Week Three

On January 10th, Kaiton turned One!  That was officially the fastest year of my life.  I can't even explain how much joy this little man has brought in to our home!  

Dear Kaiton,

A year ago, I held you in my arms for the first time and could not keep my eyes off of you.  The moment you entered our family, we forgot what life was like without you.  You have the sweetest, happiest spirit and I am positive that you make each of us happier each day.  

You have such a calm personality.  You are happy and active, but very content.  You love being the little brother and take your time learning new things because you know that everyone around you is happy to help you all of the time.

You love to clap when I say, "good job," and you are awesome at giving high fives.  You say "mama" and "dada" and I've heard you say "ball" a few times.  You can stand one your own, but you still aren't confident enough to believe in yourself.  Usually, by the time you realize that you are standing, you let out a cry and fall to the ground.

You still love me to sing to you.  Your favorite song it "All the Pretty Little Horses."  You love to play with balls.  And you are pretty excited about the toy iPhone that the Nymans got you for your birthday.

You love to crawl and you are super curious and ALWAYS in to things.  You are delighted when you find a cabinet unlocked.  

We celebrated Kaiton's birthday on Sunday the 11th with our friends and neighbors, the Nymans.  We love having them around to celebrate birthdays with.  They brought Kaiton a toy cell phone and we at his cake, Rosemary-Lemon, with cream cheese frosting.  I garnished it with fresh rosemary and candied lemon and it was really tasty!  Kaiton wasn't too sure of it at first, but then we undressed him and gave him his own piece. It took him a while to figure out what it was, but once he did, he was in heaven!

I snapped some other pictures of Kaiton eating this week.  He is such a cutie, and he was particularly happy to let me capture him that day!

Zaya's obsession with boxes continues . . .

Kaiton loves to imitate me.  I just love this stage because you can really see how important your influence is.  Whenever I clean the floor, he wants to help.  One day this week, he kept trying to steal my rag.  So . . . I got him his own rag and let him help!  He kept trying to spray it and then went about rubbing it all over the floor.

A couple of days ago, I was holding Kaiton and Brooklen told me some good news from school.  I said, "high five" and Brooklen put out his hand for me to give him a  high five.  Right away, Kaiton reached out his hand to a "high five" too!

Week 2

This week was another good one.  The temperatures were frigid, so we've been spending a lot of time inside.  I am so grateful that Zaya is so content to stay home with me all the time.  This year, I am going to commit to spending more time just at home.  I feel like I am so much more productive when I stay home and really, I just love hanging around with the little ones.

Zaya was hanging on to my leg, begging me to walk around. 

Kaiton is finally old enough to interact with Zaya.  It has been so fun to watch them play with toys together!

Zaya recently told me, out of the blue, "Mom, you can never have too many boxes!"  This girl really means that.  I have to be careful; I often make a pile of recoiling items by the garage door.  She usually finds it before I get a chance to take it out.  She loves to make toy boxes, and houses, and cars with any box she can get her hands on.  She kept repeating that silly statement to us for a couple of weeks before Rob found out where she got it from.  He was watching an episode of Peppa the Pig with her and heard Peppa's dad say, "You can never had too many potatoes!"  I love that she made that statement her own.  I guess that it shows that she really understood it!

Last year, I had the kids make a meal for dinner.  My mom used to have us do that when we were a little older, and I felt like it taught us a lot.  Since life is a bit slower in the winter, I had the kids do it again.  Hurley chose to make eggs, bacon, pancakes, and sun punch (from her princess cookbook), a pudding parfait for dessert.  She cut the strawberries all by herself with a sharp knife and she was pretty proud of herself!

Brooklen checked out an international food cookbook from the library.  He made avgolemono soup (soup with lemon, chicken, egg, and rice), homemade rolls, and brazilian birthday candle candies for dessert.  He is super independent and wanted to help every step of the way.  I just love how he gets in to planning things and pays so much attention to detail.  These qualities are going to help him so much as an adult!

I forgot to snap some pictures of Zaya making her meal!  She made homemade sweet potato gnocchi and a pear and blue cheese salad!  She did an awesome job rolling the gnocchi.  She was working almost too fast for me.  And they looked beautiful too!