Naomi and Alli

Naomi and Alli had their first "playdate" when they were just a few months/weeks old. Alli cried the whole time while Naomi slept the whole time. It wasn't the most exciting playdates ever, but over past year we've evolved from Naomi actually being awake, to them slowly being aware of each other, to this past weekend where they finally interacted with each other. At 16 and 15 months old, Alli and Naomi have officially started playing together. It was so cute to see them playing with blocks, sharing snacks, waving hi to each other, coloring on the chalkboard, giving each other high fives, hugging and even playing ring around the rosies. Of course it wasn't all smooth sailing, I definitely saw some jealous tendencies of Naomi come out, as she saw Alli moving into her turf...especially when it came to playing with Lilo and Stitch's crates.

A milestone of my own

Today is going to be the first day where I won’t get to see Naomi awake. Since she’s always asleep when I leave for work, I’m always excited to see her for a few hours after work before we put her to bed, and desperately try not to schedule anything after work in order to avoid conflicting with this precious time. Tonight though, I’m going to join some college friends for dinner in Manhattan, and probably wont get home until well after she’s asleep. I’m sure I’ll have a great time, and hey, maybe I’ll even feel a little liberated at having a break from my nightly mommy-duties, but right now I’m just missing my little girl. Thankfully I’ll make up for missing her tomorrow since I’ll be working from home in the morning, and in the afternoon we’ll be driving out to DC to visit Austin’s grandmother for the weekend. After a 4 hour drive down to DC, I’m sure I’ll wish I was still having dinner and drinks with my girlfriends!

Memorial Day weekend

We had quite the eventful memorial day weekend in the Wei household. It started on Friday morning when Austin dropped Naomi off at work with me. Despite skipping a nap, Naomi was her usual charming self and pretty much won everyone over in the office. It's always cute to see grown men coo and talk gibberish to a little baby. After spending the morning at my office, we trekked up to Austin's office for lunch. There, Naomi showed off the her amazing dance moves and her affinity to kissing stuffed animals...yes, we are sad to report, she kissed a Yankee's beanie baby bear. On Saturday, Austin and I started the day off early and headed down to Greenbrook, NJ. A couple of hours later and thousands of dollars out of our pockets, left us with a new car! We finally traded in our '97 Honda CRV and purchased an '08 Toyota Highlander Limited. It's so much nicer! And what a treat to have working air conditioning in the summer! On Sunday we had our bbq, and were thankful the weather held up. We even had a chance to bust out the baby pool for the kiddies to play in again. Naomi got to play with her buds Alli and Josiah, and even got to meet Maxine and Liam. It's amazing to see how she interacts with other kids. How she naturally gravitates towards other children, and sometimes it does make me wonder if we should start considering daycare soon. On Monday, after a yummy pancake breakfast in our backyard, we ran a couple of errands, mainly picking stuff up for Naomi's birthday party. In the afternoon, we had another playdate with Josiah and Alli. I still remember our first "playdate" with Alli, where Naomi slept threw the entire date, and Alli wanted nothing to do with Naomi anyway. Hah now, they're crawling all over each other, feeding each other food, stealing each others toys and poking each other in the eyes. Naomi defintitely loved her time with Josiah as well. She actually made the poor boy cry in her over zealous attempt at being cuddly with him. She crawled after him, tried to hug him, and even kissed him! Guess she missed the lesson on respecting other's personal space. We finished off the long weekend with dinner in our backyard. Weekends like this make me love our house, our neighborhood, our friends and our family. Thanks for a great weekend everyone!

Last weekend

It's been a busy week, but what else is new. I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from this past weekend...and it's already Friday.
Last weekend, Nate, Vonya and their 17 mth old daughter Geneva came to stay with us for the weekend. Geneva was a trip, way too cute for her own good. Not only was she cute, but she's incredibly smart!! Every time she saw Lilo and Stitch, she'd say, "Doggies - woof woof". When she saw Naomi she'd say "Baby - Wah Wah". Nate and Vonya taught her how to say Naomi, and she'd say, "Nomi Omi", cute nickname if you ask me. When you asked her to say Amy, she'd say, "amyamyamy", when you asked her to say Austin, she'd say, "NO!" Like I said. Smart girl.

On Saturday night, Vonya, Nate and Geneva went to a friends engagement party, and the Wei family drove into the city to have dinner with Stan who was visiting from San Fran, Priscilla and Weston. We had dinner at Landmarc, which Priscilla picked because of the numerous strollers parked outside...i.e. kid friendly. Naomi really started opening up at dinner, she kept cracking up whenever Weston or Stan would make faces at her. She's getting to be so much fun. Of course we stayed out a bit too late, and as soon as 8pm struck, Naomi turned into super cranky baby and we headed home not too long after that.

Sunday was another fun packed day. We met up with Gene, Jaime and Alli, and Priscilla at the Central Park Zoo. I was thinking Naomi would be too young to enjoy it, but she proved me wrong. She loved looking at the animals, especially the Penguins - she was laughing and yelling at them for awhile. She also loved seeing all the people walking around, you could see her just taking everything in. She even saw a Polar Bear, and we had to recite the words to her "Polar Bear Polar Bear" book.
At the end of the day, we were all exhausted, both Naomi and Alli conked out in their strollers on the walk back to the car.

All in all, a great weekend.