Christmas is almost here!!!

I can't believe the year is almost over. Where did the time go? Kali is 19 months today and what a spitfire cracker she is!!! Today we went to take pictures and she was not having any of it. She had no patience for it and when she was done she was DONE! We should have gone home after Picture People, but I wanted to take pictures with Santa. (You laughing yet?) Yeah, Jeff stood in line for almost an hour and the second we came up to Santa she started screaming and crying and clinging onto me for dear life!!! Santa gave her candy and even got out of his chair for her but she was not having it. It was so sad but we will try again tomorrow. I need that picture with Santa!!

Kali is such an amazing little girl. She is super smart, so loving, and so funny. Such a character. She loves being silly with us and making us laugh. I love this girl so much! I am excited for Christmas this year because it will be fun watching Kali with all the presents. She doesn't seem to understand everything going on around her but I know it will hit her on Christmas morning!!

I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous New Year!!!

Much Love,

Laura, Jeff and Kali Van Dam

Thanksgiving

This week has been so busy! It started out by driving to Big Bear for a few days. We rented a cabin and invited Jeff's parents, Gmom and Papa Don, and his sister, Laura, and of course Matthew was in town. Jeff and Matthew spent all day Tuesday snowboarding and I joined them for a little while in the afternoon. Kali got to play in the snow with Aunt Laura and Gmom and Papa Don, apparently she loved it so much she didn't want to come back inside! She is very strong willed this one. We came home on Wednesday and got to cooking early on Thursday morning for Thanksgiving. We made lots of food and everything was delicious! Val came down too, we always love visits from auntie Vee!!!

Kali is finally mellowed out from the craziness all week. She has been crankier than usual and I think it is because she was so over stimulated. She didn't eat or sleep much at all. Can't wait to do it all over again for Christmas!!!

Kali loves to dance these days, she is such a happy girl and dancing with mommy gives her the giggles. She shakes her head like crazy and jumps around in circles. TOO CUTE.

This is all for now, enjoy the pics and thanks for following our blog!

Laura Jeff and Kali

Kali the comdian!

It has been a few months since my last blog entry. Guess my resolution to write more often on here hasn't been going so well. :o)

We have been up to quite a bit these days. Kali started preschool in August, it took her a little while but she is used to it now and loves it there. Her teachers are great and she is a social butterfly, just like her momma. She goes 3 days a week while I go to work at the salon. Saturdays is daddy and Kali day. They go to swim class together, have lunch and nap till I get home. I think that Saturdays are Jeff's favorite day of the week.

Kali is a very active little girl. She is running and pushing herself on her tricycle and cars. She is doing wonderful in swim class too. This is her last month of swimming until the summer. We will take a little break over the holidays and start her up in gymnastics in January. I am looking forward to that. She will love it! What a great way to burn off all that energy!

Kali dressed up as a lion for Halloween this year. We went trick-or-treating with the Petroskes and the Bells AND auntie Val. It was sooo much fun. Kali got the hang of taking candy from strangers pretty quickly. She also would take the candy out of her bucket and put it inside Alessandras or other kids buckets. At one point she walked up to a door and took candy out of her bucket to put into the one they had!! It was very funny. The other day she saw her lion costume and told me to put it on her (not in so many words) and she walked around looking at herself in the mirror and saying "roar!" Super adorable this child is!!!

The other night we were all upstairs in our bedroom and Kali and Jeff were hiding in the closet. I was pretending to be looking for them and would go into the closet and they would "scare" me. BOY! Did Kali love that! She kept running into the closet and come out SCREAMING at the top of her lungs. I'm surprised she didn't hurt her vocal cords. Jeff and I were in tears from laughing so hard. We love that kid.

We are all super excited for Thanksgiving this year! We will get to spend a few days in Big Bear with Matthew and Jeff's parents and his sister. Hopefully there will be enough snow for us to ski and snowbord but the house we are staying in is so awesome!!! It has a hot tub, a pool table, big screen tvs, PLENTY to do for sure. Then we will all come back to our house and have Thanksgiving here. My family will come down and spend it with us too.

Then before we know it, Christmas will be here. I can't even believe it! Well, enjoy the pictures and stay tuned for more bolgs! Hopefully before the end of the year! ;O)

Laura

Milestones...

Kali is such an amazing little girl. She already knows so much!!! She knows where her eyes, mouth, nose, ears, hair, belly button, and toes are. She also knows where they are on us! She gives kisses when asked to, and sometimes just because she wants to, and she knows to close the gate at the top/bottom of the stairs. Baby sign language is coming along nicely too. She knows milk, hungry, and more. I worry that I am not teaching her enough but then I think of all she already knows and I am so proud. Just today she was blowing bubbles for the first time in the bathtub. We have been working on this at swim class. She will also put her eyes in the water on her own.

Okay, enough bragging. I'll write about this weekend. We went to Sam's birthday party on Saturday afternoon, she loves seeing her friends. Saturday morning we had swim class but she was a little cranky towards the end, she hadn't slept well at all the night before. Right now she is going through a faze where she wakes up in the middle of the night and is pretty inconsolable. I have given up on trying to "train" her to soothe herself or even on me soothing her. Now we get her a milk bottle and we all go back to sleep. That's the end of that!!

Well, I am getting a little better at posting more often, so until next time! Thanks for reading about us!

Baby signs and babbling in English AND Spanish!

Being a parent really is the most amazing thing that can happen to a person. You can't know the meaning of true, unconditional love until you have a child. Kali makes each day so much better and more special than all the ones before. She is doing so great at swim class, she is putting her face in the water all by herself. We say "put your eyes in" and she does!!! Unbelievable!!! She is also using her baby sign language. She knows 3 so far; milk, more, and hungry. It's very cute how she uses the "milk" sign for anything she wants. Up, milk sign. Hand me something, milk sign. Swing, milk sign. Cracks me up!

I am really making the effort to speak to her in Spanish as much as possible. She understands quite a bit of it. She recently discovered her belly button. (She discovered mine first, that was fun.) So I will ask her in Spanish where her "ombligo" is and she lifts her shirt and jams her finger in it! SO FUNNY!! Oh, and of course she has a HUGE smile while she does it. She also points to her ears and says "eaahh" Not quite "ear" but it sounds like she is trying to say just that. She will point to her eyes and say "aaaeee" too. I swear she is a genius!!!

Some of her favorite things to do are play with water (duh!) and go on her swing. She likes to drive her pink car that she got for her bday and she loves to be outside. She gets mad if I bring her in before she has had her fill of the outdoors. Speaking of which, we just had out first family camping trip last weekend. All in all, it was a good trip. We got lots of mosquito bites but it was all worth it. She got filthy and her nails were dirty for days! It was a little tough to put her down for naps and bedtime though. I think she was so excited and there was so much to do and see that she didn't want to sleep! We are supposed to go see some friends that are camping this coming weekend, but we won't be spending the night.

I'm a little sad because I am going back to work at a salon (at least that's the plan) and I will no longer be spending all my time with her. I love being home and not missing out on anything, but I know she needs that interaction with other children. It will be good for her to not be around me 24-7. But I am sure gonna miss my little buddy.

Kali is one!

WOW I am really bad at keeping up with my blogs. Well, let's see if I can catch everyone up on what's going on these days. Kali had her first birthday a couple of weeks ago. She started walking at 10 months (almost 11). The exact date was April 11. Matthew had just visited us and we were hoping she should walk while he was here but he missed it by ONE day! UGH. Well, now she is just a walking machine. She is practically running everywhere. She has a lot of words too. She says "mama," "dada," "baba," "Hi" "dodies" (which is doggies) and she is so smart! She understands just about everything you ask of her. She closes the gate down at the bottom of the stairs, she hands you things when you ask her (most of the time) and she is so loving. She loves to give kisses and hugs. So sweet!

We had a big party for her first birthday. All of our favorite people came to celebrate with us. We had a great time on our new lawn (courtesy of my hard labor!) and it was an all around great day! On her actual birthday we took Kali to Build-a-Bear and got her a teddy bear that she actually is pretty attached to! She grabs "Daisy" every morning when we leave for work and she will hold her for most of the ride to work.

Everyday is such an adventure with her. She really cheers us up with her smile and loving personality. She is a great baby, well, toddler now. She does the funniest fast walk too. I call it the mummy run cus she stretches her arms out in front of her and walks really fast but not quite runs yet. It's histerical.

We also went to the beach recently and she had a BLAST!! She loved playing in the sand and the water even though it was cold. One of our friends brought a blow up pool and Kali and Alessandra LOVED playing in there. We are gonna have to get her a pool too I think. OH! Speaking of pool, she is doing amazing in her swim class. Not to brag but she is one of the best students in her class. She blows bubbles (okay, she puts her open mouth in the water, but STILL!) and she holds her breath when we take her under and she can hold on to the wall. She is seriously the HAPPIEST baby ever! She LOVES the water.

I think this is it on Kali for now. As for the rest of us, lol, we are doing great. We are so happy and thankful everyday for the wonderful life we are living. Jeff is loving his solar work and doing great. He is now head of his own department which is sales and training directed to "DIY"-do it yourself- and contractors/electricians. I am in my last few days of work and it is so bittersweet. On the one hand I am so excited to pursue my career as a hair stylist but on the other hand I am going to miss these kids SO MUCH! They have become such a part of my life. Jackson and Samo are just the sweetest boys and Emily is so spunky she keeps me (well, all of us!) on our toes! And I am so bummed I won't see Molly everyday and get to know her as she grows into her own little self. Kali just loves these guys too. She looks at them with such adoration in her eyes it is going to be heartbreaking to not see them everyday. Melissa and I are planning weekly play dates so we will at least see each other then.

Ok, it's almost midnight now so I should get to bed. Thanks for following our little family blog. Much love to you all!

The Van Dam clan!

Animal Park

Today Kali and I went to the Wild Animal Park. We didn't see too many animals but it was still a good time. We went into the petting and feeding area and she loved that. It is so amazing watching her grow and develop. I know every parent says this, but she is so smart! I love her! Jeff has been doing with her some of the parts from her Baby Einstein videos like "touch your nose." And she does!!! It is sooooo cute!

So for this entry, just enjoy the pictures.

Growing Girl

Kali is growing so fast. She is so sweet and charming and just a joy to be around. We are so in love with her. Kali and I have a pretty full schedule, she gets to come to work with me everyday (which is such a blessing.) Every morning daddy puts her in car seat and we make the drive to Escondido. When we get there we are greeted by Jackson, Samo, and Emily. They are so good with Kali, she loves them.

Kali is always observing her surroundings, she tries to do what the other kids do. She loves animals. Lucky the cat is one of her favorites. She likes to chase him (crawling) and tries to grab him anyway she can! And Lucky is such an angel, he just lets her.

She is also getting more and more vocal. She "talks" all the time. It's very funny, today I was putting her down and she was "talking" while she was falling asleep. It was sooo hysterical. Recently she started trying to climb on me when she wants to be held and she will "slap" on my chest when she wants to be fed. It is amazing watching her little eyes twinkle and see her little gears turning in her head. I love it!!

This weekend we are watching our friends dog and she is very curious about her.
Well, she got a little too curious and Shimi did not like it, she nipped her cheek :o( It was very scary and she cried for a few minutes. Luckily it was a surface wound and she didn't get bitten in the eye or something worse.

I am 29!!!

I am officially in my last year of being in my 20's. How do I feel about that? A-okay! I am in such an amazing space in life, I have a beautiful family, a gorgeous daughter, an amazing home, great friends, the best husband a woman could ask for, I am happy. For my birthday I wanted to have a themed birthday party. Since I have an unhealthy addiction to celebrity gossip, it seemed only appropriate to have a Celebrity Themed Party. The invite said come dressed as your favorite movie character or celebrity. I was a bit torn since my favorite movie is Pretty Woman and I wanted to dress up as her, but my body is not quite where I would like to be after having Kali. So I went with my favorite celebrity, Brittney Spears. I didn't do the teen Britney or the mommy Brit, I went with the post-head shave-pink wig Britney....

The party was a success, we had a pregnant Kourtney Kardashian (Val) Mr. T (Jeff) and Hermoine from Harry Potter (Bianca) Allesandra and Julianna got in on it too coming as Minnie Mouse and Ariel. The most comfy costume went to Jason, who came as the Big Lebowski. I think we have started a trend here.


Thanks for reading!

Kali's first swim class!

Saturday morning we took Kali to Noonan Swim School for her first lesson! She did SO well. She loved it and laughed the whole time. I wasn't really nervous or anything since I have been doing "1..2..3..hmmmm" when we do bath time. (That is what they do when they are about to put the babies underwater.) She is amazing. Jeff was there to take movies and he really enjoyed it. We have to miss class next weekend and the following weekend I am volunteering at The Helen Woodward Animal Center, so Jeff is going to take her on his own. AWWEE So cute.

I will post a picture of her swimming soon. I haven't uploaded them yet.

This weekend we got my scrapbook closet done. Now I have a space to work on all the scrapbooks I want!

Wow, I am really bad at blogging!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! This year I promise to update this blog at least once a month. I have been soooo bad about keeping it up. But no more!

We had the best holidays this year. We have so much to be thankful for. Starting with our healthy family, our beautiful baby Kali, our great house, our good jobs, and stability. 2009 was the best year and we hope 2010 is just as good.

Kali is growing up so fast. She now has both of her bottom teeth and the top front teeth are not far behind. I get to take Kali to work with me everyday and I think seeing the kids has helped her develop that much faster. She wants to talk and run around with them so badly! Her and Emily are great buds.


Jeff and I are so excited for 2010 as we hope to expand our family. Just as soon as I get back in shape we plan to try for a little brother or sister for Kali (& Matthew) How unfair is it that I have to loose all this weight just to gain it back again??? There has to be an easier way. :o)


Well, this is all for now. My goal is to write in here more often and get some followers and maybe inspire you to begin your own blog about your life! I can't wait to read it!

Much love,

Laura