Christmas.

We had our first Christmas in Wisconsin where we weren't in the chaotic state of visiting from Pennsylvania. We spent the early part of the morning at home opening gifts together and then getting ready to tackle our day of visiting family.

Kai's dollhouse. Who knew his favorite part would be the toilet?

Kai, his logging truck and a half smile.

Easel from Nana and Papa John.

Our first stop of the day was to visit Jake's grandparents. Kai was pretty excited about the truck and pajamas that he opened up. If only he would always be so excited about opening jammies. On Christmas Eve, my mother came for dinner and brought Kai a gift of Christmas jammies. He opened it and had to put them on immediately. No time for going upstairs or taking of undershirts, they had to be on without haste. I was pretty relieved that the truck was distraction enough from the airplane jammies in that box, otherwise I am sure those would have had to be put on right away also.

Jake's Aunt Cindy brought over blinking Rudolph noses to wear for a family picture. Kai found it quite fun to gently bump noses when we had them on. He had a fantastic time running around with the nose and also jingly antlers that Aunt Cindy had in her bag.

Jake was quite full of the tasty lunch that his grandmas had prepared. Sleepy reindeer.

The late afternoon and evening were spent at my mother's house. Kai was excited to see his cousins and to have more presents to open. Including this giant box hiding a crazy tricycle of which no pictures turned out.

Our Christmas was definitely white. Our area has had record snow fall so far this year...and it isn't even January yet! It is nice to have a husband who is so fantastic and meticulous about clearing our sidewalk and driveway! Thanks, Daddy/Jake!

A photo tour of our new house.

Street view complete with excessive snow banks.

Living room with Christmas tree.
Living room view two with baby and daddy.

Dining room with messy unpacking table.

Kitchen view one.

Kitchen view two.

Upstairs hallway and naked baby bottom.

Naked baby and view of bedroom.

View two of our room.

Weird color green bathroom will be changing to gray.

Room that will be Kai's. Must be painted. Color suggestions?

Playroom view one. Shelves are going in above that low storage unit.

Playroom view two. That low wall will be a chalk board soon.

First entry from our new house!

We are four boxes away from being entirely unpacked in our new home. The boxes in the basement don't count right? We are all really happy to be here and are very comfortable here. Yay, new house!

In the past two weeks, Kai has been adjusting well to his new home. He is happy to have his kitties here with us. He runs around yelling for them, "My mew, my mew!" It is pretty cute. He is talking so much more everyday. There are several words that he will only make the sound that the thing makes. Fire trucks are "wee-ooo, wee-ooo." Cats are "mew." Dogs are "woof-woof." Trains are either "chh-chh-chh-chh" or "woo-woo." Santa is "ho, ho, ho." I think there might be a few more. He recognizes the words when we say them, but upon seeing them or being asked what something is, he will only make the noise. He used to say cat and dog, but never does any more. He talks in little sentences more consistently now and definitely has favorites to say. He has also started pretending more. He does cooking, which he calls "cook-cook." He uses a silly little voice when he is playing with his new dollhouse. He also started putting stuffed animals and dolls to bed. It is a cute and involved process and he needs help because he needs lights to be turned off for a more authentic feel. He helped me to bake cupcakes for Christmas by dumping ingredients that I measured into the bowl of the stand mixer and then helping to turn it on. My favorite thing about this was that once the mixer was on he would stand by it and say "whoa, whoa, whoa" and kind of move his upper body in little circles. Silly boy. Out of nowhere this week he stacked up seven blocks like it was no big deal. I thought it was a fluke so I took them down and he did it over again two more times before he was annoyed that I kept taking them down. He had been doing two or three for the longest time, and sometimes he would stack up five or more nesting blocks if I handed them to him in the right order. It was a big surprise for me. He is so much fun right now. Very silly and active, but also cuddly and loving.

I will post pictures of the new house, the giant snow banks and Christmas pictures soon!

A mystery solved.

So, Kai used to sing this song a lot...mostly in the car...we thought it went like this..."me-no, me-no...me-no, me-no." Jake had an epiphany that he shared with me. Jake pointed to a window on a toy car and asked Kai what it was. Kai said window, sounding more like, "we-no." ! The car song is window, window...window, window." How cool is that? Yay, Daddy for figuring that one out!

He doesn't sing it as much anymore. I think because he has more words and can tell us what he sees out the we-no.

This leaves me wondering how many other things he says that we aren't aware are names of things in his world. Hmmmm.

On an unrelated side note....less than 24 hours until we close on our first family home!

Snow pictures as promised.

The last week.

We have been covered in snow and working on getting everything in order to close on our house on Friday! I will post snow photos as soon as I get them on the computer. Kai really, really loves the snow. He spent most of the morning helping Jake shovel the driveway. He saw a neighbor using a snow blower and he got out his bubble mower to finish up the job. He hates his mittens that we bought for playing outside and insists that he wear these thin cotton numbers that I bought for when we are out running around. Amazingly, his hands stayed fairly dry and warm. Yesterday and today it snowed about ten inches total, on top of the inches upon inches already on the ground. I am starting to adjust to the constant slush and cold, I am not enjoying it...but definitely becoming less appalled. Kai is unbothered by the whole deal.

Kai has had another language explosion. He is speaking in little sentences. Such as: "I want to go." "More fish." "Sit in seat." The new language skills also help him when yelling at the dogs, now he can say such useful phrases as: "Annie out!" "Annie down!" and "Annie up, up." He also says his own name. He transitioned to calling Jake "daddy" and me "mommy." Just over a week ago I made a list of all of the words that I could think of that he says and got to 76, I think he has probably doubled that in the past week. It is really amazing and remarkable. Being able to communicate more with him is pretty incredible. It makes life a little easier, although I think he becomes more upset when he cannot find the words that he needs to express himself. Oh! I just remembered my favorite new word..."eww." If there is pet hair anywhere in his sight he points at it and says, "eww!"

Visitors.

November was a very busy month for us in the visitors department. Jake's mom (Nana) and his sisters came to visit in the middle of the month and then my grandparents arrived just days after they left. Then family friends were here for a weekend visit after the Thanksgiving excitement settled down. It has been super to see everyone, but really hard on our schedule. I am hoping that after my grandparents leave on Wednesday we will be able to get back to our normal routine.

Kai has had a great time playing with cousins the past few weeks. Leah, Jake's niece, from Pennsylvania and Kai played together fairly well. It was interesting to see Kai as the bigger kid. Then he was back to little one status with all of my younger cousins in town for the holiday. He managed to keep up with them, Nerf gun in hand (yikes!), running all over my uncle's home. He also stole the hearts of the older girl cousins, they all wanted to carry him up and down the stairs and hold him on their laps. He was sometimes tolerant of this. My cousin, Kayleigh, who lives very near by to our new house, has just completed the babysitting course offered by the YMCA. She and Kai seem to be equally enamored of one another. I think after we get settled in I am going to have her come over once a week for a few hours to play with Kai while I get things done around the house. Baby steps for all involved.

Snowpants!

Finding snowpants was an adventure. Size 2T were the right length but hard to zip up his belly and chest. The size that we bought are 3T and as you can see they are pretty long. We are hoping that maybe he will be able to wear them next year also. He like s them pretty much. He did not want to take them off at the store. We are officially ready to build a snowman...we're just waiting on the big snow.

Jake's favorite thing.

Jake's favorite Baby Kai thing is when he claps and says "yay!" He is doing it less and less all of the time and Jake has been trying to get it on a video clip before it disappears forever. Here is another video where Kai is super cute...but does not deliver in the clapping/yay department.

Gaak, gaak.

Kai and I busted out the Play-Doh on Wednesday morning. I let go of my hang up about colors mixing and we made a phone and a caterpillar and we smooshed many, many round balls of doh. Fun times. Photos and video:

Kai's new house.

We have a home! Our offer was accepted and we close on December 12th, so we should be unpacked and somewhat settled in for Christmas!

Child labor.

I didn't realize how quickly I would have a helper for household chores. Notice the way he imitates us perfectly by holding the cord. So funny. Another time that we realize that he sees everything.

In other news, Kai's Nana, Wendy, and bicoastal aunts, Sarah and Kama are in town for a long visit. He has been having a super time with them so far. He says Nana and Sarah and even picked up his cousin Leah's name in just an evening. I am happy for him to have time to spend with them. He is especially fond of Jake's mom. I asked him yesterday morning if he wanted to see his Nana, he didn't say anything at the time and then in a questioning voice started saying "Nana, Nana." We got in the car and he sat in his seat saying, "Nana? Nana?" When we got to the cafe where we were meeting her and she came over to the car....he said nothing. He eventually started saying it again. We had to go to the grocery store to pick up a cake for Jake's aunt's birthday and when Wendy walked down a different aisle Kai became very concerned. He grabbed her coat from the back of the cart and said, "Coat (it is maybe more like..."co"), Nana? Coat, Nana." And then..."Naaanaa, naaanaaa." Very cute.

Also, Kai has added more words to his ever expanding vocabulary: shower, please, coffee, airplane, people, Sarah, Nana, Leah, sit, flower, food and is consistently saying car, seat, color, cheese, coat, pull water, more, shoe and feet.

Not so much about Kai, more about the whole family unit...we are putting in an offer on a house tomorrow morning. I will definitley keep you posted on the progress in that area. When we have an accepted offer and good inspection I will post a picture of the house.

Sunday.

Today, Kai read the Sunday comics in the paper....

Then we played until naptime with his downstairs toys, including the bean table. Next came naptime. When he woke up he received a new hat from Yaya and Dan. We went to look at a bunch of houses. Then we came home and Kai cuddled while watching Little Bear with Yaya and the new hat.

Then Daddy came home and we ate dinner together and shortly after Kai went to bed. Other than a mini-meltdown before naptime and a full on meltdown before we looked at the last house of the day...it was a pretty good day. Low key and I got all of the laundry done. Yay Sunday!

Outside toy in.

While the weather was warm last week we picked up and cleaned up all of Kai's outside toys to store them for the winter. (Winter then arrived yesterday morning.) I brought his sand and water table in to wash it in the tub. After I dried it, I set it near his train table and forgot about it for a couple of days. Then I decided I wanted to turn it into a sensory table for the winter. I searched around for ideas of things to put in it and talked to a creative mommy friend for advice. Then, Kai and I were housebound on Friday with no vehicle and I dumped what ever beans and small pasta we had on hand in it. It actually worked out well because the beans I was going to buy would have been too big to fit through the funnels. Kai has had a great time playing with it, he has some dump trucks, sorting cups and measuring spoons in it. Sometimes he adds new things or takes things out. I am pleased with his interest in it. When he tires of it, I can make it new again by changing the beans or adding new little toys.

Fall plant life.

We spent a lot of time playing outside the last few days. The weather has been very mild, sometimes even warm. Kai has been interested in the seed pods and grasses of fall. I can't blame him.

Kai learned to blow dandelion puff.

We let the flying seeds out by waving one of these around and then tapping it against a swing.

Kai showing a discovery to Jake.

Jake and Kai inspect the prairie floor.

Kai really interested in the pebbles on the trail.

Leaf fort.

Yesterday, Jake fashioned a fort out of the giant leaf pile in the back yard waiting to be composted. Kai, Sami and Riley had a great time playing in the leaf fort. Unfortunately, I missed all of the best photo opportunities while inside watching Obama's acceptance speech (again) with my sister. I did get invited in to sit down and hang out when I made it outside.