Happy Birthday Hannah!

Hannah you're 2 years old today!!! sometime in the afternoon officially... Happy 2 years to you! We LOOOOVe you! You've grown so much!




Daddy took these pics last night at dinner. Drinking a berry & tofu smoothie. She loves them. YUM!

A morning in the life of Hannah without mommy...

Since becoming hormonal, nauseous, and varying degrees of tired to exhausted...Hannah has had the chance to spend many "unsupervised mornings" on her own in the past month while mommy is "passed out" in one way or another somewhere...(either napping, still sleeping, zoned out, nauseous, etc.)

This morning was another one. They've varied from her watching DVDs of various Baby Einstein or Elmo or Disney (namely Nemo), or her being taken care of by daddy before he goes to work, or her crawling all over me and suckling on me until I hurt, or her diligently trying to drag me out of bed to ask for this or that or mornings like this morning...where something "interesting" happens (aka Hannah gets into something or wreaks havoc on something).

After a crazy night of Hannah waking up and getting up 3 times screaming and crying through the night and then also waking up early (she had a early bedtime from not napping the day before)...and daddy putting her back into bed (instead of sleeping through the night and having an early morning or even sleeping in)...
she finally woke up and wouldn't go back down, and dragged mommy out of bed for her morning soymilk and breakfast (which she insisted on nilla wafers - which I didn't fight - instead of the usual oatmeal with raisins or oat cereal).

I left her in the kitchen to eat, and lay back down in bed. Sometimes she'll come with me to the room, and drink her soy there or flit back and forth, but always jabbering or singing. I dozed off a bit, but then woke up to the disturbing lack of noise from Hannah. I called her name and asked "What are you doing?" no answer, silence. Usually she replys with a noun on the subject of what she's doing and then responds with her own question, "Mommy, doing?" to ask me what I'm doing.

Due to the lack of reply, I was immediately brought to alertness, and got up to see where she was. I looked into the kitchen, the pantry door was open, and the light was on. As I approached, I could see she had pushed the stepstool into the pantry (as she's discovered this past month). As I approached I saw an Andes mint chips bag, and as I got closer I saw that there were Hershey's kisses wrappers all strewn about in a pile on the stool. There were a few unwrapped kisses all lined up on the stool and some in her hand. There were some chocolate smears on her face and a huge smile. Once she saw me, she quickly stuffed the chocolate in her hands into her mouth, and also very very quickly grabbed the remaining kisses on the stool and stuffed those into her mouth. All I was doing was repeating "oh no Hannah, oh no."

She had found a chocolate stash.

I picked up the Andes Mint bag to check that it was intact, a sigh of relief escaping when I saw it was still sealed. I looked around to see where the other chocolate was, and it was in larger bag with other unopened bags of chocolate chips, baking goods, and an opened bag of Hershey kisses.


Daddy had rearranged the pantry.

Whereas the chocolate and baking goods used to be high up on a shelf and behind some items where Hannah could never reach nor see, they were now clearly accessible to her. She had taken advantage of unsupervised "mommy is passed out" time and found the chocolate and had happily gobbled down who knows how much sugar!

I asked her to pick up all of the Hershey's kisses foil wrappings and throw them away. She happily obliged. I removed the chocolate bag and moved it up high. I removed the step stool from the pantry, sighed, and closed the pantry door.

I called Hannah's daddy to vent my frustrations and inform him of the bad choice of bad relocation, and he laughed and laughed as I told him the story.
The 1st thing he asked was, "Did you take a picture?"
"No." I replied. "I cleaned it all up already. (sigh) I didn't think to take a picture."

Hannah was happy and wired for quite some time. Mind you, this was not Hannah's first encounter with chocolate. That would have been sometime last year a little bit after her 1st birthday. We had been ever so vigilant at keeping her away from sugar and candy...

So...flashback to April of 2008. I was at Hancock Fabric's with a friend to buy curtain material for our new house. I was getting the fabric cut when I noticed that Hannah was nowhere nearby. Hannah had run off. When I found her, she was at the front of the store by the cash registers happily helping herself to Lindt truffles from the candy displays. There were half eaten truffles strewn on the ground, truffles in her hands, in her mouth. She'd chewed through the wrappers and smooshed the chocolate. I was completely aghast! Our friend had a camera on her and took a photo afterwards for us. The ladies at Hancock's were nice enough to clean up the mess and not charge us for all of the chocolates that Hannah had mauled.

I don't know if you can see from this photo, but she has chocolate smears on her face, and you can see some of the truffles strewn about in the bottom corner of the photo.


photo from Spring 2008 when Hannah was just one yr old.

So you think I'd end the post here...seems like a good place... but last thing to add.

We were at the local "Sunharvest Market" in CC this afternoon with another friend (the only organic place for miles around). Hannah had been pretty good sitting, but then she wanted out. We were in the produce section. As I was looking at produce, I noticed Hannah not next to me. I turned around, and a worker from the store was staring at me. I then noticed Hannah next to the blueberry display and little dots all over the floor. In her efforts to help herself to some berries, she'd spilled half a container all over the floor. I was again aghast and rushed over to her. I picked her up and said, "no no," and started to pick up the mess. Another worker helped and the one who was initially staring was just laughing. Hannah kept on repeating "Ah-ma, Ah-ma" and I then realized she thought that one of the workers (the staring and laughing one) looked like or reminded her of my mom (b/c she was Asian-ish, petite, had darker skin, and a short haircut).

Okay finally...the end of the post. I could post about more Hannah "wreaking havoc" stories from this past month...but I'm tired. and can't remember them all.

Continuing Cuteness

All afternoon Hannah refused to go to the potty. She has also developed a bad habit of almost going to the bathroom before going peepee. Combine that with the discomfort of wearing a diaper and you get what happened today. I was sitting at the computer in the office when I heard those bare little feet run across the tiled floor in a hurried scamper; I looked up just in time to see that our dear daughter was holding a single square of toilet paper (very conservative) and running very intently toward the living room; I followed her to her destination where she stood over a little wet mess of peepee quickly dissolving the single square of toilet paper and soaking into the carpet. I just smiled and started to clean up, annoyed at the mess, but internally laughing to myself as I noticed the diaper she had been wearing was removed and wadded on the floor, most of the contents of the diaper bag strewn about, and a fresh diaper in Hannah's hands. She is so interesting, and so cute!

New Ticker...

Yesterday I heard the heartbeat for the 1st time! So exciting!!! Yes I'm growing a "parasite" again (that name is with lots of love).

so this is the reason I've been so sick, tired, not on the computer at all. Lowered immunity, nasty flu, bronchitis complications...nausea...lots of it...thankfully not too much vomiting this time around. I'm thankful for meds.

But it is definitely bringing back all sorts of memories of when I was 1st pregnant with Hannah. So much better that I'm not on the East Coast with all sorts of funny smells from the city.

1st time around with Hannah was miserable. The nausea. The vomiting in layers...yes...in layers... contrary to popular textbooks...your stomach does not churn all of your ingested stuff into chyme all at once...at least not when pregnant. mine would come back up in the reverse order of what went in. consistently every day for months.

We were in living New Jersey without central air and I was commuting to Manhattan via bus & public transportation. Oh the smells, the temperature changes... eventually I just couldn't do it anymore...and I was so tired.

Hannah's been really good for me. Thank goodness for that! I'm so grateful for that! She's happy if I sit her down with goldfish crackers or cereal or apples/fruit or dried fruit. Her sippy of soymilk or juice. Either Baby Einstein or Elmo in the DVD machine. She's good...and I can rest/nap.

I can also rest in her room and she can occupy herself for hours. She'll play with puzzles. She plays with her toys. she climbs in and out of bed. we'll sing songs. She sings to herself. She sings along with her toys, her electronic piano. She doesn't get into too much trouble. Now if I'm asleep in my room...and she has free reign of the house, my bathroom, then she gets into all sorts of stuff.

So...her breastfeeding ticker will still be up...b/c she refuses to give it up. Not a necessity...just a comfort for her. She doesn't really need it, but wants it when tired. And I'm too tired to fight her.

As for potty training...she's good at telling us when she's pooped. She'll sometimes tell us as she's starting to so we can put her on the toilet. We're trying to get her to tell us BEFORE she goes in the diaper. Sometimes she'll head towards the bathroom and put her seat on the toilet. Now if she would only do that with pees. We have to be vigilant about taking her to pee (or reminding her to go on the potty), but I'm not as vigilant as daddy.

Bad blogger....

I've been sooo very bad at keeping up on the blog these past 2 months!!! Life got busy with the holidays, travelling, and work...and now it's 2009! So here's my 1st official post of 2009!

Hannah's grown so much. She talks all the time! The past couple of weeks, I've stuck her in front of either a Baby Einstein DVD or an Elmo DVD to keep her occupied. From her throwing up, then daddy throwing up & getting the flu, to me throwing up & being sick with the flu, to complications with bronchitis...and this stuff that just won't go away in my lungs... I've been sick the longest. Hannah got over her stuff quickly. She didn't really have a fever. Though she has some congestion that's lasted...runny nose...but not cloudy - clear, so it could be allergies. Daddy got over his stuff in about 5 days.

I've been so tired, and sleeping...and resting... She's been so good though. She keeps herself occupied with her toys, if I'm resting in her room...and she'll play.

We've tried to wean her....she's down to wanting it only once in a while when she gets tired, wants to nap, and I'm laying down. Hopefully we can wean her before she's 2...which is next month! Wow...time passes fast!

Today Hannah came with me to the doctor's. She was really good with Vicki who came along to help. Each time I'd come out to the waiting room in-between, she was doing something else. She took off her socks and shoes and was playing peek-a-boo under the chairs. Another time she distributed magazines to all the people in the waiting room that didn't have magazines. She also just sat happily in the chairs flipping through magazines.

She's always singing. Either ABC's, counting, Old Mac Donald, Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday, Elmo's World or any other song that's she's heard before. She'll sometimes make up her own songs too. Funny girl. And she adds words of her own to existing songs... Like "La la la la, La la la la, Elmo's bib" (b/c she has an Elmo bib).

As for me, I've decided I need to consolidate blogs or I won't be able to keep up with them...and I'm hoping to do that for 2009. Consolidate my blogging down to one personal blog - so hopefully I'll blog more often than not...hopefully a few times a week! And I want to focus more on being a mommy & documenting my family's life...and not so much time on other people's photos and lives...

I need to go to bed. I've been falling asleep before 9pm the past few days...and now I'm up "late"...

Cutie Hannah

Hannah was helping daddy cook one morning, while waiting for the cooking food, Hannah decided to stick her hand into the raisin box and get a few raisins. "Okay," I thought, "I will give you a bowl of raisins." So I promptly got out a bowl and put some raisins in it. "No, no, no, no, no" began Hannah. And putting the bowl behind another box on the counter, she said, "Bye, bye." and waved goodbye to the bowl.

Late Nights

Hannah is our first child. DW and I have not been subjected to the utter exhaustion that comes with years of sleep deprivation. I can remember some of what happens at night.
Hannah is like most children I suppose, she has so much fun with mommy and daddy that is just too exciting to go to sleep at night. At any moment during the night that she finds herself alone, she must seek out and find mommy and sometimes daddy. As parents, we construct obstacle courses to keep our children where we want them. We say we want to keep them safe or to keep them from getting into something that may hurt them, but what we really want is some time to regain our sanity. Our children love us so much that they don't understand why we would EVER want to be away from them, so they traverse every obstacle ever at their own peril to be with us, lovable, no?
Not too long ago, Hannah was sick and she stopped sleeping through the night and mommy would visit her with comfort. Since then, Hannah has not wanted to sleep in her own bed. And she has seen fit to conquer everything we throw at her to keep her in her bed. First, she learned to crawl over the wall of her bed and lower herself down to the ground (excellent muscle strength and control.) Next it was the door, no problem here, she can easily reach up and turn the knob. So we added a baby gate, "Ha," says Hannah, "I can crawl over that with more ease than my bed." So we turned the baby gate around and raised it off the floor. If you think that will stop a child, you are mistaken, she pushed it over. Next in total darkness, came the pit of alligators and the maze that is the distance between our room and hers. Another baby gate pulled, not pushed down, a simple door and the climb onto our bed and she was home free. Another night of sleep lost...
We got a baby gate that we could cinch to the wall. Now this was truly an impossible task. Like usual, she climbed her bed wall, opened the door and found an impenetrable path. So she began calling for us, and using every vocabulary word she could think of. At first it started with "Mommy!" "Daddy!" "Baby!" Then she became more sophisticated expressing things couldn't do from her room, "pooh pooh" "peepee" "take bath" "wash hands" "juice" Thinking her friends might help her, she called for "Stanley" "Addy" "Ella" She then reverted to tugging at our heartstrings "love you" "hold me" It was more than a parent can bear as I stood outside her door hoping she would fall back asleep. Every time she would get up, I would take her and put her back in bed. Thus I stood outside her door waiting for her to get up and come to the door. This technique took probably 30 minutes the first night we tried it, 10 minutes the second night and maybe five minutes the third night before she would fall gently back to sleep. This worked until we threw our world in tail spin by going on vacation...We'll start again when we are home, but for now, Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh...look another post! Halloween Hannah!

Hannah is so interactive and talkative and sing-ative... lol - if that's a word!
Today she's been opening doors around the house. I didn't know she could! She's been reaching for the knobs for awhile...and today she can open and close the doors. Our little smarty pants.

So life is still very busy. Hannah finally got her 18-month check up last week! Her head circumference is in the 75th percentile...while her length and weight are around 50%. She's our petite cutie.

C&Scame over last Monday on Columbus day and we had some fun dressing up the babies in Halloween costumes & taking photos!

Hannah refused to wear her duck costume (which is too big anyways b/c we got it last year at the after-H sale). S on the other hand, happily wore the dog costume that his grandma sent him.



Then Hannah came along...


and had to wear the dog costume...


AND she wanted her nose painted too...



Then she was very very content to just sit there on the chair...




Then I asked her to do the dog sign...


Back to the stare...where she looks like a sad little puppy.


Here S put on Hannah's duck costume and they happily wore the other's costume.





check out these pudgy cheeks!

the tail was just tooo cute!


So I don't know what we're REALLY going to dress Hannah up as for Halloween...
we'll just have to see...


Mommy has had a lot going on. With each passing weekend in the month of October, her stress levels decrease a bit. 2 weekends ago, she finally finished processing the beach wedding AND her symphony audition was over with - a HUGE amount of stress-relief. So now it's one more wedding (almost done), an engagement session, and a family session to finish processing. The verdict is still out on if mommy's going to do more weddings - they're fun and stressful at the same time. She loves taking photos, but hates post-processing.

This past weekend, mommy gave a talk in Stake Conference, topic: temples...and so now that pressure is off. It actually went rather well and she was glad to have the opportunity. Another bit of stress gone.

Also after this weekend (from emails), there were a few cancellations of scheduled things on her calendar for the rest of the weeks of Oct...so yay...a few less items to deal with.

Today mommy has rehearsals for the Brahms Requiem, performance tomorrow night with the Corpus Christi Chorale. Later this week, she's going to San Antonio to help out at Deseret Book's Time Out for Women and Time Out Life Seminar. She totally needs it! Mommy Needs a TIME OUT for her! Take a step back and take life all in.

She wants to just enjoy Hannah, enjoy her life, and not be stressed due to spreading herself thin.

She likes taking photos...so here's some more...all un-post-processed. just straight out of camera... taken on October 8th - the day before she was 20-months-old.!! (I was busy and didn't get around to taking photos on the actual 20th-month-day).




Caught in the act... Hannah likes to get into mommy's stuff...




Hanging out with her hippo.


The same morning...she wanted to change clothes...she likes choosing her own clothes and changing clothes now. She is a little princess...

And she always likes to lay on the backdrops in the studio


Another one of her favorite things to do now...is hide behind curtains.


her little hands & toes...


This weekend A-Yi Cristy started staying with us b/c they had scheduling issues with her house that she was living at for her rotations here. Hannah loves auntie Cristy... we have lots of photos from this weekend with Aunt Cristy...but for another post. Saturday was a bday party amongst a ton of other things...
and Sunday after Stake Conference, we went to Cole Park and played on the playground. lots of fun!

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I returned from the Brahms rehearsal...and I feel great! I'm happy, not stressed. I love Brahms. The rehearsal went well...the chorale sounds beautiful. I love playing pieces like this.

Happy 20-months!

yay Hannah!

...i didn't post...but happy 20-months Hannah!

She loves playing with her keys & plastic spoons.


these were taken on the 9th of October 2008

Another moment from the life of Hannah...

I wanted to try to post more regularly...yay...so here goes...

Today Hannah got a pair of shoes today...from a neighbor whose child is 3 months YOUNGER than Hannah, but her feet are one size larger... :) She had shoes that we bought her, but somehow we lost one of the pair...must be lost with my keys also... we basically couldn't find either after our Houston trip awhile back.

She's not napping well...

She loves singing & she hums... attempts to sing ABC and says 123, and repeats other songs & tunes that she hears. Does all the signs for "Popcorn Popping" and "head shoulders knees & toes"

She says lots of words/phrases:
"shoe" (one of her favorite words)

"animal" is "an-ml" (sorta sounds like el-mo)
"hippo"
"bug"
"doggie"
"mao" for cat (chinese for cat)
"moo" for cow
"wu gui" for turtle (chinese for turtle)
and some more animals...which i cannot remember... one of her favorite books right now is this animal book full of cute drawings of animals

of course she says "book" a lot

body parts include:
"elbow" is "el-pol" (sounds like elbow and apple)
"ankle"
"knee"
"nose"
"eyes"

"thank you" = "day dew" or something to that extent
"please" = "pease = "peas" = "pee" (these all sound really similar)

"on"
"off"
"box"

people include: daddy, mommy, a-ma, a-yi, and her friends' names (stanley, anya, addy, ella)

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and of course here are some photos.

The story behind these is that we were trying to get photos of daddy. But Hannah insisted on lining up and being right beside daddy doing what he was doing. over and over. it was quite funny. she'd just stand there and not budge, next to him. they'd look at each other...then she'd move...and end up right next to him again.





these are not the same photo...it's what she was doing...and i wasn't using continuous shutter either. these are of her over a period of a few minutes just standing there next to daddy. we finally got some without her...but then she was back again.

...and Yes, that is a toilet paper roll holder from the bathroom...she likes to take things apart.

and here's a shot of daddy when he was staring at our backyard... (we have a really sad looking back yard - in a nutshell)...so he's probably contemplating, should we...? or not? (spend more money on it...or fill in the blank of whatever he's really thinking)?