Picture perfect day

It's the time for cherry season this year. We went to the cherry orchard early in the morning picking the fruits of our labor. It didn't start out to be a picture perfect day for outings at all. It's gloomy and drizzling, a.k.a, a perfect day to sleep in. However, the sun started to break through when we reached the orchard. It feels like an early spring day with a cool breeze.

Elle was not in such a good mood this morning. She's crying out loud for a good 15 minutes on the way before we figured out giving her the cell phone shut her mouth up! She clung on us like a koala bear most of the time during the cherry picking. She picked a few on her own and then didn't want to do anything with cherries anymore. The cherries were not as big and sweet as last year, but we still packed a 5-pounds box of cherries home.




After cherry picking, we headed to a nearby park, Hagar Park, picnicking and beaching. Despite the nasty portable toilet, it's a little gem with beach access to the beautiful Lake Michigan. After stuffing our stomach with a delicious spread of food, we walked down to the beach soaking up its beauty. The moment I stepped foot on the beach, the soft warm sand tickling all ten toes. I still remember our many beach trips years back, the sand was so unbearable hot that we were literally tip-toeing across the burning beach. The water temperature is pleasant, not too cold at all, despite the spring-like cool breeze blowing along the beach. We chased after the tidal waves, Oh man! they're coming strong and furious. There're times that the tide hit right on Elle's face that she's choked with water. We had to bring Elle back to the shores basking in the sunshine to chase off the chill from the breeze several times.

The warmth of the sun, the clear blue sky, the baby soft sand, and the vast blue expanse of Lake Michigan, I'm in love. I daydream everyday is a perfect beach day.

Taking off

This is Elle walks like an airplane taking off. I'm so thrilled that I finally captured a clear picture of this hilarious way of walking. Another funny one is her walking with both hands swaying front and back. It reminds me the folks back at hometown having a morning walk along the hill as they always sway their hands from side-to-side back-to-front.

There's still a lot of stumbling and falling here and there when she gets real excited. We wonder why babies want to be carried when they can walk. Elle does that quite often too. She'd chase after us, cling to our legs and ask to be held. Gosh!

Fish Fish

See the way she lifts her leg under the faucet splashing the water! I have no idea where she picks this up from.

She adores the blue shark wind-up water toy her dada bought her. The flapping tail propels it through the water like a real fish swimming. Today just before bath time, I said to her: "Bring fish fish to bath bath". She turned around and walked away to the living room. To my surprise, she came back with the blue shark toy in her hand and gave it to me. She seems to understand way much than I expect.

Wild Raspberries in the woods

When I pulled in to the driveway in front of our apt, I saw a man picking something from the bushes. My curiousity was peaked. The man left after I had the car parked. So, I told Elle that let's walk over to the woods to check out what the man found. Wow! There're red dots all over the bushes. It's raspberry! Elle was as excited as I'm. I caught surprised by the raspberry prickly thorns. Well, I have never picked raspberry in my lifetime until now.

It's fun to watch Elle enjoying being outside so much. She's so busy walking around, picking flowers and branches.

Balcony

We finally dug out the folding chair and put it on the balcony to laze under the sun. The last time we used it was on a beach trip 2 years ago. Elle had her milk outside on the balcony in the morning and soaked up the sunshine in the evening.

Elle's getting more and more apprehend of the things we speak. When we say "bear bear", she'll go and find her bear to get it to us. When we say "roar", she'll go look for her lion push toy. When we say "give", she'll hand over the thing she's holding. She loves to sit on our stomach and rocks like a horse. It's funny that after a while, she'll turn her back to us and then sit her butt right on our face! She thinks it's fun and giggles whenever mama bites her butt.

Reading paper with dada

June Hail

There's a span of very unusual weather patterns in Kalamazoo this year. This morning we had a glorious sunny day. Past noon, the sky became gloomy. A howling gale the next, and pellet-sized hail and rains started pouring from the sky. Some erratic weather we have!


The sun broke through in the evening and we had some fun tapping Elle walking in the park.

Summer bounty

The farmer market blasts off with blooming flowers, herbs and bounty of summer fruits as the summer season kicks in. It's not only a lovely eye candy, the smell of berries, greens and flowers is just heavenly. We kept going back to the berries stand looking for the sweet girl who handled out a tray of berries sample so that we could pop a few berries into our mouths. We gals had a blast.

Elle snacks on blueberries and raspberries bought from the market all day long. Even me get hook up with blueberries too. We're looking forward to the blueberry u-pick season this year.

Stairs

Just when Elle's back on the mend from the miserable teething, she wants and insists to walk up and down the stairs. She would struggle out of my arms and get down on her feet when she sees flights of stairs. She only allows me to hold one of her hand to guide her walking up the stair. Once she reaches the top, she will turn her back and ready to head downwards. Whenever I scoop her up to stop her from walking down the stair, she's howling like a tiger and wiggling like a snake in my arms, cueing me "Let me down! Let me down! Don't stop me!".

Hooray! Her appetite is back. She had a bowl of porridge, a cup of jello, and some watermelon before we headed to the park feeding ducks. Half an hour later, she started nibbling on the bread we gave to the ducks! We missed her little rounded belly so badly for the past couple of days!

Teething

We have been living in teething and its related side-effects nightmares for the past few days. Elle is cranky and weepy, refuse to eat and drink. Her body is losing lots of fluids that she looks like she has lost a few pounds. Since she rejects milk and water all together, she has been fed on ice cubes and watermelon just to keep her well-hydrated. Every feed is a battle.

We see another upper tooth breaks out today. Hopefully things will get better from now on.

To dada

Thank you for being the dad you are to our lil' bug. You clip her nails and then file them gently. You wrap her around your arms watching cartoon network together. You spin and horse her around. No matter how mad she makes you, you are a pat of butter in a hot frying pan when she leans against your legs holding out her arms for a hug.

Happy father day!

Splash

Dress up Elle pretty in her pink dress along with her toy watering can, off we went to the park soaking up the gorgeous sunshine.

She stood on the bench watching enviously the kids playing water in the pond. So, we just ended up getting soaked in the pond splashing the water. She filled her toy watering can with water and then let the water dripping out of the can. At one time, the watering can got loose from her hand and floated away, poor mama waddled in the pond trying to rescue the watering can while she was giggling behind. From then on, she just kept letting go the watering can to float away and then burst into a hearty laughter as if that's the funniest thing in this world. I watched her doing it over and over again, savored this joyful moment, trying to commit her angelic sound of laughters, her smiles and silliness, into memory.

At time she discovered the stones lying underneath the water and started putting them into her mouth, mama scooped her out of the water. Mama undressed her and threw away the soaked diaper. Getting her change into a new diaper and nothing else, we strolled along the shady tree-lined pathway and went home treated with another piece of berry tart.

Trying

...to climb out of the crib.

Berrieslicious

Elle is happy as a clam, savoring the berries tart made with the fresh strawberries we picked on the weekend.

Quack! Quack!

In the evening, we brought along some bread to feed the ducks in the park. We gave Elle a little piece of bread to feed the duck. Guess what happened? It's drop dead hilarious to see her putting the bread into her mouth and eating it instead. Our first reaction was shouting out: "No! Noo! Noooo! It's for the ducks!!!".

While we kept showing her how to throw the food to the duck crowds, she kept shoving them into her mouth when we handed over the bread to her. Silly baby looked totally enjoy eating the bread and seeing the ducks being fed at the same time. We rubbed her rounded belly teasing her eating all the food for the ducks.

Eventually she grasped the concept of she was supposed to throw the bread to the ducks. But she was such a lousy thrower. The bread always dropped a few inches in front of her, barely near to the water. It's getting better when we fed the ducks on the bridge. Elle needs to work on her throwing arms!

Too good to be true

I had a little conversation with the staffs when I picked up Elle at daycare this evening. They raved about Elle is such a good baby, a good eater, and an active player. No cry nor whine. At times when they're too busy with other babies, she has no problem playing and exploring by herself and sometimes she even chips in to help rocking other babies for them.

My response was like "Are you sure you're talking my baby Elle?". The baby I know is loud and naughty. She cries, whines and throws tantrum a lot. We're getting a lot of feeding frustrations at home lately. She fusses and plays with the food making a mess everywhere. Rub her eyes, hair and cover up her face with both hands whenever the spoon heads towards her mouth. Probably because of her two upper teeth are breaking through and the holy moly hot weather.

The only thing I can't agree more is she has tons of energy playing. She can play till she drops.

Pardon my manner

Strawberry U-pick

T'is the season for strawberries, the blistering sun and its hot, humid breath. It already hit 85F degree by the time we arrived at the strawberry farm in the morning. Despite the grueling weather, these lovely strawberries were so yummy that the juice burst out in every bite as we popped these babies into our mouth. In just a few second, Elle splattered the vibrant red juice all over her face, shirt, skort and hat, on her dada's white shirt and mama's hair.

Baby Alesha was coming along too. A year ago, Elle was in the car seat baby Alesha was sleeping in when we were picking the strawberries with her grandparents in this farm. She was so tiny then and now she's toddling in the strawberry field.

Another storm came in in the afternoon. We have been having some dreadful hot weather, t-storm with hail and 70 mph gusts of wind for the past few days. The rains do not carry away the heat at all. The sweats literally oozing out of the pores every few seconds. Elle's hair drenched in sweat after the nap. She takes at least two baths a day now.

13 months old

Dear Elle,

Mama and dada begins to see a toddler in you. We're watching you growing up in front of us everyday and yet we were totally in shock on the day we realized that you're going to leave behind your babyhood anytime soon. Crawling days were behind you. You waddle around the house like an energizer bunny. Your baby fats around the arms, belly and legs jiggling like Jell-O, yummylicious and yet an eye candy. Mama can just eat you up.

You pick up a few new words lately. "Owl" and "Wow! Wow!" like a puppy sounds. Mama almost knocked the head against the wall when you blurted out "Wow Wow" to the duck. To you, "Wow Wow" means almost everything, not just a puppy. Mama understands now.

Happy sweet 13 months old, smoochie! You're always our baby even when you are fifty or a hundred years old.

Love,
Mama

Reading

Elle had a very short attention span whenever I was reading a book to her. She would rather explore the book by biting its edges, flipping and banging it. That made mama pretty fed up and gave up the reading part for quite a while.

It has been a dramatic change since we borrowed some books from the library last weekend. She's totally hooked! She would bring the books to me initiatively and want me to read to her over and over again. The sweetest of it is the part of her climbing up and sitting in my lap when the storytelling time begins. She blows me away when she starts giving kisses to the characters on the books. She would always give a muak to the baby snuggled between mama and dada on the last page of "Sam loves kisses" book and to the fish and duck in "Bear in shapes" book. She just melts me from the inside out.

Guess what's the first thing she did when she woke up this morning? Oh yeah, reading books!

Pool fun

Elle was having a ball at the pool. After warming up on the side on the pool for a while, she's all ready to get into the cold water. She was giggling as mama was pushing her around the pool. Gosh! This baby even thought pool water was yummy. After swimming, she was treated with a bbq feast. Oh! She loves satay!

Pool and BBQ. It sure feels like summertime now.

Sunday

Elle had the greatest sugar rush ever after savoring this delicious strawberry shortcake sundae. After the dessert, we took a walk in the parking lot watching people swinging their bats inside the batting cages at the Putt Putt fun store next door. Elle walked like an energizer bunny in circle as we're each holding one of her hands. She almost tangled us up by twisting our arms. It's a surprise to find a lovely gem of purple wildflowers just behind the parking lot.

As the sugar spike kicked in like a vengeance, she's acting up crazy flailing her arms, throwing punches in the air, kicking legs and screaming like a drunken sailor. It took at least half an hour for her to finally crash down and fall into sleep. We enjoyed a peaceful moment reading some magazines and having a cup of Joe at B&N while she's asleep in the stroller. Heavenly.