His little foot

I am obsessed with my little baby's foot! It is just the cutest thing! It is VERY chubby and I love it!

It's even cuter when he rests his foot on the bar of the stroller. I mean, it happens every single time, but it never gets old. I don't know where he learned this or got it from, but it is pretty dang cute :)

And even when I feed him, he has to put his little foot on the glider! hahahaha

This picture is when I tried to put shoes on him for the first time. He totally didn't like it. His little toes refused to put the shoes on and saying "Noooooooooo"

And... every morning when I wash his face, hands, and feet; he likes to put his foot in the water and play with the two duckies!

Don't you just wanna squish squish and bite bite??

Luray Cavern

I totally forgot to post about our little trip to Luray Cavern. About a month ago, our friend Chad, Sojin and her sister (visiting from Korea) came down from State College, PA to tour DC. We were planning to visit Luray Cavern, which is the most famous cavern in the East Coast of America, a "must see" U.S.  natural landmark, and they decided to join us. It was a really hot day, something like 46 degrees Celsius, and we were hoping the cave would be somewhat cool. I was worried for a few things since we are taking baby SJ into a cave, but everything worked out perfectly. The entire cave trail in the cave was paved and well maintained. There weren't any bugs or other living creatures, it was well lit so there weren't any problems with visibility, and it was relatively dry and very cool. All in all, the cave was awesome! We really enjoyed it a lot. It really is one of the "must see"s!

Big day

When I said, "I am going to make baby food", I was serious.

I woke up extra early to prepare for the big day. I thoroughly washed the magic bullet, pot, strainer, baby spoon, baby bowl and his bib. I soaked the rice for 20 minutes and ground it all up with a bit of water. I added water with the ground rice in a pot and brought it to a full boil. I ran it through a strainer to thin it out. The whole process took about 40 minutes. Although I could have gone the easy route and served rice cereal, knowing he'd only need 8-10 baby spoons (equivalent to  2 tablespoon?) to eat, it was all worth it!

SJ was so ready. When I fed him for the first time he got so excited as if he knew what it was and kept wanting more after that. 

I am looking forward to feeding him fruits and vegetables as well!

Catching up with the Parks

I have been crazy busy lately and had no time to update my blog.

So here it is! What we've been up to...

THE HEAT!

I have never felt such heat and humidity in my life! The moment you walk out from the building, the heat hits your entire body like running into a wall and the moisture in the air seeps through your clothes and drenches you, making you feel so uncomfortable; and you instantly regret stepping out. We are so grateful for the technology of air conditioning.

And I turned 24 last wednesday. My husband and I were so busy on my birthday we went to a little pizza place to celebrate my birthday and that was it. But I am proud to say I did the most productive thing I could do on my birthday and any other birthday of that matter or even all year thus far. I helped my husband at work; he teaches homeless kids, orphans and those who were abandoned/left behind in shelters.

And lots of progress on SJ! SJ amazed me and my husband by

1. rolling

2. Teething

3. sitting up in his high chair by himself and drooling a lot watching us eat

So we thought it would be time for baby food! After days and days of research I got ready for his first meal tomorrow! We will see how it goes. I am so excited.

We are nerds...

At Costco, we found a puzzle for Washington DC and Eus had to get it. We gave ourselves two days (exactly 48 hours) to finish it. 

Challenge and pressure was ON!

We really enjoyed doing this. Every piece we put together, we came up with a little tune to keep the excitement going.

Eus being a little more nerdy than I, stayed up a few extra hours and.... Ta-da!

1000 puzzle pieces, done by Eus and Sue in 30 hours!

It was crazy doing this because we knew all the places and it became very personal to us.

On our dinner table

Lately we have been trying to follow the new eating guide.

(If you haven't seen this, you should check it out at here)

Do you remember the good ol' food pyramids? I do! We had to memorize this for test for health class!

Have you noticed? For the new food guide, there is no fats, oils, sweets section. Fruits and Vegetables portions are greater than the Grains.

We had jasmine rice for the Grains

Chicken breast for the Protein

Blackberry, watermelon, and pineapple for the Fruits

Asparagus for the Vegetables

Milk for the Dairy.

Officially the cutest video clip EVER

I hope you have a happy happy weekend!

Ikea run

We have been looking for a high chair for baby SJ. (I know! He is already 4 months and ready for baby food now! CRAZY!) I read a lot of books and reviews and realized there really isn't any type of regulation set for high chairs like strollers/car seats so it really doesn't matter what brand or kind you get. With that in mind; we decided to go to IKEA and check theirs out. We love going to IKEA. We knew where the children section was but we of course had to go on a tour through all the showrooms and try out new things to see if we needed (more like "want") to buy something. After the tour, we finally got to the children section. We put baby SJ in three different high chairs that were on display. Again, there wasn't much of a difference except one was made of wood, plastic and fabric padding. We got the one that was plastic since it would be easier to clean and if it got banged up, we wouldn't feel sorry for it. I can't wait to start making baby food!!

Doesn't baby SJ look like he is also enjoying IKEA tour?

July 4th in DC

We were pretty excited to be celebrating Independence Day in DC; there was so much hype about it even before we moved out here. We have been planning how and where we'd watch the fireworks. We knew there would be lots of people... I mean something in the millions... and most likely very humid and hot. Since the fireworks start at 9 pm, baby SJ's sleeping time, we decided watching fireworks from our car across the river would be the best; so when it gets hot, we can turn the AC on and baby can sleep in the car seat. When we drove through Virginia to DC, the traffic was ridiculous. The cars weren't even moving, they looked parked. We gave up on trying to get into to DC and pulled off to a park next to the highway to watch the fireworks, but we couldn't find any where to park. So, we just pulled into a random parking lot by the highway ramp and walked up onto the highway and watched the fireworks standing in the middle of the highway... I know.. you read it right... - but we could not go too far from the car since baby SJ would get hot and tired and we weren't the only ones.

Well... watching fireworks from across the river wasn't the same. Before the firework ended, we quickly came home and saw the rest on TV. It was so beautiful. They had amazing fireworks all along the Potomac river. Maybe we will try next year when baby SJ is a little older.

Cherish the moment

Day 122

Baby SJ's daily schedule start with mommy's little kiss. He normally wakes up around 7 in the morning. When he makes noises in the morning to let me know that he is awake and hungry, I go and give him a little good morning kiss. I change his heavy diaper from the night before to wake him up completely so that he could focus when he eats. Him being a messy eater, he needs to focus! After his breakfast, baby SJ and I cuddle in my bed. If daddy is still asleep, he likes to wake him up by poking daddy's face. About an hour of cuddling, he gets restless and takes a nap. After nappy for a few hours he wakes up for another feeding, his snack. During his play time, he plays in his activity gym. He loves it whenever he touches something and makes a sound. We also play with his toys, and recently he's been learning to roll, so we've been working on that for a little while now. I sing Korean children songs to him. It is very exciting to see him develop everyday. After a couple more afternoon naps, daddy comes home from work. Daddy holds him and plays with him differently from mommy and he recognizes that, so he gets entertained pretty well throughout the day. After a short evening nap of 30 minutes, he takes a bath with daddy in a tub. His day ends around 9 at night. My baby SJ has so much personality now. He giggles, laughs, and screams. He gets sad, mad, and cries. He is a little over three months and has his own distinct cute personality. Oh oh oh oh so cute! I can't wait to start chasing him around when he crawls everywhere making a mess (hmmmm... maybe not too soon) or start teaching him some words. I am so glad that I get to experience these moments with my growing baby and not miss a second. When I tell my husband what SJ did throughout the day, he gets really jealous that he couldn't see. I am so lucky in every way!