"I 'Mustache' you...

...do you think I am cute?"

I do! I can't get enough of this darling girl!
and this sweet boy!

    

Love my Kids!

                                         

11 Months!

She is 11 months! Almost a year! I might actually cry, she has grown up way too fast!

At 11 months Kristiina is:

• Walking like a pro! She has been walking for about a month and a half now and she is getting pretty good at it. 
• Refusing now to keep anything in her hair.  She use to be okay to keep a ponytail and a clip in but now she just takes them out. So her hair always looks like the above picture! But she is still darling!
• Finally sleeping all the way through the night and sleeps until around 7 or 8.  Took long enough but I can't complain she is such a good baby!
• Eats, Eats and Eats! She eats like a pro! She often eats double of what Zeke eats. She must have my love of food genes and knows what is delicious. She is a smart one!
• She refuses to sign! It makes me kind of sad. We have been working on signing for a few months and she just refuses.  I will sign 'more' and she will usually just say "moe, moe" but I guess it is okay.  She doesn't really need to sign since she can hear.  :) It did make it easy with Zeke though, he never threw tantrums because he could always tell me by signing what he wanted.
• She talks and says:  
• "moe" for more and for water.  Whenever she sees a cup and needs some water she yells Moe.
• mama
• dada
• kitty
• "zee-zee" for Zeke
• and a few other things that she says over and over but I am not quite sure what they are yet.  :)
• She does this fake laugh sort of thing, it is like a courtesy laugh and it is hilarious!
• Kisses are hard to get from her unless you are Zeke or another baby. Makes me a little sad that I have to work so hard to get kisses from her but at least I know she loves to give her brother kisses.
• She loves Zeke's drawer. We have a drawer in the kitchen that we put all of Zeke's cups in and other kid dishes and Kristiina has found it and loves to play in it.  She pulls out sippy cup lids and walks around with them in her mouth.  When I am cooking or doing something in the kitchen she always finds her way to the kitchen to play in the drawer or in the cupboard with all my plastic bowls.  It usually looks like a tornado went through my kitchen by the time I am done with dinner.
• Loves playing with Zeke and all his cars. When Zeke isn't home she loves to carry around a car or two because Zeke usually doesn't allow her to play with just any car.
• She still puts everything and anything in her mouth.

We love our baby girl! She is always so happy and such a joy to be around! Love you lots Kristiina!

 
 
 

Happy 4th Birthday Zeke!

I am a couple weeks late posting this but...I can't believe my handsome little man is 4! I can hardly believe how much he has grown just in the last year!

 

Zeke is so funny and I love listening to him talk.  He always has something to say and often talks too much! Sometimes when I tell him he needs to be quiet or not talk so loud or so much, I feel guilty.  We want him to talk, and telling my deaf son not to talk so much or to be more quiet seems wrong, but it just shows that he is a normal 4 year old who can hear! We have worked so hard to get to this point and Zeke has worked even harder! We love his Cochlear implants and are so happy for all that Zeke has accomplished with them.

Zeke is such a fun kid and is definitely a jokester! He loves to tease and make others laugh and smile.  He always knows how to bring a smile to my face when I need one. He reminds me that there is so much in life to be happy about.

Zeke's Mater Teeth

 He loves playing hide and seek and has gotten really good at hiding and being quiet while hiding. Whenever he hears daddy opening the garage when he gets home from work, Zeke runs to find a place to hide.

Zeke loves going to school and loves to learn! He is always asking me questions to try and find out more.  If he doesn't know what a word is he will ask me what it is or just assume it is a bad word and say, "that's a bad word, huh mom?" I then tell him what the word means and he usually figures out pretty quickly how to use the word in a sentence. He is a very smart kid.

Zeke's favorite thing in the world is anything from Cars 2! He loves watching the movie and playing with his cars and that is all he ever wants to do! He knew exactly what kind of party he wanted when I asked him.  He said he wanted a Cars 2 cake with Grem (the orange car), Lightning "the Queen" and Francesco. Zeke wanted friends at his party this year so we invited friends over on a Saturday for his birthday! It was crazy, but a lot of fun! The kids had races, bean bag toss into a tire and they made license plates with glitter glue, foam letters and mini pom poms. They had a blast, I think! I made Zeke's cake and I was pretty ambitious at first. I made Grem out of fondant but it took me like an hour and a half so I ended up just using Zeke's Francesco and Lightning McQueen cars. 

Zeke's Cake! He loved it and was so excited when he saw the finished cake in the morning.  I might seem crazy to take so much time to make a cake for a 4 year old party, but I love to do it and I love that it makes Zeke so happy! Zeke kept saying he wanted to eat Grem, I think it is because he is a bad car in the movie, but I couldn't let him eat it right away.  He did finally get to eat him a couple days later though and he said that Grem was delicious!

My cute 4 year old! Why do they have to grow up so fast?

Zeke waiting to blow out his candles.  Notice the cars in hand! He always has some sort of car in his hands.  They take baths with him and even fall asleep with them. 

Happy Birthday Zeke! We sure love you and are so happy you are part of our family! You make us all  smile and laugh and we love your sweet face around us.  We don't know what we would do without you in our family, you have taught us so much and are such an important person in our lives.  We love you Zekey!

"I'll Push You Out Kristiina"

 Kristiina usually wakes up around 8 or 8:30 to eat and we play for 30-45 minutes. She is then ready to go back to bed for a nap.  She already ate and played so we put her back in her crib to go back to sleep.  She was just talking in her crib and laying down. Zeke woke up and went in her room and said hi, then came into my room and told me Kristiina was awake and for me to go get her.  Zeke didn't have his implants on yet but he can read lips pretty well.  I told him she was tired and she was going to go to sleep.  He insisted that she was not and that we needed to go get her.  He kept saying, "come on mommy, Kristiina's awake let's get her." I stayed in bed because I told him she needed to go to sleep.  Zeke went into her room and said, "I will get you out Kristiina, grab my hands." He took her blanket out and then tried to get her out.  Obviously it wasn't working so Zeke decided to get into her crib and get her out that way.  I couldn't hear everything he said but I am pretty sure he said that he would push her out.  Brandon then intervened and got Kristiina out for Zeke.  I just thought it was the sweetest thing.  Zeke loves Kristiina so much and will do anything for her and Kristiina just adores and loves her older brother.  I love watching their sweet interactions with eachother!

Brandon then brought Kristiina into our bed and Zeke got in too. Zeke had his favorite cars from Cars 2 and he told Kristiina she could play with them. He said, "These are my favorite cars Kristiina, you want to play with me?" Now that is love! He loves his favorite cars and you have to be pretty special for him to let you play with his special cars.

Zeke also loves to help Kristiina with everything! He loves to feed her, get her things and just take care of her like a big brother should!

I sure wish Kristiina was looking at the camera! It is really hard to get a good picture of these two.  Usually Zeke will make a weird face while Kristiina is looking at the camera or Kristiina is looking away. Oh well, maybe one day.

  Notice her ponytail? I love it! She has so much hair on the top of her head and no where else, so since she hasn't wanted to wear headbands I can at least get an elastic and clips in her hair