Fun Vegas Trip

Our trip to Las Vegas was a ton of fun. April Fool's jokes aside, John actually did do really well at the Blackjack tables. We had amazing food, including our anniversary dinner at 2 Michelin star-rated Alex Restaurant. Carrie got to enjoy the world-class spas, we spent time relaxing at the pool, and we got to catch the really fun Blue Man Group show. This picture is the view from our room at the Wynn Hotel, obviously breaktaking. Not only did we have amazing views of the strip, you can also see the famous Wynn waterfall in the middle of the picture.

Shopping at Manolo Blahnik

One of the highlights of going to Las Vegas is that Carrie can go shopping at some of the amazing designer stores there. We took Carrie shopping at Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo, but she returned to her favorite shoe store, Manolo Blahnik.

This trip was to celebrate our four year anniversary. Traditionally, the gift for the fourth year is "fruit and flowers." Carrie got John a cool avocado plant because he LOVES avocados. John got Carrie a floral print dress from Ted Baker and a new pair of shoes from Manolo Blahnik. You can see her wearing the dress in this picture along with the shoes she ended up loving the most.

Happy April Fool's Day!

OK, so Carrie didn't actually hit a huge jackpot at slots (yet). We're just having some fun. But we are actually in Vegas. And we are actually having a ton of fun. Happy April Fool's Day everyone!

Carrie Hits it Big!!!!

We've only been in Vegas for a few hours and the unbelievable has already happened! On a lark, Carrie dropped a quarter into a Wheel of Fortune slot machine on our way out to the pool and hit a $15,000 jackpot!!!!! This has never happened before, and is especially ironic because Carrie doesn't gamble at all. Because the jackpot is over $1,200, we had to fill out a bunch of tax paperwork. But needless to say, our trip is more than paid for and we're going nuts! We're now hanging out at the pool so that Carrie can pick out all her spa services, and we're deciding on what clubs to go hit up tonight. Unfortunately, the new club at Wynn, XS, isn't open on Wednesdays. But I'm sure we'll find plenty of other fun elsewhere.

Las Vegas Bound

To celebrate our 4-year anniversary, we are heading off to Las Vegas tomorrow for 3 days and 2 nights. Carrie's parents have graciously come to babysit Cassie for us so that we can get some time away. Should be a very exciting time. We have plans to see a show or two, eat some awesome food, and relax. Cheers!

Our House is on the Market!

After some six months of debating it, we've decided to sell our house. We love this house and weren't planning to move this early when we bought it, but have decided to try and make the best of a bad economy. We spent all last week moving all our extra clutter and furniture into storage to stage the house, the inspectors have come and gone, the gardeners have tuned the landscaping up into pristine condition. Fingers crossed, this is where the rubber meets the road!

MLS listing link if you know of anybody who's looking for an amazing house at a steal of price. We've studied the comps in the neighborhood in pretty fine detail, and we are priced relatively low, especially considering how mint our house is in comparison.

Vacation to Healdsburg

Carrie got John a getaway to wine country for Valentine's Day. We had a chance to in mid-March to use that getaway, and planned our trip around an amazing dinner at the Dry Creek Kitchen, one of our favorite all-time restaurants. This was the first time we've ever been away from the baby overnight, while Carrie's parents watched her. But it's only about a 90 minute drive, and is good practice for our next trip to Vegas.

We stayed at the Hotel Healdsburg, where the restaurant is housed, and got to enjoy the amazing tasting menu at the restaurant. Some of the menu highlights included an amazing warm spinach salad with truffle vinaigrette and a yummy diver scallop paired with crisp braised pork belly. We both agreed it was one of the best meals we've ever had. That paired with a quiet night to ourselves and some relaxed wine tasting made for a wonderful getaway!

Spring Time in California

Daylight savings time has already brought a stint of nice, sunny weather in California. This has given us the opportunity to start taking walks outside again, and Cassie has been able to play in the backyard on warmer afternoons. She certainly enjoys the change of pace, the new feeling of wind, and watching the birds chirp and fly around.

Marketing Demographics

We received this offer the other day. Talk about demographic targeting.

"Stand in the place where you live. . ."

Cassie has started trying to pull herself up to standing on anything and everything she can find (coffee tables, our legs, our pot rack...) She's getting more and more successful as you can see here. Now she just has to learn how to get herself down once she's up!

And a note to our friends that are new & expecting moms, enjoy the first 6-8 months when your baby is willing to lie happily on their back when you change their diaper because once they are as mobile & strong as Cassie, every diaper change will turn into a wrestling match : )

Stock options expire

John has now been at Intel for over 10 years, and today is the 10-year expiration date on the stock options from his hire date back in 1999. With Intel stock closing at $12.08 today, this large chunk of stock options is now worthless and expires at more than $21/share underwater. At their peak, these were worth over $100,000 on paper before they were fully vested, and should have been worth $500k-$1M today given the late 90's growth projections. Easy come, easy go.

Our little army crawler

This picture was too cute not to share with the world -- all dressed up for her cousin Harper's birthday party.

In the past week or so, Cassie has really perfected her army crawling. She can scale the floor better than any seasoned army cadet at this point. It appears her favorite part of crawling is the fact she can now crawl to mommy when she wants to be picked up! She seems constantly torn between being held and wanting to play and can't seem to make up her mind!

Another key milestone Cassie has hit is she is swaddle free at night when she sleeps. This is huge as for a while there didn't seem to be an end in sight. She's now a happy sleeper, arms free in her sleep sack and can move and roll over whenever she wants.

Cassie's First Valentine's Day

Cassie celebrated her first Valentine's day last weekend (and her 8 month birthday). Daddy got her a nice gift and the box and tissue paper they were wrapped in made for endless amount of entertainment throughout the whole day. Cassie surprised Daddy with a T-Shirt that reveals his secret identity ("the Stig") Shhh....

We were lucky enough to have a babysitter that night and were able to get some quality time over a fabulous dinner at Sent Sovi in Saratoga.

Who is that cute baby?!

Believe it or not our little Cassie Bear will be 8 months old in just a few days. We haven't posted in a while, nor have we filled you all in on the latest and greatest milestones Cassie has achieved and the little personality she is developing. The picture is Cassie at daycare where she's having fun and making friends, especially with the ridiculously goodlooking baby in the mirror!

- Cassie now has two teeth. Both of her two front bottom teeth came in last month!
- She now says Ma-Ma (her first word!), Da-Da, Na-Na, Ba-Ba and all sorts of other crazy combinations. Lately she likes to listen to herself exclaim "Aaa".
- She's not crawling yet, but this girl sure can get around. She uses a combination of rolling, lunging and army crawling to get where she wants to go. Her teachers find this very impressive.
- Cassie's favorite toys are anything that IS NOT A TOY. She wants to touch and hold everything and for some reason our remote controls, a piece of paper, or a bowl will hold her attention much longer than anything made by Fisher Price. And here's your first and final warning, don't you dare take away her toys -- she will not be happy with you!
- Cassie is eating all sorts of food these days. Her lunch today was a Chicken Mango Risotto meal, which despite it's gourmet name she's not finding so delicious, yet...

Cassie Starts Daycare

Cassie started daycare this week and will be away from home and family for the first time. As amazing and wonderful as Google daycare is, it is still a precarious new first step. We've been most concerned about her being able to sleep at daycare, because she had a hard time with a crying baby next to her when she visited last week. But on her first day at daycare, she was able to take her naps successfully, as evidenced by this picture that her teacher, Lauren, snapped for us. Finger crossed that it only gets better from here.

Happy New Year!

We're both back at work now. John's in his first week back full-time, and Carrie's in her eighth week back part-time (3 days a week). It sure was nice to not have to work for a while... On our minds currently while the economy is still in the crapper, is where we can upgrade our house. We'd like someplace where we can live for the next 20-30 years. We're looking for 4+ bedrooms, 2,000+ sq ft, less than 20 years old, and in a great school district. On the short list this week: Mission San Jose High School in Fremont and Evergreen High School in San Jose. Suggestions are welcome.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody! We wish a safe and very happy holiday to you and yours.

As a special Christmas treat, here is a video documentary of Cassie's progress at about 6 months. WARNING: Contains poop.

First Fruit

Cassie's been eating rice cereal and baby food vegetables for several weeks now and really starting to enjoy solid foods. She is noticeably starting to prefer solids to milk for some of her feedings. We've just started adding baby food fruit to her diet, which is a significant change in taste for her. This video shows her trying peaches for the very first time. We'll leave it to you to decide whether or not she likes them.

First Snow

Even though the forecast while we were in Michigan called for several inches of snow, we only got to see a few small flurries. But that was enough to justify bundling Cassie up in her snowsuit to go outside and see her very first snowfall! She was admittedly a little underwhelmed. Maybe she'll be more excited when she can play in it...

Toe Eating...Yum!

Cassie has been learning new tricks almost daily. She discovered her toes a few weeks ago and they are now one of her favorite toys. She can play with her toes for what seems like hours on end. In Michigan, for the first time, she discovered that she can actually suck on her toes and apparently finds them incredibly delicious.

Friends in Michigan

We got to see lots of old friends while in Michigan, which was a lot of fun. We met up with Linda in Ann Arbor, Katy and Josh in Birmingham, and in this picture, we're having lunch with Heidi and Christy and CK Diggs in Rochester. Christy came with her husband and two kids who were very fun to see.

Happy 1/2 Birthday, Cassie!

Today is Cassie's 1/2 birthday, exactly 6 months from the day she arrived. Happy 1/2 Birthday, Cassie!

Back to our adventures in Michigan...Cassie really enjoyed the piano that we all played growing up at John's parents' house. The video is a short clip of her very first piano composition.

Cousins in Michigan

One of the special things about going back to Michigan for Thanksgiving is seeing family for the holiday. Cousins Lillian and Penyuan joined us from UChicago and Duke. We also took the opportunity to celebrate Ben's birthday which was just a few days before.

Family Historian

At Thanksgiving dinner in Michigan, Lillian presented a very special award to dad recognizing him as the best family historian. If you would like to subscribe to the family mailing list and find out about the happenings within the extended family, you can e-mail him directly.

John Goes to Japan

John had an opportunity in late October to take a business trip to Japan. His new customers are located around Tokyo, so this was a standard customer visit. Because of where the program is, several other Intel folks joined in on the trip. This is a picture of everyone who traveled at dinner one night, enjoying some delicious Japanese shabu-shabu.

Mmmmm....Cider!

With Thanksgiving and us spending a week in Michigan, we're just now catching up on blog posts. There's a few coming over the next several days. Suffice it to say though, that we had a fun trip to Michigan and that Cassie is a great flyer! You can see Carrie enjoying some delicious hot cider and donuts here in Michigan, a midwest tradition. Yum yum yum.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays of the year, and this year we all got dressed as a family of ducks. Cassie got to trick or treating in the neighborhood and scored some yummy candy that she'll have to wait a couple of years to eat. After she sacked out, we had some friends over to pass out candy to the 6 kids that came by to trick or treat. Yes, that's not a typo. 6.

Cassie Rolls Over!

Cassie has gotten much better at tummy time and will hang out for several minutes while playing with toys and looking around. She's even figured out how to roll herself back over on to her back sometimes. She's also recently discovered her feet. You get to see both in this video!

Jasmine Comes to Visit

Yen and Joe were in town on a random spur of the moment trip, and had some time to stop by the house on their way home. So they brought cousin Jasmine over to visit. The babies last saw each other almost 3 months ago and got to play together for a little bit before Cassie's nap time.

Yummy Rice Cereal!

Cassie has taken her first step towards eating solid foods. We captured some video of her first morning trying out rice cereal. Plus, you get to see what she's like first thing in the morning, something most people don't get a chance to see.

Little Doggy

Cassie is, of course, the cutest baby that ever existed. But she has a penchant for wearing hats. She's sporting her doggy hat here. This, incidentally, was taken around the time where we dropped the last of her night feedings. Cassie started sleeping from 7pm until 7am on October 17, 2008...4 months and 2 days after she was born. w00t!

Cassie Laughing

As gets older, she starts to learn new tricks. One of the funnest things is that she has learned how to laugh. Which is a much nicer sound for her to make than crying. haha.

Go 49ers!

It's football season and we have season tickets to the San Francisco 49ers. This picture was taken back in late-September at the 49ers vs Lions home game at Candlestick Park. Normally, the stadium is a nice place for babies because the 49ers are terrible, so the crowd is pretty quiet, just a bunch of white noise. But it turns out that the Lions are even worse, so the 49ers ran up the score. Which caused the crowd to go wild. Which Cassie really didn't like. She enjoyed the game and dressing up, but isn't a fan of sudden loud noises.

International House of Pancakes

OK, so we're admittedly behind on blog posts. Again. But we'll be catching up over the next several days. This was from mid-August when we took Cassie on her first road trip to SoCal for her cousin Jasmine's red egg party. We stopped at IHOP for lunch, and Cassie got to experience a traditional American breakfast!

Rock Band

Last weekend, we were at our friends' Kyle and Tina's new house. They've got a room setup to play Rock Band, a fun video game where you can play guitars, drums and vocals. Carrie took the opportunity to karaoke a little, and Cassie enjoyed watching mom play some video games.

Segway Golf

You know how when you're playing golf and sharing a cart with somebody, how inefficient it is to have to drive to each other's balls, and how annoying that you can't take the cart up to the green side? San Jose Municipal Golf Course has solved that problem by introducing Segway personal transporters to their fleet! You can rent a Segway for your round for about the same price as a golf cart, and it is WAY more fun. The Segways have jumbo off road tires and a "holster" for your clubs. A free training class is required, but it's fun and takes less than an hour. John played San Jose Muni recently, and took the class with a couple friends, Jason and Kyle. Good times!

Superbaby!

Cassie's newest trick is that she has started laughing. This is at the same time that she is starting to interact with people more, and is able to play with toys on her own. She really likes her Exersaucer that she got from her cousins Kelsey and Skyler, and she's been having lots of fun with her Giggle Puppy toy. We've discovered that she really enjoys playing Superbaby (as Carrie demonstrates in the picture), despite the ab workout that it requires for mom or dad.

We've started adding to Cassie's Month 4 photo album. Check it out if you're starved for new pictures.

Cassie Bear

It's been crazy the last few weeks, and we've been a little delinquent in getting blog posts up. You might want to scroll back a few posts to see if you missed anything, we're posting a handful of items retroactively today.

John's started playing ice hockey and is currently skating twice a week. This morning, Carrie and Cassie came to watch practice at the early morning skate. Because the ice rink is cold, Cassie got to wear some of her winter clothes. This particular outfit is courtesy of our friends from the Campbell family. Loves it.

Hail to the Victors

Carrie pretty much got to have her way with Cassie's ultra-girly nursery. But at least there's one piece of positive influence in her crib.

Even Cassie Gets It

It's Cassie's first Michigan football season. She's been watching the games and is excited to be a part of the Michigan family, but even she gets it. Her expression pretty much says it all.

Yumyums and Burpies

Cassie loves to eat. She doesn't so much like it when her bottle's taken away. But a girl's gotta burp.

Happy Labor Day

We enjoyed a wonderful holiday weekend, mostly just at home with the baby. On Labor Day proper, we went over to Julie and Dave's house for a little barbeque. John shows off the versatility of the Baby Bluetooth...hands-free parenting!

Starting Month 3

We're starting our third month with baby Cassie. At her last doctor's appointment, she was 12 pounds, 9 ounces, and 23.5 inches long - putting her in the 90th percentile for both. Since our last post, she has achieved a number of firsts:

• Smile: She now smiles on her own and is close to laughing. She makes cooing and exclamatory noises at things she finds funny.
• Punch: She can visually recognize her toys and is able to reach out and bat at them. Is occasionally able to actually grab a toy of her own accord.
• Sleep: She has started sleeping through the night. She goes to bed at 7pm every night, is waken up at 10:30pm for a feeding, and then has been sleeping from 11pm until 6:30-7:00am in one single stretch.
• Crib: Cassie has graduated from her little bassinet to a big girl crib that John assembled. She seems to really like it and no longer has to sleep on an angle, having grown out of some of the gas and acid problems she has early on.
• Road Trip: We successfully took our first road trip to South Pasadena last weekend to attend our cousin Jasmine's Red Egg and Ginger party. Cassie was a very good girl on the 8 hour car ride down and back, and slept amazingly well in her pack and play while we were at Joe and Yen's house.
• Clothes: Though she just turned two months old, she has effectively grown out of her first set of baby clothes and is now wearing her 3-6 month sized clothing.

As an aside, it has not gone unnoticed that the photo album on our new photo webserver with the professional photo shoot has been hammered with hits. We find this interesting because we thought these pictures were amazing, and yet nobody commented on them when we posted the link on the blog. Hope all you lurkers out there are enjoying the investment we've made to enable your viewing.

New Fileserver

For those of you who are close to us, you know that we tend to be early adopters of technology, especially when there is a clear and present need. Granted, we often recognize that "need" several years before "typical" people do, but our early adoption is almost invariably to meet a need. We have just installed a brand new RAID5 NAS with a total effective capacity of 2 TB. The new 1080i HD camcorder that we got before Cassie was born consumes a massive 8 GB/hour of video recorded, so we almost instantly consumed all of the hard drive resources we had in the house. The new fileserver meets that need, in addition to being an iTunes media server, backing up all of our PCs to a single self-redundant source, and most relevant to all of you...acts as an external photo web server. We're not sure if this will be a permanent host for our images, but we're currently testing out how it works. Long story short, we can now host our images to the entire internet straight from the hard drive that they're stored on. No uploading to Snapfish or Picasa or flickr. The photo albums work like any on-line albums you've seen before, except that all the picture are available in full hi-resolution. So you can download them straight from the source and send them to print on your local printer with no loss of quality. Seriously, does that get any cooler?

Since this blog has been Cassie focused as of late, we've made her pictures available first. Check them out at: http://jbwei.selfip.com/photo/ You don't even have to create an account, they're available to view right away!

Who Let the Dogs Out?

As with many infants, Cassie's hungriest time of day is in the afternoon, typically around 4-5pm. To stay on schedule however, we don't feed her until 6:15pm with a snack only as needed at 5pm. And for the week 8 schedule, we'll be dropping the 5pm feeding altogether. We've discovered an effective way of distracting her until it's time for her evening feeding is rocking out to some music.

Cassie's Photo Shoot

As mentioned in earlier blog posts, Cassie had a photo shoot the other day. Our friend Hawk, who took the amazing pictures for our engagement and wedding, came over to the house and took some picture of us and Cassie. I'm not even going to front, they're stunning. Check them out yourself.

Normality Returning

We're starting to see elements of our old life return. Cassie is cleared to leave the house, so Carrie takes her to Starbucks every morning, and has taken her around town to Babies R Us, Costco, Target, the grocery store, etc. Carrie is also cleared as healthy and recovered, so she's been able to go to the gym and workout for the first time in two months. We've started accepting external social engagements again, meetings friends out at bars and restaurants, and even bringing Cassie to a friend's house for dinner (though, that was less than successful). So all in all, turns out life doesn't completely end with a baby. ;)

The Theory of Scheduling

Anybody who's had a baby knows that there are a million and 1 opinions about how to raise a child, and everybody is eager to convince you that their method is the right way. Every book has fundamental conflicts with every other book, so it's impossible to take everybody's opinion to heart. Carrie read dozens of books getting ready for Cassie's arrival, and the one that made the most sense to us was Gina Ford's very influential (and equally controversial) Contented Little Baby Book. The essence of the book is to put babies on a strict schedule to help them establish a routine and healthy sleep schedule. We're in week 7, and Cassie's daily schedule looks like this:

• Wake up at 7:00am
• Major 5oz feedings at 7:00am, 10:45am, 2:30pm, 6:15pm, and 10:30pm
• Minor 2-3oz snacks as needed at 5:00pm and between 3:30-4:30am
• Scheduled naps at 9:00am-9:45am (in stroller), 12:00pm-2:30pm (swaddled in crib), and 4:15pm-5:00pm (swaddled in crib)
• Bath time at 5:45pm every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday
  
• Bed time at 7:00pm

At her last doctor's visit, she weighed 11 pounds, 6 ounces. The typical guidance is that babies should get 2-3oz of milk a day per pound of body weight, so we have 31oz of daily feedings scheduled for her. At 7 weeks, Gina Ford's regimen enforces no more than 4 hours of nap time during the day to encourage good sound sleep at night from 7:00pm to 7:00am with only minimal interruptions for feedings.

Overly strict and regimented? Many people think so. But by the fourth week, Cassie had fully embraced the schedule to the extent that when we deviated by 30 minutes one day, she freaked out and was upset all day. We like knowing that we can have regular meal times for ourselves each day. It's nice to know that Cassie is at her happiest in the morning (when we scheduled the photo shoot) and that she's in bed by 7:00pm every night (when we tell friends it's too late to visit her). Knowing when the baby is going to be eating, sleeping and times she's likely to be fussy (just before a feeding), makes it infinitely easier to schedule doctor appointments, figure out when to go to the store or the gym, and when to have visitors.

We're not willing to swear by the book yet, Cassie could just be a coincidentally good baby. But we've enjoyed the structure and guidance it's helped us establish.

OMG, We're On Our Own!!!

Week 5 is finished, John's mom left this morning, and we are officially on our own with no training wheels. Aaahh!! To our dear friends and family, be on notice that we took careful notes these past few weeks and will be calling you in the near future to start redeeming those offers for babysitting and free dinners...lolz. This was a big week for us. Cassie celebrated her one-month birthday, a significant milestone in the Chinese culture. It also means that we're no longer house-bound, and have the doctors' permission to take Cassie out and about in public. Carrie's been taking her on 2-3 mile strolls each day. Additionally, Cassie got to visit the Campbell Farmer's Market as well as downtown Los Gatos. Being able to take her out definitely opens up our options immensely, which has been nice. She's been getting more and more alert the past couple of weeks, but that's really only translated into more time with her being awake and screaming. We were rewarded this week with her first real smiles though, which as you can see from the picture, are ridiculously cute. Starved for more pictures?

• Week 5 pictures including some from the past month shot by John's mom
• Week 2 pictures that were posted a while ago but weren't linked until recently
  

How to Entertain a Newborn

It's a rare moment when Cassie, Carrie and John all get a moment to rest their eyes. Certainly a moment worth capturing.

As Cassie spends more time awake each day, we find ourselves at a loss for how to entertain a newborn. The books tell us at this age she can differentiate black and white, and should be able to recognize faces within about 20 inches or so. But other than that, we're not really quite sure what she's interested in. When she's not asleep and not eating, her attention span is only about 5 minutes before she gets bored and starts crying. From family suggestion, we picked up the crib-mounted Symphony in Motion toy which she seems to be amused by. But, not having a crib yet, makes using it kind of tricky. Any suggestions are welcome! :)

We have a new photo album up with pictures of her third and fourth week. Enjoy them over at Picasa.

End of Week 3

"Pondering."

We have reached the end of our third week as parents. Carrie's mom left a week ago, we survived a week on our own, and John's mom arrived yesterday for the two week Grandma second shift. Cassie is noticeably more alert now, and is awake 7-8 hours a day. It seems like her vision is starting to come in, as she spends a lot of time looking around...this picture is typical of her during the day. She continues to be a pooping machine, pooping about 10-15% of her body weight each day. If she were a 150 lb adult woman, that would be like 20 pounds of poop a day. Gas pains will occasionally wake her up from a nap, but that's pretty much it. She slept soundly through the traditional July 4th fireworks extravangaza in the Campbell area.

We've Survived Two Weeks!

On the one hand, the last two weeks has just flown by, it's hard to believe that we've already survived this far as new parents. Then again, when baby Cassie is inconsolably crying in the middle of the night, it feels like it has gone by very slowly! The next week should be an interesting test as Carrie's mom heads back up to Auburn, and we're on our own with John back at work. In other news, we are in post-production for the next edition of our DVD. Let us know if you'd like to receive a copy.

Check out pictures from week two.

Night Feeding Video

We feed the baby about every 3 hours, 24 hours a day. Thought it might be interesting to some to share a video of one of the late night feeding that John does with Cassie. The 1 hour feeding is trimmed down to just about 7 minutes of highlights. Special bonus, a buttastrophe caught on film! The sound is pretty quiet because it's the middle of the night, you may want to turn up your volume if you want to hear everything.

Wow, What a First Week!

Wow, what a week! Baby Cassie's first week was eventful, fun, educational, and filled with tons of visitors! She had visitors every single day of the week, both at the hospital and at home. It's fun visiting with everyone! We're starting to settle into a regular schedule when Cassie cooperates. Carrie has had the chance to get out of the house and take a field trip to Target (w00t!). John's been able to get out of the house to even play softball for a bit. Nana's been cooking up a storm keeping everybody very well fed. Pops even descended upon the house with a carful of Costco bounty to host a barbeque at the house. Nobody's going hungry, that's for sure. Here's some pictures from the first week.

Sleepy, Stinky Sweetie

We're about halfway through our first week with the baby, and everybody's starting to settle into a routine. We're certainly running into our fair share of speedbumps along the way, but so far so good (knock on wood). Cassie, we've discovered, has a sick sense of humor. She's a sleepy newborn, which makes all of our visitors think that she's just an angel. So far, John's been taking the late night feedings (between 1:30-3:30am) to try and let Carrie get a 5-7 hour block of uninterrupted sleep. Ironically, Cassie has been 2 for 2 in choosing that feeding for her stinkiest buttastrophe each day. Here's some links to share:

• Are you starved for more pictures? We have photos from her first 24 hours posted up at Picasa.
  
• If you have an iGoogle or MyYahoo! page, you can add this blog to your page. Then new posts will just show up there, and you won't have to continually check the blog to see if we've posted something new. You can subscribe to that RSS feed here.

It's been wonderful having so many friends and family come to visit and meet Cassie. Thanks to everyone who's taken time out of their busy schedules, it certainly helps us maintain our sanity to touch base with the outside world from time to time.

Baby Cassie's First Video

For those who won't be able to see baby Cassie in person, we took the opportunity to shoot a little video to share. This is a rare moment when she is both 1.) awake and 2.) not screaming. After the first day, she's had a few moments where she's alert and looking around, and it's been really neat to see her take in the world.

Welcome Home, Baby Cassie!

We got discharged from the hospital today, both mom and baby checked out healthy. Cassie came home in her stylin' Ferrari-red carseat and didn't peep the whole time, just taking in the outside world for the first time. She loves her room, loves her bed, loves the decorations mom put up, and even let mom take a nap for a few hours while dad and nana took care of her. Firsts today: bath, buttastrophe, new outfits, new swaddling blankets, new hat, socks, mittens, bottle.

Ridiculously Good Looking

"I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is." -- Derek Zoolander

Today, Cassie had recovered a lot from the enormous effort of coming into the world and was much more alert and awake than yesterday. She took the opportunity to work on her breastfeeding skillz. We discovered that, like mom with chicken on the bone or shellfish, she gets pissed off when she has to work too hard for her food. We also discovered that, like dad, she's a little narcoleptic and sometimes falls asleep while eating.

Introducing Cassandra Jane Wei

Cassandra Jane was born at 1:35am early on Father's Day, happy and healthy. She's 7 pounds, 6 ounces, and 19 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing well. We are at Good Samaritan Hospital for the next couple of days and happily taking visitors. Please give us a call if you'd like to come visit the baby at the hospital or at home when we check out.

Carrie has officially started labor!

We made our first trip to the hospital very early this morning at 3:00am after Carrie had had contractions for about 4 hours, but were sent home because she far enough along. We were just admitted officially on our second trip to the hospital and Carrie is working on bring Sparkle into the world.

Scheduled: Monday, June 16

Carrie's doctor has decided that she will be ready to have the baby anytime next week, so we have scheduled her to check into Good Samaritan Hospital on Monday morning at 7:30am. Of course, if she goes into labor before that, we'll go before that. But Carrie will definitely be in the process of having the baby by this coming Monday. Stay tuned to this blog for the latest and up to date news about Baby Sparkle. You can subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking the "Subscribe to Posts (Atom)" link at the bottom of the blog. This will allow you to add it to your iGoogle or My Yahoo page, and automatically be notified of new updates without having to regularly check the blog itself.

Two Weeks or Less

We are now inside the two week window. Carrie is officially on maternity leave, our overnight bags are packed, the nursery is all setup, all the baby appliances have fresh batteries. It's just a waiting game now, everybody's on-call 24/7.

San Francisco Weekend

As Carrie's due date gets closer and closer, our vacation getaways get closer and closer to home so that we can be near our home hospital. With just about four weeks left, we spent this weekend in San Francisco to enjoy some of the joys of the city. We had brunch with friends at Luce, got massages, had afternoon tea at the Palace Hotel, enjoyed some shopping in Union Square, and had a sumptuous dinner at Postrio. One of the more pleasant surprises, however, was the Intercontinental Hotel, where we stayed. It just opened in February in SoMa and is beautiful. Because of the promotional special rate, we were able to stay on the club level 32nd floor with stunning views of the city. With the club level, we also had access to the club lounge. The picture is of Carrie watching the Bay to Breakers crowd on Howard Street pass by below as we enjoy a free breakfast in the club lounge.

The Baby's Getting Big

Carrie had a doctor's appointment today and they did an ultrasound just to make sure that everything was going well with the baby. The picture is a little grainy and it's a little tricky to make everything out, but they're estimating Sparkle at about 7 pounds right now. With a little over a month to go, it looks like she's going to be a pretty big baby!