A dog. A cat. And two buffalos.

Pajama Party

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:06:00 +0000

Why does it feel so good to be in your PJs all day? I find myself getting home from work and thinking to myself if it is ok to get into my PJs now or after I get the mail.

After the December holiday fanfare, we finally had our friends' holiday party at 9:30am, PJs required.

PJs and inflatable mattress are now mandatory for all parties

Strike a pose

Trae took his very first steps for all of us to see.

What a moment for Mom and Dad!

I'll trade my salvia for your cell phone :)

Mia says, "I'm the teacho"

Abigail playing the star student

Introducing the song stylings of Aidan and his kazoo

Kegan- the masterful phtographer of the event.

You can take my camera anytime

ABCs

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:22:00 +0000

Eh um- no more pictures Mom.

Zane and Lily will be testing me on my ABCs later.

The United Colors of Benneton Monkeys have invaded his room

Houston Marathon 1.17.10

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:43:00 +0000

It's been 5 years since our finish line proposal. I thought we'd run it in 2010 but snuggling in bed with the Van is waaaaay better.

Getting ready for the race

On the race course just a few steps from our house

Dude- I can barely trot while carrying a diaper bag

(Thanks Neal- I stole this pic from you)

MJ's Understudy

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:28:00 +0000

Set your volume on low because I forever will be Van's biggest and loudest cheerleader.

Photo-polooza

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:49:00 +0000

Happy New Year! Sorry about the silence. To catch up, the post is a photo bonanza. So, grab a drink and enjoy.

Granddaddy's boy

Drew will be schooling Van all things Nascar

Saint Nick put us on the good list this year

Hayden - ready to babysit Van?

Dear Freddie- I'm ready to go boating with you anytime

Christmas Photo Fest with Aunt Vickie and Hayden

Boys only club

Stuffing this baby before his flight to TX

Hanging with Phil, uh huh

The aunties hijack Van and take his prints

and Auntie Lilly and Gigi do this to Van

And this

Oh yes, they even did that to him

Van looks more and more like his daddy

Family resemblance is uncanny

Cole: How do we put monster truck wheels on this?

Jonas: uhmmmm... with my magic wand

Santa left behind an elf

Jonas beat Uncle Chris as that hand slapping game

Cole is ready to teach Van the Jedi ways

Yes, we will be wearing red pajamas for next year's photo

Merry Christmas!

Dear Santa

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:37:00 +0000

I've been good this year Santa

Part time elf for hire

Tender Tennessee Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:20:00 +0000

I love it. Christmas feels complete when spent with our family in Tennessee. Yummy ham. Warm smiles and hugs. Lots of catching up about work, school, boyfriends :)

Sandy and Vickie are incredible with Van. They showered him with endless attention. Van is pretty much spoiled by his TN family.

Sandy and Vickie ready to give lots of kisses

Hayden and Uncle Chris - two cuties

and two goofballs

3 men and a kitty cat

Go together like peas and carrots

Hayden, Brittney, and Van are ready for the gift extravaganza

We tried a new gifting this year to only include the grandkids. It was great to focus our time towards family. I think everyone enjoyed it. Sandy likes to bend the rules and surprised the big kids with pump action marshallow shooters. A-W-E-S-O-M-E. I mean this is an ingenious invention. Safe projectile shooting. No safety goggles needed. Yes! We had so much fun that I forgot about the camera. Sorry no pictures of the marshmallow warfare and it was war indeed.

Christmas 2009

But wait there's more. Pirating internet access from the neighbors gets rather low wireless signal. Stay tuned.

White Wonderland II

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:41:00 +0000

What does any kid want to do with a snow covered hilltop?

Sled down Granddaddy's front yard of course.

Look Mom, no hands!

Let's do that again Dad!

Can you see the exhilaration in Van's eyes?

And the next best thing to do with all this snow....

True to a scientist's nature. Experiment on the first attempt.

Proof of concept

Frosty is alive

Baby it's cold outside

Mom's lil' winter bear

Baby luvs with his Dad

White Wonderland

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:35:00 +0000

Tennessee did not diappoint this year. Five inches of beautiful snow yesterday and it's still coming down this morning. Winter white Christmas for us. Yippeee. Of course, I say this after a stressful night. Power went out hours into the first down fall of snow. Inside temperature dropping fast. Power came back on. Whew. A few hours later, we are sitting in candlelight again. Utility company advises to hunker down because second outage means a more complicated and delayed fix. Van and I snuggled under layers of blankets. He wasn't too happy about it which means mom got no sleep. Heat kicked on at 7am. Here is what we woke up to....

Don't you just want to dive belly first into this stuff? Saturday

Hilltop view from Granddaddy's front porch on Frideh

Within a few hours later Frideh

Brrrr. Somone lost his way during his migration route. He heard about the TN moonshine.

Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:17:00 +0000

The season is here. Are you ready? I'm not. I have my Cmas decorations up.... but the storages boxes need to be returned to the attic. oops. We have the outdoor lights ready to install... but it rained, then it snowed, then it's tooooo cold. darn. I already predict that I will be that mom who is wrapping presents at 3am on Cmas eve. I still don't know what to get Van for Cmas. yikes! Van- Mom and Dad will get better with practice. But all that stuff isn't about Cmas. It's about this....

Little brown baby Jesus - Peruvian style

One of my all time favorite gifts- Thank you Sartaj!

10 More Days

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:51:00 +0000

Is Tennessee ready for this

Signs

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:42:00 +0000

I don't believe that there are only 12 differents types of people in the world described by the astrological zodiac signs and neither do my people. Instead, there are 12 animals (earthly signs) in the vietnamese lunar calendar and 10 heavenly stems in a 60 year cycle. So, there are at least 60 different types of people in the world :)

We collect figurines of our earthly signs. My mom is a monkey. My dad is a tiger. Nghia is a rooster. Lilly is a pig. Gigi is a rat (we say mouse to be polite). Woodie is a dog. Cole is a snake. Jonas is a ram. I'm a cat. Chis and Van are buffalos. Fitzgerald will always be my puppy.

Want to know your vietnamese sign? click here

A dog. A cat. And two buffalos

Thanksgiving Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:55:00 +0000

Holiday season is here! Family, food, friends, food, and more food. I love that feeling of home for the holidays. Things haven't changed since I was a kid at my parent's home. We lounge about all day. Talk, nibble on food, take pictures, feast, sit around because we're too full from eating. It is leisure central. My parent's home is familiar and warm. I walk in the house and instantly return to my childhood - my mom's home cooking, my dad's shuffling feet, Nghia tapping on the keyboard. It was a good Thanksgiving. I hope to create the same warm fuzzies for Van.

Can't get enough of his aunties

Oops, we did it again

When Cole was a baby we fooled him to thinking that mom was always around. All 3 of us wore a white top and the same perfume. We went shopping while caring for Cole and he was none the wiser. Coincidentally, we wore the same color on Thanksgiving. Weird sister thing. We plan to do this again to Van. Momma needs a new pair of shoes. Hee hee!

Gobble, gobble, yum

The classic pose

Maddie is camera ready

Pudge is camera ready

So not camera ready

A First

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:49:00 +0000

Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:04:00 +0000

We've kicked off the holiday season with our friends' Thankgiving celebration. We're a growing clan with all our kids, puppies, and husbands. We enjoyed the day with stuffed bellies and lots of laughter.

Trae, Cathie, Kegan, Van , and Mia

Baked apples with sweet potato stuffing yummm - Thank you Erin, Kegan, and Abigail

Sonya's warm touches to hosting this year's festivity

After food and fun, the men retreat to Carlos' man cave

TGIF

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:56:00 +0000

I'm new at this blogging gig. Just added two features at the top right corner of the web page. Ok- Chris did it for me. First is the RSS feed - links you to updated posts accessed from your reader service (Google reader). Basically, you have one point of access to all the places you have subscribe to. Yes, my sentence ended with a preposition. Wiki speak:
"RSS (most commonly translated as "Really Simple Syndication" but sometimes "Rich Site Summary") is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format"

For more info: BBC speak

Second is the subscribe via email. Obviously it enables you to receive email alerts of new posts from this blog.

BTW, it's FRIDAY!

Gotcha

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:29:00 +0000

Nghia is always the first to dodge a camera. Our family albums are confettied with brushy permed hairdos, embarassing 90s outfits, and lots of photos of my mom posing next to flowers. Nghia is usually behind the camera but not this time :)

Missed Again

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:28:00 +0000

I'm still off the mark with Van's hat size. grr.

You're killin' me Mom

Temperatures finaling dropped below 70F. So, I just couldn't resist getting out Van's winter gear. hee hee

Why must she do this to me

Adverse Event

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:26:00 +0000

This should have clued us into what would happen next...

Pears in the morning

Pears spewing onto the floor. Eeew.

Van is not a fan of pears, apparently

But he'll eat octopus. Dats my bebe

Yes, I plan to get full use of that Cmas hat

Too early for Cmas

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:22:00 +0000

Guessing Van's size while he was in utero was kind of tricky. I got it right for his Halloween outfit but way off for his Cmas outfit hat. So, it's Cmas in Nov.

Luv dis bebe

I just left a surprise in my pants for Daddy

Sisters

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:30:00 +0000

I never knew I needed my sister in-laws until I became a mom. Yup, I was naive to all the dizzingly wonderful complexities of parenthood. A phone call may seemed like nothing. An email maybe was of convenience. Nope, not to me. Their words held onto me. Gratitude isn't enough.
I never knew I needed my sisters until they show up at my door, take my first born and kick Chris and me out of the house to have some quality time. Van was in loving hands. My sisters were giving me what I never knew I needed- time to be still. Gone for exactly 50 minutes, we had lunch at Little Bigs. It felt fabulous to be outside and unnerving to be without Van. Gratitude isn't enough.

Baby Snatchers R Us

Good lord, she's gonna eat me

My sisters and sister in-laws give Van what I cannot. The love from adoring aunts. Van needs them too. He is counting down the days until his Tennessee Chrismas.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:26:00 +0000

Making baby food turns out to be fun. It's not like grinding corn or churning butter. Cook if needed, mash with fork/blender/food mill, add breast milk. Done.

Going high tech for this banana

Uncle Neal and Uncle Art said crawfish goes well with bananas. Yes?

A sippy cup? No, Van's new chew toy

Eat 'em if you got 'em

Van "accidentally" drops apple pieces on the floor for his buddy to find. Fitzgerald is quickly learning to police the highchair during meals.

Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:20:00 +0000

We trekked over to the Woodlands to celebrate Halloween with everyone. Van was not in the best of moods. So no cowin' around for him (cheeeeeze)

Van Squared

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:43:00 +0000

Nam Van and Van Lewis attached at the ~~hip~~ stomach

My parents are experienced grandparents. They know how to spoil their grandkids. Attention, love, and kisses for all to have. They are good at sneaking dollar bills into grandkids' pockets too. I've seen my mom dote on Cole and Jonas, feeding her delicious food to them until it hurts - even with Jonas's healthy appetite. I'm a daddy's girl. It melts my heart to see my dad love on Van. Grandmom is soon to follow with the loving and playing too. I'm lucky to have my mom and dad and Van is even luckier.

Solid Poo

noreply@blogger.com (Nina) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:56:00 +0000

Van is starting solids...

Mmmm zebra- the other white meat

I'll eat anything

But not avocados- yucky!