New toy...?

When you buy a toy for Natalie, you never know if she'll really like it or not. She has her own way of deciding what toys are fun and worth her time. Which is why we love it when she likes playing with a regular "house-hold" object.

Watch Video 118 of Natalie concentrating and then giggling while playing with a green bottle cap. She likes to take it off, then put it back one, then take it off, then put it back on...

Natalie loves lemon

As is already well documented, Natalie loves to eat. But we didn't know she would eat just about anything until we gave her a slice of lemon yesterday. Watch Video 117 of Natalie happily munching away at a lemon slice. She even makes the "whoa, this is sour!" face, and then keeps going.

Big feet

Have you noticed how kids have feet that look too big for their bodies? Kind of like puppies who have big floppy ears and huge paws. Eventually, they grow into them. Natalie's feet have grown a lot. We still remember when they were little chicken nuggets and now they are more like hashbrowns.

Also, today we also took Natalie's measurements for a custom dress that's being made for her. She is now 28" tall with a 19.5" waist and 10" in seam. So it may sound like her legs are only 1/3 of her body (definitely not model proportions). But an interesting thing to notice is that she is only 21" from shoulder to feet which means her head and neck are 7"!

Chilling at home

Watch Video 116 of Natalie copying Lisa Yee-yee and her Por-por by stomping her feet on a flashing toy. She also gives her crying baby cousin Vicky lots of loving kisses.

Below are a few more photos of Natalie being cute :)

Watching her daddy making bagels. Is it just us or are her eyes getting bigger?


When Natalie laughs, she has a shy giggle where she lowers her head and waves her hands around.

Sad with teething pain

Over the past three days, Natalie has been a very grumpy and unhappy baby. She had a low fever, runny nose, lots of drool, diarrhea, and often sat around with big tears in her eyes while making whimpery noises. She was not sleeping well and kept biting her lip (see below pics).

Finally, we have confirmed she has two more teeth coming down from the top bringing the total of 4 top + 2 bottom = 6 teeth! But it's been a rough few days for her, poor girl.

Natalie biting her lower lip to ease the pain of teething. Note the tear-filled eyes. She was really miserable for a while.


There wasn't much we could do except for the occasional shot of baby Tylenol to ease the pain and lots of hugs and cuddles.

Natalie and balloons

While in Taipei, Natalie was on the bed, face-up, about to get a bottle when she looked up over Tracy's head to the ceiling and said, "Bah rooo!" Tracy looked up and saw 2 helium, heart-shaped balloons we had taken from Carol & Dave's wedding floating over us. Like all kids, Natalie seems to like balloons (at least for a little while). Somehow, while playing with the balloons, Natalie manages to get them get them wrapped around her leg.

Natalie and her new friends, the bah-rooos.


Natalie loves looking out windows and watching people and cars go by.


The balloons are lifting up Nat's dress in the back. We see London, we see France, we see Natalie's... diaper.

Carol & Dave's Wedding Day

Natalie's auntie Carol yee-yee and Dave yee-jurn celebrated their marriage together on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at the Grand Formosa Hotel in Taipei. This was Natalie's second time to Taipei. It was so good to see Carol and Dave again (we missed them) and we are super happy for them (and they look super happy too!).

The day began with photos and the traditional tea-pouring ceremony in the hotel suite, followed by a fabulous lunch (we ate waaaay too much), and then the bride and groom treated everyone to two hours at a spa while they helped to baby-sit the kiddies. Even though we were too full to eat dinner, somehow, we still managed to make it out to a late-night buffet that had sooooooooo much food we are still recovering today.

All-in-all, a great trip! See pics below:

The bride and groom.


Family photo of the happy couple with our little family. Natalie just woke up and is a little dopey.


Entire Tong family photo. This is the first one in a while! All current Tongs present and accounted for. Natalie is fully awake and smiling at the camera.


Cousin Vanessa giving the beautiful bride a kiss.


The kiddies playing with the gong in the restaurant. Natalie really liked the red gong stick and hit the ground with it over and over and over again (it made a "tck tck tck" sound).


Cutie Vanessa looks so cute in her new dress.


Natalie with her mommy and Nainai.


Carol and Dave have changed to their lunch outfits. Look at the huge piece of bread Natalie's gnawing on. She's an enthusiastic eater!

Chilling at Ching Bu's

And now back to our program of pics from Taiwan and Carol & Dave's wedding :) On Sunday, we spent half a day chilling at Ching Bu (Natalie's great-grandmother)'s home in Taipei. It was great to spend time with family and (we like to think) everyone loved Natalie. No seriously, she was totally cute and energetic, hamming it up for everyone (and was totally exhausted later and napped for two hours).

Natalie loves pens and spoons and forks and chopsticks. She prefers playing with anything that's long and pointy, preferably made of hard material like plastic or wood. Ya, she likes to live on the edge.


Natalie really enjoyed playing with this box. Putting things in, taking them out.


In goes the pen.


Natalie smiling and encouraging all the adults to play with her. She'll pull herself up to standing position and then cruise over closer to them and smile and babble.


More pen action. She won't let it go.


Natalie hamming it up for the adults. You can see them all smiling and laughing at something she just did.


Cutie patootie taking a break on the floor. All that standing can be tiring.


And she's up again. This coffee table is the perfect height for her.


Natalie discovers the toy drawer. This drawer had gone through two generations of Wang family babies and is filled with all sorts of different knick-knacks and toys for Natalie to play with. This keeps her busy for over twenty minutes (almost a new record).


While going through the drawer, Natalie held onto this one (notice it is long, pointy, and made of plastic).


Natalie playing mahjong with her Yeh yeh.

Who knew tissue waving could be so fun?

We interrupt the coming photos from Taiwan with a brief video taken earlier today by Lisa Yee-yee. Watch Video 115 where Natalie is having tons of fun waving around two tissues with her cousin Vanessa. She's really happy to be able to do what her big cousin can do!

Breakfast on Daddy

This weekend, we were in Taipei for Carol and Dave's wedding celebration. We stayed at the fabulous Grand Formosa hotel which came with our favourite things... breakfast buffet! There are tons more pics to come, but here are a few to start with Natalie chilling on her Daddy at the breakfast buffet. It's a series and you can see she's become much more interactive and will actually yell and smile to get people to look and play with her. She also hams it up for the camera.

Hanging out with family

Since Tracy started work again, we've really missed having Lisa, Vanessa, and Vicky over. So on Sunday, they came over and all the bubs hung out together.

The bubs chilling with Lisa.

The bubs with Tracy

Lisa with Victoria and Natalie.

Tracy with Natalie and little Vicky. Natalie is looking at her cousin's little tiny feet.

Victoria doing baby exercises. Work those abs!



Natalie loves her little cousin and always has a lot to say whenever she's around.


I'm trying to take a picture of Victoria when Natalie's hand gets in the way.


Victoria's feet are sooooo small compared to Nat's. So cute!


Vicky is a cutie.


Saved the best photo for last. Doesn't Vicky look surprised. Look at the little chin.

Natalie and Vanessa

Natalie is very curious about her cousin Vanessa. She follows her and watches what she does. She tries to play with the same toys Vanessa does, and copies her. We think she is trying to learn from her older cousin. Here are some pics of them hanging out together (below).

Also, Natalie is very good at giving people things. But if you take it from her, you must either do something interesting with it or give it right back. We've figured out that Natalie only gives people things to see what they do with it. Then she'll hold out her hand so she can get it back and try to do what you did with it. For example, her daddy Clark puts the phone to his ear and says "Hello? Hello?" and she will take the phone back and put it next to her head. So I'm not sure we should all be saying "Thank yoooo Naataaaleeee!!" with so much enthusiasm whenever she gives things to us because really, we are her science experiment.

Natalie watching Vanessa playing with her new walk-aid toy. Notice the green toy in Natalie's hand.


Vanessa trying to get Natalie to wear a bucket hat. We can't even get Natalie to wear a normal hat. As you can probably guess, Vanessa didn't have much luck with the bucket hat.


Three babies together. As usual, Natalie is watching Vanessa. And she is still holding the green toy.


Uh oh, somehow Vanessa got the green toy. Vanessa is only holding the toy and it's not very interesting so of course Natalie wants it back.


But Vanessa won't let go of the toy so Natalie starts to cry.


Natalie bounces up and down in frustration. Vanessa is quite fascinated when Natalie cries. And she refuses to let go of the toy.


Later, we bring out more toys so there's enough to go around and the bubs are happy again. Kind of. Natalie still wants the green toy. We give a blue toy to Vanessa because blue is her favourite color and peace reigns again (at least for a little while).