HAELEY KWOK: July 2008

The past 2 months just whisked by so fast and we have had no time to pen (type) down all the fun stuff Haeley has been up. To our defense, Kurt and I have been busy dealing with the construction of our new home, which we are hoping would be ready by October. In 3 days, Haeley would be 8 months old and she is getting more active, curious and responsive by the day. As part of her learning curve to crawl while in a sitted position, Haeley would stretch her both arms forward, try to reach out for her toys and before you know it, she would lunge forward and her face would be planted on the floor or sometimes on top of a plastic toy...Ouch! My tough lil' one sometimes doesn't make a sound when she is stuck and just quietly try to wiggle her way around. It's funny seeing her in these "painful" yoga-poses.

Many of you may have witnessed how chubby baby Haeley has become in the recent months. It must be her love of homemade food and Mama's milk. Haeley eats a good 3 meals of solid food a day and its a pretty balanced diet too: for breakfast, she enjoys a nice warm fruit cereal or yogurt and for lunch/dinner, she get her carbs from rice or pasta; vitamins from vegetables, protein & iron from turkey, chicken or beef. Occasionally, we'll throw in a fruity dessert such as strawberries and apples to sweeten things up. In between meals, she'll have her "tea" break of her good o' milk. Its funny how chubby she is now that she can barely fit into her 12 months Levis jeans anymore. Our little "fat-fat" weighs in about 20 pounds and is 26 inches tall.

Let's dive right into all the wonderful adventures Haeley's been up to recently:

--------- Palm Springs ----------

During the Memorial Day long weekend in late May, we went for a short getaway to Palms Spring. Instead of driving down, we decided to take a flight and let Haeley (and us!) experience her first plane ride. The flight was a little over an hour each way, and Haeley did great! She wasn't keen with the in-fight entertainment nor the airplane food; she much prefered her own toys and baby food! All in all, despite a little discomfort on our return trip, it was a pleasant flight for her, for us and the other passenger (phew), no nasty stares!

Why does everything look so tiny from here?

Strolling along downtown Palm Springs with sunscreen, sunglasses and sunhat

Hey, Pa, we're getting a lot of attention... is it because of me or you?

Learning cool hand signs from mommy in the hotel room...Surf's Up!

New definition of Babe Watch

Mom, don't let go! I maybe bouyant, but I don't know how to swim yet!

A little father and daughter time in our private "yacht"

This taco salad looks pretty yummy, don't worry, I'll help myself...

after peeing on the hotel bed, I'm ready to go home!
(teeshirt says - Little Big Person)

------Holding Her Bottle------

Yep, Haeley can hold her own milk bottle and sippy cups. She's been doing it since 6 months old and we got all excited with her new ability. We just need to let her sit in her bouncy chair, hand her the bottle and she'll grab it with 2 hands and aim the bottle to her mouth...voolia. She would even tilt the bottle up when the content is getting low.

Full back tilt to get maximum drip!

frame by frame on how she masters this difficult technique!

-----Pull Up & Stand------

Haeley is one chubby baby but with her weight also comes with great strength. This girl loves to be held in a standing position and loves pulling herself up while holding on to short furniture or our fingers. Without much effort on our part, Haeley just pulls herself up and sometimes lets one hand go so she can grab a toy or our nose. There's this game she loves lately. She would hold our fingers and pull herself up, and 5-10 secs later, she's drop herself down to a sitted position and she would go through the stand-up-sit-down-stand-up routine over and over again. It really amuses her and amuses us to see her muster up all her strength to pull herself up and she ain't feather weight!

full concentration

-----Happy Dada Day!-------

I (Kurt) celebrated my first Father's day with a touching surprise! Haeley gave me this card that was created Mommy while I was away on business trip. Haeley has this playmat with all the alphabets on it, and Mommy took a bunch of pictures of Haeley at home holding (and chewing) the letters D and A... and by combining the pictures together, it spelt DADA! How cool is that!!?

---- My 2 front teeth -----

About a month back, Haeley's bottom 2 teeth sprouted out of no where. We only found out about her first teeth when one day we heard her scratching her sippy cup with her teeth. We suspected she might be teething because of her excessive drool, which often exceeds 1 bph (bip per hour), but she didn't really make any fuss about it, so we weren't sure. Babies are known to get really fussy during their teething period so we are very grateful that she dealt with it so well and didn't wake us up at night. :) Now that her teeth have grown a little bigger, she really knows how to make use of them. One of her newly discovered favorite food is corn on the cob!