Grand Dol Party

Happy Dol Birthday Elizabeth! Mom and Dad love you very much!

Dol Jabi - 돌잡이

Going to Maryland and Washington D.C.

For Elizabeth's dol party, we traveled to Maryland to celebrate with her paternal grandparents.

Here we are on the tram at Denver International Airport to catch our 6:00AM flight.

Riding the brand new tram at Washington Dulles International Airport.

Driving to Washington D.C. to see the monuments. Uncle David also flew in from Chicago to spend some quality time with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth walking around the Lincoln Memorial with her daddy.

Elizabeth blowing bubbles in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Oooo...this wind feels good on my tongue.

National Museum of Natural History

Breakfast playtime

Cherry Creek Mall has a big play area inside that has large breakfast food items to play on. It's a great place for Elizabeth to explore and move around (and expel some energy), but the bad things is that it can get really crowded and the older kids can be a bit wilder. If we're at the mall and we have a some time, we'll let her go play for a little bit. - T

Saturday morning brunch

I made plans to go up to Keystone with Kevin, but the traffic on I70 was terrible. After being on the road for 2 hours and only getting halfway, we decided to turn around and go for breakfast. On the way back down, we called the wives to see if they'd like to meet us for food at this creole restaurant called Lucile's. It was a pretty good place with large serving sizes, which was a plus for me. We had our camera so we took some videos of Elizabeth as she chowed down on some creole food and played. - T

Elizabeth is licking some jam off her fingers. The jam was made at the restaurant and it was really good.

The restaurant gave away bead necklaces. Elizabeth got a few of them and really liked playing with them.

Activity Time

Daily, we have music time and art time. She loves playing the piano, but I didn't get a shot of her doing that, instead, got one of her climbing down from the piano chair. For art time, we do finger painting, coloring with markers and crayons, and sticker time. She has this "Happy Feet" coloring book that she really likes with hundreds of penguin stickers, and we peel the stickers and put them in different landscapes then color around them. She especially likes playing with the stickers and putting them on her fingers. -S

Bath time

Elizabeth really likes her bath time. When I go to draw up water for her bath, she comes running (or what is like running for her since she can't really run) to the bathroom as soon as she hears the water turn on. Usually I sit on the tub edge as I check the water temp and she comes over and wants me to pick her up. She looks into the tub and motions that she wants to go in. If I'm not by the tub, she'll look over the edge and try to get in herself. The hard part sometimes is getting her undressed to put her in the tub. She wants to get in so bad that it can be a struggle.

She's got a lot of floating animal toys to play with and she just recently figured out that if water gets inside, you can squeeze it to squirt the water out. One time, she had one of her bigger ducks and it had filled with water. She started squeezing the water out and spraying herself. This was obviously entertaining because she was cracking up. It was fun to watch. -T

Trying on her hanboks

Sana's aunts in Korea sent Elizabeth a bunch of traditional Korean clothes and accessories for her birthday. Here she is trying them on. She will wear one in Maryland for her dol party. -S

Baby's sleep

We went on a church retreat this past weekend up to Estes Park, CO. Elizabeth went as well. She slept a good chunk of the 2 hr car ride up there. That was nice. Friday night, towards the end of the service time, she fell asleep. We didn't take her back to the room because she rolls around a lot in her sleep, so we didn't want her to fall off the bed. She slept as hard as a rock with all the noise from people laughing and playing games and just having a good time. Other people were holding her too and she just kept on sleeping. A bit later, Sana took Elizabeth to the room. When I went back, she started squirming. I offered to sleep with her on the bottom bunk while Sana slept on the top one. That was rough. Elizabeth normally doesn't have a problem sleeping through the night. But that night, she didn't seem to be able to or want to. Maybe it was too quiet after having all that noise around. Anyway, I didn't sleep much.

The thing that amazes me is that the baby can sleep in a noisy room like that, but can't seem to fall asleep in a restaurant after being awake for 5 hrs since her last nap. Also, she'll be asleep in her room and startle when I sneeze in the living room. Oh well. I just need to not sneeze then. -T

Auntie Ji Un hold Elizabeth at retreat

Separation Anxiety

We noticed before that Elizabeth did have a bit of separation anxiety. She had to be held by someone she knew well, especially her parents. This is pretty normal. However, now it's to a point where it has to be Sana. Even if I'm sitting next to Sana while holding the baby, Elizabeth struggles to go to her mom. I read that there is nothing you can do about separation anxiety other than tough it out. Also, I read that it gets bad between 12-18 months. She's 11 months right now. So according to my source, we're in for a treat. Well, I guess it'll be a different story in a few years when she doesn't want to be seen with us. Sigh... -T