ipod

I'm not prepared for this post, so I will follow it up after we do Aves "real" birthday celebration this weekend!

Today Avery turned 2.  I can't even believe it!  The time just keeps passing by faster and faster.  I will reflect on Aves' past year in my follow-up.  I just have 3 thoughts to put in this post along with the photos from her mini-birthday celebration at dinner tonight:

1. It truly is a sign of the times when one of your child's first 100 words is "iPod".

2. Thanks to Grammy and Kong for the Disney Princess ride-on toy.  Aves (and Josh!) loved it!

3. Even with all this digital gadgetry, I still fail to capture a good photo of my 2 kids!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Aves!  You are such a blessing to us and we have had a blast watching you grow this past year.  We love you!

oei hiang nio liem (1919 - 2011)

My grandmother died yesterday.  She was 91 years old.  She brought so much familial love to our lives everyday.  We love you and we will miss you, Emak.  Rest in Peace.

Clockwise from top left: Aunt Irene, Dad, Mom, Uncle George, Aunt Eve, DD, Kong, Jon, Me and Emak.

From left: Kong, Jon, Larry, DD, Lenny, Me, Mom and Emak.

new addition

My brother sent this birth announcement and I thought it was so fabulous that I wanted to post it as is.  Congrats to Larry, San and family! 

Video games... makes a dad proud.

 
Beauty sleep... makes a mom proud.

One big happy family... makes any parent proud.

Introducing the first Liem boy, JC Liem.

Born: xxxx

Weight: xxxx

Height: xxxx

target

To say I like to shop is an understatement.  To say I like this news, well...that goes without saying...

21 questions, take 1

My girlfriend, Mon, posted this on her blog and I loved it!  So, I asked Josh the same questions and here are Josh's answers this time around:

1. What is something mommy always says to you?

Yes

2. What makes you happy?
Hugs

3. What makes you sad?
Daddy

4. What makes you laugh?
Mommy

5. How old are you?
Four

6. How old is Mommy?
Five

7. How old is Daddy?
Fifty

8. What is your favourite thing to do?
Play with my skateboards and this [flicking a box with his finger]

9. Who is your best friend?
Elijah

10. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Daddy

11. What are you really good at?
Brooming the floor

12. What are you not very good at?
Cleaning up

13. What did you do today?
Played on the monkey bars across to the school and...(it was a very LONG story and I couldn't keep up!)

14. What is your favourite food?
Sushi

15. What is your favourite song?
The monkey song [and he went on to sing a song he totally made about about a monkey that climbed up a tree and swung on a vine!]

16. What do you want for (holiday or birthday) this year?
A yellow mini-van car

17. What is your favourite animal?
Monkey

18. What is love?
Hugs

19. What does mommy/daddy do for work?
(Mommy) - Talk at the office [while pretending to peck on a keyboard with his fingers]; (Daddy) - Build houses

20. Where do you live?
Toronto...no...Vancouver

21. Where is your favourite place to go?
Josh: The toy store...no...what is that store with all the toys?
Dad: Toys'r'Us?!
Josh: Yeah!  Toys'r'Us.  Mommy, I want to go to Toys'r'Us and pick a toy that I want, OK?

Christmas 2010

Our Christmas vacation in Toronto this year was 2 weeks long.  I thought we'd have oodles of time to visit and relax.  Seriously.  Who was I kidding?!  The Liem family is now 20 large (21 if you include Little J, who wasn't actually out-of-womb during our visit!).  It takes co-ordination to get that many people together!  And it takes even more time if you want to have any decent visiting time with any one person!

There were actually 14 of us staying at my parent's house, so at least we had a good chance to visit with mostly everyone.  I grew up in a family of 5 children, so I am accustom to and actually enjoy the bustle of a busy household. 

Josh, on the other hand, was not used to that many people.  To say that he was a bit of a nightmare would be putting it mildly!  He was so over-excited, over-stimulated and sleep-deprived for most of the holiday that I actually felt sorry for the poor guy everytime he got in trouble.  He was introduced to the concept of washing ones mouth out with soap during this trip because he couldn't stop saying bad words.  Ugh.

On the bright side, I don't think he was scarred by any of his punishments.  He still loves going to Grammy's house and talks about going to Toronto.  I think he loved playing with his cousins and he absolutely loves the attention he gets from his aunties.  DD, Caroline, San and Tini were my saviours!

UW

We went back east for Christmas this year.  We were gone from mid-December until New Year's Eve.  It has taken me until now to get back into the swing of things.  The flu took me out for a day and a half of that, but aside from that, it has all just been family craziness.  I hope some of you can empathize.

In the past, a 2-week visit to Toronto would have been a revolving door of visits with old friends.  I would have packed our time with back to back visits.  Nowadays, with the kids, I try to do just one activity each day.  So, I knew that we wouldn't get to visit as many people as I would have liked.  As it was, we only got to visit with friends on 3 separate occasions.  I guess that's the way it goes during the holiday season!

One visit that I'm glad we manage to organize each time is a gathering with my engineering friends from UW.  This year, we even got out to Hamilton for Sarah and Darren to host, with their 3 wonderful boys - Cole, Connor and Emmett.  Thanks guys, and your house is gorgeous!

I'm glad that after almost 20 years, we can still sit down with each other, share some drinks and food and tell the occasional story about the good ole days...

Note: spouses and many kids are missing from this photo!