Hung out for about 3+1/2 quarters at the Chiefs vs Saints Football game yesterday. We managed to be able to let-go a little and let our babysitter watch Jaz for about 4 hours while we enjoyed the outdoor game a little. Heck with the local Chiefs having only 1 measly win this season, we couldn't pass up on $30 tickets that were 30 rows from the endzone! Still, we forgot that parking was $22 bucks and food was at least $5 each, so... maybe it wasn't as cheap as we thought. Still! had a great time while we were were there with a couple of our football friends as well! Chiefs still lost 20 to 30, but at least my Fantasy Football League QB Brees didn't do shabby!

Happy Halloween!

It's not a stuffed animal on my desk, its Jaz in her Peapod outfit! We brought her all dressed up to a Halloween work event on Thursday evening. Everyone had their kids in tow all custu'med out as well. In my building, there was tons of kids games, with haunted cubes, ghost bowling, etc. Well, basically activities for toddlers and above.

For our little Jaz, not so much stuff for her to do, except be carried around and get her parents to say "trick or treat" for her. She did participate somewhat though... She can grab for candy if its placed near her, just can't eat it yet! Rest of the evening was taken up by strolling the aisles, looking for candy that Mommy and Daddy likes, and chatting with people about how nice Jaz looked in her costume.

Our little peapod didn't really make it past an hour of trick or treating... Ah.. Its real hard work being a baby. :) HAPPY HALLOWEEN ALL!

Ahh. so happy to be locked up

Here's a video of our favorite pack-n-play captive. Nuff' said. :)

Raya + Rennaisance Festival Weekend

Brought Jaz to her very first Hari Raya celebration organized by some Malaysians in town. Weather was great out on that Saturday afternoon, the organizers booked a lodge (hall) in a nearby park, and the event had meticulous organization (As opposed to something yours truly would be able to pull together!). Picture on the left has the kids in the background playing tug-of-war.

Nice to be out and about, especially when the weather is getting cooler these days. Jaz had a good time being a social butterfly saying hi to all the aunties, in her "teaparty" outfit. Picture on the right had baby Mika in the background in his baby seat, our newest brand-new out-of-the-wrapper Malaysian with proud mama Zurin looking on. Next to Yeesin is auntie Pat with her little on on the way (can't tell from the picture) and auntie Angela which we just keep asking her "when"...

Spend the next day Sunday over at the local Rennaisance Festival, which is like a outdoor event with a Midieval theme. All the performers and storekeepers basically dress up and speak like they are back in Midieval times, and they STAY in character -> For better or for worse... We would have missed it this year if not for the free tickets a co-worker of mine gave out, and for the fact that it would be a fun first activity for Jaz.

Didn't really purchase anything of importance over there, just strolled around, people watching, looking at the sword fighting, minstrel-ling, jousting events.. and eating our favorite food - Turkey Leg! Here's a shot of Jaz enjoying HER favorite food while at the Joust. You can almost see her peeking at the event while eating.. :)

The dog whisperer

Yep, the title just about sums it up. Instead of trying to talk to us, we caught Jaz trying to "talk" to Benji. Its more amusing when Benji whines back because he thinks that Jaz has food, but hoarding some from him... Check it out :)

We made the NEWS!

Seriously, we made the news. While we were out strolling about the Plaza Art Fair, a reporter approached us for a quick interview. Check us out here: Our little bit shows up a sec: 00.50 :)

Kinda Crawling

Sharing a pic of my girls :) Plus 2 videos of Jaz doing kinda crawls on the carpet. She's more schooching than crawling, but I think its close enough! :) Enjoy!

Baby = wonderful business plan

Over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed this interesting phenomenon once whenever we go about town with Jaz... The inexplicable action of giving money to a baby's parents. Happened this one time at a local indian buffet, where the owner came by and gave us a dollar for Jaz with a smile to Yeesin saying "Cannot use to buy handbag for mommy ok?". Then a couple of days ago, on the way back from the Lake @ the Warrensburg dairy queen, an employee stopped by and happily contributed a quarter for Jaz' piggy bank. :)

So, maybe I'm just biased, but I'm thinking that with these 2 data points, I think I can start charging about $0.60 per look @ Jaz to contribute to her savings account... It might turn out to be a good business plan. :)

Happy Labor Day!!!

Happy Labor Day all! Posting from the Lake of the Ozarks! Decided to do a last minute short trip here, bringing Jaz on her first road trip of her life. :) It was about a 4 hr trip East from KC, with one stop @ Columbia, MO to find a diaper changing station, and feed. Other than that, there was a few fussing incidents in the car seat, but we made it to Ozarks all fine @ 7pm last night!

Spent the rest of the day with fun filled activities designed to occupy both the body and check book. :) First up, a quick hike in Ha Ha Tonka State park! With Jaz securely in her carrier, we did a 2 mile hike up some strenous terrain. ;) Jaz was so tired after the hike, she fell asleep in the car right after we strapped her back in her seat, I would think the tiredness was probably due to the stimulation than actually walking!

After a quick lunch, with Jaz snoozing away, we went to our 2nd big destination of the day -> Outlet Malls! Yeesin disappeared from my sight about 2 secs from us entering the COACH store. In fact, the activity in the store kinda reminded me of bees buzzing around. The ladies looked like they were darting from corner to corner admiring the purses, bags, etc and their sweet sweet low prices. Jaz and I decided to let Yeesin and the rest of the professionals shop in peace and found a seat beside the rest of the husbands/boyfriends/drivers and just relaxed.... Capped off the night at Andre's, my favorite restaurant @ the Lake. They had a really interesting Mango Habanero Ice Cream, yep you read right, first sweet, then spicy!

Last stop Sunday mid-morning, was the Seven Springs Winery outside of town. It was a really young winery, only open all of a few months, but their white's weren't too bad. One major complaint was that they had Sangria on their wine tasting menu, which is more of a filler-drink, than a wine-taste... But then again it was really popular with the rest of the wine tasters! Maybe its a Misouri thing? Anyways, we had a nice lunch topped off with half a bottle of their Summer Blend, before we drove back . All in all, it was a great 2 days at the Lake, even with the minor incidents of trying to time Jaz' feedings in between car, and even being so far out in the boonies that our GPS didn't even know where we were??!! Back in KC now, posting Monday morning.

Have a GREAT LABOR day weekend ALL. Here'e a bonus HAPPY picture!

Foozball Season is back!

Actually, its FANTASY football season. Mainly for the people that cannot exert enough control on their local teams to make their local boys win, a more palatable alternative is to engage in Fantasy Football! Cherry picking players from the entire NFL universe and putting them on your Virtual team is a wonderful way of winning every week!


I'm the commisioner of our league (which really means that I have enough time to waste to play stuff like this) so we organized a Draft session this past weekend. Most of us are Malaysian, so we are a pretty kiasu bunch. Some of us came prepared with analysis and spreadsheets on who the best players to pick are, and some even with a draft strategy. As kiasu as we were, 2+ hours of gut-wrenching, sweat inducing drafting later we were actually done! Surprising that I actually budgeted 4+ hours for something like this. Yeesin? she had better things to do, spent most of the time shopping @ Target with Jaz. :)

P.S - If you didn't understand what all this business is about, here's a good primer on Fantasy Football.

Our first giggle!

so this weekend Jaz decides to surprise up a little giggling session
. enjoy!

Dumping Rocks & Haulin' Dirt

Yep, yours truly was dumping concrete blocks off a truck, and shoveling dirt over 4th of July weekend. No, i didn't lose my marbles and decide to join a fitness program ala Rocky or the Karate Kid... Though, "Concrete on... Concrete off" would have made an interesting line in a movie.. :)

Actually, spent 4th of July helping Steve and Clarice do some landscaping at their place. Nothing like some hard labor to appreciate the hard hard work the men and women of the landscaping business go through daily. Gotta tell everyone, hauling concrete and dirt is a lot harder and generates more sweat than i thought! Definitely have more respect for grave-diggers now, as I barely dug 2 feet into the ground to harvest dirt before my back was protesting... Cannot imagine 3 times more work.

On the flip side, learnt that we can get tons of stuff FREE on craigslist.org Our Dirt was gratis from a kind soul that just finished his own landscaping project. So was a truckfull of dirt right outside Carrabras Italian Grill on I-35 and 124th St in Olathe. Just need to drive a truck in, find a friend, and shovel away!!!

Kudos to Steve for the rest of the weekend. This ironman soldiered on after I ran out of juice.. All the way into the night!!! For me... i think i'll stick to my WAAAY easy desk-job!

Seating arrangements

So, in the last few weeks, we made a few purchases for little Jaz. First of which, is the Yellow Bumbu seat on the left-left. For the pre-kid people, its like a little foam chair for infants, to help them sit down much easier, and most importantly, for parents to be able to get stuff done. Well, normal things like cooking, dish washing, bottle cleaning, while she busies herself....engaging in baby activities :) We finally got this Bumbu after 4-5 unsuccessful garage sale visits for 50% less than retail. These things always sell like hotcakes!!


Next up, we swung by our local Big Lots (What we like to call "Da-Lu" in Mal-Chinese, and swept up another gem of a find! A Graco high-chair for $60 new, vs $89-99 @ Target. It took 5 minutes of joy-filled adrenaline pumped euphoria of deal-find to put this thing together. Jaz, on the other hand, was not so easily impressed... She'd rather just chew on her favorite clean-cloth diaper. No worries about giving any objects that resemble toys, she'd rather pick up her cloth diaper and chew on it! At least its easier on our pocketbook!

What do ABC and Twinkle-twinkle-little-star have in common?

So, what do these 2 songs have in common? Twinkle-twinkle-little-star & ABC? Other than the obvious part that they are children's lullabys... Its interesting the little nuggets of wisdom we pick up these days as parents, sometimes these things just jump out of no where!!!

Still don't know what they have in common?
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.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. A.B.C D E F G.... H I J K L M N

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. Twinkle twinkle little star....
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. NOW Hum their respective tunes...
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. WEIRD HUH?!?!

Slow Summer Day

Its 12pm on a Sunday afternoon... Yeesin's not feeling too good today, so we're home today resting. While poor YS is lying on the couch under a tylenol induced cocoon, i spent some time on the "internets", just surfing... Found this interesting article that seemed appropo for today. Ever since Jaz was born, we've been practically out every Sunday for some reason or another. Its either to weekly Babies R' Us runs, or Asian Grocer, or regular Grocery laps. Admittedly its.... different to sit at home for hours on end, just watching Jaz, and laze around on the Net or watching yet another History Channel episode on Stonehenge... :) I have to say though, it really felt good to SLOW DOWN, so that article must have some truth to it! Hope YS feels better tomorrow!

Speaking of watching Jaz, something interesting happened today while we were lazing around... Here's a clip of that!

Jaz is 10 weeks now!

Little Jaz is 10 weeks old this week! Definitely more curious about her surroundings, she discovered her hands this past week, for the last couple of days, she's been trying to cram her entire fist into her mouth....
Even better, she also discovered smiling... Couple of pics to illustrate what we did with her to get smiling away! :)

As a bonus, also will share the aftermath of all this smiling and playing activity.... ;)

Jaz is 8 weeks now!

Its 8pm on a Thursday night, trying to juggle getting Jaz ready for a shower, and winding down for the evening, catching an episode of "Lost". We can't imagine now how much spare time we had before even having a baby! Honestly tho, Jaz is more entertaining now that the television, so life is actually better! ;) Sharing a few of her cute pics. (at least cute in our minds.... )

Grandma is sound asleep in the guest bedroom... hope that our little one didn't wear her out after a full day of activities. Its wonderful still having help around the house, having family watch her while we are out working. BIG thank you to Mom and Yeesin's parents for helping out in the house while these 2 newbies figure out how to bathe,feed,clothe, and clean our new addition.... If only they come with owner manuals!!!

WAIT, apparently they do! Check it out here

First Farmer's Market

Today was our First Farmer's Market of the season. Weather @ the local Overland Park Farmer's Market was a little nippy with light fog and 50 degree temps this morning, but a great opportunity to bring all the Grandparents out to the local "pasar pagi". Plus we got to show Jaz her first outdoor market! [She probably couldn't tell the difference anyways...] BTW, her daddy side grandma (far left) fought off jet lag this morning to join us strolling as well.

She just turned 7 weeks a couple days ago, and she's still growing well, and getting cuter by the day! Of course our viewpoint it slightly skewed due to our parentage. However, people still walk up to us when we're out to reaffirm that fact, so who am I to disagree !!?? ;)

The activity this morning was a little taxing on her little mind, so she's spending the rest of the afternoon taking a relaxing nap. Oh, what a wonderful life to be a baby.................

Its about time they fought each other!

For those of you that have fought the HMO vs Hospital billing battles before in your life, you guys will probably appreciate the irony of this following post!

So, I open up another letter from our HMO provider, in the back of my mind fearing its another "Please pay me" letter that we have to call to contest, but this time, the tables were turned!

Turns out our HMO overpaid our Wallaby (UV treatment for Jaz' Jaundice) provider Apria by a whopping $81.02!!! and we don't have to do anything! YES, its about time that our healthcare system fights itself for a change! Hilarious to see the way the letter was written, mostly the part where they will continue to write each other if there is a need to appeal, etc....... I'm wondering how many man-hours each of them will expend trying to sort this out! Guessing more than $80!!

Jaz is one month!

Time sure flies. Jazlyn is 1 month old already! Still a little weird for both of us to track birthdays in weeks vs years, and we're finally getting used an extra person (albiet a little loud) being in the home.For her 1 month birthday, she got her 2nd shot of Hep-B from the doctors office, somehow we don't think she enjoyed that one. :)

Now that she's 4 weeks, we finally can take her outside for prolonged periods of time! YA!!!!!!!! I guess we missed being out and about more than she did! Spent her 1 month weekend bringing her out to outdoor malls in town and letting her grandparents shop around at the same time!

As for ourselves? We celebrated surviving the first 4 weeks of parenthood with our very own first post-parenthood Date-Night @ Melbees! They ran a $50 a couple Date-Night special every Monday in April. Includes a bottle of wine, 2 starters, a shared entree, and a dessert pair! I was afraid that the portion would be elf-sized, but plesantly surprised that we left the place really full! It was an AWESOME meal, defintely worth the $50!!! (Menu here is anyone is curious.)

A Really-Really Decaf Latte Please.

Its 2:30pm on a wonderful 60 degree Spring Saturday afternoon. We're posting from the local Starbucks (a.ka. five-bucks) patio, enjoying 2 cups of java and the weather. A little bit nippy out here, but the sunlight is a nice change from the dreary last couple of rainy days. Jaz is with us here too, enjoying her very own special Starbucks blen of hot-water dipped milk bottle. You could say, she's having a really-really decafed-latte.... ;) Hmmm, I wonder if Starbucks will sell us branded milk bottles?

Bank error in your favor??!!

You know, Yeesin always razzes me about checking the mailbox religiously rain, shine, sleet or hail... My reasoning is that "who knows? Maybe someday I'll get money for no reason".... WELL BABY, someday FINALLY came along, but there IS a reason. :)

In a nondescript envelope from Genworth Financial was a nice sized check with a brief explaination about a PMI refund. A few calls to our mortgage company and Genworth later, I'm confident its not a scam, and it is in fact legit. :) Turns out that lenders have to auto-refund your PMI insurance once your home equity passes 80%, read more here.
So, not a scam, not an ERROR. AWESOME! Goes into Jazlyn's College fund!

In other news, Jazlyn is 2 weeks old today, and in her checkup today she weighed in at 6lbs 7ozs, just a tad over her birth weight! YA!!! This means that we won't have to obsess too much about feeding her on a set schedule, and waking her up from her sweet slumber to feed. So, this very afternoon, she sleeps on gently, chasing milk bottles in her dreams... :)

We're home!

Finally, after being in the hospital since Monday night, we finally made it home yesterday afternoon! Here's a shot of us coming back home in the MDX!

We dropped by the hospital again this morning for another Jaudice level check, and we were crossing our fingers that we won't have to have that bulky Photo-Treatment vest on her any more. Doc called 2 hours later, and said that her Billirubin levels have since stabilize out at 10 or so, so the Doc has told us to stop using the Photo-treatment on her. YA!!!

Here are some more pics from her birth!

Parenthood thoughts...

Still in the hospital today. Jaz has a gotten a case of Jaundice, so we've got her on some light therapy for the day. The set up looks like a tanning bed that she's lying on, and also a light-generating vest over her chest... She's sleeping peacefully now that she finish up on her last feeding. Hopefully we get to go home tonight...

Here's some thoughts on Parenthood:

Sleep - Didn't realize how much we missed sleep until now, especially me, the early riser. Getting up every 3 hours or less, is a lot MORE tiring that it sounds. I see BIG mugs of coffee in my future when i go back to work next week! Its amazing that newborns can function on this 2-3 hour wake-eat-sleep cycle, mixed in with some poopies... but of course, right now her life isn't too complicated... ;)

Garbage generation- Surprising how a lttle person that small can generate that much poopies in so little time. Almost averaging a diaper change every 2 hours, we're proud that Jaz has outperformed the average diaper changes for her age.

Mute Button - We found the mute-button on Jaz today. If its not a full tummy of milk, its the second best thing... a pacifier. Trying to limit the use of the pacifier tho, don't want her to forget to nurse the natural way. But good to know that there's a alternative instant fix if we ever need it... Especially, when we need more of thought no.1 :)

Speaking of that, Jaz is finally out now. Better go catch more Zzzzs.

Live from St Luke South: Hello World!

Ok, we've been here since 8pm last night 3/17. Definitely missed the window for a St Paddy's day baby girl. Yeesin got a pictosin (sp?) drip this morning at 8am, got her water broken at about 10am. Here's the latest status: (Hit refresh for the latest)

10.30am - I discover a FULLY stocked kitchen in the maternity ward. Sneaking in a sandwich and a quick glass of milk. Poor Yeesin gets to snack on ice chips.

10.45am - Yeesin gets her first Epidural shot, process to put it in appears painfully...err painful, but 30+ minnutes later... Smile on her face...

11am - Dialated from 1+cm to 2cm. We improved 100% ;)

11.30-2.30pm - Somewhere along the way, she moved from 2cm to 5.5cm to 6cm... crawling along.

3.30pm - Yeesin's at 6cm, ya... we are still moving forward. Terri offered to help and she's gonna to to our place to feed Benji & let him out (Thanks Terri!)

4.00pm- Epidural booster... ahhh Yeesin looks much better now.

4.30pm - She's at 7cm now. looks like we are moving at a faster pace. Epi is working really great, she's taking a quick nap now!

5.40pm - Nurse Kathy just came in. Stalled out at 7cm now, she just dialed up the pictosin to speed things up a little more.

6.40pm - Still stalled out at 7cm. cranking up the pictosin another notch. Kathy's saying adios and getting ready to handoff to the 7pm nurse. They are showing the Scrubs episode where Carla and Turk are having their baby... How appropriate! :)

7.40pm- Night nurse Jessica came by, and we improved to an 8! Dialed up the pitosin another notch, looks like we're getting some more traction now! Yeesin's pain level got dialed up at the same time, so Nurse Lisa came in with some Epi-Candy, and 10+ minutes again, Yeesin is in Epi-Heaven...

8.40pm - Frustrated. We are stalled again, with barely a movement to 8.5cm. They shut of the Pitosin temporarily to see if they can jump start the contractions and give baby a rest. C-Section is being talked as an option.

9.45pm - Elaine and Kyle came by and tau-pau'ed some food to us earlier. Yeesin's parents must be starved by now, and the timing was perfect for the food. Elaine and Kyle are going to stop by the house and let Benj out again as well... (Thanks!). Its taking longer to have this baby than most TV episodes.

10pm - Restarted pictosin, adjusted yeesin to another position to see if she'll dilate some more. Doctor wants to give us the best opportunity for a vaginal birth...

10.45pm - Nurses come in, and adjust Yeesin to yet another position. We're hearing whispering that we might need to do C-Section...

11:30pm - All that repositioning finally worked! Baby's moved into a great position, and Yeesin's dilated to 10cm... All a go for Natural Birth!

12:26am - March 19th 2008 - Annoucing Jazlyn Jiawen Yeoh, 6 lbs 5oz, 19 inches! Mom and baby are doing great! Hear from the nurses that most of them at the nurses station were betting that we would be C-section, Yeesin proved them wrong, GREAT JOB MOM! 28 hours after showing up to be induced, we have a new addition to the family!

N.B - For those of you that scrolled all the way down here, you're rewarded with a quick pick of Jazlyn!

Latest Update: The St Luke photographer came by earlier this morning and here are some of the shots that she took!

Are we there yet?

Seriously?! Are we there yet? Our OB says its any time now, for our little one to show up. So, its there's nothing else to do but to wait it out. We're not getting much sleep these nights, Yeesin's can't exactly do wind-sprints either, so basically we're tired during most hours of the days too.
Well, actually, Yeesin's getting the short end of this deal at this point in time, as she's doing the heavy lifting. I hope i can help out with a little back massaging here and there, and when the time comes, go to the kitchen and boil some hot water and get some towels! So, here's to hanging in there baby, you're almost there!!

P.S- The boiling water and towels in the movies are really to keep the husbands busy so that they don't get in the way of delivering the babies!

We're almost there!

From the baby ticker on the left, everyone can see that we are merely days away from the BIG day! We're going for baby birthing classes at night, and we've got almost all things checked off!!!

Wanted to share before and after pictures of our nursery with everyone.

Childcare > House Payment!!???

Its probably a fact of life that childcare CAN cost an arm, leg, or a small mortgage, but today's tour of a Daycare in Leawood had us shocked! We won't name it, but it rhymes with "Cram-The La-Cram", and you can probably guess from the city name too! Tuition (yes, I love that euphemism too.) costs about $1,700 (Yes, you read it right) per month for a newborn!!??

So the question becomes, what does $1,700 a month buy you in daycare services? Well, i will have to admit you get what you pay for... except in a more gold-plated way. Instead of a boring building with normal children rooms, you get Disneyland. Seriously, walk through the front door, and i swear you'll see a rainforest kampung to your right, a castle on a hill on your left, and a quiant row of cobblestoned french shoppes in front of you... Doubt it'll impress a newborn, but it sure impressed me! Almost expected Mickey Mouse to jump out from behind the bushes and tacke us!

So, we did some quick math, and kinda figured the following: Newborns sleeps on average 18 hrs a day, roughly 75% of the time. Realistically, she'll spend at most 10 hrs in daycare. So for 2.5 waking hrs a day X 20 business days = 50hrs @ 1,700. That comes out to $34/hr for each waking moment in daycare. For $34/hr she'd better be stimulated with all kinds of toys known to man. They should put a Babies R Us IN the Daycare, and give her all the toys that she can lay her hands on. Heck, she better not drop any Zzzzs over there at all, hate to pay all that $$ for someone to watch her sleep!!??

Then it occured to us that $1,700 is actually MORE than our current mortgage today! So, let me put it another way. For $1,700, we can afford a $280,000 house in KC!! Here's just a few selections in that price range. Definitely an upgrade from our little shack in West Olathe!

OR... maybe we just are out of our league Daycare pricing wise. :) Seriously, those kids over there look like they're LOVED to death over there. Those parents are probably getting every penny's worth of their money in attention. We'll keep looking, but Childcare > house Payment? , not our style...