Where's your nose? Toes?

Giving kisses

Sierra is learning to associate the word "kiss" with the action. She used to do it randomly, just with me... but she's getting better!

Looks like she was about to give the camera a kiss first here:

Say Cheese!

We just figured out that daycare has been teaching the kids to say "cheese" and ham it up for the camera!

Crazy Memorial Weekend with Tao kids

Memorial Day Weekend - we were babysitting Dave's niece and nephew, Julia and Ryan (ages 8 and 7). It was a PACKED weekend:

Saturday - Wild Animal Park, followed by Splash Park, and playing in the pool at home

Sunday - Chilling near home, then a visit to Chuck E Cheese's

Monday - La Jolla Shores for some sand, sun, and kayaking!

I have pictures from the weekend here.

Some videos are below:

Kids in the car:

Playing a ball game at Chuck E Cheese's - it was a Team Effort! (even Sierra helped)

La Jolla Shores

Kayaking

Sierra playing while the older kids went to check out the sea lions on the kayak

GOOD TIMES!

Dancing to The Cure

17.5 months

Sierra groovin' away to the The Cure at Mieng and Sandy's wedding!

She can't seem to stop herself!

High-fiving Chris!

Hi Coco!

"Please"

First popsicle

Mmmmm... fudgsicle...

Yup, that's my dirty baby.

Animal Sounds

Sierra's verbal skills has been growing dramatically recently. Here, she is reviewing a new Zoo book she just got a couple days ago... associating animals with the sounds they make. Her enunciation isn't so great, but we can recognize the following:

Lion - Rowr!

Sea Lion - wuff wuff

Snake - ssssss

Monkey - ooo ooo ooo

Frog - her version of ribbit ribbit (cracks me up!)

Tiger - grrrr

In this clip, you'll also hear her say "apples".

This next video is to show you one of her favorite toys - a ride on lion. When you press the nose, it will usually go "ROWR" followed by some music.

The reason why I showed the previous clip is because we've noticed on occasion, when you ask Sierra what sound a lion makes, she'll say "rowr" followed by quiet singing and wiggling around, like she is dancing. I think she is associating lions with music, too! This next clip... the second time she roars for the lion in middle of the clip, look closely. It is subtle, but she does the dancing thing to a small degree afterwards.

She will also make the following sounds on occasion -

birds/ducks - ka ka ka

owl - oo ooo oo ooo

dog - wuff wuff, and she can actually say "dog"

cat - meow

fish - she calls them "yu" (fish in chinese)

bear - she can say "bear", although sometimes calls them "baby" since she has a stuffed bear we refer to as "baby bear"

Happy Mother's Day!

A few shots of Sierra with Coco

...as we waited to go out to Mother's Day brunch with Dave's mom and grandma. Sierra was starving, so we had to give her a head start on her breakfast. Coco was hoping for some goodies from her...

She enjoyed teasing Coco with her food.

After brunch, a short walk around La Jolla Shores. Sierra was having fun walking on the wall.

We spent the afternoon at the Wild Animal Park doing the usual... checking out birds, playing in the splash/water area (Sierra likes to climb on the animals), going on the Journey to Africa Tour. Still one of my favorite parks ever!

The day ended with a cute video of Dave and Sierra playing with "lightsabers" (rolls of wrapping paper).

Brushing teeth

She doesn't do it regularly (yet), but likes to copy us when she gets the chance.

PB&J Sugar Rush + Park

Chasing birds

"Bye!"

Down the slide... kind of.

First PB&J Sandwich

After eating half of the sandwich, she started to get REALLY silly. This next video is HILARIOUS. She was hamming it up... smiling REAL hard for the camera...

Just a cute day and outfit

Just some pics of her wearing a cute Hawaiian outfit we bought last September...

Pigtails Attempt #2.

Cute as a button.

But again, lasted only a seconds long...

Strutting around checking out fish at a fish store

She says Hi to everything... including corals.

Mother's Day Tea

Sierra's daycare had a Mother's Day Tea today (Friday before Mother's Day). It was great! All 8 of the moms in her class showed up. They had a slideshow, and then sang songs with the kids to give us a taste of what they do.

Some gifts they made for us... LOVE THEM!

(the strawberries are made from footprints!)
Very very short video clip showing what circle time is like. I would've taken a longer one, but I was trying to sneak out without having Sierra start bawling (poor teachers had their hands full when the moms started to leave).

A Day with Grandma and Grandpa Huang

Grandma and Grandpa Huang were in San Diego for a mere 1.5 days. We spent a day in La Jolla, showing Sierra the pelicans, sea gulls, and sea lions... with a nice meal at Cody's.

Enjoying her afternoon snack

Plopped down on Grandpa's lap before saying Goodnight.

First visit to the Splash Park

Happy 17 months, Sierra!

This is the same park that Sierra had her 1st birthday party at. However, she has never experienced the Splash Park aspect of it. The day was warm, the water was flowing, and we decided to see if she was interested.

On the first go, she was a bit hesitant.

So we took a break and went on the swings for a short bit.
She had some fun, but then was anxious to get down running around again. Not the hugest swing fan. So we took her back... Watch her go!

Whoa, she totally got drenched here. I thought she was going to get washed away...

Running around

She was absolutely mesmerized by this contraption. She would just stand there and hold onto it, even though she was barely tall enough for it.

This big boy kept trying to steal it from her, but she wasn't daunted by his size.

Shooting at Daddy!

Hi, Ducks!

2 days shy of 17 months

.

Wild Animal Park

.

Since Sierra seems to really enjoy birds (kind of interesting since Mommy and Daddy are not bird freaks), we decided to stop by WAP early today and check out the Lorikeets. Sierra has never seen them before and we're curious how she would react.

.

But first, we had to take a picture of her as a giant butterfly.

Lorikeet Landing

Sierra was interested, but didn't really know what was going on. She was in her quiet, observant, contemplative mode. Plus, we had just woken her up from a nap so she was a bit groggy.

Next time, when she's a little bigger, we'll get some nectar.

Outside of Lorikeet Landing, there were some large ducks parading around the grounds. Sierra decided to stop and say Hello in her own cute way.

Because she seemed to like the ducks so much, we took her to the water area with tons of ducks and birds building nests.

Check and see how she reacted.

Mommy, lots of birds and ducks over there! I want to go there! Why won't Daddy let me down???

(didn't get it on video, but a couple times, she very shyly said "Hiiiii" while waving)

While heading out, she also said Hi to the meerkats.

Daycare = best decision ever

Just a comment - I think putting Sierra in daycare at ~14 months was one of the BEST decisions we ever made. It's expensive, but definitely worth it. It's been 3 months, but WOW, she's learned so much!

At the time, she was full of energy, ready to soak in everything, needing so much stimulation that staying at home with Grandma could not provide. Since starting daycare, she has rapidly learned SO MUCH. Her interest in reading grew leaps and bounds - one of her favorite pastimes is to sit on your lap with a book and read together. Before daycare, she thought books were good teethers.

Some of her other milestones during this time (since this blog is mainly for grandparents to keep track of her growth) -

Her language skills have blossomed exponentially (even the teachers have commented on it). She was physically solid when she started (a good walker at an early stage), but not so advanced verbally. She tends to be really quiet in new situations and observes a lot. But when comfortable.... She's turns into a babbling machine! (even more so in the past couple of weeks) ... We don't know what she is saying most of the time, but she has mastered the sign language for "more" and says "mo" all the time now. Some other words - nah nah nah (no no no), hi, bye, dada, mama, Coco (accompanied by barking sounds - "woh woh woh!"), ba (for ball), ba (for book), ba (for bottle/sippy cup), bo (for boat), UH OH (big favorite), whoa, wow, bay-bi ba (for "baby bear"), ah duh (all done), makes quacking sounds with her rubber ducky or chicken stuffed animals... and probably a bunch of others that I don't recognize as real words yet or just can't remember right now. She's definitely trying to imitate us a lot more now and has been heard to say "one, two, three" (with attempted hand gestures) at school.

She LOVES to sing, especially songs with hand gestures (i.e. itsy bitsy spider that I feel we sometimes sing to death). She is able to sit down for circle time for up to 30 minutes at a time. When she started daycare, she thought crayons were just another food. Now, she is able to make proper scribbles with crayons, and plays with paint often at school. They recently learned to dip paintbrushes, so she tried dipping while eating a vietnamese spring roll earlier this week. She was successful with the dip, but the face she made when she tasted the sauce? PRICELESS. (too bad we don't have a photo) She didn't like it. At all.

She is getting better with a spoon (holding the right side up), and enjoys spearing food with a fork, laughing uncontrollably at times with her successes or messy failures. She still primarily eats with her hands, and is a bit more picky (because she knows what she wants, and can point now). She recently learned to throw (unfortunately for us - but fortunate for Coco? -, food during dinner is a favorite).

She has gained some social skills, and we hear she is so comfortable with her classmates that she will sometimes sit on them (if they happen to be in the chair she wants to be in). She had one biting incident so far (at 15 months), but who can blame her? Some boy tried to take her toy from her hand. :)

Early on in daycare, she learned that sometimes there is leftover food hanging out under the tables. She was caught moving the chairs around so she can crawl under the table to get the food. The teachers were amazed. Because of her, they are also now much more diligent cleaning up after snack time!

She loves to climb up chairs, sofas, benches, little tables at school, and SLIDES (yes, climbing up them - not the safest of pastimes). She doesn't quite realize the potential consequences/dangers of doing these things yet. She can turn in circles, attempts to run (not there yet), tries to copy people jumping, and does this strange goose-stepping stomp sometimes (we suspect this is her trying to copy older kids skipping?).

We attribute a lot of her growth to daycare, so if it's something you're thinking about and have the funds for, I think it is a worthwhile investment.

P.S. Her immune system has also been challenged significantly. Although, a bit of a pain to deal with (I think she's been sick ~10 times since turning 1 year old), it will definitely pay off.

P.P.S. She has also entered the temper tantrum phase! So beware if you tell her she can't do something or take something she wants away from her!

First trip to Chuck E Cheese's

First trip to Chuck E. Cheese's!

Every kid has to go to this classic American staple at some point in his/her life. Heck, I remember countless hours spent there, cheating at games, getting tons of tickets, and ending up with fluorescent shoelaces.

.

So we decided to check it out and see what they have to offer to the little itty bitty ones...

.

Sierra was initially overwhelmed by the sheer volume (number and noise) of kids at the place (it was a Friday night after all). She slowly warmed up and tried a couple rides.

Her very very very favorite was this tiny little merry-go-round. We couldn't get her off of it!

Stuffing her with some pizza while she's on the ride. Because she wouldn't sit down at the table to eat!

Fun times!