at home in may

maya loves to sit up and suck on her fingers

tummy time for little miss drooly!

sucking my thumb in the bath

kalia shows her muscles - from eating her veggies

maya sleeping at the beach - she was exhausted from watching mommy surf

tummy time on the boppy pillow

kalia eating in her booster - at first she was avoiding the camera...what?

maya up from her first nap and kalia told me that maya wanted to lay with her big sister

So we've been spending some time at home doing some sleep training with Maya. So far 5 nights and today is the 5th official day of naps too. We have been primarily working on her sleeping in her crib and getting to sleep on her own, but comforting her in intervals, or whenever we feel like it. We put her to bed in her crib, but when she first wakes up 3 1/2 to 4 hours later, I bring her to the co-sleeper for the night. Erik was not ready for her to sleep all night away from us or to cry more during the night if she goes longer than 3 hours. After much discussion, I am agreeing with him. After all "she's just a baby" as erik always says. She's our last baby and she deserves to babied a little while longer...just a little.

She's doing pretty well, but will still cry for several minutes or every now and then longer. The first night she only cried 31 minutes, this compared to Kalia's first night of an hour and a half. This was very tough. I cried too and Kalia said, "maya can take it mom". Then she came over and wiped away my tears, talk about role reversal. Then I looked at Kalia who took months and months to learn to go to sleep on her own and she is happy and healthy. Maya needed to learn to sleep on her own in her crib, she was getting so overtired - her naps were getting shorter and shorter and even trying to skip a naps. She would wake up from her naps crying, still tired and she was not our usual happy girl. OK, it sounds like I'm justifying having our baby cry and I am. OK, enough about sleep- I'm obsessing. Erik will say that when he reads this, but it's my blog.

Oh, now Maya is our thumb sucking tummy sleeper. That's how she soothes herself to sleep, turn on her tummy and sticks her thumb in her mouth.

On to other things...

Maya is grabbing everything...including her feet. Yes, it's too cute. She woke up in a great mood this morning and was talking. Everything about Maya is louder than Kalia was. She talks louder, she laughs louder and she cried louder. I wonder if it's from having an almost 3 year old screaming around you from the minute you were born. I guess she figures that's how people communicate - loudly.

Kalia has been showing off her muscles lately - since they are growing from all of her veggies.

Of course Maya is going to take her longest morning nap of the month right now, while I expected her up sooner and told Kalia I would take her to the library. Kalia loves the library right now, I wasn't sure if she would be ready to give up the books we checked out last week, we only read them oh about 50 times.

Kalia has been making everything talk to each other. Making her stuffed animals talk to each other, her markers, yesterday I found her making her sippy cup and a toy squirt bottle talk to each other.

Papa gave Maya a stuffed animal horse and it's Kalia's new best friend right now. "Horsey" gets several bedtime routines a day - bath, stories and bed. Horsey often doesn't feel like walking and wants his mommy to carry him...sounds familiar. Now two markers are singing to each other...a musical. Kalia is getting to the stage where she asks about everything. Her same stories are taking much longer to read because she keeps asking about little details in the pictures or trying to understand what is actually going on. She continues to amaze me at how many books - long wordy books she has memorized, even if we haven't read them in a long time. She must have at least 30 books memorized, maybe more. We just got a new book from the Dolly Pardon imagination library and she already almost has it memorized - we've had it for 3 days!

Erik watched Maya yesterday while I took Kalia to the park, it was nice to have a little time with Kalia alone. Erik's been taking her on all sorts of fun outings this week - crashing hotel pools. But I've been at home with Maya pretty much, so it was nice to get out.

We had a nice memorial weekend, I got to surf all by myself at guard rails. Then erik surfed mala, twice and then I got to go to town, do a little shopping, get a coffee and go to the grocery store all by myself! Then we BBQ'd outside on Sunday. Kalia skipped two naps on Saturday and Sunday, so by 7:15PM both girls were out for the night (Maya down by 6:05PM). It felt pretty good to actually attempt to watch a movie.

Maya still sleeping and two markers are looking for something in the couch...

some info

Sorry, only had time to upload photos and then went to bed. So a couple of things, Kalia had a really bad day the other day. First we went to Olowalu and while I was out surfing, Kalia was running and tripped on a rock and fell and hit her head on a rock. She was fine, but a little beat up. Later that night, she climbed on the couch and tried to turn on the lightswitch, missed and fell, hitting her face on the coffee table! It was gnarly! I was really proud of myself for not totally freaking out, when she turned to me and her mouth was gushing blood. It's a pretty substantial cut in her mouth, but I was able to stop the bleeding and she was fine. When i was giving her a bath that night, she really looked like someone beat the crap out of her. I'm just not used to it because I have a little girly girl, who usually doesn't get all bloody.

Maya has found her hands and has been reaching for things. She's still working on it. Kalia set up this coloring fabric ball on her play yard and Maya has been grabbing it. Maya is also roll queen, but hasn't figured out how to go from tummy to back. So she wakes up at night, rolls over trying to root for her fingers and then wakes up crying because she's stuck. If you leave her on her back during the day, you'll come back and she's on her tummy and moving her legs like she's trying to go somewhere. She also has decided that life is too fun to nap anywhere but home, or if I finally get her down then she only wants to sleep for maybe 15-20 minutes at the beach or other fun place. Maya also has decided that falling asleep in the car, not a good idea either. But she sure does love the fun toy Tutu and Grandpa bought for her carseat. She also loves, loves the mobile for her crib. I've been getting her in her crib for most naps and she will start by talking to her mobile for 10 minutes. Maya loves the baby bjorn and I have been able to do my grocery shopping with both ladies- so far both cooperating. Although I shouldn't have said that because now it's all going to go horribly wrong. By the way mom, I shouldn't have told you about maya's sleep...yes, that's gone horribly wrong too.

I don't know how long this will last, but the "don't eat your zucchini because it will make you too strong" or "don't eat your red peppers because you'll be so fast you'll be able to step on mommy's shadow" has been working on Kalia. The girl will eat all her veggies, just to be fast or strong. I'm thinking this one doesn't last long. She was showing me her big muscles tonight after eating all her raw red peppers.

beach day & home with the girls

Ironwood Hike

Yesterday we did the little Ironwoods hike with the girls. It was really fun, even if both girls had to be carried quite a bit of the trail. Erik accidentally broke a mug yesterday, it fell and shattered on the floor, Kalia came running to see what happened and she said, "we need to get some tape to fix it."

maya loves her big sister

Here's Maya talking to Kalia while she eats dinner. I guess it pays to climb all over and lay on top of Maya. She loves her big sister.

mother's day

So tutu and grandpa have left us. We had breakfast at Plantation House on Mother's Day and then Erik had to work. The rest of us played at the house, well, Kalia and anyone who would be her "friend". She came up to me while I was nursing Maya and said, "I need someone to be my friend."

Why is it that Dad's fried rice is so much better...than anyone else's? I think I ate about 4 1/2 pounds of cucumbers while mom and dad were here. Mom made this peanut butter and chocolate cake and we thought that it was so big, we should give some away...but we didn't. Erik and I are eating the rest. It was insane. We also polished off a bunch of mom's oatmeal, dark chocolate, heath bar, cranberry cookies. We ate really well while they were here. It's nice having family here to share the every day stuff with the girls. Even when I'm freaking out because of Maya's sleeping, it's nice to have the support and other people to make you see that you are freaking out (since I don't usually take it well when Erik tells me those kind of things.) But an almost 4 month old who likes to get up every two hours 4 days out of the week - wouldn't you be freaking out too?

So Kalia has been really turning into quite the daddy's girl. yesterday, i asked her if she wanted to go to the grocery store with me. she said, "no, I want to go with daddy". He got their things together and I heard her tell him, "daddy you are my best friend forever." Today, she was telling him, "oh, daddy i missed you. did you have fun at work?"

Oh, funny little story. On Sunday, before mom and dad were leaving, mom was having papaya for lunch and she couldn't find the knife. The cutco knife, the knife i use to cut everything, the knife they gave us for our wedding and i can't live without. We looked everywhere and the kitchen is not very big. Kalia goes digging around in one of her baskets and comes out with a magnifying glass, the case of the missing knife. Dad said, "the last time I saw it, it was in the pizza box." I had asked Erik to take the pizza box to the trash last night!!! Anyway, we went to look in the trash for the second time and it was at the bottom, dad had to move some bags with a bamboo pole and we finally rigged up a pair of tongs with some masking tape to get it. But it was really funny, or at least mom thought it was.

seabury craft fair

Yesterday was a big day for our girls. Maya rolled over, several times. We also went to the Seabury craft fair because tutu had a booth and Kalia rode on a horse all by herself. Kalia also went into the bouncy castle all by herself twice. For anyone that knows Kalia this was a big thing- I've been in a lot of bouncy castles in the past couple of years! Then we came home and Kalia pooped in the potty! It was a great day.

This morning Kalia woke up and said as she looked at the sun peaking through her black out shades, "the sun is on".

tutu & grandpa part 2

We all went to Ironwood Beach yesterday afternoon. Erik fished a little and we looked for shells and walked a little of the hike. We gave Maya a bath after and Erik and Kalia discovered a tickle spot in her arm pit. Missed the big laugh session, but a little laughing from Kalia tickling. Maya has moved from the "ooooh" sounds to something that sounds like a cat, according to tutu.

tutu and grandpa are here!

Kalia is currently making cookies with tutu after watching elmo goes to school on her iphone. yes, she is in heaven. Maya is actually taking a good nap right now and wasn't up in the middle of the night except to eat...it was a good thing. We've been having quite a week with Maya and sleep, but hopefully will stay on top of it. Kalia used to be such a cap napper and she didn't seem very bothered by it, maya is.

Erik surfed on monday and got a cut on his foot. This morning Kalia was looking at it and was telling him that the cut was on his foot and "it's not on your piggy". The cut is right under his little toe (the one that went wee, wee, wee all the way home).

Maya is ready to roll over, we think it's going to be today. She'll get all the way on her side, two knees touching and then spring back. It's really because she's going after her fingers to put in her mouth. Often she prefers her fingers to the pacifier...what? I think Kalia is quite baffled by that too, she tries to get Maya to take the same brand she used to take...come on Maya this is the good one:) This morning at 5:30am I nursed Maya and put her back in the co-sleeper and instead of the pacifier, which is refused, she arched her back and grunted for her fingers for 5 minutes before falling asleep almost on her side with her back arched- finger in mouth. And when she's mad she will get even more mad if you try to put that pacifier in her mouth.

Monday, Tutu and Grandpa watched the girls and I got to surf! It was really fun and I could a couple of really good waves. Definitely the best waves I've gotten in the last year. Erik was watching from the beach and we gave each other the fist raised in the air - victory. OK, I don't get in the water much and i don't get to catch set waves that often, it was great!

We finally got out of the house yesterday, we've been locked inside trying to get Maya some sleep. We went to Napili park and after a while of playing I had to try to put maya down, so Grandpa went down the big slide with Kalia, 10 times!

Kalia has been so into coloring inside the lines, that when tutu drew a flower with chalk outside, kalia came by and colored it in.

This is a story for Lo (if she's reading this):
We have some magnets on the fridge of letters and numbers and they are different colors. Without even suggesting it to her, Kalia took the magnets and lined them up in groups of the same color one day. She definitely has that scary koga gene.