Kaiya's Christmas Tree

Kaiya and I decorated a small Christmas tree for her room a few days ago. It turned out pretty well, and here are some pictures from our first official mother daughter activity:

Kaiya helped by chewing on the ornaments, just to make sure they were "good" enough for the tree
The cat wanted to help too.
This is a great photo. I thought I had put Kai far enough from the tree so that she couldn't reach it, and right when I turned around to take the picture she was grabbing for it. So if you can imagine me yelling "Kaiya, NO!" right as the picture was taken you'll enjoy it a lot more. The one below is equally good, as Kaiya crawls toward the tree with a mischievous look on her face...

The finished product!

Thanksgiving

We were so excited for Thanksgiving this year. We celebrated it last year, but since we were in Japan we weren't able to do a real traditional one. So this year we were especially excited to have turkey, pies, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, and of course, family. The only problem was that I got sick the night before Thanksgiving, and felt terrible all day Thursday. So instead of thoroughly enjoying our day, I was tired, had a stuffy nose and a headache, and worst of all, I couldn't taste anything! But I was happy to celebrate the day nonetheless. I guess now we have next Thanksgiving to look forward to.

We spent the day with Patrick's uncle's family, and Kaiya had fun playing with Maddie, Patrick's cousin Amber's little girl. Patrick hadn't spent Thanksgiving with his family in eight years, since he was on his mission, then in Hawaii, and last year in Japan again, so it was nice for him to be able to spend the holiday with everyone. All in all it was a good day, and if I hadn't been sick it would have been a great day. But I was able to enjoy the leftovers in the following days, so I guess I can't feel too sorry for myself. We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving too!

She's Almost There

She can almost do it! This is Kaiya's first attempts at crawling. She can get up to her hands and knees from sitting and sort of rocks back and forth, but still isn't sure what to do next. But she's improving every day and is really excited about her new ability. Although I know it will make my life so much harder, I can't help but be excited that she's almost crawling!

Kaiya Loves This

Her new favorite thing to do with her dad...

Bedhead

A New Friend

Kaiya has recently discovered the cat. The cat doesn't seem to really care for her, but on this particular occasion, Kitty was more than happy to let Kai pet her. Kaiya was just playing in her jumper when the cat started rubbing on her, you know how cats do that to everything. So Kai started to pet her and the cat loved it. And she was surprisingly gentle. Kitty usually tries to bite her if Kai touches her, so I was close by ready to intervene and thought that I might as well take a few pictures (when don't I think that these days?). We were all enjoying this moment, however the photo session ended abruptly when Kaiya discovered the cat's tail and thought it might be tasty. She grabbed it and had it headed straight towards her mouth. Luckily I was able to drop my camera and stop her before she ended up with a hairball of her own.

Pigtails

Lately Kai has been wearing pigtails in her hair because if we leave it down it gets in her eyes. It's so cute! It's a little bit difficult to get them in each day, but totally worth the effort. Adorable!

Splish Splash

I know that Kaiya is going to be very mad at me in a few years when she finds out i put pictures of her in the bathtub on our blog for everyone to see, but for now she doesn't know and they are so cute I just had too. Sorry Kaiya.

Here is a funny video of Kaiya in the bath. She has recently discoverd splashing, and needless to say I tend to get very wet during bathtime lately.

The Mad Face

This is Kaiya's newest trick. She likes to make this face to intimidate the dogs. We think it's pretty funny, but then again it might be one of those things that is only funny to the parents... either way, here it is.

Just Because She's Cute

Here are a few more pictures of our little Tinkerbell.

Halloween

For Halloween we dressed Kaiya up as Tinkerbell, and I have to say that she was probably the cutest Tinkerbell ever! Patrick and I decided to match her and he was Captain Hook and I was Peter Pan. We dressed up for the Trunk or Treat ward party last weekend and then again for Trick or Treat last night. I was really excited to have Trick or Treaters because we've not had them before. And I wasn't disappointed. We had so many cute little clowns and Darth Vaders and witches and so many more. Kaiya decided that she was tired and cranky soon after they started coming, so she and I didn't get to see all of them, but we had a lot of fun and are excited for next Halloween too. We've already decided that Kaiya should be Pebbles from the Flinstones. We think she'll be so cute!