My first post

I'm not sure what happened, but my words got erased. Anyway, I would like to dedicate this first post to my beautiful wife who started this last year. Over the weekend we went to a really funny martial arts comedy called Jump (you can look it up on YouTube "Jump Korea"). We took some pictures, but these ones I'm posting were sent to me from a coworker. At work, my computer won't let me put anything on a USB (something about security concerns) to take home and save, so instead I'll just save time and publish it on the internet. We had YY's old friend from middle school babysit so we could watch it together. I'll have YY post more pictures and explain when she gets time.

By the way, the drivers here are crazy. People zoom past literally inches away from you. It doesn't matter if you are a pedestrian on the street (no sidewalks) or a car, they just squeeze by. I thought that when it rains like crazy, you all know monsoon season, they would behave, but they just act like it's a nice sunny day. The only solace that I have is that I am usually in a big bus when I see close encounters, so I won't get hurt when the bus finally hits a scooter or small car. I think bus drivers are the most dangerous. I'll post a picture later of the bus driving on the other side of the road to get past cars that were waiting at a red light.

Stories from Sunday

Last week, on Sunday morning, Joe and I woke up before Alden did, so we went up to the kitchen to have breakfast and shower before the monster woke up. He had slept with us the night before so he was sleeping peacefully on our mat. After shower, I came down to check on the baby, and I found Alden awake. But not only was he awake, but he had also gotten our book of mormon off the shelf by the bed and was reading the book of mormon on the bed! It was so funny but I missed taking a picture of him cuz he was so cute, I had to give him a hug. lol. He surprises us so many times.

Well, on the same day, Joe had an adventure of his own during sacrament. The branch we attend is pretty small, and the chairs are set up so that there are rows of four chairs in three columns. When they serve the sacrament, they only serve the two people at the edge of the row at a time and go around and come back to serve the other two on the other side so that the sacrament tray doesn't have to be passed down the row. Well, we were sitting in the middle of the row with my cousin sitting next me. Well, the sacrament tray came to Joe first. He took a piece of bread for himself and grabbed the tray. He started pulling on the tray and had a little tug-of-war with the guy holding the tray. ha ha.

Well, here are some pictures from our trip to Seoul two weeks ago.

Having real breakfast at McDonald's close to the temple.

Lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

My friend, Seul.

We went shopping at Namdaemun with mom, Cody and Kyra.

Cute couple. Alden enjoyed the nice view up high on Cody that day.

Dinner at Hotpot.

Alden's dinner. lol

Yum. He ate a whole jar of baby food plus more of my food.

At the bus terminal, saying bye to grandma.

Wake up, Daddy!

In the video, I'm saying, "Alden says, 'Wake up, daddy!'" in Korean.

Haircut

This is how Alden was taking a nap the other day. Face down.



So I flipped him around and his face looked like this.

Joe loves getting a haircut in Korea. Although it doesn't compare to what he can get at grandma's, they give you a free shampoo at the end of the haircut. :D Joe says it's hard not to smile because it feels so good..

Trip to the dentist's office

Joe said his gums were hurting so we went to a dentist's office. Wow... It looked like a five-star hotel lobby inside.


Right after the panoramic x-ray. It looked like a CT scan machine.


Being examined by the doc. He said it was probably because of a sinus infection and the cold he's had recently. If the pain doesn't go away soon, we are to go to the ear, nose, throat doc to see if Joe has a sinus infection.



In the lobby. Nice furniture, big screen tv, wow...


After the dentist's office, we went to Home Plus (It's like a big target) on a date. We looked at many different things, ended up spending more money than we should have. We always drool over books and study material for Alden's Korean.


No, this is not for Al's Korean nor his English. Joe liked that it said, "Miffy goes to stay."




In Korea, most women's bathroom has small urinal/toilet and sink for little kids. They're really cute.


Alden's been just favoring real food over breastmilk, he pretty much weaned himself off. I only breastfeed him maybe once a day when he's really tired and sleepy (if I do it when he's awake, he bites me and refuses to eat). He's so cute when he eats. I'm trying to teach him to say "more." I've give up trying to teach him sign language. I think he'll be able to speak first.

Give me food.....

Alden likes to hang out with daddy. They're so cute together.

And here's a bonus picture.

Sorry baby...

Superman and Exploded Mosquito

Alden really likes to crawl everywhere and climb on things. All day, he sweats like crazy. So one day, I decided to play with his wet hair. Superman style.

A couple nights ago, I forgot to turn on the mosquito repellent thingy. I got mercilessly attacked and was bit 7 times. I had to get up at three in the morning to kill the mosquitoes. I found one flying towards me, and I didn't have time to react and kill it with both hands since I had a book in one hand. So I just smacked it with the book, and the mosquito got knocked off to the ground and exploded. I HAD to take a picture.. Sorry... if you are more sensitive towards this type of pictures, I apologize.

My precious blood....

Happy Father's Day!

On Saturday, we went to the beach with the Grandys. They are a Korean American family, and they have been very nice to us. We went to the beach to eat meat (Sam gyup sal). The beach isn't a sand beach, it was a pebble beach. We had a lot of fun but we forgot sunscreen (I felt so bad for forgetting it since I'm the mom...). Joe got sunburned pretty badly....

We had to put those big rocks on the flap of the parasol to keep it from being blown away.
Cooking meat under the parasol. Yum.

The Grandys. Joe-Jaeran-Ian.

Having a good time with daddy.

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers, especially Joe... (We didn't remember it until 10:00 pm...)

My aunt and grandma took us out to dinner today to eat raw fish. It was exotic. lol. and good. (for me. lol)

(Mom this picture is for you)

Alden has been showing a great interest in picking my wallet. (Already). Here's an example of him being caught in the act.

Sitting on a money cusion (this is a Korean phrase for "rich").

More improvements

So.. a lot of korean ladies told me that Alden must have been sick because he was going through a growing spur, and he'd be able to do a lot more tricks once he got better. And it was true! It is so fun to see him being able to do more things everyday. Here is the list.

1. He is more lively than ever, sometimes we wonder where he gets all of his energy. He crawls everywhere with super speed and tries to get into everything, especially plastic bags (that often say "Keep out of reach of babies. Danger of suffocation") and electric cords. I put all of his toys in one plastic bin, and he likes to knock if over and get all of his toys out, one by one, and throw them on the floor.

2. He can say "Mom" "Dad" "Food" in Korean, kind of. I'm not really sure if he knows what they mean. I think he knows what "mom" means....? Well, at least, he really likes to repeat after what we say.

3. He's a real screamer. He likes to scream for.... nothing. lol. I don't know why, but he would just randomly scream.

4. He can also grawl really well.

5. He can smack his lips and make kissing noises but he doesn't know how to properly kiss yet.

6. He give us hugs sometimes but not on demand.

7. He likes the company of other kids more and likes to play with other people. He cries when people leave the room.

8. He can sit up on his own.

9. He can pull himself up and stand.

10. And finally and mostly, he pooped in the toilet today!!! I was so proud of him. :D He was making sign of pooping (mostly the face and the yell that he does), and I heard him fart, so I pulled off his diaper and put him on the toilet. I encouraged him to give it a try, and he pooped! I was so happy. :D I missed the second time he pooped today (he's been having stomach problems lately from the antibiotics so he poops 3-4 times a day), but hopefully when he goes back to the regular schedule, we can really work on him pooping in the toilet.

Little update

Oops. I never published this entry....

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Alden's feeling much better. We went up to Seoul to the temple and spent some time with Joe's mom over the weekend. Alden can say Mama, and he can give kisses (except they are open mouthed so we gotta teach him how to approapriately kiss). He's pulled himself up once to stand but he still doesn't have the guts to start walking. He much prefers crawling and he's really good at it. (He wakes up in the middle of the night to crawl all over us). Now that he's feeling better, we're having him sleep in the playpen. :D Joe's going to start at the Public Relations department this week for the next 5 weeks. He doesn't know what he's going to do, and we're not sure if they do either but it'll be fun. After that, we'll be free to play.

Pictures

Studying Korean/English with Gomo


Going out for fun. :D


These are pictures printed on tiles. So cute!


We went to a Baby Fair. This guy is called The King of Fart, and he farts and does magic on a kid's show. lol.

At an church activity with Gomo

Roasting marshmellow. It didn't really work. They were Canadian.

Happy baby!

Playing Korean board game.

Joe's the king of the game!

And our team won!

Falling asleep in Sunday School.

Playing on the floor.

Playing on the bed

Eating Korean food. Yum!

Tom, this is what Ojing-o looks like alive.

Running away with the diaper.

Catch me if you can, mommy!

Oops! This is what happened....

These are disinfection trucks. They go around the streets and spray insecticides.

This is how the dog gets punished for pooping and peeing where she's not supposed to.

This is how much room Al leaves us on our bed when he sleeps with us.

Sick baby.........

Really sick baby...

Feeling better baby playing with blocks.