Makino Chaya

Look at the 3 generations enjoying some nice Japanese food.


Look who had the most fun with Gung Gung's bday cake. 68 years old!

Chinese New Year's Eve

We had Dim Sum with some of the Won's family at the Royal Garden earlier. Alexander again ate 2 char siu bao's and 3 custard tards. Christine demonstrated her food-vacuuming techniques again with no help from anyone. Thank you Lord for blessing us with the Won's family! Amen!

No more "Min Min"?

May I have some more "min min (sphagetti)" please, mama?
However, mom was talking to gung gung on the phone. Christine didn't nap earlier in the afternoon. Hence, she just pased out when her mommy stopped refilling her plate with min min.

Lefty Custard Pie

I hope you can see improvements here as Christine finally learned to use a hand to assist in assimilating the food on her plate - vaccuming style.

'O Chaya!

Trying to get "mui mui" to post with gung gung in our new 'O Chaya series of images. She wouldn't cooperate and insisted on walking around and exploring on her own. Gung Gung has some stylish new spectacles on.

On the other hand, Boy Boy almost always cooperates with gung gung in front of the camera nowadays.

This one taken about 10 months ago in 2005 March. Look at Boy Boy's hair!





Ma Ma shocked at what she saw - Mui Mui chowing down a snow crab leg!

3 Januaries

2003 - Preferred lying down than running around




2004 - First bite of a nice piece of char siu



2005 - looking a bit "helpless"



2005 - Sharing the spotlight with the new baby...

(All images taken in January)

Sound-proof napping

See the crib in the background? 5 minutes prior to this shot, mui mui was screaming in the crib demanding to get out right after waking from an afternoon nap. Da Da took her out, Ma Ma finished up phone call with Poh Poh in HK, then went up to see if Solar was ok. Ma Ma went back downstairs, took the camera, inserted a battery, and took this shot.
I guess Alexander really needed to sleep.

More background:
This is a shot of Solar sleeping in his daddy's spot. A couple of weeks ago, the weather turned chilly and the kids began to have some slightly wheezing problems. We decided to move the kids into our bedroom just to keep them warm during the night. The light-wooden colored crib belongs to Christine. The white-painted toddler bed came from the kid's own room across the hall.
Thanks to uncle Paul and DLau 姑姑 for all those stuffed animals in the foreground. Nemo, Bruce, and Dori.

Say "Cheese"

Just as I pressed the shutter, Alexander playfully hid behind his buddy Hinson to create this very neat portrait of the two of them.
It was great eating out with Peter, Mabel, and the handsome Hinson. Alexander really loves playing with him.


About 30 seconds ago, the two of them were just about getting ready to pose...

Shabu Shabu

First attempt on the Japanese style sukiyaki-looking hot pot. Of course, no real burner was put on the table because the kids were just too young. Anyway, we have some Korean pork, brocolli, dried scallops, different types of mushrooms, tofu, cabbage, long rice, squid balls, etc... (You're looking at the pot sitting on top of the stove for last minute warm-up before going out to the dinner table)
It was a pretty cold night. We let the kids all camped out in our room, just to keep them warm...

Custard Pies

Oh no, I want eat but I don't want mommy to feed me. How do I eat 'tis custard tart 'ting?



Let me see...


Dive! Dive! Dive! Dive straight in! Then, Bite Bite Bite!

Edit: I just realized that perhaps she's mimmicking the vacuum cleaner. She did see me vacuuming the carpet not too long ago.

Stephen & Joyce

Left to right: Joyce, Stephen, Peter, Clarence, & Wendy

Stephen and Joyce brought their kids to Hawaii during their Christmas break. We had dinner at a Yakiniku place because the kids would love to BBQ their food. However, the place was so packed that we ended up without a grill. Oh well, hopefully next time...

Not 2 great weeks

Christine was diagnosed with ear infection during her baby wellness check-up last Friday.
Alexander came down with a fever and mild asthma-like symptoms since last Saturday.
It's heart-breaking to any father to see his kids getting sick.

No Dodge & Burn

No dodge and burn this time. This is about how he looks in real life now. His rashes are slowly subsiding and drying up. Click on the photo to the right to see a bigger image. It's scary to smear hydrocortizone onto his face, but I think he's quickly learned to be extra careful and not to get anything into the eyes when rubbing his face.

First very successful visit to he dentist. No cavity nuffing!

Thanksgiving is only a couple of days away, but the legendary Thanksgiving weather has already begun. Very hot, humid, and uncomfortable.

Dodged & Burned

"Dodge & Burn" describes an old-school BW film print-making technique to manipulate an image. The following image is photoshopped by a one-click button offered in our image editing software. Oh well, just to show everyone the entent of his rash conditions.



Despite a bit of itchiness, I think he's generally as happy as any other weekend. Please pray for our quick recovery. The snap is out-of-focus but I think you can see he's just as happy as playful. BTW, he has Joyce's teeth for sure. My chompers are not as pretty as those.

Puffy -> Patches

It's not getting any better. The bit marks became swollen and the surrounding skins are sorta hardening to become patches. I don't feel like taking photos of boy boy.

Puffy

Look at my face, I'm so puffed up!



Some very nasty mosquitoes bites. Or it could be something else. Mui Mui got stung on Sunday morning and Solar got the same on Monday morning. Of course, Mui Mui has got to show her war trophies (bite marks on her right wrist) when she saw the camera too...



Actually, if you clicked open the photos and look carefully, you will see the top of her left cheek quite swollen too (just below her left eye).


Oh yeah, Da Da is very very unhappy about the bugs and cleaned and re-cleaned out everything in the sleeping quarters....

Busy Friday indeed

Early morning, sun's just risen. Mui Mui and da da were playing. Granpa coming down the stairs, Boy Boy also coming down right behind. Christine was nice enough to look up into the camera.
Next minute,






Boy Boy saw what Christine was playing. Charged towards the crowd, gently nudged his sister away and took over. His favorite on the Leap Pad has got to be the farm page. Moo Moo here, and Moo Moo there....
Then, we dressed ourselves to head out...





Somehow Mui Mui was always the first and most ready to go out. Here you can see her holding on to gung gung's hand tightly while mommy doing Disco dance behind. It's hard to find a shirt that fits Christine nowadays. This one is loose on the shoulders but tight on the tummy. No, she hasn't even had breakfast yet. We're going to the Pancake House now.


Mui Mui enjoying her drinks while waiting anxiously for the pancakes to show up.


One of the bus-persons snapped the following group pic for us... Look how she secured her seat adjacent to grandpa.










After breakfast we went to the Diamond Head Memorial to lay some flowers at Poh Poh's resting place.


Mui Mui got another photo-op with gung gung.

Another good-looking pic for boy boy...






We haven't even had lunch yet....

Makino's

Gung Gung loves the seafood at Makino's and Boy Boy loves its plain udon. We hit the restaurant around 5:20p before it opened at 5:30p. Once we entered the parking area, Solar already said "min min (noodles noodles)" probably because he remembers the udon there. While mom, dad, and mui mui were waiting for the hostess to seat us, gung gung took boy boy to walk around the curb side and had plenty fun.

See this pic on the right and you can that perhaps mui mui was trying to say something. Oh well, next year when she becomes more mobile she definitely will have a seat next to gung gung too. Right now, she just had to watch boy boy getting all the attention.
I just have no idea what that expression was supposed to mean.

Both of them chow down quite a lot and that alone tells me how they like home-cooked meals, or not like. Sigh....

Boy Boy ate mostly udon and a hard-boiled egg. Mui Mui, on the other hand, ate plenty chicken, all kinds of cooked fish, veggies, rice, and udon, etc. She really is a healthy looking child like cousin Nat or Ellie. No, I sure don't mind.
After supper, it was only a little bit past 7p. We then all drove out to Sam's Club to walk around. We ran into some Christmas stuffs and took a couple of pics.

Grandpa is here...

Grandpa is visiting from HK today and will spend a full week of us. I wasn't quite sure how Solar would react to his grandfather but as you can see, he clearly remembers who gung gung is. I started telling Solar last week that gung gung would be visiting on Monday, and this morning he was looking everywhere thinking gung gung was already hiding somewhere. Boy Boy had his usual day with school and when he got home, gung gung was taking his afternoon nap. Solar listened to Joyce and kept quiet as best he could throughout the afternoon. Once he heard gung gung's bedroom door opening upstairs; however, he dashed up to greet gung gung. Here is another picture I took when Solar was a little bit younger.

Of course, as the family journalist, I need to get more pics of the little princess too. Here's one where she got some major natural highlights ---- from the morning sun.


She does require a good 5-10 minutes to warm up when she saw gung gung. After that, she followed gung gung everywhere.

Sleeping Position

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?








Let's back up a little bit....