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tim

Officially a Toddler

Shanna turned 18 months old and is now an officially a toddler, leaving the baby chapter of her life behind. We do see many changes in her in this last month especially, she has really made progress in many ways.

She shows more understanding of things that happen and what we want from her. If she cries because she did not get what she wanted, she can soothe herself pretty fast. Sometimes she is disobedient and we discipline her, the next moment she's trying to get into our good books again by smiling up charmingly at us, trying to chat us up...

She has become such a good mimic! She mimics the facial expressions of characters in the book and animals she sees (such as a cow eating grass, a giraffe using it's tongue to eat leaves, a goldfish opening and closing its mouth). When watching her Daddy play squash, Shanna tries to follow his moves. When watching musical shows she tries to follow the dance/actions.

She loves to play hide and seek, or play catch, or crawling and tumbling around the floor. She laughs and laughs until she gets hiccups.

She loves eating her veges, fruits and also enjoys meat and fish. Her favorite veges are spinach, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes. She currently loves blueberries, while papaya has been a favorite all along.

She recognizes red, blue, yellow, and green colors and can point them out with pretty good accuracy. We're proud of her :) She does not know alphabets yet (except 'O'). She can say many more words now when asked to, but for normal conversations, she still goes 'ah ah'.

In just a couple of weeks, she has had 3 new teeth out, making a grand total of 7 teeth :D Many are on the way out too.

Shanna likes to approach kids and babies, but shys away from adults, espcially women for some unknown reason.

She is in a stage where she's fascinated with planes, trucks, buses, trains, bulldozers, excavators.... she shouts louldy and makes these little excited movements that I do not know how to describe in words, whenever we drive pass any of the vehicles listed above.

We are really enjoying this stage of her life when everyday with her is so interesting and happy. I'm really fortunate that I have this chance to spend every day with her while we're here in Texas... while I try to balance my work from home. It is working out quite well so far.

Shanna in independant play time, while Mummy is on a conference call. Since we don't have a play pen here, she needs to sit on the couch until the timer goes off.

This little girl has got style :P

When she saw her Daddy with a camera, she gave this smile.

Shanna is really liking her Daddy's shoe

At home with Mummy day after day...

Just waking up from nap

Here we are at the mall's play area

Fascinated with the funny mirror

With her favorite mouses

~ Audrey

Visitng the Zoo

Though we are half a globe away from home, we still bring our little girl to visit the local zoo. :) it's a fun time for both of us as well as our little princess. :)

Posed at the entranced


The welcoming parrot




Cheeky....


Going to see animals from Afrika




Penguin!!!




Sitting on the bronze Elephant




Touching the bronze Croc...


brave little girl :)




our little princess quite heavy right now :) thank God that she's healthy :D




up close with the lion







pointing at the giraffe


up close with cheetah.. behind the glass shield



brave little girl... :D



up close with the giraffe




picking up acorns and trying to make friend with ang mo kid .. :)









:)
T&A

Settled In At Last

Here we are at Richardson, Texas. This is Tim's business trip, Shanna and I are tagging along.

The flight to US was indeed a long and challenging one.
We left Penang on Wednesday morning, arrived in Singapore Airport transit, got a hotel room for Shanna to take a good afternoon nap, her last chance to sleep on a bed for awhile, then boarded the evening plane for San Franscisco, transiting once in Hong Kong.

Shanna at Singapore airport.

Gazing out at the airplanes.

At the indoor gardens.

Oooh... fishies!

We were anxious whether Shanna could sleep in the airplane, her being a light sleeper. To make a long story short, she could not sleep very well, threw up once, I did not sleep and there was turbulence. It was indeed a long flight. Shanna did cope better than we hoped for. She was very reasonable and stayed cheerful and tried to make the best of the situation. When we landed at San Franscisco, Shanna was the happiest baby out there, dancing around, talking and smiling with people. People stopped by and remarked on how happy she was. Well, Tim and I were happy too, having survived the 16 hour flight.

We stayed a night in San Franscisco before flying to Dallas the next morning. Shanna slept through this 4 hour flight as it was 2.30am Malaysian time. The passenger next to us was impressed and praised her on being a 'good little traveller she is'! I think he feared the worst ;)

The next day at San Fransicso airport, our little girl admiring the planes again

Getting friendly with strangers while waiting at the gate.

Finally, we arrived at our new home! Milk time....

Living room with adjoining kitchen where I get to cook for Shanna

The bedroom

Outside the hotel suite the next morning.

Daddy said 'smile!'

More keen to run around than take pictures...

Shanna the explorer.

Our rental car. We got a car seat & GPS with it.

Then it was the start of the jetlag chapter.

All of us were seriously jetlagged. Texas is 13 hours away from Malaysian time, so night and day is totally opposite. From day and night 1-6, Shanna wanted to sleep during day and we couldn't let her sleep beyond her normal nap hours; every night from 1-5am she was wide awake. The first night, we let her out of the bedroom. The second night, we let her get on our bed, thereafter we made her stay in her cot. There she played, talked and sang to herself for 2-3 hours, then we gave her milk and she went to sleep. Finally, on the 7th day and night Shanna's body clock adjusted... she slept through the night from 9pm-7am... hooray!

Tim and I were tired too. I went sleepless the first couple of nights, being a light-jetlagged-sleeper myself. Tim started work the next day after we arrived, and so did I. I have an arrangement with my boss to continue working from home here in Texas. Really praise God that all 3 of us remained in excellent health and spirits, despite the lack of rest.

It was Labor Day weekend when we arrived, so we took the opportunity to go shopping. Most of the stores at the outlets had additional storewide discounts at 20-40%! I'm sure my friends who are reading this must be drooling... hehehe. We shopped while the little girl slept in the stroller... she was really knocked out.

The weather in Texas is hot and humid (though not as humid as Malaysia). It is very, very hot in the afternoons. However, yesterday it rained heavily the whole day, I drove at only 30miles per hour on the road when I went out to get lunch. We heard on the news this morning that tornadoes touched down in Dallas (20miles away) yesterday!!!

OK, this is a pretty long post, so I'd better end here. We'll try to update whenever possible, so stay tuned :)

~ Audrey