Kalia : 15 1/2 months

These past few weeks, Kalia :

• has become obsessed with her books.  I think it's from me reading so much to her when she was sick.  She absolutely loves for you to read to her.  She doesn't always let you finish the entire story, but she goes and picks out another one for you to read to her instead.
• picks up.  She will put away her books when she's done with them, and she takes a few extra minutes to make sure they're all facing the correct direction too.  She watched me fix a few of her upside down books, and now turns them until they're right side up.  She'll put her toys in her baskets too!
• likes to pour water on herself.  Daddy gives her a bath every night and uses a plastic measuring cup to pour the water on her.  She takes bowls and her buckets and fills them with water from the hose and pours them all over her.  
• snuck into her bathroom while I was in the office bathroom (the door was closed, but apparently I forgot to latch it when I closed it, so she got in there pretty easily), took her measuring cup from the bath, opened up the toilet seat lid, and proceeded to dump toilet water all over herself and the floor.  I heard some clanking, yelled out for her, heard her squealing with laughter, hurried over to her bathroom and just stood confused for about 10 seconds.  The floor and Kalia were soaking wet, but I still didn't get it.  Then Kalia took the measuring cup and scooped out some toilet water and I yelled "NOOO!!!!!!!!!" and she died laughing.  Lesson learned - I need to pull the doors to make sure they're shut, not just look at them!
• had a great visit with Grandma and Grandpa Drago.  She took them to the park, swimming, for a few walks, to the mini splash park and playground at Hyde Park, and had them read book upon book upon book to her.
• is still obsessed with Elmo.  Grandpa Drago bought her an Elmo balloon and she thinks that thing is amazing!
• started becoming a parrot over the past week.  She's repeated me saying leave it, store, work, play, park, rice, airplane, bird, owie, yellow, goat, zoo, all gone, and quite a few other things that I can't exactly remember.  
• asks for her friends Reese and Aila by name all of the time!  Like more than 20 times a day, all of the time.
• says "Kodi??" while she's in the high chair, then throws her food down for him.  I tell her "no throw Kalia" in a very firm voice, so now she says "Kodi??" followed by "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" as she throws her food off her high chair.  What the????  I have no idea how to stop that one, and most of the time I have no idea how to stop laughing at her either.  I turn my head or her chair though so she can't see me.  Kodi hangs out in the living room now while we eat.
• tries to get into my standing jewelry cabinet, which she pulled over onto herself (I was sitting right there and didn't let it fall on her) constantly.  I told her it's a leave it and no touch, and probably said no too many times, because now when she goes over to it, I say "what did Mommy tell you about touching that Kalia??" and she goes "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then pulls out the drawers.  Again, what the????  And again, I have a hard time not laughing.  She's right, I told her no.  She just doesn't give a darn!!!  Haha, I'm not sure if she really knows what no means or not since we tell her leave it moreso than no.
• went to the big splash park on Friday with Reese and then again on Wednesday for my first MOPS playdate.  She had a lot of fun!  She's starting to love the swings more than the splash park though.  I literally have to pry her out of those things!  She loves playgrounds and the slides a ton too.
• has been helping Mommy do a lot of house chores.  Daddy has been really busy at work, so Kalia helps me unload the dishwasher (she puts up the tupperware - sometimes it means I put up things twice, but sometimes she does it right!), put clothes in the washer, dryer, and out of the dryer, and has been helping me fold clothes.  She lays them out and then sort of folds them over, and then pats them and says "all done!".
• likes playing with her play doh.
• likes playing with markers and pencils.  I let her play in a box naked on the pool deck with markers, and she thought it was so fascinating taking the lid on and off.  She'd scribble some, but really wanted to just pull the top off and put it back on.
• is also fascinated with the wheels on her stroller.  She is constantly messing with those things!
• went to the zoo again for $5 zoo day with both Mommy and Daddy.  We forgot to bring Kalia's shoes, so we had to stop into Kmart to get her some on our way there.  They only had these blue tennis shoes and she was wearing an orange dress, and her socks were pink and so was her hat.  She looked like a mess, but could've cared less.  She loves that place!  I don't know that we'll go back for $5 day again because of how crowded it was though.  When I went with the girls the week before, there was no one there!
• loves to pretend talk on the "phone".  She puts all kinds of things to her ear and says "hello??"  Normally that's followed by either : "Daddy?".  "Aila?", or "Reese?"  My favorites are the rock phone while we're playing outside (and yes, I have to have a conversation with the phone too), or the bone phone, which is one of Kodi's ginormous bones that she puts to her ear.  I was finishing up making dinner the other night and look over to Chris and Kalia talking on the bone phone.  It's the funniest looking thing ever.
• has started stacking things.  She'll stack her food on her tray sometimes, and she stacks random toys on top of each other.  I'll find little piles of things in her playroom...like a book with a block on top of it and then a lego on top of that.  She also likes putting together and pulling apart her lego's.  She moreso likes to knock my towers down than build anything with them though!

Onto pictures!

Being a goof while sitting on Kodi - one of her favorite things to do.  He hurt his pads, so he had to wear his doggie shoes for a few days until they healed and Kalia thought those things were the funniest things ever!

Trying to figure out how to pull of the front wheel of the stroller...

Not letting Kodi interrupt her playing with her pictures.  You can tell that she pulled down quite a few of them.  She actually managed to pull the entire thing down too, so that wall is now empty.  Only 3 1/2 months after her birthday, ha!

I drew this big goofy looking thing on the wall and she ran up to it all excited and said "ELMO!!!!".  I drew a little bit better version of it, but it's still pretty awful.  She's got a great imagination!

I give her things from my vanity to keep her occupied while I'm doing my hair / makeup.  These ear muffs were in a drawer, and she would.not take the silly things off!

 One of her new favorite things to do.  Sit and ride the alligator.  She just sits there and laughs!

While we were skyping, she insisted that I put her sunglasses on and then went and chilled with Kodi.

She loves his soft ears.  Poor Kodi!

She was quite happy with herself for getting up on Kodi and ridding him like this.  I heard her squealing with laughter while I was making lunch and looked around the corner to see this.  I'll say it again, Kodi is the absolute best dog in the entire world!  (Oh yeah, and she broke my cell phone in two pieces so I was without one for a week.  That's half of it lying next to her.)

Helping with the laundry!

 Playground with Grandpa and Grandma Drago!

Me : Kalia, SMILE!  Kalia : HI Squirrel!!! 

Playing in the mini splash park afterwards....

Grandpa Drago dumping water on Kalia's head!

Grandpa : Come on the lion with me Kalia!

Kalia : Nah, I don't think so Grandpa.  You dumped water on my head!

 Grandpa making it up to her by reading her one of her books after we got home.  She forgave him!

Kodi having Elmo dreams with Kalia's balloon.

I came into the kitchen one morning and found this.  Kalia really loves this little chair I made her!

Being silly with her tickle glove that Granny got her for Christmas last year (you can see her poor nose in these next ones from my point and shoot)!

Playing in the sand with Daddy while Mommy plays volleyball.  I play the first few games, then take Kalia home for a nap, and then Daddy plays!

The zoo!

Kalia : "Woah, what's THAT??  I can't smile at you Mommy, too much going on!"

 Checking out the monkeys!

We went to this little glass nook before leaving, and we were the only ones there, so we got to see this guy come up to us close up!

Daddy : Monkey!  Kalia : Oo Oo 

"ah ah!"

 Kalia's poor goofy outfit.  She's outgrown all of her other hats, so this one always comes along.  She still looks cute though!

We really are having so much fun with Kalia these days.  She makes us laugh so hard, and that's one of her favorite things to do.  If you're laughing, she's laughing, even if she has no idea what we're all laughing about. She is such a cute, fun, loving, and amazing little girl.  We love you so much Kalia!