October = Pumpkins, Hayrides, and Corn Field Mazes

I goofed up the sequencing, but I am out of time for narratives or captions. I will come back and add to it later. Enjoy the pictures for now. :)

Monkey King Kai Kai

Kai absolutely loves the Monkey King character of Chinese folklore. He first became familiar with him while watching Ni Hao, Kai Lan, a cartoon that teaches about Chinese culture and language. Now, Kai IS the Monkey King and is always runnig around the house with a dowl, drum stick, or anything else that could be imagined as a "magic stick". He leaps around saying "shoom, shoom" waving the magic stick. Too cute. I took advantage of all the Halloween stuff out there right now to buy him a cape and crown....Not exactly authentic, but it does the trick. There is another picture further in the post with his royal attire.


Kai picked out a horn at the dollar store last week. He decided that it looked like a party hat and started singing "Happy Birthday" to himself.


The next five pictures crack me up. Kai was doing a musical number perched atop his little table. I love his serious facial expressions as he belts out a tune.





The Monkey King Boy

Today Kai let his little stuffed toys join him on the swingset.


Kai has been noticing the changes in the trees as Autumn settles in and was creating a bouquet of red and orange leaves.

Here is Kai stating the obvious...Licking a leaf is, in fact, gross. I don't know what gets into him sometimes. :)


Silly face.

"Kai Do!"

As a 2.5 yr old, Kai is very typical in his need to do everything for himself. Kai serves himself his own helpings of food at dinner, he opens all the doors, unlocks my car {sigh}, and even tries to wash his own hair in the tub. If he needs a snack, I usually just open the fridge (thankfully he is too short to get enough leverage on the door) and he helps himself to whatever options are presented. The other day he selected strawberries (I call him our fruit bat because he would happily exist on that alone if permitted). I believe I might have been on the phone at the time, because when I checked out the container a minute later, it appeared that a squirrel had found its way into the house. Observe....


Last night I bit my lip and began pulling out our fall clothes. This weekend was a hot, humid mess and now we are suddenly facing autumnal weather...and I am sad to announce that my trees are already turning colors and dropping leaves. Good bye, Summer. {Sniff} Anyway, as I was hanging Kai's warm clothes, he came across some Christmas jammies that I bought last season on clearance for the coming year. He was so excited that he tried to force them over his jeans. I finally convinced him that it wasn't really worth skipping a step and he took the pants of to hoist the jammies up. He then decided that the look wouldn't be complete without first adding a layer of Thomas the Train pj shorts to the ensemble. Given that he was already wearing a striped sweater, it was QUITE a daring outfit. Who knows, he may be on to something. In a week, Lady Gaga might wear it in a music video.

Random Anecdotes

Toddler + Marker = Traced foot on kitchen floor. I was very glad that Kai had used a washable marker for this little stunt. (Please excuse the nasty, dirty floors...toddlers happen. :)

Kai invited his friend, Lily, over for some painting fun before dinner. By the looks of his face, hair, and the wall behind him, I'd say that he had a good time.

Kai found his sun stick (sunblock in a deodorant-esque looking package) and went to town on his face. Two problems with this... 1) we were indoors, 2) it was the most overcast day we've had in three months.

As I write this, I'm waiting for Kai to wake up. I'm "supposed" to be at an exercise class right now, but a certain someone woke up at 4:30 singing the Alphabet at the top of his lungs for an hour before dozing back off to sleep. Now he is sleeping in and the morning is on pause. Toddlers...

Earlier this week, I found Kai perched atop his crib rails. Clearly I had jinxed myself, because I had been thinking of updating the blog to brag about how nice it is not to have a crib climber. Kai's crib converts to a toddler bed, so I didn't have any worries about finding a quick replacement. My concern was that it takes him soooooo long to fall asleep for his nap and bedtime, that I feared being stuck like a sentry outside his bedroom door for the next 5 years to prevent him from escaping and trying to stay up all night. Fortunately, Rob is as resourceful as I am desperate, and he was able to rig the crib to give us another blissful stretch of toddler confinement. Kai's bed is a study wooden frame. It has a mattress support that elevates it; Rob simply took the pins out and dropped the whole platform/mattress to the floor. The rails now tower over Kai and it will be a long while before he makes his second escape. Tucking him in is a monumental task, but I'll take it over the alternative. Kai actually loves his crib and doesn't want a change yet anyway, so this is a win - win for all.

Funny Story #1: Kai was hanging out by the open kitchen window yesterday. Rob was was home from work and Kai could hear him tinkering in the garage. Kai called out, "Daddy!" and Rob responded back with "Kai Kai!". This game of Marco Polo continued for a few rounds. Then Kai lifted his hand to his ear (sign language for "listen") and yelled out "TING!" (Mandarin for "listen"). Hah, I guess he is learning from his favorite t.v. show, Ni Hao, Kai Lan.

Funny Story #2: I dropped a steaming bowl of veggies into the sink the other day as I was trying to drain them. Rob thought I burned myself and asked if I was okay. Well, now that's Kai's favorite question for me. No less than 4 dozen times a day, Kai asks me in his sweetest voice, "Momma, you okay?". It cracks him up to ask the question six or seven times in a row, knowing that he will get the same response every time. Cute boy.

Worth the Read

This week, a recently published article has circulated among the Chinese adoption community. It was was written by an American woman with two children born in China. This woman shares a unique perspective as a adoptive mother of two girls and then as a finder of an orphaned child. Her story is honest and inspiring. For those of us who will never be able to answer our children's questions about their past, her words and experiences truly touch our souls. Please take the time to read this story.(CLICK HERE)

Today we payed our farm animal friends a visit. Kai loves handing the farm stand attendant a dollar bill in exchange for three ice cream cones filled with animal feed.

The goat's rowdy enthusiasm caught Kai a little off guard. His expression was quite funny.

He was trying to pre-select which pieces of food he wanted the goats to eat first.

The farm owners left a giant pile of corn out for the kids to feed them. In truth, the goats had eaten their fill of the corn well before we got there, but he had fun shucking it and lobbing them into the pen.


Our dog, Cooper, is a black Newfoundland. The farm has a smaller, brown Newfie that Kai absolutely adores. She just mosies around the farm stand and hangs out by the animals all day. She is a gently darling and lets Kai show her all the love he has to give; some days, that means he lays down on her for an extra big cuddle.

We broke out the craft supplies while dinner was cooking and ended up using a little bit of everything: finger paints w/ a brush and foam numbers and letters, making cartoon characters out of felt, and gluing scraps of colored paper into a mosaic. Just one of those days where it took more time to prepare an activity than he actually spent using it. Here are some painting photos.

Little Boy Cuteness

Here's a bunch of random photos from this past weekend. The first is of our family. Well it's our family on a magna doodle. If you look closely, you will see "the Mommy", "the Daddy," and "the Baby."

I'm trying to include Kai in more cooking/food prep activities so we made some yummy frozen pops together. Kai cut up some soft fruit (bananas, nectarine, and strawberries) and added them to the mold. We poured in some juice and let it set up in the freezer over night. He was quite pleased with the results. (It was supposed to look like a sailboat once frozen).


Kai was trying out his new mini boogie board in his kiddie pool. He looks like a Hawiian surfer dude.


I can't even remember what was wrong with his tongue that prompted me to snap this picture, but it cracks me up.

This would be one of Kai's many "fancy footwork tricks".

We've made an attempt to grow our own tomatoes this year. Kai's a big help with the daily watering our thirsty plants.