Thankful

We are so thankful to have family to help us as well as visitors in this first month.

Thank you!

Not Enough Hours in the Day

Where did we leave off?   Oh yes...we left off with Kalista's birthday weekend getaway.  Sorry for the delay. We know that all of you have been waiting for the anticipated birthday party pictures.  There are just not enough hours to get to the blogging.

So yes...back to where we left off.  The next following weekend we took a mini trip to Dana Point/San Juan Capistrano for Jen's birthday weekend trip.  We had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather and beaches.  We also took Bella with us since the hotel allowed animals.  Bella had a blast!!!  She exuded the spoiled princess vibe all weekend.

 We enjoyed a clam baked style dinner from The Boiling Crab...Yum!

This Squirrel cake was courtesy of Chubby Cakes in Westminster

Kalista has become an expert in the sport of bubble blowing. Whenever she sees a bubble wand or bubble container, she goes into bubble mind mode.  She can't enough of her assortment of bubble wands that were left over from her birthday party.

Grandma Susan came to visit right after Grandma Evelyn left...literally on the same day.  It was nice having some extra hands around the house for two weeks between the two visitors.

  

We made a few trips to the zoo with Grandma's new annual pass.  Kalista loves wearing sunglasses and has a tendency to borrow them from others.

Kalista's official birthday party was postponed to June for many reasons, but it finally happened.  It was Yo Gabba Gabba themed and she loved her cake until we lit the candles.  She bursted into tears for some reason.  Maybe she thought we were trying to torch her new friends....eek...that would freak me out.

The party was a success!  We had a fabulous turnout and the weather was just right for the park.  Kalista's little friends had a blast on the jungle gyms of various size. We had some relatives that flew into town just for the weekend to celebrate it with us.  Thank you for the trip down here!!!

Kalista says "THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR COMING TO MY PARTY AND FOR ALL MY BIRTHDAY PRESENTS!!".  She wasn't into opening gifts at first, but when she saw what was all wrapped up....it was worth all the work.

We had a mini photo shoot for Project: Father's Day.  With the idea from her teacher, we borrowed this little outfit from her school and took a bunch of photos to frame for Matt's special day.

 HAPPY DADA DAY !!!

Kalista learned to say : Happy - Dada -Dee (Happy Father's Day) and Owl - Juice ( I Love You).  It sounds much cuter when she says it.

We all mustered up some energy to get to the SD County Fair this year since all three of us have been fighting off this cold of various extent.  Along our stroll past livestock, we met this HUGE cow.  MOO! It doesn't seem so big from this picture, but it was very large. We tried out the bacon wrapped turkey leg this year and it was pretty good.  We didn't try anything exotic this year...no deep fried trix or coco pebbles.

We hope this summer will bring some fun times and memories for all of you!!

Kalista's 2nd Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

We have been very grateful to have Matt's parents in town for the past few days. They came to visit Kalista and spend Halloween with us.


We pumpkin carved a few nights ago and made some royal beauties. Kalista thought the pumpkins were a little too slimey and decided to bail on Jen and Grandma Evelyn as they were adding on the final touches.

Kalista is a woman of many alter egos. We bought a costume a few months back which happened to be a little blue monster, but we found a costume from last year that she still kind of fits (It was a daisy). We had it way in the back of her closet and brought it out for this fine occasion. Kalista looked cute in both Halloween outfits.

Kalista, Matt and Grandma Evelyn stopped by Jen's office to visit and show-off Kali's outfit before they went trick-or-treating. Since Halloween happened to fall on a Monday, they did some early trick-or-treating and even some friends came out to join us. Kalista's friend, Catherine, dressed up like Strawberry Shortcake and Kalista transformed into her alter ego...the one-eyed blue monster. When Jen got home from work, she decided to dress up in her Monsters Inc Sully costume and joined them as the evening got darker.


We thought it would be a quiet Halloween, but amazingly enough, the streets were filled with little ones and their parents. We saw some amazing costumes! One family even dressed up as the Angry Birds Clan....2 green pigs (parents), the white, red and yellow birds. We made it around the neighborhood and trick-or-treated for about a half an hour before Kalista started to tire herself out.

Grandma Susan's Visit

Grandma Susan came for a little over a week to spend time with us. We whisked her away to Palm Springs for an overnight trip since we wanted to take a mini vacation mid-week and she has never been there before. It is the land of country clubs and golf courses. Even their golf carts are all decked out.

We happened to arrive in 105 degree weather, so we hit the pool for the first day. Kalista had a fun time since they had a beach area that she could run around in.

Grandma and Kali shading themselves on deck

Dad and Kalista after a day at the pool

Kali resting on her bed after a long afternoon by the pool

We ventured to the artsy district and passed some memorable landmarks from the last time we went to Palm Springs (which was when Matt proposed). Since art galleries and high end shopping weren't tickling our interests, we thought long and hard about whether we were going to do the Palm Springs mountain gondola lift. In the end, we decided to just head home. Maybe we will get to do it the next time we head back to Palm Springs.

Grandma Susan got to go to a few doctor appointments and playgroups whiles she was here. It was cardiology week, so Kali had to do an EKG and be hooked up to a Holtor monitor for 24 hours. We thought she was going to pull a Godzilla moment and rip off all the sticky wire leads, but it really didn't seem to bother her at all. She played everywhere with her monitor on. If her arrhythmia isn't too severe, then we get to push our cardiology appointments to a yearly basis. Yay!

Grandma Susan also got to a chance to go to one of Kalista's "Toddler and Me" groups. Kalista showed Grandma all her furry stuffed friends and her favorite toys. It was oil-dough and painting day. Kali had fun poking the oil-dough, but tears came flowing when it was time to paint her paper pumpkin. Guess it was not a Picasso moment!

Let Me Try It

Kalista had a few visitors this past weekend, Grandma Susan (Por Por) and Uncle Bill (Kau-Fu). It didn't take long before she warmed up to them and remembered who they were. She was spoiled again for another few days with constant attention and being held in everyone's arms. Kalista showed them her new talents of standing up with a little assistance and the start of crawling.

Kalista is looking more like a little girl now with Grandma

Speaking of standing and crawling....we saw Tami, Kali's physical therapist, this week and we have been challenged to work on getting her crawling and standing up on our own. For the past few days, Kalista is getting better at pulling herself up to a stand and has taken on getting into crawling stance on her own (which is a big step for her). Every little day we are learning something new.

We even saw the neurologist, Dr. Mehl, this week for our routine developmental milestone check up. We found out the size of Matt's head circumference at this visit since they measured Jen's at the very first office visit. It is to get a sense of what Kali's head size should be. After a few peeks with his scope and a few taps with the reflex hammer, Dr. Mehl told us that Kalista has a "good brain" and that we don't have to see him again until six months from now.

Bleh....that plum is so tart!

I love paper products

Kalista has taken on to touching and mouthing everything, except food of course. Well, we take that back, she does have a select amount of "allowed" foods that go in her mouth. Today, she took on licking a plum, gumming Baby Mum Mum rice crackers and mouthing her favorite vegetable item, carrot sticks. Baby foods and purees have not been a big hit lately for some reason. Besides that, she loves to suck on paper and all sorts of items that don't seem threatening to her.

You could be the next one I call...

She is definitely a kiddo of the future. Her favorite items happen to be electronic products ranging from the laptop computer and remote control to our cell phones. She seems to know how to text and IM folks too. Her little thumbs come out and dance around the keyboard. Her messages look like this most of the time: "qoeieieo....skakalaskfjalsi ....afalsifhoaiw" and on some occasions they get sent to some lucky friend/family member. So you may be next lucky person to get a message directly from Kalista.

Updated Photos

We just added some photos of Kalista's trip from last weekend and time spent with Grandma and Grandpa when they were down visiting.

Playgroups and More

Hello everyone! We have had one very busy week. Grandma Evelyn and Grandpa David were in town for the first half of the week. It was great having a few extra hands around the house. We love visitors...especially family. Kalista loved spending time with her grandparents. She also had a chance to spend time with her cousin, Lexington, over the weekend. He turned one this past December...so they are close in age.

What else have we been up to? Well....we have been doing some mini renovations all over the house and moving furniture around. In the process, we decided to convert our living room into a large play room. It seems to be a big hit for the little one. She loves spending time playing with all her toys and flipping through her books. Kalista has also started a new phase in self exploration. She can't seem to get enough of the buttons and zippers on her clothes. She has also found her belly and rubs it like Buddha sometimes. It's actually pretty cute when she does it!


This past Wednesday, Jen and Kalista finally made it to the bimonthly "Baby and Me" playgroup at a local elementary school. They got to meet some great moms and babies. They even met up with Kalista's teacher over there. Kalista instantly recognized Miss Jodi to give her a hug. She had a blast and tired herself out, as she fell asleep on the way home. As usual, she was quite the social butterfly that day and made a lasting impression on many.