Why shaking pepto-bismol well before use is important

This is a demonstration of why it's important to shake the bottle of Pepto-Bismol before using it is important.

Baby Boy

Alden is becoming more and more aware of his surroundings. He now loves to play with his toys and look around when we go out. He's also spending more time alone on a mat or in a bouncer seat. He is growing fast, and he's really heavy! He has an activity center that has toys and a bouncy bottom that he can jump on. He's started to show more interest in the toys, especially the turtle shaped mirror. I don't think he looks into the mirror, but he definitely loves to devour the turtle. :)

Joe and I decided that it was about time for Alden to start sleeping through the nights. I first started skipping the feeding session in the middle of the night. It went okay the first day, but the next day, he cried from 3 to 4:30 am before finally falling asleep.

The next day, about half an hour after being put away to sleep, Alden woke up again. Joe convinced me to let him cry a little bit to teach him to fall asleep by himself. After half an hour of pleading Joe to let me pick up Alden, I finally picked him up. We decided to turn to the professionals at that point. We looked up some articles on the internet, which said we should put him away when starts showing signs of tiredness with a bedtime routine.

That night, we read the scriptures together on the bed with low lights, and Alden started to fall asleep on his own on our bed. So I put him away, and he slepted really well for about 5 hours! The next day, after the bedtime routine, which consists of a bath, being rubbed down with Vaseline, feeding, and reading scripture reading, we put Alden away in his crib. He cried for about 10-15 minutes, and was fast asleep. He slept in until 7:30 the next morning. (Yay!)

Last night, after the bedtime routine, he fell asleep before we had the chance to put him away, I put him down in his crib, and he slept for 8 hours straight! Of course, I wasn't used to sleeping through the night, and I woke up several times to listen to the baby monitor, but I didn't have to get up to feed him or change him! We woke up around 6, and I'd never felt so awake in the morning!!! Joe and I even had breakfast together, it was wonderful! (I had energy to make toast and bacon for him. lol.) We're so happy Alden's being a good baby for us. :D

Joe and I have started a project to digitize all of grandma and grandpa's slides and pictures. Last time we went up to Bountiful, we took some Christmas pictures (which i'm working on to make into a DVD movie) and four slide trays full of slides from India. Last Saturday, we went to the BYU library. They have a family history center that has scanners that can scan slides. We took over three computers with scanners (see the picture below) to scan all the pictures. We had fun time looking at the pictures and watching movies while waiting.

Here's a picture of me with all three computers. :) Alden doesn't seem to be enjoying doing family history work....

And here's a sample of India picture. :) I think we scanned most of them upside down.... So I will have to work on putting them the right direction. lol.

Yesterday, Yearim called and said she really missed Alden. So she came over to see him and to play with us. She put Alden to sleep, and we had fun playing Mario Kart. The next two pictures look like they're the same pictures but you can see a slight difference.

Yes, Joe is smiling in the second one. He just made a really good turn, tripped Yearim over, caught up to her or something. lol.

Alden usually looks much like Joe, but I think as he's growing, he's becoming to look more and more like me. Sometimes, he looks very much like me (especially when he smiles or is sleeping - or whenever he is closing his eyes - because of the squinty eyes). In the next pictures, I really think he looks a lot like me. What do you think?

President's Day weekend

We went up to Bountiful this President's Day weekend. We went to Tom and Laura's on Sunday for dinner and games. Laura made these killer lasagna. Yum. I took some Kalbi and rice. John joined us at dinner, and we played games afterwards. Tom and Joe enjoyed playing guitar heroes, world tour together. Right before we took off, we decided Alden and Sophie needed more pictures together. Sophie's so tall, and Alden just looks big and fat. Ha ha. Tom and Laura did a really good job getting the kids' attention, they were looking over at Tom and Laura the whole time!



Kids are thinking, "What are the adults doing?"


Alden: "Hey, Sophie, how do you feel about being our parents' toys...?"


This is the only picture that Alden is kind of looking over at me, only because Tom and Laura came to rescue and started making faces directly behind me! Lol!

Loosing focus...

Laura and I were busy clicking away, and Joe finally had to say, "That's enough..." before we stopped taking pictures. Ha ha. The kids will thank the moms later for the pictures of their precious moments.

Afterwards, we went to the grandparents' to stay the night. Grandma's always good to Alden. He loves her! They have a connection...

And the next morning, Alden was hanging out with grandpa. He loves to be on the rocking chair. :)

On Monday, we went to the family history center. Joe loves to go there to work on family history. We were there for about four hours. Alden was very popular among all the patrons there at the center. :D Then we went to the Olive Garden for dinner (to make up for Valentine's Day dinner). The food was wonderful. Yum yum...

Lately, Alden's discovered his ring finger! He started out with sucking on his fist, then his three middle fingers, and then the thumb. Now, he always puts his palm out and sucks on his ring finger. lol.

Housework

Alden's going through a phase where he does not want to be put down at all or left alone. It's really hard to get anything done with him in my arms all day long. Yesterday, I decided to make some Kimbab (Korean style sushi). Alden went down for a nap so I started cooking but he woke up after 5 minutes. I had to put him in the baby carrier and hold him in front of me while chopping carrots, cooking meat, cutting cucumbers, rolling sushi, etc. It wasn't too bad except it made me really really tired from carrying a 16.5 pound baby around all day... Then we went to campus and delivered some food to Joe. It was a really cold day so I put Alden in his bunny suit from Halloween. :D

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I have a class in the afternoon. But in the mornings, I usually meet with a study buddy. He's Chinese. He helps me with Chinese for half an hour, and I teach him Korean for another half hour. So I usually take Alden to those meetings in the morning to school, hang out for a couple of hours, and then go to class in the afternoon. Today, while we were hanging out, he was making a really cute poop face in the bathroom (at BYU, most of the women's bathrooms have mothers' lounge with comfy chairs, couches, etc.). And of course, I HAD to take pictures...

And I took more pictures just because he is so dang cute!

After I came home, I was doing the dishes with Alden, this time in the back, because it's impossible to do the dishes with him in the front. Joe thought Al looked really uncomfortable so he took a picture to show me. He must have been fine because he fell asleep right away!

Trip to the laundromat

Today, I took a trip to the laundromat with Alden. I had him in the baby carrier on my chest, and I carried two laundry baskets on either side of me, hanging on my hips. It worked out okay... I think... On the second trip to the laundromat, I just carried Alden in my arms, and I didn't know what to do with him while I had to move the landry to the dryer from the washer. So I set him down in the basket thing. :D He seemed to be quite comfortable. Ha ha.

Last Saturday, Joe and I went to our second wedding show. It was the Bridal Fair down in Provo. We had lots of good responses and interests. There were "FOUR" other invitation companies but their products were different enough from ours, I think it turned out okay. Our new website is up and running now, and it's http://www.hasslefreeinvites.com/. Below are pictures from the bridal fiar. :D

(Sorry pictures are really dark.)

So.. We're planning on going to Korea this Summer, and we realized we have to hurry and apply for Alden's passport. I didn't want to pay the horrendous price of $20 to just get his picture taken (2 2x2 pictures) so I took some pictures. I ended up not using any of these pictures. The high chair wasn't really the best backgound to work with (I was trying to get rid of it using Photoshop) but they're cute pictures.

This is the picture I ended up using. Because of his head/body proportions, I couldn't find a good picture to work with. For this picture, I had to erase most of the pillow that he was lying on, lighten it enough that it looks like a semi white/off-white background, and extend his arms because the original picture was a horizontal rectangle, not a square. This left arm in this picture isn't actually a part of this picture. Ha ha. I copied and pasted it from a different picture because his arm wasn't visible in this picture (didn't extend enough to the border of the picture).

Our adventures

Daddy loves Alden!!! They like to play. Well, Joe, at least, likes to play with Alden. Ha ha ha. j/k. I love these two men in my life. They're the best!

So here's our family sleeping. Joe on the couch, mommy and the baby on the bed. lol.

We went to downtown Provo and found this sign.

"Historic Provo" sign hanging next to the "Modern Shoe" store. Ha ha ha.

How does he look? Ready for valentine's day.

He got a baseball outfit set from the babyshower. It's a summer outfit so he never got to wear it. So I decided to try the hat on him.... Ha ha ha ha.

Kyo, a friend of Joe's from Australia, had a birthday party today. We had wonderful Korean meal. Yum... I love Korean birthday parties. :D

This is a video of Alden trying to eat my finger. Title: Carnivorism

This is a video of Alden jumping on the couch. He LOVES to jump. :D

Funny guy

Joe and I have so much fun everyday with Alden. He is such a fun baby. We just can't stop laughing and smiling with him. Here are some examples. lol.

This is a picture of him sucking on his three middle fingers. "Yo!"


This is Alden getting ready to go skiing. :D


Click on the picture and take a look at his mouth. Ha ha ha.

Alden has so many different faces.

He changes so much in so little time.

I really need to keep taking pictures of him everyday to keep up.

Yesterday, he started making that "old man" face that Sophie makes. This confirms our suspicion that he was teething.

I am taking a Chinese conversation class every Tuesday and Thursday. So I have my little sister, Yearim, come and babysit for me while I go to school. Today, while I was getting ready to go to school, I came out to the living room and found Alden like this!!!!

Yes, and the first thing I did was NOT picking him up off the floor, but grabbing my camera to take a picture of him. Ha ha.

He had completely slipped out of his bouncer and was lying on the floor w/ his head barely on the bouncer. If you look at his hand, you can see that he is hanging on for his dear life. Ha ha.