Slackers...

It's been a while since our last post...ok I agree that we are slackers. The truth is, I don't think Justin even remembers that we still have a blog, so I'm here struggling with two blogs (I have a Chinese one to myself), and not being successful with either one.

Another reason why we (I) haven't updated is that our laptop broke...yeah, pity. The graphics card went crazy and the screen just goes black. Fortunately it's still under warranty, so it's being fixed in some far away state right now... Illinois, I think. Hopefully our computer will be back in a week or so. However, right now Justin is definitely not missing it... because, I'm typing on our new computer right now. He was so excited that I'd finally agreed to get a new computer 1. because he needs a faster computer for his final projects, and 2. the laptop broke just in time. Though this new computer is for his 'school work', he'd already bought a blue-ray player for it, and installed his video game and RC stimulator. So I guess we'll see how much good it really does for him in a couple of months or so.

Onto more important things...Kai is crawling now! Yay! (It's scary how fast this boy is growing...) So this is how I discovered (following material includes some bathroom scenes, be aware...): It was the 14th, I remember because that whole day I kept reminding myself to call my mom and wish her happy birthday (China is 14 hours ahead of us, in case you didn't know; so it was already the 15th there, which was my mom's birthday). Kai woke up from his afternoon nap, and we played for a while in our room. Then I left him on our bedroom floor to go to the bathroom. (Since I've had Kai I have never gone to the bathroom with the door closed unless I know there's someone watching him... It's a little gross but I think the moms will understand :)) So Kai started whining when he realized that I wasn't in the room anymore, and I just had to talk to him while I was in the bathroom. Pretty soon I could see his little head poking out of the door trying to see where I am. When he saw me he stretched his arms out and wanted me to hold him. For obvious reasons I couldn't, so he decided that he loved me enough to crawl to me so I can hold him. It was pretty cute though if anyone was watching they'd think that it's gross and funny at the same time.

So that's the latest development of Kai. Oh he also has been trying various different kinds of foods, some of which is probably not suitable for baby. (Do Not try this at home...) He's already had a taste of egg, vanilla ice cream, bread, cheese, fries, paper (this one is not intentional), soy milk, etc. So far he seems to like everything, which makes Justin and I very happy :)

Other than that, life is the same old same old. Oh I'm going to see Twilight with Kerry tomorrow, and I can't tell you how excited I am! The new Bond movie is pretty good, though in my opinion not as good as Casino Royale.

And we are going to California on Monday! Can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving already!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ummm...

Well I admit, I really don't have much to say, which is why I haven't updated our blog for so long... but just in case someone's wondering what we've been up to...

First off, Kai's got two teeth now. About a week and half after he got his first one, we discovered that his second one was on the way. It broke through not long after that, so Kai's got two little glistening white teeth to show when he smiles now, and he's pretty excited about that (we think). He's slowed down in his growing (which makes me kindda sad, but my arms are not complaining), in the last two month he's only gained a little over 2 lbs... I know it's not bad, but do know that he gained 4 lbs a month in the first two months of his life...

So another exciting thing that Kai's learning to do is to crawl. He started getting on all fours and rocking back and forth a little after his 5-month birthday. Still hasn't gotten the hang of it, but oh boy he sure gets mad when he's not moving like he wants to. Toys are no longer interesting to him, and he's been trying to get to everything else around the house (by rolling). He rolls like a tornado, and is always happy when he rolls across a shoe of ours and gets to taste it.

Last weekend the Jeffs kindly invited us and a bunch of friends to spend a night at their family cabin. It sure was fun and weird at the same time to get together... fun because all of us have been great friends for a while, and weird because ALL of us have kids now. It was the cutest thing to watch the babies interact with each other, and I think Kai thoroughly enjoyed the interaction. It wasn't the best night of sleep I've ever had (Kai and Makayla kept waking each other up), but other than that it was a blast! Oh and I think Makayla stole Kai's first kiss... oh well.

What else... Justin and I are the same old same old. Our car had a little trouble and had to be taken into a shop, which we were not happy about. But fortunately I did a little extra work for the church at the beginning of the month, and my salary came to just about covered the cost of fixing the car... so Heavenly Father does know what we need. We are very grateful for that. Justin is still working away at school, but the worst part is almost over now. My job is still going well, except for there's just no getting used to the 'get up at 7 o'clock' thing, especially when we don't go to bed until 12...

Anyway, the last little bit is to inform anyone who's in California or going to be in California during Thanksgiving... we are coming, we are coming~~

A tooth!

This is going to be really short post, cuz essentially I just wanted to inform everyone that Kai's got his first tooth :) We are so excited!



Kai's been drooling like mad since about a month ago, and on Monday he discovered that he can bend over and chew on his highchair while I'm trying to feed him. I realize now that it
probably felt good for him to have his trying-to-come-out tooth against something cold and hard. So yesterday morning as Kai and I had our usually cuddle time together, he grabbed my finger and stuck it in his mouth to gnaw on, and for the first time I felt something hard and sharp on his gum. I had to use both hands to push down his lip and hold his tougue out of the way while I got a better look---and there it was:a tooth poking out on the bottom left side!



I had been trying to get a picture of his tooth, but it's impossible with one hand holding the camera and the other trying to get his mouth open, so you'll just have to take my word for it :) So far he's been doing really well--not really fussy or anything (which is why I didn't realize that he got a tooth until I felt it) and I'm hoping he'll always be this good during teething.






So that's it for now... I'll keep trying to take a good picture of the tooth :) meanwhile,here's a good smile on the day we discovered his first tooth (I keep wondering if the faint white shadow you can see on his gum in this picture is the tooth, but I can't decide, click on the picture to get a better look, and tell me what you think :))

Balance...?

All the people that feel neglected because I haven't updated our blog...sorry, you'll have a take a ticket : ) Things at school have been so busy the past 4 weeks, I'm not 100% sure Kai still recognizes me. I've been going to school on the 7:11am bus, and coming home on the 7pm or later bus, the last two weeks I've had one night that I don't go to sleep, just code the night through. It's been frustrating, there is no such thing as finding a balance in school. You do your homework until it is done, sleeping and eating are done in you 'spare' time.




But enough complaining...now for some optimism! I am really enjoying what I'm learning in my classes, and I do take at least a half day off Saturday and Sunday so I do get some quality(not quantity) time with the fam.

Yuan has started some (very) parttime work for a charter school teaching Chinese. She has 3 boys in her class, ranging from 12 - 16. She's so glad to get out of the house and do something else, even if it is only 4 days a week for an hour. She's also getting into makinng different kinds of foods that Kai can eat.

Kai is STILL growing like a weed. I thought he was starting to slim out...but it turns out he's just getting taller. He weighed in today at a 21.2 lbs naked. He's loving solid foods (did anyone really doubt he would?). He's been sitting up well for a few weeks now, in fact now he complains if you set him down in any other position. He can also stand if I give him a finger to balance with. He's just getting so strong, I wonder how much longer it will be till he crawls...heaven help us : )!

Yum!!!

What do you mean that's all?! But I'm still HUNGRY!

He's still got chunker thighs : )

Life as it is...

Well Justin's been doing a fine job keeping the blog updated, but I can't help but add some of my writing here too just so that it's balanced :)



Come to think of it, I had a lot of thoughts last night about what I want to write on here while I was trying to fall asleep, and many of them seemed wonderful at the moment. Well you see the problem with having such thoughts at such a time is that you can never keep them in your head until the next day. So here's a quick update... maybe some of those thoughts will come back while I write the boring stuff.



Ummm I'll start with Kai, since he's the main focus of my life right now.



Kai will soon be 3-months old (this coming Saturday to be precise), and is continuing to grow at the same rate that he has been growing since birth--that is, approximately 0.8 lbs./week--the result so far being that he's 18.3 lbs. (as of 5 pm today, I measured him on the wii fit). So he's a very good live version of the Michelin tireman--but don't let him hear you say that, he'll cry in protest.



He started smiling a lot since about two maybe three weeks ago, and now will even giggle if he's really having a good time. Cooing and talking is another sign of his intellectual development (and I'm going straight down the tube on this aspect, seeing that I just had to double-check the spelling of 'intellectual' on the internet :p) He especially likes it when we repeat what he says, and will almost smile every single time we do it (I don't know, he probably either thinks that we are having a real conversation with him, or that we look really stupid doing it...) . Also, he recently found his fingers, and really enjoys sucking on them. I am grateful for this, because he still doesn't take a pacifier, and fingers are a good alternative--easy to find, hard to lose, and can be brought to his mouth whenever he feels like it. Please don't tell me how hard it is to wean children from sucking their fingers, I'll worry about that in two years. The strange thing is that he is a index finger-sucker, which I've never seen other kids do (probably for a good reason too, cuz I've seen Kai suck his finger a little too hard and almost gagged himself...).



So that's that about Kai... overall he's growing well and a very easy baby to take care of. I am grateful everday for that.



Justin is about to be done with the Summer Semester, and I think he's very glad that it's coming to an end. Both of his classes are going well (according to my standards I think he's doing great, but he can be an overachiver sometimes, and hopes to do better :)), and he will have his finals next week. He's working on a project right now, thus the reason for me updating our blog at 12:03 am... After Justin's finals we are going to California! I'm so excited and can't wait to see all of our family in Cali, it's going to be so much fun! And Kai will meet cousin Henry for the first time, and see cousin Ethan again, YAY for the 'meeting of chubby babies'! Other than that, I guess there aren't anything new about Justin... he IS losing weight according to his plans, which I
think he's secretly happy about :) haha



As for me, there isn't anything new at all. I'm losing weight too--I think all of my calorie intake goes to Kai--but not feeling any smaller. Can a person lose pure muscle and not any fat?! I've made a goal of 'exercise for 30 minutes everyday--or do things similar to exercise such as going grocery shopping with Kai strapped on me'. Don't laugh at me :), with Justin being gone so much I can hardly get out of the house... Not that I have any problem with that, because everyone that knows me know that I'm a ひものおんな (an indoor person in short, though the word means much more than that :)), and is very content being indoors as long as I have some books, a little food and the computer. But I decided that I need to make an effort to go out more for Kai's sake, so here is me working on it.



So that's our life updated. My brilliant thoughts didn't come to me so I had to bore you with this post, what a shame.

All settled in to Provo

So the three weeks have been busy busy. We've gotten all settled in to our new place in the basement of Aunt Karla's. We were amazed that we were able to fit so much of our stuff, but it's all in and we're very comfortable here! We're going to have a great 10 months :) Justin has gotten into his classes, and even aced the first tests already. The experience gained at Intel this last year is proving to also be extremely useful for school. Yuan has been working out religiously on the Wii fit and has trimmed right back down to her pre-baby size. Most of that weight has gone straight to Kai. He had his 2 month checkup on Thursday, and we were all NOT surprised to find that he was (with rounding) in the 100 percentile for weight. He's a whopping 16 lbs and 24 inches already (lookout Ethan and Henry, this boy doesn't want to be the little one of the pack). Last night was also the first time he slept through the night, which we weren't expecting yet, so we woke up for him. All in all we're super happy right now, and doing great! Here are few pics from the last months:

Back to School...

Well we have now arrived at Provo, UT once again so I (Justin) can finish my last year at BYU. I'm excited to apply all that I've learned at Intel over the past 12 months. We've already accepted an offer with Intel to go back as soon as I (finally) finish school.

It's pretty strange to be back on campus now. I feel like a grandpa, everyone else looks so young to me. It almost feels like I don't belong...I've already been out in the world, being a student seems strange. But studying is going to be much more meaningful now that I've seen how much studying every little thing can be. This term I'm taking CS240 and Chem 105, two killer classes...and taking them at the same time means I won't have much time to blog...hopefully Yuan will keep this up-to-date :)

Kai Scott Mitchell is here at last

We are so excited and happy to announce the birth of our son Kai Scott Mitchell. He was born May 9th, 2008. Funny thing, a bunch of his stats match Justin's perfectly, like these: 8lbs 10oz; 21 inches long; and he was 8 days late. He has been keeping us up and waking us up, but he's worth it.

It has been such an amazing experience to become parents. An amazing change in perspective that seemed to happen pretty much overnight. It was such an amazing spiritual experience. We already love him SO much, and judging by that occasional look, he loves us too.