Kiara-isms

#1-When she woke up this morning, Kiara started calling for Daddy. When we came downstairs and she saw he wasn't here she said, "Oh, wook" and went about her business. I guess that means she notices when her dad's at work more than usual!

#2-We went to Payless to get Kiara some new sandals. There are at least 100 pairs of shoes around but she beelines it right for the Dora The Explorer jelly sandals and shouts, "Oh cute!"
(A few minutes later when I asked her to take them off so we could try the other sandals on she looked at me and said, "Stop it!" It appears as if the Terrible Twos attitude arrived a couple of months early!)

#3-When asked "What does a bear say?" Kiara's reply was, "Mmm, Nummmmmmmmy!"

#4- Well it's not really a funny quote but it does show how observant she is: there are water towers two places along our freeway with various local sports teams' logos on them, including the one Ben works for. As of last week she always shouts out "Daddy" when we pass either of them. Too cute!

#5- Again, not necessarily a funny quote but more a funny action: we're not sure where she picked this up but a couple of days ago she started pinching my nose (and now has moved on to her stuffed animals) and saying, "Honk, honk." She really keeps me laughing all day!

Our adoption profile

Here is the final copy of our adoption profile. This is what will be shown to birthmoms if they meet with an LDSFS caseworker in person. We also have an online profile which has most of the same pictures and information but it will not be able to be viewed until we are approved. That will be for people who either don't live near us or don't want to meet with a caseworker yet. We are hoping for an approval by June 9. All that's left to come in is the background check results so as soon as that happens we will be officially approved and start being shown to birthmoms. Keep your fingers crossed! Any comments or suggestions on our profile would be welcome, we haven't made the copies yet so now is the time to change things.

Happy Memorial Day!

We had a great Memorial Day with Ben home. We got lucky that the team was on the road so he actually got off a little early on Friday and we all enjoyed the long weekend together. I already posted what we did Friday & Saturday but yesterday we went to a local park. We attempted to ride the paddle boats but had to cut our 30 minute ride down to about 5 because Kiara kept wanting to get in the water and swim with the duckies. We did manage to get one picture before we called it quits. Notice she's sitting in the steering hole and not a real seat. For some reason she refused to sit on either of our laps and we knew it wasn't safe enough to let her sit by herself in the regular seat, especially since she wouldn't have anything to do with the lifejacket. This was our compromise and it worked for about 2 minutes! My mom made a comment this weekend that she hasn't seen a child this strong-willed in about 25 years! I'm sure she wasn't talking about me :)

After a much needed nap (for Kiara and Ben) we went back to the park and had a BBQ. Again Kiara's independence showed through when she insisted on eating her hot dog cold. I'm finally realizing that you've got to pick your battles and seeing as how it was already fully cooked we just let her go to town. She loved it and ate every last bite. What a wierdo! After dinner we had ice cream cones but Kiara's was in a cup. I am not exaggerating when I say she took 45 minutes to eat every drop of ice cream. In fact we had already left and were driving home when she finally put it down. Here are some pictures showing how much fun she was having eating her "icee" and how FILTHY she got in the process. Bathtime was definitely necessary last night!

Before we left Kiara found the "wa-wa" (water) and had to play in it. She loves water!

Take me out to the ballgame

Well Ben was in 7th Heaven this weekend when we got to go to 2 Red Sox games 2 days in a row. They had a 3 game series here in Oakland and we had already bought tickets for the Saturday night game but last week his boss gave him the 4 season tickets that the Ports as a team get for being the Single A team of the A's. It was very tempting to go back Sunday for Game 3 but we resisted! Unfortunately they lost all 3 games but we still had a ton of fun.



My mom was still here visiting until Saturday afternoon so she watched Kiara for us during the Friday night game and we took Kiara with us Saturday. She seemed to really enjoy herself and kept yelling "ball" and "woo-foo" (for some reason she doesn't say woo-hoo)! If someone had told me 5 years ago that I would not only willingly go to 2 baseball games in a row but actually enjoy both games, I would have thought they were crazy. It turns out though that I really love the game and I love it even more when the Red Sox are playing. Ben has been very patient with me over the past 5 years and has taught me a lot about the rules and the subtleties of baseball and it has become our favorite activity to do together. I even have my favorite players (Youk & Ellsbury) and loved seeing them in person. I had been to 3 major league games before this and except of the one in Fenway, Friday's was the most fun. Our seats were really good and we could see everything. Hopefully we can go to at least one more game this season. If only Ben could get a job with a baseball team then we could go all the time. Wait a minute...

Ben's mom sent Kiara this outfit when she was a week old and now she's finally big enough to wear it. Somehow she knows the difference between her Red Sox clothes and regular clothes and gets so exicted when she wears the Sox ones.

Kiara had to call her "peeps" and let them know she was on her way to the game.

Kiara's 'fro

I get asked ALL the time about Kiara's hair: is it hard to do (YES!!!), does she hate having it done (YES!!!), is there a lot of hair (YES!!!), etc. so I thought I'd take some pictures after I combed through it but before I sectioned it. I got a new comb that was supposed to hurt her less but it didn't seem to make any difference. It did however comb the hair more thoroughly and result in the biggest afro she's ever had.


Even I didn't know she had this much hair! I don't know where it's been hiding but it's beautiful. Needless to say Kiara found no humor in this situation, as you can tell by the look on her face in the first picture. The girl is seriously traumatized for life over her hair. She just sees her brush or comb and runs to the opposite side of the house. It is not a fun time! It sure looks cute when it's finished though (I didn't get any pictures to prove it because she had officially had it by the time we were finished). Oh the price of being the most beautiful baby alive...

FYI

I have had a few people mention that they can't make comments because they don't have a Gmail account but I have now fixed it so that anyone can comment if they want to. I know that just made everyone's day, didn't it?

Crazy KMae

If a picture is worth a thousand words then this video should shut me up for life. I love that little girl so much! She is so much fun!

And the child was nestled all snug in her chair...

Ben loves to set up little beds and seats for Kiara. Today he put her in her camping chair then tucked her in all cozy. She then reached for her "beh" (bear) and started "calling her friends" from Ben's cell phone. She sat like this for almost 10 minutes while she watched the Red Sox game.

Kiara and her apple

Kiara has taken a recent liking to apples, as I said in a previous post, and I love to watch her eat them. Something about the big apple in front of her little face cracks me up. Here are a few pictures that I thought were funny.


Notice the plate and fork; she insists on having both whenever she eats anything. Obviously they're coming in very handy!

Kiara-isms

So Kiara is talking all the time now and she keeps saying the funniest things. I always want to re-tell them to Ben or my mom but I've usually forgotten the exact wording by the time I talk to them. My solution: I will blog the funny quotes which I will call "Kiara-isms"!

She just came up with a new one when I told her to go give Daddy "loves". She knows after the "loves" comes bed and she looked at me with her sweet little face and in the most angelic voice said, "No bed Mommy!" Ben & I just looked at each other wondering if we had heard correctly and then immediately erupted into laughter. She is too cute!

Another thing she's started saying when she's eating something she really likes, is "Mmm, nummy!" and flashes a big toothy grin. It's quite funny. (Speaking of eating, we are very proud of her because according to her Nursery leader she ate several apple slices today and then tonight had 2 sticks of celery. This is huge progress for her considering she normally won't even look at fruits or veggies. Unfortunately she has inherited her mom's taste buds!)