bonnie & jason

Compare and contrast Amanda and Ashley

As far as twins go, Amanda and Ashley are really very different. Not only do they look very different, but their personalities and preferences are very different as well.

First, in the looks department, Ashley is more substantial in almost every way. More hair, she’s longer and heavier, has bigger cheeks, fuller lips, chunkier thighs, etc. Amanda is catching up as her leg folds are becoming quite deep in their own right. But even so, there’s no denying that they look very different. I think in general, Amanda has more features from my side of the family whereas Ashley has more features from Bonnie’s side of the family.

As for personality and preferences, I don’t even know where to begin. It seems like there’s nothing they can agree on here. Ashley really likes to breast feed. Amanda never really breast fed and is just ok with bottle feeding. You would think that would translate to solid food as well, but it turns out that Ashley doesn’t really like solids whereas Amanda sits waiting with her mouth open. Ashley likes to crawl, but Amanda likes to roll.

(Here’s some video of Ashley sort of breast stroking her way toward some yummy Cheezits.)

2009 09 29 Ashley crawling from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Ashley likes to sleep on her stomach, Amanda likes to sleep on her back. Ashley hates her high chair, Amanda loves her high chair.

When you put something over Amanda’s face, she immediately pulls it down. Ashley waits for you to pull it off.

They are both sort of adequate at sitting up but still need help maintaining. Here’s a short clip of what they’re capable of:

And an even shorter clip of what happens when they weeble, wobble a bit:

Hmm, what else… Amanda likes silicone pacifiers, Ashley likes latex ones. Amanda likes to pick things up with her hands and seems to have more dexterity at the moment. Amanda used to be more vocal experimenting with sounds but now they’ve kinda swapped. Amanda sleeps through the night consistently, Ashley gets away with an extra full feeding most nights.

You get the point. It will be interesting to see how things change as they get older. As it is, it may be hard to tell they’re sisters much less twins!

Baby party #umpteen

Edward and Nancy’s red egg and ginger party last weekend = another opportunity to put the girls in dresses.

Also, here’s a random video of Ashley:

Ruh roh…

I dropped our camcorder a couple days ago. I had bought it before Alissa was born to capture her in the glory of HD. It still plays video back ok, but when I try to record new stuff, I get this “effect.”

*sigh* I considered getting a new high end point and shoot camera but they’re expensive and frankly, do everything well, but nothing great. And since I’m good about carrying my SLR around, I wasn’t willing to compromise on the photo side of things. I also thought about getting a new SLR with video capability, but the handling and autofocus on those things is not so good. The image quality and ability to use my SLR lenses is really appealing, but given my subjects are uncooperative at best, that path got shut down. There’s also the possibility I could repair my current camcorder but my initial research showed that option to be good money chasing after bad, especially since the thing isn’t worth much money these days anyway. So I finally made the decision to just buy a new camcorder. I didn’t go super high end, but I didn’t go cheap either. So what did I get? You’ll just have to wait and see… I’ll put up a little first impressions post once it arrives and I get to play with it a bit.

A few random clips

Amanda is finally ok with being on her stomach and holding her head up for extended periods. Ashley, meanwhile, is almost ready to crawl. She’s able to hold her self in a “pushup” position and can sort of army crawl a little bit.

Trouble comes in threes:

Ashley looks really small in this picture:

Roly Poly:

First day of pre-school done!

Amanda wants to catch the balls:

Grandma and the kiddies:

Making up for lost video time… and paying the price

I’ve been ok about taking pictures of the girls although admittedly, I have not been as prolific as when we only had one rug rat running around. The last few weeks, I’ve also made a concerted effort to take more HD video since Amanda and Ashley change so quickly and Alissa is in a fun stage of toddlerhood. So here’s a video from the last month that captures a few short clips of the kiddies. The first half goes fairly quickly. Be forewarned, the second half is mostly a conversation with Alissa about school and some of her random meanderings. Also, the last few seconds is some video I took after I dropped the friggin’ camcorder on the floor. I think it’s toast. Grr…

2009 08 01 – 2009 09 05 from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Twin pin

Ashley and Amanda spend a lot of time together. And now that they’re able to roll over, they’re often in each other’s space, on purpose or not. I’m sure the words, “stop fighting” will be uttered from my lips more than I care to know, but I didn’t think it would start this soon!

Ashley trying to eat her way free:

Amanda, already practicing the eye gouge:

Alissa the photographer/videographer

Alissa is really talking a lot these days. I don’t have a frame of reference to know where she lies in the continuum of 2 and half year old little girls, but it seems like she’s non-stop some times. Anyway, here’s some video that she inadvertently took as a random sample of her verbosity:

Pretty in pink + Poor polka dots + Purple playing

Pretty in pink:

Alissa all dressed up for a party with a bunch of family at the Wong’s house in Fremont.

Poor polka dots:

Ashley’s first foray into “solids.” It’s mostly milk, but there’s some oatmeal in there.

Purple playing:

Amanda gets tickled.

Flowers or appliances?

Apparently, the traditional and contemporary fourth anniversary gifts are flowers and appliances respectively. I understand flowers. Who doesn’t like flowers? But appliances? Isn’t that kind of like giving your wife a vacuum cleaner for her birthday? So instead, I’m being uber-contemporary and giving my wife an HD-video for our anniversary. Actually, Bonnie did most of the work for the video by selecting the images. I just did the iMovie part of it and picked the sound track. So to celebrate, we’re actually just planning on going to dinner and a movie (by ourselves). Anyway, enjoy the movie. (The song is “Just You and Me” by Zee Avi.)

2009 07 30 anniversary video from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Lots of estrogen around these parts…

I’m sure it’s just going to get worse from here on out, but I think I’m already compensating for having to live with four girls. I redid the closet in the bedroom this weekend. Also, I’m planning another small shelf project in order to prove my carpentry skills to Bonnie so she’ll let me tackle a bigger project in the breakfast nook. And of course, I’m spending lots of money on tools and spending lots of time at Home Depot. (Insert Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunt here.)

Here are some recent pictures and videos of those of the fairer sex.

Watching Wimbledon:

Alissa the big sister:

Tickling Amanda:

Amanda and Ashley both looking chubby: