Happy birthday daddy!

Dear Aidan,

Your daddy turned 36 today. Wow. He sure doesn't look old. Do you know that mommy and daddy met when mommy was 19 and daddy was 25? That means I've known daddy for 11 years! It sure doesn't feel that way. Anyways, it's been a good 11 years together. It was a hard year for the both of us because of all the change, but we got through it and we are still going strong.

The photo above are actually photos of you on Monday when I was at Promenade Mall with Auntie Sara. We went to Old Navy and I saw a wall of baby sunglasses that they were selling. I couldn't resist putting one on your face. I think you looked cool in it.

Anyways, we went over to Promenade Mall again today (now that we have a 2nd car I love going out!) and these are pictures of you eating rice rusks while mommy was having lunch in the food court. You really enjoyed eating the rice rusks. I'm really going to miss these times of chilling at the mall and taking long lunches. It's not going to be like that when I go back to work. :-(





For dinner we went over your Toronto grandparent's house and had sam gye tang made by your Toronto grandmother. It was so yummy! Auntie Jess, Uncle Wayne, Auntie Sara, and Uncle Dan were there too. Here's a photo I took of you and Auntie Jess. You had so much playing with everyone. When we finally came home at 10:00pm you were pooped!



Tomorrow is Canada Day. Daddy has to work a few hours from home, but afterwards he is all ours!

Good hair

Dear Aidan,

You got your first haircut today! Although you don't have a lot of hair and your hair is super fine it was getting pretty long. I thought it looked fine, but our friends kept asking me when I was going to get your hair cut. Daddy and I decided to book your appointment today so that just in case the hair salon screwed up you would have a week to grow it out for your birthday party. We went to daddy's Korean hair salon and of course I had to bring my camera to take photos. I was kind of nervous because I thought they would poke your head with the scissors or something. I had nothing to worry about. I held you while you sat on my lap and it went so smoothly. Daddy had to give you a few Cheerios to keep you still near the end, but it was a breeze. The guy who cut your hair did a great job and he didn't even charge us! It was his birthday gift to you. What a nice guy!


You got your own little robe to cover your clothes. What a good boy you are for staying still!



Look how still you are!



The end result. So handsome!



We ate next door at H-Mart. Now your hair is all one length and looks much more polished.



Oh, these are the sandals I got for you today at Promenade.

Auntie Sara and I met before we went to the salon. We met at Promenade Mall and mommy bought you summer sandals and a pair of skinny jeans at Mexx Kids. The jeans are a bit big, but I'm going to see if I can put that on you for your birthday. I know you have to wear your hanbok, but maybe at the beginning I'll have you wearing your preppy outfit- a button down shirt, a newsboy cap, your Converse sneakers, and your jeans.

Big boy

Dear Aidan,

That's not daddy holding you in the photo above. It's our friend, Young. He's going to be a daddy soon. Him and his wife, Anina, just announced today that they are expecting next January. So exciting! Young is going to be a great father. He put his cap over your head and I thought it looked so cute because it was so big on you. I just had to take a photo.

You are no longer a baby anymore. Well, technically you are, but compared to all our friends that just had a baby and those who are expecting you are a big boy now. Today, I took you down to Mustard Seed which is a preschool program at our church. I can no longer have you in the nursery room because all the babies there are newborn. Plus, you are so active now so you get bored easily. You need to be mentally stimulated. It's good because Mustard Seed has lots of toys and you had lots of fun playing with a ball, a car, books, and building blocks. I also love the fact that there are lots of boys and girls that are older than you there that you can watch and learn from. You now pick objects up with your hands and bang it together. You also love to clap your hands together when you are happy. So far you can clap your hands together, give high-fives, turn on/off the light switch, close your hands into a fist and then open it again, flex your wrists, call out 'um-ma' and 'appah', pick up a ball and throw or push it on the ground, and numerous other things. I think you are now practicing saying your name because I've caught you saying 'eh-ee- gee'. I think you are trying to say 'eh-ee-den' (Aidan). I also see that when I show you how to do something you watch me and try to copy me. You are like a sponge. I have to be careful of what I do around you now. I saw that when I saw you imitating daddy and I throwing Rosco's elephant toy so that he can fetch it. You did that the other day. Daddy was saying today that you are going to walk soon because he said he only held one hand while you were standing. Plus, you tend to walk without holding anything when I put you in your playpen. It's funny because you'll go around and around the playpen while standing. It makes me dizzy just watching you.

Say cheese!

Dear Aidan,

What a sad day. Korea got eliminated on the 2nd round of the Fifa World Cup by Uruguay today. Daddy was so depressed. We were watching the game all morning so we had to do our errands at noon. First we headed to Walmart to get prints developed for the frames. Because that was going to take an hour I wanted to get your passport photo taken while we were waiting. The girl that was taking your photo looked pretty grumpy. She asked us to keep your mouth closed. Apparently you're not allowed to show your teeth in passport photos. Well, we tried our best, but you kept opening your mouth. You were also not allowed to smile, but you were smiling and acting all cute. Mommy had to pull all the stops to make you look very stoic and still. Daddy put some Cheerios in your mouth to keep your mouth closed. It took longer than I thought, but we finally got it. The photo above is what your passport photo looks like. I know it looks funny because you're pursing your lips, but that's because you have Cheerios in your mouth. I'm a little worried because you look a bit shiny. The passport office is really picky about shininess so I hope they don't mind that. Afterwards we went to Kazan to just make sure everything was ok for your birthday party there. It looks like the guest list is looming around the 70 people mark (20 people over than what we expected) so we will need to put some guests outside of the party room. It's not ideal, but I think it's going to have to be my parents' friends. I don't think they'll mind as long as they get their food. So all in all everything seems to be all set for your birthday party.

Oh, here are the photos of the frames with the prints I printed out at Walmart today. I'm in love with how it all turned out. It took me a long time to choose the right photos for each frame, but it was all worth it.



The bedroom photo shelf. I finally printed out our wedding pictures in large format and included some pictures of you and a picture of the Eiffel Tower that I took during my time in Europe in 2003.



This is the dining room photo shelf. The first (higher shelf) has a picture of you in a newsboy cap, a photo of you and me while we were at Shops at Don Mills, and a black & white photo of daddy and mommy on our wedding day.



The second shelf has a photo of Rosco, a triad of photos from our day at the zoo, and more wedding photos of daddy with his parents and me with my parents.



Yuck! Daddy wanted to be in the picture while I was taking these photos. I think he thinks he's good looking or something. Ugh.



Here's another look of the dining room in a farther angle.


I also took some photos of you while you were eating your solids. You were not in a good mood this afternoon. You can see that you're a little grumpy in these photos. Not a good look for you. Not a good look...

Ikea project

Dear Aidan,

I'm so tired today. I picked weeds out front after dinner and it's just made me so tired. Plus, I've been trying to figure out what photos to put on the Ikea photo frames that we bought the other day.

Tomorrow we are going to go to Walmart to get the photos that I selected for their corresponding frames printed. It should take no longer than an hour so I'm thinking of getting your passport photo taken there too. Anyways, here's what's been happening today:


So daddy and I put the picture shelving up in our dining room yesterday. I know it doesn't look like much at this angle, but once I prop the photos up it will look amazing.




Here is the long picture shelving in our master bedroom on top of our bedpost. Doesn't it look sweet? The frames that are on there need to be replaced with new photos. The 2 large photos in the black frame are the ones your Vancouver grandparents gave us, but I want to change them with our wedding photos. Plus, one of the photo was taken from my iPhone camera so the quality isn't that great.




While I was taking photos of the picture shelving in our bedroom you were roaming around everywhere. You are such a fast crawler now. The funny thing is you grabbed Rosco's elephant toy that was on the ground and instead of putting it in your mouth like your other toys you actually handed it to Rosco. I was so shocked because I didn't expect that from you. I guess you saw mommy and daddy throw Rosco's toy to Rosco in numerous occasions so you knew that wasn't your toy. Every time you gave it to Rosco you let out a little giggle. It was too cute for words.



Here's the shelving that we bought for your room. We put one on each side of the window. Initially we wanted it in white, but they were all sold out. We ended up getting the stainless steel version and I actually am liking it. I think your room was too white so this sort breaks the starkness. Plus, I'll be putting lots of books on these shelves so it will be much more colourful.


For now we put your Vancouver Olympic mascot toys on one of the shelves.




You seemed to like the toys up there because once I put your in your crib you immediately went over and stared at it.




Do you know why you are crying here? You started gnawing at the crib again so I said in a firm voice, 'No Aidan,' and you totally threw a fit. If you click on the second photo of you crying you can see the huge chunk of paint missing on the crib. UGH!




Oh, this is something else I got at Ikea the other day. I bought a cheap ($6.99 baby!) cork board for my office. I wanted to buy one so that I could display all my necklaces that I've been making. Prior to that I had it just on my bookshelf, but it was getting all tangled and messy. Unfortunately when I told daddy to drill some holes for me he hit a concrete wall and he was soooooo mad at me!

House beautiful

Dear Aidan,

Ever since we moved into our house last May it's been a slow process of decorating each room of our house. Since we moved from a tiny, 780 sq. ft. condo to a 2250 sq. ft. house we couldn't afford to buy furniture and decor items for every single room of the house right away. It would have made us flat broke. So we've been buying things little by little. Yesterday we were over at Ikea to look for shelving for your room. We've been meaning to put freestanding wall shelving in your room so that we can put some books on there. However, while we were there we were inspired by things we saw in their showrooms. We saw this really cool shelving unit that could hold picture frames. Because the shelves were not that deep and it had a guard at the edge it made it possible for you to lean frames on it without it falling off. I thought it would be perfect to have in our master bedroom on top of our bedpost. I hated that we didn't have any pictures hanging on our walls in our old condo (because daddy hated putting holes on the walls!), so I was really looking forward to putting more personal photos up around our new house. Daddy loved the idea and he suggested we buy a smaller version of the shelf (it came in 2 sizes) and stagger it in our dining room area. Here's the picture of the photo shelving unit at Ikea. They had it in their living room showroom.


They put the long version of shelf and made it longer by adding a shorter version of it right beside it so it was super long. Then they put another one right on top of it so it ran parallel across. I just really liked this shelving unit because you could change it up and move the frames around. Whereas if you had the frames mounted on the wall you would be stuck with it forever.



We were at Ikea for quite a while so you were getting a little rowdy. You can tell from your eyes that you were getting restless.



Here are 2 of the shorter shelves that we are going to stagger in our dining room. I put the frames on it to visualize how it was going to look. I rotated between white frames and silver frames.



This is the longer shelf in our bedroom floor before we mounted it. Again, I put the frames on it to see how it looked. I'm going to swap out some of the photos in the 2 larger frames. I got those frames from your Vancouver parents while we were in Vancouver in October. They printed out so many pictures that I sent them and put it up all over their house. They had some extra frames that they wanted to give to us. I didn't have the opportunity to put it up at our place, but now is the perfect time.



While daddy and I were putting the shelves up I put you in the Oeuf chair and you were watching us work.

So everything is up. All I have to do tomorrow is choose the photos I want for each frames and then we are going to go to Walmart this weekend to get it printed. BTW, we also did get some shelving for your room. I'm really happy with how everything turned out and I can't wait to add photos to the frames.

Aidan in action

Dear Aidan,

Today was a big day for Korea (South Korea, I mean). Daddy came home early from work so that he could watch South Korea vs. Nigeria at 2:30pm. Even though Korea tied Nigeria 2-2 they advanced to the 2nd round of the Fifa World Cup. Afterwards we played a lot together in your play room. You've been playing really well on your own lately. Before I would constantly have to entertain you in your play room, but now I can just sit back and watch you play. It's quite fascinating watching you play because you go from one toy to another. You get bored of things easily and move onto the next item. However, it's a lot easier to watch over you because you are now an expert crawler and you are pretty steady on your feet. I don't have to worry so much that you are going to fall over and bump your head. The only pet peeve I have about you playing is you always take out the foam mat connectors and spread it out all over your play room. Today, you almost took apart the whole play mat. The play room was a DISASTER!


Here you are pushing your bumbo. You haven't sat on this in a looooong time. Ever since you figured out how to get your little tushie out of the bumbo you refuse to sit in it. You either push the bumbo like a car or you put your toys in the seat.



Daddy was lying sideways so that he was blocking the play room door so that you wouldn't leave the room. However, you were trying to climb over daddy's body to make a quick getaway! What a guy!



You are so playful when you have free range to roam around. You just love it!



Oh no! You are taking apart the connectors!



The bad thing is now you figured out a way to take the whole thing apart. Not just the connectors. Today you were playing with the round foam parts.



One connector won't do. You tend to hold more than 4 connectors in your hand while you crawl all around the room. What a little greedy boy you are.



You like putting the small corner connectors in your mouth. Sometimes it sticks out of your mouth like a cigarette.




Aidan: Mommy, look how smart I am!