Things have been as crazy as usual around here. Last weekend we took a family trip up to Whistler as Jon had a volleyball tournament. The time in Whistler was nice, the drive there/back...not so much. Kira tends to get carsick, and that definitely happened multiple times both there and back. Otherwise, we had a great time up there. Kira loved playing in the outdoors and in the pool with Daddy. Kai enjoyed having so many other kids around, exploring the new digs, and all the attention he received from everyone else.

This weekend we had 3 birthday parties to attend, on top of the usual gymnastics and swimming. Needless to say, the kids are completely exhausted, I'm about 10 pounds heavier thanks to the birthday cake (willpower is not a word in my vocabulary), and I think that Jon is looking forward to his upcoming work vacation just so he can have a few moments of peace and quiet.

Kai turned 7 months old. He is weighing in at about 17 pounds now, not too big, but not too small. He continues to amaze me with his rapid progression. He figured out how to pull himself up to a standing position in the bathtub on Wednesday, by Thursday he was standing using his toy, Friday it was his crib, and yesterday it was our table. He is a climbing machine and just loves to stand.

Kira is learning how to read now. She is incredibly smart (in my non-biased opinion). Grandma Rose has taught her a few words, and she has soaked them right in. She can read about 5 - 6 words now. Her counting has improved as well, she can count up to 29, but she prefers to stop at 20. Hee. 

We are slowly introducing new foods into her diet, it's the "eat what's on your plate or don't eat at all" lesson. She struggles for the first bit, but for the most part has surprised me with her willingness to try new things. The other day I put a new food in front of her and she tore into it without any fuss at all. She even tried 2 different cupcakes this weekend (she HATES most sweet things, the complete opposite of me). I'm cautiously optimistic, hopefully this new daredevil eater will remain and soon the fussy eating days will be over. 

Here is Kai, huge smiles after he figured out how to climb up in his crib. He's now a climbing machine. Oh boy.

Checking out the camera

Kira getting ready to go swimming with her Daddy, check out the Dora swimsuit. 

She got this little floaty toy from a friends birthday party, and she insisted on wearing it like that to the pool. Note the boots to complete the outfit. Yes, she dressed herself, and no, she didn't want to wear pants over top of her suit while in the car, thank you very much.

Exhausted after an action-packed weekend.

Helping me with the laundry

He's got the "I'm so cute" face figured out already

Using the stool to pull himself up

Visiting with Ben; Josh + Ginny's 1 year old 

We've successfully added a few new foods to Kira's "likes", pizza is one of them. 

Kira loves to play with her little brother. Here is a great video of her making him giggle

Kai has started to "cruise" around the furniture. He hasn't figured out how to stand up on his own quite yet, but he is able to move along the couch to his toys. He also loves to try and steal food, here is a video of him making a move for Daddy's grapes.

Today I took Kira and Kai to get their eyes checked out. Kira has been going for these exams twice a year since she was 6 months old. I have terrible eyesight, so I have been careful to get the kids examined regularly.

Kira takes after me, she is far sighted and has a slight astigmatism. Today's check up went very well. Her prescription has remained the same for the last 18 months, which is a good thing as it means that she should have no problem getting laser-eye surgery when she is older (I am in that small percentage of the population that laser eye surgery is ineffective for, sigh). Her eyes have been doing so well that she now only has to go for annual examinations, hooray!

Kai has his first examination today. I was prepared for the news that he'd need glasses, just like his sister (Kira was 11 months when she got hers); but, it turns out that his vision is very good. The doctor feels that he will be near-sighted and likely won't need glasses. Even better, he doesn't need to come back for another year either! Hooray again!

All in all, I'm excited that, so far, my kids vision is pretty good. I am hopeful that when they are adults, they will be able to see properly when they wake up in the morning without having to put on their glasses, and won't have to fuss with contact lens etc.

I swear, this isn't a photoshop picture, they were actually playing together. 

Sitting up on his own and playing drums on the toy box

Sometimes the toy box is more fun than its contents

Well, it didn't take long for him to figure that trick out...Kai is crawling now. He quickly progressed from yelling at his toys to come closer to him to moving closer to his toys. He hasn't figured out how to move his legs yet, but he will happily army-crawl around the house now. He gets so excited when he finds me in other rooms, he beams from ear to ear and giggles with pride. So cute. I've moved past the "omigod he's crawling" terror to "ok, now he can find me wherever I go, so this is good". He will be 6 months on June 9, time is actually going by very quickly now, hard to believe that I will be back at work in 3 short months.

Kira has found a new love - spelling. Grandma Rose taught her how to read "cat", and from this she now reads mom, Kira, and Dad. She will spell out the word to your first and then say what it is, kind of like a spelling bee. She loves it. She is such a smart little girl, I hope that this continues as she gets older. She can count to 20 now too. I have no idea if this is typical of 3 year olds, but it doesn't matter to me - she is happy to keep learning and we are happy to keep teaching.

Kai is learning how to use the computer at a very young age

He is also a typical boy and loves to have the remote control

Things have been a bit hectic around here lately. Jon has been off traveling for work, he was in LA and London last week, plus my kidney stone was finally removed (yay!) and the kids and I went to visit my Dad on the Island. 

These events didn't seem to affect the kids at all, and both of them had a blast on the Island. Kai was showered in non-stop attention from Grandma and Grandpa, and Kira was treated to tons of time on the beach, riding her bike, and petting a donkey and horse. Here are a couple of pictures...

walking with Grandpa

Out for a bike ride

Throwing shells into the ocean

Here is another fun picture of the outfit Kira put together last week, she kills me with her independence. Note that the socks don't match, perhaps she's been spending too much time with her friend Aubrey?

The picture of Kai was taken by Kira, you can see her finger in the shot. She loves to take pictures all by herself. 

Kai has figured out how to move himself to get to his toys. He hasn't figured out how to crawl after me when I leave the room, but he is definitely getting close. Last week he'd struggle to move one or two strides (?) to get his toys, and now he is able to easily move more than 5. He will yell and whine for a bit, but then he'll move himself forward and grab the toy. He's also discovered that standing is awesome. He can hold himself up for a few seconds at a time, but loves when someone holds him up so he can stand and play with toys that Kira would play with. I'm afraid that he'll be walking before I go back to work! (He will be only 9.5 months when I go back to work.) It is exciting to see him grow and a relief to see that Kira hasn't grown tired of him yet and still loves to play with him and share her toys. I know that won't last forever, so we will enjoy it while we can!

My little girl is going to start pre-school this fall

I know she's only 3, but my little girl is growing up so fast. This week we took her to her pre-school orientation. The teachers like to have all of the new students come to a class for an hour or so before they begin their integration to pre-school in the fall.

We weren't too concerned about Kira making strange with any of the kids or teachers or getting clingy to me, but I wasn't expecting her to just ditch me as soon as we got there! Within seconds of meeting the teacher, she was off to class, hand in hand with the teacher, and into the gym to play with the other kids. Honestly, she was gone for over 30 minutes before she even bothered to look up to find me. Yep, she's going to like pre-school. The teachers seem fabulous as well, so I'm pretty excited to have her start there in the fall. There were a few moments when I was all choked up because she's getting older and starting school...I'm sure there are many more of these moments yet to come as the kids grow up.

Kira still loves to dress herself each morning, here is another one of her awesome outfits that she selected.

She is continuing her obsession with ice too, I have no idea why, but it is hilarious for us. She now likes to sleep with ice on her bare bum at night. She will usually remove her pants and then tuck the ice pack into her knickers and fall asleep with her pants off and bum in the air. Priceless. This is something that will definitely come back to haunt her on her wedding day.