look who's 1!

our little emma grace turned 1 today! i can still remember the day she was born, at 6:35 in the evening. she was so beautiful and such a little sweetheart...hardly fussed at all and would just lay on my chest and sleep. she still loves to put her head on our shoulder and just cuddle with us as often as she can. the love we have for her really is indescribable.  we praise God for such an incredible blessing she is to us!

her day started out with lucas singing "happy birthday" to her, which was really sweet. we had a simple celebration for her in the evening with our family and good friends. we kept things simple so that we could really focus on honoring our little girl.

our sweet birthday girl

cake time...oh so yummy! emma got her very own cake,
and she loved every bite of it.

getting showered with gifts

oh, baby!

so, again, i have gone missing for quite awhile. i have to say that i have a very good reason this time. a lot of you probably know already, but allan and i are expecting a baby again! we found out just after christmas, on december 28. we were watching a movie that night when i couldn't understand why i was feeling so tired. it was late and i usually get pretty tired just caring for the kids and stuff, but i was unusually tired this night. allan made a joke and said, "maybe you're pregnant!" i said, "whatever." but once he suggested it, i couldn't get it out of my head. i needed to know. so, i sent him to the store to get a pregnancy test (at 12:30am) and after taking it, we saw a second very faint (but there) pink line. i thought my eyes were just playing tricks on me because it was so late, but allan saw it, too. we decided to sleep on it and test again the next morning. the first thing i did when i woke up was head to the bathroom to take the second test that came in the box. again, faint (but there) second line. i still couldn't believe that i was pregnant (emma was only 7 months old!) so i went into my doctor's office to take an "official" pregnancy test. allan was right, we were pregnant!

well, since then i have been really sick with nausea. it has just started to subside but i still feel a little twinge of it every now and then, especially when i get too hungry. these last three months have been pretty hard for me. the nausea and throwing up and being more tired than i could remember in a really long time really took a toll. but now that i'm out of that, i feel great and am really excited about our newest addition!

i didn't know my due date, but found out at my first doctor's appointment that it is 9/13/2008. i had my first ultrasound on january 22 and learned that i was 6 weeks and 3 days (6w3d) pregnant. we got to see our tiny bundle of joy for the first time. i had a second ultrasound on february 26 and i measured 11w4d pregnant, which was consistent with the estimated due date (edd) from my first appointment. my doctor asked me if i wanted to know what i was having, and without thinking about the fact that allan wasn't with me, i blurted out "yes!" my doctor seems to think i'm having a boy. but my friend, an ultrasound technician, looked at the picture and thinks it could be a girl. 11 weeks is pretty early to tell, so i guess i'll just have to wait until my next ultrasound to know. i'll be sure that allan is with me this time. :)

i started showing really early with this pregnancy, and i feel like i'm already 6 months along. yikes! here's a picture of me from easter. see my protruding belly? i told you i was showing quite a bit already! in my defense, i'm not wearing a maternity top here so it's especially tight around my belly. i'm sure we'll have some fun and exciting stuff to share in these coming months. stay tuned! (a funny thing is that we were just talking about changing the name of our blog to something different because the title didn't really fit anymore. ha!)

first camping trip of the season

several weeks ago, we went on our first camping trip of the season. we were lucky in terms of weather, but realized that we'll need to wait a few more weeks (at least) for the weather to improve before we go on our next trip. in fact, it snowed last week! that should tell you something about the crazy weather we've been having here. check out the pictures at the AT Photo Blog.

birthday party photos

check out the photos from lucas' third birthday party that are posted on the blog for Allan Tuan Photography, our photo biz. he invited a bunch of his friends and they had a ton o' fun painting, eating cake and ice cream, and jumping in a bounce house. sorry for the scarcity of posts, but 2008 has proven to be a busy year thus far. more news later...

wrapping up 2007

now i know why there are less pictures of the second child compared to the first. it's because with two kids, each parent is wrangling one so there is no one to take the pictures. i think that in 2008 you will see more self-portraits of us. :)

we headed out to first night again to ring in the new year with the kids. lucas has been sick these last few days, so he was not up to his usual run-amok self tonight. i think he had the most fun when ginny brought him a balloon sword and he and carter ran around wielding their new weapons in the air. emma was her sweet little self tonight. she even let me get her face painted with a pink heart to mark the festivities of the evening. i didn't get a picture of her and her painted face, but here are some of her doing a cake walk with allan. the other picture is of lucas and carter enjoying their prize at the end of the walk. they displayed some cool fireworks as an end to the evening (at 7 o'clock for the kids!). 2007 was an altogether great year for us. we'll wait to see what God has in store for us in 2008! happy new year!

our incredible little blessings

the most wonderful day of the year!

it's Jesus' birthday!!!

cable bridge run

we took the kids to the annual cable bridge run and they were so cute in their little bike trailer. i didn't get a photo, but emma had her head leaning on lucas' shoulder as soon as we placed them into the bike trailer together. so cute! allan pushed them while he ran the 5k with brady. i walked the 5k with my friend's mom; she pushed carter in his stroller. we had a great time. (i skipped the hot dr. pepper this year.)

getting closer!

we are excited for christmas to arrive. we had an early celebration with the wangs because they won't be here for christmas this year. we enjoyed some scrumptious chinese food prepared by my aunt and had fun exchanging gifts with one another. lucas had so much fun with his cousins that he didn't want to leave and invited himself to spend the night! the three kids slept on the floor together and had a blast (so i heard). the countdown to christmas is less than a week! here are some pictures of lucas and emma so far from this past month...

expectancy and preparation

we started a new tradition of celebrating the season of advent (the season of expectant waiting and preparation for the coming of Christ) with lucas and emma this year. so, as part of our celebration, we light our advent wreath and read Scripture, tell the story of Jesus' birth through an advent nativity calendar, and we also give small treats to the kids on each day of advent. lucas is loving all of it and emma is, well, unaware of all of it.

all aboard!

  we drove over to hood river last night to take a ride on the polar express train. we had a great time. lucas, emma, and carter all wore their jammies and robes onto the train and enjoyed some cookies and hot chocolate while riding to the north pole. once we got there, santa claus came onto the train to greet us and give each of the kids their own sleigh bell (like in the story). when santa sat lucas on his lap and asked him what he wanted for christmas, lucas replied, "a dog." i don't know where he got that, but he's definitely NOT getting one of those for christmas.