Getting to know extended family (Part 1)...

It's been about 5 weeks since we have brought Xiao Yu home.  Family and friends have been eager to see him and so a couple of weeks ago, we invited Emily's parents to come over for a couple of hours to visit their new grandson.

Grandpa, in his wisdom, brought over a toy for Xiao Yu as a way of connecting with him.  It was a Tonka Army Jeep car.  It was an old-school one, made out of real metal and what Emily's brothers played with decades ago.  Xiao Yu liked it.

And perhaps even more wise, Grandpa brought a nearly identical one for Gabriel, to prevent any squabbling over the new toy!

Xiao Yu also got to know Grandma a little bit.

Xiao Yu likes cameras and took an interest in Grandpa's.

The novelty was that Grandpa let Xiao Yu actually hold and play with the camera.  (Elvin won't let Xiao Yu touch his camera.)  That earned Grandpa extra brownie points.

And Xiao Yu couldn't resist... he had to check out Grandpa's eyebrows.  They are a little bushy so Xiao Yu examined them for a little bit.

Later on, some of Emily's siblings were having dinner at Grandpa and Grandma's house, so we joined for a while.  Aunt Laura got Xiao Yu a stuffed frog, and also made him a blanket, which is wrapped in red wrapping paper.

Xiao Yu had no idea about wrapping paper but finally got the blanket out with the girls' help.  It also has a frog pattern and we use it now to cover him at night.

And he let Uncle Charles hold him.  This was made more bearable when Uncle Charles let him play with his iPhone.  Xiao Yu eventually licked the phone but it appears to still be functional.

Grandpa had a model train set out, which Xiao Yu enjoyed watching.  It was also almost an antique from a while ago.  Xiao Yu also wanted to pick up the trains and step on the trains.

And the next day was Valentine's day and so the cousins stopped briefly to drop off balloons and say hi to Xiao Yu again.  

They took pictures together as a cousin sandwich.

Overall, Xiao Yu seems to be doing ok when meeting new people.  Sometimes when meeting someone for the first time and they get too close, he will scowl and growl or grunt at the person (which he did to Grandma.)  But we are trying to work on that and that habit seems to be fading away.

And Gabey is always saying or noticing things that are interesting.  The other day, he was holding the heart-shaped mylar balloon from Valentines and said to Elvin: "Hey!  This is a mirror!"  He's a funny boy.