Cadence Pictures and Stats

Cadence had her 1 year check-up today, her stats are:

Height - 30" (80%)
Weight - 21lbs 7oz (60%)
Head - 19" (HUGE!)

She is growing up way too fast. She currently has 3 words - Mama="mamamama", Dada="nananana" and banana="flapping her tongue" and she also makes the animal noises for dogs, cats, ducks and dinosaurs. She has gotten her first 5 teeth in the last month, the only two on the top are her canines, so she has little vampire teeth. She took her first "real" steps 2 days before her birthday (see more below) and has been practicing a little bit every day, although she would rather walk around on her knees. She mimics a lot of the things that Keegan, Matt or I do. If we say something in a certain tone of voice she will make a sound similar to that, or if I point to something or tap on the table she will do the same thing. She loves her big brother, and watches everything that he does intently. If only we could get him to include her more. She also loves our dog Abby, and gets very excited whenever she enters the room and takes any opportunity to cuddle with her when she is laying still on the floor. Abby tolerates it for the most part and is learning where to get her attention (and table scraps) from.

Matt's photographer cousin (Etherdox Photography) was in town for the holidays and I pestered her into taking Cadence's 1 year pictures. These pictures are just the preview that she posted, and I LOVE how they turned out.

Cadence got a cupcake:

We brought her favorite little chair from home. She climbs and sits on it all day.

Look at those cute teeth.

Before this day Cadence had only taken steps in between Matt and I, and they were more like just falling from lap to lap. But as we were taking pictures I was holding her hands while she stood up, and I let go ... and she just stood there. So I moved away and called for her to come over. She turned to me and took a good 3 or 4 steps right to me!! And in front of the camera!!

Look Familiar?

Does this picture look familiar?

This is Cadence at 12 months:

This is Keegan at 12 months:

Keegan 2 3/4 years and Cadence 12 months. (Abby approx. 5 yrs)

Happy 1st Birthday Cadence!!

Happy Birthday to my Cadybug!
Today she is ONE!
We celebrated by eating lunch at Red Robin, where you get a free ice cream sundae for your birthday. She loved every bite of it!
I will do a longer post next week after her 1 year check-up with (hopefully) a few of her 1 year pics.

Christmas 2010

(I've been fighting for a week with Blogger to let me upload movies, and it just hasn't worked, so I am just going to do pictures.)

We had a GREAT and relaxing Christmas this year. During the day on Christmas Eve, Aunt Jess and (future) Uncle Gary stopped by to deliver the kids Christmas gifts. They spoiled them with lots of toys and gift certificates to the Butterfly Pavilion and the Wildlife Experience.
In the evening we went over to Miq's house for some traditional clam chowder and good laughs.
Keegan and Cadence each had a present to open:

Cady chillin' with Aunt Miq.

Keegan chillin' with his cousins.

We spent Christmas day at our house. Keegan got up at his usual time, 6am, and had forgotten that the day was any different than normal, so we let him watch his morning cartoons while we slept in till 7:00. When the suspense got to me, we got up and reminded Keegan that Santa came, and immediately ran downstairs and "oohed and aahed" over all the presents under the tree.
Here is our pretty tree right after "santa" stopped by.

Cady got into the spirit too.

She got puppets ...

This was Keegan's favorite toy. It is Batman's bat cave. He had been looking at it in a magazine for weeks, and he recognized it right away.

Cady got a present almost as big as herself!

It is a music table!!!

Lovin' the new toys.

We had a nice relaxing morning as a little family. We opened gifts one at a time and played with each one for a little bit before opening the next one.
In the evening my folks, my brother and fiancee, and Holly came over for dinner.

Even MORE presents, and 90% of those are for Keegan and Cadence.

Keegan has been asking for a Pillow Pet for over a month now, and he finally got one. He calls his "Bumble Bee Boy!"

Cadence got one too, of course, a ladybug. She caught on really quickly to ripping the paper off the packages.

Early Christmas Presents

Aunt Jodi was recently in town so the kids got to open thier Christmas gifts from her early. Keegan loves his pirate ship, he literally slept with it last night and it was the first thing he played with in the morning. He also refused to nap today so that he could play with it. Cadybug loves her little horse that she can push around by herself. Thanks Aunt Jodi!! We love you!!

Here comes Santa Claus ...

This morning we got to go see Santa in a very special way ... our good friend is a Northglen police officer and was playing Santa for the Christmas Crusade for Children. He flew in to a local Kmart in a helicopter to kick off the event, and we went to go see it!

Keegan was SUPER excited when the helicopter was landing! SO CUTE!

There's Santa!!

This is Santa's daughter, Peyton, she was not so sure about the strange guy in the red suit who kept trying to talk to her.

But Keegan LOVED seeing and talking to Santa.

Cadence didn't mind him either.

We got to check out the helicopter that Santa rode in on. I was so afraid he was going to start pushing buttons.

Keegan thought it was VERY cool.

Mike & Marcie, thanks for letting us come with you!

Cadence's Ordeal - I'm ready for a new year...

Holy Cow, so I just got home from the ER with Cadence and I need get everything out so that hopefully I can relax and sleep tonight.

Cadence had a fever of 102 this morning, but a dose of Tylenol got her quickly back to normal, so I didn't think too much of it. Tonight was my work holiday party, which I had planned, so we had to go even though she wasn't feeling 100%. We left the kids in the hands of a fabulous babysitter, and went to the party. Matt left early to relieve the sitter, and I got home around 11:00, I walked in the door and she was awake with Matt, but pretty lethargic. I wanted to hold her immediately because I had been thinking about her all night; after a few seconds her eyes started rolling back in her head and a few seconds later she started having a seizure. We immediately called 911. Matt took her and laid her on the floor when he realized that she was not breathing and he gave her a few mouth-to-mouth breaths and she started breathing again. She was pretty out of it when the police/firetruck/ambulance got here, but shortly after she started crying, and it was even better than hearing her first cry. They wanted her to go in to get checked out, so she and I rode in the ambulance to the hospital. They immediately checked her temp and it was really 104 (I need a new thermometer), and they gave her Tylenol. They explained that she most likely had a fibrile seizure, which is a seizure brought on by a high temperature most common in infants/children. They took some blood and urine for analysis of any other underlying problems, and after waiting a couple hours for the test results to come back, they sent us home with a normal bill of health. By this point the Tylenol had kicked in and she had a little nap, so she was back to her normal self.

We are now home, and I am still shaking, but I am SO grateful that she is OK, and that she is now sleeping soundly in her bed. I might just watch her sleep all night.

Also, I might not go to another one of my work parties, because after the last one I went to (two years ago) I ended up in the ER with a gallbladder attack.

So, after our excitement tonight and Matt in the ER last month, I'm done. I'm ready for a healthy new year, with no ER visits.

A cute post from a friends blog ...

Check it out: Toddler Boredom Busters

She has teeth!!

Finally at 11.5 months Cadence has her first 3 teeth coming in (and I don't think others are far behind)! There is one on the bottom middle, and then both of her top canine teeth are coming in. So she will look like a little vampire! We were just able to feel them this weekend, as she is very stubborn at letting us look in her mouth. We have had an idea that they were coming because she has been super fussy, especially at night, and of course has been chewing on everything. I will definitely get pictures when the teeth are more visible.

What else has she been up to? She is busy growing up fast. She pulls herself to standing on whatever she can, and cruises wherever she has hand-holds. If she is distracted by something I can get her to stand on her own for a few seconds, but she won't do it by herself. She will "walk" on her knees so that she can hold something in each hand while she moves around, instead of crawling. She loves to climb the stairs, and just the other day went from the basement to the top floor (with me close behind). She adores her big brother, and will follow him around the room either physically or with her eyes. The other day Keegan took a toy away from her, and she was really upset so I said "Keegan you should give her a kiss and tell her you are sorry" and Cadence looked up at him with her big tear-filled eyes and leaned forward so that he could give her a kiss on her forehead. And after that she was ok! She also loves our dog Abby and especially likes to share her meals with her, we have to keep a close eye on both of them.

I can't believe she is almost a year old! Where does the time go?!?!? I love having two children and watching the dynamic they have together, it is so much fun to see them play together and laugh together. I love my kiddos.

Matthew's trip to China

I (Matthew) was fortunate enough to have been sent to China over the past two weeks for work. I have a lot of people that I want to share pictures with and figured that this blog was the best place to do it. So, for once, I will be making a post. Here I am at the San Fransisco airport just before our 13 hour flight to Hong Kong. I figured that studying a few Cantonese phrases wouldn't be a bad idea in the down time.

Here I am with my boss, Joyce. Behind us is Hong Kong bay. We had just enjoyed dinner with the CFO of our China operations in a really nice club.

Here is another picture of Hong Kong bay at night. It looks a little blurry, but that is because of all of the air pollution and the heavy fog at night. The lights of the buildings and the very crowded streets reminded me a lot of Tokyo.

The streets of Hong Kong are full of every type of store you could imagine. Everything from Coach (above) and Chanel to little "mom and pop" style restaurants.

Here is an interesting picture I took of an alley above the "party street" of Hong Kong. I just thought it was a interesting contrast of light. You can't tell very well in this picture but the street below is PACKED with people.

During my trip, I stayed in both Hong Kong and in a 'little" town in mainland China called Foshan. Both hotels I stayed in were amazing. The picture above is in the lobby of the Hong Kong hotel, "The Royal Garden".

This is the lobby of the hotel in Foshan, the "Golden Sun".

We had dinner in a lot of interesting places. Here is a pretty popular area called "Rat Alley." It is just an alleyway that is surrounded by all kinds of small kitchens whose waiters come around and try to get you to order their food. I had some amazing Thai food, but there was also Korean, Indian, Chinese and Japanese. You may notice all of the white people here. Hong Kong is FULL of ex-patriots from England and America. When I was in Foshan, I saw maybe two other white people and they worked for my company. I guess that has something to do with China's reluctance to let outsiders within their borders. White people are called "Gwilo" which means "White Ghost".

Here is a view from my hotel in Foshan. Directly below the hotel were nice, expensive single family homes. Across the river are the run down, neglected and dirty apartments that most Chinese people live in. There is a HUGE wealth gap in that country. Strangely, those who work for the government make all of the money.

Here is a picture form our plant with our company's flag and the Chinese flag.

I spent the first full weekend exploring Hong Kong with Joyce, who actually used to live there. The following are just a bunch of pictures I took of the amazing architecture and beautiful parks we found.

At the top of a peak above Hong Kong there was a wax museum. I found this guy and taught him some of my sweet Kung Fu moves. He was pretty impressed.

Here is a cemetery in Hong Kong.

Above is a funny stencil graffiti that I came across. Not sure what they are trying to say about "Hello Kitty".

Above is graffiti showing the former president of Hong Kong, who most people felt was a shill for the Chinese government. Those who live in Hong Kong do not exactly feel like Chinese citizens and resent them in a lot of ways. I worked with a team of auditors from Hong Kong and heard a lot about their views of the "mainlanders".

This was a picture I took from inside of a Buddhist temple in Hong Kong. As you might imagine, I didn't see anything like this in mainland China. The stuff hanging from the ceiling is incense. As you walk around, the ash drops on you and is considered to be holy/lucky.

Here is a paining of Mao I thought was interesting in Foshan. It was interesting to be around people who see him as a hero after living in America most of my life.

Hong Kong was full of markets of every type. Above was a street where some very poor, old people laid out their blankets and were selling old shoes, clothing, kitchen utensils and other junk.

Above is the entrance to Temple Street Market. It is lined with all kinds of vendors selling everything from high quality jade jewelry and antiques to knock-off watches and purses.

This is the Jade Market. It is a heavily guarded tent with a ton of merchants selling everything you could ever want made out of jade. Everything is negotiable here and I am pretty sure I was taken on everything I bought. Since I had fun and everything was comparatively cheap to the US, I have a hard time feeling too bad about it.

Here is another place called Stanley Market, similar to Temple Street, but geared more to tourists.

This is a picture from a huge open air meat market we stumbled upon. Notice the pig heads hanging from the table...yumm.

I ate A LOT of food over this trip. I figured out pretty quickly that what passes for Chinese food here in the States is nothing like the real thing. I never saw anything like sweet and sour chicken or sesame tofu. Not too surprising.The plant I was auditing provided a meal to everyone at lunch. It was pretty much the same thing everyday and was...interesting. It generally consisted of really fatty meat (chicken, fish, or pork) complete with bone shards and gristle in a brown ginger based sauce. We always had some steamed vegetable on top and rice. I never really ate the soup because I always found "interesting" pieces of meat floating in it.

Here I am at a Korean BBQ restaurant. I am eating fried cow tongue. Actually pretty tasty.

Whenever we ordered chicken in Foshan, the platter always came with the cooked chicken's head. Didn't always do much for the appetite.

One of the restaurants we went to allowed you to pick out the animals you wanted to eat. The main room was like a zoo. It included fish of every type, bunnies (above)...

....every kind of bird you could think (or not) to eat....

...water beetles and eels.....

...snakes...

...alligators...

...and even bamboo rats (notice the yummy cigarette butt on the floor). It all actually tasted really good if you didn't think about the fact that you personally sentenced your dinner to death a few minutes earlier. Freshest meat I have ever eaten.

Even though I fell in love with China/Hong Kong, after two weeks I really missed my beautiful wife and two kids. I am glad to be back, but want to go back (with family this time) as soon as possible.