The Zhao Family

Yeah we've made it through three weeks and so far so good. Mama's doing good and have just enough sleep taking care of Cayleigh. The grands are doing an excellent job of feeding their daughter and the rest of the family. The boys are active as ever and love their sister a lot. Baba is getting poked every where in the middle of the night to keep up with mama.

For all you folks looking for some photos of the 3 of them together, good luck. However here are some individuals that actually turn out OK. Enjoy.

It has been a while since I write a post on this blog. Da does a great job writing posts and taking wondeful professional pictures. He has been really busy with the boys these days when I focused on feeding and taking care of Cayleigh.

I just want to thank Heavenly Father for such a miracle in my life again. I love to have a girl in our family and HE has made it happen. My pregnancy with Cayleigh is harder than my first two and it had been hard for me physically (alot of throw up and lying on the bed).

We dreamed about how she looked, how heavy she would be, how much hair. But later in the pregnancy, we found out I have alot of fluid, which might bring complications to the pregnancy. As the time went by, my level of fluid was "way higher" than normal and she was breech until 38wks, which was shown in 3 ulrasounds.

I prayed so hard, not about how she looks, not about her weight, but to have a healthy baby and a normal (no complication) labor. I did all kind of exercises, use frozen peas, music, lying on iron broad, on my knees, anything you can name hoping she would move her head down.

Miracle happened, she turned her head down the week I had to induce. My water broke in the hospital and after 3+ hours, she came out 7lb 8oz just like her brothers. Dr. Laurin described my water broke like a stream. The vaccum sucked more than 1/2 gallon fluid from my bed.

Cayleigh is healthy, with alot of black hair, with dimples. We can't ask for more. I am truly grateful for what Heavenly Father gives us. He entrusted us with another child of God. We will do our best to raise her in the Gospel.

Cayleigh is 2 weeks old today, sorry the pics are not the best quality. But as for now, enjoy the pics.

Day 8 into this world: After many days of not being able to get a good photo of Cayleigh due to sleep deprivation, tiredness, work, boys, in-laws, and other misc. things (Da's laziness) we finally have a nice photo of Cayleigh. This was taken is about 1am where she is wide awake as you can see and so why not take photos of here then! BTW, mom crocheted the beautiful little hat for her precious and even put two little daisies on it too!

Everyone's been asking how Cayleigh and mom are doing. Just want to let everyone know that both girls (yes girls, so used to saying boys) are doing well at home. Cayleigh had her first checkup and things are well. Cayleigh is adapting well with night and day though mom is doing most of the work daytime. Da tries to help out as much as he can at night, however he does a better job during the day taking care of the boys. The boys keep wanting to feed their sister but we keep telling she's too young right now. So in a couple months she will be fed by her two brothers. Hopefully this should suffice for the next few days. (One thing you'll notice is there's suddenly a lot of pink everywhere)

So without much further ado, here are the photos of Cayleigh. Click on the photo to go to the album or use the link below.



http://picasaweb.google.com/dazhao/200901Cayleigh?authkey=G1y3QgGMD6Q#

thanks for all the prayers and comments..........we went to the dr. today and my gooodness, she finally turns her head down. My fluid is still going up, so we are going to have induction on Thurs.

Just want to thanks everyone for your love and prayers. We will keep you post........

and again, I can testify that exercises DO help........pelvic tilt, sitting on the iron board, music, cold peas......hahaha........hope this baby stay head down till Thurs.......=)

We've been trying to get Clayton potty trained for months now. Tried to bribe him with vitamin candy, sweets, treats, cars, little toilet bowls, children cushioned toilet seats, gave him examples,......you name it we've probably tried it: no success. Every time we've mention to him about pee pee he'll say pee pee then but the time his diaper's taken off, stood in front of the bowl, waits for about 10 seconds and he says he's done. Makes you wonder why he say such things...but apparently he's already gone in the diaper. We tried to time it but then he just sits on the bowl and wait...nothing but once his diaper's on its pretty much wet/soiled within five minutes.

Today was different. It was an ordinary day where Mama took Brennan to school as usual with Clayton. Since baby sister is coming soon, Mama handed in Clayton's preschool application early. As the conversation went on in the van, Mama mentioned only if Clayton is potty trained, he can go to school.

So out of the blue, Clayton declared he wanted to pee pee after he went home. Mama did not want to give up any chance. So she went up to the bathroom with Clayton as usual to prop him on a stool and his hands on the toilet seat but......this time was different. He did PEE. It took him a while and mama asked "are you done yet?" He then asked Mama to "please wait a min"........and then he peed and peed and peed a lot before he told Mama he was done. Later after lunch, he said he wanted to go pee again. This time he not only managed to pee in the toilet, he even requested to poo poo like his brother in the toilet, so he did. To the surprise of mama and the grandparents and everyone..he has manage to toilet train him successfully.

After this exciting times, Mama gave him a "CARS" pull-up and he was sooooooooooo excited about it and told grandma and grandpa, papa and brother what he did and how good he was.

We hope this will be a good start and Clayton will keep this up and eventually fully potty trained.


Kudos to Clayton!!


Update: As of 1/17/09, almost 3 days since his declaration he's only managed to wet 2 diapers-even from overnight and #2s!!! So Mama got him some real cotton CARS undies and he's as proud and happy as can be!


Clayton @ work.


This is his reward for doing such a good job!!-his very own CARS pull-up. See how proud he shows it to his older brother.

You know we just can't leave one brother working and the other not. While Brennan's preparing to fold clothing for a living and for little sister, Clayton decides to learn to help with other chores as well such as bottle feed his sister, change her clothes, and even show the proper and improper way put her in a stroller. In preparation we have also prepared his photo resume below. These are just the first sets of photos which may not reflect his full potential.



Look at that..he's feeding her and properly hold the head so she doesn't choke.


Viola!! All done.


Next: check her diapers. Now she's all wet, need to change her diapers


Make sure all her clothes are buttoned well.


This is the proper way to put her on the stroller. Make sure she is properly handled and her back is to the stroller.


And we have to make sure her seatbelt is securely in place.

======= The following Clayton will show improper ways to handle a child =======


Example A: It is not a good idea to grab her upside down to put her on the stroller. Though having a balancing act is very critical too.


Example B: Clayton show you the improper way to hold the baby to put her in a stroller. Not a good idea to grab her by the face and shove her into the stroller.



Example C: Another improper method is to grab her by her clothes and then shove her into the stroller.



So anyone want to hire both brothers? By then both of them will be well experienced. If we can get both of our boys full time jobs, Abbey and I can retire early like in 3-5 years!!

Having another child in the family is a great blessing but it also adds extra expenses for the home, especially with our current economic situation. Since mom's too busy taking care of his younger siblings, we are training Brennan to start working ...for a small fee (every little bit helps you know). Because he is young and underage, we only allow him to work for... 12 hrs a day instead of 18 because he needs to sleep and go to school too. We also like to help him avoid paying any taxes so he can't making more than $5,000,000 this year. As you can see we've put up this photo resume and skills on our blog on how he's perfected folding clothes at home or at your retail shop. Most of his funds will go towards helping out the family, some to his college fund, and the rest for petty-cash and toys. Let us know what you think! (Note, please disregard the footings in the background as we do not want that to distract him from obtaining a job)


Grandma made this template for Brennan to practice this learning skills to fold clothes.


He starts by straightening out and spreading the garment


Fold in the sleeves...


Fold one flap which makes the nice crease


Fold other flap and it's almost done!


Viola!! A nicely folded garment. So easy and fast!! In fact we believe he can fold 749 garments a day. Anyone hiring?

Here's a better late than never post. We didn't have a white Christmas but nevertheless it was great to open presents with everyone. The boys had a blast and loved all their presents. Thanks to modern photographic technology, we can actually get their reaction jusssst right when they open their presents.



















So we've got this debate going in our home and disregard what the Internet say about Boxing Day. Can anyone tell us what their understanding of boxing day means? -box up Christmas decorations and put them away, box up gifts for return, unbox/unwrap presents, or other meaning depending on which part of the world you live in? Please do leave your comments.

With the onslaught of Abbey being less and less mobile, the holiday madness, the in-law parents and winter blues....life is: gray and cloudy. Apologies for not keeping the blog updated but Happy New Year to everyone!!! It's a new year with new plans, new kid, and new....who know what will come along this year: life should be surprising and good.

So let's start off with some goodies from last year, errr 2 weeks ago. We had a Lobster feast and making Gingerbread house. It was lots of fun for some while others cried.


Uncle Dave getting prepared to make the icing but won't let Charlotte have some. You see Clayton's got his eyes on something else.


Brennan's favorite part: helping and taste testing.


Poor Charlotte, she felt left out.


"I'm ready to go!! I'll say the prayer quick"



Look who's not happy.


He's got this house cornered.

Ok Ok...Lobster will do.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! (belated)