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Andrew: “Thank YOU, Uncle Arnold and Aunt Peggy, for the cute sweater vest!”

Andrew checks out his Christmas gift from mom and dad…

…then says “thank you” in a special way.

Andrew helps to put together his new toy (rather, he helps dump all the parts out so daddy can assemble it.

At last, a place for Andrew to sit and write or draw. He immediately “claims” the toy by drawing all over it with a crayon. No more returns!

It’s never too early to begin a career in photography.

Photoshop + cute son (if I may say so myself) = gratuitous artsy photo.

We took these at the Picture People in the mall… very bad scans from the photos we purchased. As a photographer, I don’t like scanning purchased pictures, but the store doesn’t even offer to sell a reduced resolution version for web use… so sorry!

Now I’ve heard about food coma, but this is a bit ridiculous! No wonder he got so quiet towards the end of dinner…

It’s been a long time coming… We were told that Andrew’s eczyma may be allergy-related, and that he needs to be tested. We had to wait until he got a little older before actually doing the allergy test, since we were told that it’s more accurate after he passes the 12-month mark. The allergist wanted to do a skin test to see how Andrew would react to some common allergens. As you can see in the photos above, it was quite an ordeal… They write on his back to identify the test substance, then poked him with little picks with different substances on them. See below for some explainations.

(H) Histamine [control] Everyone should react to this… this is the positive control.
(E4) Dust Mild reaction – looks like we’re be vacuuming more!
(F8) Shrimp/Shellfish Medium reaction. How sad… both of Andrew’s parents are seafood lovers…
(F2) Eggs Medium reaction. What?!? No more eggs in the fried rice?
(F1) Peanuts Strong reaction! Sigh… now we have to read every label on every food!

Sidebar: When the nurse wrote down “4″ next to “Peanut” on the chart (an indication of the strength of the reaction), I was a little relieved. I figured 4 out of 10 isn’t bad and 4 out of 5 is still not the end of the world, so I asked her what the scale was. She said, “Oh, that’s 4 out of 4.” Dammit!

Some things Andrew is NOT allergic to (yet):
Cat/dog dander
Milk
Soy
Grass
Mold

The good news is that kids sometime grow out of their allergies. The bad news is that they rarely grow out of peanut allergies. Also, kids who are predisposed to allergies usually become sensitive to more and more things as they get older. We’ll change our ways and hope for the best, and in the meantime, it looks like more regular doctor’s visits for Andrew!

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house again this year. It’s been four years now that we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving with the our friends, the Chungs. The difference is, now there’s are three little ones running around!

The main attraction!

Stephen Chung is like a surgeon with a carving knife.

Bet you can’t tell that this was a whole bird just minutes before.

Ready to eat!

Andrew and Michael had a great time with each other. Next year, baby Elaine will join in on the fun as well!

Here comes again the annual Fall Festival at Andrew’s daycare. We were thinking, which character would best suit Andrew? Little Devil! When I told my co-worker Brenda that Andrew was going to be a little devil, she said, “oh great, no need to buy a costume, then!” How come I didn’t think of that???

Only if the Devil is as cute as I am…

Mommy’s little Devil.

Give me what I want, crying is only one of my tricks.

Andrew with Ms. Michelle.

At Andrew’s 18-month check up, our pediatrician happily announced that Andrew’s is now back on the growth’s chart. He now weighted 21 lbs (3%), 31 1/4 inches in length (20%), and 46 1/4 cm in head (15%).
See the updated charts (use the tabs on the bottom of the new window to switch charts).

OK… this is our kitchen. It’s rather unremarkable. See the trash can in the center? Do you see anything wrong with it?

Look closer…

Neither of Andrew’s parents remember putting him on top of the trash can. Can he climb that high himself? Can he fly? How did he get down?

Have you ever seen The Haunting? It’s kinda like the little kids’ footprints appearing out of nowhere. Freaky!

Because Andrew was “off the chart,” Dr. Schwartz was very concerned and ordered a few lab tests. It appears that Andrew has high metabolism; his lab test results were normal. All we can do is continuing with high-calorie, high-fat diet and hoping he’ll catch up!

Andrew’s Greatuncle Alex was visiting from Taiwan. It was his first trip to Denver in several decades! The city has definitely changed since the last time he was here. We took him to get a birds-eye view of the city from Stephen’s office. It was Andrew’s first trip to his daddy’s office as well!

Andrew’s first visit to Uncle Ernie’s house.

Greatuncle Alex decides that Andrew is not big enough to work at Daddy’s cube yet.

Andrew: “What the heck does ‘Porsence’ mean? I wonder if it has anything to do with ‘Porcine?’ Oh well… maybe I’ll just eat this rock…”

Andrew had his 15 month check-up. Nothing especially wrong with him, but he is still a VERY small boy. The pediatrician’s words were that his weight is “off the charts,” which translates to way too low. Prescription? Give him lots of foods that people usually stay away from… pasta with lots of butter and sause with real cream; whole milk and don’t forget the extra nutrition powder; anything with cheese; We’ll try it, and hope it works!

See the updated charts (use the tabs on the bottom of the new window to switch charts).

Grandpa and grandma Wang are coming… and Andrew gets into the spirit by helping tidy the house!

Andrew practices going head-over-heels!

We went to Aspen, Colorado a few years ago, and visited the nearby Maroon Bells, a pair of 14ers that may be the most photographed mountains in Colorado. On that trip, the film of choice was Fuji Velvia – great for color, but poor exposure latitude. Plus, I didn’t have a split neutral density filter. The pictures didn’t do the mountains any justice. The scenery was spectacular, but the slides weren’t.

This year, I made the trip specifically to make some photos. It was an overnight camping trip – arrive one afternoon, sleep, wake up before dawn to catch the right light, shoot like crazy, and come home. The new digital camera doesn’t have much more latitude than slide film, but it does allow for some trickery… take two exposures and use Photoshop take care of the rest. Although I’m disappointed that it wasn’t all “in camera,” I’m happy enough with the result.