My sister Yvonne’s family has decided to move to China for at least a year.  The reason they are doing this is because my brother in law Allen enjoys his new job there and both of them wish to give their kids Katie and Kevin a chance to learn the culture first-hand.  The last couple of months have been hectic for them wrapping up their lives in Florida and the moving date has finally arrived today.  Connor and I were able to meet up with them for a brief visit during their layover at San Francisco Airport.  It was good to say goodbye and wish them well, and for Connor to meet his auntie, uncle and cousins too.  Good Luck and Best Wishes to the Liangs!

     We drove down to southern California for a brief visit during Thanksgiving holiday.  This is our first trip with the two boys.  Our biggest concern was the car ride so I sat between them to keep them entertained.  We drove down on Wednesday and returned on Saturday.  The boys were very cooperative and both had their bowel movements right before both trips (I know, too much information).  An hour into the drive down, Logan threw up his breakfast… most likely because we were playing with the doodle pad too long.  After cleaning up, the trip was uneventful except for the normal/horrible LA traffic at the end.  We made it to the grandparents’ house in 7 hours.  Connor’s favorite toy during the trip was a partially filled water bottle.  The return trip was much worse.  There were a lot of cars on the road the entire way, plus we had a long delay at a lunch stop due to the crowds.  The first half of the trip was fine when both boys were sleeping, but for the second half, Connor had lost his patience, he no longer found the water bottle amusing.  At one point, I tried to give him formula in a bottle to avoid a stop, but he did not like the taste of it at all and got even more mad.  I also got very tired entertaining the boys; fortunately, Logan was relatively content watching his videos.  The drive finally ended after 7.5 long hours

     It was great to see and play with grandparents on the first day we arrived.  Logan warmed up to them quite quickly.  We stayed at the grandparents’ house to play on Thanksgiving day and Julie, Andrew and Jake came join us for the holiday.  We had a wonderful dinner together made by Grandma. Thank you Grandma!  The next day, we all went to Julie and Andrew’s house to hang out.  We also got to see Trevor there too.  We went out for dinner afterward and to see Christmas lights too. 

     Both boys enjoyed the love and attention they received.  Connor loved being held by everyone, and Logan had fun playing with the toys that he was given.  Probably because of the many faces Logan had not seen for awhile and his shyness, Logan became quite moody at times while we were there.  He would not play with cooperatively sometimes and he would get mad easily.  However, the boys did well overnight, Connor woke up one more time more than usual the first two nights, but overall he did well sleeping by himself in the spare room.  Logan got to share a bed with us and he was loving it (actually Stuart and I enjoyed cuddling with him too). 

    One thing Logan learned to love during this trip was playing with Grandma’s computer.  He even called the den “Logan’s room”.  He loved to play on the NickJr website.  He learned to point the cursor with the mouse and used his other hand to do the left click.  He especially liked the Kai Lan’s games.  He got quite good with finding the pandas and helping the ants fix the road. 

    Overall it was a great trip.  It was good to see the grandparents, and for Logan to see his cousins and Uncle and Auntie again, and for Connor to meet them for the first time. 

     I took Connor to his doctor for the 4th month visit today.  Connor was in a good mood, calm and smiley, for the most part.  But he got very upset after the doctor put him down on his tummy to see how he did with tummy time.  He is still not a big fan of tummy time.  It took awhile before I could actually calm him down.  Everything checked out well and he is a big baby as we all know.  The doctor said he is not overweight since he is growing proportionately in all aspects; therefore, no need to put him on a diet ". 

Weight = 18lb 12oz (98 percentile up from 92% two months ago)

Height = 27” (98 percentile up from 93%)

Head circumference = 17.25” (89 percentile up from 65%)

     Connor is much larger and a bit taller than Logan was at this age, and his head is catching up to Logan’s big head too (Logan’s stats = 16lb 2oz, 26.5”, 17.5”).

     After the appointment, we proceeded to get his vaccinations.  Connor was already mad when receiving the oral vaccine, and of course, got even more mad after the three injections.  But for the remainder of the day, Connor was good as usual; he was even quite social while I was having lunch with my coworkers.

It was a rainy day, so we stayed in this afternoon.  Stuart decided that it would be fun to play Wii with Logan again.  This was probably the 4th or 5th time Logan played Wii, and he has been loving it.  There are only a couple of games that Logan can manage to control the Wii stick and play on his own.  He loves the battling one, and he tried the running game today for the first time.  What we were surprised was how fast he picked up things; he was able to move the joystick to aim at the right spot and hit “OK” to start the game on his own today.  He seemed to have good reflexes and could even hit “OK” faster than Stuart did sometimes.  Here are a few clips of his fun today.

Logan had his second visit to the dentist today.  Unlike his first visit six months ago, this time Logan received full service.  It started by taking x-rays of his teeth, then cleaning by the hygienist.  Logan was quite cooperative and even willing to sit on the dental chair by himself as long as I held his hand; the TV in the ceiling definitely helped.  Although he managed to tolerate his first experience of teeth cleaning, he was most reluctant to open his mouth wide for the back teeth cleaning.  The hygienist and I had to do lots of convincing and he mostly complied.  His teeth looked fine, no cavities.  We just have to do a better job brushing his front two teeth and start flossing as well.  We can also switch to toothpaste with fluoride.  The main thing we learned today was that it is time to take away his pacifiers which Logan uses during sleep.  They may be causing a small gap between his top and bottom teeth, but should quickly revert to normal when he stops using them.  We will probably start the weaning over a weekend soon when we shake off this round of family colds.

Logan always loves his trains.  His routine at home is playing with the trains after dinner every evening.  He is now quite good at putting the tracks together, and he is very patient and gentle running the trains on the tracks.  He also will take a train or two with him every morning for the car ride to school.  Now with this new classroom, he gets to play with a train set during the day too.  Every morning when Stuart drops him off at school, Logan most likely will ask the teacher to let him play with the trains before he will decide its ok to let Daddy go.  We are just surprised that he is not tired of them by now.  Tonight while eating his dinner, Logan suddenly pointed his finger to his head and said “Thinking”.  So I asked him what he was thinking about, and he said “My Trains”.