NFC Championship Game, 2010!

Orion and daddy are ready for the big game! Go Vikings!

One Month Old!

Orion celebrates his one month birthday today!  He is now 9lbs 4oz, and 22.5in long (which puts him in the 85% for his age). 

Here are some shots from the past few weeks.  Kelly and Sarah visited, my Mom came to live with us as our granny nanny extraordinaire, and my Dad and my stepmom visited just last weekend.  It has been an exciting few weeks.  Mei Mei has returned to work this week, so things have started to settle into as much of a routine as could likely be expected with a newborn in the house.

In other news, I've started my spring class at IIT and I just purchased a table and set of 6 chairs from a neighbor, which I intend to refinish myself.

New Years Eve!

We celebrated new years eve in style this year (translation: rampant boozing, hooting, hollering and a little crazy dancing!)  ahaha just kidding.  We did find time to do our little celebration and snap off some photographs.  I have been studying and practicing with my camera for awhile now, so this was a great chance to try and do some semi formal portraits of the family.  I've shot many, many candid shots over the past two weeks, but this was different, I picked my location, set up my lighting, props, angles and adjusted my camera settings and flash and even selected the outfits of the subjects.   Photography is a great hobby and fun passion.  I hope you enjoy the results.  Mei Mei and I had so much fun that we've decided to keep the cork from the champagne bottle, and will try to make the celebration and family portrait a yearly tradition.  In case you are wondering, even Mr. Blue got in on some of the fun!  He always has a way of sneaking into my photographs, so I thought for these shots I'd just allow him to take his usual place up on the seat back.

PS. If you click on the images on the blog, you should be able to see them much larger than they appear when first viewed, which is great for seeing Orion's little expressions.

Orion Montage

Hey everyone,  here is a video montage I made of our time at the hospital with Orion.  In the future, I don't suppose I'll have time to put together videos like this all the time, especially with musical accompaniment, so I hope you all enjoy this one.  You should be able to see Orion a lot more clearly here than you will when you connect with us over Skype.

Please note, you can watch the videos on you tube in higher resolution if you cick on the little "HQ" button on the bottom of the video.  This may make the video load somewhat slower, but is a nicer if your connection is good.

Finding a Middle Name

Some of you have probably been wondering about little Orion's middle name.   Orion has two unique cultural and language histories to call his own, so Mei Mei and I wanted to take care to incorporate these into his names.  It is Chinese tradition to select a name that strengthens and compliments the astrological signs under which the baby is born (based on the date and time of birth, similar to the western zodiac).  Mei Mei's father helped us with this important and symbolic process.  It is common for western names to be difficult to pronounce by native Chinese speakers, and the reverse is also true.  There are also difficulties in the writing of names between both languages.  As a result, Orion's middle name will be his first name when he is Hong Kong or in any other place where Chinese is the predominant language and writing system.  Mei Mei's father worked hard to select a name that is both unique and strong.  My mother helped with the English translation of the name, hopefully to ensure that is spelled phonetically correct.

Because of the day, month, year and time of day of Orion's birth he is a Golden, Metal, Cow Dragon

Orion Tze Gheen Gaetz

Tze Gheen is a two part name, meaning determination and strength.  In addtion, in its Chinese written form, the first word Tze, has a symbol of the heart as well as a symbol that represents a council member and centurion, or a citizen soldier.  Gheen has a symbol of earth and soil.  These are important as they mean that Orion will have a lot of heart and because gold come from the earth, his wealth will be continuously replenished by this symbol (or possibly dad's debit card). 

Tze is pronounced like with a long e sound, similar to the letter "z" but with a t sound at the beginning.  Gheen is pronounced like the color green, but with an 'h' sound instead of the 'r'.

Finally, it is also worth noting that the Chinese translation of Gaetz means century (every 100 years), and has symbols of wood, vegetation, and self.  This vegetation will provide much nourishment for Orion's little Cow Dragon body.

Merry Christmas to you all, hope you holidays are as blessed as they have been for us.   Mei Mei, Orion and myself will be heading home on Christmas morning to spend our first day in our home together as a family.

Orion 2

Here are more shots of Orion from the last few days.

Orion

Orion Gaetz

Born December 21st, 2009 art 7:09am

8lbs 1oz

20.24in Long

Baby and Mom are doing great.

* To anyone I didn't get to tell about our new joy personally,  I apologize, my phone has run out of batteries and I forgot to bring along the charger, and beyond that, it has been a busy day!