Sweet Girl!

How cute am I?

Look at this beautiful picture that my friend and neighbor, Kelly Cone, took of Julia at her 9 month shoot. THANKS KELLY!!! I am going to miss her so much when she moves back to GA!!

So I know that I've been MIA lately from the blog but there's good reasons.
#1 - TAX SEASON!! I know it's over now but you've gotta have recovery time.
#2 - Will got a promotion so he's been traveling non-stop since the beginning of April. Needless to say, I've been a single parent. My parents have helped out so much and my friends also - they are the best!

We've done a lot since tax season ended and I'll try to post more blogs about them soon!

Haiku for the T.U. gals

Sunrise at "The Boot"
Over a decade ago
Man, we've gotten old

(This is dedicated to LC and BBK)
- The Haiku Master (aka 'Will the Thrill')

TAX SEASON

It's the middle of tax season and it's kicking my butt!! Only 3 more Saturdays left . . .

Happy Valentine's Day!

The loves of my life

My little heartbreaker

Happy Chinese New Year (Year of the Tiger)!

Will is 1 of 2 white guys that celebrated Chinese New Year that evening

Big Alex (my cousin) and Little Alex

Law-Law and Julia

Law-Law and Alex

Ghong-Ghong and Alex

My parents, aunts, uncles and cousin were all so sweet to drive up from Fort Walton Beach to celebrate Chinese New Year with us this year. My mom cooked all day and brought the fantastic feast with her. It was such a nice evening and so grateful that Alex and Julia will be able to experience such wonderful traditions of the Chinese culture. Now only if I could cook as well as my mother . . .

SNOW DAY!

Day off from daycare

Backyard/Neighbor's Roof

Left side of backyard

Miniature snowball

What do I do with it now?

Molly is not sure what she thinks about snow!

It SNOWED in DOTHAN!!! Can you believe it?? And it was good snow that stuck to the ground! All schools and daycares were closed for the day; unfortunately for Will and I, grown-up jobs do not close just because of snow! Therefore, we had to take turns watching the kids so that we could still meet some work deadlines. I took the morning shift and Will took the afternoon shift. It was a fun day overall and glad I got to experience it with Alex, though I doubt he will even remember it much later in life. Poor Julia didn't even get to go outside like her big brother to "play" in the snow. She much preferred to stay warm inside and take a nap!

First Tooth

Julia cut her First Tooth! She's been drooling like crazy for the past month or so and we've been waiting for one to pop up. Sunday night, before the Superbowl (GEAUX SAINTS!!!!) I was feeling/massaging her gums after her bath - no tooth. The NEXT evening, Monday night, Will was feeding her a bottle, after she finished, he said, "Tuan, she's cut her first tooth. I can see it!" My response of course (since I didn't believe him), "No way, I just felt her gums last night, there's nothing there. You're just seeing things." Will responds, "Tuan, she's biting my finger, there's a tooth!" I run over immediately and stick my finger in her mouth (it was clean) and sure enough, that first tooth broke through. It's the bottom left one. I haven't been able to get a picture of it because my camera speed is so slow and the tooth is itty-bitty. She's been doing great though. No fussiness and still sleeping through the night! I'll try and post a pic if I can ever capture it. On a side note, Alex cut his first tooth at 6 months. Julia beat her big brother by 2 weeks! Now we're just waiting for the next one . . .

Double Whammy!!

Alex came home from school on Friday with a little cough. Will and I thought nothing of it, there was no runny nose or fever. He woke up Saturday morning in a great mood and was ready to go to his friend Jake's birthday party (shown here). We came home and laid down for a nap and when he woke up he felt a little warm, we thought he was just worn out from the birthday party and again thought nothing of it. Later that night, he was burning up - 102 fever! YIKES!! And the cough was growing progressively worse. Sunday morning, he woke up with a fever of 101, time to go to the walk-in weekend clinic at his pediatrician's office. Good thing we went because my pitiful little man had the FLU (first whammy)! Dr. said it would be best to try and separate him from J since she was too little to receive the flu shot and couldn't take "Tamiflu". So we packed his things and off he went to "Law Law and Ghong Ghong's" house (that's chinese for grandmother and grandfather - aka - my mom and dad). He couldn't wait to get out of the car and climb into Law Law's car - he ADORES and LOVES his Law Law and Ghong Ghong. He was going to be in good hands!!

Monday morning, I get a call from the pediatrician's office, Alex also has Strep (second whammy)!! His strep culture grew positive overnight, so they had to call in an antibiotic to FWB. It is just not fair for such a little person to be so sick! It breaks your heart because he's just looking at you to make it all better and you can't just wave your hands over him and miraculously make it all go away. Good news is that he's feeling so much better after getting 2 days worth of medicine in him. His energy is back and he's been beating his Law Law in Wii Tennis! Can't wait to see my little man this weekend!!!

Meet our Interns!

JT always hires a couple of interns during tax season. Mary and I are working on a large audit that is always staffed with at least one intern. Well this year, we've been given the pleasure to work with BOTH interns! They are super sweet and cute girls and are a lot of fun, though, boy do they make me feel OLD!!! I felt dated when one of them had to help me with my Blackberry Messenger setup - ouch, that hurts! Here's a pic of us at a charity benefit this weekend (Mary couldn't make it b/c her mom came to visit. We missed you Mary!) . . .

Had to sneak in a pic of the hubby and me. We don't get dressed up often!

5 Months!

Do I look cross-eyed?



Check out my trick.



Look at me!



So my sweet baby girl turned 5 months a couple of days ago. Seriously, I feel like she's growing up so much faster then her big brother did. I think that's because with your first child, all your attention is focused on that one little baby. When you have your second child, your focus is now split (sometimes not evenly) and before you know it, 5 months have flown by. Julia is such a blessing to us! We thought we lucked out by having Alex, he was a good baby and there was no way that the next child could even compare. Well, we were wrong! Julia puts Alex to shame.

I've never been very good at measuring my children inbetween standard DR appts, therefore, I'm just going to take a rough guess at her measurements. Julia was 16 lbs at 4 months 2 weeks and 25 3/4 inches, so I'm guessing she was 17 lbs and 26 inches at 5 months. She's still in Size 2 diapers but I'm debating switching her to Size 3 soon. She's wearing 6-9 months clothes and her hair has been growing and shedding at the same time! I don't think she'll lose much if Alex is any reflection.

She's eating 6 oz every 3 hours, 5-6 times a day and we've started her on rice cereal but have not fed it to her on a daily basis. I'm in no rush for her to grow up; my goal is to make it one more month before starting her on formula. We've switched her to the next stage in nipple size for her bottle and she's doing great with it! She can suck down the bottle in less than 10 minutes now! She's been drooling like crazy for over a month now and we're just waiting for that first tooth to pop up!

She's been rolling over from her stomach to her back for a month now. She hasn't quite figured out how to roll over the other way yet but I have a feeling it's coming soon. We're still working on sitting independently but she'll still sway or lean over if there's nothing around to support her. We will lay Julia down every night between 7 - 7:30 and she will sleep anywhere from 11 - 13 hours if we let her. During the weekdays, Will has to wake her up to feed her before we leave for work. If she wakes up on her own, she'll just lay there and talk to herself or chew her fingers or toys until someone comes in to pick her up. So not used to this b/c Alex used to wake up crying almost everything single day! Speaking of Alex, she ADORES her big brother and anytime he is around, those little eyes of hers are locked on him (he adores her too)! Poor Molly has been demoted to the position of the third child.

The Blank Slate Beginning . . .

So ONE of my bestest friends in the world (Mary :-)>) has begged and begged and pleaded and guilted me into starting a blog. I've been avoiding the facebook/myspace revolution and just can't fight it anymore. This is my compromise in order to help me document my children's lives better (the scrapbooking is not working out too well) - haha. Happy reading!

DISCLAIMER: I cannot guarantee that this blog will be updated daily, maybe weekly . . . maybe.