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Nellie Rose – School Photos: July 2010

Date: 2010.07.18 | Category: Nellie Rose | Response: 0

Childtime Learning Center - Beginning Steps Class

Nellie Rose - 15 Months; July 2010

Nellie Rose - 15 Months
Nellie Rose – 14 Months

Date: 2010.06.23 | Category: Nellie Rose | Response: 0

Nellie is growing by leaps and bounds and we are just busy trying to keep up with her. She is walking, definitely showing her personality and is adjusting well to being a new big sister.

New photos of her at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157624204087403/
Happy 1st Birthday Nellie Rose!

Date: 2010.05.19 | Category: Nellie Rose | Response: 0

Where does the time go?! This is a question that Erin and I seem to be asking ourselves a lot recently – it is like we went to sleep one night and when we woke up, 13 months had gone by…

I guess I am feeling the same way about keeping up with posts here – I made the entry at Easter and then without realizing it, a month had gone by and it occurred to me that we had not posted about Nellie’s birthday party. As you know, her official big day is Tax Day – April 15 but we had the party for her on the 17th since it was a Saturday….

We wanted to have a traditional Korean 1st birthday since it is a big one in the Korean culture and a time when Nellie chooses her future. The Korean term for first birthday is dol-jan-gee and we had a nice party for her at Woo Lae Oak restaurant in Tyson’s Corner, VA. The food was all traditional and we even had a cake with a replica of Nellie in her traditional Korean custom dress (han-bok) as the cake topper.

After we ate, it was time for Nellie to choose two items that were set before her. Specifically, we placed thread for long life, a stethoscope for a profession in medicine, money for wealth, a golf ball for athletics, rice for a career in government service, and a pencil for scholarly pursuits. The idea is whatever she chooses first will be her primary destiny and the other item is her secondary….

Nellie chose the golf ball first and the stethoscope second – we suppose that this translates into her pursuing a career in sports medicine….

You can see photos of the big day at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157623826183465/

It was so nice to have our friends and family share the big day with us and to officially celebrate Nellie’s first year!
Nellie Rose – Easter 2010

Date: 2010.04.11 | Category: Nellie Rose | Response: 0

So I am sitting at National Airport waiting on a flight to Atlanta – need to get there to then catch a flight to Nashville today. I am attending a conference there this week for work and much to my dismay this morning, my flight scheduled for 8am was bumped to 12pm due to mechanical problems. Guess I should have checked my flight status before leaving home…sigh. Needless to say, I have some time here and thought I would post an update….

We had a great Easter weekend just relaxing at home – nice not to hit the road and travel anywhere and to just spend the time together as a family. On Saturday we took Nellie to see the Easter Bunny at Montgomery Mall so that she could meet him and get her picture with the dearly beloved Peter Cottontail- she LOVED it so much and was enthralled at the big ears and I think that the fur reminded her of a stuffed animal….it was hard to pull her away after the photos had been snapped. In fact, while we were in line waiting to have the photo taken, Nellie was essentially lunging to try to get to Peter – when it was our turn, I took her right up there, but the photographer suggested that we wait a couple of minutes until he finished processing the previous customer lest we have a “freak out.” Well, when I pulled Nellie back from Peter, that is when the freak out happened – too funny. It was however short lived and she was all smiles and giggles after she got back to sit with him.

After the visit with Peter Cottontail, we went to Seneca Creek State Park and had a little picnic – Nellie enjoyed seeing other kids running around and could not take her eyes off the lake – she looked at it like she was going to one day swim across it….a funny, kind of longing look to get into the water. Perhaps she will be the next Michael Phelps – although we hope that she does not inhale

Sunday we went to Mass and there was a little Easter Egg hunt afterward at the church where she got to see the Easter Bunny yet again. I wonder if she was asking herself “Why does this bunny look different than the one at the mall?” – cannot wait until she starts to talk so that we can get some feedback and insight into what it going through her brain… We then went home and Erin prepared a wonderful dinner – ham, au gratin potatoes, garlic/lime asparagus, a tossed salad and peach pie for dessert. Yum!

See photos from the weekend at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157623654805003/

Hope you all are well and that you had a nice Easter weekend too!
Nellie Rose – Two “Firsts” in One Week

Date: 2010.03.14 | Category: Nellie Rose | Response: 1

This was a week of “firsts” for Nellie – her first haircut and her first friend birthday party!

After thinking and re-thinking about getting her hair cut, we decided to pull the trigger on Saturday and took Nellie to Cartoon Cuts – an establishment that caters to kids and they can sit and watch cartoons while getting their hair cut. An amazing concept, especially for $16.99 for ALL children 12 and under – Erin and I both agree that we got into the wrong business Nellie was her usual cool, calm and collected self and it did not seem to be a big deal to her at all….well, I guess that is because it really was just a matter of 6-7 snips and she was all done…she got a little certificate, complete with a baggie to save her first locks. She looks great and her hair is all nice and even now – no more crazy, stringy strands…she is growing up so fast!

Today, Nellie went to her friend Emily’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Emily turned 2 years old and this was Nellie’s first birthday party with other kids. If you have never experienced a Chuck E. Cheese, you gotta go – the place is a combination of arcade, pizza parlor with singing robotic animals and the central character is an oversized mouse/rat named Chuck E. Cheese. It really is one of those places that you have to experience to get the full effect, but I can see what all the rage is about – the kids (and the adults – I will admit) had a blast! While Nellie is too little to play many of the games, she loved riding along with Bob the Builder, with Chuck E. in his school bus, and experiencing a flying simulator. Daddy liked whacking the moles on the head, playing games for tickets, and dancing with Nellie to the music of the robotic animal band.

Photos and some videos from the birthday party as well as the haircut can be found in her 10 month Flickr photo set at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157623347229224/
Nellie Rose – 10 Months

Date: 2010.02.23 | Category: Nellie Rose | Response: 0

We are just two months away from the big day – yep, just two months until Nellie Rose turns 1 year old! Where has the time gone?!?! We hit the 10 month mark and are happy to report that Nellie is growing and developing like a champ – she has developed into quite the little crawler, is pulling herself up in her crib and on furniture and you can definitely see her personality more and more with each day. It will not be long before she takes those first steps….

She continues to enjoy going to school (a.k.a. daycare) and shows her excitement each morning by waving good morning to her teachers and virtually diving out of Daddy’s arms to go to the play mat with the other kids. She definitely seems like a little social butterfly and is getting along with all of the other kids – in fact, one day recently when we picked her up, the teachers explained that she was going to sleep well that night because she spent the whole day crawling from side to side around the partition that divides the infant room so that she could see what was going on…we laughed and it was no surprise to us that she had to be in the “mix” with the other kids and that she did not want to miss out on any of the action….

Some of you have asked about her helmet/hat and we are happy to report that she is all done with that and we are very happy with the results. While there was a recommendation to go with another helmet, there was no guarantee that it would work and that there would be increased, significant change and so we decided not to pursue the treatment further. The change with the helmet treatment was significant and Nellie now has a MUCH more round head than she did 5 months ago and she looks great.

To see 10 month pictures, please click:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157623347229224/

Additionally, some photos of Nellie sledding during the winter blizzard have been added to the Snowpacalypse photo set and you can see those at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157623367605262/
Nellie Rose – on the move!

Date: 2010.02.03 | Category: Nellie Rose | Response: 0

Yep – she is on the move….officially crawling as of January 28th and she has been on the move ever since. She moves like she has been doing it her whole life….would write more, but I gotta go catch her to make sure she doesn’t crawl under and get stuck under the sofa..

Photos, including crawling action shots at (Feb ’10):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157623347229224/

9 month photos at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157623151740949/
Nellie Rose – 9 Months

Date: 2010.01.25 | Category: Nellie Rose | Response: 1

We hit the 9 month mark officially on January 15, 2010 and are happy to report that all is well and that Nellie is healthy and happy. She is 22 pounds and 29 inches long – in the 90th percentile for both height and weight…our little baby is not so little anymore….the time certainly is flying by.

A couple of big items since the Christmas holiday – 1) Nellie started going to daycare (hereafter known as “school”); 2) she was sick for the first time – as a result of exposure at school and 3) she is all done with wearing her “hat” (a.k.a. helmet). I will take these items in order and give you the scoop…

1) Off to school – Nellie started at Childtime Learning Center in Gaithersburg (about 5 minutes from our house) on January 4th, 2010. She is in a group with other infants and most of the kids are around her same age. She was skeptical at first and has had her moments of kicking up a fuss about the whole thing, but overall, she is doing great and has really adapted very well. It seemed like she cried each morning the first week when she was dropped off, but now she is waving at the teachers upon arrival and loves seeing her friends and immediately engages with them on the play mat. From a logistical perspective, we have had to adjust our schedules a bit since Erin is now back at work full time. Erin leaves for the office SUPER early in the mornings and David does the drop off at school, while Erin does the afternoon pick up. We totally have the good cop/bad cop thing going on here – Daddy leaves Nellie but Mommy gets to rescue her in the afternoon

2) School and sickness – ok, so we were perfectly ready for the fact that Nellie was going to get sick after being around other kids at school. Afterall, each child there is a little germ factory and when you put them all together in a petri dish, you are bound to see the result – a sick kid. However, we were not expecting that we would see a note on the door on the 3rd day of school in the afternoon that 3 kids had gone home sick during the day with a stomach flu. Sure enough…at about 6pm on the third day, Nellie got sick. We will spare you the gory details, but let’s just say that it was not a pretty scene – fluids from both ends…sigh. We had a brief moment of asking ourselves – why are we doing this again? I mean, when you think about it, we are paying some pretty solid money to complete strangers to watch after our most precious asset and she comes home crazy sick ….not an easy thing to deal with as parents knowing that your kid is sick because you put her in the middle of the petri dish. Parental rationalization moment – this is a good way for her to build her immune system. So she was sick for about a day and a half and then bounced back like a champ – well, a champ with a snotty nose and a little cough….yep, she got a cold as well at school. Again…sigh.

So we are rolling into the weekend and Erin calls me on Friday morning of the same week to let me know that she is not feeling well and that I should come on home to take care of Nellie. Turns out that Erin contracted the same stomach flu – not good. It was at some point early Saturday morning that I, with a kicking sinus infection myself, realized that I would need to be three persons in one through the weekend – husband, father and nursemaid. The balance between caring for a little one who is under the weather and your wife who is sick and 4 months pregnant….let me tell you men out there who have not had the pleasure and are wondering – yes, it is stressful. That being said, I am happy to report that all is well now in La Casa de Fung and everyone is on the mend….

3) No more “hat” – the helmet gets the boot: Nellie has been going to get checkups every two weeks to check her progress with the hat and so that the medical staff can make the necessary adjustments to the device. She has been wearing the hat since late October 2009 and the progress has been remarkable. You can see a photo study that shows her in October compared to now – you will notice that she has seemingly thinned out a lot and will definitely be able to see the improvement in her profile.

The photo study is online at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157623151740949/

There was a recommendation that she get a second hat, but given the progress through the treatment and seeing how good she looks now compared to before, considering the cost of getting another hat (not covered by insurance) and knowing that her hair is going to grow out, we decided not to continue. There were definitely moments of feeling like we were short changing her, but in the end, no one is really going to be able to tell the difference….not to mention that there is no guarantee that a second helmet would do much more, if anything. Her head shape has definitely improved and we are happy to have made the decision to go through the process.

Whew – I think that is about enough for this entry. More to come later, including updated 9 month photos.

We hope you all are well and look forward to hearing from you.

Our best,

Family D.E.N. +1
White House Correspondence

Date: 2009.11.24 | Category: Nellie Rose | Response: 1

Nellie received her first official correspondence from the White House a couple of weeks ago! The note, from POTUS and FLOTUS welcomes her to the world…see photo at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/4132559180/

Our thanks to our friends David and Meghan for submitting this back in April to welcome her arrival
Fall 2009 Photos

Date: 2009.11.20 | Category: Family, Nellie Rose | Response: 0

Photos from our trip to Shenandoah to see the Fall leaves:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157622718224589/

Halloween 2009:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlchung/sets/72157622842586052/