Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Taelyn - 15-18 Months

Taelyn’s past three months have been all about talking, talking, talking. She started speaking again at the start of 15 months and continued non-stop from there. Some of her favorite words include apple (with a heavy emphasis on the “a”), uh-oh, ball, and Abby (from Sesame Street). We have counted well over 20 words, not including animal sounds that she makes when we say the name of an animal (she particularly likes to say” baa” for sheep and “reow, reow” for cat, and our favorite is her “roar” for lion that she just started saying after we visited the Lion Park this past weekend). Just recently, Taelyn also used two words together: “wa ba” for water bottle, and she said “Hi Da” when she saw her daddy enter in to the car.

Activities that Taelyn loves to partake in are playing with a ball, going to a playground, playing with older toddlers, dancing, reading her books, and watching Sesame Street and Veggie Tales. Some of her favorite books are Ten Apples Up on Top and Spot Goes to the Park. And when we start up Veggie Tales, she gets very excited and starts to dance, sing, and yell with enthusiasm. After she has finished watching Sesame Street, she also gets a little hyper as she watches the different characters do their own segments of dancing. She has her own way of announcing which character will come on to dance next. For Big Bird, she yells “Ba bir,” and “Eeee” for Burt and Ernie. She makes a very raspy “uh” sound over and over for Cookie Monster because that is how his laugh sounds. She yells out “Abby” with a very high pitch when Abby comes on, and for Elmo, she either says “aye, yi, yi, yi” which is her way of singing the Elmo’s World song or she just screams at the top of her lungs because she is so excited to see him.

Taelyn also started to tickle this past month. She loves to dig her little fingers under someone’s chin and say “ticka ticka ticka ticka.” She is actually quite good at, and it does really tickle. Our favorite is when she does this to Kaelia. It’s pretty cute.

At her 18 month doctor’s appointment, Taelyn weighed 22.7 lbs. She has grown taller since then (about 32 inches), but her weight is actually less than her 15 month check-up as she loses more and more baby fat. And now Taelyn is officially finished with her baby wellness check-ups.

Our internet is pretty shady here, so I am not sure if Taelyn's Smilebox will appear below. If you do not see it, there should at least be a small white rectangular box to click on. Please send me an email if you have any problems viewing it. Enjoy!

Click to play this Smilebox photo album

The Lion Park

We had our first safari experience this past weekend as we ventured over to the Lion Park, only 5 miles away from our house. It was an amazing adventure. First, we drove throughout the fields and found zebras, springbok, blesbok, gemsbok, jackals, and wildebeest. Then we drove past the hyena and cheetah pens on our way to the lion prides.

There were four separate sections of lion pens that we assumed we would just drive by and see the lions from beyond a fence. But when the guards started to open the fence door and motion up through, we soon learned that we were going to have a close encounter with the lions. Quickly, we rolled our windows back up as two very large white lions strolled on by. In the second pen, about five or six lions were congregated at the door of the fence, waiting for our arrival. As we drove in, they completely surrounded our car, brushing along the side as they walked in circles around us. It was amazing.

After driving through the park, we then headed over to the walking section where we saw more jackals along with ostrich and made our way over to the giraffe feeding area. Taelyn was instantly intrigued by the animals. So we bought a bag of food and let her attempt to feed them. She grabbed the food and stuck her hand out, expecting the experience to be similar to feeding a dog. But then the giraffe’s tongue came down, suctioned to her hand, and then slid off, leaving plenty of saliva behind. She thought this was hilarious and yelped out with excitement. After a few tries, she started to anticipate the tongue coming down and sticking to her, so she would through the food toward the giraffe at the last second to try to escape him. She absolutely loved it!

To end the trip, we headed over to the lion cub pen, where we took Taelyn in to pet the lion cubs. At this point, she was a bit tired out from all the excitement over at the giraffe area and wasn’t as interested in the cubs. But Justin and I came in to pet them as well, and we thought they were pretty neat.

Overall, we had a wonderful time on our first safari and are eager to go on larger and longer trips in the near future.

Kaelia - 2 Months

This past month has been quite eventful for Kaelia as we moved from Colorado to Michigan and then on to South Africa. Kaelia had her first plane rides: Denver to Detroit, Flint to Chicago, Chicago to Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), and Abu Dhabi to Johannesburg. She did very well on all of the plane rides, sleeping most of the time.

Kaelia has also been much more alert and awake this month. She likes to be around her family and just watch us interact with her and with each other. She had her first smile this month as I talked to her and asked her to give a big smile for mommy. It is a beautiful, big grin! And she started making cooing sounds this past which she usually does along with a smile. Kaelia also has some stare downs with her sister; they are both quite curious about each other. Kaelia is nursing every 3-4 hours now with one longer stretch at night. She will sleep about 7 hours at night before her first feeding (sometimes more, sometimes less), and then sleeps another 3 hours before she is hungry again and awake for the morning.

I just took Kaelia to her first doctor’s appointment in South Africa for her 2 month checkup. She now weighs 11.7 lbs, is 22.8 inches long, and has a head circumference of 15 inches.

Click to play this Smilebox photo albumDaisypath Anniversary (7MX5)
Lilypie Kids Birthday (7MsF)
Lilypie Kids Birthday (87pc)
PitaPata Dog tickers

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