Uncle Gabe in Town

Today, the Wong Family woke up early to spend the whole day with Uncle Gabe before he drives back up to San Fran tomorrow. Uncle Gabe drove down to attend his friend's wedding and took advantage of the time to also spend time with Yee-Po and see baby Kara. Knowing that he would get to see her, he bought a ton of toys for baby Kara even after mama Lyanne told him not to go crazy with the spending.

As soon as the Wong family arrived at Yee-Po's house, they all went to out to eat lunch. Baby Kara only had 15-20 minutes of nap time in the car and mama Lyanne was afraid that she would be cranky during lunch. But surprisingly, baby Kara did not fuss that much. She was playing and interacting with Yee-Po and Uncle Gabe in the restaurant. Towards the end of the lunch, baby Kara started to fuss for nap time. Typically, mama Lyanne would put baby Kara in her car seat and push the stroller back and forth, tricking baby Kara that she's 'moving', and baby Kara would doze off to sleep within the half hour. However, this time it didn't seem to work for her anymore. Either she got smarter and knows that she's not really moving or the restaurant was just too loud for her to fall asleep. So mama Lyanne took baby Kara out for a walk around the restaurant until baby Kara fell asleep. Mama Lyanne ended up walking 2-3 times around the restaurant before baby Kara finally dozed off to sleep (luckily the weather was cool enough to take a walk). Just when baby Kara fell asleep, papa Matt came out to look for mama Lyanne and they both went back to the restaurant. Baby Kara stayed asleep even during the transfer from the stroller to the car and on the car ride back to Yee-Po's house.

Afraid of waking baby Kara up, mama Lyanne decided to leave baby Kara sleeping in the car seat and placed her in papa Matt's (old) room. That didn't last long because ten minutes later, baby Kara woke up crying. After calming baby Kara down, mama Lyanne took baby Kara out to the living room to play with Uncle Gabe. At first, she was still groggy so she cried when Uncle Gabe tried to play with her. But after baby Kara was fully awake, she was back to her usual playful self and 'allowed' Uncle Gabe to play with her with no fuss. This was also the time when Uncle Gabe brought out all the toys he bought for baby Kara. Uncle Gabe started to open all of the toys and removed all of the tags so that papa Matt wouldn't be able to return them. (Haha) Uncle Gabe bought several musical toys, soft toys, teething toys, water toys, and developmental toys such as stacking cups and rings. He also bought baby Kara a doorway jumper which he immediately set it up for baby Kara to test drive. It was just around the same time where baby Kara likes to bounce every time she's in a standing position. When she was in the jumper, she was very happy and jumped around over excitement.

After that, all the adults ate dinner while baby Kara played by herself on the living room floor. After dinner was done, Great Auntie Winnie and Yee-Po had a lot fun playing with baby Kara. Baby Kara is very easy to amuse and entertain. Something as simple as paper crinkling is a great example. Today, her point of amusement was Great Auntie Winnie's sparkly shirt. Seeing that baby Kara was looking at her shirt, Great Auntie Winnie turned it into a game and they both had a ton of laughs.

Getting Mail with Mommy and Daddy

This week, papa Matt had the idea of getting everyone out for a walk to get the mail after picking baby Kara up from day care. On days to get mail, the typical routine consist of papa Matt unloading baby Kara's diaper bag, milk bag and car seat in the house while mama Lyanne cleans baby Kara's bottles and get them ready for day care tomorrow morning. Then everyone goes out to the back yard. Papa Matt would pick up dog poop while mama Lyanne let's baby Kara play/interact with the dogs. After that, everyone takes a walk to get mail. Instead of carrying baby Kara on the arms or by the hip, mama Lyanne decided to let baby Kara ride on her shoulder. Papa Matt liked what he saw so he wanted baby Kara on his shoulder too.

It's a nice short walk and mama Lyanne can already picture baby Kara walking with her and papa Matt in a few more months when baby Kara can walk!

Just 3 days ago, baby Kara was playing with paper. Mama Lyanne was about to take the paper away, but while doing so she happened wrinkle the paper just before taking it away. All of a sudden, baby Kara bursted out laughing (maybe the sound of crinkling paper was amusing to her). Mama Lyanne couldn't resist to bring the paper back and made a game out of it, just to get baby Kara laughing.

July 4th Weekend

July 4th weekend, mama Lyanne had invited all of her cousins up to hang out for the weekend. It was a fun and busy weekend. On Saturday, mama Lyanne had planned for an all park day. The day started with softball in the morning when the temperature was still cool. Including mama Lyanne and papa Matt, there were a total of 10 people which perfectly formed 2 teams of 5 people. The teams were randomly picked. Uncle Christian, auntie Christina, auntie Leslie, auntie Joanna and mama Lyanne were on one team. Aunti Jessica, uncle Jimmy, uncle Kevin, auntie Katherine and papa Matt were on another team. After playing an hour to two, mama Lyanne's team won. Then they break for lunch, eating sticky rice cooked by Great Auntie Dau (uncle Christian's mom), yesterday's left over pizza and chicken bake, peaches and vietnamese dessert cooked by Auntie Jessica and auntie Jessica's mom, Great Auntie Jeannette. Mama Lyanne also packed watermelon, but it was touched because there were so much food.

After lunch, they played 3-legged race. Once again the 5 pair of teams were also randomly picked. Each round of game had 2 teams racing against each other, each team played at least 3-4 round of games, and the team with the most wins won the game. The last round of game determined the winning team. It was between auntie Leslie and mama Lyanne's team versus uncle Christian and auntie Joanna's team. The rest of the teams stood by to be the judge. The final round had to be played 2 times because the first final round was determined to be a tie. Finally, on the 2nd (final) round, auntie Leslie and mama Lyanne won the game. Hmm...do you see a trend here? Heheh.

Lastly, the park games ended with "Motion Telephone". Similar to 'telephone' or 'rumor' game, a message is passed on from one person to another until the last person determines what was the original message. In 'Motion Telephone', the acting is the message so the member in each team must pass the acting to the next team mate until the last team member must guess what was the message that was trying to be conveyed.

All the while, baby Kara was playing and relaxing with Great Auntie Jeannette in the shade by a tree. The day ended with bbq burgers and hot dogs at home, while Great Auntie Jeannette, auntie Jessica and uncle Jimmy drove back to OC.

Yesterday, everyone was sore from the park games that they all relaxed at home during the day while mama Lyanne went to buy fish for sushi night. After she came back from grocery shopping, everyone went swimming at the community pool. Baby Kara has had many 'water day' at day care with auntie Yammi, but this was the first time that mama Lyanne and papa Matt saw baby Kara in her bathing suit and watched her play in the pool. She loved the water! Baby Kara kicked and kicked her legs when she was in the water.

After the pool, mama Lyanne got ready to make sushi dinner. Sushi included white tuna, yellowtail, halibut, salmon, shrimp tempera, masago, and baked mussles. Delicious! After dinner, the plan was to go to Valencia Town Mall to watch fireworks, but dinner went late and therefore going to Valencia Mall was cancelled. However, just when dinner was finishing up, they started to hear fire works. Some went upstairs to watch while others were still watching TV downstairs while mama Lyanne and papa Matt were packing and cleaning up dinner left overs. In the end, mama Lyanne got everyone to go upstairs to watch the fireworks. Couple minutes in, auntie Christina asked if she could watch from the roof, which was accessable through the balcony bedroom window. Of course, mama Lyanne didn't even hesitate to think about it and gave the OK. Not everyone wanted to go on the roof. Only auntie Christina, uncle Kevin and mama Lyanne went on the roof with a blanket to keep them warm because it was mighty cold outside. In the end, they didn't miss the fireworks afterall. After the fireworks, papa Matt drove uncle Christian home because he had work the following day, and auntie Christina followed home as well.

Today was the last day of the cousin get-together so it was just board game day. They played Apples to Apples then Monopoly. The Monopoly game lasted couple of hours until it was time to meet with uncle Christian and auntie Christina at Asia Buffet on Van Nuys for dinner. While everyone was getting ready and packing their belongings, mama Lyanne bathed baby Kara. Baby Kara had graduated from the infant sling, so it was the first time mama Lyanne let baby Kara sat up in the tub without the sling. Baby Kara loved it! She kept on kicking and kicking so much that water started to splash out of the tub and onto the floor.

Kara Scooting Around (Not Quite Crawl Yet)

Baby Kara started to become more mobile now. She now can scoot herself to get a toy that's just out of her reach. Her legs are the main driving force for her movement. She scoots like a warm. Her head dives down towards the floor, while she pushes with her legs. Then she picks up her head and reach out for the object. The cycle continues until she reached the object or destination of interest.

Rice Cereal

As soon as baby Kara turned 4 months old, mama Lyanne was ready to feed baby Kara her first solid meal, rice cereal. Of course baby Kara was also ready as evidence by her drools, sucking fingers when she's hungry, mouthing and licking toys or anything that's within reach of her hands. Baby Kara still has the natural reflect to push food out of her mouth with her tongue, but you can tell she liked the cereal. Last week, mama Lyanne only fed 1-2 teaspoon of rice cereal. This week, baby Kara is able to eat 3-4 teaspoon. Eventually, she'll graduate to tablespoon to ounces portion and hopefully get into vegetable puree by her 5 month birthday.

Kara in Her Car Seat

Tis true. Baby Kara spends a lot of time in her car seat. Because of the recent head shaving, mama Lyanne have been putting a hat on baby Kara when she goes out. For the most part, the hat doesn't bother baby Kara until she gets sleepy. When she wants her nap, she'll spend couple minutes sucking her finger with one hand and the other hand would touch her face/head in one way or another. With the hat on her head, baby Kara now likes to pull the hat down covering her eyes. She didn't fuss about it either. It seemed like she enjoyed having her eyes covered. Everytime baby Kara pulled the hat down, mama Lyanne would pull it back up. Within seconds, baby Kara would pull it back down again. To some point, it turned into a game for baby Kara laughing each time mama Lyanne pulled the hat up.

"To be or not to be.....zzz."

Lately, baby Kara has been drooling a lot. People say that drooling is the first sign of teething or an indication that teething will start soon. Baby Kara has been drooling for awhile. Just today, she started to show fussiness that seemed like she might be experiencing teething pain. It was also her first time crying in the car seat while the car was driving. It wasn't time for feeding yet, but mama Lyanne tried giving baby Kara a bottle. Of course, she didn't want it. Mama Lyanne checked her diaper, and it wasn't dirty. Couple minutes later, she was quiet and happy. Mama Lyanne looked over and saw baby Kara gnawing on her toy and rubbing the toy against her mouth. And when the toy dropped out of her mouth, baby Kara started to fuss again. It could be a coincident, but mama Lyanne thinks baby Kara is teething.

Did you notice the earrings in her ears? Yesiree. Baby Kara got her ear pierced yesterday. She was a trooper. She didn't cry for long. She only cried for the split second of being pierced and stopped crying within couple seconds of consoling her.

Lastly, baby Kara was allowed to play with grass with her hands yesterday. Her first time playing with grass was around Memorial week when she touched the grass with her feet. In both times, you can tell that baby Kara was very curious about the grass. She kept on looking down and wiggling her toes. She was fascinated as this was entirely a new object for baby Kara.

Auntie Katherine's HS Graduation

Today was auntie Katherine's graduation. Mama and papa Wong got off of work early so that they can go pick up baby Kara by 5pm and head back to San Fernando Valley before 630pm. On the way back, the Wong family stopped at a store to buy a lei but sinse there were none they ended up buying a bouquet of flowers and an ice cream cake. Because of the ice cream cake, papa Matt decided to drop mama Lyanne and baby Kara off at Chatsworth High School first while he went to drop the ice cream cake at Uncle Benny's house. Last year's graduation for uncle Kevin (that's when baby Kara was still a tiny fertilized embryo inside mama Lyanne's tummy!), the staff closed off the football field right at 630pm. Knowing that and with the crowded parking situation, mama Lyanne was sure that papa Matt would not be able to join her and baby Kara inside at the ceremony. But to mama Lyanne's surprise, the gate was left open until 7pm which was right when papa Matt arrived just on time before they closed the gate and mama Lyanne was glad he can join her and baby Kara.

During the graduation ceremony, baby Kara got to meet uncle Long for the first time. She also had a chance to spend time with grandmother (婆婆). Uncle Kevin also came down from the bleachers to take pictures of baby Kara. Because baby Kara just had her head shaved off at her 4m birthday, mama Lyanne had baby Kara wore a hat. Cute, isn't she? Hehe.

When the ceremony ended, Auntie Katherine took her cap off to let Great Uncle Hoa take a picture with it. Then one of the uncles or maybe even auntie Katherine decided to put the cap on baby Kara's head.

After that, all of the aunties got together to take pictures with auntie Katherine including mama Lyanne. Then came the uncles with their wacky faces followed by the entire Wong family with uncle Jayden. And of course more family pictures with Great Grandma and Great Auntie Van (picture not shown).

Uncle Jayden loves to play with baby Kara every time mama Lyanne bring her by to visit. His newest skill is giving people kisses (he still need more practice). Basically, he kisses people by bringing his cheeks up against the other person's cheek. Just at that time, baby Kara decided to show uncle Jayden the correct way of giving a kiss! Hehe.

Just before heading back to aunti Katherine's house, uncle Christian decided to get the gang do one last silly pose. While all the uncles and aunties positioning their arms, mama Lyanne and Great Uncle Hoa tried to get uncle Jayden to add his arms infront of auntie Katherine. But with all the commotions, uncle Jayden got confused and slightly scared that he ended up hugging auntie Katherine's legs instead. At the end, they finally got uncle Jayden to face forward with his arms out (picture not shown).

Finally, everyone went back to auntie Katherine's house to continue their foolishness, being silly and laugh some more. At this time, baby Kara was getting a bit cranky for nap, so mama Lyanne got baby Kara to nap in auntie Katherine's room. It was so loud and people going in and out of the room, that baby Kara was only able to nap for 30 minutes. By the time dinner was over and everyone got their ice cream cake, it was already close to 10pm and time to go home. Mama Lyanne and papa Matt dropped grandma (婆婆) and uncle Long off at their house before heading home to end the long but fun day.