Christmas 2010

Another Christmas has come and gone. It was our first Christmas with two kids and it was great. Nathan is at an age where Christmas is so magical. He enjoyed looking at Christmas lights, he sang his heart out at his preschool show, he became obsessed with the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and he enjoyed visiting family and Santa, of course. Kira is getting to such a fun age. She enjoyed opening presents and wandering around with her new found two foot mobility. Both Kira and Nathan received so many gifts that we really needed a good purging of old toys. Now that we are back home, they are spending lots of time putting all of those great gifts to use. It was really a great time spent with family. Now onto New Year's Eve and here's to a great 2011!

Kira with Santa


Nathan with Santa


Exhausted!


His only Christmas wish


with her new puppy dog

11-months!

Kira is now 11-months old! Holy cow, we will officially be leaving infancy behind in just one month! I would like to say it's bitter sweet, but, no, I can't. I just love little toddling toddlers and their waddle walk. This month Kira decided to give me a taste of what sleep was like. She slept for five nights from 7:30 to 5:30 or 6 and then all of that went out the window with the discovery that Miss K had begun cutting her molars. She has officially cut the top two and the bottom two are not far behind. Seriously? This isn't supposed to happen. Kira began taking steps this month as well. She is not full on walking, but she will take steps and attempt to walk, but why walk when she can full on crawl where she wants to go. Looking forward to Christmas with her and Nathan and then celebrating her first birthday just two weeks later.

Preschool Christmas Program

Last night was the Christmas Program at Nathan's preschool. He has been talking about it for weeks, but would not sing any of the songs for us at home. We were a bit nervous that he wouldn't actually sing when he got up there last night, but he did awesome! He knew the words and motions and really seemed to enjoy himself. It was great to see him before the show with his friends running around. It really hit home that we made the right decision by moving him to school.

Walky walk walk walk walk!

So for about a week now, Kira has been taking 1-4 steps here and there. Well tonight she took about 15 walking between Jared and I. Looks like we are well on our way to full on upright mobility!

10-months old

Kira is ten-months old today, which means in two months she will move from a helpless newborn through exploratory infant to independent toddler. This month, Kira has cut two new teeth and has another one or two on the horizon. She has started attempting to speak more words: mamamama and dadada, titi for for kitty. She waves hi and bye. Kira is drinking from a cup proficiently and is exploring everything in the environment. She is standing for longer periods of time pushes everything around, but does not seem to interested in walking. Her sleep patterns remain much the same, about one 6-8 hour stretch, unless she is teething, then it is more like 4 hours or less. She loves Nathan and wants to do everything he is doing. Kira has a love for Thomas the Tank Engine the theme song. She yells in happiness everytime she hears it.

Trick or Treat

Nathan's preschool put on a cute costume parade and had a little party. It was super cute to see him with his friends.






This is the first year in 4 years that we did not do the Warner Springs thing for Halloween. They are selling the resort to the Native American's so we stayed in town. We joined the Garcia's for some trick or treating. Nathan has enjoyed it in the past, but I think this is the first year he was really into it. Kira enjoyed looking around at all the costumes, but she fell asleep pretty quickly in the stroller.

Oma's Pumpkin Patch

Today we headed out to Oma's Pumpkin Patch for our annual playgroup trip. This year, we were there to celebrate the birthday of one of Nathan's friends little brother. The kids had a blast sliding on the cottonseed hill, on the tractor ride around the farm and all the other things that Oma's has to offer. This year the weather was cool for a change. It actually felt like fall!

A Night In the Life of Nathan

Nathan is super into music these days. Not the typical kiddie music, but what Brian and I listen too. Every night he goes onto youtube.com on his own and watches videos and memorizes the lyrics. Here he is before bed the other night:

9 months

Kira is now 9 months old. A lot has occurred in the last month. Kira is pulling up to standing on everything. She has begun walking with a push toy and stands alone for brief moments! Her top teeth finally came through and with them a little more sleep at night. She is still not sleeping through the night, but has consistently been sleeping 6.5-7 hours straight until last night when she was up after 3 hours a couple of times. She also has a cold right now. Kira is babbling now and attempting to say a few words. For example she consistently says KKKK for kitty and gggg when she is looking at the dog. When you ask her where your nose is she will grab my nose, when I ask where the dog is, she scans the room for Milo. Kira waving bye bye and finger feeding lots of foods. She has recently added cheese, yogurt and egg yolk to her diet.

We had her 9 month well check today. She continues on her own curve. She weighs 15lbs and is in the 1%tile. She is 26.5 inches, which is the 18th percentile and her head is 17.5, which is 65%, so she is a small baby with a big head. Dr. Berent continues to feel she is fine. He said that between 6-9 months kids typically gain 1.5 lbs, which she did. He gave us the go ahead to add more high calorie foods. Anyway, she continues to be small but mighty!

Philanthropy

The kids and I have been participating in walks to raise money for research for various causes. On September 11, we participated in the National Brain Tumor walk in San Diego in honor of our good friends Madeline and Sydney who lost their mom and grandma to a brain tumor earlier this year. Today we joined all of our special education friends from Miller Elementary, where I work, in the Autism Speaks Walk Now for Autism.

Nathan's first Wakeboard Attempt

Nathan's First Wakeboard Attempt from Brian Davies on Vimeo.

First Day of Preschool

Today was Nathan's first day of preschool. He started at Adventure Days in Tierrasanta. When I left this morning, he went right out to the playground and when I picked him up he was happily building rocketships with one of the other boys! He was laughing and having a great time. I think this is going to be a good fit for him!

8-months old!

Kira is 8-months old today! I seriously can't believe that in just 4 months I will have a one-year old. It really does go by in the blink of an eye. Kira has changed a ton in the last month. No teeth still, but we are expecting those top two any, as she has blisters that come and go and you can almost see where one is about to break through. Kira is full on crawling now. No more army crawl and she is everywhere. Her favorite place to navigate too is the kitchen and straight toward the dog bowl. I guess it is time to put the gate back up. She seems to be getting more vocal, as well. She is still not babbling consistently, but I am hearing more sounds everyday. She is also working on pulling herself up on furniture and people. Just today I came around the corner to find her standing up holding onto one of the dining room chairs. Kira continues to add new foods to her menu. At daycare she has had pancakes and waffles and just added some pasta. Jean, her daycare provider described her as a bottomless pit (where it goes I don't know because she is still so tiny!). She moved into Nathan's room over the past month, but is still not sleeping through the night (not even close I am afraid). She seems comfortable in the crib though and for the most part, Nathan doesn't seem to care too much, though he did deliberately wake her up the other night and then claim she was crying so he needed to sleep with us (yeah right buddy!).

She's A Crawln'

In much the same fashion as her brother , Kira was most motivated to crawl when the forbidden computer cords were put out tempt her! Although she is not going across the room on all fours, this is progress from just a few days ago. She is still a champion army crawler, but I think we will be onto re-proofing the house soon.

Nathan Rides a Bike!

In the last week we had taken the pedals and training wheels off of Nathan's bike to get him working on his balance. He took to it pretty quickly and after one week was balancing really well for a few feet at a time. Well today we decided to put the pedals back on and after about 10 minutes he was pedaling four or five rotations and after another 10 minutes he was riding the length of our carport. We are so proud of him. He took one pretty good fall after turning on his own, but said he wanted to get right back up and ride some more. Go Nathan!!

7-months old

Kira is now 7-months old. She has really changed in a month. Kira is on the verge of crawling. She can get up on all fours and rock. She attempts to make her hands and feet move reciprocally, but gets frustrated because she can't get them to move together. Any day now as you can see from the video below. This month Kira has added a variety of foods to her palate. She loves to eat from a spoon! She is also able to go from sitting to crawling position and back to sitting. Kira loves to hear Nathan sing and she just giggles and giggles. She didn't sprout anymore teeth this month, but I fear they are soon because her sleep got funky again and her top gums are pretty swollen. Kira took her first plane ride this month to Oregon and Washington and did awesome both ways! She is beginning to use her pincer grasp to pick up food and enjoys her puffs. Sleep continues to be a challenge, however, we are working now on a modified sleep training. I am hoping to have her in Nathan's room full time before going back to work in 2.5 weeks. She is napping in there at least once and sometimes twice a day without issues. She seems to have changed so much this last month!

Vacation to the Pacific Northwest

We just got back from a week long stay in Oregon and Washington. We started the week in Oregon for my Great Aunt Helen's 90th birthday party. Pictured below is a bit of her awesomeness. She took a turn at the pinata and rocked her sombrero and maraca's.


Nathan enjoyed playing with his second cousins Walker, Cory, Kaylee and Caleb. The played on the slip n slide and in the pool at my uncle and aunts community:





Anne, my cousin Greg's wife took us to Fir Point Farms so that the boys could feed goats, rabbits and cickens, run in the hay maze and just get some energy out:






After the boys (and girl napped) we headed over to my cousin Erika's house where we watched her four-year old Cory, tearing it up on his PW50, swam, ate, rode bikes and just hung out:






After a weekend in Oregon we drove up to Anacortes and took the ferry over to Lopez Island to spend the rest of the week. We crammed in a ton in one week. I played tennis with Aunt Bette and Erika for the first time in five years. I forgot how fun it could be. We hiked Chadwick Hill, where three years ago my mom had broken her ankle. She handled it well this time. We took a ferry over to San Juan to Lime Kiln Park so that we could see the Orca's. It was really cool. We also took the kids swimming, walked around the property, had a pinic and kayak ride at Odlin Park, bbq'd, ate well and most importantly had a good time with my family.