Our Little Monkey

My Halloween store of preference for Adrian's Halloween costume closed last year after filing for bankruptcy, so we decided to shop a little early to locate something decent for Adrian's second Halloween. This Monkey outfit comes complete with a tail and feet. It's very suitable for our little Adrian since he's been known to "monkey around." Let's hope he'll grow to like the headpiece in time for Halloween.

Our Little House Cleaner

I'm well aware that this is only a phase and won't last for long, so I'm going to sit back and enjoy these moments a little longer.

Adrian is at a stage where he likes to help us (or at least attempts to) with the cleaning. There are times where he would grab a tissue and proceed to wipe the floor with it. He would also take that same piece of tissue and wipe his face with it too! There are days where he'll grab the bottle brush and use it as a duster to dust off our furniture. Other times, he'll use it as a stirrer to stir the toys he'll put in a container of some sort or a cooler. He's very comfortable around the kitchen and knows exactly where certain items are and is very capable of opening the cabinets and removing items that he'll like to play with. Lately, the "object of the hour" is the flour sifter, which he uses as a toy to play with. Clearly, he demonstrating his creative side by incorporating these objects into his play activities.

Ed the Pack Mule

All of the kids -- Alan, Ethan and our little Adrian "hitching a ride" on Ed, the pack mule! Too bad for me (and fortunately for Ed), I was busy taking the picture otherwise I would've been tempted to join in too! :)

Our Seattle / Vancouver Trip

At the end of August, our little family packed our bags (lots of 'em) and went on our very first trip together to Seattle and Vancouver. Ed's best man at our wedding, Wes was getting married and had asked Ed to be one of the groomsmen! I was a bit apprehensive about flying with Adrian as he gets fidgety just sitting in the car going from our house to his Grandparents every morning, but there's no way we'll miss Wes & Ruth's wedding. And not to mention, Adrian will get to meet his Great Grandparents Tam for the very first time!

We decided to try Benadryl on Adrian a few nights before the trip to see if it might come useful for the flight. To our disappointment, it had zero effect on the little munchkin -- it didn't make him drowsy nor hyperactive. Scratch that idea!

Miraculously, the flight to Seattle was a pleasant one! Not only did Adrian fall asleep right before the plane took off and didn't wake up until we had landed in Seattle, we also scored an extra seat for him to spread his little body out! Yay! :)

Seattle was awesome! The weather was great and we found parking right in front of the very famous Pike Place Market. There we had lunch and walked around and snapped pictures. We headed to our hotel to check in and found out about the free happy hour so we had a little snack before taking Adrian swimming at the hotel indoor pool. Adrian had so much fun splish splashing! The next day after a yummy complimentary breakfast, we checked out and headed to Woodland Park Zoo. We made it there just in time for the last giraffe feeding session, which was just an incredible experience! Adrian really enjoyed feeding the giraffes and being that we were the last group, we actually ended up staying a lot longer in the feeding area than most groups! Another score! :) We explored as much of the zoo as possible before we decided to leave and drive up through the border into Canada!

Our time in Canada was awesome! We spent a lot of time with Ed's grandparents, eating out, checked out Vancouver Aquarium, more eating, attended the wedding rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, attended wedding, visited Ed's aunt & uncle's beautiful home, more eating, went to Granville island for Adrian to take studio pics at Toy Box Studio (I was fan when we were in Vancouver in '08 while preggers with the little munchkin), shopping at the Aberdeen Centre, and more eating. Suffice to say, we were well fed on this trip. I have to admit that the food in Vancouver really is better than the Bay Area! It was sad saying goodbye, but we hope to bring the little munchkin back so that he can visit his great grandparents again!

What surprised me most about this trip was how well Adrian handled the entire trip. He's not a bad kid, but we never developed a sleeping pattern for him nor could we force him to eat when he simply chooses not to. Our little munchkin actually ate (most) of what we fed him and seemed to have genuinely enjoyed the food. He behaved during the car rides (which may've amounted up to multiple car rides a day). He even developed a sleeping pattern! We'd put him to bed at 9-9:30PM and he'll wake up around 8-8:30AM (a miracle) and then take a morning nap around 10-11AM for an hour to even 2 hours! He would repeat this again at 3PM in the afternoon! It was truly amazing! IF he's going to behave like this, we seriously need to travel more often! Well, I'll definitely consider taking him somewhere again before the end of the year! :)

Jumping for Joy!

Too bad we don't have a yard, otherwise, I would seriously purchase a permanent jump house for little Adrian. He had an awesome time inside the jump house at little Wesley's 3rd birthday party. He was even brave enough to start sliding face first down the slide attached to the jump house. Of course Ed and I made sure that one of was there to catch him each and every time. Our little boy is seriously fearless! :)

Tunnel Vision

Our little explorer making his way around this cool playground at Nathan's 5th birthday party at Ramona park in San Ramon.

Our Little Mozart

Here's our little Mozart in action at his Grand Aunt & Uncle's place in Vancouver. In case you're wondering why little Adrian keeps peeping over the piano, he's making sure that his audience are still paying attention to his grand performance. That's our little boy! :)