Happy 1st Birthday Mia!!!

Mia turned 1 year old today. Wow. Our little girl is 1! We've enjoyed every bit of Mia's first year.

At 1 year old, Mia is now walking everywhere she wants to go. She tries to climb chairs and stairs. She loves jumping and rolling around on the bed. Mia likes to read books but only when she can flip the pages herself. She loves music, especially when Daddy plays music on the guitar.

Mia knows how to communicate hi, bye, and night night by waving her arm/hand. She also rubs her hands together I say, "Mia, let's wash your hands." or whenever she sees someone washing their hands in the sink or with hand sanitizer. Mia is often found playing with the shoes by the front door (that's no no!) or holding two toys, one in each hand.

Mia still has one tooth, but thankfully she sprouted one tooth by the time she turned 1 year old! Mia loves most food and fruit. More times than not, she's screaming at the dinner table for us to give her food, but if she spots any fruit on the table she'll push everything else aside and demand the fruit.

Last week we tried putting Mia in the church nursery. There was a lady holding Mia to sleep. She called her "Mia la nina", which means "my little girl" in Spanish. We love our Mia girl so much.

Dave worked hard to put together a video of Mia's first year. Lilly has a first year and second year video. We still like to watch them! It's nice to have short video clips and favorite pictures together in one video/slideshow.

Mia's first year video:

Mia's First Year from Dave Cheng on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl! We love you so much!

Growing Up

I know I just posted a video of Mia walking, but that video was taken last month. Here's a video of her walking today.

Mia 11 months old


Mia looks too little to be walking around!

Mia can say "mama" and "dada" pretty clearly. Today she talked baby nonsense and said, "jiggaba jiggaba." Dave and I were excited because it reminded us of when Lilly babbled as a baby. Here's a funny video of Lilly babbling at 14 months old:



Lilly's grown up so much in the last year. She was our little baby but then suddenly got so much bigger once Mia was born. She's grown taller and older. Lilly's now a big girl!



She still loves to play pretend. Most of her pretend play revolves around food (cooking, serving, and eating), but lately she's really been into castles, princesses, knights, and fighting the dragon! It's fun to see Ethan and Evangeline participating more in the pretend play games too.

Lilly loves to sing and make up songs. She sings very loudly! Her favorite color is pink. Actually she's quite passionate about the color pink. We're working on NOT always getting the things that are pink. Evangeline's also quite fond of the color pink and we often hear, "I want the pink one!" at home.

The girls are growing up. Dave and I want them to stay little because we're enjoying them so much! We thank God for our two healthy, funny, and beautiful little girls.

Mia Walking! And A TOOTH!

Video taken in June:


After we took this video, we thought Mia would start walking around on her own, but her preferred mode of transportation is still crawling. Although lately she's been cruising along furniture and even walking from point A to point B if it's something she's able to hold on to.

Mia walking to me today. Her cute outfit is from Auntie Joyce! Thanks Joyce!


OH!!! And there is a bottom tooth coming in! It's Mia's first tooth! Our pediatrician told us the goal is to get one tooth by one year old. She barely made it! Mia turns 1 on July 26th.

Happy Birthday ... to me!

My birthday was on July 4th. I'm 27!


Kelly made a fabulous American Flag cake with blueberries and strawberries. It was delicious! Fresh fruit on cake has gotta be my favorite kind of cake. Thank you, Kelly, for making my birthday special with cake, a yummy lasagna dinner, and sharing such kind words and honoring me at dinner. I feel so blessed!

After dinner we went to Gaithersburg to see their fireworks show. It was Lilly's second time going to see fireworks but it was Ethan, Evangeline and obviously the babies first time watching fireworks. Lilly thought they were too loud at first but then she seemed to have gotten used to it and enjoyed the show. Of course the pink fireworks were her favorite! Mia seemed interested. At least she didn't cry!

The kids had fun playing with glow sticks, bracelets and glow toys before the fireworks actually started.


Mia's a little fussy in this pic but she did pretty well considering we stayed up so late.


I really like ending my birthday with fireworks. It reminds me of childhood and doing sparklers in the backyard. I hope to make fireworks and sparklers a tradition for my kids now!

Hi From Maryland! Part 2

Our favorite picture of the babies, Addy and Mia:


Here's more of an update of how we're doing now:

- Dave's work - He has his home office set up in the unfinished basement amongst all of our boxes and other storage items. We bought a good office desk the first week we arrived. Dave says that he's able to get more work done because he has fewer interruptions and meetings. The downside is he misses some of that friendship interaction with his coworkers and it's a little harder to communicate over the phone. Overall, he really enjoys working from home. His morning commute is just walking down the stairs. We get to see him for lunch and then he's right back upstairs for dinner at around 5:30pm. We're so thankful he's able to work from home!

- Lilly - She loves having playmates around all the time. Lilly wants to do everything that her cousins are doing. This is great because the kids have a lot of fun and can entertain each other during the day, but then it's hard to pull her away if we need to go somewhere or even if I need to talk with her. The kids mostly play well together, but they also fight and pester one another like siblings do. Lilly loves her cousins so much, it's like they are her brother and sister!

Lilly and Mia are sharing a room. They've done surprisingly well with adjusting to sleeping in the same room. I'm VERY thankful for that! Sometimes Lilly will talk or sing before she falls asleep but I think Mia has gotten used to that. Mia stands up to watch what her big sister is doing or she'll lay down and tilt her head so she can see Lilly. When Lilly comes into our room in the morning we can ask her, "Is Mia awake or asleep?" Lilly's like our baby monitor in the morning.

- Mia - Her stranger anxiety has gotten better! She doesn't immediately begin to scream or cry when new people enter our home. She's also more at ease when she's in a room with large groups of people. I think it's because she had to get used to having a lot of people around (9 people total in the house)! It only took a few days for her to warm up to Uncle Andy and Auntie Kelly! :)

Mia's still little and petite. We don't have a doctors visit set up for 12 month appointment but I'm sure she won't be 20 lbs. by her first birthday. Mia still prefers to crawl but she's cruising along the furniture and can walk when we stand her up to walk to one of us. Mia eats what we eat, and she a lot of it too! Poor girl still has no teeth though!

- Lindsay - So far moving to MD has turned out to be a great move. I get to live with my sister. We talk throughout the day, help watch each others kids, take turns cooking, and share clean up duties! I think the days go by faster for me because the kids are occupied and I have someone to chat with during the day while Dave is at work. I used to be counting down those last few hours and minutes in the afternoon before Dave came home from work. Kelly's also my shopping buddy and she likes to bake yummy desserts! :D

Since there are two sets of parents/more adults in the house, we have more opportunities to go out to run errands or have date night. Dave and I didn't have a regular date night scheduled while we were in Michigan but now it's so convenient! We're free to go out on a date after the kids are tucked in bed. Our favorite place for date night is CaliYogurt. We each fill a cup of frozen yogurt and top it with delicious fresh fruit. Yummmm!

Dave and I like Maryland. There seems to be so much to do here and in DC! I don't think we'll ever run out of things to do, places to see. We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on June 26th. Dave planned a surprise date and arranged a segway tour through downtown DC (segways were a blast to ride and the tour was pretty good) and scrumptious tapas dinner at a restaurant called Zaytinya. There are so many more unique restaurants that we want to try. Dave's really been into finding and trying good Chinese or Asian restaurants. We've found a few so far!

Maryland seems like a great place to live, but it is more crowded and the housing is so much more expensive than small town Okemos. Our thinking has changed and we're beginning to say, "A townhouse doesn't seem too bad." Well the plan for now is to stay with Kelly and Andy for about a year to save up money and figure out exactly where we want to be. We really enjoy living with Kelly and Andy right now so I think it'll be hard to move any further than down the street from their house. We trust that God has a home for us. We just don't know if it's stay in the finished basement for longer or buy a townhouse or single-family house.

Ah! There's too much to say. Well more to come later!

Hi From Maryland! Part 1

Whoa! So I think I'm going to have to write this blog entry in bullet point style because there's too much to update. A lot has happened since I last blogged on April 7th!

- March - Dave and I were talking more seriously about moving to Maryland. We prayed and talked with friends but still felt unsure. Then we decided to just do something! We decided to go for it! Haha (Even though there are 3 votes for "Nooooo!" on our "Should we move to Maryland" poll).

- End of March - Dave asked work if he could keep his same job but work remotely from MD. Work said it shouldn't be a problem! There's already a guy in sales who works remotely from MD. Then we put our house up for sale.

- April - We were busy keeping the house in showing condition and working on simplifying our stuff. I sold a lot of baby items on Craigslist. We had many house showings with good feedback but no offers on the house. The tax credit incentive expires on April 30th. Dave and I considered staying in MI, taking the house off the market and waiting a bit if we can't sell the house before the incentive expires.

- April 25th - We got our first offer on the house! The buyers are a young couple and are very excited about the house.

- April 29th - Buyers signed the papers to get the tax credit after home inspections passed. The inspector reported no issues! They also ask if we're selling our furniture. Yes! It'd be great not to move all our big furniture. The couple asks to close on May 28th. Ah! That's just a month away! Okay God, we see you're making a way for us to move to Maryland!

- May - Dave and I set a goal to pack something each day. This helped so much. When the end of May rolled around we felt like everything was manageable so we weren't stressed out. We held a successful garage sale, sold items on Craigslist and donated stuff to Goodwill.

- May 27th - Doing laundry for the last time. I step close to the washer to put clothes in but I feel something squishy on my foot. No way, really? Did I just step on a dead mouse!?! Sick, there's a dead mouse stuck in a trap and I just stepped on it with my bare feet. :P I'm totally grossed out and glad we're moving out of this house! Thankfully, Dave took the day off of work. He got rid of the mouse and trap.

- May 28th - Closing Day! All went smoothly. The couple buying the house came from Gaithersburg, MD! We live in Clarksburg, MD but go to church at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD! The buyers do not have kids but they have a dog. We handed over the house keys but we were still given 3 days to move out of the house.

- May 29th - Moving Day! Dave's mom and dad generously paid for us to hire movers. The movers arrived at 8:00 that Saturday morning. We find out that everything that goes on the truck is supposed to be a box. The moving company would charge double or more for boxes, so we get charged for a few wardrobe boxes. Lilly is very interested in what the movers are doing. She wants to help but I try to keep her occupied and out of the way. This ends up being a long morning and afternoon for all of us! And little did we know it would end up being a long night too. Haha ...

3:00pm The movers finish. The truck is completely packed, totally stuffed. There were a few things they weren't able to put on the truck like sleds and the kids wagon. Dave tucked the sleds in the back of the Civic, and then he looked at me and said there's no room for the wagon. I look him in the eye and say, "We're taking the wagon with us." I really wanted that wagon for the kids when we bought it so I really didn't want to just give it away. Dave had to take things out and rearrange the back of the van. Yay! The wagon fits!

3:30pm The kids are strapped in their car seats and I do a final walk through of the house. I cry as I walk through the empty house. I'm not all that sad to leave the house but it's the memories that were made in that house. This was our first house together as a married couple and family. When Dave and I returned from our honeymoon the living room was filled with wedding presents waiting to be unwrapped. This was the house where we brought our daughters home to from the hospital. Dave and I have such good memories of playing with Lilly in this house - playing hide and seek, having dance parties, blowing bubbles in the driveway, and riding bikes on the sidewalks. I cried again as we drove away from the house. Dave cried too!

3:30pm We drop the Civic off at Dave's coworkers house. We decided to pay for car movers so we could drive in the van together to Maryland.

4:00pm Get gas at BP on Jolly and Okemos Rd. and then we're off! We start the 10 hour drive to Maryland! We made two stops during the trip. The second stop was at a gas station where we saw our moving truck and movers! At least we knew they were driving straight from MI to MD! The kids did great on the trip but adults were tired!

-May 30th- 2:00am we arrive at Kelly and Andy's house. We're exhausted but glad we made it!

The first few weeks of living with Kelly and Andy and staying in their guest room really felt like a vacation. It's fun to see the kids play together. Lilly is so happy to have playmates living with her all the time! One time she told Dave, "Thank you for driving to Ethan and Girlie's house!" The babies are so cute together! We were able to celebrate Addy's first birthday! And Kelly and Andy were able to witness Mia's first few steps and attempts at walking. It's great to share these big moments together!

It looks like this will have to be part 1. The kids are up from their naps, but part 2 will hopefully come soon!

The Cousins

Evangeline-2years old, Addy-1, Ethan-4, Lilly-3, Mia-10months old

Crawling!

Last night, Mia took her first crawling ... movements. She's been moving her hands forward for a while but has quite gotten her knees to move along with her hands. Last week she started propping herself up on all fours. She'll stick her butt up in the air and hold herself up on her hands and feet. So now I think she's got the moving hands and knees at the same time! Although when she did this last night, she was very upset. Mommy was trying to pump milk and Mia was a ways away playing with toys. She wanted mommy and milk so she was crying and crawling at the same time! It was cute but sad. :)