Andrej, Jessica, Kaiya and Tobi

On weekend mornings, when everyone in the house is still asleep, I like to take Kaiya for walks in the neighborhood. I quietly get her up (she's awake anyway, just playing in her bed), change her diaper, make waffles and fruit and pour milk for us, the whole time talking about how we need to be quiet so we don't wake up mama and baby Tobi. After breakfast, we get out the door into a sleepy neighborhood. (Read more …)

I can't believe it, but it has been exactly three months since our precious Tobias joined our family. He has been such an incredible addition. Tobi is a really happy baby full of smiles, pseudo giggles, funny sounds and precious coos. When he smiles, his entire face lights up. Some of my favorite moments with him are when I look down to see why he has stopped nursing and find his big blue eyes looking up at me with the biggest grin spread across his face and milk running down his cheek. I can't help but scoop him up close and plant kisses all over his little face and neck. (Read more …)

Kaiya is in a stage in her language development where she is fascinated with questions. She is constantly asking them, even if she already knows the answer. Maybe she likes the sentence structure or the intonation or that we always answer even if it's the tenth time in a row she has asked the same question. Usually we hear things like, "Is it dinnertime? Is is night-night time? Is it daddy? Is it purple? Is it hot?" Sometimes she asks herself these questions, and then appropriately answers. One day she was looking for her swimsuit and she asked, "Is it in the closet?" and then responded, "Nope, it's in the bathroom." It is really neat how she is catching on to sentence structure and different phrases and we can actually have little conversations with her. The other night at dinner, she and I had the following conversation about Tobi: (Read more …)

And just like that, Kaiya turned 2!

I still find it hard to believe that the little newborn we brought home from the hospital, with her rosy skin and deep blue eyes and little round head with nothing more than peach fuzz on top is now two years old. The baby girl who just a day before her birthday last year started walking and began to communicate with actual words, now runs, jumps, climbs, dances and speaks in colorful sentences. The baby girl who wouldn't wear a birthday hat last year or even taste her birthday cake, picked out her party hats this year and knew exactly what kind of birthday cake she wanted. I blinked and my sweet baby girl turned two! (Read more …)

I really want to blog more often. I had even set a little goal for myself to at least post something once a week so I don't get so far behind. As I write this post I actually have three other posts waiting to be finished and published, but I keep getting interrupted and can't seem to find a good chunk of time to unload all of my thoughts. When Kaiya finally falls asleep, Tobi wakes up and needs to be fed or vice-versa. I guess these interruptions will be the norm for a while, maybe even for the next 18 years. However, I do have a little time now and before finishing up the other posts I want to quickly document the highlights from the last few weeks. (Read more …)