.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!

.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?!)

.nine months old.

Happy 9 Months Kaiya Girl!!!!

Kaiya has officially been out of my belly longer than she was in my belly.  I do miss those days where she was inside my belly, kicking and squirming at midnight.  Eric and I were just looking at her newborn pictures, too, and her little legs and arms were soooo skinny.  Look at the little chubster now!

We take Kaiya in for her 9 month well baby check-up at Dr. Carolan's tomorrow.  So we'll get a chance to see how much she weighs (I think she weighs around 20 lbs.) and how much she's grown.  It also means she'll probably get a shot or two, poor baby.

At 9 months, here's some things Kaiya can do:

• Crawl, with her belly off of the floor
• Stand while holding on to something
• Feed herself snacks
• Starting to use her pincer grasp
• Plays peek-a-boo..and we think she says 'boo' randomly
• Jabbers and says mama
• Waves bye (sometimes)
• Barks (yeah, she growls AND barks...LOL!)
• Eats 5x a day (more, if you add snacks)
• LOVES bananas (not mashed up like baby food, but straight from the peel)
• LOVES the beach, the pool, and the bath

Anyway, I'll try and update tomorrow on how her well baby check-up goes.  And here she is (don't mind the sour faces, she just woke up from a nap after swimming in the pool)...can you tell she's getting a little tan?  :)

...no more pictures mom...

.eight months old.

Kaiya turned 8 months old on May 14!!!  It's been so fun to watch her grow the past 8 months, we can only imagine what it'll be like to continue to see her grow.  Every night, when she sleeps, we both look at her and can't believe how big she is getting.  You can see more and more of her personality everyday...while some minute she's doing the silliest things, the next she's crying for mommy.  Speaking of crying for mommy...have I mentioned that she's been saying "mamamamam".  Right...I know she's not really saying mama...but when she's crying and looking around for me and saying it, I can imagine she's calling me, right?

Anyway, we spent the morning at the beach since Kaiya LOVES it there.  She loves the sun, the sand, and the sea!  She was all laughs when daddy was helping her "swim".  Looks like someone has to take swimming lessons soon!  Maybe mommy should too!  haha.

Here's Kaiya just waking up from a power nap during the car ride over, which takes about 10-15 minutes.

kaiya+daddy

kaiya+mommy

The tide was really low when we first got there, so we decided to just play on the sand for a while.

Then daddy buried Kaiya in the sand...

...she didn't seem to mind.

And of course, she passed out on the ride home and slept in her carseat for a while after we got home.

When she woke up, she had an early bath and we headed over to Grandma Barbara and Papa Harry's for dinner.  And since we didn't take her sticker pictures yet, we took them over there.  Let me tell you, these pictures are getting harder and harder to take...especially since she's mobile.  So excuse the blurriness, it's because she WON'T. KEEP. STILL.  Happy 8 Month Birthday Baby!!!

.seven months old.

Geez, like the old saying goes...time flies when you're having fun.  Seven months already!!  Didn't we just find out we were expecting?  Didn't I just give birth?  Wasn't Kaiya just a little newborn baby?  Kaiya is growing up so fast and we are definitely loving and cherishing every minute of it!  I'm working on Kaiya's 1st Year photo album (actually, I only have maybe 4 pages done, including the cover...haha)...but I'm so glad that we have all these pictures to be able to look back on year's from now.

So without anymore delay, here are Kaiya's 7 month photos!

By the way, we borrowed the cute flower clip from Aunty Dawn.  We thought it would make the pictures that much cuter.  I think Kaiya knew she looked super cute with the pin on.  Don't you just want to eat her up!