Where did all the posts go?

The past few months have been busy ones for the Wang Gang in Hong Kong. As some of you may know (or have guessed) the reason for the silence is ... we are expecting another baby! Tracy has been plagued with morning sickness (up until a couple weeks ago) and we have also both recently changed jobs . On top of this, we are also renovating our apartment (small updates to prepare for the baby).

Natalie knows that there is a baby inside mommy's belly and has been such a sweet girl being very careful around mommy's belly, but we don't think she understands the significance of what this means or how it will change her life. After every meal, she says, "Look at my BIG BELLY! Just like mommy!"

It's quite cute! But, because she is still young and time passes very slowly for toddlers, we'll wait a few more months before we break the news to her :)

Here are images taken from the last doctor's appointment. The baby is due in October.

Birthdays Birthdays Birthdays!

Since our Mommies' Group is "April to June 2007 babies", we have suddenly hit birthday season! Natalie has been attending lots of birthdays beginning in April and of course she LOVES it. She loves to sing the birthday song and she loves to blow out candles on the cake (even if it's not her birthday cake).

We are also busy planning Natalie's own birthday party for June 6, 2010 in Hong Kong. Hard to believe but she is turning the big OH-THREE this year! We hope all our family and friends can join us at her party :) If you haven't received email from us, please email me for details.

Natalie and I love this picture taken (and stolen) from Summer's birthday party. Summer is hilarious and Natalie laughs every time she looks at this photo! Natalie is a little shell-shocked because we had just arrived at the party and she usually needs a few minutes to get used to new people and places.

Exciting toilet training update

Natalie has been a superstar with day-time toilet training. She's really got the hang of it now (zero accidents over the past couple weeks!) and she's even learned to do a "wee-wee dance" where she hops up and down and stamps her feet whenever she has to wee-wee. (It's really, really cute, but hard to catch on film.)

Last night, we had another big break-through. At around 2:00am, Natalie woke me up with her whimpering and tossing and turning. She kept scissoring her legs and shaking her left foot and sounding very uncomfortable. When I finally roused enough to ask her, "Natalie, are you ok? Do you want anything?", she said, "I have to wee-wee!" I was so impressed because this means her control is getting much better! Here's hoping this is the beginning of the end of diapers for Natalie :)

Even more school pics!

While surfing facebook, I came across even more school photos of Natalie. She really loves school which makes us very happy :)

Can you find her?


Making a big "O" with her mouth.


Posing with their teachers.


The week before Easter, the students had an easter egg hunt in the classroom. Natalie was very excited to show me the egg she found.

The students are becoming much more interactive. Everyone seems very happy and settled and you can even see that some of the (older) students are interacting with each other. Natalie is also starting to "socialize" with other children.

Can you find Natalie? She's half-hidden :)

Park on the Peak

On Friday, on my last free day, I brought Natalie up to the park at the peak (I was there for doctor's visit). We had a delicious lunch of baked potatoes and beans (Oliver's) and hung out for a couple hours at the play area just outside the peak mall. No surprise, Natalie needed some encouragement to go on the slides and up on the equipment, but she loved to run around and explore the other fun and games by herself.

She really liked this turning wheel. She kept going back to this and turning the wheel to watch the little balls roll around behind the plastic circle.


Here she is explaining to me what's happening.


Natalie running around the park. She literally ran circles around the entire play area by herself. She would run back for a bite of food or sip of drink and then take off again. It was funny!


Natalie liked to sit on the friendly giraffe park bench. However, she did not want to sit on the crocodile bench because it would "eat her".

When inside buying food, Natalie insisted on taking a picture with these giraffes. She counted them out loud and said, "There are five giraffes!"

There's the 5th one hiding on the side. She's a very energetic and enthusiastic little girl now.

I took a series of close-up shots. Here is Natalie smiling for the camera.

More smiling... (kind of).

There, that's a nice smile!

"Is it enough?" She asked.

Natalie loves riding the springy animals. She climbs up and down and up and down.

Natalie is very expressive now, too, with lots of different expressions to express how much fun (or little fun!) she's having.

What a great view of the peak, too!

More school photos!

I love how hip Natalie's teachers are. They do a great job taking photos and posting them to facebook! Here are some photos posted below showing the wide range of activities Natalie participates in while at school. No wonder she says she "loves going to school". She's in most of the photos (can you find her?) but not all because some were just too cute to not download :)

Natalie-isms and videos

Although posting has been sparse over the past few weeks, Natalie has continued to grow and has really bloomed into an independent and opinionated little girl. Some of her favourite sayings now are:

"I know!"
"I can do it!"
"I help you!"
"Don't worry, I can do it!"
"No, I do it by myself!"

We think a lot of this optimism comes from watching Dora (we've loosened our tv restrictions and she watches 20 minutes a day most days). Only occasionally will she say, "Mommy / Ba-Ba, help me!" to open new toys or get snacks.

She's also become really fond of learning letters and playing games on her computer. Watch Video 270 of Natalie recognizing letters, and Video 271 of Natalie "spelling" with her computer.

Also watch Video 272 of Natalie dancing at home. She's become much more active and will run around the house now. She's especially active when playing with her Ba-ba.