Happy Halloween !

Hope you all have a great day of costumes, candy, and fun. We should be going to a Halloween festival tonight and be passing out lots of candy at our house (lots of families in our hood). Should be crazy, but we've managed to hide out from the trick-or-treating for past few years in our condo. Jack will be sporting his 2 costumes again tonight. First we have JACK-o-Lantern:

And don't forget Buster the Pumpkin either:

And tonight we'll also be the Star Wars family: Han Solo, Princess Leia, Yoda, and Darth Vader. (It's a good thing that Darth Vader and Yoda never fought in the movies)

This past Sunday, we celebrated 7 big events in one night: Halloween, 4 birthdays, housewarming, and our monthly 7 Card Studs poker game. To celebrate, we had cake.

We had 4 birthdays to celebrate. Happy Birthday to Kevin, Alan, Lori, and Michiko!



And we had lots of costumes in effect!

2 mummies, Mr. Panda Express, scary skeleton guy, and a witch.


Duke Orsino (12th Night), a priest, a nerdy asian, and a baseball player.


A couple of spa goers, and Sally & Jack Skellington.


Batman, Super Mom, and Queen Amidala with Princess Leia???


Hope you all have a good time tonight!

Dance Vader and Dance Trooper

Okay, here's something for all of you who love Star Wars, Japan, and some great R&B oldies. Am I the only one in that category?

Tokyo Dance Trooper with Earth Wind and Fire:


Harajuku Dance Vader with the Four Tops:

Shuffle Challenge

Here's a new version of the old Shuffle game. This time you don't play against the computer, but each level is a puzzle. Very fun. (LINK)

10 Scariest Scenes in the Movies

Halloween is just around the corner...time to go out and rent your favorite horror movies. Here's a top 10 list of the scariest scenes in cinema. Excellent that they gave props to The Ring. (LINK)

The Uprising of Sausages and Hot Dogs

Enjoy.

Welcome to Our New Home

Joanne, Jack, Buster and I moved into our new house about a month ago now, so I figured we owed everyone some pictures. Luckily we avoided most of the hassle of moving in by hiring movers. They were a lifesaver (thanks Stephaine for the referral). Of course we still have several boxes to unpack, but we are working on reducing them one at a time.

I took a few more pictures of the house (this time with our stuff in it), so here's a quick tour of the house. I forgot to take pictures of everything so you'll have to come visit for the full tour. Here are some views of the outside of our corner house, complete with door wreath and lawn spider.

When you come in the house, you see our china cabinet and the dining room to the right. Yup, still have several boxes to unpack.

The dining room.



The living room. Yes, that's our Halloween tree in the corner.




The office. Notice that Buster likes to appear in every picture.



The family room. Lots of boxes to unpack here.



Notice the coat rack to the right. Can you tell which jacket is Jack's?



Here's Jack's bathroom (aka the guest bathroom)



And the backyard with our BBQ and refrigerator setup.




And you can see our new super-sized DirecTV dish on the roof.
(I have to be proud of this since I worked on several DirecTV satellites)



And a night shot of our front door.



And Halloween Tree!



Here is our latest addition: Our titanium french door refrigerator.




Hope you can visit sometime!

9 Months of Fun

Jack turned 9 months old yesterday. Quite a landmark as he can now add meat products (highly processed) to his menu of fruit and vegetables. He's been doing just fine with his two tiny teeth, but we just noticed that he has two more growing up top...both canines. (He'll be a vampire by Halloween!)

Of all the foods he eats, I think his Snacky Stars and water are his favorites.



Just make sure you chew with your mouth closed, Jack.



Luckily Jack loves Buster. And luckily Buster loves Jack (especially when it's mealtime).



Congratulations Jack on turning 9 months old!

Darth Vader is a crackup.

Legos Through the Eyes of a Child

Here are four posters for Lego's recent advertisement which show you Legos through the eyes of a child. Pretty cool.

Here are the other three:

Jack is amazing !

Alright...as a parent, pretty much everything Jack does is amazing to me, but I was very impressed when he achieved these new physical feats. Every day, his motor skills seem to improve. He's been standing up for quite a while now (it's his favorite), but just this week he has tried to stand up without any assistance. You can only see it momentarily here, but it was the Lego brick that made him want to let go of the table. Go Jack!

And at the same time, Jack learned that he could walk along the furniture to get where he wants to go. That teddy bear Lego brick was enough to motivate him here.

Jack

It's been a while since Jack has had new pictures on the blog, so here's an update.

Last month, we went to one of Jack's first visits to a playground.

He went on the swings with his mom.



And even went on them by himself.



He even steered the ship (the playground was one big boat).



He liked the slide.



And loves time with his family.



Of course all these park activities could not be properly documented without the help of Auntie Steph.



Jack has been eating solid foods much better these days. He actually enjoys mealtime now.



And he's even getting better at feeding himself his favorite snacky stars.



Sometimes the snacky stars stick to his hands and it's nearly impossible for him to get them in his mouth. Oh the challenges.



Stay tuned for more Jack updates.