Happy Birthday Lance!

Well, the little guy made it - a year old! We celebrated in abbreviated fashion today with a little cake and song:



We plan to have a little more elaborate birthday party for him this weekend when we are more recovered from our recent trip to Singapore (more about that in a future post) and our friends here will be able to attend.  Here's a few more photos from today:

What is about to take place?

First bite of cake - EVAH!

Get used to this, son - first drink of cow's milk

A good time was had by all

GJS

Eleven

...months, that is. Today our little toddler is 11 months old. This calls for some video!



In related developments, Lance is also (finally) getting more teeth in. Three more, in fact - all on top. It's his two front teeth and one right next to the right front tooth. He's been dealing with the teething pain very admirably - not too much crying or crankiness, although there is a fair amount of drooling going on. 'Tis to be expected... We figured he would have a whole mouthful of teeth by now, seen as how he had his first ones coming in when he was only six months old. Well, they come in when they're ready, no sooner. Now he can start eating a much larger variety of foods, since his chewing capacity will be increased mightily!

If he's already walking this well at 11 months, I wonder what he'll be doing by the time he is a year old next month? He's growing up so fast!

GJS

I think you'll like this

New video, folks. The kid can get up on the furniture on his own.



GJS

We've got a walker

No, not the contraption that little kids use to scoot around in before they can walk on their own (though we actually do have one of those as well). I mean on his own! Lance decided he wanted to show off with Grandma and Grandpa visiting and take his first step with them here in Taiwan! He's since taken a lot more. Here's a few of them, caught on tape:



Each day he's getting more and more stable as he walks and he even does it without seeming to think too hard about it now. It's quite impressive to see how fast these young tikes catch on to things.

GJS

New Lance video

Baby talk:



GJS

Lots more Lance

OK, all the stuff I had hoped to post for you a few days ago when Lance was one month old is now up at Flickr.  Today he's a month and 3 days, so I'm not too far off!

Here's the link to the set called "Lance."  I cannot guarantee that all the pics and video of him are in this set, but it's a start, and you can branch out from there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gjsamps/sets/72157623559413763/

Feel like you are missing out on seeing John?  Then take a look at this video of him having a lot of fun last week at the beach near my school with his Aunt Kristine and cousin Nicholas.



GJS

John and the pig

Came across this "little porker" on the way to the post office yesterday.  I had seen him around before, but never with John in tow.

GJS

Lance: One Week

Grafitti near our home that I just noticed this week

Hard to believe, but it's already been a week since Lance was born!  I tell you, this past week has gone by as if I was in a time warp!  Where has the time gone?

Sign Barb and John made for our front door

Significant developments:

Lance

• Yesterday (Sunday) we took Lance on his first trip outside since coming home from the hospital.  We visited the park.  Lance was awake the whole time and seemed to enjoy the trip.  There were a ton of people out in the park for some wedding-related thing at the Water Square and an ECFA speech in the speech plaza.  

The new stroller works great!

The wedding "thing" in the park

Lance gets some attention from a local woman

• This morning (Monday) there was another park trip, but this time Lance pretty much slept the whole time.

Since we've got a few pics of Lance, I wanted to compare how he looks with how John looked.  I was only able to find a couple pics of John here on Garblog from the first month or so after he was born, and in one of them, you can't see much of him (I am holding him while bottle feeding for the first time at three weeks old).  Here's one that we can probably use (I sure didn't take many photos back then - at least compared to now!):

http://garbjohnblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/obligatory-cute-baby-photo.html

John, less than 1 month

Obviously, it's easy to notice that Lance's eyes are dark (they appear to be brown), while John's were blue and later changed to grey, and that Lance's hair is darker and a bit thicker than John's was (although the perceived greater thickness could be largely attributed to the darker color - hard to tell for sure right now).

Will try to post more on differences between John and Lance as time goes on.

GJS

2010 Mizuno Kaohsiung International Marathon underway!

Some serious nesting going on

After the museum visit tanked, we came home and decided it was time to get all the baby stuff out.  I guess it's about time, since we are only about a month out from the due date.  I guess the little fellow could really come at any time now, although Barb thinks that she will go at least until the due date (really probably about a week past, which is what happened when John was born).

A few photos of the goings-on:

And a video. (John still really likes this swing, and I bet he wishes he could still fit in it.)



Finally, one from the archives featuring John and the swing:

GJS

No More Mommies Jumping on the Bed

A fun video!

GJS

Riding the tram at Narita

Here's my first attempt at using YouTube to post a video here at Garblog. If it works, expect to see more in the future!

This is a short video taken just after we arrived at Narita Airport not far from Tokyo.

GJS

Globetrotting

Well, for all intents and purposes, the first semester at NSYSU is over and we are on the cusp of our first trip since moving to Taiwan.  Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are heading to Tokyo for about a week and then on to Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki before heading across to South Korea.  Will spend a week or so there, primarily in and around Seoul.  Really looking forward to this trip in every way except for - the weather.  Gonna be cold in Japan and Korea!  Been spoiled by the super-comfortable temperatures here in Southern Taiwan.  For instance, today it's 77 degrees F and sunny in Kaohsiung, and it looks like the temps in the places we will soon be visiting range from the mid 30's to the low 50's. (Daytime temps - will be quiet a bit colder once the sun goes down, I am sure.)

I hope to do quite a lot of photo-taking in the next 3 weeks, and I really hope that I am able to share some of these with you here as we go - it will be much better that way than if I end up waiting until we are back here in February to upload some pics.  I plan to make heavy use of Flikr and may even try to use YouTube to get some videos on here.  Stay tuned for more!

If you are in Japan or South Korea, we hope to see you soon!

GJS