Ryan's Story

Carrot lovers

Springtime is in the air

Vancouver rocks in the spring!  We get the most amazing pink blooms all over the city!  The kids love it (so do we!)

Ryan is fully addicted to Pokemon

Someone please help us!  Ryan is addicted to Pokemon – that’s all he talks about.  We don’t understand the Pokemon language or fascination.  Anyway, he’s even recruited Madeline to the dark side!

Crazy Hair Day

Ryan’s School decided to have a crazy hair/hat day.  What was Ryan to do?  He decided to spike his hair with as much gel that daddy could spare.  Check it out!

Ryan’s Hockey Team (H2)

Ryan had a great year of hockey. He really improved his skating – had a chance to play as goalie and worked on his aggressiveness. Here are a few photos of his friends after one of the games. Also, I’ve included 2 videos…

Star wars meets Merida!

Madeline and Ryan have started playing together more.  They needed to find a balance and here is a perfect example.  Madeline is riding her horse as Merida from the movie Brave.  Ryan is a jedi master!

Our kids love Dance Dance Revolution

At Christmas one of the games daddy got from the kids for his xbox was Dance Dance revolution.  We had no idea at the time that everyone would love this game.  The kids beg to play it, even mommy gets in on the action!!

Ryan and some light reading

Ryan has started reading the Harry Potter series.  It’s the first fiction book he’s been into in a while.

Madeline sings a little song

Madeline must have learned this song at daycare. It shows off Vancouver’s ethnic diversity!

Daddy/Son week

Madeline and mommy decided to take a trip to LA for the week and leave the boys at home.  There was no way we weren’t going to party it up.  I let Ryan stay up late every night and start off each morning with video games…

Ryan’s First Tae Kwon Do test

Ryan has been taking Tae Kwon Do for about six weeks now and has really taken a liking to it.  He is pretty good about practising his moves and trying to get more powerful with his kicks (he uses daddy as a punching/kick…

Flashback Ryan

I just came across this video by accident and I loved it and had to add it to the blog.  Ryan at 18 months!

Ryan’s Graduation from kindergarten

Ryan has grown up so fast I can’t believe it.  It seems like just the other day he was crawling (actually, that’s probably not an understatement).  But our little boy is no longer little – he is officially a grade 1 boy …

Madeline bikes by herself!

I’ve been taking Madeline out to the garden on her bike.  Most of the time I need to hold her to keep her up but she’s been insisting on riding by herself.  After trying it out once I think she was ready to be video tape…

Happy Father’s Day

Being a dad rocks!  It is so awesome to have a day dedicated to you being awesome.  Here are the photos of us on that day!

Our favorite sushi restaurant

We love having dinner at sushi gallery.  Ryan always gets the mango roll, and Madeline gets six small avocado rolls.  Mommy and daddy usually get a rainbow roll.   Yummy!

Visiting the Bird Sanctuary

Lately Ryan had been into birds and especially Toucans.  When we went to the toy store the other day he asked for a Toucan stuffy.  He actually had a gift card from one of his friends from his birthday party so we couldn…

Ryan’s first performance

Ryan started learning the violin in January of this year.  It has been difficult to get him to practice the violin but we’ve all agreed to 15 minutes a day.  My student Christine is his teacher and she’s been doing a gre…

Ryan’s all-boy Star Wars party

This year we decided to throw Ryan an all-boys Star Wars themed party.  Grace was her typical self and organized one of the world’s greatest birthday party a six-year old boy will ever see.  She built light sabre’s for e…

Ryan’s Birthday (party 1 of 3)

Ryan has lots of friends and it has always been a challenge how to celebrate his birthday with them all.  If you throw a huge party none of them end up spending any time with Ryan.  We had a pretty good idea this year (o…

Mommy’s Birthday (2014)

We won’t say how old she is but it doesn’t matter because my wife is like a good cheese – gets better with age.  (and grows mold?? – nope, that will never work!)

Happy Mother’s Day 2014

The kids are so excited to celebrate Mommy and Daddy day.  They did ask when they get their own celebration day for which I didn’t have a good answer.  Madeline made a special gift for mommy and Ryan made a birdhouse him…

Jennifer’s wedding

One of Madeline’s daycare teachers at Chuva, Jennifer got married and asked Madeline to be her flower girl.  When she asked back in November 2013, we didn’t even hesitate to say yes.  Jennifer has always adored Madeline …

Daddy’s real birthday

It’s so awesome having kids – they certainly know how to make you feel great!  Here I am celebrating #40 with my awesome family!

Jasper turns 40!

It is hard to believe that 40 came so quickly but whatever –it is here!  Grace threw an incredible party that was hosted at our friend Peter’s barDisplace.  A lot of close friends came together for food and drinks and th…

Madeline and Ryan playing the violin together

Madeline loves watching Ryan practice the violin.  Actually, she doesn’t really just want to watch, she wants to join in and practice herself.  The sound of both of them playing together is truly magnificent and really c…

Our trip to Seattle (and to see Lilo)

We have been going down to take a quick vacation in Seattle or Washington for many years now.  We usually visit Mi Jung and Yong Chae and their kids.  Ryan really likes their dog Lilo.  Madeline is no longer terrified of…

Ryan and Madeline fly a kite together

This is a pretty cute video of Ryan and Madeline playing together.  They both really wanted to go fly a kite together on a day with no wind.  I had to explain to them that in order to get wind they would need to run with…

Happy #70 Baba!

We really wanted to be in Moncton to celebrate Baba’s 70th birthday but couldn’t make it.  It really is the busiest time of year for Grace and I and there is no chance we can get away.  We decided to sing her happy birth…

What to get mommy for her birthday

It was an ordinary Saturday evening getting the kids ready for bed. As kids were playing in the bath, I asked both Madeline and Ryan what they would like to get me for my birthday.

Ryan’s last hockey game (year 1)

It was Ryan’s very last hockey game of the tournament and unfortunately Daddy was out of town and missed out on the game and the party.  Mommy and daddy were extremely proud of Ryan for his amazing playing throughout the…

Before and After Snowman

We had a second day of snow in Vancouver this year.  We were able to build a great snowman which we namedOlaffrom the movie frozen!  Check out the before and after!

Ryan’s First Hockey Tournament (day 1)

Ryan had his first hockey tournament and the first game was a blowout!  They don’t officially keep score but Ryan’s team totally dominated.  Everyone played an important role but for our sake here are some of Ryan’s high…

Fog in Vancouver

When we get fog in Vancouver it is pretty awesome.  It doesn’t happen too often and pictures don’t really capture just how hard it is to see.  It is quite spooky and scary but exciting at the same time.

5 year old play date

Ryan had one of his good buddies from kindergarten over for a play date.  They had quite a blast and were typical boys the way they played.  There was a lot of craziness and some dancing.  The song you hear was one of Ry…

My Carrot #2

In order to understand why the kids like to say “MyCarrot” you need to see thisvideo.  Anyway, the kids were at the Korean grocery store and saw some big carrots and thought back to the Parksville ‘My Carrot’ that Madeli…

Mommy Daughter bond

What is one of the great things as a mother when having a daughter?  Dressing up your kids!  When Grace was in Hawaii she bought a matching dress with Madeline.  Here they are posing in it!

New Year’s Eve 2013

It has become a tradition to celebrate New Year’s Eve with the Carpenter family.  The kids look forward to drinks and music (juice and crazy kids songs).  They also love the sparklers that we let them hold outside.

Millenium Falcon

Ryan has been a big supporter of Lego and Star Wars.  I was going to use the word fan but knowing how much Lego costs I think he is responsible for keeping that company profitable!  One of his gifts this Christamas was t…

Christmas 2013!!

We had such an awesome Christmas this year.  Santa gave some great gifts and the kids opened lots of present and had lots of treats.  Here are the photos from the great day!

Snow in Vancouver

It is so rare for us to get measurable snow in Vancouver.  Everyone from the East Coast must think we’re weird treating snow as a special event but for our kids here in Vancouver, it really is special.  I took the kids s…

Mommy’s work Christmas party

Mommy was in charge of organizing a Children’s Christmas Party at her work this year, so Ryan and Madeline got to dress up to come to the party (Ryan even got to skip his hockey practice!) With mommy in charge, they knew…

Santa on campus!

Here is a family photo of daddy and the kids on Santa’s lap.  You may be wondering why Madeline is wearing pjs and why daddy is on Santa’s lap.  Let’s just say that Madeline is the boss and tells daddy what to do, and he…

Our first parent-teacher meeting with Ryan’s kindergarten teacher

Ryan received his very first report card from kindergarten and mommy and daddy got to sit down with his teacher, Roland for 30 minutes to talk about how he’s been doing.  According to Roland, Ryan has been extremely popu…

Daddy’s performance for Ryan’s kindergarten

A lot of Ryan’s kindergarten parents are very successful people, either working for UBC or in other areas around the city.  Many of them volunteer to talk to the kindergarten class about what they do and show them cool s…

Ryan’s team hockey get together

Ryan’s hockey team attended a game of the Vancouver Giants(Vancouver’s minor hockey team).   They had a blast there all together, shared popcorn and lots of laughs.  The kids almost made it to the end of the game, we lef…

Movember

Halmoni and Harabuji visit to Vancouver

Halmoni and Harbuji hardly  ever come visit us in Vancouver but decided to make a very short, last minute trip.  We were all very excited!  We went to eat Halmoni’s favoirte noodle at Sha Lin, went to the Lego Store wher…

Halloween 2013

One of our kids’ favourite day of the year is Halloween.  What’s there not to like?  They get to dress up and get treats!  Madeline decided to dress up in Ryan’s old Fireman costume to daycare.  It was a surprise to ever…

Pumpkin Patch Trip

Ryan and Madeline were very excited to go to the pumpkin patch.  Unfortunately, daddy was out of town playing a concert.  The kids went with their good friend Ella and had the chance to pick out their own pumpkin and rid…

Bliss!

Anyone who is a parent understands how crazy things can get.  Add in a second kid (or more) and it gets even crazier, especially when the kids are very young.  For us, there are few precious moments where both kids take …

Thanksgiving

We’ve tried to make it a tradition to take a photo every fall of our family enjoying the leaves (it’s a tradition if you do it more than once, correct?).  Anyway, it is tough with kids to get everyone looking pretty, to …

Ryan’s first day of kindergarten

Can’t believe it’s Ryan’s first day of Kindergarten! We were all very excited especially because Ryan already knew a bunch of kids in his class and we’ve heard so many amazing things about his teacher, Roland!  Our baby …

Summer Camps

This summer we decided to take Ryan out of daycare early (see the post about his happy good bye).  We wanted him to experience new things and to make new friends.  What we did was a bit crazy but it ended up working quit…

Biking through the woods

One of the advantages of living on the UBC campus are the great bike paths.  We have an awesome forest close to our home that we love to bike through.  Here is a photo of Ryan on the bike path.

Bleuberries!

We love our little farm to pick blueberries every year in Richmond (G&J farms).  This year we set a record that we will never beat – 70 pounds of blueberries in 90 minutes.  Ryan was a picking machine and Madeline was ve…

East Coast Vacation

It is always such a highlight for us to come back to the Maritimes – it seems like we can make it up every two years with the whole family without going broke (it costs a fortune!).  For this vacation we were very lucky …

Bike Race

Every year there is a large bike race that takes place right in front of our house.  There is a small part of that race that involves kids.  It’s not a real race for kids, more of a let’s all bike together kind of thing …

High Class Taste

Ryan has been intrigued by sports cars for quite some time.  The other day while shopping for groceries we came across a Ferrari parked in the lot.  Ryan insisted that we take some photos.  As we were taking photos the o…

Swimming

Every since we singed Ryan up for swimming in a glorified bathtub he has loved the water (we are serious about the bathtub swimming lessons –actually, it was a very warm and tiny swimming pool which was very unintimidati…

Back to the circus

Every year we get a local circus that rolls into town.  This is the third year that Ryan has attended and every year he goes with Ella.  It is sort of a date – this year Madeline was very excited to come.  Of course she …

Cousin Tyler’s birthday in LA

While we were down in LA we were fortunate to be able to attend Tyler’s 5th birthday party.  It was a blast!  What birthday party isn’t?  While we were down in LA Ryan was introduced to transformers and was quite intrigu…

Knott’s Berry Farm

We’ve been going to LA to visit with the kids ever since they were born.  The one thing we haven’t done yet is go to Disney.  We don’t want to go until we think the kids are ready – that day is getting near.  We decided …

Happy Good-Bye

Ryan loved going to Little Raven.  He started there one month before Madeline was born and has loved every single day.  He made many great friends, loved the teachers and had many great memories.  But, it was time for hi…

Scooter

On Ryan’s birthday we got him a scooter which he has had a lot of fun riding.  Earlier this year they opened up a skateboard park just across from our house (you can actually see it from Ryan’s window).   This new skateb…

Ryan’s real birthday (May 18)

By this point Ryan had already celebrated his birthday twice – this would now be his third time.  We invited a few friends over for dinner and cake.  It was nice to have people over to help us eat the cake and sing happy…

Last birthday at Little Raven

It is finally time to celebrate Ryan’s birthday at Little Raven (birthday party #2 of 3).   Ryan is always so excited to celebrate his birthday with his friends at Little Raven.  We made him a special planet birthday cak…

Ryan’s 5th Birthday Party (on May 11)

Ryan is very fortunate to have a lot of close friends from school and the area where we live.  When it comes time to invite his friends to his birthday we do a lot of planning on who we aren’t going to invite.  It sounds…

Daddy’s Birthday

Daddy was very lucky to be able to spend his birthday with his kids.  Sometimes at this time of year he is off on concerts.  Actually, he had to move his adjudicating in Victoria around just to be home on his birthday.  …

Daddy’s student party

At the end of the year daddy invited all of his students over for a BBQ and party.  The kids loved it and were on their special behavior (crazy crazy).  As you can see in the second photo they never miss an opportunity t…

Paul Frank

When Ryan was a bit younger he loved Paul Frank (a monkey designer).  Actually, he loved the character so much it was on his underwear.  When he heard that Richard PAUL and FRANK where coming he thought it was really fun…

Tofino

Daddy had a concert in Tofino but only agreed to do it if they could put me up in a nice hotel and let me bring my family.  Granted, Grace hated the windy roads but we got there safe and sound.  It was during the big wav…

Ryan’s first time in hockey gear

Ryan was very excited to start playing hockey.  It took us a while but we finally got all of his gear.   Here are a few pictures of him in his hockey gear for the first time.  I’ve also included a short video sample of h…

Ryan’s Lego City

Daddy turned Ryan’s Thomas the Train table into a Lego table for his birthday last year.  Lately, Ryan has really been getting into Lego more and more.  For Christmas Ryan asked for a Lego City Garage from Grace’s Dad.  …

Christmas 2012

Christmas is always such a special time.  It was extra special for us because if was the first one for us in Vancouver.  Ryan was super excited for Santa Claus to come.  He had written a letter to Santa to ask for some L…

Ryan and Sohm go up Grouse Mountain

I’ve been wanting to take Ryan up to the top of Grouse Mountain during skiing season for quite some time.  Grouse mountain has some special Christmas activities with Santa, real reindeer, skating, sleigh rides, skiing, h…

Christmas time is party time

Ryan’s really good friend Ella’s dad owns a bar called ‘Displace’.  Peter (Ella’s dad) invited us to his staff party.  It was a great party with turkey and all of the side dishes.  Fantastic food!  The kids had a blast a…

Our pre-Christmas LA trip (on the way to Hawaii)

On our way to Hawaii we stopped over for 5 days to visit Grace’s family.  It had been a year since all of us had visited so it was quite a special occasion.  Part of the reason for the visit was to celebrate Harabogie an…

Monkey bars

Ryan has been practicing his monkey bars.  His friend Ella has been a strong influence on Ryan wanting to master the monkey bars.  Here we are at the playground in LA.  This is a short video of Ryan’s monkey bar attempt.

Ryan’s note to Santa

One day after picking Ryan up from daycare we went through his creation from clipboard time (the time when the kids rest or create things on their clipboards).  We didn’t catch the importance of what Ryan had written unt…

Movember!!

Sometimes daddy likes to change things up for Ryan and Madeline but in these photos what else needs to be said?

Ryan loves swimming

For a long time Ryan hated getting water on his face in the bath.  It came to the point that it seemed like he was scared of water or putting his face in the water.  We decided to sign him up for swimming lessons and eve…

Fall 2012 Photoshoot

As I’m sure everyone already knows we like to do a family shot for our Christmas card.  We really tried to be on top of it this year.  The leaves were so beautiful in front of our house we decided to do a little photosho…

Sohm and Ryan

Now that Sohm has graduated and moved to Burnaby it is a lot harder for the two kids to get together to play.  Although Ryan and Sohm don’t see each other that often they are still good friends and we try to arrange a pl…

Silly

Ryan is very excited to get his own booster seat (we told him he had to be 40 pounds first) so he is eating up a storm!  We bought a new car seat for Madeline a while back.  In the photo you see both kids look happy, wha…

Ryan and Ella

Ryan and Ella are great friends.  They played at the playground all of the time – almost every day.  They both like to hang from the monkeybars – this is a cute photo of the two of them having fun!

Bug Museum

On our way toHornby Islandwe stopped in Victoria so that daddy could rehearse with his pianist.  While daddy was busy rehearsing mommy took the kids to the bug museum.   We had heard great things about the bug museum in …

Starting to get serious with Lego

Ryan has had his new lego table for a few months now and is starting to get pretty serious about his building.  Lego’s have really helped change the way Ryan plays.  When he gets into his Lego zone we can get up to an ho…

Ryan picking blueberries

Last year we uploaded one of my favorite videos.  It was a video of Ryan stuffing his face with blueberries while we were blueberry picking (here’s a link) .  This year we told Ryan he couldn’t eat any of the blueberries…

Baba comes for a visit!

Baba flew out to Vancouver to spend some time with us.  It was great to have her here and the kids had a blast!  Ryan was very very excited to get some introductory lessons on the violin and listened to Baba very careful…

Mississippi Hot Dog

When Baba came up for a visit I asked her to bring Ryan my old violin (that I started on when I was 4).  Ryan was very excited to play it and to learn from Baba.  They had a really good time together and Ryan wanted me t…

Dentist

Who likes going to the dentist?  Certainly, not me!  But with that said, taking care of your teeth is very important.  Ryan has been an angel about going to the dentist and in some ways actually gets a kick out of it.

Pillow Fight

Ryan has a couple of friends/neighbors kids that are a year older that he likes to play with.  Our next door neighbor Felix and another neighbor just down the street Emily are two kids that Ryan has fun with.  In this vi…

Ryan chilling with his buddies

I thought this was a cool photo.  Ryan is hanging out with his Little Raven friends Julia and Sohm eating a popsicle at the beach.

Garden and Swimming Pool

This summer we decided to buy a solid pool instead of an inflatable one.  Last year, they had sold out of the solid ones so we were stuck with an inflatable one.  The pool was a big hit especially the fact that it came w…

Ryan shows off his mad biking skills

Ryan loves biking (no kidding!).  It is time we bought him a new bike but until we do Ryan has been trying to scare us with his daredevil abilities.  Here is a quick video of Ryan showing off his biking skills!

Ryan and Sohm

Ryan has quite a few friends from daycare.   One of his best friends is Sohm who is a year older, meaning he will be going to kindergarten this year.  Both Sohm’s dad and I are trying to establish Ryan and Sohm’s friends…

Ryan and Sohm

Ryan has lots of friends at Little Raven (his daycare).  One of his really good buddies Sohm is going to be graduating soon and starting kindergarten soon.  We are trying really hard to try and get them to have a few out…

Ryan is climbing the walls!!

On Ryan’s fourth birthday when I woke him up I wished him a happy birthday.  I followed that immediately by “now that you are a big boy it is time daddy taught you something only big boys can do – it is called climbing t…

Carnival

Last year Ryan and his good friend Ella had a blast at the carnival.  This year they insisted on going together.  I bought Ryan a bracelet so he could go on as many rides as possible.  Ella and Ryan met up with their fri…

Daddy’s Sunglasses look better on Ryan

A little game of hide and seek?

Madeline was playing with her new kitchen when she decided that it might be cute to see what it would be like to go in.

Circus Ryan

There is a posting on Madeline’s blog about Stella’s birthday party.  At this same birthday party Ryan decided he wanted to show off what it would be like to be in a circus.

Daycare buddies

Ryan loves going to Little Raven daycare.  He has made some great friends and the older boys (the one’s that are graduating this year) have become Ryan’s best friends.  It will be a little bit sad when the older boys lea…

Happy #4 Ryan!!

The first thing daddy did when Ryan woke up on his birthday was to give him a big hug and wish him happy birthday.  Following that daddy immediately said “you are a big boy now, you should know how to climb the walls”  a…

Daycare Birthday

As I’m sure most of you have realized by now we celebrate our kids’ birthdays multiple times.  The way it works for Ryan is we have a party for him where we invite all of his friends, daycare throws a party and we have a…

Happy Birthday Ryan

Two years ago (on Ryan’s second birthday) daddy captured all of the young kids trying to sing happy birthday to Ryan but all you can really hear is daddy’s out of tune voice.  Grace was so mad that she made me promise no…

Ryan’s birthday cake!

As I am sure most of you know getting ready for a birthday is quite an adventure.  Each year it seems like we try to get better at making a cake.  It was very difficult for us to decide on what kind of a cake to make but…

Ryan on a skateboard

One of Ryan’s gifts at his birthday party was a skateboard from Ella.  Daddy made Ryan a deal that if he could learn how to do a few things on a skateboard he could take it outside.  This is Ryan trying to show off his f…

Making Ryan’s Lego Table

For Ryan’s fourth birthday we wanted to do something special.  Ryan has always been a big fan of Thomas the Train and had a ton of his trains and wooden tracks.  He loved building and playing with that set.  It seemed as…

Haircut time

It is that time of year where daddy likes to shave his head in anticipation of a summer of coolness.  This year right before shaving his head Ryan wanted to do the same.  How could we refuse?  Here are some photos:

Does my sister look like me or do I look like her?

Ryan’s Easter

Since Easter cam on Madeline’s birthday this year we did spend a little extra time with Ryan on his Easter to make sure he didn’t think we were ignoring him.  The morning started off with the Easter bunny randomly hiding…

Ryan’s sense of humour

I sometimes get a real kick out of the way kids think.  Listen to Ryan’s thoughts on this swing.

Sophie’s birthday party

Normally, we don’t post about other kids’ birthday parties but Sophie (our neighbor down the hall) and her mom are amazing at throwing birthday parties.  At her birthday she had a pony and each of the kids got to pet the…

Bob the builder

Ryan is a fan of bob the builder (tv show).  He likes to go between Thomas the train and Bob the Builder.  We were shopping the other day and saw a ride at the mall – it was a bob the builder ride.  Unfortunately, it was…

Can you see me?

After school (almost every day) Ryan asks if he can climb the tree.  He is referring to the tree below (smiling tree).  Many of the kids after school like to go inside and climb the many branches – it is quite safe insid…

Ryan the poser

There is a little man made chair in one of the forests close to our house.  Ryan’s friend Sophie showed it to him last year and he thinks it is a bit magical that a chair could be made out of a tree stump.  Every time he…

Go Fly a Kite

Last summer daddy and Ryan flew a kite a few times.   It was something we both enjoyed.  Anyway, daddy came back from adjudicating a festival and it was one of the windiest days I can remember – braches were everywhere. …

Ryan loves skating

Ryan has been skating for a while now and whenever we go to the rink to have some fun he gets a lot of attention.  There is something about seeing the kids when they are this young skating around that makes you smile.  R…

Ryan knows how to read

Ryan has always been interested in the alphabet and how the alphabet forms words.  We never really taught him how to read but he would always ask us how to spell something (JUICE was the first word he learned how to spel…

Snow in Vancouver?

It might seem like we are lucky to never get snow in Vancouver but to a kid growing up it seems like it never snows.  And in Vancouver if you don’t run to the nearest hill you won’t get the chance to even play in the sno…

The best weather!

This year in LA for Christmas was the best ever.  I seriously think that it was sunny and nice every single day we were there.  That is a bit unusual at that time of year and we certainly were not complaining!

Christmas in LA

Christmas is starting to become a bigger deal to Ryan as he gets older.  He certainly had a blast spending time with his cousin Tyler (who is just a few months younger).  Tyler was great at sharing all of his toys and bo…

The visit with Santa

This year we tried to avoid the mall Santa as he can be dirty and smelly and overused.  We decided to go to one of the community centres for pancakes with Santa.   Here we had breakfast with Santa and got to sit on his l…

Bright Nights (Stanley Park)

It has become a tradition (a tradition is something you’ve done more than once, right?) for us to go to the Bright Nights at Stanley Park to celebrate the start of Christmas season.  They decorate a huge section of Stanl…

Ryan and dogs

Ryan loves animals – I have to admit his favorite animal is cats but he also has a deep fondness for dogs.  Whenever he is out riding his bike and he sees someone walking a dog he stops them and asks if he can pet the do…

Our Hawaii Vacation Video

As you have probably already come to realize – we like to make a video summary of our vacation to Hawaii.  Here is this year’s video.  It has a bit of everything!

Scary Face

There were lots of activities that we attended at our resort in Hawaii.  We went to the Kids Zone every day.  At the end of our last full day in Hawaii they had a special concert and gathering for everyone on the front l…

Ants in my pants

When we went to Hawaii last year Ryan did a video of himself jumping off of a beach chair.  This year he requested that I videotape him jumping off again but wanted to add a twist or two.  I think the title is fitting!

Homemade Ice Cream

One of the activities that we took part in on vacation at the Kids Club was how to make homemade vanilla ice cream.  Here is the recipe.

Jumping Waves

At our resort in Hawaii it was surrounded by 4 lagoons which was great.  Actually, lagoons are perfect for kids as it blocks the big waves.  But at one point we wanted to explore the awesome waves of Hawaii so we took Ry…

Waterfall and Swimming

This year under advice from Auntie Esther we bought a special floating device to help Ryan build his confidence and have fun in the swimming pool.  This floating device was awesome – from the first moment Ryan was able t…

I’m Stuck!!

It is always fun to bury kids. And it is also a lot of fun to bury them so deep that they can’t get out.  Check out the frustration when Ryan realizes that he is stuck!

5 Minutes of Fame!

During our vacation at Hawaii we had the chance to get some free entertainment.  Ryan decided to participate and had a chance to test out his stage abilities.

Giddyup Horsey!

While we were in Los Angeles visiting family before our Hawaii getaway we decided to go to a park to relax and check out some pumpkins.  They had a horse ride for kids and Ryan wanted to try it out.  Check out his video.

Los Angeles (on the way to Hawaii)

This vacation to Hawaii that we’ve taken now a few times has really become something we enjoy…not like it is hard to enjoy vacations.  We have it figured out how to stop over in Los Angeles to visit family and travel to …

Children’s Museum

Daddy and Ryan had to find something fun to do in Los Angeles in order to avoid shopping with mommy.  We decided to check out the children’s museum.  It was pretty cool!

Son of two musicians

Ryan is a good entertainer

Ryan has always been a good brother to Madeline.  He has been very gently, sweet and kind.  The other thing he has done has been a great entertainer for her – unfortunately, his favorite time to make her laugh is right b…

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here we go again – another year and another feast.  Unfortunately, Grace doesn’t really like turkey but that didn’t stop me from cooking up a feast.  This year I really tried hard to make the best possible bird, and I ha…

Monkey Ryan

While I was off touring the East Coast mommy had to stay home and take care of both kids.  That’s not an easy task!  The challenge is how to entertain Ryan while taking care of Madeline.  One idea Grace had was to take R…

Reaping the rewards of the garden

It was a successful year at our garden.  Actually, we were kind of lucky and picked up a rogue garden that someone had forgotten about.  We certainly had lots of food and the biggest disappointment would have to be the t…

A day at Granville Island

It was a beautiful Saturday morning and we decided to head down to Granville Island to relax.  There are so many interesting things to do on Granville Island – the worst part of it all is that it is always crowded.  Well…

Blueberries, blueberries….everywhere!

After our trip to the East Coast we came back hoping to still make it back in time to pick some blueberries.  Daddy did some research and found a few u-picks and decided to check them out.  On our first trip Ryan came, a…

East Coast Vacation

We have already posted some cute pictures from our East Coast Vacation (2011).  It was really a blast for all of us – to see some of the photos just clickhere to visit them on Madeline’s site.

Happy Father’s Day

Daddy was surprised on the Father’s day when Ryan presented him with a mug that Ryan had painted himself.  It was quite a special day for all of us as we went to the park where they had tons of bouncy castles set up.  Ry…

Ryan’s first date

On Friday night we went to the local carnival.   Ryan was very excited to go to the carnival and we planned to have a picnic there, too.  Once we arrived all Ryan cared about were the rides.  He ate a few bites and ran o…

Big Brother

Ryan has really taken on the role of big brother quite easily.  He seems to like the responsibility and is very loving and caring around Madeline.  He is so excited to see her everyday after school and wants to hold her …

Bike Rider

As you’ve probably read earlier – we had a bunch of birthday parties for Ryan.  What we didn’t mention is what he wanted and what he got for his birthday.  About a month or two before his birthday Ryan started asking for…

Birthday Celebration #3

Well, at this point Ryan must have been thinking that we could make a cake out of anything into any shape imaginable.  We asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday (at home) and he said a garbage truck.  Not…

Daycare Birthday Party!

Ryan is a lucky kid.  He gets a birthday party with his friends and a birthday party at daycare.  And, of course, we celebrate his birthday at home on the actual day.  That makes for 3 parties (and 3 cakes!).  Actually, …

Ryan’s Birthday Party (3 years old!!)

Ryan had his birthday party and invited lots of his friends over to celebrate.  This year Ryan wanted to hold the party at our house.  We moved everything around to have as much space as possible in our living room and s…

Daddy’s Chili

Daddy has been making lunches for Ryan ever since he was eating solid food.  It started out with the basics and has since evolved into more complex lunches (of course).  It is always a challenge to try and find something…

Happy Mother’s Day!

On Mother’s day it was hard to get a chance to get away from mommy to go and pick up some special stuff for her.  Here in this photo you will see that Ryan bought mommy a balloon and some flowers for Mother’s Day.  It wa…

Ryan keeps getting better at skating

Ryan has been taking skating lessons at the community centre.  His teacher is the same teacher that daddy has for power skating.  We both find that to be quite funny.  Ryan can now skate half of the rink backwards and ca…

Happy Birthday Daddy!

It is that time of year again and daddy is getting older.  This year Ryan wanted to buy daddy a seat for his bicycle for his birthday so he can take Ryan everywhere on his bike.

Movie Time!

April proved to be a difficult month for us.  Daddy was busy finishing up his work at UBC and Madeline was born and all the excitement that came with that.  It was recital season for daddy which meant he had to listen to…

Happy Easter!

As you already know Ryan had an Easter Hunt yesterday but today was all about the Easter Egg hunt.  What we did was fill a bunch of Easter eggs with treats and hide them all over the house and let Ryan loose.   He found …

Easter Hunt!

Here we go on Easter Saturday.  We wanted to make sure that Easter was special for Ryan this year so that he knew we still cared about him.  We decided to break up Easter over 2 days.  Today we decided to have the Easter…

It is easy to get neglected

It is easy to get neglected when a new baby enters the home.  We made a special effort to make sure that Ryan got the extra attention he deserved.  Daddy made sure to make extra time for Ryan.  We really think it paid of…

Goodnight Moon (Ryan does more reading)

We posted a video of Ryan reading a while back.  Here is another video of him reading Goodnight Moon.  He is just getting over a cold if he looks a bit stuffed up.

Ryan’s last day as an only child

As we were preparing to go to the hospital for the birth of Madeline Daddy grabbed the camera and took a picture of Ryan.  We wanted it as a memory of the last picture of Ryan as an only child.

Ryan reading

Mommy and Daddy love reading lots of books to Ryan.  One day Ryan picked up one of his books and read it to us.  We were obviously very impressed so we videotaped it.

Ryan gets sick

As you probably already know it is flu and cold season.  Unfortunately, we did not avoid it.  Actually, we got hit hard with it.  Daddy was first followed by mommy.  (It’s not fun to see a 35 week pregnant woman coughing…

2nd Pregnancy is just a bit differenet

The second pregnancy just isn’t the same as the first – not that it isn’t exciting. It’s just now you are distracted with a young toddler that just wants your attention all of the time. It really is quite different.

Ryan and Felix

Ryan’s new buddy is Felix who just lives down the hall from us now that we live on the first floor.  Felix is about a year older.  When they first met a few years ago there was too big of an age gap for them to play toge…

Day 1 of Little Raven

As I posted earlier Ryan is moving to a bigger daycare.  On his first day they do a gradual entry where you only spend a short time at the new centre with mommy or daddy.  Unfortunately, on this day Daddy was not in town…

Happy Good-Bye Canada Goose

Ryan has been at Canada Goose from 17 months until now.  We wanted to move Ryan to his bigger daycare (ages 3-5) before the new baby arrived.  This was going to be a big change for Ryan, not only will he be with bigger k…

Ryan moves to a bigger room

In preparation for the new arrival (the baby!) we did some room designs.  We put together Ryan’s old crib, we took a  trip to Seattle to buy lots of stuff and we painted the rooms.  Ryan moved into the bigger room and we…

Another trip to Seattle

As you probably already know we love to shop in the US.  We like to take a few trips every year down to Seattle to go to the outlet or shopping malls.  It tends to save us a lot of money.  We usually go for 2 days so tha…

Ryan copies mommy

Ryan has taken a keen interest in mommy belly.  He gets concerned whenever mommy complains about pain – he likes to say “Is the baby poking you?”  or is very concerned whenever mommy complains about being pregnant.  The …

Potty Training!!

Well, it is hard to believe that the day is here.  Ryan is now officially potty trained!  We were not having much success until we told Ryan that he would be moving to a big boy daycare soon and that all of the big kids …

Cowboy Ryan

Ryan likes posing for photos and has started asking to have his photo taken.  Here he is posing in his cowboy boots.

Snow in Vancouver? Yipee!

As you probably already know – it doesn’t snow much in Vancouver.  We did get a nice dumping of snow in November and ever since that melted we’ve been waiting for more.  I was checking the weather forecast and heard that…

A visit from a little bird

On a nice sunny morning Ryan and I were eating our breakfast when we noticed a little bird that came by for a visit to our patio.  We tried throwing out some nuts for him but it just scared him away.  I was trying to fig…

New Years Day!

First off, let me just say that we didn’t party like teenagers on New Year’s Eve.  Actually, it was a very civilized evening and we all woke up the next day happy to take on the New Year!  As we usually do in the Cho fam…

Pony & train ride

On New Years Eve day we decided to take the kids to a pony ride (Ryan’s first) and to a train ride before heading to the zoo to check out the animals.  both Ryan and Tyler were great going for a ride on the pony.  They w…

Bath time in a Jacuzzi?

When it was time for a bath at Bunny & Shrek’s home both of the kids wanted to take a bath in the Jacuzzi.  Boy did they have fun – they could splash without fear of the water spilling over, and what fun it was to have a…

Need stress relief during the holidays?

Ryan loved playing with some of Harabogie and Halmonie’s toys at their home.  Nothing was overlooked, not even their massage chair.  Ryan figured out how to use the chair quicker than any of us, and that didn’t stop him …

Our visit to Bunny & Shrek’s house

After two days with David & Justine in LA we all went up to spend a few days with Bunny & Shrek at their home in Valencia.  We had a blast there, too.  DD & Daddy were able to go on a bike ride on the second day down the…

The World’s Best Photographer

I had to include this posting because we all laughed so hard when this happened and we had to share it with you.  We all went out to dinner at CPK (California Pizza Kitchen –really yummy food!) and we asked our waiter to…

Fun at DD’s & Justine’s House

We had quite a few adventures during our Christmas holidays this year.  After Christmas we decided to go spend a few days at DD & Justine’s house in LA.  Following our stay with them we were all going to go over to Shrek…

Christmas Morning!!

What could be more exciting than Christmas morning?  Ryan was very excited to open his stocking.  He absolutely freaked out when he found garbage bins in his stocking!  I really wish that I had it on video.

More Christmas Gifts!

As we posted earlier, we weren’t able to open all of our gifts on Christmas eve so we had another event of gift opening on Christmas morning!  Yipee!

Tent Fun

On Christmas day Ryan and Tyler had a blast playing with some about a thousand origami pieces (handmade by DD’s ex-girlfriend as a sign of love back when they were dating).  Ryan and Tyler had them all over the house and…

Christmas Eve

In traditional Cho family tradition we started opening gifts on Christmas eve.  This year we had visitors that showed up around 7:00 so we weren’t able to finish opening all of the gifts before bed.  Ryan did open his tr…

Cousin Tyler

Before coming to LA Ryan was talking about playing with Tyler (his cousin – Grace’s sister’s boy who is 7 weeks younger).  It wasn’t until the 24th of December that they started playing together and they had a blast ever…

Orange Garbage Truck

This post needs a bit of explaining.  Ryan is obsessed with trucks and his new favorite kind of truck is garbage trucks.  Daddy was doing some shopping on Amazon.com and found a cool orange garbage truck and they had a v…

Ice Skating

As many of you already know Daddy has become somewhat of an ice skating and hockey fan.  This excitement for ice skating and hockey is rubbing off on Ryan and he has been bugging daddy to take him skating (like Caillou i…

Santa!!

This year Ryan really seems to understand the whole Christmas thing with Santa, presents and holidays.  Ryan was very specific to Santa on what he wanted in terms of gifts.  Our regular mall is the Richmond Centre  and t…

Christmas Light Festival in Stanley Park

Part of our new tradition as a family at Christmas time is to go the the Christmas Light Festival in Stanley Park.  They do a wonderful job of decorating an entire section of the park in Christmas Lights.  It is always v…

Decorating the Christmas Tree

This year we decided to start early with our preparations for Christmas.  In all honesty we had to restrain ourselves from decorating even earlier.  Needless to say, Ryan loved helping out.  We even had a blast going int…

First Snowstorm of 2010

This year Jack Frost came early in Vancouver.  Every year we tend to get a snowstorm or two – nothing to write home about but this year the first snowstorm of the year ended up being quite something.  We did have some sn…

Our weekend getaway to Whistler

Every year in November daddy takes a fun gig working with a local high school string program on their yearly weekend camp to whistler.  2 Daddy has always enjoyed this weekend and ends up bringing the family with him.  T…

Halloween!!

The big day finally arrived.  In preparation for the big night of trick or treating mommy, daddy & Ryan went to a drop in arts & crafts.  We had gone to a pretty good one the weekend before which was pretty awesome.  Thi…

Trick or Treat!!

After much anticipation – the big event of Halloween has arrived.  We were unsure how many homes we could visit but it ended up being a big success.  It was planned ahead of time for Ryan to go trick or treating with his…

Getting ready for Halloween

Halloween is a lot of fun – not only for Ryan but for Mommy and Daddy.  In preparation for Halloween, Mommy & Ryan went to the apple festival for some fun.  At the apple festival Mommy & Ryan found some fun pumpkins and …

Pumpkin Carving

This year daddy wanted to make some cool pumpkins.  For the first pumpkin Ryan wanted daddy to carve out the scary image.  We had a few stencils but Ryan insisted on the scary one.  Here it is:

Ryan wants to learn the violin

Daddy has been practicing a lot more the last few weeks and has been practicing more at home.  When Ryan comes and sees daddy practicing he insists on trying to play the violin.  Ryan’s favorite thing is to take the bow …

Happy Thanksgiving (Canadian)

It is nice for us to start building our own traditions with Ryan.  This year we decided to do a bigger party for Thanksgiving.  We also tried to make some Thanksgiving arts and crafts for Ryan.  As you might already know…

Mira’s Birthday Party

One of daddy’s colleagues (Dorothy) has a daughter who invited Ryan to her birthday party.  We haven’t really hung out with Mira very much but after this party Ryan has started recognizing her as she goes to the daycare …

Community Centre Annual Party

Close to where we live (across the street) is our neighborhood’s community centre.  This place is called the Old Barn – it is brand new but many many years ago it used to be an old barn.  They tore it down and built a br…

Welcome to my world!

Here is our first picture of Madeline.  At this point we still didn’t know if we were getting a boy or girl.  It didn’t matter to us.

Our trip to the zoo in Vancouver

Well, we finally made it to the Vancouver Zoo.   It really isn’t all that exciting – don’t get me wrong, we had fun and it was good.  It is just hard to compare it to a real zoo (like the Los Angeles zoo).  Regardless, w…

Ro-Z

You might be wondering what kind of title this is for a blog posting.  You might also think that we’ve gone a bit bonkers or crazy.  Well, we have!

Dancing Machine

As I am sure many of you already know, Ryan loves to dance.  We aren’t just talking about a little here, he loves to dance

Our new garden

We’ve been on a waitlist since Ryan was born to get a garden plot on the university campus.  It was a little late in the summer but we received an email letting us know we now have a garden plot!!  As it is very late in …

Uncle Robert and Aunt Helen come up for a visit

We were very happy to have some visitors.  Sometimes, we feel like we live so far away as it is so rare to get a visit from family.  We had a blast hanging out with Uncle Robert and Aunt Helen.  Ryan fell asleep right wh…

Flossing is just as important as brushing your teeth

Ryan has become a very good boy when it comes to brushing his teeth.  I think he really gets a kick out of using daddy’s electric tooth brush (don’t worry we don’t share the same head of the brush – he has his own).  The…

Ryan gets another haircut from daddy

If you have had the chance to go through some of our earlier postings you might have noticed that we have moved into a new place.  We now have a backyard and live in a two floor apartment.  We have been loving our new pl…

YAE!

At this time of year daddy starts getting ready for another school year.  It always seems to start out with the 2 week long summer chamber music camp for young artists called ‘Young Artist Experience’.  This festival rea…

Hat Monster (part 2)

As we mentioned in an earlier posting, Ryan loves his hats.  Daddy actually loves wearing hats in the summer, too.

Ryan and his friends

Ryan has been having more play dates now that it is the summer.  Since we moved we’ve had a few friends over.  Here are some photos of Ryan and Zack (who lives about 5 minutes away).  When Angie and Quinn came over with …

Symphony of Fireworks

Some of you may know about the Symphony of Fire(works) that happens every year in Vancouver.  There is an international fireworks competition that takes place over 2 weeks (four shows).  The fireworks are amazing and las…

Hat Monster

It seems like everyday we pick Ryan up from school (daycare) he has on a different hat.  He also really likes to show them off every time he has on a new one.  i only have photos of him in two of them because we usually …

Muffin Monster

Daddy made some Banana Praline muffins for Ryan – a really easy and yummy muffin recipe.  Here are some pics of Ryan chowing down.

Blueberries Blueberries – how I love to eat ‘em

Ryan and daddy have been going to the park in the evening to play.  We sometimes go for a bike ride, play with the big yellow bouncy ball or go down the slide.  Ryan discovered a small apple tree at the park and loves to…

Our First Family Bike Ride

Ryan has been getting really good at riding his bike.  He is known and somewhat famous around this area as a very good biker.  Ryan really gets a lot of attention when he is on the bike.  I can’t really show you just how…

Dinner with Mijung and Yong Chae

This weekend getaway was a lot of fun.  We were able to go to the children’s museum, do some shopping, visit with Maya, Sasha, Nisha and Rob and on Saturday night we had dinner with Mijung, Yong Chae, Frank and Jennifer.…

Ryan visits our old neighbors (weekend getaway day 2)

On our second day of our getaway we stopped by for a visit with Sasha and Maya and their parents Nisha and Rob.  Ryan and Sasha used to play together in the hallway when Ryan was one and Sasha was two.  They were great f…

Our Weekend Getaway to Seattle

We took a weekend break before our move from #304 to #118 in the same building.  If you don’t have our new address we just switched apartments and everything else is the same.

Ryan gets musical

Things have been very exiting for us as we prepare to move.  Ryan has been growing up super fast and with summer in full gear we’ve had our hands full with picking strawberries, riding his bike, playing hockey (on the gr…

Ryan and his red walking bike

One of Ryan’s birthday gifts was a red walking bike.  We had heard lots of great things about these bikes and decided to get one for his birthday.  We did a lot of research and bought one that would fit Ryan at such a yo…

Ryan celebrates his 2nd birthday for the third time

On Saturday we celebrated Ryan’s birthday with all of his friends.  We rented out a toddler gym for the party and had 10 friends come over.  It was a lot of fun.  Here are some photos of the kids playing and having a goo…

Happy Birthday Ryan

Ryan’s birthday started off by him waking us up.  He came into our room and saw Bootsie his kitty cat and gave him a big hug.

Jasmine, Craig and Suzanne come up for a visit

We had so much fun with Craig,Suzanne and Jasmine during their visit.  But out of all of us I think Ryan had the most fun.  He absolutely loved having Jasmine here – he looked up to her and wanted to learn how to do ever…

Ryan visits Los Angeles for an early birthday

After our fun Hawaii trip we stopped by Los Angeles for a quick visit.  We celebrated Mother’s Day and Grace, Jasper & Ryan’s birthday all together.

Hawaii was a blast!

As I am sure many of you had heard – we went to Hawaii.  This was our fourth trip to Hawaii and one of our best trips.  First up, this vacation helped cure Ryan of his terrible twos.  Before we left Ryan was quite fussy …

Barber Ryan

It’s only fair if daddy cuts Ryan’s hair that Ryan should be allowed to cut daddy’s hair.  Last year when Ryan tried to cut daddy’s hair it was a bit difficult.  It sort of worked better this year.  I have to admit that …

Happy Birthday Daddy

Today started off with a nice surprise from Ryan – an early morning card, and the day ended with a nice Happy Birthday song from Ryan.  After daycare Mommy, Daddy and Ryan all went out to eat a nice dinner, then we went …

Ryan’s haircut

Ryan has not allowed us to take him in for a haircut.  He has been freaking out and doesn’t want some strange lady to put scissors  close to his head, face, neck or ears.  So, needless to say he hasn’t had a haircut late…

Ryan’s favourite videos

Ryan likes to be a big boy and enjoys big boy things.  Here are two videos that Ryan loves to watch.  The scary things about these videos is what the workers must have thought seeing a grown man hang out the window with …

Zach’s Birthday Party

Zach– one of Ryan’s friends had his second birthday party.  They both went to each other’s birthday party last year and have known each other forever.  They both had a great time and Ryan sang happy birthday to Zach.  Ry…

Jean Desmarais comes for a visit

It was really great to have Jean come in for a visit.  Daddy hadn’t seen Jean in many many years so it was great to hang out.  We didn’t have too much time so Jean just came over to our house to meet Ryan and Grace and d…

A big change

It really has been a long time since the blog has been updated.  Ryan can now talk – not just a word here and there but he can tell you what he wants, what he did or what he would like to do.  When daddy came back Ryan w…

Long Time Away

Daddy took off for his longest concert tour in a long time.  He went on a concert tour around Toronto with his trio –Triple Forte from Feb 25 until March 7.  And then to make things even crazier he took off on March 10th…

Sing with me

One of the big changes in Ryan from when daddy left on tour is that now Ryan likes to sing.  His favourite songs are Twinkle Twinkle and ABC.  We have a couple of videos to show you.

Ryan goes for the alphabet Olympic experience

As we posted a while ago that Ryan really liked his fridge alphabet game.  He likes to get up in the morning and test himself.  Lately, he has been asking me to test him on his alphabet.

Canada wins GOLD!!

We were eating dinner during the race, and kept the tv on for the downhill moguls.  It was very exiting to watch.  We saw the race that won the gold medal after dinner and we both cheered like mad crazy.  After that race…

Happy Valentine’s Day

Who are you talking to daddy?  Let’s go play!!

Date Night

Mommy and Daddy wanted to have a date night right before Valentine’s Day.  We asked Reanne (from Coho, his last daycare place) to come over and take care of Ryan for the evening.  Ryan absolutely loves Reanne and they ha…

Potty training can be fun

Ryan has started peeing in his potty.  It’s not like he is potty trained yet but he will pee in the potty, or let us know when he wants to pee in the potty.  He is especially good at peeing in the potty right before bed …

What’s a Tuesday without daddy?

Daddy has been doing daddy daycare on Tuesday as we only have daycare for 4 days a week.  Well, that all changes starting this week.  Ryan will now be back to full time at daycare.  If you are wondering why we switched t…

Manly Weekend

This past weekend has been all about daddy and Ryan.  In 2 1/2 weeks Daddy needs to take off on tour leaving Mommy and Ryan together for almost  a month.  So, in preparation for that Mommy decided to take a ‘personal’ we…

ABC’s

Ryan has been talking up a storm lately – lots of new words everyday, including things we didn’t teach him.  Just tonight, I had the hockey game on and Ryan runs over and points and says “Hockey!”.  I was pretty impresse…

The warmest winter ever!

I will start off this blog by saying that the Olympics are a royal pain.  They have started road closures and I think in the next few weeks we won’t even be allowed to drive to day care because they will have so many roa…

Train me!

Ever since Christmas Ryan has been going nuts with his new train set.  He loves all of his trains –Thomas, Percy and Patrick (although we haven’t seen Patrick in almost a week).  We have a short video to show you of Ryan…

Happy New Year!!

On New Years eve we went to a street festival to check out some local fun stuff.  It was pretty cool and they had some fun things for kids.  Ryan especially liked riding on the Thomas train and of course seeing a full mo…

What to do in California?

We had some amazing weather in LA for Christmas.  Out of all of the trips there celebrating Christmas this was the best weather ever!  It was sunny every day except one.  Ryan loved pointing out that the sun was shining …

Ryan’s Second Christmas

It was a very fun Christmas for Ryan and everyone.  On Christmas eve we left out a brownie and milk for Santa – it wasn’t easy for Ryan to part with a brownie.  He had just had his first bite of a brownie earlier in the …

Ryan’s last day at COHO

I know that it is hard to believe but Ryan has graduated from his daycare.  He is no longer in the infant center and has moved up to the toddler age group.  For Coho, Ryan was the first graduate ever.  In case you don’t …

First Snowfall

In typical Vancouver fashion – we were forecast for a major blizzard (for us that is 10-20 cm).   But, of course, they got it wrong.  It did snow but only for about an hour – just enough to get a bit of snow on the groun…

Easter Bunny Visits Santa

We went to a really cool Christmas party at Maddie’s tonight.  Ryan was a really good boy saying hi to everyone and blowing lots of kisses to all of the pretty women.  Of course, Ryan was showing off all of his dance mov…

A little espresso can’t hurt anyone

Ryan has been trying to copy mommy and daddy more and more.  And as you probably already know – we love espresso!  Ryan keeps asking for a cup of java, so we finally gave in.  We figured he didn’t have enough energy to k…

Some fun in the tent

Here is a short video of Ryan having some fun in the tent.  Check out his hair at the end!

Device Driver Could Not Be Installed

I am sure you know what a USB Cable is – if not here is what it looks like.

A little update

Ryan is starting to talk a lot more and will now imitate us (if he’s in a good mood).  I think he can say more words than I can remember –things like ‘chin, eyes, ears, hair, toes, boots, Santa, more, up, down, stairs, d…

Chihuahua!

In case you forgot that Ryan was a dancing machine – here you go.  We still have no idea where he learns his moves – we still have to capture his freaky slow dance for you.  It is just wrong to see an 18 month old groove…

Puzzled? I’m not puzzled, are you puzzled?

We have some shape sorters that Ryan has enjoyed playing with in the past.   We were at Chapters the other day trying to get some new books for Ryan – we  wanted to get some Christmas books to teach him about Santa Claus…

No more DUS!

For as long as I can remember (at least 3 months now) Ryan has been saying Dus instead of Bus.  We were convinced that he knew he was doing it, too.  We tried to correct him at least 1000 times – most of the time he woul…

Ethel

Ryan has two puppet friends – Everett and Ethel.  You have probably seen Ryan playing with Everett.  If you forgot you cancheck out his video here.

P90X

For those of you who know what P90X is, this is self-explanatory.  For those of you that don’t know what P90X is, it is an intense workout video (very cool!)

Ryan starts to earn his keep

You might think that we are easy parents but this video will show us in a new light.  We are now making Ryan clean his own room to earn his keep here.  Today, he started off by vacuuming his rug.

Family photo

Here is a photo we took of the family today (Remembrance day).  Ryan thought it was pretty cool to see 5 planes flying overhead this morning in formation.  Daddy thought it was cool too.

Ryan starts his terrible twos early

Ryan has not been his usual self lately.  He’s been really testing our patience with his behavior.  He thinks that being bad and naughty is funny.  His newest thing is as soon as he has had enough water to spit it out al…

Ryan turns over (again!)

For those of you that follow Obaki’s progress you might rememberthis postingof Ryan turning over for the first time at 3 months.  Well Ryan has learned to do it again!!

A Trip to the Zoo

During our LA trip we went to the zoo. This was Ryan’s first trip to the zoo and he had a blast. We went with his uncle Bunny and Aunt Shrek and his cousin Tyler. It was unbelievably hot that day but we were able to g…

Trick or Treat

Ryan had a fantastic Halloween.  We traveled down to LA for the weekend –left on Friday and returned on Monday.  For the first two nights we stayed at Bunny & Shrek’s house with their son (Ryan’s cousin) Tyler who is 7 w…

New way of playing

Here are a few videos to show you Ryan’s new way of playing and doing silly things.

Full Moon

Ryan has been pretty obsessed with the moon recently.  He will go out of his way (and usual with a lot of excitement) to show you where the moon is.  Ryan didn’t really get to see the moon very much because either he was…

Going to the farm

This morning we met up with some friends to check out the UBC Farm.  It’s a small farm with a farmer’s market on the weekend.  We ended up seeing some really cool stuff.  It was a perfect fall day –slightly cold but brig…

Stanley who?

It has begun.  NHL season has returned and this year they have a new fan – OBAKI

A little walk in mommy’s boots and daddy’s shoes

Ryan has certainly started imitating us more and more.  Just today, he decided to take a little walk in daddy’s shoes.  He has already taken a few walks in mommy’s boots last week.  In the video of him trying on mommy’s …

Ryan builds stuff

I left my toolbox unlocked in the closet today.  Ryan now knows how to open up our closet so he opened the closet, then opened my toolbox and proceeded to try and reassemble a toy that I put together for him yesterday.  …

Old Barn Raising Party!

The Old Barn Community Centre (the place where Ryan goes to play just behind our house) had a block party today – free hot dogs, chips, pop, live band, horse drawn carriage, balloons, face painting etc…

..hide and seek, playing in boxes and new pjs

Block – Block – Block – a – Block

For whatever reason we haven’t let Ryan play with blocks in a long time – I think they were stuck in a drawer somewhere.  Anyway, I found them today and let Ryan play with them.  It caught me completely by surprise that …

Ryan shows off!

We tried testing Ryan the other night on how many words he could understand.  We were absolutely amazed at how many words he understood.  It was kind of scary – like as if he has been listening to us all of this time and…

Does Ryan have curly hair?

Mammi recently got a perm for her hair (it looks great by the way!).   Anyway, in order to keep her perma looking pretty she bought some curlers to keep in her hair.  Ryan loves to play with them!  We got a few pictures …

Ryan gets to watch some tv

We have been letting Ryan watch a little tv here and there.  Mostly Baby Einstein videos and they are few and far between.  It’s not something we want him to get used to.  We let him watch them on long road trips and if …

Captain Obaki

On Saturday, one of my students (Llowyn Ball) who works on the ferry invited us down for a ride on the ferry on Granville Island.  We were very excited to check it out.  It was going to be Ryan’s first ride on a boat.

Mike Westwood comes for a visit

My old roommate Mike Westwood came to Vancouver for a visit.  It had been a long time since he was in Vancouver.   It was Mike’s first time to meet Ryan and they got along great.  The funny thing was Ryan tried to impres…

I hate cleaning….and I am ugly!!

Ryan didn’t like the fact that it was his turn to clean the floor.  He also quickly learned that cleaning made him feel ugly and dirty.

Ryan learns very quickly how to open a door

Actually, Ryan has been opening and closing doors for some time now but sometimes he just needs a little advice or else he gets frustrated.

Baba’s first visit!

Last week we had a great visit from Baba.  She stayed for almost a week so we had lots of time to visit and get caught up on things.  It was at the same time as the ending of YAE (Young Artist Experience) so mum came to …

Ryan meets David Jalbert

The first week of YAE (Young Artist Experience) started with a blast and David Jalbert was one of our guest artists. It was great to have him here in Vancouver. Jasper and David played lots of tennis and hung out quite…

Check out Ryan’s bedtime routine

I just wanted to start this blog off with a disclaimer.  He can be an angel at bedtime.

Meow!

It goes without saying that Ryan’s favorite word these days is Meow.  He can tell the difference between a lot of animals and points out every time a dog passes by.  He also knows about a horse, lion, giraffe, elephant a…

Spaghetti monster

The past few days Ryan hasn’t been eating very well.  He was sick at the beginning of the week but his appetite just hasn’t returned.  We’re not worried but he isn’t the little voracious eating machine he usually is.  Th…

Growing up so fast!

I am amazed at just how fast babies grow up.  I swear it was just the other day when I was so excited that Ryan could roll over.  Here are two things that Ryan started doing that made me realize that he is growing up too…

Ryan discovers how to spin

This morning when Ryan was enjoying a good dance (as he loves to do) he was watching daddy dance up his own storm.  In daddy’s wonderful dance, he included a spin.  Ryan loved it, and had to copy!

Splish Splash I love a BBQ

Tonight we went out for a yummy BBQ and a swim at the local park.  We had some yummy Sockeye salmon (mostly Ryan) and some Steak.  We also had some portabella mushrooms and asparagus.  We were quite surprised to find out…

From Tricycle to Car in 30 seconds.

Ryan would really love to be able to ride his tricycle – we leave it around the house for him to check out but he can’t ride it yet.  But he can ride in his red car.  Here is a video of him getting on his tricycle and th…

Ryan’s first haircut.

You might have noticed that Ryan’s hair was starting to get out of control. We loved it that way, but it was starting to get a bit too hot for him. We decided that it was about time to get his hair cut.

blbbbrbrbbbbblllbllbrebrbr.

This video will explain better than I can but I will let you know a little history from this day.

What violinist doesn’t love a juicy slide?

Well…that may be true for daddy but when it comes to Ryan, he loves a different kind of slide.  The real thing!!!

Bloch

I bet you didn’t get the music joke, did you?

….preparing for the rainy season.

Eunice sent Ryan a wonderful package in the mail yesterday.  He was very excited to come home and get to open something.  In the package was rain boots, a rain jacket, a lunch bag, backpack and sunglasses.  As usual, Rya…

Monkeyman Monkeyman…does whatever a monkey can.

Ryan is a monkey.  I would have thought he was half mommy and half daddy.  Nope, he is a monkey.

Who doesn’t love watermelon?

As you probably already saw from the video posted yesterday, Ryan loves corn on the cob.  Today, we cut open a new watermelon.  We’ve always known that Ryan loves watermelon.  We actually need to be careful not to turn o…

This is a corny heading!

The other day when we had some beautiful weather we had a BBQ on our balcony.  And what BBQ would be complete without corn on the cob?  Anyway, Grace and I were munching down on our corn on the cob and Ryan kept pointing…

To the community center and beyond!

Ryan loves to go to the park, which baby doesn’t?  And since daddy has taken over as daddy day care we’ve been going to the park a lot.  I think I’ve tried out all of the parks in town.  Sometimes it is kind of funny as …

A little walk in the woods

I posted a little while ago about this nice backpack for carrying Ryan that a friend gave us.  I have been using it to take Ryan on little hikes (in the woods and to the nude beach).  Today, Ryan was very excited to get …

I wear my sunglasses in the house!

We posted a photo of Ryan wearing some sunglasses the other day.  He wouldn’t let us put anything on his head or face for the longest time.  Today, daddy was showing Ryan how cool it looked to wear sunglasses and check h…

Ryan gets in trouble!!

This is unbelievable but needs a little story to lead into it.

Finally… Ryan allows us to put sunglasses on him

The Aquarium

We got a phone call the other day – it kind of surprised us.  Ryan got into daycare!!  He starts on July 1st.  It was very sudden and totally unexpected but we are counting our blessings.

Busy Bussy

We have had our hands full lately.  I can’t believe how much energy this little guy has – he just seems to go and go all day long.  Pretty crazy.  Ryan has learned how to crawl up on things like his learning table, our o…

The big change…..

I mean…daddy day care.  Mommy went back to work and daddy has taken over.  Let’s just say that it wasn’t easy but also it wasn’t as hard as I thought.  Ryan took it kind of hard not to see mommy all of the time.  The fir…

Ouch!

I have come to learn from Ryan that it isn’t easy to learn how to walk.  Sure, it doesn’t take too long but when you are impatient and want to run around, you will have accidents.

The many visitors

The last two weeks have been very exciting for us.  Ryan’s Uncle David and Aunt Justine came to visit and stayed with us for 5 days – it was a blast!  It was very nice to have them up for Ryan’s first birthday too.

Birthday video

Here is a video of things Ryan did on his birthday.

THE BIG DAY!! BIRTHDAY #1

Ryan had a really fun first birthday.  He invited over all of his friends and we threw him the best party we could.  We baked him a light chocolate cake and since daddy hates the sugary frosting on most cakes we made him…

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Today is Grace’s birthday – we now have some pictures from that day.

Maui video

Check out a couple of videos that we put together of our vacation.  The first one shows the scenery and the second video is a summary of our trip.

Our Maui Vacation

We had an awesome vacation – loved it!  It was very different to take a vacation with a baby.  We weren’t able to do things exactly the way we used to.  Actually, we weren’t able to even get out to see a sunset this time…

Ryan got sick and tired of daddy’s hair!

Yesterday Ryan decided that he all but had it with daddy’s hair and he was going to do something about it.  He grabbed a pair of hair clippers and went nuts on daddy!

Happy Birthday Daddy

Ryan was very happy to celebrate daddy’s birthday – it was sort of a preview of what’s to come for him on birthday #1.

Little red riding hood goes shopping

Ryan has been getting better at walking and has started carrying things as he walks.  Check out this video.

Ryan stands up from a sitting position for the first time

Ok…this might not sound too exciting but it is pretty monumental in terms of how Ryan gets around.  In the past Ryan would need to pull himself up onto something in order to stand or walk.  Tonight, we were hanging out a…

Ryan tries out his new shoes

The last time we were in Los Angeles Grace’s sister Esther gave Ryan a cute pair of black shoes.  Ryan couldn’t fit into the shoes at first but they fit great now.  We gave him the shoes to try out today.  Ryan really se…

and Daddy and Ryan and Mommy and Ryan and

Ryan tries to feed himself

We were hearing from some of Ryan’s mummy friends that their babies were showing an interest in feeding themselves.  So, today we gave him the spoon to give it a try.  We were very excited to see that he knew what to do.…

The weather has been amazing lately!!

What beautiful weather we have been having – absolutely amazing.  We are now able to go out and enjoy the park with Ryan – it was kind of hard last summer when Ryan was 2 months old to enjoy the park like we can now.

Walking is fun(ny!)

I have to say that I love Ryan’s walking stage.  We get a lot of laughs and it’s been a lot of fun watching Ryan figure things out.  We have two video clips for you to check out.

You can’t hide that from me!

The other day it was my turn to give Ryan a bottle.  I decided to go ahead and mix it a bit before offering it to him.  I mixed it when he was off playing so he wouldn’t notice it.  Then I set it down on the table beside…

Ryan still loves his car

I took him out in his car (which he loves) but it was kind of cold so I had to bundle him up.  He really loves this car.

Day 2 of taking steps

Ryan woke up today with a whole new level of abilities.  He is loving the fact that he can walk.  Enjoy the vidoes!

Ryan takes his first steps!

We knew it was coming.  For the last few weeks Ryan has been trying to balance himself without touching things or just holding on lightly.  The funny thing was that he didn’t really show any interest in walking.  I knew …

A long drink

We are trying to gradually switch Ryan over from formula (since about 8 months) to milk (hopefully by 12 months).  Today was the first time we gave him a bottle of milk in his new sippy cup.  He was pretty excited to hav…

Ryan is curious about the violin

Today I had the chance to do a bit of practicing at home.  I didn’t get much done as Ryan kept trying to come in and check out what daddy was doing.  He was very interested in the violin and wanted to check it out up clo…

Ryan meets Richard

On Sunday night Richard was in Vancouver for the Pacific Contact and stopped by for a visit.  It was his first time to meet Ryan.  He brought a Pooh bear who was dressed up as an Easter Bunny for Ryan. Ryan was very inte…

Mirror Mirror on the wall, who’s the handsome one I see?

Ryan has taken a new kind of interest in his reflection lately.  Check it out!

Who’s that hiding behind the door?

Ryan has figured out how to open doors – no, not with a doorknob yet.  We need to leave it open a crack for him to open a door, regardless he is getting around.  He is at the age now where he has figured out how to get i…

Want to go for a drink?

It’s finally official.  Ryan has started feeding himself.  He used to grab at the bottle while we were feeding him.  This is just another step to him being completely self-sufficient and another bit of our freedom back!

Dance Dance Revolution

Ryan loves to dance.  There is nothing more we can say.  We can hum a tune and he’ll dance or he’ll even dance when my cell phone rings.

What a week!

The last week and a bit has been really crazy for us.  Ryan woke up about last Wednesday and was sick.  He threw up a few times at night so we were up for most of the night.  Then for the next 3 days Ryan vomited from hi…

Can you dance?

Ryan has been taking some music classes for babies.  It is a very cool class – I’ve been to it a few times and Ryan really seems to love it.  We have been noticing how Ryan has started responding to music.  Just today I …

Walk walk walk your boy…

Yup, the last few weeks have involved lots of walking Ryan around.  He loves it when you hold his hand and help him walk.  Little does he know how hard it is on daddy’s back.  Sometimes I wonder if Ryan just wants to ski…

Radio Flyer

On our trip to L.A. we wanted to buy a push-car for Ryan as a special treat.  We had bought one a few weeks ago to help Ryan with his walking (you can check out our older posts to see it).  We didn’t like the other one –…

L.A. Valentine Week

We made a trip down to Los Angeles this past week to get away during Reading Week.  Instead of flying from Vancouver we drove down to Seattle and flew into Long Beach which is closer to Buena Park.  We chose to drive to …

Whatever goes up must come down

Ryan has mastered crawling.   He crawls up anything he can – he even tries to crawl up us when we are standing.  The other day he was trying to crawl up Grace and ended up pulling her pants down!  (we were home!)

Obaki Fever!

Tonight when we got home we were trying to give some food to Ryan and he was pretty fussy.  I tried all of his favorite foods but he kept fussing so we put him down to crawl – and he kept fussing.  That is not at all usu…

Couch Cruisin’

Ryan is now quite comfortable with standing up and pulling himself up.  To be honest, he is a bit obsessive – it might have something to do with growing up in a 3 Taurus house.  His new thing is crusin across the couch, …

Look daddy – I can crawl out of my crib

Mommy and Daddy felt like amateurs the other day.  Ryan had just learned to pull himself up about 3 days ago – we were very excited, of course.  But we didn’t put the two things together.  If the baby can pull himself up…

Go faster daddy!

We didn’t know if Ryan would like a walker to help him stand up or a push toy to ride in.  So, we decided to buy one to try it out (with the intentions of returning it).  In the end, we learned that Ryan likes to stand o…

Never give up!

I have been recording a lot of videos lately.  If you are wondering why – just watch them.  I am in absolute amazement at the changes I see in my baby every day.  He masters a new skill everyday like it’s his homework.

Ryan likes to lounge

Ryan has been trying really hard to master a lot of skills lately – such as crawling over things and people.  He also likes to  hold hands and walk around.  He has also been working on pulling himself up.  All of this ne…

Captain! We’re under attack

We’ve come to learn that Ryan’s crawling style is called Commando – as if he is under attack!  Ryan has really mastered his crawling but has never given up on the commando style.  We love it!

Daddy and Ryan go Gangsta!

Daddy and Ryan were left home alone tonight.  Grace went to the gym to do Pilates.  We weren’t invited so we had our own party.  We decided to dress up and have some fun with the camera.

What’s up with Ryan and his Ipod?

Ryan loves his Ipod – it was his first reason for crawling.  We have learned that if we want Ryan to do something all we have to do is put the Ipod somewhere and he will try as hard as he can to get it.

Ryan likes pants over his head

This might sound strange but Ryan has loved it whenever we’ve put a blanket or something over his head.  He goes extra nuts and starts breathing really heavy.

Ryan walks the line

OK…Now I am not saying that Ryan can walk a straight line – certainly not good enough to pass a sobriety test but he certainly looks cute as he practices his walking with daddy.  He has crawling down and is working on tr…

Mum Mums are Yum Yum

We introduced Ryan to some mum mum’s the other day.  Mum Mum’s are a rice cracker that he can chew on with his two teeth.  He loves them.   This is his third time to eat a Mum Mum and seems pretty happy to chew on someth…

Obaki’s buddy

One of Ryan’s Christmas gifts was a fireman puppet.  Ryan really likes this puppet and the past few days they have become good buddies.  Ryan has been playing games and trying to communicate with his new buddy.  I had to…

A Blue Mess

We have been feeding Ryan solid food for some time now.  These days Daddy has been trying to cook up some interesting food, and trying to avoid all jar food.

Holy Jumpings!

A few months ago Anya gave us her old jolly jumper.  We have used it for a few weeks with Ryan now.  And lately he has become obsessed with trying to stand up.  Ever since he mastered crawling he has been wanting to stan…

Do you remember your first snow storm?

Vancouver has had a lot of snow recently.  We didn’t mind as we were in Los Angeles for most of it but we were lucky enough to enjoy a few days of snow.  On our third day back we had a good snowfall and took Ryan out for…

Happy New Year!

In the Korean tradition we celebrate New Year’s by bowing to our elders and asking for advice/blessing.  After the blessing it is common to receive a gift.  We were told last year that Mommy and Daddy would no longer rec…

Grampa and Lynn visit on their way to Australia

Grampa and Lynn stopped by for a short but entertaining visit on their way to Australia.  We went out for some lunch and stopped by our place.  Ryan was so excited that he stayed up for the entire visit.  As soon as we d…

Merry Christmas!!!

What a blast Christmas was with Ryan.  We opened all of our gifts on the night before.  It was a bit overwhelming for Ryan -so much excitement and everyone wanting to take his picture.  We woke up the next day and what a…

Ryan shows his tough side, and his happy side

Ryan shows off his musical abilities and first composition.

Ryan being the son of 2 musicians couldn’t possibly escape the influence of his parents.  We certainly don’t give him too much music but when he does hear us he is obviously listening.  Ryan starts out by trying to copy …

Ryan’s first photo shoot

We had a professional photo guy come in and take some photos for us.  We didn’t have to pay (which always rocks!) but we were able to get some pretty cool photos.  We will put a few here but if you want to see them all d…

This message brought to you by Ryan

Ryan’s Christmas Lights

We are kind of late updating Ryan’s blog but here we are anyway. We went on a trip in Vancouver to the Christmas Light festival. We took a mini train around Stanley Park to see all of the lights. We took some photos.

All I want for Christmas are my 2 front teeth

It has seemed that Ryan has been teething for quite some time.  Now that he is 7 months we knew it would come soon.  On Christmas day when I was making my phone call rounds I was talking to Heather.  Ryan was getting a b…

Who wants an Ipod?

Ryan joins in with the incredible fad.  It seems these days that everyone wants an ipod.  Daddy has an Ipod Touch which plays music, videos and photos.  Ryan goes nuts for this – he loves the photos and falls asleep to t…

Daddy and Ryan practice smiling.

Ryan and Dady had a fun day.  Here are some photos.

Ryan can now sit up all by himself

We have been helping Ryan learn how to sit on his own.  We don’t leave him all alone yet as he still falls over but he is having a blast with his new ability.  It certainly makes playing with toys more fun!

Ryan tries on his new outfit

We bought a six pack of onesies for Ryan to wear (we looked for some for Daddy but they don’t make them for adults).  5 of the onesies were really cute and one of them was…well, kind of different.

Ryan practices his crawling

He doesn’t have it quite down yet – he just looks cute trying.  He can get around by rolling and flipping but no crawling…yet.

Ryan loves the laptop just like mommy & daddy

Now, if you look closely you will see what he is looking at.

Ryan likes to eat apples!

Ryan has started eating solids a few weeks ago and has shown a distinct like for certain foods.  He likes to eat apples – we have a video of him being offered his first apple.  It is worth checking out!

Ryan can (almost) sit up.

Ryan has been starting to really love tummy time, which has made our lives much easier.  Occasionally we will go into his room to see that he has rolled over onto his stomach to sleep.  He has been able to turn from his …

Ryan is learning how to fall asleep by himself.

This falling asleep by himself thing hasn’t been really easy.  The hard part is that Ryan is very strong and stubborn.  When we put him down on his crib he will roll over and toss and turn.  He will do this while fussing…

Happy Halloween!!

Ryan had his first Hallowen and he went as a bumblebee.  It wasn’t his best week as he came down with a cold.  But by Halloween he was starting to feel better.  We did get a few good shots of him in his bumblebee outfit.…

Apple Festival

This weekend we went to the local Vancouver apple festival to buy some local apples.It was pretty intense to see so many different varieties of apples.There were so many different types that we couldn’t decide on what to…

Ryan eats solids for the first time

We have been trying to catch a lot of Ryan’s firsts on video tape. We’ve been pretty lucky so far especially with his laughter. When it came time to feed Ryan for the first time we got out the camera and set it up to r…

Ryan is growing up so fast

We have been noticing some tremendous changes with Ryan lately.  His way of interacting with toys has totally changed.  He grabs at things now, he can turn over, he reaches for our food and makes some really interesting …

Ryan is now a US Citizen!!

Obaki is a US Citizen and daddy is jealous!  In his first few months he has accomplished so much.   He has a Canadian passport, a Nexus pass, a social insurance number, and US citizenship.  We are working on a US passpor…

Ryan loves tummy time (finally!)

Obaki turns over for the first time

Our Trip to New Brunswick

This has taken us forever to update.  Mostly because by the time we got home Jasper had to start up the school year and get his tenure file in.  But now that we have things under control we wanted to write and post some …

Photos of our trip to NB

Ryan’s first laugh!!

I can’t believe we were able to get a video of his first laugh.  Grace was playing with Ryan and he started to laugh so she grabbed the camera.  Enjoy!!

Ryan’s vaccine shot #2

Ryan had his second vaccine shot yesterday and he fussed a bit when the needle came out. It all went ok but he really became quite fussy that night and the following day. It has made things a bit more difficult for us,…

Does Obaki have red hair?

Grace and I have been wondering what colour hair Ryan will have.  We have been goofing around with what colour hair Ryan will end up with.  I took this picture which really shows off Ryan’s hair colour.

Ryan’s first play date

Ryan had a lot of fun the other day with his buddy Eli. We put them close together -they were so happy looking at the tree above them that their arms starting flailing all about. We had to move them a bit further apart t…

A BBQ Picnic

We went on a little picnic the other day. Daddy has been working with YAE (summer camp for young musicians) and will be teaching there for the next 2 weeks so that’s been keeping me busy. But we planned out a picnic at…

Sotto voce? I think not!

Obaki is now 11 weeks old and growing up faster than we could have ever imagined (check out the photos section if you don’t believe me -www.obakiwood.com/photos or the link is above).

A heavy head.

A couple of weeks ago we thought Ryan was going to have the whole ‘hold up your head’ thing figured out by now. But then he goes and gains 4 pounds which makes his head heavier….actually, we got a bit lazy with letting h…

Nothing to see here but my cute PJ’s and smile

Ryan gets high on his chair

When we made our trip to Seattle we found a high chair on sale at Target – so we bought it even though we knew Ryan was a bit young to start eating in his chair.

Supperman!

Supperman...do you get it? He's big and likes to eat a lot in the evenings.

Andante Mobile

Here is a cute video of Obaki playing in his crib. He loves his mobile – I mean LOVES it! Every morning he plays in it for at least 20 minutes and makes the cutest sounds. We wanted to capture it on video as we know h…

Is Ryan fat?

We went in for our 2 month check up for Ryan.  He is off the charts in weight gain – last visit he was in the 90th percentile but now he is off the chart!!  He weighs 15 lb 7 oz at just under 10 weeks.

Our first international trip

It took a bit of planning but the trip happened without any problems. Obaki was an angel and slept almost the entire drive from Vancouver to Seattle. We had about a 30 minute wait to cross the border – but that worked …

Ryan’s first word is…..(“good”)

I don’t expect you to believe that this really is Ryan’s first word.  We caught this by accident as he was playing in his crib.  It really sounds like he says “good”.  It is pretty funny!  I didn’t mess with this vid…

The big day (the first vaccination!)

Ok!  Of course, this isnt’ fun.  I did a bit of research about vaccines and what shots to get and when.  It might sound like I am a bit over-protective (which I am!) but I don’t have complete faith in our medical syst…

Some photos from our Seattle trip

Daddy is gone …off playing concerts

While dad is away playing concerts and trying to get famous, Ryan is getting older and cuter.  Here is a recent photo of Ryan – I am not sure if it is the outfit and sneakers or if he is just looking older and more matu…

Ryan trying to laugh

This is a longer and larger video (and has sound!).  You can hear Ryan trying to laugh a few times.  Here he is playing on his gym mat having a great time.

Ryan testing out his legs

OK, I am not trying to pretend that Ryan can stand up or anything.  We have been trying to get him used to how his legs are supposed to work and feel by letting him put some weight on them.  You can see that Ryan is very…

Ryan lifiting his head

Here is a short video of Ryan lifting his head.  I loved it when he first started lifting his head on his own because it would wobble – kind of like a bobble head.  It was very cute.

THE 1ST PICNIC

On July 1st we went for a short walk to the park – it was one of the hottest days of the year!  We brought a blanket and hung out and had some fun.  Ryan seemed quite happy.  It was so hot and sticky in our home, we w…

The many faces of Ryan

Ryan has been getting happier and showing us every day. Today he spent a little bit of time in his swing making faces at us. We were able to get a few photos ending with his famous ‘sexy man pose’.

HUH? What did you say?

Ryan went in for his hearing test yesterday and passed with flying colours.  I guess when we were in the hospital we left so quickly that they didn’t have enough time to test his hearing.  They finally tracked us down to…

Ryan shows off his dimple

Ryan loves his bath time – ever since day 2. On his first day he was kind of shocked by the water and cried a bit. He hasn’t cried since – I swear if he could laugh and splash the water he would. I think it is his favori…

Ryan is working on his smile

Ryan makes some pretty silly faces especially when he wakes up. He grunts, moans and makes some funny faces before letting out a special good morning fart! Then he gets happy and tries to make silly faces. His favourite …

Daddy’s perspective of the ‘big day’ (a long read!)

It all started out early in the morning when Grace had a bit of blood (bloody show it’s called – but I certainly wouldn’t watch that on TV). She had a bit of cramps but that was common all week. I kind of had a hu…

Obaki stresses out while eating!

Not only does he stress out but he also turns all red like Grampa Wood. I can only imagine what Obaki’s laugh will be like!

Ryan enters his 3rd week

Obaki is maturing every day. Just last night he asked me when he could start dating.

Come here for photos!

We’ve added a new section for just photos. We invite you to come check it out – you can get there by clicking on the top of the page (where it says ‘Obaki Photos’) or you can use the side navigation link where it says p…

Being pissed on isn’t so bad….

OK..this might sound a little weird but there is a story that goes with this.

Happy Birthday Uncle Derek

Obaki still hasn’t met his Uncle Derek but he told me to wish him a happy birthday. He was very excited to learn that both Mommy and Uncle Derek share the same birth month as him.

Ryan looks like both mommy AND daddy

We’ve been having some laughs at how people are commenting on how much Ryan looks like one of us. We see the resemblance with both of us. It is a little hard to tell at this point as we are both over 30 years older tha…

Happy 8-day party Ryan!

Today we had Grace’s family visiting from Los Angeles -Halaburgee (James Cho, Grace’s Dad), Halmonee (Carrie Cho, Grace’s mom) and Jun-Jo Halmonee (Grace’s Grandmother) to celebrate Ryan’s birthday (8 days old). It w…

Ryan loses the bind that ties

It finally happened! The umbilical cord fell off. I have to be honest here -the thing didn’t smell great and it was really getting in the way. It fell off (May 26 @ 2:00 am) at some point during a change or feed, we’r…

Ryan’s first video (4 & 5 days old)

Here’s a photo of Obaki on Day 4. He loves to cuddle.

More photos.

First things first – we’ve changed the blog so that you no longer have to register. I think you can use a fake email if you want to post some comments. But please do comment – we love hearing what you think. Also, a b…

Daddy and Baby are both tired

just sitting and waiting…..

I wonder when he’s coming…..I felt like he was coming soon a few weeks ago, but I don’t think it’s happening anytime soon anymore… Today’s is my first day on my maternity leave and I’m already losing my mind. I’m bored.…

i’m so ready!!

I’m almost 37 weeks. I can’t believe the “day” is just around the corner. The baby has definitely dropped and I’m feeling really exhausted and physically uncomfortable. It’s getting hard for me to sit, walk, and sleep…

An evolution of a belly

I felt a foot and freaked!!

I feel like my belly has gone from size 2 to 10 in the past few days. I’m really starting look pregnant and the scary reality of becoming a mommy has finally kicked in. Obaki’s kicks have been getting very strong and h…

30 weeks pregnant

Yeah!!I’m finally in my 30 weeks of pregnancy.

Getting ready for Obaki’s room

So, we drove down to Bellingham on Sunday to pick up Obaki’s crib and dresser. The moron at Walmart couldn’t find our crib for the longest time and was basically asking us to give up on it. Heck no!! I didn’t cross the…

HELP!! I’m covered in PUPPS

I don’t know what to say here other than I am itchier than you can ever imagine. If you’ve never heard of pupps you probably have no idea how much I am suffering. To top it all off – I had the worst sunburn you could eve…

oh no…..just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse

I have the worst cold ever. I’m so miserable. Coughing, sneezing, constant runny nose, headache….you name it. I usually don’t get sick very easily, but apparently your immune system is weaker when you’re pregnant. Oh wel…