Westfield mall

Jan and Feb are kind of rainy and cold in the bay area. When it rains outside, what is better than going to a mall that has a free and nice kid's playing area.

A car to exercise the imagination and early childhood driving skill.


A tunnel to crawl through


A big turtle to climb up on.






Even a small slide for some exercises.

We love library

Alyssa likes very much reading books and they usually checkout 10+ board book and changing them after 1 to 2 weeks. Another nice thing is that there are story times for toddler (with songs, finger play and story reading) in almost all libraries here for free. Nice :-)

A picture taken during one of these story times.

Alyssa wished that she could read all those words in these books for tween/teen.

They have this amazing and big fish tank in the Cupertino library.

It is so BIG !!

Say hi to squarrels outside the mountain view library.

Wooden puzzle

The wooden puzzle was bought in Germany and brought over to US.

First Art Class

Alyssa attended her first art/craft class. It was fun and messy :-)

 

 

 

Play bouncer and sand @ Marcus's backyard

All kids like bouncer !!!

 

All kids like to play sand !!!

 

 

 


See Alyssa and Papi in action in the bouncer.




This one is with Uncle. Alyssa could barely stand up steadily.

Crayon time

Crayon time to fill color on coloring book.

 
 

Big tummy

Check out Alyssa's big tummy after meals.

 
 
 

North Korean Leader?

This picture reminds Mami of the North Korean Leader

More photos on the new 3-in-1 trike

Papi assembled together the new trike. The new trike is one of Alyssa's christmas present. Mami bought it at only USD 19 (half of the normal price, yipee).

 
 

Alyssa tried it out with Elmo.

 
 

Sounds like talking in Mandarin

Sounds like 'no no no no .... "you are too little" (in mandarin)" 你太少。

Entering the 'no' stage

From some toddler raising book, Mami and Papi got the idea that toddler will say 'no' all the time at one stage and the 'solution' to not to have too much 'nos' is that the parents should try not to say too much NOs.

By following this tips and by simply taking advantage of using Cantonese that have so many different ways to say 'no' in different occassion (plus Alyssa cannot yet pronounce 'Ng' (that means no in combination with other words in cantonese). Alyssa picked up the 'no' word finally by interacting with English speaking kids here. Mami even heard her saying some babbling sentences imitating the other kids (e.g. she wanted to get a book from an older kid in a library and then was told off by the older kid with sentence like 'no, you cannot have it') when she was on her own. But of course, she said something like 'no.. blah blah is la.' very funny !

She uses the words 'No' pretty often now to voice out her opinion.

Home made - indoor slide 人肉滑梯

Home made indoor slide 人肉滑梯.


Not-so-good version from Mami.



Some variation on how to use the slide.

Self Feed - drink soup and add rice to it

Alyssa loves to drink/eat soup a lot, she especially like the Cantonese soup (the runny ones). Most of the time she stopped eating her bowl of rice and when Mami presented her a bowl of soup, she could continue to drink the soup and then even finished up her bowl of rice.

New trike - in rocker mode

Alyssa's new trike but in rocker mode.

Open and Close door

Alyssa knows how to open and close door. She even knows how to lock herself up in a room. The door lock here can be opened with a thin long stick (e.g. small screwdriver), but Mami couldn't found their small screwdriver once when Alyssa locked herself up and cried for help. At the end, Mami used a lollipop stick to do the job.

Baby talking fun

Sometimes it is so funny to do silly baby talk with Alyssa.

US Parks

Instead of sand as in Germany, there are wood chips the park close to our home. Alyssa likes to pick them up and play with them.



There is this very steep staircase in the park, Alyssa had no fear to 'climb' it. Well done.



A big tic-tac-toe.



Alyssa is a cautious person.



We also have daisy here, nice :-). Mami sang Alyssa the Upsy Daisy song and Alyssa danced a bit.


Here is a 'lamp' from the sister city of Cupertino (somewhere in Japan, forgot where)
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First baby gym class

Alyssa attended her first baby gym class. She was the youngest in the class and it will take her another class or two to get familar with the setting and all the new tricks.





But she knew already the joy of jumping on trampoline.

Play with Marcus

Thank you Marcus for sharing his springy mattress for jumping.

Playing with Leyna

Mami found her long lost primary school friend in the Bay area and they invited them for brunch during Christmas. It was a nice gathering. The two girls were having fun after some warm up.