Chinny, Chin and Chin

This is our first blog so don't blame us if we don't know what we're doing.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Halloween Week: Part I

Welcome to Halloween week. Today's edition depicts the preparation aspect of Halloween. As noted from a previous blog entry, Irene has been excited about Halloween for several weeks now. Over the weekend, decorations started going up and the house started to have a spooky orange glow to it. A job well done I must say. And as you will see below, we had a visit from the Great Pumpkin Head!

Pendants turned into spooky orange orbs
The Great Pumpkin Head came looking for a body...
Once he had taken over a body, the Great Pumpkin Head thought about his sinister plan.......then grabbed some smaller pumpkin decorations.......
...and jigged to the left......and jigged to the right...
...and then broke out in to an all out Halloween dance.

The Great Pumpkin Head has not been seen again since Sunday. Hopefully he will return next year.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Picture Day!

Last week was Picture Day at our daycare center. So Brady got all dudded up in his best Patriots attire and headed off to school. Unfortunately, they said the photographer was 'not the most kid friendly person' so Brady couldn't get a picture taken because he wouldn't stop crying. This was much more disappointing to the parents (specifically Irene) than the little guy himself. However, it did probably save us hundreds of dollars, even though the packages were $50 max, because Irene was all jacked up to buy Brady's first daycare photoshoot.

So that evening, we decided to take some pictures of Brady on our own.


Who are you lookin' at?
That's funny Mom. Do it again!





Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Home Spa

In the past week Brady has seen a dermatoligist and an allergist for his dry skin. He just saw the allergist today so his test results are not in yet. Until then and we get a plan of attack on how to help him, he gets a daily soak in an oatmeal bath (tough life). I have no idea why, but this seems to really help his skin a lot though, so it's worth doing. He still loves his baths, so he's having a blast.





Monday, October 23, 2006

Hat Day!

His own personal monogrammed lid (Thanks Gary!)
Brady's 'hood' look

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Pumpkinfest 2006

Over the weekend we met up with our friends at the chaos called Pumpkinfest on the Boston Commons. It was a nice day, but tons of people and pumpkins made things a bit crowded. When we found our friends, Brady was again instantly rattled by the screech of Joey "The Raptor" Florendo, named for his obscenely high pitched communication method. He settled down just in time for us to head out to dinner in Chinatown -- likely the only place that would take our gang, which consisted of 3 strollers, 2 toddlers, 3 less-than-one-year-olds, and 8 adults.

Added all together and what you get are chopsticks used as drumsticks, Brady randomly crying non-stop , Joey startling the table behind him with ear-piercing screeches, Isaac and Sammy having a blast playing with each other, and McNeany and Heidi just adding to their list of "reasons why we ain't in a rush to have kids."

A fun time though nonetheless as it's always good to try to get out with friends when you can.

Here are some pictures to commemorate the occasion.

Initially, Irene and Brady were not too impressed with the conversation of those around them

When Brady got up close, he was initially scared of the big bad stuffed scarecrow

Upon closer investigation though, he noticed he was smiling


I have no idea who these kids are, but they looked like they were having fun
Brady is still a pip squeek compared to Joey
Lesson: your child may become possessed...
...when in the possession of Satan McNeany

Monday, October 16, 2006

A second attempt at rice cereal

We're still trying to figure out Brady's dry skin problem, but since nothing we've tried does the fix completely, we thought we'd try him back on rice cereal - since it doesn't seem that he is necessarily allergic to that....


As Poison said in the 80's, Open up and say Ahhhh...

hmm, not sure what to make of this
hey, wait a second

I think my lip went numb

Blue and Fluffy

By request, here are some pictures of Brady all dressed up for Ava's christening. As you can tell from his facial expressions, he's not sure what to make of himself. One day he's in a Patriots jersey, the next he's dressed up like a teddy bear.



As Trump says....



After a series of scheduling mishaps, the Associated Press wireline is reporting that Jason Chin has been relieved of his duties as weekend events coordinator for the Chin household. Irene Chin will replace him indefinitely.

This action comes on the heels of the latest scheduling debacle this past weekend where the Chin clan got all dressed up and headed to church for the Ava Aldrich's christening only to learn they were a day late for the event. Confused and bewildered, Jason Chin's only response was "huh?" Literally all dressed up and nowhere to go, Irene demanded lunch be purchased to account for pain and suffering, which was paid out immediately.

Brady Chin, sporting his new bright and fluffy blue jumper suit thought the whole situation was comical - welcome to the Chin Family youngster. Brady is too young to know, but this was just one comical instance in a long list of them.

In 2004 Irene and Jason showed up to a Saturday barbeque event 3 hours early. In 2005, Jason entered his house to pick something up and came out eating a cookie but without the item he was supposed to retrieve. He then re-entered to get the item. And earlier in 2006, Jason wrote the wrong name on a greeting card.

Mr Chin had no comment after his dismissal.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

The building of a playroom, part II

As promised, here are the after photos of our basement after our plastering job. We found this guy (and crew) on Craigslist and it was well worth the money to have them come do this part of the project. Not only did their four person crew do this all in one day, they did a fine job at a very reasonable price. The basement is really turning into a playroom now that the walls are completed and we're getting into finish work!


Is anyone else impressed that we built this soffit? :)

Our closet/main water shut off valve room

The foyer


Sunday, October 08, 2006

Homecoming!

It's that time of year where old fogies from around the United States start migrating back to their college alma mater to remember the 'good ole days' and again walk the hallowed grounds that they once ruled mightily through their college years. So Saturday, the Chin family packed up and headed west....45 minutes to Worcester Polytech. It was Brady's first visit, so we and he were excited. Okay, I was excited, but everyone else still came along. Anyway, we had great weather and it turned out to be a nice start to an overall lazy, relaxing, doin' nothin' kind of weekend. Irene and I worked pretty hard all week at night to install all the blueboard in the basement for our plasterer, who came on Friday. I'll post some pictures of that later, but this weekend was all about R&R, something we've gotten very very little of lately. Next year we'll try to go a bit earlier so Brady can see the float parade and run around doing kid things. But this year was still lots of fun.

Brady was so excited for Homecoming that he ran 7 miles in the morning to burn off energy. Irene is so proud of him....

Ever seen the movie Zoolander? This is Isaac's version of 'Blue Steel'

Josh and Tori

Everyone enjoying some Homecoming beverages Tori thinks she's in the bottom middle box of the Brady Bunch opening

This is where Pudge (Isaac's dad) exclaimed "Isaac, show Tori your big stick!" Ahh yes, how many times did he say that in college....

...So Isaac did! And just like kids, monkey see, monkey do

For once, Pudge is not the one fighting for the food. Apparently Cheerios are big favorites of the tykes.

Dating, by Isaac...first, you sit next to her...

..then give her a little candy....

...and she'll be puckering up before you know it.

Brady was very good and enjoyed the entire day!



Like father, like son

On the way home, we stopped at pumpkin like place... A little over exposed because the sun was so bright, but I swear Brady is in this picture if you look hard enough.