Kaya lost her first tooth this morning! Bottom middle right.  It's been loose since Monday when we were in Maine!

Hide and Seek

So today Brandon was chasing a ball around the family room, and I turned my back for one second (to put something in the dishwasher when he wasn't looking since he goes insane when he sees it open!). So suddenly he disappears and then I call for him and hear his trademark ahhh aaa sound from behind the couch. I have never lost him behind the couch before! Also today was his last day in the infant room :( we loved it there! But it is time to move up (after our Maine vacation)

Another tooth!

Brandon's next tooth is coming in - the other top middle one. Very cute!

Standing up from a crawl

today was the first time I've seen Brandon stand up right from a crawl.  Usually he crawls over to something first, pulls up, and then walks, but today he's been standing up directly and he is very stable.  He's also been chasing Kaya around the island, which is cute (and distracting as I type this up!).

Brandon the Model

Here are his 10th month pictures from the Picture People!


Love this one!




Action Shot: You can tell he's on the move!



Definitely Chadd's kid!



Not a great shot, but I love that you can see him standing





He loved this drum!



Enough already!



Mr. B's Bad list

I feel like I should make a list of all the "bad" things Mr. B tries to do. 

- pull up on the oven handle
- stand on the dishwasher door when it's open
- bite the cat(s)
-sit on the cat (Guiness, because Morphey has a brain)
-knock over the fire extinguisher
- bite the hairdryer
- climb through his exersaucer
- break the mini blinds
- push Kaya's table around the room

and this is just the short list.  I also need to write about his love of the palm tree on our porch, but that is a whole separate post.

Party and Bolt

The kids and I spend alot of time in the car driving to and from school and work, so we listen to satellite radio alot.  Kaya loves so many of the songs and always tries to get me to buy them on itunes..but that is another topic.  So on Monday, we heard this one song, and the girl in the song is saying how she wants to "party, and bolt, party, and bolt".  Okay, so I think that is what she's singing anyway.  After the song Kaya asked me "why does she want to party" (or so I thought).  I answered something to the effect of "you know, she wants to party, parties are fun, etc etc". 
Kaya's response? "Oh.  I thought she was saying she wanted to potty!".  I had to laugh out loud.

Mr. B's shoes!

Yesterday (Sunday)  I took Mr. B to StrideRight and we had him measured for (and purchased) his first official pair of shoes!!  He's a size 4.5 and his shoes are super cute - gray and orange.  Daddy wishes he had a matching pair!  Mr. B. is now practicing walking in them - he doesn't really like wearing shoes (or socks, or even pants for that matter) too much, but now that he is walking more regularly it is time to get him used to protecting his feet. 

Cold Hair

Ever since she was a baby, Kaya has had a thing for hair.  When I carried her around as a little one, she would always have at least one arm wrapped around my neck so that she could grab my ponytail.  For years she has fallen asleep or gone into relaxation mode while holding onto a piece of my (or a grandma's hair).  Now that she is older and can express what she is thinking, she's been asking specifically to grab my hair - or others.  For example:
- Last night as I was laying with her in bed, she asked me to "please remove my ponytail so that she could find my cold hair".
- She has tried to grab Papa's hair, only to find (and comment) that it's not long enough to grab.
- She loves to grab Momo's and Nanae's hair
- sometimes she has commented that someone's hair is "not cold enough".
It's really too cute that she finds hair as a comfort object.  :)

Big Sister Helpfulness

One of the nice things about having a kid 4 years older, is that the big kid can help feed the little kid! Too bad she won't help with diapers.

A Kaya Motorcycle Memory

Kaya played alot of starfall, and one of her (many) favorite parts was M for motorcycle.  She would get so excited everytime the motorcycle would "pop a wheelie!"  Later on, on the way home, she told me how she wanted to ride a motorcyle sometime, and I could ride behind her.  too funny.  she wanted our motorcycle to be red, momo's to be purple, and papa's to be pink!

Mr. B is really moving now

He's really a speed demon now! we are very proud of him.  He has started to walk across the house basically.  He can stop, start, and turn on a dime, and he can even recover if he starts to trip.  Yesterday he walked while quite intentionally kicking a toy like a soccor ball.  We have our hands full with this one for sure.  We have had to remove all the knobs from the stove since he likes to rip them off, we had to remove the lowest book shelf because he was trying to use the bean bag chair as a bridge to climb up to it.  It was really only a matter of time before he was swinging from it anyway.  The other night I gave him an aluminum bowl to play with, thinking that since it is shiny, silver, and metal that it would appeal to him.  I was right - but he then proceeded to rip the metal handle and latch off the side.
Over this past week we've been pushing the finger foods and table foods a bit. So far he loves cheerios, and has had small bits of pears (liked), avocado (wasn't sure), and shredded cheese (seemed indifferent). he did not like the veggie burger for sure.

Kaya's first bowling trip

Kaya went bowling with school yesterday, and she loved it!  She even got a strike!  Her teacher told me that Kaya's method of bowling was to quick roll the ball, then run away from the lane, and then look back to see where it went.  hey - that's Mommy's method of bowling too!  The pictures of these kids in little bowling shoes were way too cute. :)

On the way home from school, Kaya informed me that she was ready to go back to Disney "right this second".  She said that she hadn't been there in "a whole month" (it's been 18 months) and that she wanted to ride the Dumbo ride again. When I told her maybe we could ride a similar ride at Hershey she informed me the Dumbo right has elephants.  She also remembers how she and I had to hide from the loud fireworks at Epcot.  Considering this happened a year and a half ago, I am impressed with her memory!

Brandon has been doing great.  He's been taking a ton of steps and getting really brave! And his top middle right tooth is DEFINITELY on it's way in, we can see the whole outline of it now.  It is really hard get a glimpse of it because he is so wiggly. Hopefully this is the cause of his sleep issues because we could really use some extra rest.

A Kaya Pizza Memory

back when Kaya was one, she was eating Pizza with Momo and Papa and Momo was cutting Kaya's pizza up into these tiny.little.pieces.  Which was appropriate because Kaya was practicing with finger foods still and that's what we typically did at that time - cut her food up into small pieces so that it was more managable for her.   Anyway, this one time, Papa was holding Kaya while Momo prepped the pizza, and Papa was holding his own slice of pizza in his other hand.  Kaya must have been hungry and tired of waiting, because she leaned over and took a huge chomp out of his pizza slice :)

Mr. B is Walking

Brandon has been taking lots of steps recently - he started taking steps in May and over the past week has been able to take several steps in a row towards Mommy or a cat or something he really wants.  But last night he took tons of steps totally unassisted - even out to the center of the room.   Probably at least 10-15.  And he's cruising alot faster too.  He seems very proud of himself.  I will try to post a video when I can!

Official start of walking : July 1, 2012.  Now if only I could get him to stop eating the fuzz from the carpets!

In addition to walking, I think there might be a top tooth coming in - middle front, the one on the right.  I thought I saw a little white spot.  Might be a false alarm so I will keep you posted.

In related news, he is still sleeping like crap!  I even fed him FOUR solid meals yesterday and mixed formula in with his oatmeal in an attempt to fill his tummy.  He still woke up about 4 times overnight.  I have to conclude that he is either teething, has an ear inection again, or is waking up out of habit.

Uncle John the Swim Whisperer

As you know, Kaya finished swim lessons a few weeks ago.  And although she was successful, she has been afraid still to go into the pool without her swim vest on.  So we've been using that which is fine because if she gets tired then I dont worry because the swim vest is a backup.  Anyway, Uncle John is home for the 4th of July and was able to visit Friday night.  Kaya was in the pool and was suddenly MORE than happy to show him (minus the vest) everything she learned in swimming! Seriously, she had that vest off so fast it was incredible.  Uncle John must have a special type of magic because she would never do this for us.  :)
(Looks like she remembers everything she learned too - bobs, face in water with eyes open, superman, taking arm strokes, roll overs, etc). 

Water

 

We opened the pool on Sunday, and Kaya and Brandon had a fabulous time in the water! Brandon is so crazy - chadd held him very tightly while he stood on the steps, but the kid got a face full of water many times!

Also the kid is a bit of a daredevil.  here is a picture of him pulling up on the oven handle.  He actually gets his feet higher up on the glass, but we have been too afraid to get a picture of that yet!  On Tuesday, he did a chin up like this on the door handle of the fridge at school.  It's just a mini fridge so it doesn't even have a real handle, just a little indentation that is used to open the door. I think we have a climber on our hands.

Haircut for Kaya

I cut several inches off of Kaya's hair this morning (at her request - I gave her the option of going out to get it cut professionally or by Mommy and she chose Mommy) and it looks so great! Lots of compliments on it from family, friends, and school.  Not only is she super cute, but it has all these added benefits: doesn't get caught in clothes while getting dressed, doesn't get caught in car seat straps, no more tangles/knots to brush out and scream over, plus she likes it.  Too bad Baby Brother still wants to pull it!

Abigale's 5th Birthday

We went to Abigale's 5th birthday party on Saturday, and both kids had a great time.  Kaya especially loved playing dress up with Morgan in the basement.  The girls were too funny with all the stuff they put on, plus they were walking around in these plastic play heels that I bet I couldn't even walk in, given the opportunity. 

She also hurt her right wrist a little bit on the big bouncey slide.  She walked around the rest of the day calling it her "ankle" and then informed me later that she knew it was really her wrist, but that she liked saying ankle better. 

Brandon had a good time playing with Alex's toys and biting whatever he could. ha ha.

Earlier in the morning we visited the grandparents and great grandparents for lunch in Reading.  A very nice Saturday!

Giving it a shot

In October, a month after her 4th birthday, Kaya had to go to the doctor and get her 4 year old shots.  She got two shots - one in each arm.  She was so upset at the doctors office and was screaming and crying and carrying on, and at one point she stated that she "didn't want holes in her arms" and why did "they put holes in my arms".  The doctor and nurse actually had to turn away so she wouldn't see them starting to crack up, because they had never heard that one before. 

She was fine by the time we got to the car by the way. 

However she worried about shots for weeks after that.  And then at Momo's house one day, Momo was saying they would go do something, and said something to the effect "Let's give it a shot!" and Kaya was completely shocked - like "shots?!".

Update in June 2012 - Kaya informed me that she wants to go to the doctor so that she can get two shots, and get two band aids - one with scooby doo, and one with garfield.  kids are funny.