Photo Shoot

Here are some fun photos I got of the kids this morning! So fun and challenging now trying to get TWO of them to cooperate for pictures!!!











Thank you Mormor for the beautiful handmade outfits for the kids! They are so precious!

Elmo Live

We took the kids to Elmo Live Saturday night! Kaia was in ELMO heaven! She was by far the craziest kid there. Her bottom didn't touch her seat the whole time. She was singing and dancing and jumping up and down and acting like a crazed fan! Several times, Kristian looked around at all the other toddlers sitting in their chairs mesmerized and then would look at ours bouncing up and down like a CRAZY MONKEY and he would say, I wonder what all these other parents around us are thinking. Who knows and who cares! All I know is she had a GREAT time and thank goodness the show was only an hour and a half because that was enough Elmo to last us a while :)

Kaia was so obsessed with Elmo she actually morphed into him the next morning!!

















We thought that was so funny!

Here are the pics from the show!!!

Brother/Sister Looooove

I caught her loving on her baby brother the other day...I was getting ready in the bathroom and peeked around the corner and she was totally cute with him!

Pure Cuteness

Kaia's New Bath Robe

Since we have changed tub time around a bit, Kaia has been streaking through the house from our bathroom into hers so I finally found her a bath robe. She was so excited and every night we still get the same reaction, "Ooooohhhh, soft bath robe", followed by a fancy little prance around the house! In the pics below she is dancing around our room!!!

Kristian - 7 weeks

Not too much has changed in the past week except more and more smiles which we love :) He is becoming a little more vocal and likes to "chat" to the dangly animals on his baby gym. He is still such a cuddle bug and can't get enough of mommy (he nuzzles into my neck and gets his face so close to mine, it is to precious for words)!! We did have two more nights of 7.5 hours and daddy has even been taking one of the feedings so I can go to the gym in the mornings....life is good!

Excuse the one thousand photos. He was just so stinkin' cute I couldn't stop so here is my mini photo shoot before his bath!



Here he is in the bath, still smiling away




This is after bath time...oh how the smiles melt my heart :) :)


Here he is chatting with his baby gym friends

Our little athlete :)

We got Kaia a little T Ball set and she loves it. She is also now asking for a basketball goal, and some golf clubs (I think she is predisposed to loving sports but this is crazy). Anyways, her favorite thing is to "play outside with daddy". Of course Kristian is working hard on her hand and foot position in front of the tee and making sure she connects correctly on the bat. Notice in the pictures and video the "tape" on the bat, that is so she can focus on hitting the ball on the correct part of the bat. I know she is only two but hey, why practice bad habits??? I LOVE IT!
Don't think for a second that Kaia trades in her fashion sense for sports. Oh no!! She must be wearing her pink baseball hat that she looks adorable in anytime she does anything related to baseball. She also tells me that her sandals "match the hat". Are you kidding me?

Fashionista meets Tee Ball (I love how she poses for pictures now!)


A true camera ham



Dad, I know you will appreciate this! I didn't think there was anyone as bad as you are but Kristian may give you a run for your money! I can see pitching contraptions and sandpits for jumping in our backyard's future :) :) Enjoy!

First Hiking Trip

So we ventured out with the kids on our first hiking trip as a family of four. It was so much fun and not as much drama as we both anticipated! Kristian literally slept the entire time (except for the 10 minutes that he ate...even then his eyes stayed closed) and Kaia had a great time as usual in the backpack and even got to hike some herself (we went to the very easy family trailhead). A couple funny things happened that day...for one, as we were driving to the site Kaia noticed "the strip", she has gotten so good with remembering locations, facts, etc. but sometimes gets mixed up which normally causes quite the laugh from mom and dad. As she pointed to it, she got so excited and said, "Look, the Germany Strip"!

She also learned about cacti last week so seeing them along the hike was very exciting for her. In fact, it was so exciting that she had to tell us EVERY TIME she saw one, so for most of the time we were hiking this is what we heard, "Look, a cactus" (2 seconds later), there is another one", "and another one", "look, another one", "daddy, another cactus", "look a baby cactus" (any small ones were babies), "another one", "another one", "look, another one". Luckily, after about 30 minutes she spotted a lizard and we were able to convince her to start looking for lizards instead of cactus...OMG!! I swear the child does not stop talking!!! It was too funny and we had to laugh at her!

Weekly Lessons and Fun

Kk - Kite

I didn't have my camera downstairs and remembered it after she had already finished but I did get a shot of the finished product ( I am finding that my brain sometimes quits for little blips of time when I am up several times in the night with baby K :)).

















Tiger - Grrrrrrrr
Kaia loved this craft since we are always playing "make believe" and one of her favorite things for mommy to be is a mommy lion and her, the baby lion. She was a little shy in the video when we were reading the book (her animal noises are usually VERY animated) and I sound horrible since I was battling a cold.









Peacock
Kaia HAD to wear her hood up today and instead of arguing with her, I just let her, so no smock! Since we weren't painting, I didn't care. She looked awfully cute constructing our bird and then was a little camera ham while she was coloring! Some of these are so adorable :)



Kaia has an incredible memory. We got her this book when she was 17 months old and a week after reading it, she had it memorized. We hadn't read it in a while and I pulled it out today for the craft...looks like she didn't forget it :)

Baby K - 6 weeks

Hard to believe that 6 weeks ago, this little guy was in my belly....mostly because he isn't so little, he is REALLY BIG! He has the cute baby sumo rolls on his legs (wished they looked that cute on bigger people) and his cheeks are filling out but we have noticed that in his pics, he looks a lot bigger (okay, fatter). We think this is because his cheeks get pressed up when his chin is pressed down but whatever, he is a big boy and WE LOVE HIM :) :) He is growing, growing and has slept so very much this past week. Yesterday, he literally had his eyes open for maybe 10 minutes ALL DAY. I tried everything to keep him awake even for 5 minutes...no luck! I was so excited two nights ago when he slept from 9:30pm - 5:00 am.....I was THRILLED :) but then last night, he woke up every 3 hours to eat again...owell!!! Maybe one day soon we will have a repeat of the glorious night I got 7.5 hours of sleep....hey at 6 weeks, I'll take it! He is so cuddly and loves smiling at momma, daddy, and big sister (when she sits still long enough to generate one from him!).





Here is Kristian at 4 weeks....I am finally getting caught up on videos :) !!!





Comparisons (these are so fun!)....sometimes I feel like he looks nothing like her and sometimes I can't believe how much they look alike!!!! Here they are at 6 weeks!!!!

My morning greeting

This is how I get greeted in the mornings these days! It is so wonderful and adorable! His smiles keep getting bigger and bigger and he now knows daddy too (he was starting to get envious of all the smiles mommy gets!!).

Happy Easter

Kaia was so excited Easter morning to find that the Easter Bunny had made it to Las Vegas! She had so much fun digging in her basket, playing with her new toys, and eating her chocolate!! I don't quite remember the Easter bunny being so fabulous when I was a kid, maybe it's because He has so much help from Kaia's grandparents :) THANK YOU!



Wow, how time flies by....

Kaia's first Easter in Ensch
















Kaia's second Easter in Ensch
















Kaia's third Easter in Vegas

Our little Easter Bunny

Here is our cute little bunny on Easter morning (prior to his big sister waking up). He looked so adorable in his first easter outfit (I won't write the comment his father made about it!!). Thanks Aunt Kristi!!!

Jack and Daniel turn 2

Our friends from Misawa have twin boys who turned two on Sunday. Their birthday party was Saturday and Kaia had such a fun time celebrating with them (not to mention there was a bouncy castle!!!). Here are some shots I was able to capture of the day!

Easter picnic

We had a squadron easter picnic on Saturday and it was so much fun. Kaia loved playing with "all my friends" and "egg gunting". She was so excited when she realized there was candy in the eggs since mom's eggs at home have been empty :) (and yes, we have been practicing for the official egg hunt). It was great hanging out with friends and seeing the kids play!!

Daddy Loves

Our little prince has gotten SO BIG! He is a healthy little thing and an unofficial scale reading said he was 12 1/2 lbs. a few days ago. He is now sleeping in his own crib and was only waking up once through the night but must be in a growth spurt because this past week, every 3 hours on the dot, he is up wanting to eat! I am a little tired but so glad we have a healthy little boy :)

Weekly lessons and fun

Obviously we focused on Easter this last week but Kaia is so into music and musical instruments that we did Ii for Instruments to start of the week!





Wed. - easter bunnies and egg




Friday - Easter bunny cake, cookies, and dying eggs of course!

Little Dude

So funny how different the nicknames are for one sex vs. the other...I'm pretty sure we never called Kaia, "dude", "buddy", "stinky", "stinks", "little man" and so many more. So cute!

Our bed is the place to be...

That title doesn't sound very good but as far as our kids go, it is true! Kaia loves laying in our bed watching baby einstein and reading books and Kristian is liking his baby entertainment thing! Every morning our bed is taken over (which Kaia still calls "Momma's bed" not daddy's :) )!!!

So precious

Kristian - 5 weeks

Here is our little guy at 5 weeks old!
I wish our scanner was working because I found a baby picture of Big Kristian at 5 weeks and they look so much alike. I also found one of me and in another pic of baby K, he looks just like me....it is so crazy!
Something to note about K at 5 weeks....the kid pees on me and his father almost EVERY TIME he gets his diaper changed! He has peed on Kaia once and she screamed, "BABY KRISTIAN WATER FALL". We tried to explain to her that he had pee pee and it was okay but she was very upset as it went all over the floor. She kept pointing to the floor saying waterfall and then told him very nicely, that he needed to pee pee in the potty (hmmm, wish she would take her own advice).
Also, we are DONE bathing them together as of tonight. He peed across the tub on her again (which she was even more mortified than the first time) and he pooped in the tub a few seconds later. Kaia stood up and was on her tippy toes telling the poop not to touch her feet. An hour and a half later (after getting them out, redrawing bath water, rebathing, and the whole shebang - we were done!

*I know most of you are grossing out at these stories but I have to blog them so I don't forget them...when they are 18 and 16, they will be priceless!!!

Loving this weather

The weather has been gorgeous (high 60s low 70s, sunny, slight breeze) so we have been walking and been outside A LOT. Kaia is loving he parks, playing in her sandbox, riding her tricycle, walking her baby, lily, around the block, walking sadie, and throwing any ball she can get her hands on (football, basketball, volleyballs, etc.). She also enjoys drawing with her sidewalk chalk and investigating all the rocks!

Out to eat as a family of four

Kaia has been doing so well so we decided to reward her Saturday night with a long walk (with a detour to the park), dinner at Red Robin (for bugers and fries which she claims are her favorite although she won't eat either one...but the milkshake was worth the trip), and a later bedtime and a movie. Funniest part, we put on Shrek thinking she wouldn't be into it. She laid on the couch with me and Kristian and I both fell asleep and when we woke up she was dancing to the music as the credits rolled (this was at 10:30pm). Obviously, she thought the movie was worth staying up for!!! She is too much!

Loving the Smiles

Kristian has decided to grace us with his presence this week (meaning he is staying awake longer than 2 minutes at a time). He is smiling, and gurgling, and giggling, and making the cutest sounds. He is finally enjoying things with lights and sounds and is really starting to interact.

Baby Gym

Here is Kristian enjoying his baby gym....













Just kidding!
That was Kaia :)

Here is Kristian!!

So Sweet

The other morning Kristian put Kristian in Kaia's bed (I know, I know...we need to come up with a nickname or SOMETHING soon) and they were so cute. Kaia didn't even mind when he grabbed a handful of her hair. She just made sure to tell him to, "be gentle baby kristian"...too funny!

Our little beauty

Kaia truly is such a tender-heart. Although, we are facing some uncharted territory right now (some days our terrific two's aren't so terrific :) ), she is still so loving and kind. She is so full of hugs and kisses and "I love you's". She says, "please" and "thank you" for the smallest things and never misses an opportunity to say, "bless you", especially to her baby brother. She is getting so big and is Miss Independent. We hear, "Kaia do it" a lot. She is even playing on the "big kid" playground at the park (which scares me to death). I wish she would slow down but I love the little girl she is turning into. Here she is in her new princess pjs that a one of my friends got for her...she LOVES them!! Her hair is getting so long and she still has these beautiful curls as you can see and she loves for me to do it in all different styles (she actually sits still). Right now her favorite are "braids please mommy"!!

In his crib

Kristian is taking one of his morning naps in his crib now. He looks like such a big boy in his crib. Soon, he will be moving out of hte basinet and in there at night time.

Bath time with two

In an effort to shorten our night time routine we have been bathing the kids together. Kaia LOVES it and is very helpful (and curious) with her little brother. I haven't quite decided if it is easier or just faster as bending down to bath him is still a little tough on me...maybe a few more weeks and we'll get it down. In the meantime, they sure are cute :)

Resemblance?

Kaia and Kristian at 26 days old

Special Visitors

Since the arrival of baby Kristian, we have had so many friends swing by to see our little guy. Some are friends who are stationed here with us and some came from faaaaar away :) :) Thanks to all of you who stopped by, it was great to see everyone (sorry I didn't get pics of everyone).

Rock Star

Kaia has been quite busy these days, tending to her little brother, trying to figure out how to exist in this world now that she has to share mommy, all while still being her cute, adorable self :)
While G-pa was here, her daddy took her to Touch-a-Truck downtown where she was able to see and climb on police cars, fire trucks, school buses, etc. Her favorite was the hot air balloon and the motorcycle. I am not a huge fan of my children being on dangerous machines but I must say, she looks pretty stinkin' cute on that cycle :) Of course, she had to be all decked
out in her cute outfit, necklace, bracelet, sunglasses, and fancy nancy purse (daddy was thrilled to be going to a truck show with such a diva!!)

This past week - K is 4 weeks old

Not too many changes this week besides Kristian (daddy) needing to have his appendix removed (we love the drama!!). Kaia is still in love with her brother and he is still content in this world :) We couldn't ask for a better baby!! Lots of smiles and some cute giggles make our day!!