She’s settled in at her preschool now and seems to really like it. Above is a picture they sent us during “soccer week” – we’re pretty impressed with her form on that kick. We’re less impressed with her swimming skills, or lack thereof. She seems to like going to swim class, playing with the water toys and singing the songs, but only if she can cling desperately to me the whole time and not do any of the actual swimming-related things in the water. The second we try to get her to do kicks, floats or anything, she starts pulling at my hair, swimsuit, ear, or whatever she can grab, and wraps her legs around me and chokes me with her arms.

She talks sometimes about her friends at school, especially a little boy named Willem. She used to give him hugs and kisses until she caught on to Dave’s nervous reaction to those stories. Apparently, he mentioned to her that she might want to be more selective about who she gives kisses to. When I asked her how her day was yesterday she said “it was good, I played with Willem, but I didn’t give him any hugs or kisses because daddy said not to.” Hmmmm.

Dave has earned the coveted status of Maddy’s “best friend,” which she tells him frequently. When I asked what that makes me, she matter-of-factly said “you’re Meagan” in a “why-would-you-ask-such-a-ridiculous-question” sort of way. But she still gives me lots of affection anyway. Whenever I go into my home office to work, she gives me hugs and blows me kisses and says “Have fun working, mommy! Be good! I love you! I’ll be out here! Don’t worry!” She loves to mimic me saying goodbye or putting her to bed – to me or to her dolls or to Hayden.

She’s also testing us a LOT. She has many very whiny moments, especially during dinner-time when I’m exhausted from a long day of work and have very little patience. I’m trying the “1-2-3 Magic” technique to get this behavior in check, but the whole “don’t over-explain things to your kids” part is totally against my nature. She’s still not so interested in moving back to the big girl bed, so her crib is getting lots of use. The good news is that she’s a pro on the potty now, finally for ALL the kinds of potty needs

She also discovered how to fight back when Maddy is being pushy – Maddy now has a lovely bruise on her calf in the shape of Hayden’s 4 little, yet sharp, teeth. However, the sisters still love each other. Just check out this great dance video as evidence:

In addition to all this, we had my brother Gavin and my sister Lorna’s family over for the 4th of July, which was a blast. Dave cracked open our new grill, and the kids got a kick (much to my chagrin) from the firecrackers and sparklers he let them play with on our deck (which is made of wood, btw). The best part was that Lorna and crew stayed overnight and us grownups actually got to hang out and enjoy adult conversation over some games of cards after all the kids went to bed.

Then on Tuesday, we Phamsters had a mini-celebration in honor of Hayden’s actual birthday. Dave picked up some yummy cupcakes on his way home from work, and we gave Hayden her birthday gift – a fun toddler band set with cute “instruments” for her and Maddy to play. The best was the look on Maddy’s face when we decided to use a leftover sparkler since we didn’t have any candles for Hayden to blow out.

On Saturday, we had a fun family party in the park near our house with my Portland siblings and their families, my grandparents, and my aunt Sydney and her family. The kids had a blast on the playground, learning tennis from Dave, and blowing bubbles. Then we went back to our house for cake and ice cream. Here’s a slideshow of all Hayden’s bday festivities:

And today, we took Hayden for her 1-year check-up, where the doctor told us she has reached the frightening distinction of being in the 1st percentile for weight for her age. I’m trying not to let that stress me out. She weights 16 lbs 9 oz, is 28.5 inches tall (28th %), and her head is 43.5 cm around (10th %).

Now it’s off to Sunnyvale for me for a couple days…

I’ve had a busy fun year and I’m so excited to celebrate my first birthday today. Thanks to all of you for being part of my life.

Now enjoy just a few (okay, more than a few) photos and videos that capture the highlights and milestones of my first year:

Love,
Hayden

P.S. Mom will post stats and stuff next week after my doctor’s appointment.

On Monday morning, after daddy left for his first day at work, mommy drove me to this other school (definitely not the one across the street). I was pretty excited, especially when I got there and saw ALL THE TOYS! But then all these other kids started showing up wanting to share the toys with me. And then mom started talking about leaving. Hmmmm, I was not happy about that.

But, I was brave and decided not to worry about it and just focus on taking in all the interesting stuff going on around me. When mom left I whimpered a little, but held it together. However, when she came and picked me up after lunch, she asked if I had fun and I said “yes” and then she asked if I wanted to go back the next day and I was honest with her: “no.” I told her that I didn’t like it there because it was yucky and there were too many people (that’s me in the middle of all those yuckies below – even though I seem happy, don’t be fooled). However, I did tell her that Tennis – yes tennis, just like daddy! – was my favorite part of the day.

She still made me go back anyway! I know dad understands how germ infested those places are, but mom didn’t seem to care. I cried and cried when she left, but eventually recovered when the face painting started and managed to survive the day because I had an awesome butterfly painted on my face. Despite the cool songs I learned (”Do your ears hang low?” and “Where is thumper?”), I still told mom that I wasn’t interested in going back.

On Thursday, we went back AGAIN and I was okay at first, but then when mom tried to leave I yelled out “I don’t like these people!” and she STILL made me stay. Geez, doesn’t anyone listen to me anymore? I’m actually glad I stayed though, because we got to go outside and play in the water, and when my nanny Angie picked me up after lunch I told her that I wanted to go back again.

I’m still not really sure how I feel about all the other kids in my class (mostly boys), but at least next week is Basketball week – yay!

Oh, and I had SO MUCH fun at my new Kindergym class yesterday, and next week swim classes start, too. I have such a busy life.

- Maddy

We’ve been super-lucky to get lots of quality time with him, especially during the past 9 month while he’s been working at home. He says he’s starting a new job and will have to work in an “office” starting tomorrow, but I’m still trying to convince him to just work in our home office with mommy cause we’ll miss him lots.

Even though our daddy can be kind of strict and OCD-ish sometimes, we still worship him and love to play or watch TV with him. Sometimes I even call him “master,” and when he asks “Who’s the boss?” I always say “daddy.”

Here’s a slideshow with some of the fun times we’ve had with our daddy over the past year.

- Maddy

…and now it’s the middle of June so the title of the post is no longer appropriate but I feel a need to leave it just so I can laugh at how long it’s taken me to get this up. Here are some highlights and media galore from our past 6 weeks that I haven’t had a chance to capture for the blog yet.

The first weekend in May, we had a wonderful visit from cousin Addi, Aunt Crystal, and Grandpa Busath, who flew up to Portland from Utah for my nephew’s blessing. We got to host them at our new house and test out the “guest quarters” in our basement, which worked out nicely. Maddy loved having Addi around for 3 whole days, and has missed her a lot ever since she left.

Below are a couple photos from that awesome weekend.

Since then, we’ve also had lots of other playdates with the rest of the cousins, which we always enjoy thoroughly despite the intensity of the chaos that ensues every time that many toddlers and babies converge (hence my lack of photos of said playdates). If it weren’t for naps and distance, we’d get together with them every day.

In addition to our fun cousin time, Maddy has been lucky enough to go on a couple other cool outings of her own when weather permits. I took her out for coffee with a friend at the cutest little coffee shop and Maddy got a kick out of playing with their dominoes and chess set while drinking a very grown up milk next to my cup of coffee. I also took her to the Rose Festival, which is a fun waterfront fair they have in downtown Portland. She loved the fire truck ride we went on, but was a little scared by the hot air balloon ride. Dave also took her back for the Dragon Boat races on a different day, which amazed and thrilled her – she seemed especially smitten with the drums they have on the boats.

Today she went to her first gymnastics class, which we hope gives her a safer place to practice the “routines” she’s been performing for us lately (basically rotating through a few yoga poses and then running around in circles). Next week Maddy starts preschool/summer camp three mornings a week! We’re very excited for her to meet some new friends up here, because she definitely misses and talks about her Cali buddies all the time, especially Sydney, Sierra, Lily and Chloe.

Oh and here’s the only video we’ve been able to get so far of Hayden’s little steps, a fun one of her giggling, as well as great videos of Maddy reading a story to her “babies” and then taking them to the “dentist,” Maddy “performing” with Uncle Gavin, Maddy “dancing” to New Kids on the Block, and Maddy at gymnastics class:

Can’t believe Hayden is 11 months old today. I thought time went fast when Maddy was a baby, but this is really ridiculous.

Over the past month, she’s been getting better and better at standing, and she’s even taken a few steps independently, but they’re far and few between.  No matter how many times Maddy shouts “Mom, Hayden’s walking!” (this happens every time Hayden pulls herself up and surfs along a piece of furniture), Hayden just doesn’t seem inspired to make it true.

She’s not so interested in saying actual words, but is making lots of noises and becoming very expressive with her face and her body language.  For example, she’s so not loving the solids we feed her, and is sure to let us know by aggressively shaking her head back-and-forth as soon as she’s done.  That usually happens after maybe 2-3 bites of whatever mashed up stuff we’re giving her.  She does love those puffs and teething biscuits, though.

Hayden’s getting good at picking up things and putting them inside or taking them out of bags, boxes, etc., and I swear a few times it’s even looked like she was turning the pages in a book following along – but that was probably just her way of trying to find a better angle to eat it from.

She’s becoming a great sleeper, which makes me very happy. Unlike Maddy at this age, and unlike herself 6 months ago, Hayden actually seems to be settling into a regular routine with two 2+ hour naps/day and almost 12 hours at night.

She still has no fear.  If I let her wander free and take my eyes off of her for ONE second (no Dave, I would never ever ever take my eyes off of her), she would manage to get herself in some pretty thorny situations.  If this were to happen, but it never has, I wouldn’t be surprised to find Hayden inside the TV cabinet, standing on top of the driver’s seat of her little toy car about to topple over, reaching into the toilet while trying to eat the toilet seat, standing on my elliptical machine wondering why her 16 lbs isn’t propelling it forward, or standing at the top of our long staircase looking curiously downstairs.  Good thing I’m a diligent mom and don’t let these things happen.

Hayden weighed in this morning at a whopping 16 lbs, 11 oz.  At least she’s finally approaching 17 lbs, but that still brings her in at below the 5th percentile for her weight.  I sure hope she catches up eventually, and I also hope our new doctor doesn’t lecture me at her 1-year visit.

In honor of her 11-month milestone, here are a couple videos that don’t quite capture all of Hayden’s cuteness, but are fun nonetheless:

I don’t think I’ve ever written a post that wasn’t focused on the girls, so this is weird but here goes. As you’ve probably deduced by now, we’ve moved. After having Hayden and realizing that 2 kids is MORE than twice the work, we decided that we need to live somewhere where we have a support system. So, after years of pressure by my family to get up here, we’re finally living in Portland, Oregon.

We moved almost a month ago and are loving everything but the constant rain and hail (surprise, surprise). The move itself was excruciatingly painful and we finally have time to offer many many thanks to everyone who helped along the way:

- My Mom, who helped us through everything from the house hunt, to packing, loading the truck, flying up with the girls, unloading the truck, hosting us till our house was ready, meals, babysitting, laundry, and the list goes on.

- My brother Gavin and brothers-in-law, who unloaded our huge truck (including our ancient piano) into the new house from 10:30pm-1am on a Sunday night even though they had to work the next day.

- My sister Lorna, who helped us pick out all the finishings for our new house since we couldn’t do it from San Jose, and is also now working as our very own Supernanny.

- All our other babysitters extraordinaire, without whom we never would’ve finished packing or unpacking (well, we actually never did finish packing and are still unpacking, but you know what I mean), especially Boi, Susette, Akiko and Maren.

- Dave’s friends Lu, Nam and Raj who helped him load up the truck and drive our cars all the way to Portland after my mom and I had already flown up with the girls.

- Our neighbors Maria and Shelly who helped us pull off a profitable garage sale our last weekend in San Jose with surprisingly little effort on our part (yes, those are 80s TVs we sold, and yes, Dave and I were both about to keel over when this photo was taken).

Also, thanks to all our awesome San Jose friends for the great sendoffs and well-wishes. We miss you and hope you will come visit us in the great Northwest!!!

I don’t even know where to start. Maddy has evolved and entertained us so much over the past month+ that it’s very hard to capture in a blog post. But I’ll try.

She has become SO precocious and SO imaginative and SO expressive. A few examples…

- Of precociousness:
We’ve had lots of strangers around for the past several weeks (realtors, prospective homebuyers, inspectors, appliance delivery people, blinds salespeople, office designers, etc.), and she has tried to make best friends with each and every one of them. Anyone who comes into the house is immediately accosted by her, and then she follows them around / gets in their way until they’re done with whatever they came over to do.

My favorite was when our realtor came by and Maddy, meeting him for the first time, walked right up and said “Hi! I’m wearing underwear! Want to see?”

- Of imaginativeness: Maddy loves to make up little stories, games or songs. The best one lately was at the dinner table when she was just finishing up her sweet potato fries. I was feeding Hayden and noticed that Maddy was mumbling to herself so I started listening and I heard her engaging in a fascinating conversation with her last 2 fries. They said to her in one voice: “Maddy, where is our family? We miss our mommy and daddy!” and she said back in another voice: “Don’t worry. They’re in my mouth, do you want to go find them? You can come inside.” And then she ate them.

- Of expressiveness:

The other morning Maddy was being apprehensive about having Aunt/Nanny Lorna and cousin Jude come over to the house, so I asked her why she didn’t want to play with them. She clearly explained to me “because I don’t want you and daddy to work, I want you to not work and play with me instead.” It was nice but sad to hear her finally express this so clearly – with our old nanny she would complain about having her come over but was never able to explain why.

On a more positive note, when we got to our new house, Maddy ran around excitedly with a frightening amount of energy and then after 2 minutes started singing/shouting: “if you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!”

Maddy is thrilled that Hayden is able to “play” more now and has to be reminded constantly that just because Hayden can do lots of stuff, doesn’t mean that she can handle a major hug or defend herself in a toddler sharing battle. She also loves her cousins, except when they have a toy she wants, and then the real toddler battles ensue.

Our little Maddy is pretty much potty-trained, and that makes her seem even more grown up. She’s been using the potty consistently for about a month now, except during naps and nighttime when we still put her in diapers. She had such little interest in it for the past 6 months that I was shocked when one day Dave said “I’ve had enough, I know she can do it” – and then she did. She’s only had 1 accident since then (if you don’t count the times she peed in her pullups because we were lazy or out of clean underwear to put her in).

On the less pleasing side, Maddy started having nightmares earlier this week and now bedtimes are quite painful. She’s genuinely scared to be left alone in her room and insists that the closet and hallway light are left on with the doors wide open. That said, she is usually enjoying sleeping in a “big girl bed,” which she’s been doing mostly successfully since we moved. When she wakes up in the morning, she surprisingly resists the urge to come and wake us up, instead she gets a book and quietly sits down in the hallway directly outside our master bedroom door (even when it’s open) and reads to herself until one of us gets up.

Also, she still has this vomiting issue. It happens about once or twice a month, in the middle of dinner, for no apparent reason other than she’s had a lot to eat. It’s not like we’re force feeding her, she just keeps eating until she throws up, and it’s so sad. I do think we’ve identified yogurt/milk as a consistent contributing factor, though, so we’re trying to cut back on those things and hopefully that will help.

If you read this far, I’m impressed – that’s enough for now.

My mother’s day gift to myself is permission to write this blog post, even though there are still plenty of other things around the house I should be doing. I also have about 5 other posts swimming around in my head that will hopefully be coming shortly, but for now let’s focus on another Hayden update.

I cannot believe she turned 10 months old this past week. It’s very sad to me that she will be 1 soon, but this is also such a fun phase to observe.

Here’s what Hayden’s up to:

- Crawling very very fast.

- Getting very good at standing independently, but not so interested in walking. Seems to enjoy pushing around her walker, though.

- Climbing all over everything. Just discovered the stairs last week (no baby gates up in the new house yet), and was fascinated by how high she could get just by climbing up 2 steps. Of course she had no idea how to get back down.

- Loving mommy. It brightens my day every time a walk into a room and see her face light up with a huge smile. She does this sometimes for Maddy and Dave also, but I enjoy how frequently I get those special smiles.

- Adoring her big sister and loving when Maddy interacts with her. Today they started playing a “game” which involved them bonking heads over and over again. Surprisingly they kept the impact low and there were no tears, only hysterical laughter from both girls every time their heads touched. I must get a video of Hayden’s latest laugh.

- Perfectly content playing independently as long as she’s not trapped in her playpen and has plenty of great toys to eat.

- Has developed a wonderful pageant wrist wave, which she employs constantly.

- 4 teeth now with a big gap between her top 2.

- Much less stranger anxiety. Still doesn’t especially want to be left alone with strangers, but will tolerate it if necessary and is perfectly happy to be around other folks as long as one of her family members is in the same room.

- Always has her hair in her eyes. Dare I trim those bangs????

- Weighs just around 16 lbs, still below the 5th percentile for her age – but her tiny-ness sure doesn’t seem to be slowing her down!