This year it was nice not having to drive back to Boston (even though we know New Haven isn’t very far) for the holidays.  We also bought a tree (fake one) since Cadence actually gets Christmas this year.  She was super excited about decorating our apartment and putting up the tree.  It’s so much more fun now that she’s into all the holidays.

Since Cadence has been sick for almost 2 weeks, Christmas Eve was the first day we had visitors over.  We had a few of my cousins over for dinner and of course they spoiled her with a ton of presents.  Cadence was pooped by the end of the evening since we let her stay up until 10 pm. What a party animal!

The night before Christmas, we had Cadence put out gingerbread cookies and a glass of milk for Santa.  Of course she was curious how he would get into our house, so we told her we had to put the cookies next to the balcony window so that he could come through the door and eat them.  Before we went to bed, Sucheng and I ate the yummy cookies and drank the milk (we left one so that Santa wouldn’t seem greedy)  When she woke up the next morning she was so excited to see that the cookies and milk were gone.  It’s so much fun seeing the smile on her face.  We know that she won’t believe in these types of things for long.  We spent a good chunk of the morning opening presents and just hanging out at home.

My brother and his family didn’t come back to Boston for Christmas since he had to work, so for lunch we went to my aunt’s for lunch and to hang out with my cousin’s kids.  They had so much fun and also had a sing off.  I’ll try to upload some of the videos.

For dinner, we had Sucheng’s family and my mom over (my dad had to work), so it was a small, intimate event.  It was really nice having both sets of families around for the holidays and nice that we didn’t have to venture out in the freezing cold.  Oops we forgot to take pictures that night…I can’t believe 2009 is coming to and end already.  Where did the year go?

Sorry we’ve been MIA for a bit.  Between me being sick and now Cadence having pneumonia, it’s been a rough month and a half.  Cadence has been sick at home for the past week already.  Originally she only had a fever and some sort of viral thing and then she developed a cough.  The cough progressively got worst and the fever never went away, so we had to take her to the doctor’s for a second time.  They took an x-ray and found out that she had pneumonia.  She’s been on antibiotics for the past few days and we hope she is on her way to recovery.  The poor girl has been coughing up a storm, but thankfully her fever finally subsided.  We hope she’ll be fine by Friday for Christmas.  It would stink to be sick for all the festivities, especially since she’s been so excited about everything.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to post pictures from Thanksgiving.  This year was especially fun since we have a new baby in the family and we also decided to do a huge lunch at my aunt’s house.  There were about 50 of us!  For dinner, both sides of our family came over to our place.  I made the turkey for both events. I think they came out pretty good   I can’t believe it’s the end of the year already.

My cousins at Thanksgiving lunch

Dinner at our place.  It’s Haan Guang with both grandmas and Cadence insisted on wearing her chicken costume to show everyone.  How funny!

The kids at the party

With Sucheng’s family

All the adults and little Cadence

We’re trying to train her early to be a good cook.  Maybe by the time she’s 5 or 6, she’ll be able to cook us a meal.  How nice would that be?

We love where we live right now.  It’s just down the street from the Charles River and has a great pathway for us to run and take long walks.  Cadence and I try to run together around the Charles 3 times a week (well, I push her in the jogging stroller), which is great considering when we were in New Haven I never exercised. 

Even though winter is right around the corner, we are trying to enjoy fall as much as possible.  Look at the beautiful foliage.

For Halloween this year, we were invited to one of Cadence’s friend’s house for pizza and then trick or treating with the other kiddies.  I think this is the first year that Cadence is fully understanding the concept of Halloween and what it’s all about.  There were big boys (6 and 7 yrs old) that were dressed up at Darth Vader and Darth Maul and they totally freaked her out.  She ran to me and made me carry her and if we were not around, she just ran to another parent and had them hold her.  It was pretty funny (I know, so mean).

What do you think about her chicken costume?  First time putting something like this together…it took me a few weeks because I kept putting  it off and just did it a little at a time.  I kept it in case anyone else wanted to borrow it next year!

Can you guess what this will be?

Cousin Ryan’s 5th Birthday Party at My Gym.  It was a lot of fun watching the kids jumping on trampolines and goofing around the gymnasium.

Baby Noah’s 1st birthday party (I guess not a baby anymore).  We had a great time dressing up and celebrating this wonderful day with him and his family and friends.

Here are some projects I’ve been working on lately.  Click  here to view more.

Cadence loves Olivia the pig (so do we) thanks to Coco Yee Yee who bought her all the Olivia books.  To top the obsession off, we also bought her the Olivia series book on tape.  It’s actually a great CD and I totally would recommend it.  Sucheng and I both really enjoy listening to it, even though we’ve heard it already for the 100th time.  It’s great for the days we drive down together to New Haven.

Anyways, one day we were driving home from Target…

Cadence: Mama, I want to listen to Olivia

Mama: Cadence, remember we said that we need to share the radio?  We listened to Olivia already earlier today.  And plus I really like this song, so I’d like to finish listening to it first.

Cadence:  But Mama, by the time this song ends, we’ll be home.

Mama – speechless.  When did she figure all this out??  Can’t get anything pass kids these days.