Cai Turns One Today

Happy Birthay, Cai.
Cai has been teething the last week so she's been sleeping with us. So we awoke to find a one year old girl in our bed, for the first time ever. When Tri awoke, we brought him in and recorded her first few awake moments as a one year old.
We're off to the beach house (www.tlrentals.com) after school today to spend a week with our friends Eric and Kathy and their two kids.
The video below is from this morning.

Bumper Cars and Chinese New Year

I'm in Kuala Lumpur for the week becoming certified as a "Smart Board Trainer". So it's nice that I've got my laptop full of photos and videos of the kids. The first just shows the kids as they scoot around the house in their walkers. You'll notice that Cai is waving as she is going in and out of the curtain because mommy is goodbye...she seems to know to wave goodbye.


The 2nd video is just a quick glimpse into "Chinese New Year" festivities. It's shot from our balcony looking across the street at our neighbours. They had a dragon dance in honour of the end of Chinese New Year. One tradition is envelopes full of money are handed out to children (and dragons it would appear). Cai and Tri each received Rp 10,000 in their envelopes from Kathy Nesteroff. In the video, you'll see a woman swinging a bamboo pole with an envelope attached at the end. The dragon tries to grab as many of these envelopes as it can.

Tri's Birthday Party

Happy Birthday, Tri!  A farily large gathering was held in Tri's honour on Sat Jan 31, 2009, to celebrate Tri's first birthday.  A crowd of 30 arrived, and Tri was the center of attention.  It was nice, but I think I preferred it more once everyone left and I finally got to spend some time with my kids again.

We didn't do a very good job of getting footage of the party.  A dead battery and also handing our camera to someone else proved to be a mistake.  The following video was the best I could manage to give a sense of the auspicious occasion.  I am going to try to embed the video twice at different qualities to see if I can see a difference between the two. The first one is regular quality, and if I succeed there will be a 2nd video of a highher quality.

Ok, I've now tested it, and the link below is indeed a higher quality. This means it takes more bandwidth and will take longer to play. But if these are not big issues, you can choose the one below. We're not talking hugely better quality, but the footage is definitely more crisp.

Happy Birthday Tri

Well Tri turned one year old yesterday.  To celebrate, we're posting two videos.  One shows how adept Cai is at crawling.  The thumbnail on the front features Tri (since it's his birthday, but it's really about Cai).

The second video shows Tri kissing his stuffed animals.  Soon it will be the ladies, but for now, it's just the animals....and my feet.  Yesterday for some reason he kept wanting to kiss the socks on my feet (maybe because it's softer than the scruff of my face).  What is cool in this video is it happens to catch the very first step that mommy and daddy have seen Tri take.  It's not a big one, but the longest journey begins with a single step.  Here it is.

Some Laughter and Some Peek-A-Boo

Our Niece, Crystal arrived today. Last night as I was going to bed, I thought I'd better double check her flight details. It's a good think I did, as we actually thought she was arriving tomorrow. So luckily we were able to ask our driver to come in to work today even though it was his day off, to meet her at the airport. She's had her first massage, and more importantly, met the kids. Crystal is the last relative we saw when leaving Canada way back in January (it's been a long time), and she's the first we've seen again. She's also the first to meet the kids in person.
Speaking of kids, wo quick clips to show you today. The first is short clip of Cai as she laughs up a storm with Mommy. Cai is now capable of spinning on the spot 360 degrees, but she's not yet capable of crawling forward. She's starting to jump more and more as she develops her leg muscles.

The next video shows Tri as he plays peek a boo.  He loves to crawl into the kitchen area behind the curtains, then turn right around as we call out for him.  This video was the first day that he did this, and since then, he's only enjoying it more.