Baby progress

Earlier this month Mika started to lift her head up during tummy time.  She's also sitting up quite nicely, as long as someone supports her.

 

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In dada's shoes

For a few days Yo seemed fascinated by mamma and dada's shoes.  He would work real hard at putting his feet in, and then clomp around the place.  (And that's his version of a salute in one of the pics).

 

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Chatting with Gama

The little muppet's goo-gooing has substantially increased over the last month or so.  As long as one keeps talking to her, she'll talk right back.  Susan says that now she's started smiling a whole lot as well.  Can't wait to see that when she gets back.

 

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Our little big boy

He can't be getting this from his dad already, can he?

 

The Christmas Photo-shoot: Part 2

Here are the little munchkins in outfit #2.

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The Christmas Photo-shoot: Part 1

The tree was put up around Thanksgiving, and Susan got a couple chances to dress the kids up in their new Christmas outfits a couple times before the India trip.  Here is part 1.

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Brother and sister

Yo interacts with his sister in a wide variety of ways - all the way from wanting to hug her to giving a quick bonk when no-one's watching.  In the night before he goes to bed he has to make sure to say good-night to everyone, including 'baby'.  And in the morning he wants to know where she is, and is quite happy to see her when she eventually makes it downstairs.  And then of course there are times when pokes and prods are generously handed out, and it even gets to the point when he needs to get a timeout.  Susan says now she's trying the ignore trick when he does something naughty, with the theory that if he doesn't get a reaction, he'll stop doing it.

Little miss Mika, for her part, is taking it all in stride for now.  She'll eventually figure out that she can do something about the pokes and prods, and that is when we will have a whole new set of fun and games.

 

 

Gampa, Gama, and the kiddos

A few more pics from the grandparents' visit over the last couple months:

 

 

Music

There appears to be some music in the boy's genes...  Think it's time for some percussion lessons yet?  Gotta get these kids started early these days!

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Yo loved the Firetruck song on one of the Barney shows.  Even before the song started he'd get down from his chair and get all prepped to do the actions.

Up in the air

It's been close to a week of us being in India. Which means it's about time I (Susan) filled - or ATTEMPTED to fill - Ranjit's blogging shoes. I don't know how the man manages to keep the posts going week after week, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Let's start with the trip here. People ask me, "How was the flight?" and I go, "Which one?" because we were on four flights in 48 hours. Yohan did super on all of them and slept on his gampa's shoulder most of the time. (To any parent who had trouble putting kids down for a nap, I would recommend investing in an airplane. The boy usually naps for 40 minutes at home but slept almost non-stop on the plane). Malaika did fine most of the time, but twice the air pressure got to her little ears and the poor girl screamed her lungs out. The other harrowing part was passing through security with two babies, a double stoller, two diaper bags, three carry-ons, all our winter jackets and shoes and scraves. That was not fun, especially since we were running behind on some of the connecting flights.

Thankfully, we're done with defying gravity for another two months. We now get to stay on solid ground and work on getting over the final bout of jet lag.

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Bouncers are the best

(Editor's note:  I have been requested by my dear wife to note for posterity that these blog posts are actually back-logged entries from the last couple months.  The kids are in India right now continuing to have a blast with their grandparents).

Mika enjoys being in her bouncer, just like Yo was at that age.  She can sit there for long periods of time just contently watching the world go by, without so much as a whimper. The little girl really has quite the angelic temperament.

  

  

Looks like she's already got the grabbing thing figured out - she gets a nice hold on the toys hanging from her bouncer.

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Cars

Yo's got a collection of cars, trucks, and other assorted vehicles that might even rival Jay Leno's garage.  He's been really into cars for awhile now, and some of his favorite books are about construction vehicles.

  

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Pretty in pink

Mamma dressed Mika up the other day, and pink certainly suited our beautiful little princess.

  

  

The little girl has also started putting herself to sleep lately (she's getting started early on just taking care of business without waiting for the parental units to figure things out).  She's got this cute way of trying to cover her eyes and just zoning out.

Cheese!

The boy is becoming quite the poser;  whenever a camera is pointed in his direction, a fake smile with a loud "cheeeese" will quickly follow, regardless of the activity at hand.

The Great India Expedition

(Borrowing from Susan's Facebook post here... :)

Early this morning 1 mom, 2 kiddos, 2 grandparents, 6 suitcases, 2 duffel bags, 3 carry-ons, 2 diaper bags, and 1 stroller (and a partridge in a pear tree) started the first of 4 plane rides to get them halfway across the world - literally.  Packing everything up was quite the adventure, and the latest report this evening was that the flights so far have been pretty decent - thank God for that.  2 done, 2 to go.

It's been great having mom and dad to help out here for the last couple months, and now Susan and the kids are going to be with appapa and ammama for a bit.

Part of the packing was doing a field trial with the new stroller.  The kids co-operated quite well, I must say.