Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Our big boy Alden!

Alden's growing so fast!!! He is so active and talkative (even though most things he says don't make sense to us). He can say a few things now in Korean such as 이것도 (this one, too), 어딨지? (Where?), 이거 (this), 엄마 (mommy), 멍멍 (doggy), etc. He can also say Daddy really well. He loves to say 이거 daddy (this is daddy) and point at Joe. :D

I'm also trying to teach him the alphabet. He can recognize B, C, E, L, and N, and he can say A, D, and O. We're working on him being able to spell his name.

He loves the popcorn song from the Children's Song book. He'll do all the actions to the song and say "More, more" when the song is over.

We have a Korean children's song CD in the car, and whenever we're in the car, Alden asks us to put it on by pointing above his head (from the backseat in his position, behind his head is where the speakers are). He will sometimes try to say the words in the songs and clap when the songs end.

Alden LOVES, absolutely loves Toy Story. We watch it at least 3 times a week. Whenever he sees any Toy Story pictures or merchandise at a store, he'll point to it and say something unintelligible. lol. It's a good thing he's not as spoiled as we think he is because he doesn't throw any tantrums when I don't buy those things for him. We actually when to watch Toy Story 3 on the opening day, and he sat and watched the whole movie quitely! He has a Buzz Lightyear toy, and remember how Andy writes his name on the foot of his toys? Alden kept pointing at the bottom of his Buzz's foot and saying stuff to me, so I asked if he wanted me to write his name and he nodded yes. So we wrote his name in English on one foot and Korean on the other foot. :D

Following is a video of Alden trying to talk to our neighbor's dog. He lives behind a fence across the street, and Alden always asks to go visit him whenever we are outside. The dog is trained as a watch dog and barks at us whenever we go close, so Alden tries to talk back to him. Ha ha.


This video is of Alden trying to help Grandpa out in the yard. My dad does a lot of fixing stuff around the house when he comes, and Alden follows him around and tries to help him with the tools. So we finally got him his own toolbox, and he loves to play with the tools and pretends to fix things. The other day, my dad was outside trimming the trees, and I gave Alden his pliers so he could pretend to trim the trees with my dad. And then later, they were trimming the bigger trees with a saw and I took a video of it. Alden kept pointing at different branches after they were done with one and saying "이것도" meaning, "This one, too." Alden's gonna grow up to be a great helper around the house.

It's a GIRL!

We had an ultrasound done yesterday morning to find out the gender of our new baby. And... we're having a GIRL! We're so excited to have a little girl, and I'm sure Alden would be stoked to have a little sister if he knew what was going on... We're going to name her Eleen 시현 Rigby. Eleen, after Joe's grandmother and also grandpa Alden's wife. 시현 in Korean means "vision" as in Joseph Smith's first vision. We'll probably pick different Chinese characters though. Haven't decided on the English spelling of her Korean name yet. It's becoming to be a little challenge for us.... A little help, please? She's due December 5th, and we're hoping that she doesn't come late and end up being born on mommy's birthday on the 8th!


This is a picture that shows the "girl" part.... oops.

She's got a strong heart beat. 140 bpm is perfect!

You can see her little hands to side of her lower face in this picture. Her chin, lower and upper lips, and nose from left to right.

You can see her little fist in this picture. Cute fingers. :D She actually waved at us several times while we were looking.

Her legs crossed like a little lady. :D She was moving around so much during the ultrasound.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Indoor playground is awesome!

At the university mall in Orem, they have a playground with a giant treehouse where kids can play. They have a fake dinosaur bones and a slide. We like to go there since it's indoors (yay, no sunburn!) plus I've discovered that Alden will play (somewhat) by himself so I can just sit and keep an eye on him. (And yes, this is where he broke his leg a few months ago...).

Alden is not very adventurous but if he sees other kids doing something (like going down a slide), he will venture out and do the same. But he doesn't play WITH anyone else. The most I've seen him interact with other kids is just hovering around them and watching what's going on. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with not being able to communicate. If there is a line to go down the slide, he will just go let everyone else go in front of him and wait until there is no line to go down the slide.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The most exciting toy store

We went on a walk at the Riverwoods Mall the other day and found this new toy shop called Flickenstaff. It was the most exciting toy store we've ever been! They had fun music on, but not only that, they had tons of toys and candy that brought many memories. Alden had fun looking around and pushing a cart around the store and picking out stuff that mommy and daddy were too cheap to buy for him. Ha ha. Well, he was just randomly picking small enough items to go in his cart. It was so cute to watch him run around with his own cart because he always tries to help me push the carts around the grocery store.

Everything was way over priced but it would be a fun place to any families to go and spend some time in. Joe was coveting over all the candy and surprised how many different types of M&Ms they had there.

This is a picture of Alden pushing his cart. I think he already has 2 things of playdough in there. lol.


You can see that Alden's cart is almost full. He picked out these fuzzy string thingies and started putting all of them in his cart. lol.

Alden, stocking his cart.

This is how he poses when I say "Cheese" for the pictures. I have no idea where he picked this up... lol.

Wall of candy. Joe liked it more than Alden. Al has no idea how good they taste. lol.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Baby Mozarts

Sophie and Alden make a pretty good team, don’t they?

They were playing background music at Jamie’s Homecoming Party. :D

Easter Egg Hunt

Okay.. It’s been kinda crazy around here with the move and my brother’s wedding reception. My computer didn’t have internet until today, and Joe’s laptop doesn’t have a working card reader… So I haven’t been able to post anything. Sorry.

The day before Easter (general conference), there was an Easter Egg Hunt event at the Pioneer Park in Provo. It was during Saturday morning conference, but I convinced Joe to let us go.. lol.

We barely made it on time, and there were so many kids and parents, we didn’t think we’ll be able to find a parking spot on time. We saw the perfect parking spot open, except it was a little too small for anyone to park (thus being left open until then). Joe successfully parked there with about 4 inches on both sides of the car (wow). We just made it to the first circle as they blew the whistle, only to find out that we were in the 9-10 age group circle! I helped Alden pick up one egg, and I hurried and picked up three more and put them in his basket before the whole park was cleaned out in 10 seconds!

We ran over to the toddler section but it was already well cleaned out by the overly zealous parents… Ha ha.

So that… is the story of our first Easter Egg Hunt. Fortunately, two of the eggs had Smarties in them, one of the few candies Alden can eat, so I divided them up in to all the eggs equally and gave them back to him. He loved the idea of having candy in those brightly colored balls. Ha ha.

We didn’t have time to take any pictures over at the park, so here are some pictures of him opening them up and sharing the candy with grandpa and daddy.

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Cast pictures

Taken on the day he got the cast. Look at him stare at it! lol.
And he has a tennis ball and nintendo ds in each hand, of course...

He would get on the car and push himself around with just the right leg and crash into walls, etc. Now he can use both legs like normal (almost). He runs around, climbs on things, etc.