Andrej, Jessica, Kaiya and Tobi

The other day Kaiya was spinning in circles around the kitchen. After quite a few rounds she stumbled over to me and started frantically crying. I bent down to see what was wrong and in between cries she said, "Mama, get me! Get me! The house is falling over." I was laughing so hard I could barely explain to her that the house wasn't falling over, she was just dizzy. At 2 1/2, our sweet Kaiya definitely keeps us laughing and makes us so proud to be her parents. (Read more …)

Lately, Kaiya stopped using "Yes" and "No" as answers to yes-or-no questions. Examples:

Andrej: Would you like some of this apple?
Kaiya: I would like some.

Andrej: Did you take a nap today?
Kaiya: I didn't. I played!

What's next? "Thank you, I don't care for any?" :-)

I thought I would add a few more Kaiya funnies to the list that Andrej started a few days ago.

When Kaiya wakes up in the morning or after a nap she almost always calls out for us with something like this: "Mama, Daddy, Tobi…come in here! Maaamaaa, Daaaaddyyy, Toooo-biii…where are you? It's time to wake up! Somebody…come in here!"

A few nights ago we had a dear friend over for dinner and at one point us adults were all laughing pretty hard. Kaiya, feeling a little left out of the conversation said, "Hey guys! Calm down. Calm down guys!" (Read more …)

One night after dinner, Kaiya was in a silly mood so I grabbed the camera hoping to capture some of her antics on video. The video is a little long, but really cute. Kaiya answers my questions about Santa, sings, at one point breaks into Baa Baa Black Sheep (I'm still not exactly sure why), demonstrates her spelling skills and ends the video by wishing you all a Merry Christmas! You can also hear Tobi jabbering away as he shares his thoughts on Christmas as well. Enjoy!

We pray with Kaiya every night before bedtime and she is getting more and more creative with her prayers….

• Thank you, God, for this wall and door that open and close
• Thank you, God, for a bunch of things
• Thank you, God, for you daddy (followed by a hug)
• Thank you, God, for these guys (followed by hugging her bear, bunny, kitty, and meh meh (blanket))
• Thank you, God, for Santa Claus.
• Thank you, God, for mama, dada, Tobi, Kaiya and mama and daddy
• Thank you, God, for buggies (don't ask :-) )

And some other gems authored by Kaiya:

• (standing on a chair) I'm gonna reach up to the skies…….and get something.
• I'm not Kaiya! I'm mama.
• (Jessica: eat your dinner, pooh-bear) I'm not pooh-bear. I'm Kaiya!
• Don't cry, Tobi! It's ok! I'm right here!

You'll probably see more and more of these funny statements.

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 …)

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 …)