1 year later

Bella with nanny doing there morning walk around the neighborhood. 

Bella sporting her first hair cut given by mama

Good little mama feeding her baby doll

Little mama 

Hi everyone! I'm one! (Bella can count from 1 to 10 in Vietnamese)

Mama asked her to smile for the camera and she turned around and gave me this

Who's cuter? Bella or Bella?

smiling pretty for daddy who was overseas

Bella and mama June 22 1 year ago

This is the same out fit they had her wearing 1 year ago June 22.  Any different?

This may be my last post but I wanted to write about our anniversary date June 22.  It was a year ago yesterday that we came to Vinh Long and meet our beautiful Bella for the first time.  She was a tiny 13lb scared little girl who just captured our hearts from the very beginning when we first saw her referral pictures. Bella has come a long way and yesterday we put on the same out fit she was wearing when they place her in my arms. She sure filled out of the top and finally the bottom fits her. 

Bella is a walking talking and a lot of times bossing little girl. You should hear her bossing her nanny around. A conversation would go like this: Nanny- where is your baby doll?; Bella- go find! Bella- come sit, get up, dance, sing. Our little girl is learning so fast each and every day. Her vocabulary now contains a lot of English mix in with Vietnamese. She understands mostly Vietnamese but will sometimes pick up a few English here and there. Just tonight she was messing with her food and asked for more after she had dumped all down the floor. I didn't want to give her more and told her dad she just want to have fun and not eat. She then picked up the word "fun" and started to say it again and again until I gave her more rice noodles. The little booger was just laughing cause she got mama there. She is now singing alone with her music videos both the English and Vietnamese. She feeds herself perfectly using a spoon and can drink from a straw. The just weigh her in last week at 27&1/2 lbs. and she is over 33" tall. She is growing at an amazing rate. Our little princess is looking more like a little girl than a baby now and when I look at her baby pictures I can't help but feel a little sad for missing her baby stages still. 

Bella still is a mama girl in a lot of ways but lately she is more and more daddy girl. When we go out all she wants is her daddy and would not let mama touch her but then at night before bedtime she just wants mama. Bella still sleeps on the big bed with her mama and daddy but we are going to wean her into her own bed soon "I hope".  

News to come is our Maui vacation in two weeks. Yes, our first family vacation ever. I can't wait to get little princess in a bikini and swimming in the beach. It's still so cold here in San Diego we haven't gotten her in the water here but Maui will be warm and just perfect for her first beach outing. If anyone is interested we got professional photos of our beautiful girl on a website. The pw is pham. http://echoeidetics.zenfolio.com/p497402581 

I have been busy knitting (my new hobby) and thus accounts for the no new post since May. I am thinking of ending this blog since not too many of you are still following us. Let me know if you are still interested in updates and if its worth continuing. Drop me your email in the comment and I may just e-mail updates regularly. In the mean time enjoy some over due pics. 

May 1st Blast

May 1st was a blast thanks to my loving husband who threw a surprise b-day party for me. Some how he got people from my and his work to come and it was a real surprise  exempt that Bella's uncle An took me home to early for the surprise. Oh well, it was still very nicely put together, especially Friday night we went out to dinner and Cowboy Le was sitting there smiling pretty. The party on Saturday was amazing with a bartender and all our kitchen counters full of food. WOW! Every one had a blast especially Bella. For mama b-day Bella did the salsa dance. It was hysterical.  Mama 42 turning 19 got a little tipsy with shots of tequila, margaritas, wet-pussy, and a sexy 19. WOW! That's the most alcohol I've every taken in. Leave it to Peter Pham to throw a party. We may be poor after this one but we are sure happy. 

Well, enough about me.  What has Bella been up to? She is totally, unbelievable amazing. She is talking and repeating everything we say. The first thing she say when she wakes up is sữa (milk) and at night when we put her to bed. She would through the fake bottle of sữa away and demands sữa at night. I feel so bad so I do cheat on some nights.  Hope her teeth will be ok. I can't keep up with her vocabularies since every day she pull out new words we never heard her say before. She mostly say things in Vietnamese but just lately she has been repeating words she hear in English too like up, outside, moon, and of course mama's favorite word NO.  She still loves to watch Little Einstein and the Backyardigans and will sing along with them.  Every day when I come home Bella asks to watch Xuan Mai video but pointing to the TV and saying Mai. AS soon as it is turned on she gets so excited she starts dancing and singing. Too cute! She is eating really good too. She can chew instead of chocking on rice with meat and soup, macaroni and cheese and alphabet pasta. Bella loves cheese and sometime can eat as many as 3 pieces of the Babylon cheese a day and can probable eat more if we let her.  Her potty training is going really well with only 3 accidents last month and that was our fault since we waited too long to let her go on the toilet. Now if we ask her if she needs to go potty she will either say potty and nod her head or say no. What an Einstein of a kid! 

May 1st Blast

What the heck Bella has been up to

For those of you still following our posts here is an up date of what the heck Bella has been up to.  The month of March went by fast. We had a busy and stressful month of trying to find a replacement for Bella's nanny.  Lets hope this current one is a keeper, at least until Bella starts preschool anyway. Bella has been busy herself with walking more confidently, talking up a storm and now 90% potty trained. Last week she opened a book up and pointed to a picture of an apple and said apple. I got so excited and that made her do it even more, running around saying apple, apple and laughing. I think we might have a bilengual on our hands since she also speaks a lot of Vietnamese. Vietnamese words Bella knows: tay(hand), an(eat), sua(milk), xe(car), cay(tree), bay(fly), di(go), and of course ba(daddy) which is now her favorite word. She calls for ba everything he is home and not in the same room with her. She just adores her daddy and so does he. If her daddy is home mama could be anywhere and Bella wouldn't care. Wow, just a few weeks of spending time with her and she drops mama like a hot potato. Bella loves sitting on her daddy's lap while he reads to her. Every night after dinner she would go pick out a book for her daddy to read. Bella understands Vietnamese more so than English but she is learning. She still watches Little Einstein and the Backyardigans and understands them. Her favorite is Best Clowns in Town episode of the Backyardigans and she laughs when Tyrone gets mad at the clowns. 

 She still falls down a whole lot but at least she is now getting up on her own and prefer walking over crawling. You should see her climbing stairs. She knows to hold on to the railings with both hands and take each steps one by one. Bella loves to swing and go down the slides at the playgrounds and her favorite toy is babydolls. She is so loving to her babydolls, kissing them and rocking them to sleep. I call her little mama.  Just recently we have stopped the milk bottle at night and replaced it with plain water. She takes it and falls to sleep with it. Her appetite could use improvement. Yes, she is still eating food all puree but she is trying to chew more with rice, noodles, mac/cheese and bread. I hope she will learn to eat more solid food cause I don't know of any 2 year olds eating baby food still. My little lady is Big! She wears a 3T tops and 24months bottoms and her feet grow from size 3 to 5 over night. Here are new pics of our little princess.

Bella big social week-end

Happy 1st birthday Kendall!

                     Kendall's 1st birthday party.  What a cute little princess

Come on daddy, we're gonna be late for Kendall's party

 

                                                                            Our little walker     

Smile princess! Your on camera

You go in first daddy

First time on swing. Bella loves being on the swing and would not get off even after 30 minutes. Can't believe we waited this long to let her on a swing.

This birthday party ROCK mom!!!

Bella's first time playing in the sand and she wasn't sure if she likes it

"What's that stuff sticking on my fingers?"

Bella's cute little boyfriend

"Come on, I'll show you what to do". A couple of times down the slide and she thinks she's a pro. Here Bella is trying to get her boyfriend to go down with her. Don't think he appreciated her bossiness like mama and daddy.

Bella just loves the swing. We say weee while pushing her and now everything she goes up she would say weeee!!! So cute

Don't think she likes sand on her feet.... or her hands

Bella crashing right after her big date 

Bath time

Valentine week-end

Valentine week-end was really fun which we haven't had for a long time.  We went out for Pho in OC and then took Bella walking around the outdoor mall. She is really enjoying walking and loves to show off her moves. I think she must have walked at least 2 miles Saturday.  Bella's uncle An then took us all to a Valentine dinner; steaks, lobsters and oysters and dessert were just fabulous. We haven't gone to a fancy place like that since Bella came home and didn't get home until after 11. Our baby was pooped out and fell asleep in the middle of dinner and she stayed asleep until morning. Too bad she didn't sleep a little later so mommy and daddy could sleep in some.  The dinners were on uncle An but the flu bugs got us, especially me. I am so sick for 3 days now and had to miss 2 days of work. I thought the flu would pass me this year since I got the shots but no such luck. I just hope Bella wont get what I got. She is so adorable walking. If in the mist of walking she doesn't see something close where she could hold on to for support just in case....her arms which are in front will shake like an old woman without her cane. I wish I could download the video of her walking. It is so hilarious. I know I'm not supposed to laugh about this but she is so so precious. She still is a little scare of falling and not confident enough to just get up and walk on her own. So far everything Bella does has been on her term so we don't want to push her too much but where do you draw the line from encouragement to pushy? Bella went for a dental appointment and the verdict is no more bottle at bedtime. WOW! That has been really hard. The bottle has been the only thing that calms her down and let her lay still so she will fall asleep. Without bottle? She just toss and turn for at least an hour before falling asleep from exhaustion. She is always a hard one to sleep. Its like she doesn't want to sleep so she will fight it till the end. Well, here is our precious baby looking so grown up. 

Daddy's home and all is well

Bella's ba came home Tuesday and Bella is all happy being daddy's little princess again.  She misses him so much but now is sleeping and playing so much better. No more night terror, yippee! I was at work when he came home so didn't get to take a picture of the reunion, bummer. Here are updates of Bella's last check up: Pediatric evaluation - she will be tall and lean, at 75% on height, 22% for weight and has a pot belly, very protective of her daddy (would not let MD examine daddy in order to show Bella how MD will examine her) and scream bloody murder during shots. Thank goodness mama wasn't there :-( 

Bella progress report:

 -speech = ba ba, mama, tiger, bay(fly in Vietnamese), by by, hi, ba bay(daddy fly), yum yum yum (give me rice to eat,Bella's own made up word), ai do? (who's there).

- greet the polite Vietnamese way (bowing with folded hands)

-will walk to you if placed in standing position or walking pushing a play shopping cart

-Blow kisses with special effects (smacking noise with lips)

-Give kisses 

-Smile "pretty" for camera (usually lips wide open showing teeth)

-knows at least a dozen flash card: horse, dog, cat, car, tiger, apple, elephant, book, and all farm animals

-dance to the song Kia con buom vang (yellow butterfly)

-brush teeth and hair

-go potty on toilet (sometimes)

-tells you when she needs diaper change by pointing to her dirty diaper(now if we could train her to change her own diaper)

Her daddy brought home for her 2 adorable Chinese silk outfits with matching shoes which she loves to wear plus a Rolex watch. When we ask her what time it is she will roll her sleeve up and point at her watch. Too funny!

Well, mama sure is glad to have daddy home too. 1&1/2 week is just too long. That's all the progress report I have.