

Little Monkey's Resistance Training

Good thing our little monkey is quite tolerant of the exercise regiment we (aka Ryan) puts him through. It's what we call "active time" to engage his muscles with resistance training (aka holding him in certain positions that he fights against).

This is the "look" he gives us... don't think he likes it...

but our little monkey is tolerant! =)

Where'd November go?

November was busy... I think.. It's all a blur now. Where'd November go??!

We had both sets of grand-parents here helping out in alternating, consecutive weeks. During that time frame, it allowed us to focus on working with Liam to get him on a consistent schedule of feeding time, active time combined with awake time, and sleep time. He has naturally adapted to a 4 hour interval schedule. The nights have been still hard with less sleep than optimal for Ryan and I. Liam has been good though, and has gone as long as 6.5 hour interval between feedings, but that's not consistent yet. The hardest time interval is still the 4am feeding.

While this period has been exhausting, it has also been quite fun getting to know the little dude. He is mellow and chill, quite different than Emilia was at this stage. Emilia naturally takes on a big sister role with him - sharing with him and asking for his whereabouts when she does not know where he is. She has tried to play with him too. In fact, the other day she tried to play horsie ride with him and sat on his back while we were not looking. Ah.. the fun of watching (or not watching) two kids!

Here are some random November photos of the kiddies:

Ducatista

Haven't posted up much lately because Connie and I are still adjusting to life at home with two kids under the age of 2. It's seems to be non-stop with something always going on with one or the other or both at the same time. So free time is not something we see much of these days. But through it all, the kids are definitely progressing.

A month or so ago, I took the training wheels off Emilia's Ducati because I thought she was ready to make the step up. But it was a little early, and she showed no interest in trying to ride on something that would fall over if she didn't support it. However, that all changed about a week ago, and she's now burning rubber through the house like a real Ducatista (Ducati fanatic). She's even discovered her own clever way of dismounting...

Edit: Yes, our video quality sucks. We're working on improving it one of these days.