it's november already?

yup. i guess so. better get this blog updated! starting with the youngest of our family...

kanoa is 7 months today and super mobile! he's been crawling for a month, and is now cruising around pretty well on his feet. he can make his way from one end of the couch to the other, from bookcase to the speaker to his jumper, etc. no teeth yet, but expecting them any week here. he LOVES following around his big brother! who we think he calls "na-na". he's also saying "da-da" and "ma-ma".

kanoa jeffrey: 7 months old

kaimana is pretty well potty-trained! still using diapers at night, but that's it! of course, there's the occasional accident, but i'd say he's doing great :) he is also very very 3 years old. he's definitely testing boundaries. we've also entered the era of "why?". about EVERYTHING. he also LOVES getting his baby brother to follow him around. of course, he also loves testing boundaries with his brother. like, hmmmmm, what will happen if i walk over and bump my knee into my brother's head?

kaimana henry: 3 years old

as for me, i'm hanging in there. sometimes it feels like just barely. two kids is more than twice the work i think. we're still hunting for a boat... might be getting pretty close on one!

that's a general update for now. i'll try not to let 3 months pass by again without posting. but i'm not making any promises!! :)

4 months.

the boys both had check-ups last week.... kaimana for his 3 year and kanoa for his 4 month. they both did great (kanoa got 2 shots), and we're happy to have two healthy boys! we've also made the big step this week and moved kanoa into his brother's room.... now dubbed the 'brothers room'. hoping to encourage better night sleeping for the baby without ruining the big brother's. :)

kanoa (4 months)... 16lb 14oz (90th pecentile), 25" (75th percentile)

kaimana (3 years)... 31lb (45th percentile), 36" (30th percentile)

florida slideshow.

mister chatty.

as promised...

12 weeks.

12 weeks old! at his 2 month check-up, kanoa measured in at 14 lbs and 24 inches. just this week, he's enjoying tummy-time a little more... though not for too long :) he's super vocal! i'll try to get a video soon to post. he's still getting up once or twice to eat at night, so mommy is pretty tired most of the time! but, he's a big boy and hungry! which has also led me to start trying to get him interested in baby cereal. he doesn't love it yet, but it's only been a few days. crossing my fingers that he'll take to it soon and that it may help us get through the night. but, we'll see!

brother photo shoot 2.

kaimana henry: 34 months

kanoa jeffrey: 3 months

what a week.

sunday at beach in seattle, kaimana falls backward and knocks his head on a rock. tiny cut, but a healthy amount of blood. tuesday, kaimana gets the first of two cavities filled. thursday, he gets the second filled. friday, kaimana trips while running full speed down the hall and crashes his face into the leg of our bedframe two hours before kanoa gets 3 shots during his 2 month check-up. whew.

wednesday evening, while zach was at work, i was picking up the dishes from dinner when kanoa started crying while on his playmat. i heard kaimana say to him, 'hold on. hold on. i'm comin'. i'm comin'.' i peeked around the corner to see big brother give baby brother his binky while saying, 'here's your binky... mmmmmm... yummy....' and then turn on one of kanoa's musical toys and continue to sit with him (without being asked to) until i finished doing the dishes. what a great big brother he's turning out to be.

kanoa weighed in at 13 lb 15 oz and measured 24 inches. at home this morning, before the doctor's visit, we discovered he's ticklish! pretty fun to hear some laughter :) since the last video i posted, his chatty times are even 'chattier'. i'll try to get another video soon. he's still eating every 2-3 hours (3-4 hours at night)... he's a growin' boy! he sleeps waaaaaaaaayyyyy better than kaimana did at this age. so that's a blessing!

brother photo shoot.

8 weeks.

dinosaurs!

dinosaurs at the zoo!! kaimana was fascinated... for all of about 15 minutes :) he was much more interested in all the toys for sale in the shop at the end of the exhibit.

kanoa on video.

7 weeks.

6 weeks.

13 going on 30.

the scale i ordered from amazon arrived today, and it seemed much more fun to weigh my boys than to just weigh myself. kanoa weighs 13 lbs today... meaning he's added about 3 lbs in 5 weeks. kaimana is still 30 lbs, which has been his weight for several months. i swear he's bigger though, at least he's wearing bigger clothes than he was! here is a picture zach snapped of him while at a rest stop outside of vantage...

5 weeks.

4 weeks.

number two.

my boys are having an interesting time with their number two's. kanoa has only been going once a week, causing my doc to suggest i give up dairy to see if that helps clear his system. bummer. i love me some dairy :)

on the other hand, as of this morning, kaimana has now twice run down the hallway shouting 'i need to go poop!' in the last 24 hours. and, he has! i'm not going to get ahead of myself and say that he's ready for potty training, but an exciting development nonetheless.

for those of you reading this who aren't parents, sorry. for those of you who are, well, you know how exciting number two's can be...

3 weeks.

big brother

we've been concerned about how kaimana would be as a big brother. our 2.5 year-old is quite rambunctious and energetic. favorite pastime? using everything in the house as a jungle-gym. he climbs over and jumps off the couch, runs up and down the hall leaping over obstacles he has purposely put in his way, etc, etc. our concern was that it would be difficult to reign him in once there was a baby around to be careful of. but, it actually hasn't been to bad. we definitely need to remind him often to be careful around the baby, and are setting rules like: no climbing and jumping on the couch when kanoa is on it. i've managed to be able to make it through a couple of kanoa feedings (which are close to an hour long at this point) by myself with kaimana... he sits next to me to read books, or watches thomas the train, or gets himself set-up with play-doh at the table. kaimana is starting to be a little more curious about kanoa as well. his questions are pretty fun. our second day home, he came out of his bedroom with his soccer ball and announced "i am going to play catch with my brother." earlier today he asked me "can my brother drink orange juice?" yes, i think that being the mommy of two little boys is going to be equally nerve-racking and wonderful :)

jinxed?

after bragging to several folks about how much easier everything has seemed this time around, including the fact that wednesday night after an 11 o'clock feeding, kanoa only woke up once to be fed in the middle of the night... last night he only allowed me to sleep a grand total of 4 hours. and though today i'm exhausted, i can't seem to settle down and nap :(

i have to remind myself that he's only a week old and that things should only become more and more routine as more weeks pass.

welcome kanoa jeffrey klaja

april 1, 2011, 3:31 pm, zach and i welcomed the newest member of our family into the world. weighing in at 9 lb 15 oz, and measuring 22 inches, let's just say i was glad i decided to induce labor and not wait for him to get any bigger :) we checked into northwest hospital at 7 am on the 1st, at 8:30 my doctor broke my bag of waters, around 12:30 contractions began, and at 3:31 baby cries filled the room. shortly after that, kaimana met his baby brother... he wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation in the room. he was more interested in looking out the window than looking at the baby... that is, until we allowed the other waiting visitors into the room. then he wanted to sit on the bed with kanoa an i and gave kanoa a few gentle pats. a little over 24 hours later, we headed home to get 'settled in' as a family of 4.

kanoa (hawaiian meaning 'the free one')

kaimana henry and kanoa jeffrey

the last two posts didn't have pictures so....

kaimana (27 months) posing with elizabeth (25 months) for a picture. too cute!

2011, part two.

2011 finds kaimana:

very "2". the past couple weeks, defiance has been growing. at this point, he's keeping it simple. "no" when i ask him to do various things (like, "kaimana, please come here so we can get dressed."). i'm trying to nip this in the bud before the calm "no" turns into anything resembling a fit.

it's fun and frustrating to see him developing his own likes and dislikes. a year ago he would pretty much eat anything at anytime. now he has requests. very often he requests m&m's. (which i'm starting to think could be useful when potty training comes around. zach's mom kept a dish of m&m's in the bathroom, and apparently it worked like a charm. like father like son?) he also is starting to turn food away that i know that he likes simply because he'd rather have something else. don't worry... this doesn't really work on me, hopefully he'll cue into that soon.

wow is he a little boy. pretty much constantly on the go.... running, jumping, climbing, you name it. he more often dumps out containers and toy boxes to use them for climbing than he plays with any of his toys.

on the other hand, he could sit and read books ALL DAY. i should say, he could sit and have books read to him. he's rarely interested in looking at books by himself, he wants to be read the story. i'm hoping he'll be an early reader. if only he'd look at his flash cards rather than playing 137-card pick-up.

he's knows all his letters, and their sounds, and is getting better at numbers. he counts to 12 just fine, then skips to 16, 19, whatever. actually, he's known his letters for a long time, and can now spell "stop" and "go". i didn't really teach him this on purpose, but i figure since he picked it up, we should start adding to the list.

not sure what kind of learner it means that he is, but with all his reading in spelling, he is NOT very interested in writing/coloring/drawing. again, he likes to sit and have me draw for him, but he doesn't really want to sit and do it himself.

and since i'm a dance teacher... he knows plie, passe, arabesque, shuffle. he figured out on his own how to walk around on his heels, and we love to do the hokey pokey together :)

2011

what a year.

and now 2011 finds us:

getting ready to return to apartment life... we moved out in july expecting to move into a boat when zach returned from alaska. but, unfortunately, the banks were not on our side. we visited several, and some wouldn't finance the particular boat we were interested in and others wouldn't finance us (though our credit's great and we have ample savings, we have no history with this type or size of loan). though we're disappointed that we feel like we're not moving forward, we're also excited to return to seattle and begin preparing for baby to arrive. which brings us to...

getting ready for baby to arrive. it's weird this time around for us, because being the parents of a two year-old definitely takes most of our attention. so i now find myself at almost 7 months wondering how i got here so soon. and i now only have 2 months left to get used to the idea of an infant... and to try to start pre-adjusting kaimana to the idea. like trying to really get him on a scheduled naptime. like attempting potty-training. like getting him to not wake up and come climb into bed with us in the middle of the night (which will be easier when he's in his own room again). to name a few.

still thinking about boats. though it's not our next move, it IS still on the radar. zach of course is always on the hunt, and in 6-9 months or so, who knows? what we are now trying to decide, based on our difficulties with banks, is do we compromise on the boat in order to be able to get into something at all (one bank has approved us, but has somewhat strict guidelines on what boats they will give financing for), or do we hold out? more on that to come i suppose.