Family Gotcha Day!

October 30th- A very special day for our family. October 30th is the day that Wes and I met Kylia and felt to me like a bigger deal than her 1st birthday. We have been a family for a year already! We celebrated with family and friends at an Ethiopian restaurant. We saw pictures from that first day and watched a slide show put together by Uncle Michael and Aunt Solmaz. Kylia loves Ethiopian food- big surprise- especially the spicy stuff. Kylia's cousin Sydney and friend Cody were there to celebrate with her. Still working on the hair but I am feeling better about it than I thought I would... just time consuming on a squirmy 15 month old. Kylia has many words now including cracker, water, the number two (said after we say one), choo choo, and daddy is of course a constant.
We feel so blessed by our family and are just thankful that we are altogether.

October and Our One Year Anniversary!

October 30th is just a day or two away- our Family Gotcha Day! We can't believe that we have been a family for a year, and are eager to celebrate. We decided to celebrate this great occasion with a visit to one of the many fabulous Ethiopian restuarants in the Bay Area. And Kylia will get to wear her special Ethiopian dress (the bigger one we bought because she has already grown out of the first one). October also included visits to the pumpkin patch and the chance to dress up as a cowgirl. One of the biggest changes involved mommy finally learning a hairstyle for Kylia, seen in the last pumpkin picture. She has been at it three days now and is starting to get the hang of the twists, although the constantly moving head is a challenge. I say not bad for a white girl. Pictures of Kylia in her Ethiopia dress coming soon...

Kylia turns one and then some

So- like the doctor appointments, the entries have a little more space in between them now. The coy smile is a fabulous photo taken by our friend Gary on Kylia's first birthday. About a week later, when my friend Jen was visiting from Colorado, Kylia took her first steps, and has pretty much never looked back. She loves to walk everywhere and explore everything. She reaches her hand up in a very cute manner to get help going up or down stairs, but I'm sure she will conquer those soon too.

A little bit of June...

We have definitely slowed down on the picture-taking this month- but Kylia is on the move! She crawls everywhere and loves to stand and cruise. We are taking bets as to when walking will happen. Here she is crawling, in her pool, at the petting zoo, and giving dad a father's day breakfast invite.

Other May Activities

Kylia with her buddy Drew, having her weekly lunch with Gigi (Great Grandma Miriam), and reading her favorite book, Good Night Gorilla.

Kylia at 10 months- Sears Pics

The green dress is one we got in Ethiopia- she has almost grown out of it! The cross is one we got in Ethiopia too.

May in Monterey

Kylia had her first taste of the ocean (COLD!) and got to hang out with her cousin Sydney, as well as Aunt Solmaz, Uncle Michael, and Nana and Papa.

May in the Bay Area

Hiking in the hills above our house

My favorite hat and with a friend at one of our adoption network socials

Kylia at 9 months

What Kylia is up to... pretty much crawling now, although April saw a great deal of rolling, the "wounded soldier" crawl, and other creative ways of moving around. Kylia now entertains us constantly with her imitations of coughs, roars, head shaking, sounds, rasberries, and clapping. Our April blog includes favorite pics and lots of Easter pics.

Easter in April

We celebrated Easter with family and friends. Kylia was mostly interested in chewing on the plastic eggs.

Easter in April

Kylia enjoyed her first Easter egg hunt... she was the only girl and the only one who couldn't walk!

April

We celebrated our second Easter with Grandma Judy. Kylia made her first trip to Yuba City and enjoyed rolling/crawling around her big living room.

Kylia's 7 1/2 month pics

Kylia in March

Kylia's 9th month began with a visit to the Alsups in Templeton. Because the Chandler's couldn't get their act together with something UCLA-oriented, Kylia is now a Cal Poly girl, thanks to dad's purchase.

Kylia in March

Kylia's 9th month was filled with many activities including meeting cousins, discovering her tongue, learning about real-life tasks like laundry, and finding her own, cute sleeping positions.
First Kylia got to hang out with her cousing Sydney.
They decided to dress alike for the occasion.

Kylia in March

Then she met cousins Jonathan and Kate, and their families.

Kylia in March

Discovering her tongue and laundry...