Vox Essential Sing for Cai and Tri

Just a quck post. Virginia is in a singing group that meets after school. Today, rather than meet at school, they met at our house to practice some Christmas carols for an upcoming Christmas gig. So Cai and Tri got a private performance. Here they are singing a verse of Deck the Halls. I'll add a few other video snapshots of the evening later.

Happy Birthday, Grandma Holmes

Well, Grandma has headed to the United States to partake in her second Thanksgiving of the year. We tried to call but I think we were too late. So Cai and Tri thought they'd send their wishes in the form of a video and song.
Here it is Grandma. We wish we could be there to help you celebrate and we can't wait to see you in December.

Cai's Little Piggies

Well Cai continues to be disinterested in her night time bottle.  Tonight I was milking the bottle, as she just doesn't suck.  I got her to take 90 ml and then decided to just let her sleep.  We think that we may not even bother doing that in the future.  If she doesn't want it, maybe she doesn't need it.

Today I took a couple of short clips of Cai and Tri playing.  The first shows how adept Cai is getting at sitting on her own.  She now rarely falls backwards (though we still keep pillows behind her).

The second video shows us that Tri is understanding words.  We will clap your hand if you ask him to.  If you ask him to touch his head, or "where is Tri's head", he will frequently put his hand on his head.  I think it's pretty amazing that he now understands these things.

I'm on night time duty and it's now past 11pm so I gotta get some sleep.

Happy Birthday, Cai

Happy Birthday, Cai

Cai turned 8 months today, and she celebrated by not imbibing at all. We’re having great difficulty getting her take her evening (just before bedtime) bottle. Tonight Virginia is very stressed as a result (possibly related to the fact that she is the one on call tonight ~ funny how I seem not to be bothered by it…tonight at least).
Here is a video of Cai and Tri as they watch “The Big Blue House”. Every evening the kids get from 10 – 30 min of a video. And while the kids may not yet understand the meaning of “no” they do seem to know that when the television comes on, they should stop whatever it is they are doing. In the video Tri has a warm hand for his 8 month old sister. It’s really not that exciting, but gives you a glimpse at what they look like today.



In the second video, we catch a glimpse of Tri in the bathtub. Over the last week he has started pulling himself up to a standing position providing he has something of low height to prop himself up with (a pillow, my leg while sitting, etc). Well today this happened for the first time in the bathtub. Bath time suddenly became a little more challenging. I couldn’t quite get him to replicate the initial act (I tried, but you might hear a few thoughts from Virginia on my attempts to capture the footage versus sitting ready to catch him if/when he falls). But I think this short series of clips will give you a bit of an idea. Pay careful attention to the last few frames of the video! OUCH!

Is it Too Early for Christmas?

Not according to Virginia!  We leave to come back to Canada on December 20, we will be in Bali one weekend with our niece Crystal (and possibly niece Kim) one weekend, and one weekend we'll at our beach house, so that will only leave two weekends left at our house in Jakarta.  So Virginia decided it was time to get the Christmas tree out.  I think the fact that last week's Canadian Tire flyers had Christmas things for sale also helped.

So we've got a few videos to show.  The first is just of Cai and Tri as they play.  They are becomming better and better at playing on their own and with each (I guess this is no surprise as they are getting older, but as a first time around parent, it's still pretty cool to watch these changes).

The second is a shot of the kids and the tree.

This last one stars Charlie and Ella.  Their mother is gone to Africa for one week to interview for a head of school position, so she may enjoy catching a glimpse of what they've been up to in her abscence.