where do I begin?

Autumn shares a wafer

Two cuties!

duuuude!

my that's a good question...

well I guess I'm just going to write this out as I think about it so excuse any random jumps in time and train of thought. :)

First thing, we met up with some friends who's adopted daughter is a few months younger than Autumn. They were on the flight over to Hong Kong with us and in fact their group and our group did things together those couple of days in HK before we went to our respective provinces...or municipality in our case. We enjoy blogging, chatting, and visiting with them but as things go we don't do it often enough. Anywho, we met up at the Denver Aquarium last weekend for some fun and lunch. Autumn and Malia had a great time and ended up wanting to do what the other was doing (this went back and forth for a bit) and eventually they were holding hands as we left the restaurant and through the gift shop for a bit. It was totally cute and they both had a great time...as well as us parents. Thanks for the great time guys!

So Autumn has been watching Sesame Street (we have a few 'episodes' on the DVR) for some time as you know, but the funniest thing is how she wants to watch a particular one over and over (I'm sure this is normal toddler behaviour...) The one she likes right now is 'Chris helps Elmo write a letter to Abby.' Autumn calls it "Elmo colours to Abby." why? well because she has been learning ABCs and I think she doesn't have the concept that letters that you write are different than the letters in the alphabet. No biggie; but definitely cute to here her say someone (or Elmo) is colouring something to someone.

The other thing about this 'episode' is that Ben Stiller and Telly do their version of "a Person in My Neighbourhood". Now Daddy kind of started this one with Autumn...but I'll take responsibility for it because it's too adorable. So after Ben and Telly learn and sing about the mail carrier and the cable guy (obviously this is pre-satellite boom) Ben wants to sing about himself. Telly starts off "Ben is a person in our neighbourhood...in our..." "Wait!" Ben says. "I want to be someone else instead!" and runs off to get a costume. Suddenly he appears in a cheese wedge costume and begins singing about cheese being a very fine fella, like swiss cheddar or even mozerella. "I make a very tasty dish...try melting me on tuna fish!....A cheese is person in our neighbourhood...in our neighbourhood..." Telly of course being very confused by now finally gives in and sings along with Ben the Cheese.

Daddy thinks this is hilarious and sings along everytime. So of course the other day Autumn runs up to me while I was working on putting stuff in the bedroom I finally got painted and says something to me. I at first think she says "Daddy cheese push please" I'm like, "huh?!" "cheese push? can you tell me again hun?" "Daddy...cheese person!" I finally got it. "a cheese is a person in our neighbourhood?" Autumn smiles and says "yes! daddy sing cheese person in neighbourhood please!" So I do. And she sings along the best she can. (I go a bit slower than they did on Street) So every once in awhile Autumn will ask me to sing that...or she'll start signing it and I'll join in. After all, a cheese is someone that you meet when you're walking down the street...yep it's someone that you meet each day. :)

Autumn has taken to pretending to make mama and daddy coffee and tea. She knows that I don't care for tea and so I get the "daddy don('t) like tea? drink coffee?" "yes Autumn" "me make daddy coffee?" "yes please". So over to her play kitchen she goes and makes hot water. brings me a cup and says "here Daddy. be very careful! very hot!" and makes a face that I can only describe as a very toddler-esque rendition of "seriously concerned" She then makes mama tea and brings that to her. Tonight (here's that jump in time thing...) she decided to make us chicken soup. After three servings of that (Hey, I was hungry...hehe) Autumn asked me if I wanted more. So I asked her if she could make me something else instead. She goes "umm yeah!" and looked at me waiting for me to tell her what. "How about spaghetti and meatballs?" "Okay Daddy!" and off she goes. I hear the mixing of spoon and bowl and then here she comes. "No meatballs Daddy..." "what? no meatballs?" "no Daddy, no meatballs." Then I had fun. "awwww but I want meatballs! meatballs!" (sad pouty face) "Autumn, I want meatballs with spaghetti!"

She walks over to me and gives me a hug and says "sorry Daddy...me sorry there no meatballs" I play along and tell her it's okay so she runs off to get the spaghetti; which at that point I'm almost in tears giggling. By the way, I had two helpings of spaghetti sans meatballs.

According to the scale at Banfield Animal Clinic (inside PetsMart) Autumn weighs just about 29lbs. According to my recent measuring with the yard stick XL (it's 4ft instead of 3ft go figure) ms. Autumn is 35inches tall. She is definitely a ChongQing girl for sure.

Her and Jack are getting along so well (see past posting) it's amazing. He really bonded to her right away and is very patient, loving, protective, and gentle with her. When her and I play around and he sees me pick her up and turn her upside down or whatever we happen to be doing, he'll get up and/or run over and stick his head between me and Autumn. I guess mastiffs do this. Supposedly instead of being "agressive" they will get between their person and the other person if they feel that their person may be threatened or is putting off bad vibes about the other. Even within the mastiff's family they do this apparently. And after having it happen a few times when me and Autumn roughhouse or whatever, I believe it. And to counterpoint, when Jack and I play/roughhouse and he's lunging and I'm pushing him away, etc....when Autumn comes in the room Jack will immediatly cease and come over and sit or lay down by us. That just gets me. It's pretty cool actually.

So the last bit of info I can think of right now is that I finally got the other bedroom finished and have been moving my keyboards, computer, and equipment, etc into there. I'm now working on clearing the open area upstairs that I had occupied with all that stuff so we can get that done up, cleaned up, and what have you. It never ends. :)

I'm also enrolled in an online coursework to get a certificate in multimedia design with a focus on web design and digital imaging. I will be starting on that in the next few weeks after I get the money set up so I can purchase all the software needed to do the coursework and projects. I should probably be done in about a year and a half if I don't push myself (of course with a toddler finding the time will be the tricky part obviously) and do it right and do it well. The cool thing is when I get done I'll have (hopefully) a very nice portfolio to take to job interviews. I'm excited about this because I actually feel like I'm going to be finally doing something that involves my creative abilities and my interests...I've been in doing music since I was a "wee" child so that's my first and best thing but being able to incorporate video, photography, web, and music into something makes me feel better about things than I have in awhile (outside of getting Autumn of course).

Well that's it for now. Zai Jian!