Day Out with Thomas

It's no secret that one of Cassie's favorite things right now is trains, and Thomas the Tank Engine is her favorite.  So a couple weeks ago, we went and attending Day Out With Thomas, a traveling show where a life-size Thomas the Tank Engine visits along with a bunch of other fun activities for kids.  We got to ride on the Thomas train, see a giant blow-up Percy, play in the bounce house, and look at lots of cool new Thomas toys.  Good times!

Pajaro Dunes Trip

After the Daddy-Daughter Trip this year, Carrie's family organized a trip to the Central Coast to spend some time at the beach.  Carrie's parents, Scott and Megan and the cousins all got together in Pajaro Dunes.  We rented out a really cool house and met them for a day there.  Cassie loved playing in the sand and helped Pops dig several big holes.  After some testing, Cassie eventually got excited by the ocean and tide coming in and out as well.  Lots of fun with the cousins!

2010 Daddy-Daughter Trip: California Academy of Sciences

After a really fun evening having dinner in a fancy restaurant and staying in a hotel room in Napa, we had to start heading home again.  To break up the car ride, we stopped at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco to check out the extensive renovations and new exhibits there.  Cassie's favorite part was the aquarium where we spent the better part of an hour finding Nemo.  Finding Nemo is Cassie's favorite movie right now, so we enjoyed looking for clown fish and all of Nemo's friends including Dory, Marlin, and Gill.  We also enjoyed the rain forest exhibit where Cassie got up close and personal with butterflies, and grabbed a nice lunch in their new cafe before heading home.

2010 Daddy-Daughter Trip: Sonoma and Napa

Our end destination for this year's trip was wine country.  Not for the wine, obviously, but for a cool theme park called Sonoma Train Town.  Cassie is fascinated by all things trains and we look for every opportunity we can to take train rides.  After the zoo in the morning, Cassie caught a nap in the car while we drove up to Sonoma.  We had an amazing time at Sonoma Train Town, riding the train, seeing the petting zoo, riding the roller coaster, going on the Ferris wheel, and even checking out the merry-go-round.  Cassie wore her train conductor outfit the whole time and really enjoyed seeing all the different trains!

2010 Daddy-Daughter Trip: SF Zoo

Every year, Cassie's school takes a week off for teacher planning and to move classrooms.  We took the opportunity this year to go on our second Daddy-Daughter Trip.  We left first thing in the morning and headed up the Peninsula, stopping at the San Francisco Zoo for a fun morning.  Cassie had a great time seeing all the animals, her favorite being the monkeys and one particular colorful baboon.  We also got to catch the penguin and grizzly bear feedings, as well as ride the train and the merry-go-round!

Snocone!

Catching up with some older posts.  Back in August, Cassie and John went to a really fun birthday party with a bounce house, Thomas the train, cotton candy, popcorn machine, and Snocones!  It was the first time Cassie has ever had cotton candy or Snocones, and she obviously loved them!

First Night

We brought Hayley home from the hospital after a short morning of filling out discharge forms.  She's had a lot of poops, but seems to be happy to be home.  Cassie has welcomed her and has been in good spirits as well.  We've upgraded our babycam setup and are now able to watch both girls from any computer.  We're a few hours into our first night, fingers crossed...

Introducing Hayley Catherine Wei

Our new baby girl was born on Saturday evening, 9/18/2010, at 7:01pm in San Jose.  She weighs 7 pounds, 6 ounces, and is 20 inches long.  She has lots of dark hair, is alert, strong, and doing well.  Carrie did a great job delivering and is happy and healthy as well!  We are at Good Samaritan Hospital and welcome visitors while we are.

Happy Birthday, America!

Today is the 4th of July and we told Cassie that it was America's birthday.  Her response: "Happy birthday, America!"  Indeed.

Disneyland!

Last weekend was cousin Jasmine's 2nd birthday down in Southern California.  We took the opportunity to visit with cousins and take Cassie to Disneyland for the first time.  The trip was a great success, Cassie was such a good girl for the 6.5 car ride down and the 8 hour car ride back.  We rode pretty much every ride that was age appropriate for her including the Merry Go Round, Dumbo, Teacups, several choo choo trains, the Storyland boat, It's a Small World, Autopia cars, Rocket Ships, the Monorail, Dancing Ladybugs, Bumper Cars, and the Bug Balloons.  Her favorite rides were the Merry Go Round and Dumbo (included video above), and one of the big highlights was getting to meet Mickey and Minnie Mouse!

Indoor Skydiving

One of John's friends from work is getting married in July.  While we won't be able to make the wedding in Las Vegas, John was able to help him celebrate at the bachelor party.  The main activity of the day was go indoor skydiving at a place called iFly in the East Bay.  It's surprisingly fun!

Daddy's Race Car

Cassie has learned how to say "Mommy's car" (Prius) and "Daddy's car" (Explorer) and especially enjoys when we let her choose which car to take.  She usually chooses "Daddy's car" because she doesn't get to ride in the Explorer as often, and I think she might be able to see more out of the windows when we're driving.  We recently also introduced her to "Daddy's Race Car."  She hasn't gotten to leave the garage in it yet, but she's had her first taste behind the seat of the Mustang and loves it!  Hopefully she still feels that way in 14 years...

Big Girl Bed

We have achieved a major milestone in toddler development with surprisingly little (or should say NO) fuss at all.  We converted Cassie's crib into a toddler bed by taking off the front rails and replacing them with a partial toddler rail.  She can get in and out on her own and took to it immediately.  We're still crossing our fingers, but her sleep schedule has not been affected at all and she still stays in bed every morning until we come to get her, even if she's already awake.  We bolted all the furniture to the wall (in case of climbing) and installed a baby gate on her door just in case she got out of bed, but she has yet to do so.  Much credit goes to all the pre-work that was done at school where they've been napping out of cribs for several months now.

Cassie's Birthday Party

We had a big birthday bash at our house over the weekend to celebrate Cassie's second birthday.  We had almost 20 kids plus parents and friends at our house to splash in the pool, socialize in the tiki bar, ride Thomas the Tank Engine, and jump around in the bounce house.  It was a crazy fun time!  Several of Cassie's school friends were able to join us as well, which was a special treat.  You can see in the picture that Cassie and Chloe are enjoying juice boxes while visiting with Teacher Lauren and her baby, Jaymie!

Happy Birthday Cassie!

Cassie was born two years ago today.  Wishing our baby an amazing and very happy birthday!

Ponies and Swings

Around our new house in Los Gatos, we have half a dozen parks to choose from either within walking distance or less than a 5 minute drive away.  One of the many benefits of Carrie working part time is that the girls generally have these parks all to themselves on Mondays and Tuesdays.  As a result, Cassie is basically used to having her favorite toys all to herself with no need to ever share.  And her all time favorite is the swings.  We continue to work on the idea of sharing, but 90% of the time there just isn't anybody to share with and she gets to have a great time on the swings by herself.

Another recent development is "ponies."  As you can see in the picture, these are some of the first ever pictures where Cassie has little pigtails.  She refused to have anything on her head for the longest time, be it hair bands, hair clips, hats, whatever.  However, some of the other girls at school have started getting ponytails because everybody's hair is growing longer, so peer pressure influenced Cassie to want the same thing.  She now has 1-3 ponies in at any given time.

Swim Lessons Start

With the weather finally warming up after an unseasonably cold and rainy spring, we are back in the pool.  Temps are actually still a little chilly to be in the main pool with the water temperature usually around 72F, but we can heat the spa to 90F pretty quickly and efficiently.  The spa is perfectly sized for Cassie right now, with space to float on her own, or walk around the seats on the edge.  Carrie has taken on the challenge of teaching Cassie how to swim, which has been a pleasure since Cassie loves the water so much.  She is able to "eggbeater" and tread water on her own briefly, can kick both freestyle and breast stroke, likes to blow bubbles, and has even started enjoying "dunking" her face in the water.

Trains!

Without question, Cassie's #1 favorite interest right now is trains.  She loves the Thomas and Friends train TV show and movies, her favorite clothes all have trains on them, she has dozens of train toys, and many of her activities revolve around trains.  Even her class at school has adopted an entire train curriculum to encourage the interest amongst all the children. 

We had the opportunity to visit the California State train museum in Sacramento a few weekends ago and Cassie got to ride on her very first real train!  She was obviously beside herself with glee throughout the entire experience.  You can see here that we got to play with the steering wheel on one of the cabooses.

Visit to see Lauren and Jaymie

Cassie has had the same primary teacher for most of her time at Google daycare, from 6 to about 20 months.  We really love her teacher, Lauren, and have all gotten to each other really well.  Lauren recently went on maternity leave to have her own daughter, Jaymie.  Although it's been fun getting to know the new teachers and see all the amazing new things they've brought to the room, we do miss Lauren lots.  The plan is that Lauren will be moving with Cassie and the older toddlers to the new young-preschool room in August, so we've tried to stay connected while Lauren's been on leave.  She lives just a few blocks from school, so this is a picture from when John and Cassie stopped in to visit Lauren and the baby after school one day.  Obviously a fun time.

Planting Seeds

It's no secret that we think Google daycare is amazing.  Just one of the many things we like is how they come up with interesting activities for the children that would never cross our minds.  The other day, Cassie's room did a joint activity with another toddler room and planted some seeds that they'll watch grow over the next several weeks.  You can see here that Cassie immediately took to the activity, and really enjoyed scooping dirt into her cup and planting the little seeds.  Seems like all her practice in the sand has paid off!