Eye Thing 2.0

After talking to Grandma and Grandpa Walker over the weekend, Kaelia has added a little addition to her eye thing.  Grandpa Walker showed her that he can do the eye thing just like Kaelia and Daddy can, and then he showed her a "tongue thing."  Instantly, Kaelia started doing that trick.   (Justin can actually do this too, so obviously Kaelia has inherited some party trick Walker genes here.)  Then Kaelia told me that she wanted to do the eye thing and tongue thing at the same time.  Here is what is looks like.

Equally funny is Taelyn's attempt to do these tricks (she apparently inherited my genes here).  When she tries to do the eye thing, she opens her eyes as wide as she can and says, "Am I doing it?"  And now for the tongue thing, she just sticks her tongue out and asks if it is correct.  Once she realizes she can't do these tricks, she does a simple tongue fold that everyone can do and says, "Mom and I can do this trick!"

Taelyn's Birthday Weekend

This year was the first year that Taelyn has really gotten in to the concept of birthday.  And with that excitement and enthusiasm also came plenty of drama.  We went from planning a pretty big party at our home where Taelyn was eager to invites all her friends to a small play date at our house - all in reaction to Taelyn's potential of getting out of control.  There was a bit of girl drama going on in her pre-K class where there were some "mean girl" incidents, so in the end, we decided to cancel the big birthday party altogether and have a small "play date" party at our house.  Then we had Taelyn (and the whole family) volunteer at an animal rescue center to bring the focus off of the "me, me me" mentality and start thinking about others.  Once we made this decision, we were pleased to here Taelyn talk more about helping puppies throughout the week than about the "I want's" of her birthday.

To start the birthday celebration, Taelyn had a little party in her class on Thursday.  She picked out her 5 favorite class songs/skits and re-enacted all of them with her classmates for Justin and I.  Our favorite was one where she was a princess locked in a tower, and a prince came in to rescue her.  Then Ms. Cate presented a wonderful gift to Taelyn from the entire class.  Each person drew her a picture of all of the things that she likes.  It included rainbows, flowers, butterflies, unicorns, and roller coasters!  Next, the class sang Happy Birthday to Taelyn, and she attempted to make a wish and blow out the candles.  Unforunately, the candles I bought were apparently trick candles (the box said nothing on it but "candles").  She tried and tried to blow them out, but they kept sparking and lighting up again.  It was pretty cute to watch her try, though!  Finally, Taelyn invited the class to come and have cakes at their seats.  I made Sleeping Beauty cupcakes inside ice cream cones and brought them in for the class to enjoy.  Everyone was really quiet when eating, so they must have enjoyed the cake!

On Saturday, Taelyn had her play date party with Arianna and Dale.  We rented a blow-up slip-n-slide and add bubble bath for the kids to splash and play.  At first, Kaelia and Arianna were not excited about the bubbles and got upset any time bubbles stuck to their skin.  But they got over it and eventually had a great time.  All four kids ended up sliding as close together as possible to try to collide in to one another and get lost in the bubbles.  After some water fun, we brought out the birthday cake (Sleeping Beauty), and Taelyn opened presents.  She got some fish for diving in the pool from Arianna, an arts and crafts kit from Dale, Monster Surgery game (like Operation) from Kaelia, and her first Lego kit from us.  She loved all of her presents!  Then the kids split up and played in pairs for a while - Kaelia and Ari with the dollhouse, and Taelyn and Dale on the iPad before spending more time on the slip-n-slide.  It was a very nice afternoon and, more importantly, drama free.

We finished the birthday weekend on Sunday where we all went to an animal rescue center to volunteer.  We gave lots of puppies a bath and took a few older dogs for a walk.  The girls enjoyed getting in the bath tub with the puppies.  They also insisted on walking the dogs without any help.  Taelyn did a great job with this, despite some tricky times when her dog, Casanova, didn't want to move.  Kaelia also did well and even started running with her dog, Crumpet, until she started to take off with Kaelia.  She eventually had to let go of the leash before toppling over.

The birthday celebrations were perfect for Taelyn, and we are so proud of how much she has learned about being nice to others and not just thinking about herself.  At one point during the party planning and lesson learning, Taelyn even told me: "Mom, Miley Cyrus makes bad choices, just like I made bad choices, just like some of Daddy's students make bad choices."  It was great to see her make connections and reflect on her own behavior!

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Taelyn - 5 Years Old

For most of Taelyn's life, I have thought of her as a "big kid."  It isn't now when I look back at all of her pictures from the last five years that I realize that she wasn't so big after all.  At five years-old, though, she seems as if she is going on 15!  Her thought processing and conversation abilities have definitely reached a new level, and she is learning more and more each day.  Most of the times, this brings a wonderful, educated, independent little girl.  At other times, she is stubborn, defiant, and tells us exactly why she doesn't like what we have asked her to do.  I guess all of this is normal of a 5 year-old (and a teenager).

Taelyn is pretty passionate about a few things that she loves to do each day.  Swimming is at the top of her list, and she is getting pretty good at it.  Not only will she swim across a pool, but she now jumps in, goes under water to collect rings and toys, does somersaults, and attempts to do a hand stand.  Our favorite is her cannon ball.  She screams, "Cannon ball!" and takes a big leap in to the pool, splashing everyone around her.  Another hobby is coloring, drawing, writing, and pretty much anything related to arts and crafts.  She often makes little cards and writes our names on them and phrases such as "I love you."  At school, she is learning how to listen to the sounds of letters and writing down what she hears, so "I love you" will often be written as "I L U."  It is so exciting to see her early literacy skills!  Here is the Valentine's card that she made for us, completely on her own, as a surprise.  The cover is a drawing of Justin and I; it says "Happy Valentine's" in the best way that she can sound of the letters at the beginning of the words.

Along with writing, Taelyn is also starting the early stages of reading.  She sounds out the sounds within words and tries to read them.  Sometimes this takes quite a bit of coaching, but she can read a few words.  The first word she ever read completely on her own was "Buzz" from a Toystory bath time book that we have.  Taelyn can also count to 100 as long as we help her with all of the intros of each set of 10; once we say 40, she can count 41, 42, 43, etc. all the way up to 50 until we give her that number, and then up to 60, and so on.  Additional activities that Taelyn likes to do is play board games, Wii, the iPad, and just about any other type of game imaginable.

Taelyn has also taken quite the interest in her friends.  She has at least one play date each week where she rides the bus home from school with a friend and we pick her up when we are done with work.  Her most consistent play date is with Dale.  She goes to his house every Wednesday and will occasionally also go to Madison and Fiona's house (her two best friends at school) for additional play dates.

We would still describe Taelyn as a bit of an actress as well.  She loves to put on little performances, re-enact movies or TV shows, and show us dramatic facial expressions.  Lately, she has mastered the bat-my-eyes-and-look-sweet-and-innocent face.  This usually comes when she wants something and is trying to persuade me to say yes.

Here is a recap of pictures from the last year.  Taelyn picked out her favorite song by Pink for the music.  Enjoy!

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Our Last Ukutula Trip

Yesterday we drove out to one of our favorite places in South Africa: Ukutula.  This is where we can sit down with lion cubs and play with them for a while.  We all love seeing the cubs, and it is something that we will really miss when we leave South Africa.

At Ukutula, we sit on a blanket in the grass while the park guides bring cubs over to our laps and continue to do so as cubs wander off.  It was great to see the girls with cubs crawling all over them and to see their reactions.  Kaelia kept commenting on how they "are so cute!" and Taelyn tried to drag her cubs around like she does with Meeka.  Needless to say, both girls came away with a few scratches on their legs and arms.

Here are some of the pictures and videos from the experience.