Kendall the Eskimo

I know the word 'Eskimo' is politically incorrect and considered derogatory, but that is the first thought that came to my mind when I put you in this shearling coat that Auntie Jess gave you. We wanted to check out Auntie Jess' new house that they had just moved into tonight. But not before treating your Toronto grandmother to dinner before going. Your Toronto grandpa had dinner plans already so he couldn't come out. Daddy hadn't seen them since they came back from Korea so he wanted to treat them to dinner. 

Let me just say that Auntie Jess' house is BEAUTIFUL! I know it was a nightmare for them at first because they had to get everything installed and organized in a short amount of time, but I think it was well worth it. I think Emma is quite happy in her new environment.

My little girl loves to laugh

You really like mommy. 

I know that's a given, but you REALLY like me. I don't remember Aidan being like this when he was a baby. You always seem to track me in the room. I call you the lurker because I always catch you looking at me when daddy is holding you. You also tend to get upset when daddy is spending time with you when I'm not in eyesight of you. He always tells me to come get you because you eventually end up crying. Yes, it's a pain in the butt to always be by your side, but it's also amazing when you break out into smiles and laughter when we make eye contact. Today I left you on the crib for a bit and as soon as you saw me when I came back to get you, you were laughing and kicking your legs out in happiness. It was quite endearing. I lifted you up and started singing to you in which case you ended up breaking out into full-on laughter. How can my heart not melt over that?

2012 Advent calendar

I wanted to create an Advent calendar for you this year.

I've been seeing this on some of my favourite craft blogs for a while now, but you were too young for it last year. I went to the dollar store last week to pick up all the supplies. I got all the boxes made and mounted on foam core last Wednesday while you were in daycare. Then, I was able to finish all the activities and surprises for you that are in each of the boxes today (again, while you were at daycare). We will be starting the opening of the boxes on December 1st and I'm so excited for you to look forward to each day leading up to Christmas. I'll be documenting each day so look out for that!

I bought a pack of heavy stock paper at the dollar store. I chose this pack because it included
all these colours in the pack and I got the idea to do an ombré effect for the boxes.
I always get inspiration when I go to craft stores and dollar stores because I'll look at what
they have in stock and then I immediately think of ideas on how I can execute something.

I found several templates online of boxes that I liked. I printed it out on regular plain paper
to test out how they would look. This is the pattern that ended up working for me. I redrew it
on Adobe InDesign to fit my paper and then printed out 5 copies for each coloured paper.

It was a tedious process. I had to score all the lines that were dotted and then cut out the
box shape with my exact-o knife.

Here is the box after I put it all together.

I used these cute glitter and rhinestone number stickers that I found at the dollar store to
label all the boxes.

Like the ombré effect?

Here are the boxes mounted on the foam core.

Next I made a template to make all the activity tags to go inside some of the boxes. I
had a label punch that I measured out the height/width so that I spaced out all the activities
evenly on my design program.

Here's a close-up of some of the activities.

See what I mean by spacing it out?

I punched a hole near the top of the tag so that I could tie a white ribbon on it.

Here are all the tags made :-)

Kendall was watching me the whole time I was working on this.

Here's all the activities that we will be doing in the coming days.
You can see that most of these items would not have fit inside the boxes. That is why I had
to make activity tags for each one.

I stuffed each box with the activity tags.

Here's day 1's activity.

Some of the boxes don't have tags. Instead I stuffed them with candies/chocolate and even
little toys like this.

You're stuck!

I hate the terrible 2's… but oh wait, you're almost 3 1/2 now…

Ever since you were a year and a half it's been hard controlling your tantrums. At first daddy and I tried the spanking method, but that just made you hit us back so we stopped that for a while. Then we tried putting you in time out, but that didn't work- you would not stay in time out. Then your Vancouver grandmother told us about the "stuck" method that she saw on a Korean reality show that is very similar to the American Supernanny show. She said that the "teacher" made the parent hold the child between their legs while they are throwing a tantrum or about to until they calmed down. She said that this clutch made it impossible for the child to get out. She said while the child is throwing their tantrum the parent was to talk, in a stern voice, why they were there. Sometimes this would last a couple of hours depending on the child, but in the end it would work. We've been trying this method for a month now and I'm liking it. I can't do it in public for obvious reasons, but you seem to stop your screaming/crying after about 10 minutes. Daddy usually doesn't have the patience for it and I don't know if he knows how to do the clutch perfectly (you seem to escape when he does it), but I like it.

Toronto halmi and halbi comes home!

Today your Toronto halmi and halbi came home after an almost 2-month vacation in Korea. I had to go with Kendall to pick them up at the airport in the morning so I missed your skating lesson again today. Last week there was no class and the week before I had a jewelry craft sale. Daddy said that you got a little bit better. There's another Aidan in your class who is a superstar. Daddy keeps comparing you to him, but I know every kid is different… Anyways, after I picked your grandparent's up I had to to out to lunch with my friends. I took Kendall with me and she was an absolute angel. She slept through the whole time I was the restaurant that my friends even forgot she was there! And we were there for almost 3 hours! Sometimes she can be an absolute dream baby. If only she could take the bottle better…

By the time I came home it was almost 4:30pm and starting to get dark. I took this picture of you and Kendall in the basement after we had dinner. Look how Kendall is able to hold her head up now. She can't do it for too long, but her neck is getting much stronger. I couldn't resist taking a picture of you and Kendall together. You guys are so cute!

Presents under the Christmas tree

This year we are going to wrap all the presents that you and Kendall get for Christmas and put it all under the tree. You were too young last year to really understand what was going on, but this year you seem to get it. Daddy asked me yesterday while I was at the mall to pick up a few small gifts for you to put under the Christmas tree. He wants you to see an abundance of gifts ready for you to open on Christmas day this year. Although I got 2 gifts for you yesterday (you will see what they are on Christmas) daddy also got a couple more gifts today. I was able to wrap them all tonight and put them under the tree. You will be getting lots more gifts in the coming weeks. As for Kendall we were thinking of getting her gifts, but I think she is too small to get toys and books. I know she will be getting gifts from her grandparents so I think that will be good enough for her.

The gifts under the tree.

So after mommy wrapped all the gifts and went down to the basement you had a little accident. You peed in your pants while you were playing on your play mat. Daddy had to clean up all your pee that seeped underneath and mommy had to take apart the whole play mat and clean it one by one! We were not impressed…

Month-by-month- Month 4

Happy 4-months Kendall! Can't believe how quickly time is flying. I'm really dreading when you hit the 6-month mark because that'll indicate that I'll be at the halfway mark of my mat leave. 

So what is new with you? You can hold up your head up quite a bit when you are on your tummy and you can now sit in your Bumbo. Your head support is still not at 100%, but I can keep you in the Bumbo for about half an hour. Later than that and you get really antsy and cranky. You have also lost a bit of weight from before. Your double-chin isn't quite as prominent. Your bald patch has gotten quite noticeable at the back and there are some parts of your hair that are really kinky. To the point that they have formed tight knots at the end. I've had to cut off the ends to get rid of that…

I decided to include a few outtakes from the photo shoot because the close-ups are pretty cute.

I'm trying to put you in nicer clothes for these shoots and although it is November the weather
has been pretty good. That's why I was able to put you in short sleeves today.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree…

I realized a few days ago that Christmas was just around the corner. One of my favourite things to do for Christmas is to put the tree up. It's always been something I enjoyed doing as a kid. I want this to be a family tradition of ours to put the tree up every year. I'm also thinking of starting a family tradition of doing the advent calendar. I even want to start a family tradition of picking out one Christmas tree ornament each for you and Kendall to put up on the tree each year. I kind of regret not buying a pretty ornament I saw the other day at Crate & Barrel… It would have been perfect for our tree!

Now that you are old enough to understand what Christmas is I think we will start putting Christmas presents for you under the tree so that you can open it on Christmas day. 

While I was putting up the tree I had Kendall close by me sitting in her Oeuf chair. She always
looks for me in the room wherever we are so I had her in plain view of me. Look how happy
she is when she sees me!

She is now looking at her hand very intently. I think she's thinking of eating her hand! She
has a tendency to stuff 3 of her fingers in her mouth. I think she finds comfort sucking on her
fingers.

Our box of ornaments. We always have a red and silver theme.

I got you to help me pass the ornaments and let me know where you wanted it placed.

You are quite the bossy person. You got mad when I didn't put an ornament exactly where
you wanted it placed. Sheesh!

Our beautiful tree!

Got my hair did

You and daddy went to the hair salon after daddy came home from work. We decided to go to the salon that mommy went to a few weeks back. It's owned by a young guy and all the stylists are young and hip. I brought a few tears with me to show the stylist on the exact hair cut I wanted them to do on you. Since you have really silky hair that doesn't stick out straight like most Asian boys' hair I referenced Korean actor, Kim Bum's hairstyle in the K drama, Boys Over Flowers. I thought it would suit you well. That is a photo above is of you after your fresh new hair cut.

The pretty girl that cut your hair. She looks like Kim Hyun-a.

You sat still the whole time. The stylists kept saying to each other how well-behaved and
handsome you were :-)

Look at the booster chair you are sitting on.  

Happy after the hair cut.

Daddy's been taking pretty bad photos of Kendall lately and sending it to Auntie Jane. I get angry at him because that's not really how Kendall looks in real life. I mean, who looks good when they get their pictures taken from below? I think the photo below is one of the worst photos he ever took of you, but Auntie Jane says it's such a cute picture. To be honest, I think you look like Kim Jong Un in this picture. Especially with that double chin…