Merry Christmas!

We send our love to all of our family and friends during this holiday season. Merry Christmas, everyone!

"I Pooped!"

After about a year of attempted potty training, Taelyn had her first success on the toilet. Last year, she showed signs that she was ready, but we only had a training seat that went on top of our regular toilet. Taelyn would sit on it for a couple of minutes after she told us that she needed to go "poo poo," but then she would hop off the toilet and go in her diaper a few minutes later. This went on for several months. Then we decided to get her a little potty to sit on; that motivated her to play pretend potty for a little while, but shortly she lost interest in the potty altogether and it seemed as if potty training was done for a while. She even started to scream any time we mentioned going to the potty.

This morning, however, was full of signs that we might be able to attempt the deed again. I was cleaning out one of our closets and found the original training seat that goes on top of the toilet. It has the Disney princesses on it, and Taelyn has just recently started watching Beauty and Beast. So I showed her Belle on the seat. She immediately said she wanted to sit on it and go potty. We ran over to the toilet, set the seat up, and began the waiting process. We read books, drank glasses of water, snuggled up in her blankie, encouraged Kaelia to sit on the little potty, and tried just about anything to get Taelyn to sit on the toilet for a long as possible. Surprisingly, she made it 35 minutes - still no success but the longevity was promising.

About ten minutes after this attempt, I told Taelyn that I needed to go potty before my run, and she said that she wanted to do it too. She still wanted to use the toilet instead of the little potty, so we went in to different bathrooms and said we would race each other to see who could go potty first. To my surprise, Taelyn ran in to my bathroom one minute later screaming, "I did it mommy. I went poo poo!" I wasn't convinced that this was true; I though that maybe she was just excited about the race we were having. But when I went in to her bathr0om, there it was! We hugged and screamed and jumped up and down for a while and then ran to the kitchen to give Taelyn some M&M's as her promised potty reward.

I am so proud of Taelyn! What is surprising is that kids usually go #1 on the potty for a while, and #2 can be a challenge, but Taelyn jumped right ahead to #2. I guess she has known what to do for quite some time, but it just took her a while to decide that she was ready. Now we'll see if it will continue.

Kaelia - 15-18 Months

Kaelia has made leaps and bounds over the last three months literally and figuratively. At 18 months, she is 22.5 lbs., 31 inches tall, and has head circumference of 18.5 inches. She also gained one extra tooth today - the only one she's had since she was 14 months old.

It is amazing how much language Kaelia has developed during the last few months. She has a very high vocabulary for her age (she says well over 40 words) and is now speaking four word sentences. Not only does she understand the names of objects around her, but she can hold an actual conversation about them. She is also quite inquisitive. Some of her favorite questions to ask are: What is that? Oh no what happened? What are you doing? What's wrong Taelyn? Where did Taelyn go? etc. As you can see, Taelyn is the topic of many of her conversations; she absolutely loves her big sister.

Kaelia has quite a few interests as well. Her most favorite activity is playing with her tea set. She loves to place different toys around a doll-sized wooden table and pour everyone some tea. The best part, however, is that she pulls up her own chair to set at the tiny table too. Then once everyone has had some tea, she will let out a big burp to show that she drank too much. Sometimes she can't even get the burp out because she's laughing too hard in anticipation for the burp. Besides tea time and burping, Kaelia also loves playing with puzzles, she has a bit of a shoe fetish, and she is obsessed with baby dolls and teddy bears (or "tebby bay-ah" as she calls it). She goes crazy whenever she sees either of these types of toys - that makes a trip to Toys R Us quite loud with all of her enthusiastic screams.

Another fun activity that Kaelia enjoys is sitting inside her tent and waiting for Hopper (from A Bug's Life) to come a try to get us. She first tells me to "come in to the tent, mama" and then she usually says, "Shhh... Hopper's coming." Eventually, either Taelyn or Justin will attack the tent, pretending to be Hopper, and Kaelia jumps out to try to "get Hopper" back by sitting on him or tickling him. Sometimes when Kaelia gets to "Hopper" she forgets that he is the enemy and will give him a hug or kiss.

Kaelia also LOVES playing with Taelyn. This includes all of the activities mentioned so far in addition to wrestling, swimming in the pool, playing in the sand box, playing at the playground, and just about anything else that the two of them can do together. They are pretty good at sharing and getting along, although the occasional fight does happen.

We have witnessed Kaelia's personality take new shape over the last few months as she gets excited when she is happy and throws tantrums when she is mad. She often screams, jumps, and runs around when she is happy. And she now throws herself on the ground, face screaming in to the floor when she doesn't get her way. Each moment is precious in its own way because she is now more and more an individual than she ever was before.

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Happy Feet 2 in 3-D

Taelyn had a very special day today. Her good buddies Jill and Faze (two of our good friends here that are in their 30's) picked her up and took her to the movies to see Happy Feet 2 in 3-D. The best part, however, was that she wore her penguin costume from Halloween to the show! At the show, Jill and Faze got Taelyn her own popcorn, candy, and slushy to enjoy during the movie to help her feel even more like "queen for a day."

When Taelyn came home, she told us very extensive stories about her trip out and the things that she saw (including something about rain and a dragonfly that we think were a part of the 3-D portion of the movie). We have a feeling that she will be telling us about this day for quite some time.

Christmas Has Begun

It is officially the Christmas season in our house now. We spent some time as a family this weekend putting up the Christmas tree and decorating it, watching Christmas movies, and baking cookies. And the girls have loved every second of it so far!

We started our countdown to Christmas with a velcro hanging of a Christmas tree in which we take a little velcro toy out of a pocket each day to add to the tree. Taelyn enjoys finding the number of the date and adding that toy to the tree. Kaelia is obsessed with the teddy bear toy in pocket #16. She screams for the teddy bear each day, takes it out of the pocket, gives it lots of kisses, and then puts it back in, anxiously waiting for December 16th.

The morning after we put up the tree, Taelyn woke up and went straight to the living room instead of getting me or Justin out of bed. Eventually she came in to our room, brought an ornament to me and said, "momma, I put this on the Christmas tree!" I then followed her to the living room and found a group of ornaments all chunked together on one limb at the very bottom of the tree where Taelyn had been decorating.

Friday Night Fun

Our middle school got together this past Friday for a little holiday party at a restaurant with several outdoor venues on one property. We had a nice time socializing, but the highlight was after the party. We took the girls over to playground area with some friends and hung out while all the kids played. Then our girls crashed the party next door as we were headed back to our car. There was quite a bit of dancing at this party, and the girls couldn't get enough of it. They ran to the middle of the dance floor and both started busting some moves.

Here are some videos to recap the night. The first one is of the girls bouncing in the bouncy castle at the playground, the second is of the girls sliding down the slide, and the last is of the dancing extravaganza. Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

The girls had a great time trick-or-treating this year, and they had some friends join them for the occasion too: Rafi and Arianna.

The night before, we had the girls open Halloween presents to get them into the Halloween spirit. They got some great goodies from both sets of grandparents and a Fancy Nancy sticker book from us. The presents were the perfect start to the excitement that was to come.

On the night of trick-or-treating, Taelyn came dressed as a penguin and sported her infamous waddle throughout the night. Kaelia was a butterfly because "bu-bye" is one of her favorite things to point out these days. In terms to getting candy, Taelyn was a pro after discovering the magic of trick-or-treating last year while Kaelia was completely new to the whole fiasco. Taelyn did a great job at saying "trick-or-treat" and then "thank you" once she got some candy. Kaelia, however, froze up a bit whenever it was time to say something. Despite all of her practice saying "tica tee" in the car, she did not manage to say it at all during the actual event. She did enjoy all of the other kids and decorations, though. In fact, well in to the night we realized that she took a plastic spider from one house to play with. We don't really know where she got it from, so it became a new toy for the play room.

By the end of the night, both girls were thrilled to come home and empty out their new stashes of candy - which did not last long before they ate everything!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Visit from Grandma & Grandpa

We had our first visitors here in South Africa as the girls' Grandma and Grandpa Walker made the long trip to stay with us during our October break. After a couple of days to get over jet lag, we all headed up to Pilanesberg for an African safari game drive. We saw the typical zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, elephants, rhinos, and springboks as well as a couple of rare finds. First, we witnessed some hippos fairly up close (from the car, of course). In the past, we have had to use binoculars to make out a hippo's face, but there was no need to this time. Then later on, we were driving along a deserted road far off the main road of the park when all of a sudden a leopard walked out right in front of us. This is an extremely rare find in the park - something that you may catch once in a lifetime! We ended up driving right behind the leopard for about five minutes. It was pretty awesome to be that close.

Next, we all hopped on a flight to Capetown where we spent a majority of our vacation. We stayed in the city for a few days to see the Aquarium, Boulder's Beach with the penguins, and to enjoy shopping and eating along the Waterfront.

Just up the road about an hour from Capetown is where he headed to next to a small town called Hermanus. Justin and I went there last year as well and knew that Bob and Karen would enjoy it during their visit. We rented a cottage on the beach where we could see whales in the ocean from the front door. One day while in town, we even saw the whales jumping out of the water. They were amazing. Hermanus is also a great destination to visit vineyards, so we went for a couple of drives to enjoy the gorgeous scenary of the winelands and stop in for a wine tasting from time to time.

After Hermanus, Justin and I returned to work while Bob and Karen took their own little trip to the Drakensburg Mountains for some hiking. They left South Africa having experienced three drastically different experiences but that all come together to define the landscape of the country.

We had a wonderful time and are grateful that our visitors came out to see us. The girls especially liked the time with Grandma and Grandpa. The only downside of the trip was that we got robbed in Hermanus, but everyone is okay and doing well.

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Family Movie

We had our first outing to the movie theater as a family a couple of weeks ago. The Lion King 3-D was playing, and we figured it would be a great first movie for Taelyn since she has already seen it and we know she will sit through the movie. But we decided to go at the very last minute and did not have time to get a baby-sitter for Kaelia, so we attempted to bring her to her first movie too!

As soon as we walked in to the entrance way of the theater, the girls ran over to some larger than life chipmunks from Alvin and the Chipmunks as Justin bought the tickets and I waited in line for snacks. Taelyn got her very own kids' snack tray full of popcorn, a Slush Puppy, and some candy. Kaelia and I got a smoothie to share, and we were ready to watch.

Once in the actual theater, the girls were even more excited. We all had 3-D glasses to wear, and Taelyn screamed and reached out the grab the "snow" and other particles during the 3-D previews. Both girls did a great job watching the movie as well. Then Kaelia and I took a little walk outside for a while at about half-way through the movie. Taelyn needed a short break a little later, but then both girls came back in to the theater to finish the movie.

We had such a nice time at our first family movie and are looking forward to the next one. Apparently Happy Feet 2 is coming here in 3-D, so we will have to put that one on our calendar!

Kaelia - 12-15 Months

At Kaelia's 15-month check-up, she measured 21.8 lbs., 29.5 inches tall, and had a head circumference of 17.7 inches. Her little body has been very busy with teeth lately! She got three new teeth in the last few months with more on the way.

Kaelia has also been working on her physical coordination. Now only did she learn to walk at 12.5 months, but she can now "jump" on command by bending her knees to move her body up and down. She especially likes to do this on a trampoline. And she has discovered a new form of dancing where she alternates lifting her feet and legs up and down. She has been pretty proud of herself with this move.

Just within the last couple of weeks, Kaelia's language has really started to take off. She is now saying two word sentences such as "hi mama." We are excited to see where this new development is headed and what words she will pick up next. Kaelia is very verbal for her age with well over 30 words in her spoken vocabulary.

Some of Kaelia's favorite activities over the last three months has been playing with blocks and reading books. She will often go off in to a room by herself to do one of these tasks. She will pull book and book off of her bookshelf and flip through each page. This can actually keep her entertained for quite some time. When we are playing in the kids' playroom, Kaelia will head straight toward her blocks shelves and pull all of the colored shapes off of a rod. Once she has finished, she will then put all of the shapes back on the rod. She goes through this process over and over.

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Conversations from Today

At Breakfast:

Taelyn: Kae-ya, I'm so angry with you. I'm so angry I want to spank your bottom right off!

We have no idea where she got this phrase or idea from.


During Playtime in the Yard:

Justin: No, no Kaelia. Don't throw rocks in the pool.
Taelyn: Just (short for Justin), don't talk like that to Kae-ya. Don't talk like that to big sis. Wait a minute... Kae-ya's itta (little) sis.

It's funny how both conversations show the ups and downs of sisterhood!

Taelyn - 2 1/2 Years

At 2 1/2 years old, Taelyn is now busier than ever. She loves to play - no matter where or what the activity is. The outdoors are always a hit so she can go hiking, swimming, play in a sandbox, climb rocks and trees, and just jump around (a skill that she has officially mastered now without keeping her feet on the ground). Inside, she likes to play in her tent, play with whatever toy is her favorite of the week (Toy Story toys, "dina-suddas" (dinosaurs), Wall-e, and her cars to name a few), make forts out of pillows and furniture, sing and dance to kids' songs, read books, and color and paint. But if anyone were to ask her about what she likes best, she will enthusiastically say that she loves movies. Some of her absolute favorites include Toy Story (any of the three), Shark Tale, Walle, Cars, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., and The Incredibles. She also has discovered the Mickey Mouse Club recently and looks forward to that show quite a bit during the week.

Taelyn's vocabulary and sentence structure has taken off over the last six months. She is incredibly verbal and understands basic reasoning now. This is seen quite often when she applies the lessons that she learns from us to her sister. Any time Kaelia dumps her food on the floor or gets in to the camera drawer, Taelyn is quick and eager to point her finger and say "No, Kae-ya. Don't ever do that again. Now it's time for time-out!" And once we explain that Kaelia is too little to understand time-outs right now, Taelyn will repeat that back to us and say "Kae-ya's too little for time-outs... have time-outs later."

Speaking of time-outs, Taelyn is certainly learning her boundaries these days. She loves to test authority figures to see what she can get away with, while she also lets her excited emotions get the best of her as she performs some sort of act that she knows she shouldn't do. It's a pretty exciting time in her life for us to witness her strong emotions and how she battles with controlling them versus running wild. In the end, though, she is such a sweetheart and wants to be a good girl. She loves to snuggle with us and try to get Kaelia to laugh when she is upset.

Taelyn and Kaelia have been forming a special bond as well. They love to tickle each other and chase one another around the house. Just recently, Taelyn started holding Kaelia's hand while they walk from one room to another.

For the first time in her life, Taelyn is in the 75th percentile in height at 37 inches. Her weight has certainly trimmed down in percentile since she was a baby. Whereas she used to be in the 75th and 80th percentiles, she is now in the 25th-50th percentile at 28 lbs.

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Our New House

At the end of last school year, we decided to move to a bigger, nicer house, and we found the perfect fit for us from a couple that was leaving the school and moving on. So we packed everything up for the 6th time in six years and moved our things over in boxes and bags just before coming back to the US for our summer. Now that we are back in South Africa, we have had a chance to unpack and get settled. Here is a little tour of our place.

Summer on the Other Side of the World

We had a wonderful summer back with friends and family in Michigan as well as the other places that we visited. It was an incredibly busy summer as always, but full of adventure and fun. Here are some of the things we did.

Canada
While staying at our first family cottage in Canada, the girls had a wonderful time at the beach (or "ocean" as Taelyn called it). The weather was a bit chilly, but that did not stop the girls from swimming. Kaelia especially liked playing the sand, and Taelyn enjoyed going in the water and throwing things in to the water.

We also spent some time at a second family cottage where we met up with some of our good friends from Michigan originally but that are now teachers with us in South Africa. We had a lovely time hanging out at the beach in town, grilling, and playing washers.

Cooks Farm Dairy
This was just a small trip up the road for a little ice cream that turned in to quite the traumatic experience for the girls. We started off with a little ice cream; the girls both loved this part. Then we ventured over to the cows to pay them a little visit. Taelyn was eager to pet them right away while they were eating some feed from ground, and the cows seems pretty docile so she had no problem with this. Kaelia, however, was a little more reserved. Once she finally got the nerve to reach out and pet one, the cow lifted his head after a big slurp of feed and licked Kaelia on the face. Not only was she covered in cow saliva, but his feed was now in her mouth! She did not like this part.

Next, we visited the calves, hoping for a gentler experience. Taelyn got to feed them with haw on the ground, so she instantly became someone that the cows liked. But after she ran out of hay, one calf mistook her hair for hay and started munching until his teeth got stuck on her hair clip. It took a great deal of effort to pull the hair out from between his teeth and a lot of screams from Taelyn.

Kaelia's luck was not much better here, either. She was fairly curious about these little cows and walked up to one to say "moo." The calf turned around and put his face directly in front of her face and called out the loudest, deepest moo that we have ever heard. The pure volume of the sound completely took her by surprise, and she was in tears again! So we picked her up to comfort her, and all of a sudden the cow started eating her skirt.

After a few breakdowns, we thought it was time to go, but we had to pass by the original adult cows who were feeding to get back to our car. Taelyn's spirits were rejuvenated once again, and she immediately picked up some hay to feed one of the cows. Apparently the cow saw a large bundle of hay running towards him and was excited too. Similar to her calf experience, the cow attached her head, thinking that her hair was hay, and it knocked her down on the ground. Catastrophe struck once again, but at least the cow did not connect with her hair this time.

The girls left exhausted and with mixed feelings about cows. The general consensus was that we needed to take a break from cows and go back to Africa where we can pet friendly lion cubs instead. They certainly won't try to eat our kids!

Costa Rica
Justin and I also went to Costa Rica for a week this summer. It was quite an adventurous trip and one that we had wanted to take for a few years now. We started our visit in Playa del Coco, the top scuba diving location in the country. It poured with rain the day we were there, but it didn't matter because we spent our time under the water anyway. The sea was full of blow fish (hundreds of them), turtles that actually swam alongside of us, a huge, green eel, and lots of rays (manta and sting).

Next, we traveled on to La Fortuna. Our favorite experience of the entire trip was canyoning here where we repelled down waterfalls in the middle of the rain forest. We also had a great time on a canopy tour, zip lining from tree to tree, and we spent one evening at the best hot springs resort we have ever been to.

We ended our trip with a day of white water rafting just outside of San Jose. The river got up to Class V rapids which made for some thrilling moments. Overall, our trip was eventful and unforgettable!

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Kaelia Walker

Kaelia started to officially walk this past summer, so I thought I would post a video of those early steps. She was about 12.5 months old when she made the big leap to only walking and cutting out the crawling. Here she is in action!

Kaelia's 1st Birthday

Kaelia had a lovely 1st birthday at her Grandma and Grandpa Pepera's house. We started off the day with a BBQ and went right in to presents and birthday cake. Kaelia had no problem trying to unwrap her presents - she enjoyed the wrapping quite a bit actually. Then the birthday cake provided an interesting experience for her. This was her first real "sweet" and she wasn't quite sure what to do with the cake. She ended up taking of layers of the frosting and cake and smooshing it off to the side. But once she had a taste of the cake, she couldn't get enough. She even went back to her smooshed pile and starting eating that part of the cake!

Thank you to everyone who came to the party and to everyone who thought of Kaelia on her special day!

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Kaelia - 1 Year

Kaelia is quite the big girl now at one year! Her vocabulary and communication has increased tremendously. She will often point to something and say a word to tell us what she wants. When she wants to go out of the room, for example, she will point to the door and says "doe" (door). And she will say "ba ba" and point to the kitchen when she wants her bottle. Kaelia also has learned some farm animals. She says "hay" for a horse, "moo" for a cow, and "baa" for a sheep. Body parts are her latest thrill as she learns parts of the face. So far she knows nose, eyes, and mouth, and she attempts to say nose but it sounds more like "doe."

Kaelia has also been very busy this month with teething. She finally got her top teeth - all four of the middle ones in fact! The outside teeth actually came in first, so she had a pretty comical smile without the middle top teeth. And when she closed her jaw, her bottom teeth (the middle two) fit in between her top teeth!

Kaelia's measurements are right on track at the year at 20.5 lbs. in weight,33.6 inches in height, and with a head circumference of 18 inches.

Here are some of the great moments we have captured with our little girl during her first year.

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Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother’s Day this year with my family. We first went out to breakfast at a restaurant filled with playground equipment and a petting zoo. Justin and the girls had a nice time playing while I sat back and relaxed. Then we were off to the mall for a Winnie the Pooh extravaganza. The girls LOVED this part of the day. The Hundred Acre Wood was set up next to the food court where a lady came out and read Pooh Bear stories to the crowd and then Pooh and Tigger came out to meet everyone. Kaelia was intrigued just to see so many other kids and crawled around them all during the performance. Taelyn instantly darted to the front of the crowd to be a part of the action. Then when the lady started reading the stories, Taelyn would not sit down with all of the other kids and insisted on standing right next to the lady so she could see the book too. After quite a bit of bouncing to the Tigger song, Taelyn was ready to meet Pooh and Tigger. She got up on stage with them after the show and gave them each a hug; and she fit in very well while wearing her Eeyore jacket. To finish the fun, Kaelia and Taelyn sat at a table together to color an Eeyore coloring sheet.

The second half of my Mother's Day was quite a change from the first half. The girls stayed behind with our nanny while Justin and I went out with some friends to an And-1 basketball tournament in Soweto. We first hung out at a shebeen (a bar that preserves much of the South African cultural heritage) for a local experience and then headed over to the game. It was a lot of fun, and it brought about some South African culture that I was reminded that I am living in a foreign country as this is so easy to forget in our day-to-day lives.

The day was a perfect mixture of time with family and friends, and I am so fortunate to have wonderful people in my life!

Kaelia - 11 Months

Kaelia is now 11 months and has jumped up quite a bit in her measurements. She weighs 20.3 lbs., is 33.1 inches tall, and has a head circumference of 17.5 inches. This puts her in the 50th percentile for her weight and head measurements and the 95th percentile for her height.

Developmentally, Kaelia has made some physical and mental leaps as well. She has been perfecting her walking and attempts to walk at every chance she can get. She has made it about halfway across a room so far before either falling or choosing to crawl the rest of the way. Each time she takes a step, though, she is so proud of herself. And when she does crawl around the house, it is usually a bear crawl where her legs are straight so that her knees do not touch the ground. This type of crawl is just another indicator that she would rather walk than crawl.

This month has been quite the verbose month too. Kaelia loves to talk and has picked up more words. She will repeat words that we say such as “cat,” “cow,” and “cool,” and she definitely knows the word “dog.” Whenever we see a dog at the playground, she shouts out “dog” followed by “ooooh” (that’s what she says when she gets really excited about something). And Kaelia loves to “read” books with dogs in them. She will often sit alone and flip through her books for a little independent time. But we whenever she comes across a dog in her books, she slaps the page and says “daw” for “dog.”

Another milestone that Kaelia has recently reached is pointing and waving. While we read books to her, she likes to point at items on each page for us to say out loud to her. And when we ask her where something is on the page (like the dog), she will point to it. One day we were reading a book together that had a dog in it, and she first pointed to the dog on the page. Then she looked up at the bookshelf and pointed to another book with a dog on the cover and said “daw.” I really can’t reiterate enough how much our little pumpkin loves dogs! Kaelia also waves any time we say “bye bye” now. She has been waving for several months, but this is the first time it has occurred in context; she used to just wave for fun, but now she waves to say good-bye. Kaelia was playing with my wallet one day and found a picture of Justin in it. She pointed to him and said “da.” Then when I put the wallet a way, I saw “bye bye daddy,” and she waved good-bye to the picture.

Kaelia is such a sweetheart, and it is so fun to see her personality coming out more and more. She loves to be around her family, play outside in the sand box, climb up anything she can, swing and go down the slide at the playground, look at birds (and of course dogs!), wrestle, and give kisses.

Here is a cute little video we took of Kaelia this past month where she tries to put an object on her head.

Happy Easter!

The girls had a very nice Easter celebration this year as we got together with some friends for a potluck brunch, Easter egg decorating, and an Easter egg hunt. We started with the decorating; it’s funny how Taelyn seemed to completely understand what she was doing without having any prior experience of the activity before. She did great. She dropped a few eggs in to different bowls of colors and waited patiently for the dye to set in. She was, however, more eager to eat the hard boiled eggs than she was to color them. The task was a lot more exciting for her when the colored was complete and she got to put stickers on the eggs. While all of this was going on, Kaelia had her first experience with Easter eggs as she tried to figure out what to do with a plastic egg.

After brunch, the egg hunt began. Some of the older girls hid the plastic eggs around the yard for the younger girls to find. This task was not very easy for them, though, because Taelyn wanted to be a part of the action too, so she kept following them around as they hid the eggs. The girls eventually figured out that Taelyn was not trying to peek in on the hiding places and they continued on. During the hunt, both girls had a blast. Kaelia was still very interested in finding out more about the mysterious plastic eggs, so she did more inspecting than finding. She especially liked to pull all of the eggs out of the basket that Taelyn had already found. And Taelyn loved searching for the eggs throughout the yard. She went from place to place while the older girls followed her and carried her basket.

Once we made it home later that day, Taelyn brought back one of her decorated Easter eggs (she insisted on the “eddo” [yellow] one). This egg had to go everywhere with her; she had to hold it in her car seat during the ride home, it had to sit next to her on the couch, and she had to take a nap with it! Then when she woke up from her nap, she couldn’t find the egg and ran to us in a panic. We found it intact under her pillow, and life was good again. We topped off the day by peeling the egg for Taelyn and Kaelia to eat. Taelyn did most of the peeling herself and then enjoyed finally getting to eat her Easter egg. We’re pretty sure this is all she wanted to do the entire day, so she ended the day completely content and happy.

Weekend in Capetown

This past weekend was packed to the brim with events as we traveled over to Capetown for the Two Oceans running extravaganza. Justin ran the Two Oceans 56km - the initial reason for going to Capetown - and we decided to make a mini vacation out of the trip since we had a four-day weekend over Easter.

We started our time in Capetown at Boulders Beach, home to hundreds of penguins. We had no idea what to expect and were just hoping that we would see a penguin. That wish was granted before we could even get out of our car as a penguin was standing in the middle of our parking spot! At this point, we knew we were going to enjoy the experience. As soon as we headed down the walkway to the beach, several penguins shared the sidewalk with us, and Taelyn ran over to them to say hello. Both parties seemed to like one another. Once we got on to the beach, Kaelia walked over to a penguin while Taelyn continued to chase others. We could walk right up to them before they decided to waddle off and take a dip in the ocean. Next we walked along a path, heading towards a second beach. During our walk, penguins were nested everywhere. Both girls were so excited to see them every couple of steps, and Taelyn decided to stop and talk to a couple of them. Just as she knelt down and said "Nice penguin," one of the penguins gave her a little peck on the nose! Taelyn thought is was hilarious and kept telling us that the "penguin eat Taenyn nose!" We actually videotaped this too (see Smilebox below).

At the second beach, we saw even more penguins than before. Kaelia even started dancing by kicking her little legs because she was so excited. Once Taelyn saw this, she started spinning in circles to add to the dance. It was pretty cute. Then Justin tried to teach Taelyn how to waddle like a penguin, but Taelyn had her own way to doing in. She squatted down, tipping back and forth and she yelled "waddle waddle" and then usually fell backwards because she couldn't balance for too long. We then left the beach laughing and with good spirits.

The next day was the kick-off for the Two Oceans races where I hopped in a 5K fun run and Taelyn made her running debut at the 56m Nappy Dash! She had so much fun. First, we put on her number, and she was so interested in it, that she wouldn't take hand off of it - even when she ran. Then hundreds of 1-3 year-olds and their parents lined up 56m before the finish line and took off when the announcer yelled "GO!" Taelyn paced herself until she saw her daddy at the finish line and then took off to get to him. As we walked through the finish shoot, she was awarded with a medal and a track bag filled with goodies. We sat off to the side so Taelyn and Kaelia could open the goody bag and play. Kaelia was so eager to be a part of the race that she eventually made a mad dash of a crawl while another little baby tried to chase her. Kaelia kept looking back to make sure the other baby was still there and then kept darting away. After we got back to our place, the girls played "Run a Race" over and over again for the rest of the weekend where they took turns wearing Taelyn's medal and then crawled around the room, chasing each other. The medal kept getting caught under their legs until the ribbon was so frayed that it ripped right off. A quick tie held it together, though, so the game could go on.

After Justin's race (for his full story, please see his running blog), we ventured over to the Capetown Aquarium where the girls got to see many different kinds of sea life. They got to pet a starfish in the petting pond and crawl in to the middle of the clown fish aquarium so that they were surrounded by little Nemo's everywhere. Taelyn loved anything there that reminded her of Finding Nemo, and Kaelia loved everything that moved!

We ended our trip with a nice scenic drive along the coast where Justin had run a good portion of his race. The area was breath-taking with the combination of tall trees, enormous rock formations, and crashing ocean tides. Capetown is a beautiful city, and we had the perfect family weekend.

Since we were gone over Easter, we did not get a chance to fully celebrate the holiday, so we plan on doing so next weekend. Stay tuned for pics of that event.

This photo album made with Smilebox

Silly Sisters

The girls have had so many great moments together over the past month that I wanted to display a few that we managed to get on camera. They absolutely adore one another - and they fight like sisters will do too.

This free digital scrapbook customized with Smilebox

Taelyn has her own little games that she has been playing with us as well. Sleep & Awake is a huge favorite where she makes us pretend to be asleep and tuck us in bed. After piling on blankets, toys, puzzles, books, and anything else in sight that she wants us to sleep with, she will then close the door and say, "Sweet dreams, I'll see you in the morning." After a little wait time, she will run back in to the room and scream, "Awake!"

Another game that she recently started playing is Happy Birthday. She likes to stack things on top of each other to represent a birthday cake, give it to one of us, and then sing the happy birthday song. Then she will take a toy or book, wrap it up in a blanket, and give us a birthday present. Taelyn has also kept her birthday cards from February and continues to read them and present them during her little birthday party games.

Kaelia - 10 Months

Kaelia is now 19.1 lbs., 29.5 inches tall, and has a head circumference of 17.5 inches at 10 months. A couple of teeth are just moments away from breaking through, and her hair is getting longer and longer. Little curls are even starting to form in the back of her head; it looks like she will end up with a full head of curls!

Aside from her physical appearance, Kaelia's physical development has grown. She has been working toward more and more milestones - especially walking. Kaelia moves around the house quite fast by crawling and cruising furniture. And just at the end of this month, she took her first couple of steps! She has been diving toward us throughout the entire month, and then was finally able to add some steps to it. She was standing up against the coffee table in the living room and wanted to come over to me. Then without any fear, she simply lunged toward me. Her feet scrambled two steps before falling face first in to my lap. Kaelia was so excited and proud of herself and has not stopped attempting to walk ever since.

Kaelia's personality continues to shine as well. She really likes anything interactive and silly, yet she is a great snuggler too. She also likes to read books (especially touch and feel books and anything with baby faces), play peek-a-boo, give-me-five, play in the sand, destroy puzzles and stacked blocks, and she loves to play with her sister. Kaelia is finally at the point where she understands Taelyn's little games like "tickle Kae-ya," pretending to sleep, and wrestling. So now Kaelia will play back. After Taelyn tackles Kaelia to tickle her, Kaelia will flip around, get on top of Taelyn, and smack her in the face to get her back. Or when Taelyn gives Kaelia a hug, Kaelia will sometimes hug back and give her sister a great big slobbery kiss on the face. Taelyn will often ask Kaelia to "fall asleep" so Taelyn can tuck her in and then surprise her by saying "awake!" Now Kaelia will lay down on the pillow patiently while Taelyn puts a blanket and a stuffed animal on top and then scream with excitement when Taelyn yells "awake." It has been such a joy to watch the two girls interact.

The usual babbles are a daily part of Kaelia's day, while she will also repeat sounds that we say when we try to pair a word with an object. If we see a dog, for example, we will tell her that it is a dog over and over again, and then Kaelia will say "duh" for "dog." She does the same for cat too. And during the end of this month, we think she said her first actual word without prompting. Justin usually gets her out of bed in the morning when she wakes up, and she has started to say "da" when she sees him. She does the same when he comes home from work. We are not quite sure if she is just saying the "d" sound or if she is actually saying "dad." She does not say that sound very much during the day when Justin is at work, so it looks like it might be her first word!

Taelyn's First Haircut

After two years, we finally took Taelyn in to get her first haircut. Though we love her crazy curls, they are certainly a crazy mess when she wakes up in the morning, so we needed some help. Taelyn did a fantastic job with this new experience. She got to sit in a little pink car while the stylist cut her hair; she had a great time with this part of the day. Soon after he began, however, the stylist learned that an endless amount of detangling spray would not help him cut her hair, so Taelyn then had to get her hair washed. She found this quite interesting and clung to her daddy for support. Once she got back in to her pink car (and with a little help from Abby and a Kit Kat bar), she settled down much better and sat very still for the stylist. Here are a few pictures to recap the day.




Before Shot







Getting Her Hair Washed







Sitting Nicely for the Stylist







Abby Keeps her Company