it's over

yes, the little one is crawling! watch out world. we're gonna have to lock down everything now. she loves pulling on cords and she can track down that froggy pacifier like a missile. in case you didn't believe me, i actually have a video of it here. we should have the froggy paci on bin laden and then we would finally catch him. karen left a couple of weekends ago for tennessee and before she left she was almost starting to crawl (as shown in an earlier video) but when she came back a few days later she was scootin' around like crazy.

here's a pic in her borrowed duckie tub and an action shot with the water splashing. she still loves the baths.



we've also been to the zoo a couple of times. karen signed up for a family membership which i think is a great idea. we can go anytime all year for pretty cheap and we have discounts for friends/family too so if you're in town and want to go, let us know!



i was scanning the photos and i found this one deep in one of the folders. i think karen was trying to hide it from me. really, at what point do you call the authorities for child neglect? ha! just kidding honey, love ya!



i couldn't resist this one below either. getting the cousins together has never been funner! actually, riley is smiling pretty well but the rest of the gals just aren't interested.



this was also from the tenn trip. it looks like an early trying-to-crawl pic. this could be a poster for a "do not drink and crawl" campaign.




"he guys, i'm hittin' the art gallery later. come with?"

we were in savannah recently for a medical meeting. as soon as we get in the hotel room karen puts the kid on the bed for a photo op. karen notified me that it was her first hotel stay as well.


"ahh, nice fresh linens and so soft!"


kate's first boat ride. she ain't afraid.

okay, i'm gonna get yelled at for this next one but it'll be worth it. i had to put it in. here's mommy and baby not quite awake yet. look how karen's arm is up by her head and kate has her hand on her head. like mommy like baby.



here we are y'all at paula deen's restaurant. i ate the buffet on consecutive days for lunch. actually, including the buffet earlier in the week at a mongolian bbq, i had 3 buffets last week. almost like the med school days.


"i'm ready to chow down on some gourmet formula y'all!"

yes, babe is now eight months. not much of an update since the seven month point i guess. here's what kate really thinks about being 8.


"man i'm getting old. i guess i'll just eat this paper."

this next pic looks like kate is auditioning for cult follower of the year ... cutest cult follower of the year i have to say.


"whatever you say i will do master."


look at that smile. she still loves grabbing her feet, too.


just hanging out. "hmmm, what should i do now?"


easter's right around the corner in case you couldn't tell!

quick update

just wanted to upload a video. i have a whole bunch of pictures to upload, even from the last post but that will have to wait. karen and kate are actually in tennessee for abigail's b-day. it's weird how boring/mundane it gets when they're not around. on the one hand i'm like "oh yeah, i get to do stuff on my own, play b-ball, go out, party, etc." but after the first night i'm so lonely. poor me. anyway, i caught a nice vid of kate when karen was out one day. it shows kate trying to crawl, in her infant (pun intended) stages, but it includes many nice features such as her flailing her arm and leg around, slapping her feet against the floor, talking, pulling on her sock, etc. the girl will actually stand on all fours trying to figure out what to do but then her knees will drop but she can't figure out what to do with them then she'll either cry or just roll on her back. so funny. anyway, here's the link to the video.

happy b-day, kiddo!

yes, kate turned 7 months yesterday, the same day my dad turned 71. no, i don't have pics of kate with her obligatory "i'm 7 months old today" sign courtesy of karen. it's still on the camera i think. there are actually a lot of pictures from significant events lately (zoo, family visits, etc.) that will be posted later, unfortunately. that's what happens when you fall behind.

these days she's rolling around like crazy. can't quite crawl yet but she's almost there. wow, once that happens, there is no keeping up with the kid.

the girl loves to kick, too. she inherited a duckie inflatable bath from her cousins and she will kick her legs like crazy and splash water everywhere. also when she's trying to get to sleep we'll hear loud thumping in her room where she's pounding her feet against the mattress.


at a friend's baby shower. girl's so fashionable thanks to mom.

here's a pic from a christmas party with our church sunday school group. there was a prize for whoever wore the ugliest christmas outfit. karen picked up some stuff for us from goodwill. you can't tell but i'm actually wearing black cotton sweatpants. they were actually mine but i haven't worn them in years. really. kate's wearing her now famous gymbofriends camouflage onesie.



a couple of more pics from the seh-beh in california.


"am i doing this right, mommy?"


"ah yes, payday is mine." note mystery arm delivering money.

didn't mention that my brother has become a big raiders fan and the mens took a roadtrip up to oakland for the last season of the game against the chargers. dad's looking stylish with the raiders cap.


left to right: dad, me, bro-in-law ted and bro mike


another pic at the airport all decked out in her fancy hat


just enough hair to get a couple of bows in

karen's mom came to visit for a week. there are several other pics i'll put up later but here's one with the three ladies. you do not want to get in a staring contest with this baby.



we were watching kate roll around here and there when she started posing in the style of the old breakdancers. here is her first pose, could be coming off of a nice backspin. definitely taking after daddy.




relaxin' with with her pillow


LOOK at this girl! she is going to break some hearts one day, that's for sure.


yeah, this was taken in the dead of winter. never too early to get ready for the beach in today's global warming environment.


one day this girl was so tired she fell asleep just like this.


quick visit with uncle norman and aunt mary. looks like kate's staring down some hoodlums stirring up some trouble somewhere.

oh yeah, we had a live nativity at church and some animals running amuck on the property. didn't stop kate from getting in there for a good photo op.


hmmm, not much resemblance to the camel


houston, we have contact ... with a sheep. i believe this is kate's first contact with livestock.


happy with pacifier and cousin riley


getting a few walking lessons from cousin rebekah who started walking pretty early herself.

okay, in case you didn't know, karen has this fascination, dare i say obsession with groundhog day. she was even in punxsatawney, pennsylvania for the "phillennium" on 02/02/02. no, i am not making this up. anyway, in true atlanta (metro area, at least) fashion, we have a knockoff groundhog ourselves, general beauregard lee. after a 3 am fire alarm in our condo, we all got up at the gluteus-crack of dawn in ungodly cold weather to see this rodent prognosticate about the weather. karen stayed up all night doing various things, including making many signs, some of which actually ended up on the website of the place hosting the general! see if you recognize the kid on the website as well. click here to see it. not sure how long it'll be up but make sure you also go to the other pics to see some of karen's work and relatives. i'll post more pictures from the event on here later. as an aside, they are a lot more cordial here and wait for general lee to come out instead of dragging him out like in pennsylvania. hey, southern hospitality. well, needless to say, this year he decided to take his time and a lot of people ended up leaving before he came out because it was too cold. many children were out there complaining of digits and phalanges and such going numb and i think we all missed his big moment too. in case you were wondering, he did not see his shadow. interestingly, the very next week it was in the 60's for the high. coincidence? i don't think so.


kate in her groundhog bib and hat. "daddy, where am i?"


"what's all the ruckus about?"


"mommy, help me. i can't feel my body."

more updates later!

the real slim santa

okay, the video you've all been waiting for ... for which you've all been waiting. note, this is unedited so there is a repeat reading toward the end but you get the idea. click here for pure youtube joy.

back from hiatus

wow, it's been a while since the last update. didn't think the hollywood writer's strike would be affecting my blog. must be a trickle down effect. well, part of the break was due to illness. karen and kate went to tennessee sometime in december and both of them got sick, although karen didn't seem that bad. i kept joking that karen brought back "tennessee fever" and i was going to write it up and have it published in a journal. this was kate's first big illness. it started in the nose then made its way down to a little cough. it seemed like karen's symptoms started first so i was walking around the house with tissue in my nose and i tried not to get too close to her so i wouldn't get sick. she got better and i was still safe. kate's symptoms didn't seem that bad although it certainly affected her sleep that week. at times when she sneezed she had some thick, nasty looking snot coming out. talk about a sight to see, after she sneezes, just sitting there with a couple of big globs hanging out. then of course she'll rub it before you can wipe it off. anyway, around kate i wasn't very careful because she didn't look that bad and i didn't think whatever was causing her to be sick in her tiny body could do much to me in my manly body. it did cross my mind once that i should be more careful but i ignored that inner voice. i tend to do that frequently, much to my detriment. well, not surprisingly, i did eventually get sick and it freakin' hit me hard! i think it covered every inch of respiratory track from my nose down to my lungs. i even lost my voice for a few days which was a big bummer. fyi, there is some nasty stuff going around this year, even a particularly deadly form of adenovirus 14 in case you were interested.

kate got a visit from ol' saint nick this year on christmas eve. i have the video uploading on youtube as we speak so once it's on, i'll have a link. note the current video is unedited as you'll see toward the end. i'll get to correcting it one day. i had to work over the holidays but after work on christmas day my mom came over and karen made a turkey with all the fixin's. yum! my dad couldn't make it due to free golf. that's a big dilemma for a korean, take a free golf day or spend some time with your granddaughter on her first christmas. anyway, santa did leave some stuff for kate so i guess she was a good girl for the year (but she wasn't ex utero the whole year so that may have skewed the results).


"who is this bearded man?"


ah, christmas joy


merry christmas!

before i forget, karen ate her first taco (to her knowledge) last month when we had taco night. recently we met some friends and we were talking about karen's eating habits and she joked how she wouldn't believe it if you told her ten years ago that she would be married to a korean guy and eating the foods that she eventually would eat (did i mention the dose of foie gras she had in paris?). then i joked that i wouldn't believe it if ten years ago you told me i would be married to someone who had never eaten at taco bell.

over new year's, we went to cali with the whole family (including my parents). it was kate's first plane ride. she did really well on the way there. we left in the morning (when she tends to be better) and she wasn't fussy for more than one minute on the whole plane ride. every once in a while i would hold her up and she would take a look around at the people behind her. we were on a 777 on the way there and karen and i played trivia for most of the 2nd half of the flight. you could play against other people on the plane. i know, we're an exciting couple.

it seemed to take kate only a couple of days to acclimate to the time change but it seemed to take a week or more to get back on schedule when we got back to atlanta. while in cali kate saw the ocean for the first time and touched the pacific (proof below). she also saw her first "snow." my sister and family were going to go skiing (their holiday tradition) but since we were all in town, my brother had snow delivered to his house. a company dropped off several very large cubes of snow/shaved ice which we fashioned into a nice sledding runway. eventually we added a jump so the kids got some nice airtime. we took kate down it and when she first got in the sled she started crying but as soon as we pulled her, she calmed down and just stared in her somewhat curious/"what the heck is going on" look.


there's a baby in this picture somewhere

kate also made a little cash on new year's day doing her seh-beh. it's a korean tradition where you bow to your parents, wishing them a happy new year and they give you money. sounds like a good tradition to me. anyway, years ago my dad complained because we didn't do it too much and now he's complaining because he has to give too much money away. he was actually going to forego kids born last year (jordan and kate) because they were too young and couldn't bow but i told him i can just sit kate up and she'll fall on her face and that's pretty much the same as bowing.


"is this when i get the money?"

it was a quick trip there and back and kate didn't do as well on the flight back, mainly i think because it was a very long day. we drove down from my bro's place in the morning directly to the airport (about a 3 hr drive). she had a few crying episodes on the plane but overall it wasn't too bad. when we got to atlanta, the temp was in the teens so karen and the baby almost froze to death waiting for me to get the car (i picked up my parents car and it was in the next to the last section, about as far away from the baggage claim as possible). i think that was the coldest the kid had experienced to that point. it may have been that cold in tennessee but she definitely wasn't exposed to the cold that long.

the weather has been funny here. global warming, as they say. the week after we came back it was in the 70's, near record highs. then we had snow on two different days this past week! the second time it actually led to some accumulation. that meant the city shut down basically. and yes, there are some nice pics with kate and the snow courtesy of wife. kate didn't really know what to do with the snow so she's not exactly smiling in the pics.


matches the bushes in the background

kiddo's past the big 6.0 months so is into all sorts of stuff. she's gotten very adept at rolling around. she has also started taking in some solids which she seems to enjoy. she loves grabbing her feet when she's on her back and as expected, she puts her toes in her mouth at times and will even suck them. karen swore she was rolling her tongue like when saying some spanish r's but it turns out it's just spit in the back of her mouth that she sort of gargles, which she likes to do. she's also big on things that make crinkly noises. here's a nice video displaying her joy and what happens when you take it away. kate's developing a pretty funny laugh as well. she's a little ticklish and doing various other things will make her laugh at times. we got a good video of her laughing at some kisses i was giving her.

well, there's plenty more but i have to get to sleep so we'll update some more later with more pics. peace out!


"hmmm, i wonder what else these things are good for besides putting them in my mouth?"


showing her asian pride with a panda outfit


thanksgiving in tennessee


excited to get to cali!


look what i found in baggage claim


celebrating "limjaa" (we'll explain later)


"don't drop me, pops"


the folks with the grandkids


a new month wouldn't be a new month without a declaratory pic


first solid meal ... "this tastes like chicken ... i think"

busy busy!

the little one has been a busy girl lately. today we went to visit santa at phipps plaza. this apparently is a bigger tradition than i realized. in case you didn't know, phipps tends to be among the more uppity of the malls in the a-t-l. there were some kids behind us who were probably in late elementary or in jr. high and i commented to karen that they were a bit too old to be seeing santa. well, it seems the richies around here have made it a yearly thing to get pics with santa no matter how old, at least possibly through high school. i guess we all have our own traditions. anyway, kate did really well, didn't cry or anything and just had a good ol' time with santa. i will be uploading a video soon.

kate also met gov. perdue. there's a christmas tree lighting every year (holiday tree? ha ha) at the governor's mansion and surprisingly it's not a terribly crowded event at least the past 2 years we have gone. granted, there has been rain those years and the initial part of it is outside. you also get to tour through the mansion then gather in the basement where there are cookies, cider and other treats with music and time to mingle with the first family. ol' sonny just made himself at ease with kate as you can see below. at one point he was actually holding her up with one hand! i'm surprised karen didn't jump in and grab her from him. this adds to kate's celeb meetings in addition to jenna bush (sort of a celeb), president carter and amy grant. all in 5 months!

we have also gone back to church for the third time a.k. (after kate). (her first church visit was at new bethel in tennessee. we took her to the worship service with us, and she did great--slept almost the whole time.) back here, we have taken her to church twice. if we didn't mention, the first time we left her in the nursery a couple of months ago, they had to call us to tell us she wasn't happy. needless to say, we were a bit on the anxious side this time wondering how things would turn out. well, kiddo did amazingly well and when we went to pick her up, here is what we saw ...

girl is just chillin' with her new playmate. way to go, kate, way to go.

For Colette ... Kate's Nursery

Hey, this is Karen once again. I told Colette that I'd post pics of Kate's nursery on here. Tanna did a fabulous job with her room, in my humble opinion. :o) He painted, installed a new ceiling fan/light fixture, put the crib and changing dresser together, and he let me buy the cute polka-dot rug! ;o) (That last one took a bit of convincing.)






My sister painted the quilt rack and lamp base black (which is tricker than you might think).



The room has been rearranged just a bit since this photo was taken.
Oh yeah, that's another thing ... Tanna rearranged the furniture when I changed my mind on the layout. :o)

new tricks

so, the critter can roll over now but only from back to belly. she still has a little trouble getting back "upright" onto her back. amazingly i was able to catch it pretty quickly on this video. of course, she started doing this days ago and karen tells me about it several days after the fact. i had not even seen it until today. i can see our future conversations: "oh, by the way honey, kate started talking and walking last month, not sure if she's done it for you yet..."

the girl still gets frightened pretty easily with certain loud noises; the difference now is that the startle reflex is mostly gone so her arms don't fly around as much but she still almost jumps out of her diapers. she definitely gets that from her mom. i kid you not, sometimes karen jumps when i'm just standing there. "i didn't know you were there."

got a lot more pics but we gotta run to tennessee for thanksgiving so here are just a couple.

"did you fill your shoeboxes this year?"

"hmmm...i wonder what's in here..."

"why, mommy, why?"