Happy First Birthday Kai!!

Happy first birthday, my sweet, smiley Kai!

At 18lbs 6 oz (9th percentile), and 29.5 inches long (35th percentile), you are one busy, curious, loud, sweet, happy boy! Although you are not yet walking, you can crawl, scoot and climb incredibly efficiently (and quite quickly!), that I'm not sure if you see the need to walk quite yet!

You have two teeth on the bottom, and one partial top tooth making it's way into the world. Your favorite foods to devour with your little chompers are cherrios, bananas, yogurt, cheese, eggs and turkey meat. You are still nursing a couple times a day (morning, before morning nap and at night) and seem quite content with this program so we will keep it up for just a little bit longer.

You LOVE to play anything with your sister, mostly chasing her around or banging on toys with her. You also enjoy spelunking deep into the inner workings of the kitchen cupboards, pulling out and banging on anything you can get your hands onto.

Quite the little mountain goat, you climb out of, up and onto everything you can. Lately, you've successfully climbed out of your little black chair to play on the kitchen table, you scale the side of the stairs, you climb on the couch (then topple off) and you are starting to climb up the kitchen chairs. NOTHING is safe with you, little man!!

But you are so, so fun and I love you to pieces. Your squishy, happy cheeks are so kissable and you constantly make me smile with your (mostly) mellow, curious and happy demeanor. Thank you for teaching me how wonderful, (and not constantly scary like our experience with Cora), the first year of a little life can be.

We love you so much!!

Idaho time!

Helping Pooh Bah play with bikes.

Dapper dresser at the SV Symphony.

Kai Griffin hiking in front of Griffin's Butte!

Family photo attempt.

One! We had a tiny party for a tiny little guy!

Birthday hike!

Three stooges. 

New slide!

Riding around Crested Butte with Dad and Cora.

First camping trip in Crested Butte.

Our play closet! So many summer hours up here! 

10 Months!

At ten months, two-teeth Kai is crawling, taking steps while holding onto furniture, very curious about the world (especially cords, plugs and electronics) and getting into everything! Kai is also a stair climbing star, although he has no idea how to down climb yet, which poses some problems and lots of monitoring and gates. I'm also pretty sure he will be walking soon!

Regarding language, he jabbers away all day but I'm not convinced he's said a 'real' word yet. He often gabbers noises that sound like Lila, Dada and something like "ora", however, I'm not sure if they count as 'real' words quite yet (or am I just waiting until he says "Mama" for it to count as a 'real' word?).

He is also an eating machine and although he still nurses throughout the day, he also eats 3-4 meals of oatmeal mush, bananas, baby food, eggs, meat, cheese, noodles, strawberries, rice, etc., etc. We joke that his daily caloric intake exceeds Cora's, and we might in fact be correct.

Kai STILL does not sleep through the night and is up usually once or twice to nurse. Hopefully one of these nights soon he will make it all night long ... Luckily he is a fairly good napper and takes a good long one in the morning and usually one in the afternoon as well.

I'm very lucky and am still able to stay home with the kids. Somedays are very long, but being with them right now midst all of our changes and while Kai is still nursing is very special.

When we haven't been visiting with friends and family (we've had a lot of great company lately and have also been down to Fort Collins quite a bit) we've been spending our summer days playing in Cora's awesome play closet in our neat new home, taking walks and runs around town to the lake or to the playground. We also enjoy going to story times at the library, playing in the little plastic swimming pool in the backyard, going on hikes and generally exploring and settling into our new life in tiny, adorable Georgetown.   

Morning snuggles with Lila.

Swimming with Kai and Cora at Nana's pool is the best! Kai loves the water! 

This is our attempt to eat out. Not very relaxing.

At the Lee Martinez Farm!

Such a happy little guy.

Aunt Marisa!

Savoring these sweet naps on our front porch while watching the afternoon rain.

Their back porch cage!

Lake adventures.

Avoiding bedtime!

Always eating ... (photo by Cora!).