Teddy's first super bowl

We had a fun party despite the outcome.

The Seahawks loss caused Neil to lose the beard.

Two Months going on Four!

Teddy turned 2 months a few weeks ago.  Mei Li and I made cup cakes to celebrate.  At his two month check up the doctor said that he could pass as a four month old.  He weighed in at 15 pounds 9 oz and is 23 inches.

 Here's the little guy with his monthly Banjo pic.  Apparently Neil threw in the Seahawks hat for a little flare.

Lifting his head like a champ.

Back to work

Neil went back to work this week.  It was fun for us to all have such a long chunk of time home together.  Now we're getting back into the groove.  Things at home with three kids seems to be going well, although I must admit that going back to work will be a bit more relaxing.  

Here are a few random pictures from the week.

Sometimes when Teddy falls asleep a laundry basket makes the perfect portable crib.  

 Mei Li loves helping out with her baby brother.

 Mei Li is "Lilly" the princess and Abe is the dragon who is protecting her from the vampire (Neil).

Happy baby boy!

Two groovy bros!

Do you see the family resemblance?

Teddy--7 weeks

Abe--4 1/2 months

Feliz Nuevo Ano Puerto Rico!

Our neighbors have the fun tradition of ringing in the new year on Puerto Rican time (at 8 pm).  We have a count down to 8 pm and then all the kids make a parade through the neighborhood banging on pots and pans.  It's a fun and less tiring way to celebrate 2015!

Teddy screamed for the first few minutes until he fell asleep.  

 Mei Li and Abe joined in the parade.  Mei Li brought her baby doll along too.  I'm not sure exactly what she thought of the whole thing.  She very quietly and slowly made her way down the block.  Then when we were nearly at the end of the route, she put down her pot and spoon and announced that she'd peed.

Happy 2015 to all!  

With such great family and friends its sure to be a great year!

Merry Christmas to all!

Following in the footsteps of his father and sister, baby Teddy played the part of Jesus this year in the church Christmas pageant.  To be fair to all the children at church born durning the past year (and one whose parents didn't quite have their stuff together at christmas last year), all infants were invited to play the part.  So, there were a total of 6 Jesi in the pageant.  They changed the story around a little so that it was about many families traveling to Bethlehem to welcome the baby Jesus.  Because Teddy was the youngest, I like to think that he was the newborn they were all traveling to see.

Here is the shepherd and his sheepie.

 The giant sheep and a Bethlehem zebra pose with Jesus.

 Jesus in the manger.

Teddy making his debut appearance on stage.

 Merry Christmas Teddy!  Check out the beautiful stocking that my mom sewed for everyone!

Santa brought Abe a leggo set, and Mei Li a giant floor puzzle of Elmo, and Teddy got a few bibs.  Poor Banjo had a bad year.  He was left off of our family christmas card, and santa forgot to bring him a stocking.  We still love you Banjo!

Walking with Dinosaurs

During the summer I purchased a groupon for tickets to see "Walking with Dinosaurs" at the Tacoma Dome.  Yesterday the time finally arrived for Abe and I to go!  We didn't tell him about it until the day before.  And boy was he excited!

I really didn't know what to expect, but the show was pretty cool.  There was this Australian paleantologist who told the audience random facts about the dinos and a bunch of dinosaurs that were mostly mechanical.  A few of the smaller ones were lifesize puppets.

Abe's favorite part: The dinosaurs fighting!

 The T-Rex!  Unfortunately we didn't get to see the full feature of the performance, because Abe had to go to the bathroom right when he arrived.  But it was pretty cool.  All the kids like hearing her roar at the audience.

1 Month Already!

I can't believe Teddy is already one month old!  Time has gone so fast--and he has grown so much.

We tried to get a picture of the kids together for our Christmas card, but it turns out that they aren't very photogenic--at least not all three at the same time.  Oh well.

Check out those chubby cheeks!  Sorry Teddy, I couldn't figure out how to rotate the picture.

 This week we've been working on making Christmas cookies to give to neighbors and Maryan (they're kind of famous among her family).  Here are a few pics of the adventure in sugar cookie making.  No, it is not bedtime.  Mei Li insisted that she wear her pj's for her nap.

Cutting out the shapes.  Mei Li's favorite was a little hedgehog.

 Sampling the frosting.

 Decorating!

Growing boy

Teddy's doing really well.  He had his 2 week doctor visit this Wednesday and she said that he's growing like a champ.  He's already gained over a pound from his birth weight, which is quite remarkable for breast fed babies.

Abe and Mei Li continue to have moments of enjoying his company.

 Practicing tummy time in his heart jammies.  Check out the cute hedge hog quilt from Great Auntie Nance.

 Cute little santa baby!

Happy Thanksgiving

 We had a good first thanksgiving with Teddy.  Mei Li helped make our pumpkin and apple pies (wearing only a sweatshirt and apron).

We gave Teddy his first bath in the kitchen sink.  He seemed to like the warm water.

 On Saturday we went to a gingerbread making workshop in Bellevue.  It was a pretty fun event.  They had a giant table with a bunch of candy laid out.  We managed to put together a pretty neat looking house, but then just as we were getting up to leave it got knocked on the floor.  Pretty sad, but we recovered by taking home some more candy and icing to re-decorate our now leaning house.

 Here's the final product before it met its demise.  One of our first family photos of the five of us.

Meet Teddy

It took having another kid for us to update this blog!  On Sunday morning we welcomed Theodore Scott HiuZai Hoff into our family.  We're all doing well.  So far Teddy seems pretty low key.  He's a great eater and pooper.  Both Abe and Mei Li seem to be excited to have a little brother.  

 The happy family!

 Teddy was born at 3:33am.  He weighed 8#12oz and was 20 1/2" long.  

In keeping with family tradition here is Teddy's first of many Banjo pictures at 5 days old.  

Clamming

Last weekend we drove to ocean shores to go clam digging.  We all had fun, although no one will be eating clams for awhile.  Everyone who ate them seemed to get sick afterwards.  Mei Li and I were fine--since we didn't eat them.  (I got sick in the fall when we had razor clams, so I already had an aversion to them.)  The weather was fine, and it was fun to run around on the beach.  I think Banjo had the best time of us all.

The littlest clammer:

Christmas is coming!

At least one is looking forward to santa coming!  

More Hawaii

We finally got around to downloading the rest of the pictures from the camera.  Here are some highlights from the second half of our trip.  We stayed at the Grand Wailea, which was quite grand to say the least.  Scott, grandma and grandpa came and we hung out on the beach, played in the hotel's 9 swimming pools/water slides, went on a snorkeling trip on Scott's birthday, and attended a luau where Abe and I learned to hula on the stage.  With the cold weather this week, it sure would be nice to be back in Maui.

 Abe and Neil liked to "ride the waves", which basically looked like this.

 We went to the kula botanical gardens, which reminded us a lot of kabota gardens.

 What's a corn tree any way?--Casper B.P.

 Picnic at the botanical gardens.

 When we arrived at the Grand Wailea we all got greeted with leis.

 Like father, like son.

 Like father, like daughter.

 cute kids.

 Abe actually jumped into the water from the boat.  I think he had a good time.

 Mei Li stayed on the boat for the trip.

 Abe got really into going down the water slides.  Look out Great Wolf Lodge!

 Poor Mei Li didn't have a neck when she wore her life jacket.

Walking through the lazy river.

 Weee!  What you don't see is that at the bottom I somehow got sucked under while trying to keep Mei Li afloat.  Oops.

Luau fun!