Our smiley boy

Despite an infirm hand from his burn last week (which is much better now, thanks), Tae had lots of smiles this week:

Getting kisses from mom

Playing in the toy basket

Sitting on dad's lap

Jumping, jumping, jumping

Playing at the park

And having fun with Grandma Sharie who came to visit on Tuesday

Tae will have lots to smile about in the next couple weeks when family and friends are here for his baptism on November 1! Y'all are invited -- Sunday Nov. 1, 8:45am worship service, Mt. Carmel Lutheran Church. And you'll even get an extra hour of sleep the night before! Thanks for checking in on Tae!

Tae's first trip to the Bay Area

We took a trip to the Bay Area last weekend for a wedding and got to introduce Tae to people and places dear to us. We first stopped for a picnic in Pacific Grove with former church members:

Tae got to crawl around on the grass at the park next to the bay, except that he really doesn't like how the grass feels on his knees so he "crawls" up on his feet!The wedding reception was at my seminary in Berkeley, so Tae got to see where mama went to school for 5 years!

Here's Tae and dad with the bride and groom - congrats Meghan and John!We stayed with dear friends who were opening a new coffee shop/cafe in downtown Oakland while we were there, so Mike helped get the space ready (for those of you in the Bay Area -- it's Modern Coffee on 13th St. in the Tribune building -- go get an excellent latte)!We also went walking along the bay in Alameda where I used to live (and have we mentioned how much we LOVE our B.O.B. stroller? It can go anywhere!):And we spent a fantastic day at the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco...that is, until there was a fire alarm and they evacuated the entire museum! But we did get to see the rainforest and aquarium -- what an incredible place!

We are so grateful that Tae is a champion traveler! And here's an update on Sophie the giraffe teether: he still won't even touch it, much less use it as a teether. Ah, parenting....

P.S. I wrote the above this afternoon, but since then we've had a big event -- Tae's first minor medical emergency! While I was getting dinner ready, Tae managed to get his fingers in between our oven and broiler, getting 2nd degree burns on the tops of 3 of his fingers. We called his pediatrician who just instructed us to dress it, so here's Tae's wrapped up hand. At least the milk and teddy bear made things feel a bit better. Poor kid, and poor freaked out parents....

"Status" teething

Poor Tae has really been struggling with teething recently - he has 8 teeth now and 2 more coming in on top. A friend told me about the "giraffe teether" her 16 month old son loves, and that even though it was pricey, it was well worth every penny.

Well, yesterday I found the teether at a local children's store and gulped as I handed over my gift card to the cashier to pay for the thing (luckily it was a gift card...).

Later in the day I was telling another friend about the teether and she said she had just read this article in the LA Times about this exact giraffe teether named Sophie. Who knew that I was buying a "status teether" for my son?

So, the teether seems to have worked for Nicole Richie's and Kate Hudson's kids. How has it worked for Tae? Let's take a look:

"Hey, this thing is pretty cute!"

"You want me to do what with it? Put it in my mouth?"
(Once it had fallen on his hand): "Ewwww...get it off! Get it off!"

Needless to say, Tae has yet to put the thing in his mouth. So it goes for status teething....