Nicholas' birthday party was this weekend and it was a great success. We would like to thank all those who attended the party and thank all those who gave him presents. We really appreciate the wonderful gifts and the wonderful thoughts that were around him on his birthday. He really had a great time, especially the part with the inflatable pool. He had a lot of fun playing with the water on a warm summer day and he enjoyed all the company of everyone on his birthday. We are sorry to hear that some of you weren't able to make it but we still appreciate your calls on his birthday and on behalf of Nicholas, I would like to say "Thank you" from the bottom of our hearts. We would like to give special thanks to those who helped out with the party, especially Shirley and Lisa. They helped me out a lot before, during, and after the party. I would also like to thank my brother and Cynthia for all their help and all their equipment. Cynthia was the one who did all the decorations to the house and my brother, Michael, and my father were the ones who set up the tent. My brother also brought all the chair and tables over to our house with Michael. He was also nice enough to lend us their BBQ grill. My brother and Sing also did most of the cooking which allowed us to attend to our guest. Without these people, I don't think that the party could have gone as smooth as it did.

We took many pictures during the party and I think Michael said that he would put those pictures up tonight in a separate directory called Nicholas' first birthday so be looking for those tomorrow.

I really can't believe that he has grown so fast. It seems like yesterday when I gave birth to the little guy. He's just so big and cute now. As most of you can tell from the party, he has become very active and hyper. He seems to be full of energy all the time. The day of the party, he was awake at 5:30 in the morning. Some thinks that it's because he knew that it was his special day and he was too excited to sleep. For whatever reason, he was quite an early bird and he didn't go to sleep until 10 PM also. We were wishing that he would teeth on his birthday but thus far, it still hasn't come true yet. Michael is going to ask the doctor when he takes him in for his one-year checkup in about two weeks. We are a little concerned about the late coming of his teeth, whenever that may be. Saturday night, well, technically, Sunday morning, he woke up and was crying really loud. We couldn't figure out what was wrong. He kept this up for about an hour before I could finally put him back to sleep. The next day, I noticed a little white spot on his gems. I am not saying that he's teething because that was the only fit that he had. I think that little white spot was there before also because there was a time when we thought he was teething because we spotted something that looked like a tooth but ended up being a false alarm. So I'm not putting my hopes too high at all. This year has gone by pretty quickly and to summarize how Michael and I have felt about this new additional to the family, I can only say that we are extremely grateful for having him and very glad that he came into our lives. He has brought so much joy and happiness into our lives (not that we didn't have any before he came along), but a different type of joy and happiness. I guess it's what they can parenthood. I mean the little one does so many cute and wonderful things even when he upset. The way he just cries at not being able to put a toy because he pushing it into the wall. The way he'll play by himself until he sees one of us coming and starts coming to us. There are just so many wonderful things about him that I can't talk about them all in here. I would be a whole book if I had to write all the wonderful things that Nicholas does.

Michael and I were talking this morning that I noticed on funny little thing about Nicholas. Well, in the above paragraph, I said that he woke up around 5 in the morning on Saturday. Well, he woke up around 7 on Sunday morning, but this morning, it was 8 and he still was not awake. We had to go and wake him up. I have noticed that during the weekdays, he will not wake up until we wake him up which is usually around 8 and if we don't wake him up, he could sometimes sleep until 9:30 or so. But on the weekends, he seems to wake up no later than 7:30, most of the time between 6:30 to 7 AM. It's just amazing how he knows when it's a weekday and when it's a weekend. To be truthful, I really wish he would switch those to habits around. We both have to get up early during the weekdays already to go to work so we would like to be able to sleep in a bit during the weekends, but the way Nicholas has been waking up, we don't seem to have that option. Michael and I would switch off watching him in the mornings so that the other one can get a little more sleep.

Well, overall, we had a great weekend and thank you all for everything! We are very glad to have a group of such warm and loving friends and family. Thank you very much for everything!