.twelve months.

The last sticker.  Bittersweet...she's no longer a baby baby.   She's a walking, talking, crazy one year old.

.kaiya's first birthday.

Little Miss Kaiya turned ONE on September 14.  As a special treat, Papa Dave flew in from New Mexico to celebrate!  Kaiya was treated extra special on her birthday and got to wear a special pink tutu and a funny looking headband that mommy bought for her.  Everyone thought she was the cutest thing with her headband on when we made a quick trip to Costco.

After picking up Papa Dave from the airport, we headed to a special birthday for dinner...at Duke's!  Her first birthday dinner was a kid's chicken strips w/french fries, which she refused to eat, of course.  :)  She did love the dinner rolls and muffins from the Salad Bar, though.  

 And since it was her birthday, our server brought her a Hula Pie!!!  She had a few bites, and loved it....but was nice enough to share her birthday pie with everyone else at the table.

After dinner, Kaiya was surprised with ANOTHER cake at Papa Harry and Grandma Barbara's house.  Mommy and daddy bought her a Chocolate Dream Cake from Kauai Bakery...not knowing that she was going to get a Hula Pie at Duke's.  (Who gives that HUGE piece of Hula Pie to a one year old?...I guess Duke's does.)  The only difference was we let Kaiya demolish the cake and dive in all by herself.  No sharing, it was ALL hers!  At first, she was a little skeptical, but after a minute or so she couldn't stop indulging and it was everywhere.  

And although she won't remember this day, mommy and daddy sure will.  I think it's successful to say that Kaiya had a great first birthday...little did she know that she had a first birthday party coming up later on in the week, too!

.hmmmm.

So I just realized that I haven't updated Kaiya's blog in TWO months! Yikes! I thought I did, but I guess not. The pictures are ready on my computer, though. I guess all I can do now is let you know what you can expect to see.

Kaiya turned the big ONE! She had a great birthday at Salt Pond complete with Hello Kitty theme and Mexican Bar menu. Grandpa Dave and Uncle Dennis (daddy's best man at the wedding) came to Kauai to help celebrate and we had a fabulous time.

We also went on a family trip to California and visited THE Happiest Place on Earth, not one but two days! Grandma Barbara and Papa Harry, Aunty Dawn and Uncle Wes, Kaytin and Caleb, and Grandma Barb were ALL there. We got to see a lot of family while we were there too! Sooo much fun, and a definite must do again. Did I mention that Kaytin had no idea we were going in a trip until we left for the airport...and didn't know about Disneyland until the bus ride over. That was quite the secret to keep from her. Luckily she can't quite read big words yet cause Disneyland was plastered all over the hotel! Haha.

Kaiya got to go trick or treating for the first time. Last year she was only a few weeks old and was asleep by the time we got to Uncle Matt and Aunty Shannon's...which is right up the driveway. But she looked amazingly cute in her costume that mommy put together at the last minute. More on that later.

I'm sure there's a lot more happenings that went on but since I don't have the computer handy or the camera to see what pictures are on there, this update will have to do for now. You can also look forward to the beginning of Kaiya's (and mommy and daddy's) adventures in potty training! Ahhhhhhh!!! Wish us all luck, but since the munchkin is constantly saying 'doo doo' 'doo doo' 'doo doo'...we thought we'd take an attempt. Alright...until the next update...with pics, I promise...have a fabulous day!

.she's almost one.

I can't believe Kaiya is turning ONE in a few hours.  Well, technically not until a little after noon tomorrow, but that doesn't matter.  I can't believe that at this time last year Eric and I were in the hospital...anxiously awaiting Kaiya's arrival, although we still had a few more hours until we would finally meet her.  I remember it like it was yesterday, and I hope I always remember it like that.  It seems as you get older, the years fly by, but with Kaiya time goes by extremely fast.  Too fast.  Before we knew it, Kaiya went from a newborn that would just lay there and sleep, to holding her head up and rolling over, to crawling and saying her first words, to starting to eat "real" food...and now she's talking our ears off, dancing, laughing and walking all over the place.  Life couldn't be any better at this moment.  We're looking forward to the years ahead of us with Kaiya...and hopefully brothers or sisters...but not anytime soon.  We're pretty content with Little Miss Kaiya right now....she makes everyday fabulous.

Happy Birthday Yaya!!

.just dance.

She's been doing this for a couple months now, if you tell Kaiya to dance...she sways back and forth.  She'll do it either when you tell her, or if she hears music.  This has got to be the best video, so far, we've gotten of her dancing.  She loves her music and dancing....

.kaiya loves her robe.

Aunt Judy sent Kaiya a cute little robe that she couldn't wait to get her cheerio infested hands on.

.how cute is she.

.she rolled around with it. took it for a crawl.  took it for a walk. tackled it. and tried to rip it's tag off.

.it's babu.

I think I've mentioned before that we got Kaiya a baby doll, and she likes to refer to it as "babu".  So we've all started calling her "babu".  She LOVES the thing.  She gives it kisses all the time and she knows to look for it when we ask her "Where's Babu?"  All I know is, I always said that I was going to get the minimum amount of toys possible, if any (mean, I know)...and here we are with an obscene amount of toys for a little girl that is just about to turn one.

THE Babu.

kisses for babu. playing with babu.

.kauai county farm bureau fair.

Kaiya had her first Kauai County Farm Bureau Fair experience this year.  Mommy remembers how ridiculously hot it was last year, walking around with the entire population of Kauai, with a 6 lb.+ baby in her belly, about to give birth in about 2 weeks.  Haha.  Anyway, she seems to have enjoyed her first time.  We all walked over from Grandma and Papa's house, since they live right down the street, so it was about a 5 minute walk over.  Not too bad at all.

preparing for the walk over...kaiya, caleb, and kaytin hanging out while everyone else eats

After getting some dinner, flying saucers to-go for daddy and a poke bowl for mommy, we went and looked around at the booths.  Then we got to go to see the animals.  Kaiya enjoyed the cows...and one of the cows seemed a little freaked out at the big black thing with an animal in it staring at it (Kaiya in her BOB stroller).  Haha!  We then got to watch some little piggies race.  It was pretty funny.

the animals...not the ones in the strollers.  :)

go piggies go!

Then, it was off to play some of the games.  Papa Harry won Kaytin a stuffed animal from the dime coin toss game (you have to get the dime to land on a small circle), but we still had two more prizes that had to be won for Yasu and Kaiya.  So, Aunty Dawn went over to a wiffle ball toss, but was unsuccessfull (as was mommy), but luckily Papa Harry came and got it so he won Yasu an animal.  Then, we headed back over to the dime toss game and within a few seconds, Aunty Dawn won and we got this awesome stuffed animal called Domo!  He pretty much looks like a scary looking, poop colored...thing.

the games.  the prizes.  the snack monster. and silly yasu.

On the walk back home, Kaiya fell asleep, of course.  All in all, it was a great time at the fair this year.

.guess who's baaaack and happy eleven months.

OK, our apologies for the past month and so many days.  No new pictures or updates.  Soooo...lots of things happened in the past month.  Kaiya turned ELEVEN months!!!  She's going to be the big 0-1 in 3 weeks!!!  Excuse me?  Not only that, but she's determined to walk before her first birthday.  She takes a bunch of steps here and there, but she still ends with a fall.  This girl is one tough cookie...she can fall, get right up and charge at it again.  She has absolutely no fear and thinks it's funny when she falls sometimes.  This could be partly because whenever she falls we laugh at her, so she doesn't get scared....we figured this out early on.  If we made a shocked expression or something whenever she would fall, she would get startled and cry.  So now, if she cries when she falls, we know that it hurt a little (or a lot, I guess).

So besides walking, Kaiya has been getting into all sorts of mischief.  We bought her some Color Wonder coloring books, which she would rather suck on the markers instead of scribble on paper.  She also finally accomplished her goal of stealing a sip of apple juice from Caleb's sippy cup.  She got a new big girl carseat, but still can't face forward until she turns 1.  And Kaytin let her borrow her baby doll to suck on her feet.  haha.  We eventually gave in and bought Kaiya her own babydoll, which she likes to refer to as "Babu".  I'll try and take a picture of them together and post soon.

Kaiya likes to wake up pretty early, and mommy has found a way to catch a little more zzz's.  Every night before bed, I put out a snack cup of Cheerios and her sippy cup with water.  And every morning, without fail, Kaiya wakes up and goes straight to her Cheerios and water.  I'm not sure if this I'm starting a bad habit, or what, but she seems to be a happy baby and she LOVES Cheerios, and she still eats her breakfast, lunch, dinner and multiple snacks in between.  So I've come to the conclusion that it's fine.  :)  This is Kaiya with her sippy cup, it's a Tilty Cup and is supposed to help her transition into a regular cup quicker.  Lately, she's figured out that she can drink without holding onto the cup.  She is SILLY!!

Speaking of silly...these were taken within the span of a couple minutes.  This is how it is everyday.  She makes faces at everyone.  Even to herself when she's looking in the mirror.  She makes faces to people in the store, which in turn they'll tell her Hi.  She has more friends than mommy, I think.  :)

And finally...she turned eleven months.  And in preparation for her big First Birthday Party, we took some photos to include on her invitation.  Here's some of the shots we got of her.

And of course, with her 11 month sticker on...

Things that Kaiya does at 11 months:

• Walks (she's getting better and better, she walked across half the living room the other day)
• Talks (no is definitely her favorite word, but she also says..in her own way...mama/mommy, dada, papa, thank you, hi, bye, baby, kaytin, wow, and boo)
• Gives kisses...lots of them
• Claps...at everything
• Dances...whenever she hears music
• Signs "please"
• Eats all kinds of food, but her favorites are Gogurt, bananas, rice, string cheese, Cheerios, Veggie Sticks, Blueberries, and waffles...and frozen yogurt
• Is cutting FOUR more teeth (two on top, two on bottom)
• Blows bubbles in the pool, and tries to dunk her face
• Recognizes items/people by name
• and much much more.....

I will try to do a better job at uploading pictures and videos.  I know I've said this before, but I get distracted.  I have some videos on my phone, so that will most likely be my next post.  However, everytime I try to catch her walking, she decides to crawl.  Go figure.

.ten months old.

Isn't she cute?  Her little leg is up because the grass was poking her!  

Kaiya turned 10 months old on July 14!  She continues to amaze us every day.  She can now say a handful of words (mama, dada, papa, no, hala, uh oh, pau, boo...she may not know what all of the words really mean, but she sure says them at the right time sometimes!).  She also can give a surprised face, clap, give  high five and smooth, pull herself up onto things and cruise/walk, stand on her own for a few seconds, climb and get into things she's not supposed to, and eat all kinds of foods (she loves rice, cheerios, goldfish, nutri grain bars, mum mums, snacks in general...and has tried adobo, ice cream, frozen yogurt, chocolate...and of course she loves it all).

I don't know if I've mentioned it before or not, but Kaiya's front two top teeth came in a few weeks ago.  I think they're still making their way down, but when she smiles you can just start to see them.  So she has four teeth total, and I think the next two are coming in on the bottom.  But...that could take weeks...let's hope not cause she's been fussy at night.  We're not sure if it's because her teeth or if she's once again gassy.  I swear, she burps and farts like it's the thing to do!

Those are flea bites on her face.  :(

Oh, and one of the things she's been doing most recently is something we've been trying to teach her for months.  How to say please...in sign language.  (Or maybe it's not sign language, but it's how Kaytin used to say please.)  I don't even know how to describe it.  But she does it!  Yay Kaiya!

Anyway, here are a few more photos from her 10 month photo shoot.  Enjoy!

starting with the upper left, clockwise:  standing with help from aunty dawn, clapping, surprised face with her favorite toy - the remote control, clapping more, reaching for the camera, waving hi

standing unassisted

.look who's turning 10 months on july 14.

So everywhere else in the world it's already July 14, but here in Hawaii it's still the 13th.  Soooo...in preparation for Kaiya's 10 month birthday pictures, check out this bad boy.  Mommy finally figured out how to make collages so you don't have to scroll through millions of pictures!!  Woo hoo!

TEN months?!?  Ahhhh...that's only 2 months until Little Miss Kaiya turns ONE!!!

Check back to see Kaiya's 10 month photo shoot!  (p.s. Sorry some of the pics are blurry!  And, do you like Kaiya's vintage-y new background?!)

vote for kaiya!!

Parents.com is having a photo contest on funny faces.  And...since we had a lot of funny face Tuesday photos (which, I'm sorry has not been brought back into effect)...we decided to enter a picture of Kaiya.  Of course, she's nowhere near #1, and I don't expect her to win...but if anything, click on the link and the picture will surely bring a smile to your face.

VOTE FOR KAIYA!!

.kaiya talks.

Lately, Kaiya has been repeating words back to us!!  It's pretty exciting.  She's been saying "mama" and "dada" for a while now...and of course, once the camera is on her she goes silent.  But this morning I caught her on camera saying her new words..."hi" and "bye" (sometimes she waves at the same time) and "uh-oh".  It may not sound like she's saying the words, but I promise you...she is.  She's also been saying "papa" but we haven't caught that on camera yet.  Out of all the words...we thinks she loves "uh oh" the best.  Oh, and she also says "boo"...as in peek-a-boo.

.3rd of july.

Daddy's regular days off have been Friday and Saturday, which is good because then mommy and daddy can spend a full day together.  This past weekend was 4th of July weekend.  We knew that Aunty Dawn and Uncle Wes were going to take Kaytin and Yasu to Kekaha beach where the Taba's and Burkman's were camping out.  So we planned to venture on down there, especially since Kaiya loves the beach.  Although it's pretty rough over there, we came prepared and brought along a Rubbermaid container that we borrowed from Aunty Ruthie.  Kaytin calls them the 'fairy ponds' because Aunty Ruthie mentioned to her that the fairies come at night and take a bath in them.  Hahahah!!!

We got there a little after lunch.  It was sunny off and on, with a little sprinkle here and there.  But overall, it was a fantastic day to spend the 3rd of July.  Daddy even got to fish a little.  And Kaiya even let Aunty Shannon put her to sleep.  And when she woke up, she had a banana snack, some rice, apple sauce, and who knows what else.  This girl can EAT!  Apparently, next time we're going to camp.  I think it sounds fun...I haven't camped since college...and even then, we slept in the car.  And when we used to go 'camping' in high school, we never set up tents we just slept on the beach.  The Taba's go all out...so I think I can handle it.

And I apologize, this is going to be long because there's lots of photos.  I need to learn how to make collages...