cali trip - part 3: koga reunion cont

great grandma & maya

grandpa feeding maya

curtis ross feeding maya

kalia doing her beach thing

cups lined up with everyone's name

auntie lo feeding maya puffs

kalia coloring and erik doing sudoku contest

morning in the living room

beach with ella & jack

erik & friends, tommy & rick

tommy, erik, rick & mark

bocci ball tourney

vere wins the koga kup!

OK, going to make this quick- so day 2 after a delicious fried rice breakfast, we finally organized to get to the beach. Erik borrowed a longboard from the guys living next door and paddled it down to the beach we were driving to. At the beach we had our first event in the race for the koga kup- horseshoes. Team Lauren & Vere won the first event and we all had a great day - body surfing, boogie boarding and relaxing. That night we continued our games for the koga kup- sudoku, mario cart on wii & a cola taste challenge that tutu set up. Lauren won the sudoku game, Vere won mario cart, so by the end of Saturday, Vere was leading by 1 point, since he had identified 1 more cola than Lauren.

Sunday - We headed to Moonlight beach to hang out with Erik's friends from high school - Tommy, Mark, Rick & Rick's wife and kids, Ella & Jack. That night we headed home for Bocci Ball Tournament & Bowling on Wii. Even though Uncle Curt won the bowling tournament - first time every playing, Vere won the Koga Kup by a landslide.

It was a great weekend, so much fun, so much food. Wish we could see everyone more often!

Just wanted to write a quick note on updates here at home right now. Maya is exploding in her crawling and pulling up on everything!!!! She pulled up on the toilet tonight - couldn't get to her fast enough! The first full day back, her first nap, I knew that we needed to lower the crib, since she had been pulling up on things consistently. But it really surprised me when I went into her room after her nap and she was standing up, so I said, "oh my gosh!" and I really scared her and she screamed at the top of her lungs like she was in a horror movie. So we lowered her crib and removed the bumper. But now the problem is that her little legs (or not so little legs) keep getting stuck in the crib slats! Now that Maya is getting into everything and exploring every room - especially the kitchen & bathroom, we need to get organized and be on top of clutter & cleaning! She loves to be in the kitchen, pulling all the alphabet magnets down, pulling up on water bottles & even against the wall!

More later, supposed to be ordering maya photos! Erik waiting patiently:)

california trip - part 2: koga family reunion!

KOGA FAMILY REUNION 2009
group photo in front of the house in encinitas

dick koga family
great grandpa, great grandma, grandpa, tutu
auntie lo, uncle vere, daddy & kalia, mommy & maya

curtis koga family
great grandpa, great grandma, uncle curt, auntie cheryl,
chelsey, bobby, kimber, tommy, curtis ross

ben koga family
uncle ben, auntie midori, gay, brian, jan
conner, bailey

julia, kayla, kelsey
uncle fred, auntie haru

above photos provided by auntie cheryl

koga reunion: day 1

sunset from the upstairs lanai

erik's high school friends who live in san diego

arrival night

vere ruled on the microphone - a little family rock band

poker anyone? - conner the poker shark

After our great playdate with Bianca, we headed to the house in encinitas- where lauren was just starting to unpack. The house was huge - 7 bedrooms, air hockey upstairs and jacuzzi. We spent the afternoon sorting out where everyone would sleep, unpacking and waiting for everyone to arrive. We also obsessed over this little eye piece under the TV that looked like a camera and put a sticker over it. Erik's two friends from high school, tommy & mark came over to take erik for a boys night. Slowly everyone arrived and we had some beers and took turns playing rock band.

quick update from home

Just a quick update before continuing our California adventure story...

We made it home, although there were times when I'm sure both Erik and I doubted we would make it. Erik and I both remained sane by simply looking at each other and laughing during most of the plane ride. We were seated in the last row of the plane by the bathroom and at one point we were the show for everyone standing in line to use the bathroom. Me and my inconsolable, overtired baby.

The girls are both adjusting and recovering from our trip. Kalia ended up having a 102 fever Sunday night after our plane ride, but was feeling well enough to go back to school yesterday. She had a happy day at school, very little tears at the drop off and was a happy girl when I picked her up. After a rough first night with Maya's sleep, she has been doing marathon naps during the day - catching up on some much needed sleep! She's also been sleeping quite a bit at night, last night sleeping 13 1/4 hours! She is still adjusting and was still pretty tired all day yesterday, despite a lot of 2 hour naps the last couple days.

Back to introducing Maya to some new foods, since we kept to our old standards on our trip. She's been snacking on peeled and quartered grapes and we started some cottage cheese. Her appetite is very healthy right now! Still waiting for her to wake up from her morning nap to get to the park-- which we didn't go to after the gym this morning--since kalia refused to help clean up the toys she played with at the gym. We are definitely experiencing the 3s and testing mommy--over and over again.

Erik's back at work and in full swing. We actually had enough energy last night to watch about 30 minutes of TV before going to bed. The couple nights before that we were so tired and as soon as Kalia went to sleep - we fell down into our bed. Oh, also so far roughest transition for Kalia has been sleeping alone in her own bed again - 10 days of sleeping with either mommy or daddy or both and then sick the first night back. But back willingly in her own bed last night.

TO DO LIST FOR THIS WEEKEND:
- print out some photos of maya! we desperately need some pictures up of our little one!
- plant kalia's vegetable and flower seeds that auntie chery, uncle curt + cousins gave her!
- finish painting our hand me down ratan furniture outside
- contemplate putting full bed in kalia's room (thanks kelly for the idea!)

Sorry, kind of random, but i thought it would be interesting later to look back and see what we were doing right now.

California Trip - Part 1

Day 1:
Celebrating Allie & Karla's birthday!

present opening

Day 2:
Driving down to San Diego and meeting Bianca, Joelma & Bill at Moonlight Beach Park

maya eating her string on her hat

Making food with Joelma & Bianca

Maya sleeping in the Bjorn

Having fun at the playground.

We survived our first trip to California as a family of 4! We left on a wednesday night on a redeye. I was told by many different mommies that they loved the redeye - the kids sleep the whole time, blah, blah, blah. We will never take a redeye again. The flight is less than 5 hours, Erik & I slept maybe 5 minutes each and the girls only slept 3 hours that night (usually sleeping 10 and 11-12 hours at home). Well, they may have slept longer, but kalia had a cough that turned into a full blown attack and ended up throwing up everywhere about 3 1/2 hours into the flight. Plus, neither of our girls sleeps in one position. Maya kept flinging her body around - even backwards off of me, she really tosses and turns! Anyway, we made it and all went down for a nap at tutu and grandpa's house. Well, maya woke up from her nap right when we were all falling asleep- but tutu took her and was able to get her back down for a long nap. Tutu saved the day! I was delirious! After our naps, we got ready and headed to Auntie Kim & Uncle Jay's house for Allie and Karla's birthday party. Kalia was just a little bit excited to help put sprinkles on the cupcakes and sing happy birthday.

The next day we headed down to San Diego (where our Koga Family Reunion would be held), but first headed to Moonlight Beach Park to meet up with our old neighbors, Bianca, Joelma & Bill. Kalia had a lot of fun playing with Bianca & Joelma - it was so nice to see them! We really miss having them here.

Then we headed to Encinitas to the house where our reunion was going to be and met Auntie Lo...more later.

our 5th wedding anniversary

kalia & daddy at windmills - kite surfers in background

kirk, shelly & sydney met us at windmills

maya digging, digging, digging in the sand

getting ready for the bonfire

maya finally fell asleep!

kalia & sydney

kalia being silly

playing with uncle greg

kalia by the tent

hanging out - maya in the tree

uncle greg and maya

kalia & me

Friday was our 5th wedding anniversary. Uncle Greg came over after I put maya down and he and Kalia ate dinner and watched finding nemo and ate many, many, many cookies. Erik I got to go out to dinner! Thanks Uncle Greg. We had an amazing dinner at Hula Grill, it was really fun. Erik had to work all day, so it was nice to just go and relax the two of us. Then we came home and looked at our wedding photos and read our "wedding day wishes", "1st anniversary wishes" and "5th anniversary wishes". It was really fun!

Saturday we decided to celebrate our "wood" anniversary with a day at windmills with the girls and to have a bonfire and burn some wood! Kirk, Shelly and Sydney met us and it was so good to spend some time with them! Kirk looked great - 3 weeks out of the hospital from heart surgery. Kalia had so much fun playing with Sydney. We had fun finding beach treasures! Then uncle greg and scott came down and we had the bonfire. What a great day!

Making this quick, trying to get this done before we leave tonight on redeye for California.

lots of news !

Maya's been sitting up really well for almost 3 weeks!

Kalia has been drawing people lately

Home sick - we made a car out of a costco size diaper box, pink of course.

Maya had no idea what it was - she just wanted to bang on the dashboard!

KALIA'S PHOTOS:

maya crawling

her aim is getting pretty good!

taking a picture of herself! we really laughed hard when we saw a series of these.

Sorry, I've been so bad at posting, but we were all sick (well, not erik, but us girls) and also pretty busy (I've been working during all my spare minutes).

OK, lots of news! First of Kalia- she is pretty much fully potty trained (well, as much as a 3 year old can be). Kalia had been waking up dry almost every morning, so we let her sleep in her panties and we've only had a couple of accidents. She just went about 16 days solid, pretty good since I had it in my mind that she would be wearing diapers at night for a while. Also, she was asking for a diaper sometimes to go #2 and finally after she was done with diapers at night and told her we didn't have anymore and now she's fine with that.

Maya news - She's sitting up very well by herself, she has also been crawling. A week ago, she would crawl maybe 4 steps and then go back on her tummy and do the drag, army style crawl. As of 2 days ago, her crawling has gotten so much better. She is also pulling up on things - she loves to pull up on us, small boxes, her bouncy seat. Today she pulled up onto the coffee table- twice! Well, she started by pulling up on the Baby Einstein DVD box that Kalia used to use as a chair, when she was up on her feet, she walked her feet toward the box, put one hand on the top of the coffee table, stood upright and put the other hand up! She has also been sleeping through the night!!!!! It started two days before she got sick, only one night when she was sick, was she up in the middle of the night.

A week ago Saturday Kalia had a fever and still now, she has a cough - it's been 10 days. I got sick next and still don't feel 100% and Maya sick the next day and she still has a runny nose, she's at day 7. Lingering cold!!! Poor Maya - her 1st cold and she really didn't like it. She does not like it when you wipe her face after eating, she cries every time. So just imagine how she has been with wiping her nose and then I tried to suction her nose one day because I thought she couldn't breathe through it and was really upset, well that just made her more upset and she screamed for 15 minutes. I tried everything to soothe her and finally she stopped crying when I sat her on the edge of crib and turned on her mobile. I sort of miss the pacifier - oh, I tried to use it, but she doesn't want it. With a thumb, you can't just stick it in her mouth like a pacifier - believe me I tried it and she doesn't like it when you try to put it in there. Plus, she usually just sucks on it to go to sleep. I guess I wouldn't like it if someone tried to shove my thumb in my mouth when I was crying.

My main sick day, kalia was in school so that made it a little easier. But the day maya was really sick, kalia was home and feeling better and bored. She kept saying, "mommy can we go to the park" and it was still pretty early in the morning. So we took a costco size diaper box and turned it into a pink car for the girls. I had been thinking about doing it and after my cold medicine kicked in, felt slightly more motivated. Plus, I thought kalia was going to go crazy in the house again, first she was sick and then we were sick, so many days of no fun! We made license plates and I put them on the front and back. I guess kalia didn't really understand, although I showed her the one on our car, because she wanted to make 2 more for both the sides and glued them on.