Update

Happy New Year!

Jon, Kira, and I are still in New West staying in Joanne and Yuet-chi's basement suite. The cleaning crew have started work in our place now, so hopefully we will be back home next week. Sounds like our place will be the cleanest place in our building. 

The restoration crew will be cleaning the ceiling, carpets, flooring, walls, baseboards, blinds, couch, electronics, and everything in between. They will repaint our walls and replace our track lighting (thankfully cause I hate the lights we have right now), I am trying to get them to repaint the doors and baseboards white, we'll see how that goes :) They also will send all our clothes and linens out to the drycleaners to get cleaned. Sweet, there goes the fear of doing 100 loads of laundry! 

Unfortunately, we will have to throw out all of Kira's toys that were in the living room - which is about 95% of her toys. So, I am sorry to everyone that got her a toy ever - even some of the Christmas toys (yes Maya, the elephant is a victim too). At least our insurance will cover getting new toys for her, and she got a lot for Christmas --- the ones that weren't in our house waiting to be opened on Christmas day. 

It's hard to believe that it will be 2009 tomorrow, even harder to believe that I will be back at work in 3 months! (If anyone has a lead on a daycare with room for a baby - let me know!!!) Kira had her 9 month birthday on Sunday, crazy how quickly time flies. She is starting to crawl properly here, no more army crawl. She is climbing everything too. Today she started climbing using only the wall as her support. She can also cruise along the furniture from one end of the room to the other. She is standing with no support for about 5 seconds or so, then she falls on her bum.  She still has not interest in using our fingers as walking support, but that will likely change soon.

We wish you all a very safe and happy new year, all the best in 2009. And Kira is very much looking forward to meeting her new friends this year Georgina and Liv!! 

Pictures of Kira's Christmas and the burn damage will be posted when we get home. 

Merry Christmas

As most of you probably know by now, we were not able to spend Kira's first Christmas at home because (in Jon's words) "I tried to burn the house down". We went out to a dinner with our friends on Monday night and returned home to our smoke alarm going off and the house filled with smoke - I had left a pot boiling on the stove. Fortunately there was no fire, just 8 melted baby bottles and a black pot. Our hood fan melted and there is some smoke damage on the cupboards. We had to move out because the melted plastic is pretty toxic and our place is covered in soot.We have moved into Joanne and Yuet-chi's basement suite, lucky for us their tenant just moved out and they have not got a new tenant, yet. 

Christmas was pretty busy with everything that is going on. We were at the Lim's house for Christmas eve dinner, then Mom and Charlies Christmas day, and at family friends for Christmas dinner. We will be heading to Victoria tomorrow morning for the LaBonte family Christmas. 

Kira has enjoyed her first Christmas, thankfully she won't remember that we weren't at home. She loves all her new toys, and Jon and I are loving all her new clothes. She has been spoiled rotten, as usual. She is such a good kid, she doesn't even really seem affected by all the different places we have been at each night. Poor kid is probably still used to it from traveling to Malaysia. 

Hope that everyone had a great Christmas and holiday season, we will post pictures of Kira's Christmas and the smoke damage if and when we get back home.

Up to no good

Here are a couple more pictures of Kira re-organizing the DVD's. Shortly after these pictures, she discovered the CD's too.

Sleeping Beauty

Kira has taken to sleeping in some pretty funny positions lately. Here are a couple of pictures I was able to take...


Also, this is a picture of her from when she fell into her toy bin (again)


And her new favorite thing to do is remove all of Daddy's DVDs from the rack. You can see her handywork on the ground behind her.

Oh yeah

I forgot to mention that Kira's second tooth is starting to come up now. So exciting! She has gone from zero teeth to two teeth in just 2 weeks! For the most part, she is handling it quite well. She wakes up occasionally during the night, but she will usually go back to sleep without Jon or I comforting her. She is a little crabby at times during the day, but for the most part, she is a happy little girl. I hope that lasts...

Pictures

Here are some pictures of Kira taken this past weekend.


This is one of her favorite places to stand, her toy bin. She loves to reach in and pull toys out. Yesterday, she fell into the bin, unfortunately, we weren't able to grab a picture of it.

Hanging out with Daddy...


Climbing in her crib - she is so proud of herself.


Playing with the baby monitor

Climbing....again!

After I posted yesterday, Kira woke up from her nap and was making noises in her crib like she was playing around. Not unusual since she is constantly playing with her Snoopy toy that's in there with her.

When I went in to her room to get her, I was greeted by her smiling face -- standing up in her crib!! This is the first time that she has managed to do it without falling. She was SO PROUD of herself too. I was proud because she climbed up the foot of the crib, where there are no bars for her to grip on to, just the solid wood.

I'll try to grab a picture of it soon, she really is learning this climbing stuff fast. I'm afraid she'll be walking before long...

Doctors + More Doctors

This past week has seen poor Kira trucked out to the Opthamologist and the family Doctors for her regular checkups.
She was at the Opthamologist last week Wednesday for her quarterly eye exam. The doctor didn't even have to put the eye drops in her eyes this time! She says that her eyes show no signs of weakening since her last check up. Kira also passed all her little "tests", the doctor was happy (not nearly as happy as I was). She will go back again in March and will get the drops again to check her prescription.
Today she went to the Doctor for her 9-month checkup. She is a few weeks ahead of schedule due to the holiday season. Her doctor likes to see the babies at 9 months so that she can have at least one visit where she doesn't have to give them shots, and also to check their progress. Kira is back down to 17lbs again, she has lost about a pound or so since she started crawling and climbing. The doctor was not concerned about this at all. We weren't able to get an accurate measurement of her height as she kept trying to eat/grab the tape measure, but I know that she has grown since her last check up as she no longer fits a lot of her clothing.
Due to our recent poor health, we decided that Kira should get her flu shot today as well (so much for a check up without a shot), she did very well and didn't even cry until we started laughing because she didn't cry. Figures. I also got my flu shot - just in case. As this was Kira's first flu shot, she has to go back for a follow-up in 4 weeks,which means another shot. Poor kid.
At home, Kira has turned into a crawling and climbing machine. It seems that everything exists for her to climb up. She is now starting to cruise a little bit too. She is one active kid. She is so proud of herself when she climbs up on her feet, everytime she breaks out into a huge smile.
Oh, and speaking of smiles - she is FINALLY getting her first tooth!! The bottom left tooth is halfway through her gum now! I'm so happy! I was beginning to think that she would be 2 years old with no teeth at all! She is handling it very well, she barely cries at night with it and when she does, a little baby Orajel usually does the trick. The best part is she has been sleeping more because of it! Woohoo! She has been sleeping until 7:00/7:30 most mornings, much better than a 6:00 wake up call!
This week I am going to try to get Kira's picture with Santa. If it works out, I will post it up here for you. Hope everyone is doing well.

Settling back in

Hello everyone!

Well, we have finally made it home. The flights home went well, thankfully Grandma Rose was there to help out. Kira did so well with all the traveling, she really was a trooper.

We are slowly settling back into everything here again. Kira is still having troubles adjusting to the time difference, but we have started adjusting her napping schedules and she is sleeping much better during the night now. Me, not so much. I am suffering from 4am-itis. That is, I can no longer sleep past 4am. I hope that this passes quickly.

While we were in Malaysia, Kira learned how to crawl properly. Since the floors are mainly marble, it was a little tough for her to drag herself, so she had to learn fast if she wanted to get anywhere. Within a few days, she had it mastered. Well, during the last week that we were there, she decided "enough with this crawling", and started to pull herself up. So, within 3.5 weeks, she learned how to crawl AND pull herself to her feet. I am worried, this one is going to be an early walker I think.

Thank you again to everyone in Malaysia for spoiling Kira rotten, and for everything else you did for us. We miss you guys already, looking forward to seeing you in June.

Pictures Posted

Hello everyone. I have posted some pictures from the vacation. The rest of the pictures will be posted on facebook and picasa when we get home next week.

There are 3 different posts - KL, Singapore/Indonesia, and Malacca.

Enjoy!

Malacca Photos

On the way back from Indonesia, we stopped in Malacca to visit some more family. This is Kira's cousin Matthew. He is very shy, but so cute!

Kira and Matthew playing together. Kira liked to pull Matthew's hair...

This is Kira with her Great-Grandma and Grandma.

Singapore/Indonesia Photos

In the car, beginning our 3 hour drive to Singapore. Kira has been spoiled here with this car seat, she will be rear-facing again when we get home. Poor thing.

When we reached the border to Singapore, we were delayed there for almost one hour while Uncle Bob was inside with the border agents. We had no idea what was going on and we were not allowed to leave the car. Finally, we were told that the "7" had fallen off the license plate, resulting in a hefty fine. They were going to continue to fine us until the "7" was replaced. So, after trips to hardware stores and gas stations proved unsuccessful, Charlie and Bob put their heads together and created a "7" out of a plastic spoon, knife, crazy glue, and scotch tape. And wouldn't you know it, the damn thing worked. On the way out of Singapore, no fine.

This is us on the ferry from Singapore to Bintan, Indonesia. Kira was such a trooper. The delay at the border meant we missed our ferry and had to take one 3 hours later. We had been traveling for over 8 hours at this point, but Kira was not fussing.

This is the villa we stayed at. Yes, we had the entire place. It was pretty much a 4 bedroom house. Pretty rough huh?

Oh, and it came with it's own private pool too...

Kira dipping her toes into the main hotel pool. After a little coaxing from Grandpa Charlie, Kira went in the pool and quite enjoyed it. 

Hanging out at the pool with Grandma Tracy

And at the beach with Grandma Rose

The last day that we were there, it rained. A lot. The last night, there was a thunder storm, followed by another, and another, and so on. In the morning, the rain had stopped, but just before we left, it just poured. These pictures show what the back yard of the villa looked like after only 10 minutes of rain. That's how hard it was raining. 

Hard to tell where the pool ends and the grass begins.

KL Pictures

Kuala Lumpur Photos:

Kira has been getting lots of visits from her Aunties and Uncles. She is loving the attention. I'm not sure how she will adjust when we get home...

We were able to borrow a stroller here, as you can see, Kira made herself quite comfortable in it. So elegant.

Grandpa Charlie took Kira on walks whenever he could. The heat and constant rain kept him indoors more than he would have liked.

The Petronas Towers. You can see that it was raining at the time of the photo. Be sure to hear the umbrella story from my Mom. 

This happened quite a bit. Random strangers wanting to hold Kira. Naturally, she loved all the extra attention. This was a restaurant where we were having lunch and the staff were passing Kira around for about 10 minutes. She was giggling and smiling the whole time. 

Hello from Malaysia...Part 2

We have already been here for 2 weeks! Time flies. Today Mom and Charlie are heading back to Vancouver. I think that they had a good time, but Mom still can't understand how they eat 24/7 here and stay so thin. Must be the heat. I know that Charlie has enjoyed the Carlsberg's in the sun. He is upstairs working on his burn right now while downing a beer. Rough life.

Kira has fully adjusted to the time difference now. She is getting a little fussy and has cried when there are large crowds of people in the house. We are thinking that she may be close to cutting a tooth. But for the most part she is full of smiles and giggles. She loves having Grandma Rose around and Auntie Leena + Uncle Bob. Just the sight of Uncle Bob and she is smiling and laughing. I don't know what she is going to do when we go home.

This week we went to Bintan, Indonesia for a couple of days on the beach. The second night that we were there the tail end of a typhoon passed through and brought some amazing storms. I have never seen rain like that in my life. The thunder and lightning went on all night, there must have been about 4 storms back to back that passed overhead. Absolutely wonderful. Kira slept through everything thankfully. The next morning the rain was still going on. The grounds looked like lakes and we couldn't go out in the rain as we would be soaked instantly. I got some great pictures and will post them when we get back.

After Indonesia, we headed back via Singapore. We'd never been to Singapore before and I dont know if we ever will again. It's very pretty but very expensive. I can't believe that they fine people for most everything. But that will be another post...

Once we left Singapore we headed for Melaka, where Jon's family is originally from. While there we visited Jon's Grandma, Kira's Great-Grandma. She was very happy that Kira gave her one of her big gummy smiles. Pictures to come soon.

Now we are back in KL and will stay here until we head out next week Monday. I hope that everyone is doing well and look forward to catching up very soon.

Hello from Malaysia

Well we made it here in one piece. The trip started at the grand hour of 3am as we caught our flight to Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific had screwed up the seating, so the 3 of us were not together as originally booked. Long story short, Mom ended up sitting with us in the front and Charlie was 5 rows back. Charlie will be able to fill you in with a far more colourful version!

We got into Hong Kong and quickly headed out to KL. Once we arrived we were greeted by Rose, Kira had no problems remembering her Grandma and was beaming at the sight of her. 

This is our 3rd day here now and Kira is slowly adjusting to the time and temperature difference. She is still waking quite a bit during the night, but she will usually fall back asleep within a few minutes. I'm hoping that she can sleep through the night again very soon because I am pooped!!!

Her crawling has improved a lot too. She is now "crab crawling" where she moves one leg and drags the other - too funny. But she is quick now! She is keeping me on my toes for sure.

Mom and Charlie have gone off to the resort town (island?) of Lengkawi for the next 3 days. I'm pretty sure that they will enjoy doing nothing but sitting on the beach in the sunshine. 

This weekend is James' (Jon's cousin) birthday party. I believe that he is turning 7. Then on Monday we are heading to Malacca to visit with the rest of the family and hopefully to have Kira meet her Great-Grandma. After Malacca we are hoping to do a trip to Singapore and Bintan (Indonesia), but we will see how Kira is doing.

I won't be able to post any pictures while we are here, but I will put some up when we get home on the 25th of November. 

Hope everyone is doing well.

The beginning of the end....

She is starting to figure this crawling business out...

More Pictures!!

Pictures!

There isn't too much going on here, we are just gearing up for our trip and getting in as much time with Daddy as possible. Tonight we are going for dinner for Joanne's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JO!

Here are some pictures of Kira from the last couple of days...


As her hair grows out, we are pulling it back to keep it out of her eyes, which looks super cute.

And then you take it out of the ponytail, and this is what you get! She looks straight out of the 80's.


This is her pink elephant she snuggles with sometimes.

Home sweet home

Hello everyone. Couple of quick updates...

#1) Kira went in for her 6 month checkup/shots on Tuesday. She is 16.45lbs, 67cm long (approx - she was moving way too much for an accurate measurement...and she kept trying to eat the tape measure), and her head is 43cm. All of her measurements are within the 50 - 75 percentile, so she is growing very well.
She also had her shots in this appointment and amazed both the doctor and me by not crying at all! She was even laughing with the doctor about 3 minutes after wards . The only time she cried was when I put her clothes back on - this kid loves being naked!
She continues to develop everyday. She is now able to sit up on her own, she topples now and then, but is quite steady for the most part. She has also started a backwards wave, she does this a lot in her stroller much to the delight of strangers that are waving at her. She is getting close to crawling, she is still moving backwards only but I figure by the time we are back from Malaysia she will be able to show off her crawling talents to her Daddy.

This is a picture of her today. She is in her exersaucer while I type this post. For those of you thinking she needs a haircut (Mom), I am letting her hair grow out so too bad!


#2) Our floors have finally been replaced and man do they look great! Kira and I were able to move home again last night. The baseboards were installed this morning and they are touching up the paint right now, then we will move our furniture back out and get back to normal life for a couple of weeks...then off to Malaysia!
Thanks again to Mom and Charlie for letting us crash at their place while the floors were being done. I'm sure it wasn't easy having a baby around to keep you up at night, but we are very grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving long weekend. We have returned home for one day to give Mom + Charlie a break from Kira and I. After a bit of a delay with the install (yay strata's!), the flooring will be installed tomorrow and Tuesday. We are hoping to move back home Tuesday night. Here are some pictures of what our place currently looks like:

Moving on out

We will be moving to Mom + Charlie's house on Monday for about 10 days or so while our floors are replaced. Turns out that the flooring was a little more damaged from the washing machine overflow than we originally thought. The way we are looking at is that we get brand new hardwood flooring for $500 (our deductible). We have now also repaired our washing machine and replaced the hoses, drain hose, as well as the toilet tank in the second bathroom - it had a crack and we didn't want to risk another flood!
There was a flood in the building late last week, someone working in their bathroom knocked the sprinkler and it went off. The flooding was so bad there was water coming out of the ceiling in units 3 floors below. Thank goodness the flooding happened 7 floors down from our unit, I just don't think we could handle going through this all over again.
Hope that everyone is doing well and enjoying the first few days of fall!

Here are a couple of pictures of Kira (most recent at the top)