What a View!

Nate and I (and Finley, for that matter) never tire of the view from our apartment.

I just love the clouds and their shadows in these photos. It doesn't get much better than this!

Sitting Up

Guess who learned to sit up this past week...

He's quite proud of himself!

"And now, I will take a bow."

Eventually, he starts to lean forward and then ends up on his belly.

Rice Cereal Video

Here's the video from the first time we fed Finley rice cereal (Monday). Pretty funny!

Rice Cereal

In celebration of Finley's 5 month birthday, he got to try rice cereal! Doctors/books/etc. say you can start solids between 4-6 months, but they also say not to rush it. We were actually planning to wait until closer to 6 months to try any solids, but EVERYONE tells me, 1) it will help with sleep and spitting up, and 2) they started their child even earlier than 5 months, and now their child is at Harvard. We'll see...

Finley seems fine with the cereal so far, although it's going to take some practice for him to figure out how to really eat it. Here's a little photographic evidence of the new adventures in solid foods!

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We got a hand-me-down high chair last week, so we thought we could try it out for the first feeding. When we actually put Finley in it, he looked tiny and the chair looked massive! It was hilarious. So, we opted to use the Bumbo seat for feeding instead.

Finley probably didn't care all that much about the rice cereal, but he loved the spoon.

"More spoon, please!"

Things got pretty messy after a few bites.

Just when you think he's eaten it and you go to feed him more, out it comes.

Food & Finley

So Nate and I decided to try getting a food delivery of local organic veggies (and a few fruits). It came, looking all nice and pretty and tied up in twine. So healthy, so natural. I was excited.

Check out the mushrooms!

Then came the hard parts- figuring out what to do with it all, and trying to get it all eaten before it went bad. Now Nate and I eat our veggies, but this was A LOT of stuff. And you would think that because it's local and didn't spend much time in transit that it would last longer. Well, it doesn't.

I spent the first day looking up the three different kinds of greens on the internet- didn't know what they were. Found out we had red amaranth ("Chinese spinach"), choi sum, and sweet potato leaves. Who even knew you could eat sweet potato leaves? We also had yard-long green beans, three kinds of mushrooms, white and purple eggplant, two kinds of basil, bananas, green chili, okra, and guava. It was a lot of food to try to consume in a few days. Some recipes we made to use it: roasted eggplant risotto with pine nuts and goat cheese, fried okra, gnocchi with mushroom sauce, etc.

It turned out to be very stressful for me, trying to figure out what to do with all of it and worrying if we could get it eaten before it went bad. So, sadly, I don't think we'll do it again. Oh well, we tried.

Now, on to what (or rather, who) you all really want to see- Finley!

Here he is, caught red-handed: "Who, me? I didn't bite the crab, I swear!" (Notice the trail of drool coming out of his mouth.)

Finley is getting much better with the hand-eye coordination. He loves to grab and bat at toys on his play gym. If you hold a toy (or anything, for that matter) in front of him, his hands immediately go for it.

Grabbing his bird's tail feathers is a favorite. You can tell by the open mouth that he really wants to chew on it.

Happily hanging out in the Bumbo seat.

Trying to chew on the Bumbo seat.

Trying to escape the Bumbo seat. (He's getting quite mobile!)

Looking all cute and serious, playing on the floor.

Learning to sit up!!!

Finley Noises

Finley has been making all kinds interesting noises recently. The end of the video shows his grabbing skills. Pretty impressive!

Lost in Translation

As many people as there are in HK who speak fluent English, you would think companies could find someone, anyone, to appropriately translate things for them. But, apparently not. These photos were taken with Nate's phone when we were out last weekend.

Click on this one to see it larger. Hard to read, as it was taken from inside the car with a phone. It says, "No smoking. Highly inflammable goods."

This one was posted inside a car park (parking garage).