Helping with the laundry

Alden loves to help with laundry. We throw down all the dirty clothes over the rail from the second floor to the family room, then come down to collect them and take them to the washer. He likes to put the clothes in the washer/dryer and push the button. As he puts each item in, he says "daddy" or "엄마" depending on whose clothes it is. Yeah, he still needs to learn how to say his own name. Ha ha. But he pats his belly to mean himself.

Alden's speaking in sentences!

Finally! It's about time, too. Everyday, he adds more and more words to his sentences and makes very long and complicated sentences. Here are some examples of his sentences. (I've added the translation so it's easier for you to understand.)

"Daddy daddy daddy marble daddy marble daddy marble marble!" - while pointing back and forth between Joe and his marble toy.
(Daddy and I played with my marble toy, and he made the marbles go down with me!)

"엄마 (mom in Korean) 엄마 bubble 엄마 bubble bubble bubble daddy." - while pointing at me and outside and himself.
(Mommy and I went outside earlier today and blew bubbles in the backyard and I popped some of them.)

"mm mmm hmm mm umm mm mmm mm mmm hmm mm." - while pointing at himself and making circles in the air with his hand.
(I got to play with my fishing pole today, and I reeled it in so that the bait came in!)

Well, these are some examples of what he can say and does all the time. Pretty amazing, huh? Ha ha ha. He communicates mostly with us through made up sign language and pointing at things. His own made up sign language consists of water (pointing at his mouth and jerking his head up), get down (pointing at the ground), hold me (patting on our legs with both hands), eat food (putting end of his index finger in his mouth), binky (repeatedly pointing at his mouth with his index finger), change (making circles in the air with his hold hand), slide (slowly lowering his hand in the air), jump (tiptoes up and down - he can't really jump yet), draw (holds his hands up and pretends to draw with a crayon in the air), brush teeth (holds his hands up by his mouth and moves it across back and forth), where (holds one hand up next to his head and cocks his head to the side a little), outside (points at random direction, just far), please (puts both of his hands out in front of him).

There are words that he made up as well. "Kho... (sleep, it also means pillow and bed sometimes)" "Huh Hoo (balloon - sucks air in and out)" "dady (baby - he exchanges b with d)" "Dah dah dah (stairs - that's the sounds he makes when he goes down the stairs)" "Dee Dee (TV - He can't say T or V yet, plus when we watch DVDs, he can only read D and the other D)" "Ya yee ya yee ya yee (Fluoride pills - that's the sounds he makes when he chew something, and his pills are chewable)"

Anyway.. I will keep adding to the list later. He does actually say real words, and his learning more and more. He recently learned how to say "marble" and he just learned to say "go" this morning. He's also been saying "해," which literally means "do" in Korean. He likes to say "엄마 해" meaning, "Mommy, you do it." All day, he has me do stuff for him, and it just has to be me, and me only... (sigh) For example, we hide his binky behind his pillow in bed so he can grab it before going to bed (he's only allowed to use it when he goes to sleep and has to give it up in the morning), and if Joe acts surprised and makes sounds, Alden says, "No!" and puts the binky back behind the pillow. Then he says, "엄마 해" and has me act surprised instead. Same with turning off the lights before bed and turning on background music, along with getting out of the car, getting him off the high chair, etc., etc....

Speaking of being insistent... Alden's been really adamant on doing everything on his own. If we do something for him that he wants to do himself, he will say "NO!!" and will want to redo everything. So we've been working on trying to teach him to tell us nicely that he wants to do it himself, and he has to pat himself on his chest then put his hands out to mean, "I want to do it myself." And he's been doing pretty well at it (when he's in good mood).

Watch him say "marble" in the video below!

Chasing a light

New Haircut

Alden has gotten really good at using the laptop. He can use the mouse almost at will, moving the cursor to what he wants and clicking on it. He nevigates through Facebook, Youtube, and Naver Kid page really well, and play what he wants. He can also recognize the "play" button and knows what a video clip is. He can also click on the back button in the internet explorer and close a window too if he doesn't like what he sees. Anyway, I gave him a haircut yesterday. I was originally gonna grow it out a little longer, but everyone thinks Alden is a girl.... He looks too pretty, I guess, so I decided we'd cut it again. You can see how it turned out. :D

Blowing a balloon with daddy

Alden almost passed out laughing when they first started doing this, but by the time I got there and pulled my camera out, he wasn't as excited anymore... lol. Plus, the camera always distracts him. A LOT.

Photo Restoration

We scanned a lot of Grandma's pictures to digitize and to store them. Grandma wanted to reprint some of the pictures, so I used photoshop to enhance and restore some of the pictures (and resize to 4x6 size, of course!). Here are some examples! :D

- Before and After pictures are listed -

Our growing baby boy!

Everyday, I realize more and more that Alden is not a "baby" anymore. He is now a small kid, and he acts more and more like a kid everyday. He just can't talk yet. lol. He has such a cute personality, and Joe and I can't stop saying, "He is SO CUTE!"

He recently learned how to indicate how old he is, and when asked in Korean, he can stick his index finger out. We figured he was just responding to the question itself and thought he probably didn't know what that one finger meant. But a couple days ago, the exchange student that is staying with us (her name is Chloe, she'll be with us for the next few years) was telling him that he could only have one treat and not two, and Alden stuck his index finger out!! I was so surprised that he knew what one finger meant. And yesterday, he figured out how to stick two fingers out! :D So he can now count up to two. Ha ha ha, and go straight to five, because he can't do 3 or 4 fingers. lol. He loves to sing the 10 little indian boys song (no matter how politically incorrect it may be) and count with his fingers.

Alden is such a nice kid. Yes, I know what they say about the terrible twos, and Alden does seem to have gotten worse (saying NO to everything), but compared to other kids his age, he seems to have a nice temper. When he goes to nursery, he never pushes or hits other kids, and he easily gives up toys to other kids and doesn't complain. He just looks for a different toy to play with. As long as he understands the reasoning and our explanation, he listens to our instructions. He is only allowed to use his binky when he sleeps, so when he wakes up, I ask for it back. Sometimes when he's really tired and cranky, he's reluctant to give it up, but he usually spits it out on my hand when I tell him he doesn't need it because he's not sleeping anymore. When we went to Moab, he found many, many rocks to throw, and he wanted to throw them everywhere. So we explained to him that throwing rocks on the road was dangerous and could hurt people. We told him to only throw the rocks at the bushes, and that's exactly what he did!! He walked up to the bushes and threw the rocks in. :D

I've been having Alden help when I bake stuff, like pouring milk in the bowl and mixing stuff. He especially loves to make his own easy mac. Today we cooked a packet of Easy Mac, and he ate the whole thing! He's never been able to finish it before, so I was so impressed and happy that he did! :D Especially because he's been sick and hasn't had much appetite. Hopefully it means that he's getting better and getting ready for another growth spurt.

Okay, an update on our little Ellie. She's been really good. She's been really active and been growing a lot. Actually, she's grown so much in just the last month that my belly looks enormous compared to just a month ago. The doctor even told me that I'd gained too much weight in the second trimester and told me to watch what I eat.... Ha ha. She moves around constantly when she is not asleep, which is different from Alden. Alden had very strong kicks and jabs, but Ellie gives small kicks constantly and never stops moving! She's going to be a one active girl. We're so excited to have her come in December. :D