Swimming School

On Sunday, Natalie attended her very first swimming class! Last week, we brought her to the swim school so she could watch her cousin Vanessa attend and she was very excited to go, too. At first, things went very well and she was happy and excited to listen to the "swim school teacher". However, she cried for most of the second half of the class when the teacher started asking them to put their ears and noses in the water. Bravely, she has agreed to go again next week :)

Natalie excited and almost ready to head to swim school... by herself with no mommy and no ba-ba!


The swim outfit is complete with neoprene swim suit, swim cap and swim goggles! Later, when Natalie was crying, her little goggles filled with her tears.


Natalie has gone into the pool area by herself, lining up between her cousin Vanessa and her friend Ethan.


Ethan was a great little swimmer and very brave. He put his ears and nose and whole head in the water!

Reading her own bedtime story

Natalie has really grasped the concept of "reading" a book and "storyline". Watch Video 268 of Natalie reading her own bedtime story about a bee who's lost her stripes and needs to find them again.

Christmas outfit

Natalie's grandparents have really spoiled her with lots of beautiful new clothes. Here are some more christmas photos that I'm posting 1 month after the fact, but thought she looked too cute to resist :)

Here is Natalie posing next to a Christmas tree that matches her dress and headband.


Natalie is really festive compared to her parents who are dressed all in black!

Camera smiles

Like all young kids, Natalie is constantly amazed by herself, her own reflection and her own abilities. She enjoys looking in the mirror and, whenever we go out for dinner and a mirror happens to be nearby, she is sometimes too distracted to eat because she is busy making funny faces at herself. She also likes the camera and has become better and better at smiling into the camera. Here we did a few practice shots at home:

Natalie says, "What's that, mommy? Is it a cam-rah?"


I tell her I'm going to take a few pictures of her and she sticks her tongue out like this.

I tell her to smile to look nice and she obliges.

I say "BIG smile!" and she gives a big smile, too.

Creative, not destructive

As a little baby, Natalie loved to "destroy" things. First, she liked to chew and bite on things, then she liked to rip and tear paper, and finally, she enjoyed knocking things down and pulling lego pieces apart. This all happened because she was not yet able to "create". Now that she's older and her fingers are more nimble, she is really putting her creativity to good use!

Who built this beautiful city of blocks?


The creator is hiding just behind it. It's Natalie!


Here she is quietly and studiously building her little city. She is great at balancing pieces on their sides and can build it quite tall without knocking the lower pieces down.


More studious building...


"Look so high!" Natalie says.


She was very happy with her creation. And we were, too!


When it was time to clean up, for the first time ever (that I can remember), Natalie did not ask to smash it first before putting the pieces back into the box.

Natalie's house

While cleaning the apartment, Natalie and I found this big empty cardboard box (from Kevvy and Vanessa). Since Natalie loves her doll houses (she has two for "Mimi" and "Licca" and occasionally likes to sit inside the doll houses), we decided to make the box into a "Natalie" house.

The finished product - a Natalie house complete with a little Natalie inside.


There's a roof (made with a ribbon and an old pillowcase) and a door that opens and closes.


"Hey, you have to knock on the door first!" Natalie says when I swing the door open.

But she happily smiles for the camera when I say, "Smile!" She LOVES her new house and asked to play in it this morning when she woke up.

See how happy she is? Also, Natalie has started to lose her baby fat and is looking more mature.

Some cool features of the house include this door stop (made of ultra high-tech duct tape) that keeps the door shut whenever Natalie wants some privacy.

Additional features: Reb ribbon that prevents the roof from falling in. Also note the personalized, decorative artwork Natalie created for her walls.

Daily morning routine

Now that she's older, Natalie has fallen into fairly regular routine everyday. She seems to enjoy regularity so we keep it as "normal" as possible, especially during week days. Most mornings, Natalie will wake up around 7:30am. Since Clark has already left for work, she'll usually sit up in bed and say "good morning, Mommy" and give me a kiss and a hug (which I love!). I then take her outside where she patiently waits on her little chair at her little table while Suparti prepares breakfast for her. Her current favourite is peanut-butter bread, eggs and a cup of milk or water which she eats by herself in about 30 minutes (she talks a lot and will play between bites). While she's eating, I get ready for work. At around 8:00am, Natalie gets put on the toilet and then gets ready for school. At 8:20am, we all leave the house together.

Natalie seated at her highchair enjoying peanut-butter bread. This was taken a couple months ago when she was still happy to sit in her highchair. Lately, she's preferred using her IKEA table at home.


Natalie loves peanutbutter bread (her current favourite breakfast, along with eggs and a cup of milk). She also loves to make funny faces, too!

Christmas school photos

Even though Natalie missed a few weeks of school around Christmas, she was still able to participate in many of the Christmas-themed days (which happened before she was sick). She now firmly LOVES Christmas and still randomly sings "Jingle Bells" while at home.

The children celebrated the lantern festival by making their very own lanterns.


Natalie brought home a beautiful, purple lantern which she liked to hold and swing around.


Everyday, Natalie's school has "snack time" where the kiddies eat something (sandwiches, crackers, fruit, etc...) and drink something (water, milk, juice, etc...) The kids learn to put their own plates and bowls away after they eat.

Here's another school photo. I steal these photos from Natalie's teacher's facebook page. I love how proactive she is in posting updates. Welcome back to Ms. Lee and congrats on the recent delivery of her baby :)

Here are the kiddies all bundled for a Christmas photo. It was really cold for a few days there! Can you find Natalie? She's the girl in the back picking her nose.

Whenever Natalie sees this photo, she screams "Santa Claus!!!" Can you find her? She also loves to look at her school pictures and tries to find herself.

Belated Christmas photos

I stole these photos from Lisa and Carol's blog. Even though they are 3 weeks old, they were too cute to not share since Natalie is featured in them as well.

During the x-mas party at Lisa's place, the kid all got to decorate (and eat!) their very own gingerbread man. Natalie smothered her gingerbread man with sprinkles.


Natalie loves to read. Here she is reading a book with little Nicholas looking on.


The four cousins sitting together before the frenzy begins (before other kiddies and their mommies and daddies and helpers arrive!)

Here are all the kiddies posing with our very own Chinese Santa Claus! Natalie loved it, especially getting her own gift (she is holding up the red wrapping paper in this photo).

Here she is holding it up again, giving you a better view of her present.

This is when Natalie received her present from Santa Clause ("Because I am a good girl!"). All in all, a great Christmas!

Breaking News!

Now that Natalie is feeling so much better (compared to her being sick for the past few weeks), we've decided to go ahead and continue with her potty-training and other "big girl" items.

Just last night, after a lengthy discussion, Natalie slept WITHOUT her pacifier for the very first time. Even though it was really difficult for her (she was whimpering and tossing and turning) she stubbornly persisted and finally woke up this morning and declared, "I'm a big girl! I no sleep with jur-jur!"

The reason? Last night, we spoke about how other babies in the world need her jur-jurs (her pacifiers). Now that Natalie is a "big girl", she doesn't need her pacifier and would she be nice and please give other babies her pacifiers so they won't cry any more? She thought about it and said "Yes" and later today, we are going to pack up her pacifiers in a big box and "mail" them to other babies-in-need.

We're so proud!

Videos videos and MORE videos!

Posting has been sparse over the past few weeks due to work, holidays and visitors! We just said good-bye to Por-por and Gong-gong who flew to Toronto just yesterday. We'll miss you! Nai-nai and Yeh-yeh are also returning to Canada. It's been so great to have our families here and so fun! We took lots of videos but haven't had time to post them all. Here are some videos below:

Video 260 - Natalie enthusiastically cutting mangoes and feeding pieces to me and the camera.

Video 261 - Playing with her kitchen set and fighting with her cousins.

Video 262 - Popping plastic-wrapping bubbles with Yeh-yeh

Video 263 - Eating an orange. She LOVES oranges (without the "skin") and can eat two whole oranges in one sitting.

Video 264 - Dancing to black-eyed pea "Boom boom pow". It's funny because she's still not totally coordinated. And she is getting shy in front of the camera.


Christmas Videos

Video 265 - All the cousins distributing presents among themselves with Por-por. Watch littlest cousin Nicholas give out presents and try to take them back (he doesn't understand what's going on), and Victoria saying "No!" and giving poor Nicholas a little push. He's sturdy boy though!

Video 266 - More presents! Natalie is a little over-whelmed (and happy) about all her new presents! We still haven't opened them all (saving a few each week).

Video 267 - All the cousins are singing "Jingle Bells" together. In the beginning, Natalie says, "I farted, stinky stinky!" but everyone sings sooo loud you can't hear her any more :)

Christmas at TBLS

On Christmas Day, we celebrated with our closest friends at chef Que Vinh Dang's new restaurant TBLS in Central. See photos below:

Christmas Day dinner was delicious beer clams, curried chicken, mashed potates and home-made yakult-banana ice cream... deeeelicious! Natalie sat at the head of the table and smiled for the camera.


Natalie playing with Vivo yee-yee and her Elmo-Cinderella story book.


Natalie says, "Do you like see-food?"

She was in a really great mood. She ate almost a WHOLE potato by herself!

Earlier in the day, we had lunch with Auntie-V and baby Toby. Natalie loves little babies and likes to look at them and kiss them.

Here she is showing one of the felt characters from her Elmo-Cinderella book. She can play with this book for a long time.

Natalie says goodnight to the camera before her nap. She wore a little red Santa dress and even her Elmo had a Santa dress, too!

Visiting mommy's office

The other day, while Clark was on a holiday, he brought Natalie over to have lunch with me and they popped into my office for a little visit. Here are pics of her (looking very girlie with her pigtails and hello kitty clips) sitting in my office chair.

Natalie finally gets to see what it means when "Mommy is working".


I love how cute and girlie she looks with her little pigtails. She calls them putting on her "long hair".

I want to wear my Christmas Party dress!

Natalie has a very long memory. Before getting sick, she was rehearsing for a Christmas play at her school. As part of the school play, she received a costume and was told she could wear it for the Christmas party. Unfortunately she was in the hospital, she didn't make the school party, but she never forgot about her costume. When we told her we were going to a Christmas party earlier this week, she looked at me, looked at her clothes and said, "I want to wear my Christmas party dress!". And so she did.

Natalie wearing her "Christmas Party dress" and posing in front of a small tree in Pacific Place mall. She LOVES it and thinks it makes her look like a princess. As soon as we put the dress on, she starting smiling and twirling around and her pose includes lifting up the many little layers.


You can see how happy she is to be wearing the dress. She was even willing to wear the "matching" headband.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Hope you have a fun and wonderful time with your family and friends.

A few weeks ago, Nai-nai and Yeh-yeh came to visit. It was a great trip leading up to the holiday season.


On Christmas Eve, the whole Tong family descended and we had home-made roastbeef with gravy (and tons more!) over dinner followed by a flurry of gift-giving where all the kiddies ended up with almost 10 presents each! (Videos to come.)

The Little Singer

Natalie LOVES Christmas! She loves Santa, snowmen, reindeers and especially presents! She also really likes the fun Christmas songs. Listen to her singing "Jingle Bells" in Video 259.