.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...

.what happens when kaiya doesn't nap.

Most days Kaiya naps really well...one 2-hour nap and one 1-hour nap.  Sometimes she even throws in a 45-min nap...and cat naps in the car.  However, there are those days where she refuses to take one of the naps.  She'll usually sleep early on those days...or sometimes she'll stay up later because she's so tired.  Well, today was one of those days where she didn't take her long 2-hour nap.  I could tell she was tired, because she would try and sleep when I rocked her...but for some reason she fought it, and she wanted to play with Caleb.  Since I knew I probably wanted to put her down for the night a little earlier, I decided to try and give her dinner at 5, instead of the usual 5:45-6, so that I could start her bedtime routine a little earlier as well.  Weeeelllll...Little Miss Kaiya decided she was too tired to even finish dinner, resulting in....

She kept trying to doze off mid-bite...and I knew she was going to fall asleep in her chair.  So I tried to get in as many bites as possible.  Isn't she too cute!!  And on another note, I cut up an avocado to use on my sandwich so I decided to cut up some little pieces for Kaiya to try and feed herself.  She's had avocado pureed before so I figured why not?  She didn't love it...but she did eat a few pieces.  

And earlier in the day, I was trying to play around with the different options on the Hipstamatic app again and I caught one of her trying to stand...again.  She LOVES to try and stand up...she's only doing it for a couple seconds at a time, but she's trying more and more.  Sometimes she falls on her butt and laughs, sometimes she falls all the way down into a laying position...and laughs.  But look at her chubby little legs!

.kaiya's new thing.

Since Kaiya has started crawling like a maniac, her new thing is trying to climb stairs!!!  What?!?  She's constantly trying to climb the three stairs from the living room to the kitchen...and just the other day I caught her trying to climb the stairs going out of the room.  Look at her...she knows she got caught too.  What I didn't catch was her smile after I caught her.  I can't help but smile, though, she's getting so big... and look at her chunky legs.  

I caught her again the following day!!

Another new thing that Kaiya does is sit up.  She's good at it, too, now.  So every morning we wake up, Kaiya's sitting up (or trying to crawl over to mommy to get something, whether it be the remote or a phone).  Again, we can't help but smile when we wake up and she's sitting there smiling at us.

This was taken right after her bath, but this is the position she's in when she wakes us up...at 6am!

Speaking of bath, mommy had a little fun with Kaiya's hair that continues to get longer and longer.

.let's play catch up.

Ok, since I'm WAAAAYYY behind on the blog, I decided I would write one that would do a catch-up for the last half of April.  

January 2, 2010:  So this picture is a few months old...but it was Kaiya's first time at a wedding.  We went to Aunty Denise and Uncle Enoka Karratti's wedding back on January 2nd at Kilohana.  It was beautiful and mommy got a chance to catch up with a lot of OSU friends since her and Aunty Denise both went there after high school.  We had a great time, ate good food and are so happy for the Karratti's.  Hopefully they'll hurry up and give Kaiya a little playmate soon.  :)

April 20, 2010: Kaiya's legs continue to get stronger every day.  She's now able to stand while holding onto things, but she doesn't actually pull herself up yet.  But she's all about making her legs straight whenever she gets the chance!

She also LOVES to look at the cute baby in the mirror.  I read that babies don't recognize that it's their reflection in mirrors until they're about 2 or so...but Kaiya gets really excited whenever she we put her in front of a mirror.  She must be thinking...that baby is sooooo cute.  hahaha!  So whenever mommy is getting ready and doing her makeup or hair, all she has to do is put Kaiya in front of the mirror and she'll just sit there and play and be entertained the entire time.  So awesome!

April 23, 2010:  It's been over four months since we first pierced Kaiya's ears and daddy has been itching to change them.  So he put in her birthstone earrings that she got from Kaytin and Caleb for Christmas.  I believe they're sapphires.  I love her earrings and I'm so glad that we pierced them...I just hope that they don't end up being crooked as she continues to grow.  

We went to the place where we pierced her ears to see what other kinds of earrings there were for future reference...we looked at the piercing earrings since they have a backing that covers the entire end of the post so it doesn't poke Kaiya when she's sleeping.  On the way out, we spotted some mini jade bracelets, so Kaiya walked out with a little one and she looked so cute in it...it also hides her wrist fold.  :)

Here she is crawling all over the place...she crawls with her belly off of the ground now!

April 24, 2010:  KIUC, where Grandma Barbara works, was participating in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.  It's a charity walk where people walk throughout the night, and there's a special luminaria lighting to remember those affected with cancer.  It's really touching because the first lap is done by all of the survivors and those currently fighting cancer.  The second lap, the caregivers join in.  Mommy tears up every time!  Daddy was off, too, so we went as a family...joining Grandma Barbara and Papa Harry, and Aunty Dawn, Uncle Wes, Kaytin and Caleb.  Kaiya kicked it in her BOB stroller and we all did a few laps and checked out the other booths.  KIUC provided dinner also.  It was such a fun night and I can't wait until Kaiya gets older so we can teach her the importance of these types of events!  

April 26, 2010:  Mommy and daddy have been taking Kaiya, Foxxy and Lennox out on walks a few mornings out of the week.  It's good exercise, nice to be outside, and all of us enjoy walking together.  Sometimes, Aunty Dawn, Caleb and Koge join us too.  It's been kind of rainy lately, so whenever it's nice we take advantage of it.  It still hasn't seem to calmed down the dogs, though, like The Dog Whisperer says it should.  (Maybe it's because it's not a set schedule, though).  However, they are better walking on the leash than they were when we lived in Vegas.  The route we walk has a bunch of barking dogs, sometimes it affects them sometimes it doesn't.  But they never want to charge them or anyone that crosses our path.  Whew!!!  Daddy walks Foxxy, since she's so heavy and strong, and Lennox walks alongside Kaiya while mommy pushes her in the stroller.  

Anyway, one morning after our walk, mommy, daddy and Aunty Dawn sat down in the kitchen to eat some breakfast.  And we noticed that Kaiya was a little sleepy.  She usually naps during the walk, but for some reason this time she didn't.  The next thing we knew, we looked over at her in her highchair and she was fast asleep.  Luckily, the highchair seat has a recline so we let her nap in there for a few minutes while we all finished up our post-walk snacks.  

So that sums up pretty much the end of April.  I've been slacking on taking pictures of outings and what not.  But now that I'm catching up on posts I'll be sure to take more photos and post regularly again.  We hope everyone who reads this is doing well and enjoying the blog!

.kaiya meets new mexico.

Our first day in New Mexico had to involve a trip to Chili Works, which is a little burrito shop that serves up some yummy breakfast burritos.  So, little miss Kaiya got all bundled up and took the quick trip up the hill to Los Alamos (Daddy is actually from White Rock).  Oh how we miss those breakfast burritos (although by the end of the trip, we're kind of convinced that Knapp's Wraps actually has the better breakfast burritos!).  Daddy says he still prefers the chili of Chili Works, though, because the green is clear your sinuses hot!!  We also got one for Grandpa Dave and took a quick tour of his new office and met a couple of his co-workers.  And outside of his office building there was some old snow, we couldn't play in it or anything, but it was the first time Kaiya got to see some snow.  

Kaiya's stayed pretty much on Hawaii time the whole time we were in New Mexico, so she would wake up around 8 or 9.  But in Hawaii, it was really 4 or 5am.  So she would be up for a bit, then want to take a nap again.  Her first nap of the day was joined by Grandma Barb's dog, Sandy. 

Uncle Tom, Aunt Viv, Cousins Lindsey and Katie, along with their dogs Maggie and Daisy drove in from Colorado for Easter Weekend...and Aunt Martha drove in from Albuquerque for the weekend as well.  It was a full house of Yarnell fun.  After Kaiya's first nap, her and daddy got all dressed up for the cold, eventhough it was quite warm outside.  They got all bundled up to watch Uncle Tom and Lindsey use the chainsaw to chop up some firewood for the fireplace.

Grandma Barb had a "Meet Kaiya" gathering at her house later that day.  Although Kaiya was a little picky on who could and who couldn't carry her, everyone enjoyed FINALLY meeting her.  She met a LOT of people (and dogs).   She met quite a few of the New Mexico "family," a lot of them who also came out for mommy and daddy's wedding almost two years ago.  It was a beautiful day...apparently the first nice, sunny weekend day in quite some time!  She showed off how she gets around (scooting/crawling) and how strong her legs were getting.

She had some quality time with Grandma Barb.

And got to hang out with Grandpa Dave, too.  He showed her Grandma Barb's windchime, which she loved the noise coming from it.

Kaiya also got to meet Cool Uncle Dennis.

After everyone left, Grandpa Dave treated the whole family and Uncle Dennis to Angelina's.  Yummy!!!  It was a great day in New Mexico!