Christmas in South Africa

To prepare for Christmas this year, the girls learned all about Santa Claus and St. Nicholas. We watched Christmas movies everyday (their absolute favorite was Mickey Mouse's Once Upon a Christmas) and visited Santa at various places. When we saw him at the mall, Taelyn was pretty shy and didn't want to sit on his lap, but she couldn't stop talking about him. Then we saw him again at the Bird Sanctuary, and Taelyn ran over to him for a hug and a picture. Kaelia was not so excited about the visit, though. She cried when we got close to him, and that was the end of her encounter.

We also had a couple of activities to help bring the Christmas mood. I took the girls to the mall for a few days to complete Christmas activities. On one day, Taelyn had to spin a wheel to try to earn a special prize. Her spin landed on a space that required her to answer a Christmas question: What color is a Christmas tree? Taelyn smiled and said "green" and was then given some Christmas cookies (which she gladly shared with her sister). We also received special emails for each of the girls from Santa himself. The emails included pictures of the girls and details about whether they have been naughty or nice this year. The girls loved the emails and watched them over and over again. You can also view these emails at the websites below.

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/mrU_1o10UgVY_D9z-n8bBng
http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/mH2ZkVLuytRaM1-NxXuaDrw

Since we were in Tanzania over Christmas, we celebrated the day when we got back. Our Christmas day was actually on New Years Eve. The night before, we wrote a letter to Santa and left cookies for him and carrots for the reindeer. Then Justin read Twas the Night Before Christmas to the girls, and they were off to bed.

Both girls woke up around the same time the next morning, so we all waited in mommy and daddy's bedroom while Justin put in Mannheim Steamroller's "Deck the Halls" to let us know that it was time to start Christmas. Even though the girls don't remember this song from last Christmas, they had no trouble figuring out that the song meant Santa had come to our house. As soon as they heard it, they ran down the hall (Kaelia actually screamed!) and headed straight for the Christmas tree.

We started with stockings and then moved on to the rest of the presents. Santa was so generous that he even brought presents from Grandma and Grandpa Walker and Pepera out to our house in South Africa! Taelyn had the same response after opening each gift: "that's pretty cool!" while Kaelia screamed in excitement as she opened up most of her presents (there was a lot of screaming from her that morning). They were very happy to see all of their new presents. Some of the highlights were:
1. Taelyn got Kaelia and teddy bear, and Kaelia got Taelyn a pirate dress-up outfit.
2. Grandma and Grandpa Pepera gave the girls some play food and a table and chairs.
3. Grandma and Grandpa Walker gave the girls a play kitchen.
4. Santa brought Kaelia a baby doll and Taelyn Lightning McQueen Mater cars.
5. We got Taelyn a doctor's dress-up set and Kaelia a stroller for her baby doll.
6. Santa also brought both girls a new tent.

The girls have been playing in their playroom non-stop since Christmas. We had to rearrange and decorate it all over again to make room for all their new toys. It has now been almost a week since Christmas and Taelyn is still saying "That was so nice of Santa and Grandma and Grandpa!" at least once a day.

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Trip to Tanzania

We spent Christmas in Tanzania this year. Justin got his Christmas present by leaving a few days early to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. After five days of climbing the mountain and reaching the "Top of Africa," he made it back safely and met the girls and I at the airport for our arrival to Tanzania.

To begin our family trip, we had a private driver take us on a couple of safari game drives in a safari jeep where the roof lifts up for better viewing. During the first day, we were greeted with lots of baboons who were not shy around us at all - which also put us a bit on alert to make sure they weren't too aggressive around the kids as we walked around the front entrance, waiting for our driver to get our tickets to enter in to the park. Then we hopped back in to the car and began the drive. Many of the animals that we saw are also in South Africa, but they were slightly different. The giraffe, for example, had spots that were shaped more like X's than squares, and the zebras were more brown and had vertical stripes down their noses. We also saw water buffalo which we have never seen in South Africa.

During this drive, the girls were particularly excited about the zebra. We put them both on the roof top so they could get a better view; they could have stayed there all day! And for the rest of the drive, they had their eyes glued to the window, looking for more zebra. Kaelia even pointed from time to time, saying "zebra," hoping to see some.

The next day, the driver took us to the Ngorongoro Crater for another game drive. Again, we met some baboons while we waited for our driver to purchase our tickets. We all got out of the car and made the mistake of leaving the window halfway down. Instantly, a big baboon jumped in to the jeep and went straight to our lunch basket. Another driver ran over and banged on the window to shoo him out. He jumped out, but then started to charge Justin with Taelyn on his back. Justin jumped back and yelled at him, so he went over to me and Kaelia and swiped at my legs. Unfortunately, I was wearing short shorts and he scraped me a bit just behind my knee. He didn't break enough skin to do any damage, but it was definitely an adrenaline rush for a while.

It then took a couple of hours to get down to the crater, but once there, we immediately saw that this game drive would be unlike any other we have ever been on. The crater was one big open space, so instead of having to drive around little trails for hours trying to find various animals, they were all they together. To add to the list of animals that we had never seen prior to this trip, we saw a black rhino, hundreds of flamingos, and a cheetah up close! The cheetah was an awesome find; it was laying in the brush just a few meters from the side of the dirt road and then stood up for a minute just in time for the perfect picture. The other highlight happened just a little while later when we saw two lions hunting down some zebras. As lions got closer, the zebras packed up and started pawing their hooves. Apparently the lions were intimidated by the amount of zebras all bunched up together, so at the last minutes, the two breeds walked on by each other. It was incredible to see!

After the two days of safaris, we took a flight out to Zanzibar Island where we spent the rest of our vacation on a beautiful white sand beach. The girls LOVED the beach, and they loved swimming with us. We all went swimming every day and often several times a day. Both girls developed their early swimming skills fairly well between the ocean and the pools at our hotels from the game drives. Taelyn is often hesitant about going under water, but Justin got her to practice being a hippo by blowing bubbles as she put her head under water. She also scaled an entire circumference of a pool by hanging on to the side and moving all around the pool. Kaelia showed a fearless joy of the water too. She liked to jump in to the pool/ocean, waiting for one of us to catch her. Many times, she jumped in without waiting for us and went right under water. She was a champ! She held her breath under water and immediately picked herself up with a smile. She absolutely loved going under water and playing with us. Both girls also enjoyed running into and away from the waves in the ocean.

Aside from swimming, the girls also enjoyed scoping out the beach for seashells and creatures. Taelyn started collecting seashells the first day on the beach as a present to bring home to her nanny, Niki. She also kept a few for herself - especially those that reminded her of an ice cream cone. One of her ice cream cones, however, gave us all quite a surprise. After Taelyn had been playing with it for about 20 minutes, she handed it over to me and something all of sudden poked out of it. Taelyn's ice cream cone ended up being a tiny hermit crab! We also encountered several dead sea crabs on the beach that intrigued both of the girls. Taelyn enjoyed picking up "Sebastian" (from the Little Mermaid) to play with him while Kaelia was a little more reserved. She touched him from time to time, but any time we tried to get her to hold him, she threw him away.

By the end of the trip, we all felt relaxed and satisfied while the girls were a bit homesick. Taelyn started talking about how she missed her cat (a large stuffed animal that sits on her bed) and eventually got upset any time she saw something that reminded her of a cat. By the last day, she even cried when she saw a cat on Kaelia's diaper! What's funny, though, is that once we made it home, she told us that she missed the ocean.

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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.