Baby Ella

On Friday a family friend, Linda, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Ella. Mandy and I went to go visit her in the hospital. She was so tiny - only 6 lbs 14 oz! This time I can honestly say I don't remember Calvin ever being that small. It seems so long ago that Phil and I were in that very same hospital welcoming Calvin... Mandy and baby Ella.

Me and baby Ella. If only Calvin was still that light!

Proud mommy and daddy. You can tell Ella is going to be tall when she grows up.

Another baby to add to the play group!

Calvin's First Play Date

Calvin had his first "play date". Mandy and Maddy came over along with Tam's cousin, Thanh, and her son, Van, who is 2 months older than Calvin. Since they're still so small, technically they don't really "play" together yet, but still... It's a baby train, with Calvin riding shotgun. Mandy likes to clip up Maddy's hair so she looks like Pebbles from the Flinstones. So cute! Especially when she has her entire hand shoved in her mouth.

Van is also a bit of a cutie. He looks like he's more than 2 months older than Calvin. I think it's because he has so much hair.

Maddy got tired out fast. I guess the play date was just too much excitement. She had to cover her eyes to block out all the fun.

But after her little nap all 3 babies went back to "playing" together.

Despite a brief incident where Calvin pulled Van to the ground by the back of his shirt, they seemed to get along OK. Van took quite an interest in Calvin's ear. Possibly because it sticks out so much...Calvin didn't seem to mind too much...

The three musketeers - probably staring up at all the adults wondering what in the world is going on...

Sunday in NY

One more week and another trip into NY. Another belated Chinese New Year Celebration at Phil's grandmother's apartment. We made our usual stop into Chinatown first to have lunch with Lucia and all the aunts and uncles. First we met up with Lucia at her apartment. Calvin is really starting to like that couch!



"Hey Lucia, what's up?"

For lunch we went to Congee Village. Lots of yummy food as usual.

Calvin was showing off his Dragon Ball Z shirt - go Turtle!

At Phil's grandma's place everyone was going baby crazy. Between Calvin and Phil's cousin's daughter, Eva, there was a lot of "pass the baby" going around. Calvin spent some time with one of Phil's cousins, Ting Lei. He seems to get along with him pretty well.

He also spent some time holding onto Phil's cousin, Amy, in a giant bear hug. What a cuddle monster.

We tried to get the babies to play nice, but I think Eva was upset there was another baby in the house. She kept trying to grab at Calvin.

But Calvin retaliated with some air punches.

Eva seemed pretty comfortable being held by anyone. She was quite the little mobile baby, standing on her own and almost walking on her own.

After we went downstairs and the babies had gotten a little more used to each other we thought they might play nice, but I think Eva was still trying to attack Calvin.

Finally we got the two of them to be civil long enough for a picture. From this picture it's hard to believe Eva is over 2 months older than Calvin and he still looks like he could crush her. That's my chubby baby!

More Chinese New Year Celebrations

The Saturday after Chinese New Year we headed into the city with Calvin to have lunch with Phil's extended family. We headed to the Overseas Taste Maylasian restaurant. I discovered that apparently restaurants in Chinatown will give your baby a red envelope on Chinese New Year.

To say that Calvin was feeling overwhelmed is a bit of an understatement...He was not a happy camper. But the adults still found him amusing, at least Phil's mom and his Aunt Chan seemed to.

Somewhere between chatting and Calvin duty there was food.

After lunch we headed back to Lucia's apartment and stopped to take a picture of a giant snowman left over from the past few snow storms. I think people have been slowly reshaping him into something different each time as the snow keeps melting.

Once we got to Lucia's apartment Calvin was happy as a clam.


Probably from the smell of chocolate...Lucia had bought some cake mix and was making chocolate donuts with her handy donut maker.

Calvin even tried his hand at a little game of angry birds on the iPad.

And then he got some kung fu practice in on Kevin's face, with the assistance of Lucia. I love that everyone is so animated in this picture except for Calvin...


For dinner it was off to Phil's parents' house for another round of traditional Chinese dishes.

Calvin praying to the ancestors.

Chinese New Year's Day - Year of the Rabbit

On Chinese New Year Day I took off from work and spent the day with Calvin. I got him dressed in a red outfit for the new year with a white tiger to say goodbye to the year of the tiger. And I gave him his first red envelopes of the year from me and Phil. He had no idea what they were but he was super happy to get them anyway.



He even tried to take a peek inside...

In the evening Phil and I headed over to my sister's house for dinner . I hadn't seen my neice in so long - she got so big! Well, still not as big as Calvin but big for her ^__^

While dinner was being prepared Calvin spent some time with daddy learning how to use a cell phone. I'm not sure what it is about babies and electronics...must be all of the buttons and flashy screens.


Calvin even got to spend some time hanging out with his cousin, Maddy. I think they were both staring in confusion as my mom was jumping around the room trying to make both of them smile.

When it was time for dinner we had some Chinese food from a restaurant in chinatown. My mom had ordered Peking Duck - greasy as always but oh so yummy.

There was also Chinese broccoli, Abalone, roasted chicken with preserved cabbage, fried squid/scallop, tofu, and baked chile sea bass with minced pork.

The whole family - all the adults at least.

And of course we can't forget dessert. Of course when you ask Phil to buy dessert he's going to buy twice as much as you actually need. We tried some new desserts from Wegman's - a peanut butter chocolate mousse pie and the key lime pie. The peanut butter pie was a little heavy, but the key lime pie was really good.

After dessert the babies got their red envelopes from Grandma.


Maddy needed a little more help taking hers. She didn't really seem interested.

And, even though it's not really tradition, the babies got to exchange red envelopes with each other.

Chinese New Year Eve

Thursday was Chinese New Year (aka Lunar New Year). For Chinese New Year's Eve Phil's mom cooked the traditional New Year's feast to offer to the ancestors. Mushrooms with "hair" (not sure what it really is, but they call it hair...), bean sprouts and chicken, snow peas and shrimp, lotus root, cabbage, vermicelli noodles with shrimp and Chinese vegetables.

Once all the food was prepared I had to help Calvin with the "bai san" part - 3 bows to the ancestors. And with such a big smile!